Comments by "John Burns" (@johnburns4017) on "Why I reject the ‘MADMAN HITLER’ myth" video.

  1. Prof Adam Tooze in Wages of Destruction gives some answers. Brand names like Krupp, Siemens and IG Farben gave substance to the myth of German industrial invincibility. Viewed in wider terms, however, the German economy differed little from the European average; its national per capita income in the 1930s was middling; in present-day terms it was comparable to that of Iran or South Africa. The standard of consumption enjoyed by the majority of the German population was modest and lagged behind that of most of its Western European neighbours. Germany under Hitler was still only a partially modernized society, in which upwards of 15 million people depended for their living either on traditional handicrafts or on peasant agriculture. America should provide the pivot for our understanding of the Third Reich. In seeking to explain the urgency of Hitler's aggression, historians have underestimated his acute awareness of the threat posed to Germany, along with the rest of the European powers, by the emergence of the United States as the dominant global superpower. On the basis of contemporary economic trends. Hitler predicted already in the 1920s that the European powers had only a few more years to organize themselves against this inevitability. Furthermore, Hitler understood the overwhelming attraction already exerted on Europeans by America's affluent consumer lifestyle, an attraction whose force we can appreciate more vividly, given our sharpened awareness of the more generally transitional status of the European economies in the inter-war period. As in many semi-peripheral economies today, the German population in the 1930s was already thoroughly immersed in the commodity world of Hollywood, but at the same time many millions of people lived three or four to a room, without indoor bathrooms or access to electricity. Motor vehicles, radios and other accoutrements of modern living such as electrical household appliances were the aspiration of the social elite. The originality of National Socialism was that, rather than meekly accepting a place for Germany within a global economic order dominated by the affluent English-speaking countries. Hitler sought to mobilize the pent-up frustrations of his population to mount an epic challenge to this order. Repeating what Europeans had done across the globe over the previous three centuries, Germany would carve out its own imperial hinterland; by one last great land grab in the East it would create the self-sufficient basis both for domestic affluence and the platform necessary to prevail in the coming superpower competition with the United States. The aggression of Hitler's regime can thus be rationalized as an intelligible response to the tensions stirred up by the uneven development of global capitalism, tensions that are of course still with us today. But at the same time an understanding of the economic fundamentals also serves to sharpen our appreciation of the profound irrationality of Hitler's project. Tooze, Wages of Destruction. Preface xxvi: "Germany could not simply settle down to become an affluent satellite of the USA" Tooze emphasises how backward German agriculture was. Tooze describes Germany as a medium sized workshop economy dependent on imported food. Hitler feared the rise of the USA, whose industrial and economical influence was felt in Germany. Hitler specifically mentioned the efficient US vehicle industry. He feared efficient US industry would wipe out European industry. To counter the USA, Hitler wanted Germany to control the Continent, the British the other parts of the world. He admired the British empire stating Germany could never have done it better than the British. He thought this was the only way to preserve European culture being self contained with no indirect economic control, and influence, from the USA. Fighting the British was not a part of his view, hence wanting a Germany/UK/France alliance in the 1930s. He gave out many feelers for peace after September 1939. Hitler did not want Germany being a sub-set economy of the USA. Hitler wanted to be alongside the USA and Britain as world economic powers. He also wanted Germany to be an influential power in the world. Hitler could see how the UK was influential because it possessed the largest empire ever seen and large industrial country, and he accepted that. However he could not accept the upstart USA being a world economic power also spreading its culture. Both the British Empire and the USA had access to large natural resources, while Germany did not. The standard of living in the USA, Germany could not match. Even if Germans enjoyed a higher standard of living than the USA without stealing land in the east, that would still not be acceptable to Hitler as their economy would be a sub-set with foreign industry setup in Germany. Hitler was attempting to put Germany, a relatively new nation, in a world economic position without having built anything up as the British had over centuries, and without any significant natural resources, as the USA and the British empire had. To do that he had to steal from others. The place that had resources was to the east of Germany. It was populated with few resource surpluses. Expanding Germany into the east and removing the populations would give resource surplusses for Germany to make her compete on a world stage. Germany had industrialised in the late 1800s/early 1900s, however was still largely an agricultural country with outdated agriculture which contrasted sharply with some of its top-line industries. It could not feed itself without importing food - animal and human. It had no control of the imported food production and not full control of the source distribution of its imported food. The world was moving away from coal as the prime fuel and turning to the magic oil, which also contained many properties to extract for other valuable products. The USA had an abundance of oil extracted mainly from the acquired territory in the west. The UK had oil in its empire, Germany had none. The UK became a world player over centuries building up an empire and world trade routes. The USA did it by expanding west taking land. The precedence of the USA in taking land and removing the populations was one way Germany could be a major economy, major power, self sufficient in most aspects and have influence. Hitler's mentality was one of being a world economic player alongside the UK and USA. The precedence of the USA's rapid rise to a world economic power, based on land acquisition by force from indigenous people and the Mexicans, and largely eliminating the indigenous populations convinced the Germans they could do the same to their east. It is quite simple. "If the Germans had succeeded in exterminating the peoples to their east, as the white settlers did the American Indians, this would have the same effect on them that it has had on the Americans. The Germans would have become apostles of international brotherhood and goodwill". - AJP Taylor The Course of German History All the above is what Hitler wanted to catapult Germany into a global economic power. He justified this by fear of western European culture being eliminated from both sides - the Communist east and the Jewish led Capitalists from the west, across the Atlantic. He also had an ideology to back this up and have the people on his side. One of a pure German race - which the Germans are clearly not. An ideology with adherences to control and unify the population. He called it National Socialism. He needed a bogey man to also justify this new ideology - he chose the Jews who he truly believed controlled world Capitalism, especially in the USA. World capitalism was responsible, in his and the minds of others, for the dire poverty in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler had expanded Germany in his view, by negotiation. Turning to violence to achieve a further step of this Greater Germany by invading Poland was a massive gamble - Hitler was a gambler. On invading Poland in 1939, Hitler never dreamed that he would eventually be fighting the world's three larges economies. He never thought the war would escalate as it did. He underestimated the British, who never went along with his Greater self sufficient Germany by stealing off others, or his confused ideology. So was Hitler mad? Look at the two prime points of what he wanted: 1) A Greater self sufficient Germany; 2) An ideology to underpin the Greater Germany. The above were not mad at all. The precedence of the USA justified 1). The ideology based on race, 2), was not the bad thing we think today, as racism, and nationalism was common throughout the world. In Europe, not the UK, most countries had people wearing national dress on a daily basis. The death factories only came about during WW2, when the war creeped up on Hitler. Where was the madness? In thinking he could get it all by violence, and that others would stand by while he achieved what he wanted.
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