freediver wrote on Feb 15^th, 2019 at 6:44pm:


Gosh, I've only spent the same number of pages trying to explain.

Germany was united largely through the military and economic dominance of the Prussian aristocracy - a 'conservative Christian' ruling class if you will. Sometimes referred to as the "junker" class. These were the people who dominated the offices of power through both the emperorship and the transition to democracy, and continued through the Weimar republic. A brief challenge by the communists and other leftists after WWI was overcome due to a violent crackdown by establishment militias like the Freikorps. In fact if you really want to get deeply into it, the roots of the nazi-establishment cooperation largely stemmed from a common fear of the left - which the nazis swiftly went about destroying as soon as they came to power. Thats not to say the Nazis themselves didn't make enemies of the establishment - they did, as did any establishment figures who threw their lot in with them, most notably Luddendorf. But as they changed their modus operandi from violent putches to legitimate political processes, the establishment became less and less hostile, until eventually they saw them as useful allies - as von Papen did when he lobbied Hindenberg to appoint him chancelor (thinking he could control him). Establishment figures like the former chancelor von Schleicher who refused to fall in line were swiftly removed.

That in a nutshell is the Nazi rise part of the story, the other part is how they retained power. As I mentioned before, the aftermath of the 1944 bomb plot which revealed just how shockingly widespread was the knowledge of the plot within the Wehrmacht, demonstrated just how distinct and independent the old establishment (represented through the Wehrmacht) remained from the Nazi machine. Its almost as if the Wehrmacht preserved itself as a 'state within a state' - or you could even say the other way around, the Nazis were a state within the old Prussian state. Such a powerful force that kept its independence from the Nazis could no doubt have easily dispensed with the Nazi regime if they wished. But of course in a time of total war, there was no apetite to do so. One for all and all for one and all that. Prussian notions of honour and loyalty made turning against your government at a time when the country was under siege from all sides - an unspeakable act of treachery. Notwithstanding von Staffenberg and cohort.

polite_gandalf wrote on Feb 15^th, 2019 at 7:09pm:




Soooooo.... where's the Christian angle to the rise of the Nazis, then?

I am not seeing any in your post.