[Marxism] Buying off the German people

["Charles Brown" <cbrown@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

In arguments elsewhere over comparisons between U.S.A. today and the pariah
regime of our era, I mentioned that most German's were not victims of Nazi
repression. This is evidence to support that. The image of Germany as a
"police state" for most Germans from '32 to '45 would seem to be misleading.
It was a police and murder state only for certain repressed and  minorities,
sadly and famously named from memory by most of us. I guess maybe I have had
in the past the image in my mind that certain minorities were fascistically
imprisoned and murdered, while the vast majority sort of cowered around,
timidly watching, and fearing that they themselves might be subject to the
same cruelty. But , probably contrariwise, for most Germans there was, under
the Nazis, a qualitative difference between their lives and mental/emotional
states and those of the victim groups.

 The important point might be that fascism in the U.S.A. could look a lot
more like it does now than some have thought. There does not have to come
about the air of a "police state" , a "totalitarian" atmosphere.

In fact, doesn't the below sort of rebuff the whole "totalitarian" mythology
of Arendt , et al. ? There probably wasn't total repression, total in the
sense that eveybody was repressed, and control by means of repression and
threat of repression.  Most Germans were probably _not_ under threat of
repression, in fear of surveillance by the secret police. Most Germans
probably didn't fear being searched by the Gestapo, anymore than most
patriotic Americans fear being investigated by the FBI today.

CB

Louis Proyect
(The debate about whether US imperialism buys off its working class through
the super-exploitation of the 3rd World has been on-going on Marxism lists
and PEN-L on the Internet for as long as I can remember. Here's some
interesting new information on another imperialist power that would seem to
suggest that this is exactly what took place.)


Der Spiegel, March 22, 2005
NEW HOLOCAUST BOOK, NEW THEORY
How Germans Fell for the 'Feel-Good' Fuehrer

By Jody K. Biehl in Berlin

Hitler not only fattened his adoring "Volk" with jobs and low taxes, he
also fed his war machine through robbery and murder, says a German
historian in a stunning new book. Far from considering Nazism oppressive,
most Germans thought of it as warm-hearted, asserts Goetz Aly. The book is
generating significant buzz in Germany and it may mark the beginning of a
new level of Holocaust discourse.

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