File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 320


Date: Tue, 16 Sep 1997 11:48:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Louis N Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
Subject: M-I: Hitler's rise to power


On Mon, 15 Sep 1997, Hinrich Kuhls quoting Daniel Goldhagen:

> 
> "The Nazis came to power, owing to a confluence of factors, including the
> economic depression, the yearning in Germany of an end to the disorder and
> organized street violence that had plagued Weimar's final years, the
> widespread hatred of democratic Weimar more generally, the seeming threat
> of a leftist takeover, the Nazi's visionary ideology, and Hitler's own
> personality, which, his burning hatreds open for all to see, was
> attractive, even compelling, to so many Germans. The catastrophic political
> and economic disorder was clearly the proximate cause for the Nazis' final
> victory. Many Germans voted for the Nazis as the only political force in
> the country that appeared to them capable of restoring order and social
> peace - and of vanquishing Germany's enemies at home and of restoring
> Germany' status as a great power abroad.
> 

My criticism of Goldhagen's take on the Weimar republic is not refuted by
these words. The problem with Goldhagen is that he has a quasi-Hegelian
interpretation of the Judeocide. Just as for Hegel, the dialectics of
German history lead to the final triumph of the Prussian state, so for
Goldhagen the movements of German history culminate in the destruction of
the Jewish people. The Weimar Republic is *not* in his eyes a rejection of
all that is retrograde and hateful in German society, but a moment in the
powerful trajectory toward the "Final Solution".

It prompts me to offer a counter-analysis to Goldhagen's. Instead of
blasting away at a consciously anti-Marxist analysis such as his, I will
offer my own 3-part analysis of what led to the Judeocide.

1) How Hitler came to power: I will offer a class analysis of these
events. The biggest problem with Goldhagen is that he has no class
analysis. When he says that "Many Germans voted for the Nazis...", he is
elliding the most important question for people like us. WHICH Germans?
And WHY?

2) The roots of anti-Semitism: This will be based on a re-reading of Avram
Leon's "The Jewish Question". This is not a particularly scholarly work,
but it still has great strengths. Leon was a member of the Trotskyist
movement in Belgium who was a comrade to Ernest Mandel. Leon was arrested
by the SS while distributing revolutionary leaflets to German troops. He
put his beliefs on the line, didn't he?

3) Recent scholarship on the "final solution": This will be a review of
the collection "The Final Solution", which is talks given at a conference
of Holocaust Studies scholars a couple of years ago. There is an article
by Christopher Browning that I alluded to the other day. I am anxious to
read this book and report on its findings, if for no other reason than to
get up to speed on recent research.

Louis Proyect



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