video alleges Hitler's rise, anchluss democratic

I recently saw a video on youtube that claims Hitler was democratically elected and that the Anchluss was Democratically approved along with the Holocaust and so on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36zZSNEIMTo

The documentary is about an hour long well not quite but its long. In addition the video claims that Occupy wall street is similar to the SA and it finishes with quotes from the founders about Hitler, Democracy and Occupy wall street

Seems a bit biased to me since the guy has GOP on his name and has similar videos.

 

Um?

 

Legal means, yes, but that legality was suspect.

 

But that only partly summarises the shennanigans going on in Berlin during '32...

The rumour in the Spring was the SA were going to take over by force (at this time, 400,000 brownshirts were under Ernst Röhm).

In April '32 Heinrich Bruening, the CHancellor involked article 48 and banned the SA and SS across Germany. Many nazis wanted to fight, but Hitler realised he could not yet rule without the support of the Industrialists and German Army.

Hindenburg had previously rebuffed Hitler, but an opportunity appeared when General Schleicher wanted to dissolve the republic, and lead Germany himself. Schleicher proposed to lift the ban on the SA and SS, in exchange for Nazi support. Schleicher managed to oust General Groener, an aide to Hindenburg (He resigned May 13th). Then Chancellor Bruening was miscredited, labelled as "The Hunger Chancellor, with some policies described as "marxist", a serious effort of behind the scenes lobbying, occurred after which the aging president finally told the Chancellor to resign on May 29th.

Schleicher was now in control, and chose von Papen as his figurehead, the Reichstag was dissolved, new elections called for the end of July, and the ban against the SA and SS was lifted on June 15th.

The Nazi-Communist violence of that summer was incredible. Martial law was declared by von Papen in Berlin. Hitler told von Papen "I regard your cabinet only as a temporary solution and will continue my efforts to make my party the strongest in hte country. The chancellorship will then devolve on me."

After the election, (37% of the votes, largest party in German, 230 seats in the Reichstag) Hitler presented his demands to Schleicher:

The Chancellorship
An act enabling to rule by decree
Three cabinet posts for Nazis
The creation of a Ministry of Propaganda
Control of the Ministry of Interior
Control of Prussia

Schleicher was to get Ministry of Defence.

President Hindenburg was now seriously concerned by the behaviour of the SA, and mistrusted Hitler. On August 13th, a counter-offer was made:

Vice Chancellor
Prussian Ministry of the Interior

Hitler now threatened to unleash the SA on Germany for three days. Hindenburg called his bluff.

On September 12th, Reichstag with Chairman Göring was to have a vote of no confidence on von Papen and the new government. This was pre-empted by von Papen, who dissolved the Reichstag, and called for another election.

Election fatigue had set in. During the campaign, Eva Braun apparently shot herself in the neck. Some Nazis sided with a Communist wild strike of transport workers in Berlin. This all meant the Nazis did a lot worse in this election, loosing some 2 million votes and 34 seats.

But with no workable government, and von Papen was also weakened. On November 17th, Papen resigned.

What followed was a madhouse of negotiations between Hindenburg, Schleicher, von Papen, and Hitler. Backstabbing, hissy fits, and moments of despair galore. It was during this period Gregor Strasser a prominent Nazi founder, left the Nazi party, enticed by Schleicher.

It ended on January 30th, 1933, with an exhausted octogenarian Hindenburg appointing a von Papen-Hitler alliance (with Hitler named Chancellor) against Schleicher.

Schleicher and Strasser were assassinated during the Night of Long Knives (June 30th-July 2nd, 1934).
Bruening fled Germany in 1934, and wound up in the US, where he died in 1970.

 

Pretty much sums it up. Well done sir.

 

Managed to grind through the video itself.

A rather disjointed home made diatribe that mashed up parts of a mini-series on the rise of Adolf Hitler, a straight forward documentary on the rise of Nazism and a indictment of anti-Trump protesters, comparing them to Nazism/Communism.

In short a piece of fecal matter not really worth the time to watch or expense to produce.

Please return those 50 minutes of my life.

 

Yes and no.
After Austria joined the 3.Reich, there was an election with the choice between yes and no to the Anschluss and the leadership of Hitler. A farce, a show. My Grandfather (no Nazi) voted YES of course but the only time honestly. He hoped that the peaceful Anschluss would satisfy Hitler as an Austrian. The majority of the older germans remembered the last war very well and weren't keen to fight again.

The Holocaust was never part of an election, not even written down as order or law. Himmler called it something that isn't talked about and never will be talked about.

 

The German army was ordered in (morning of 12th March) before the plebiscite (planned for 13th March) could be held. Himmler and the SS had arrived even earlier; they flew to Vienna and arrested(!) prominent opponents. Within a few days, they had rounded up over 70,000 people.

The Germans held a sham plebiscite on the 10th of April.

The voting process was non-secret; you had to hand your ballot directly to an official (as opposed to putting it in a closed box for later counting), who would see how you had voted.

Even the ballot papers were "biased":


"Do you agree with the reunification of Austria with the German Reich that was enacted on 13 March 1938, and do you vote for the party of our leader Adolf Hitler? YES no "

So calling it "democratic", when you already have the German troops on Austrian soil, and over 70,000 people arrested merely for voicing a different opinion in public, is somewhat of a misnomer. Do you think the intelligent Austrians were unaware of what had happened to dissidents in Germany?

Not that Austria was a perfect state of democracy complete with prancing unicorns in fields of mountain glades prior to the Anschluss either.

 

The idiot that posted the "documentary" on youtube has an agenda, and twists historical facts to suit his message. He is nothing less than a vile propagandist.

Somebody should have told him about Godwin's law....

 

Yeah...it is a theoretical twist of the definition of "democratic".
We democratically passed (and enforced) all kinds of horrible "laws"
Slavery, segregation, land theft, colored drinking fountains, drug "laws", etc etc.
People in power can pass any "law" they want.
Why was it done, and was it "right" for humanity.?

 

Hitler was never elected. Neither was Churchill.

 

Apart from stating the obvious, what is your point?

 

Labour got more votes in 1951.

 

And that is relevant to anschluss because....

 

As green slime well described, Hitler's accession to power was barely within the limits of the democratic process.

The true test of democracy is not whether you won the last election, it's whether you're planning to hold the next one. Hitler was one of a sadly large number of dictators who came to power more or less legitimately and then made sure they would stay there indefinitely.

As for the Anschluss, the way it works in a democracy is the people vote on something first. Then it either happens or doesn't based on the vote.

The only way one could call the ex post facto ratification of the Anschluss democratic is to claim that if 51% of Austrians voted Nein, the Germans would have packed up and left.

 

There's a lot of comparing Trump to the rise of Fascism going on here in the States.

 

In old Europe, we don't have the knowledge about Trump as you have. Is he really this evil?
I can't believe that a majority of one of the oldest democracies in the world will vote such a person.