Laurence Rees, the author of "The Holocaust", affirms to the Magazine that the "Führer" had to reduce his racist speech to become chancellor and that his hatred of the Jews "was not decisive for him to win the elections"
The State has to carry out a complete educational task. And someday this will seem like a greater feat than the most victorious wars. The author of these words was Adolf Hitler himself, and he was so convinced of them that he left them written in his famous "my fight". To Europe's shame, time proved him right and, after rising to the easy chair in the 1930s, he launched a campaign of brainwashing that turned a part of Germany anti-Semitic. A difficult achievement, as explained to the Magazine by the English writer and director Laurence Rees (who is presenting his latest work this week, "The Holocaust"-Critical Memory).
And it is that, for this student of Nazism, the future "Führer" did not achieve the chancellorship of the country thanks to his "anti-Semitic discourse". Instead, he went from a disgraced ex-soldier to the leader of Germany's largest political party based on fear of the Bolsheviks and the wear and tear he put on the German government. «In 1928 he had been the leader of the party for seven years and got only 2.7% of the vote. And then he wouldn't stop talking about the Jews. With that speech, 97% of Germans did not support him », he explains to this newspaper.
How he managed to seize the reins of Germany, however, is not the only subject that Rees addresses in his latest work (a lengthy 600-page essay, the result, he claims, of 25 years of research), but ranges from the atrocities perpetrated by the Nazis in the concentration camps, to the laws he devised against homos- and the mentally and physically handicapped. All of this, yes, using as a guiding thread the hatred towards the Jews that, according to him, he determined, grew in Hitler after the First World War. "There is very little contemporary evidence to show that he was an anti-Semite before the war," he adds.
In turn, the author is in favor of the fact that, although at the beginning of the 30s the Germans knew of the existence of the first concentration camps, in general society did not know the atrocities that were being perpetrated against the Jews in those dedicated to extermination. "To a German, they were totally different things," he notes.
When was Hitler's hatred of the Jews born?
It is a very broad question and one that can be seen from different perspectives. One of the most revealing books on this question was written by Brigitte Hamann, an Austrian whom I was lucky enough to meet. She revolutionized historiography because she showed that, when Hitler was in Vienna before World War I, he did a lot of business with the Jews. I mean, he didn't hate them.
There is very little contemporary evidence to show that Hitler was an anti-Semite before World War I. It is true that in "Mein Kampf" she stated precisely that his hatred of the Jews was born at that moment, but based on Hamman's work I don't believe it. I believe that what she tried with the book is what many politicians did: create a story that supported their beliefs at the time. He understood that if he wanted to become a great man, he couldn't be like everyone else. He couldn't give the impression that he had stumbled ideologically throughout his life. Thus, he later fondly remembered all the anti-Semitic politicians he met in Vienna and exaggerated what he felt at the time to create that narrative.
I don't think he developed a hatred of Jews until the end of World War I. It was after the Russian Revolution that he began to forge this fantasy that the Jews were conspiring behind the scenes. And in 1919, of course, he believed this at face value.
2-Did anti-Semitism decisively mark your life?
There are two emotionally dramatic and important events in your life. The first was the death of his mother. The second was World War I and the circumstances of the German defeat. Many of his strongest feelings come from that moment. He was left devastated, like many others, by the loss of the war. He couldn't understand defeat. From then on he searched for motives and scapegoats. This is how he began to believe that the Jews were conspiring and that they were a massive and evil force. Later he began to see Jewish conspiracies everywhere.
In 1921 he stated that the Jewish was the central issue for national security at the time and that it could only be resolved by brute force. Back then, so early on, he believed that his only purpose, his central issue as a politician, was to deal with this problem one way or another.
3-Did hatred of the Jews serve Hitler to achieve power?
It is curious, but the anti-Semitic mentality was not decisive for Hitler to win the elections. In 1928 he had been the party's leader for seven years and got just 2.7% of the vote. And then he wouldn't stop talking about the Jews. With that speech, 97% of Germans did not support him.
Four years later, however, he became the leader of Germany's largest party, and not thanks to anti-Semitism. In fact, if you study the speeches he gave during that time, you can see that he hardly spoke about the Jews. He limited himself to charging against the dangers of Bolshevism, extolling national unity, and stating that democracy was destroying Germany. That's not to say that he hid that he was anti-Semitic, but he just "toned down" on this issue. When he came to power, he "raised his tone" again.
4-Who was Hitler? A masterful politician, or a disturbed one who knew how to take advantage of circumstances to come to power?
I don't know if there is a simple answer to this question. There is an episode in the book that explains how, after dinner, Hitler was giving a talk to his colleagues. It was about the 40s. That day he spoke candidly about the transformation that occurred within himself after the First World War. He explained that, throughout his existence, he had seen things that had convinced him that life was brutal. That we are all animals and that we have to get what we want, even if it is with a level of animal brutality.
