Germany’s Nightmare Years; A Warning to American Voters

By Tom Coleman

Before William L. Shirer wrote The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, widely regarded as the definitive history of Nazi Germany, he wrote a critically acclaimed memoir, The Nightmare Years, 1930-1940. In it he describes his early observations of Adolf Hitler, the newly installed Chancellor and President of Germany. Reading Shirer’s account eighty-six years later reveals disturbing parallels of Germany then and America today. Shirer’s impressions offer us a lesson from history that raises the question—will U.S. voters repeat Germany’s mistake in this year’s presidential election?

Shirer got his firsthand view of Hitler in September 1934 noting he “could watch him day after day work his magic” on the German people. It was hard for him to understand at first how Hitler could, “as a vulgar and bigoted person, hold the attention of a these Germans who had contributed their considerable share to the civilization of the West.”

The Nazis came to power by popular vote in 1932. Hitler presented himself as a populist and strong man candidate.  While the Weimar Republic was established on democratic principles, by the summer of 1934 any hope that its independently elected parliament would save its democracy was short-lived. 

Hitler has turned Germany’s democracy on its head and made himself absolute dictator. The German Reichstag, which under the constitution held the legislative power, had been effectively stripped of its authority and been reduced to simply serving as The Leader’s cheering section, rubber stamping his proposals.

Before and after his rise to power, Hitler reveled in speaking at large rallies where he could rhetorically manipulate the masses.  Shirer recognized Hitler’s ability to hold a vast throng spellbound while often being incoherent. Shirer recognized it was Hitler’s ability to move a German audience by speech, more than anything else that had swept him to power. Shirer observed “The thoughts he expressed, often seemed to me ridiculous.” But Shirer pointed out that it didn’t matter “what he said but how he said it,” because it was “utter rubbish and brazen lies.” But it worked. “His German listeners were lapping up every word as utter truth.”
  
Hitler had the army swear an oath of loyalty to him personally. He fancied himself smarter than his generals. After purging the country’s military leadership, Shirer sarcastically wrote, “the Fuhrer, a corporal in the Great War, named himself Supreme Commander of the Armed Services.” The narcissistic Commander would eventually direct his nation to total destruction.

At public events, Hitler surrounded himself by a phalanx of men of questionable character. Shirer saw that “many looked like gangsters—the kind I imagined swarming around Al Capone back in my native Chicago. But they were now ministers of government.”  Shirer searched in them for some mark of intelligence, reflection or compassion. He found none.

Hitler had problems with women–including his lack of political support among female voters. Shirer wondered if “this was because of Hitler’s attitude toward women? What place, if any, I wondered, were women to have in this country? Not much!” Germany was missing out on what Shirer believed was “the civilizing influence that women were beginning to bring to public life in other lands seemed totally lacking” in Germany.

Hitler was a pathological liar. On a Labor Day he declared: “Honor Work and respect the worker.” Shirer reminded his readers “one had to remember that Adolf Hitler was a consummate actor. The next morning the trade-union offices throughout the country were occupied by the police and the S.S.  All union funds were confiscated, the unions dissolved and the leaders arrested, beaten and carted off to concentration camp.”

Shirer sensed Germany’s dire future. Germans never anticipated their way of life was about to become a living nightmare as their Leader scapegoated racial and religious minorities pitting one group against another. “I had not realized” Shirer wrote, “that in order to keep the German people stirred up Hitler needed enemies to blame for all that had gone wrong, that threatened the authoritarian Reich.”
 
Shirer concluded that most political leaders and news outlets in Europe and in the U.S. failed to recognize the rise of Hitler. They “had underestimated Adolf Hitler and his domination of this land and its people.” To Shirer, Hitler’s ideas seemed half-baked and evil while convincing the crowds that the new Germany under his leadership would be great again. “I heard no mention of the loss of personal freedom and democratic rights. They couldn’t have cared less.”

Now comes our hour of decision. We must avoid making a similar mistake to Germany’s. As voters we have the power to stop this slide into the kind of authoritarianism most Germans did not believe possible in 1934. President Trump has made it clear that he will flout the law and destroy traditional safeguards of our democracy. He admires Putin and the current crop of strong men authoritarians around the world. They are what he aspires to be.

On November 3rd, the American people must remember who they are and issue a rebuke of historic proportions to this president and his enablers in his Republican party. I urge you to join me in voting for Joe Biden to assure that today’s voters as well as future generations will live in a democracy backed by the rule of law.
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Coleman is a former Republican Member of Congress from Missouri. He was a co-founder and chairman of the Congressional Study Group on Germany and is an Advisor to Protect Democracy.