Overview:
Fascism is an authoritarian political philosophy rooted in
social-Darwinism and theories of racial hierarchy. Fascists seek to elevate their
nation or race group by creating a totalitarian state that seeks the mass
mobilization of a nation or race through mass discipline, indoctrination,
physical training, and eugenics. Fascism seeks to eradicate foreign influences
that are seen as harmful to the nation, often by means of violence. Fascism
emerged out of the ruins of World War I; it combines left-wing and right-wing
political views. To achieve the goal of national or racial dominance, fascism
seeks to purge any ideas, races, and systems which they believe are causing decadence
and/or degeneration. Fascism promotes political violence and war to promote
national rejuvenation. Fascists commonly use paramilitary organizations to use violence
as a core aspect of their political method.
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Nazism was not only a political philosophy; it was a theory
of history. Where Communism sees history as a being rooted in economic
conditions and the relationship between classes, Nazism sees history through
the lens of racial history. As such, Nazi History was obsessed with the idea of
tracing the history of the “Aryan race” to its point of origin in modern-day Asia.
One famous incident was a trip sponsored by the Nazi Party, to visit Tibet
where scientists studied the local population in hopes of discovering the
origins of the Nazi’s imaginary racial history.
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Adolf
Hitler: SPEECH OF APRIL 12, 1922
AFTER
the War production had begun again and it was thought that better times were
coming, Frederick the Great after the Seven Years War had, as the result of
superhuman efforts, left Prussia without a penny of debt: at the end of the
World War Germany was burdened with her own debt of some 7 or 8 milliards of
marks and beyond that was faced with the debts of 'the rest of the world' - the
so-called 'reparations.' The product of Germany's work thus belonged not to the
nation, but to her foreign creditors: 'it was carried endlessly in trains for territories
beyond our frontiers. Every worker had to support another worker, the product
of whose labor was commandeered by the foreigner. 'The German people after
twenty-five or thirty years, in consequence of the fact that it will never be
able to pay all that is demanded of it, will have so gigantic a sum still owing
that practically it will be forced to produce more than it does today.' What
will the end be? and the answer to that question is 'Pledging of our land,
enslavement of our labor-strength. Therefore, in the economic sphere, November
1918 was in truth no achievement, but it was the beginning of our collapse.'
And in the political sphere we lost first our military prerogatives, and with
that loss went the real sovereignty of our State, and then our financial
independence, for there remained always the Reparations Commission so that
'practically we have no longer a politically independent German Reich, we are
already a colony of the outside world. We have contributed to this because so
far as possible we humiliated ourselves morally, we positively destroyed our
own honor and helped to befoul, to besmirch, and to deny everything which we
previously held as sacred.' If it be objected that the Revolution has won for
us gains in social life: they must be extraordinarily secret, these social
gains - so secret that one never sees them in practical life - they must just
run like a fluid through our German atmosphere. Someone may say 'Well, there is
the eight-hour day!' And was a collapse necessary to gain that? And will the
eight-hour day be rendered any more secure through our becoming practically the
bailiff and the drudge of the other peoples? One of these days France will say:
You cannot meet your obligations, you must work more. So this achievement of the
Revolution is put in question first of all by the Revolution.
Then
someone has said: 'Since the Revolution the people has gained Rights. The people
govern!' Strange! The people have now been ruling three years and no one has in
practice once asked its opinion. Treaties were signed which will hold us down
for centuries: and who has signed the treaties? The people? No! Governments
which one fine day presented themselves as Governments. And at their election
the people had nothing to do save to consider the question: there they are
already, whether I elect them or not. If we elect them, then they are there
through our election. But since we are a self-governing people, we must elect
the folk in order that they may be elected to govern us.
Then it
was said, 'Freedom has come to us through the Revolution.' Another of those
things that one cannot see very easily! It is of course true that one can walk
down the street, the individual can go into his workshop and he can go out
again: here and there he can go to a meeting. In a word, the individual has
liberties. But in general, if he is wise, he will keep his mouth shut. For if
in former times extraordinary care was taken that no one should let slip
anything which could be treated as lèse-majesté, now a man must take much
greater care that he doesn't say anything which might represent an insult to
the majesty of a Member of Parliament.
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PREPARE: after reading the speech,
please answer the following questions in a 500 word, double-spaced essay.
1. Why does Hitler reference Frederick the Great?
2. What was Hitler’s opinion of parliaments? Why?
3. Knowing what Hitler eventually did, can you
trace any of his later atrocities to elements in this speech?
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