HITLER’S RISE EXPOSES FRAGILITY OF DEMOCRACY
Look out for the BBC’S threepart serial “Rise of the Nazis”. It concluded last Friday in London. It reveals how easily Adolf Hitler came to power, and the extent to which the German establishment facilitated his rise. And running through it is the call of nationalism.
Hindenburg was president, and von Schleicher and von Pappen, the immediately preceding chancellors. They knew the Nazis could destroy the Weimar Republic but naively thought they could use Hitler to tackle what they considered a greater threat, the communists. Alas, they had no idea of Hitler’s appeal. His promise to make Germany great again and fix its broken economy made him look like the saviour of the German people. Meanwhile his Stormtroopers ruthlessly dealt with dissent.
In January 1933, Hitler became chancellor after von Pappen stepped down and agreed to be his deputy. In the next six months, Germany changed rapidly. First, in February, Hindenburg agreed to Hitler’s Reichstag Decree, giving the Nazis emergency powers to arrest and imprison without charge, and restrict civil liberties. In weeks, 25,000 were arrested. Then, on the March 23, the Reichstag passed the Enabling Act. Democracy was suspended and Hitler could govern without Parliament’s approval. Yet, all the while, Hindenburg, von Schleicher and von Pappen thought Hitler was their man and willing to do their bidding!
Tucked away in Bavaria, was Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Schutzstaffel (SS). His organization saw itself as Hitler’s most loyal soldiers. They were anti-semitic, anti-left, anti-democratic. They invented the concept of “protective policy custody” to arrest opponents of the Nazis. Hundreds of thousands were locked up without access to courts and the first concentration camp to “re-educate prisoners” set up in Dachau. Himmler brought every state in Germany under SS control, making it one of the most powerful institutions of the Nazi State. He also knew how to read Hitler’s personality, and played on Hitler’s dislike of judicial and bureaucratic constraints and his fear of assassination.
The German system had many opportunities to reverse what was happening. But the establishment failed to respond. Hans Litten, a lawyer, petitioned the courts against the thuggish Stormtroopers but they would not support him. Josef Hartinger, then deputy national prosecutor, discovered the truth about Dachau but his bosses would not listen. At every turn, the system gave Hitler the benefit of the doubt or looked the other way.
So, in 180 days, Hitler decimated the opposition, subverted the legal system, created the Gestapo, expanded the SS, opened Dachau, and beguiled the German people with Nazi nationalism. Hindenburg, as president, was the only man with the power to sack him. Instead, he fell victim to Hitler’s charms. By 1934, he was dead and von Schleicher and von Pappen killed. Hitler celebrated the Night of the Long Knives by inviting his Cabinet and their wives to a party. Champagne was served and everyone behaved as if nothing had happened the day before. Hitler now had supreme control. He had cajoled, coerced and manipulated his way to dictatorship whilst those who could have stopped him helplessly watched.
I guess the BBC’S intention is to show how easily the rise of the Nazis happened and, perhaps, prevent it from occurring again. It was not inevitable and it could have been checked. There were several warning signs. They just weren’t heeded. This is, therefore, a story worth retelling. Democracy is fragile. In order to be open and inclusive, it leaves itself vulnerable to being taken over by antidemocratic forces. This is why democracy should never be taken for granted. It needs vigorous defence.
At the end of the third episode, when the screen turns to black and the credits roll, there was only one thought in my mind. If it could happen so easily to Germany……
If you are in the media, you tend to become inured to stories of violence against women. It is far too frequent, and hardly evokes any great response. Yet, a recent story about the killing of a young mother of three girls by her husband, and his subsequent hacking her body to pieces, was bone-chilling. The background is all too familiar. The husband would harass the victim for dowry. She was also tortured during her short life for producing three girls. As in many such cases, her family knew about the frightening conditions she was living under, and the threat to her life. Yet, they did nothing until it was too late. In fact, the killer husband had gloated earlier that her family wouldn’t care even if he killed her, and he did.
This reminded me of another case which I wrote about in this column — of the death of an air hostess in an upmarket Delhi colony who allegedly fell off the balcony. She had repeatedly complained of violence at the hands of her husband; her family even filed a case against him, but, in the end, she got no further help. A woman is killed for dowry every 69 minutes in India, according to National Crime Records Bureau data. The victim’s family is aware of what she is going through. In the absence of strong state systems to support an abused woman, the only port of call she has is her family.
But societal perceptions, and a false sense of familial honour, prevent many families from bringing their girls back, away from the life-threatening atmosphere that they are in at the homes of their husbands. This is a problem that cuts across all socioeconomic and educational barriers. A recent video on social media showed a respected judge, who delivered many stirring rulings on domestic violence, participate in the physical abuse of his daughter-in-law by his thuggish son.
If avaricious in-laws are to be blamed for their vicious attacks on their daughters-in-law, then I blame the girls’ families equally for not helping them in their moments of need, when such help might mean the difference between life and death. It is true that in many families, a disproportionate amount of money is spent on the marriage of their daughters, and the breakdown of the marriage is a huge loss, not just of face, but also of finances. But, then again, when the violence begins, it is very rare that it will stop even if the woman’s family gives in to demands for cash and kind. We talk about creating a safe environment for women, but that has to begin with her own family and a home she can return to if she feels threatened.
According to the National Family Health Survey-4, almost 30% of married women in India between the ages of 15-49 have reported experiencing spousal violence at least once. The young woman who died recently in Delhi, which I began the column with, was let down at every step of the way in her tragic life. The first was by her family, which obviously did not exercise due diligence when marrying her to her killer husband. Then, it was by her in-laws, who pilloried her for her inability to bring in more money and for producing girls. Then, it was by those who lived nearby but surely were aware of her plight. And finally, yet again, it was by her family who did not think it fit to bring her back home.
The attitude that a family’s responsibility ends the moment a woman is married has to change, as much as the attitude that she is only of value to her in-laws as long as she can keep feeding their avarice.
If the families that girls are married into knew that they have a strong support system at home, they might think twice before attacking them. The knowledge that the woman has no one to turn to heightens the viciousness we witness in so many cases where the victim is either maimed, mentally scarred or killed. This refers to Mark Tully’s “To decongest the cities, India needs fewer cars” (Sept 22). The number of vehicles on the roads forces people to park their cars anywhere they can — from the streets and open grounds to non-demarcated areas. Add to this problem, India’s growing pollution. The government must find alternatives and solutions, and work along with the police to implement them.
SUBHASH VAID,