Here’s an interesting fact about the “stab in the back” question.
in august 1918, The english propaganda dropped 4 millions tracts over the german lines. Besides the usual invitations to surrender, one of these called the socio-democrat political partys to throw out the kaiser in exchange for Britain’s help in building a new liberal and democratic Germany after the war.
Of course, as soon the war over, this was all but forgotten, and the germans politicians felt betrayed.
If you want a great source of insight into the public minds of the Germans before the war read The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. It is amazing to me at how close the Nazi’s actually came to not reaching power. The most votes they ever gained in an election was around 33%. While not the majority it was enough for them to be the largest party in Germany.
The main reason for their rise to power and their stay in power was the unemployment rate. There were 6 million unemployed workers when Hitler came to power. Within the first year that number dropped to under 1 million. While the average wage was around 6.25 a week, the German worker enjoyed job security it never had under the Weimar regime. Thus they coined the phrase “freedom to starve”, which the Nazi’s used alot in their rise to power. But the book that has answered the most questions for me about the mentality of the German public has been the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Great read but really long.
Isn’t “Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” also the book that tries to establish a theory according to which Nazism was the logical conclusion of German Lutheranism?
Here is the quote from Rise and Fall…"The great founder of Protestantism was both a passionate anti-Semite and a ferocious believer in absoulte obedience to political authority. He wanted Germany rid of the Jews and when they were sent away he advised that they be deprived of “all their cash and jewels and silver and gold” and , furthermore, “that their synagogues or schools be set on fire, that their houses be broken up and destroyed…and they be put under a roof or stable, like the gypsies…in
misery and captivity as they incessantly lament and complain to God about us”, advice that was leterally followed four centuries later by Hitler, Goering, and Himmler.
I dont think he is trying to convey a theory that Nazism is the ultimate end of German Lutheranism. I think he is trying to point out how the Nazis tried every possible angle to control the different Churches of the time. They utterly failed to control the Churches, and decided to set up their own “Church”. I just do not think they cared too much about religion other than the fact that Hitler should be looked at as a diety, and that religion like Marx said “is the opium of the masses”. So no I really do not think that is the message that Shirer is trying to get across, in fact he denotes in the book that to avoid confusion the author is a protestant.