Rise of Nazism and Enlightenment Thought
HIST215 – Later Modern Europe,1789-1939
Assessment Task One
Research Essay
The rise and subsequent take-over of power in Germany by Hitler and the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was the culmination and continuation not of Enlightenment thought from the 18th and 19th century but the logical conclusion of unstable and cultural conditions that pre-existed in Germany. Hitler’s Nazi Party’s clear manipulation of the weak state of the Weimar Republic through its continued failure economically and socially, plus its undermining of popular support through the signing the Treaty of Versailles all lead to the creation of a Nazi dictatorship under the cult of personality of Hitler. This clear take-over of power and subsequent destruction of any vestiges of democracy and political opposition in Germany coupled with an ideology that preached ultra-violent racial hatred of Jews and extremely nationalistic fervour lead to Nazism clearly representing the anti-thesis to Enlightenment ideals of individualism, the ‘general will’, tolerance, self-development and individual thought. Nazism preached a completely polar opposite to the views of Enlightenment and pursued them with a vigour that would drag the whole world into another worldwide conflict, of which it was only just recovering.
One of the fundamental differences between Enlightenment thought and Nazi ideology is the role of the individual within that of the community. Enlightenment thought bore out the idea of the rights of the individual and of the ‘sovereign.., formed entirely of the individuals who compose it, it has not, nor could have, any interest contrary to theirs’[1] and that each of these citizens is a private person whose life is independent of the state which it serves[2]. This clearly places the individual as within a society that it has the right and obligation to serve, but within which the individual also holds rights separate from the state. Not only this but that the state cannot have any interest or
Assessment Task One
Research Essay
The rise and subsequent take-over of power in Germany by Hitler and the Nazi Party in the early 1930s was the culmination and continuation not of Enlightenment thought from the 18th and 19th century but the logical conclusion of unstable and cultural conditions that pre-existed in Germany. Hitler’s Nazi Party’s clear manipulation of the weak state of the Weimar Republic through its continued failure economically and socially, plus its undermining of popular support through the signing the Treaty of Versailles all lead to the creation of a Nazi dictatorship under the cult of personality of Hitler. This clear take-over of power and subsequent destruction of any vestiges of democracy and political opposition in Germany coupled with an ideology that preached ultra-violent racial hatred of Jews and extremely nationalistic fervour lead to Nazism clearly representing the anti-thesis to Enlightenment ideals of individualism, the ‘general will’, tolerance, self-development and individual thought. Nazism preached a completely polar opposite to the views of Enlightenment and pursued them with a vigour that would drag the whole world into another worldwide conflict, of which it was only just recovering.
One of the fundamental differences between Enlightenment thought and Nazi ideology is the role of the individual within that of the community. Enlightenment thought bore out the idea of the rights of the individual and of the ‘sovereign.., formed entirely of the individuals who compose it, it has not, nor could have, any interest contrary to theirs’[1] and that each of these citizens is a private person whose life is independent of the state which it serves[2]. This clearly places the individual as within a society that it has the right and obligation to serve, but within which the individual also holds rights separate from the state. Not only this but that the state cannot have any interest or
Bibliography: Bessel, Richard. “The Nazi Capture of Power” Journal of Contemporary History 39, No.2 (2004) 169-188 Evans, Richard J Evans, Richard J. Rethinking German History. London: Allen and Unwin, 1987 Gay, Peter Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf. As cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne Kant, Emmanuel Robertson, Geoffrey. Crimes Against Humanity: A Struggle for Global Justice. Melbourne: Penguin Group, 2006 Rousseau, Jean Jeacques Stern, Fritz. The Politics of Cultural Despair. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1961 Welch, David The Programme of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker’s Party). As cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne ----------------------- [1] Jean Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract, as cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne, 63 [2] Rousseau, 74 [3] The Program of the NSDAP (National Socialist German Worker’s Party) 1920, as cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne, [4] David Welch [5] Emmanuel Kant,. An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? as cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne, 35 [6] Welch [9] As cited by Richard J. Evans, The Coming of the Third Reich, (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 397 [10] Evans [15] Hitler, Adolf, Mein Kampf, as cited in HIST215: Later Modern Europe, 1789-1939 Document Reader, Semester 2, 2009, Samuel Koehne,197 [16] Hitler, 193 [17] Geoffrey Robertson. Crimes Against Humanity: The Struggle for Global Justice, (Melbourne: Penguin Group, 2006) 249 [18] Bessel, Richard [19] Stern, Frtiz. The Politics of Cultural Despair, (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1961) xix