Germany invades Yugoslavia, he is drafted, he's picked for Waffen-SS, he is sent to guard a concentration camp. At that point it's too late to do anything short of sacrificing himself.
I have mixed feelings about this. In hindsight he could have run away at point #1, but how was he to know how things would have ended?
Millions of people have "sacrificed themselves", in the sense that they died fighting to get rid of the nazi regime, and tens or hundrends of thousands also sacrificed themselves by going into the resistance, aiding jews and other fugitives, sabotaging german camps in occupied cities, etc. There are lots of recorded examples of people who faced the firing squad singing or shouting for freedom. So he always had that option too.
>I have mixed feelings about this. In hindsight he could have run away at point #1, but how was he to know how things would have ended?
Hitler had broad mass appeal for over a decade. He wasn't some crazy dictator who suddenly imposed himself upon the German people. What he preached was actually a general sentiment, repeated by lots of intellectuals, politicians and pundits in one form of another, as was the "historical role" of Germany etc (come to think of it, not that unlike "Manifest Destiny" or the idea of "exceptionalism").
He had detailed his plans, including racial hatred and even extermination, and he had given several bloody examples. He not only was voted for in '33, but he continued to have great popular support even after the war started. It was not just silent forced compliance. Millions applauded those actions, even going out of their way to enable them.
There is a Moral Lesson to be learned from Hitler, but it isn't that functional democracies can just collapse due to a single election going the wrong way. It's that marginal democracies with severe internal problems can collapse if one gang gets more support from the establishment than the others, and if the establishment doesn't check the gang's powers quickly enough.
Not really. Germans were mostly thoroughly enthusiastic, and this has been shown in several historical studies of the era.
Hitlers SA actions were about terrorizing communist and liberal dissent, not about terrorizing the large masses.
E.g:"Few twentieth-century political leaders enjoyed greated popularity among their own people than Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s. This remarkable study of the myth that sustained one of the most notorious dictators, and delves into Hitler's extraordinarily powerful hold over the German people"
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hitler-Myth-Image-Reality/dp/019...
"Daniel Goldhagen re-visits a question which history has treated as settled, and his research leads him to the inescapble conclusion that none of the answers holds true. That question is: How could the Holocaust happen? His response is an exploration of German society and its ingrained anti-semitism that demands a fundamental revision of our thinking about the years 1933-1945. The author marshals fresh, primary evidence - including extensive testimony from the actual perpetrators - to show that the killers were ordinary Germans who were not compelled to act as they did (they knew they could refuse without retribution) yet they killed willingly..."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hitlers-Willing-Executioners-Ordinar...
"From the Nuremberg Laws to the Olympic Games, Kristallnacht to the Hitler Youth, this gripping account shows how a whole population became enmeshed in a dictatorship that was consumed by hatred and driven by war."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Third-Reich-Power-1933/dp/014100...
What do you mean Germans ? Austrians were pretty damn enthusiastic. New Yorkers were pretty enthusiastic (until the Poland invasion). Europeans were pretty enthusiastic (again, until Poland).
You might even say that the world was pretty enthusiastic. Well, only half of the rightist nut-cases, and only half of communists (Hitler managed to simultaneously introduce a crap-load of leftist advancements like pensions, right to a job, invalidity benefits ...) and fix the economic situation of the Weimar republic by threatening other leaders, although most was accomplished technically through "negotiation". This made him pretty fucking popular on the left, who saw it as vindication of their ideology (spend your way on social projects out of recessions) and on the right, who saw that he fixed the economy).
I realize this may be hard to believe, but Hitler had 75% of aisle firmly behind him right up till the day he invaded Poland, and after that it only dropped to 40-50% or so until the USSR declared war on him. Of course it varied from place to place and time to time, but if he wanted, he could probably have had himself elected major of Washington. Or Paris, for that matter.
Of course, Hitler only could seize power, because the other parties where in controversy and the whole country political unstable. But you also have to keep in mind, that huge parts of the population where no friends of Democracy and wanted to have the Kaiser back.
Also: As much I know, even in those time, it was not possible for the population to directly elect the chancellor. The chancellor was "appointed" by the president. The precondition was, that he had a sufficient support in the Reichstag. That was the case in 1933, because other parties allied with the NSDAP. That is rather similar, how today the government is formed. In Germany, seldom one party can rule the country alone, even today when we have very much less parties in the Bundestag.
The point I was making is that he wasn't voted by popular support. And when he did ascend, Hitler wasn't appointed Chancellor because Hindenberg thought he had the support of the reichstag. He was appointed because Papen thought he could outsmart Hitler and that he as vice chancellor and Hindenberg as President could control Hitler. They were fools, Hidenberg was old and tired, Papen was delusional.
Anyway, no question it was a fascinating and intriguing time in european history.
But: I only looked on "Reichstag" elections -- not Presidential elections. I might be wrong here, but Reichstag should be Reichstag. The numbers where from the German wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichstagswahlen_in_Deutschland...
What we here are discussing is really depending on focus. Fact is, that the NSDAP had more seats in the Reichstag than any other single party in 1932 and 1933 (3 elections -- they had many, because of the instabilities of the governments). In the US, there are only 2 major parties -- so the party with the absolute majority wins. But in Germany (also today) it is very rare, that one single party reaches 50% or more of the votes. It is really very often, that the biggest single party has 33% or less of the votes. What is done, a coalition is made with an other party -- or even two other parties to reach a majority.
Same thing was done 1933. So it was totally normal, totally legal how Hitler reached power (at least by the letter). And: 33% of the people are a big part of the nation. So, the NSDAP had big support even 1932 in the country. That is fact, as sad it is.
The biggest single party in today's Germany had 2009 also only ~33% of the votes, and where building a government with an other party. In 1949 it had even only 31% of the votes and formed the government together with two other parties.
You are right with Papen of course. He was from the Centre (Zentrum) party. The big parties rejected to form a government with the NSDAP, because it was no democratic party. But Papen changed that and formed an evil coalition, where the Zentrum literally supported the devil.
Just compare it with US prisons or Gaza, everyone is fine with those today.
If only it was that clear cut.
Actually higher personel, as well as guards and soldiers were known to be extremely sadistic, from using women as sex slaves (the "joy divisions"), to cruel games with killing, maiming prisoners for fun, and everything in between.
It wasn't just "following orders". There was sadistic enjoyment, and sense of a higher race getting rid of unwanted parasites in lots of these people.
That some prisones built crematoria and operated infrastructure (under threat of death) is just a technical detail.
He was a kind of their mascot against "the reds" and against unruly workers and working classes in the US.
Also, contrary to some belief, before and even during the war, the US mostly could not care less about the plight of Jews at the time, even when it was known what was happening to them. E.g
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_St._Louis
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_antisemitism_in_the_...
Not sure were you got this idea that guards mostly involuntarily and under force did what the did, without active (and sadistic) participation...
My point is that nobody can really blame individuals, who are protecting their ass, for participating on evil.
We probably both agree there is something wrong with overblown prison system. But we would hardly blame prison guard for participating. Also we would probably agree to punish prison guard who helps prisoner to escape.
Also some innocent civilians died in last Intifada, but nobody is demanding head of soldiers who killed those civilians.
Once the machinery is in place, inertia makes it very hard to stop: the cogs don't need to worry about the bigger picture, they can just keep on turning.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Eichmanns
This ties into the concept of the "Banality of evil" which plays out pretty much exactly as you described.