Thread by @1goodtern

One of my dissertations was on the causes of the second world war.

I wrote it late, in a hurry, when I was young, naive, sleep deprived, and thought that it was ancient history.

But one aspect of what I wrote was what Germany looked like *from the outside*.
🧵

Here are six key views of Germany from other countries at the time that totally misread the situation.

Some of them might be relevant today.

They overlap a bit, but I've put a rough timeline along with them.

Stage One, 1919 to 1931:
"It's just a reaction to the previous chaos!!"

Germany was a wreck after WW1. Economically shattered, politically unstable, humiliated on the international stage.

Hitler emerged as a loud, theatrical extremist on the fringes.

Outside Germany people said:
"He's vulgar, but Germany is desperate."
"This is what hyperinflation does to a society."
"He won't last."

Foreign journalists often described him as temporary, provincial, or a Bavarian oddity.

The assumption was that institutions would hold.

<spoiler alert>

They didn't.

Stage Two, 1933:
"Phew!! At least he's not a communist!!"

Hitler is appointed Chancellor, not elected dictator, but he immediately:
Suspends civil liberties
Uses emergency powers
Targets political opponents

Outside Germany, business leaders reassure investors, conservative commentators argue he'll be "contained by responsibility", and newspapers emphasise his anti-Bolshevism, which they say is a good thing.

There's a quiet sigh of relief in parts of Britain and the US: "phew, Germany won't go red."

<spoiler alert>

It does go red.
Blood red.

Stage Three, 1933-34:
"He's restoring order!! Yay!!"
Trade unions crushed.
Opposition parties banned.
Press brought to heel.
Opponents jailed.
Or killed.

Defences made by seemingly intelligent people outside Germany:
"He's decisive."
"Democracy clearly wasn't working there."
"Strong medicine, unpleasant but necessary."
"It's the German way."

Stage Four, 1935-37:
"Those reports are probably exaggerated. Right??"
Anti Jewish laws formalised, public humiliation becomes commonplace, violence by state and private individuals becomes normalised.
Refugees try to warn the world.

Outside Germany, a lot of the world ignores the refugees.
Diplomats downplay accounts to avoid upsetting Hitler.
Newspapers soften the language to avoid scaring the readers.
"Every country has its problems."
"We must respect Germany's right to rule itself."

Stage Five, 1938:
"He only wants what's fair!!"
Austria annexed, Sudetenland demanded.

Hitler insists that he just wants what's fair.

Other countries just echo what he says:
"The treaty of Versailles was really too harsh."
"Self-determination matters."
"Better to give concessions than force a war."

Stage Five, 1938-39:
"We had no way of knowing it would go this far!!"
Kristallnacht shatters any remaining illusions.

But sympathy didn't lead to action.

There was a sudden dread realisation how far wrong this had all gone and how much worse it was going to get.

Blitzkrieg is just round the corner.

At every stage, the outside world had:
Reasons not to panic.
Hope it was all going to just blow over.
Justifications for 'staying calm'.

At every stage, otherwise intelligent people argued:
"This is all being overstated"
"You're being emotional"
"The situation is more complicated than you understand"

The people who said those things weren't monsters, they were much more bland and dangerous than that.

They were cautious, respectable, reasonable, calm, and catastrophically wrong.

I guess since we're here and since people are reading this, it's also really important to mention the warnings that were happening at the time, the cries for help, the shrill screams of impending catastrophe.

All of which were, of course, completely accurate.

Stage One, 1920s to early 1930s:
"This is not just noise."
German Jews, socialists, trade unionists, journalists, pastors, philosophers were already warning that this wasn't just extremism blowing off steam.

They warned that:
> The antisemitism wasn't just wordplay or rhetoric or harmless.
> The violence wasn't random.
> The movement wasn't a flash in the pan.

They warned *at the time* that the street fighting and violence was a *rehearsal*.

(take a look around now)

Outside Germany the minimisers basically said:
"They’re overreacting."
"They’re too close to it."
"They’re understandably emotional."
"They're biased."
"They're communists."

Stage Two, 1933:
"Appointment is the catastrophe."

As soon as Hitler was made Chancellor, exiles and observers warned that this was the decisive moment.

I remember sitting in a library at closing time reading Victor Klemperer's diary entry "Hitler Chancellor. What, up to election Sunday on March 5, I called terror, was just a mild prelude."

They turned off the library lights and I jumped like I had been stabbed.

The 'scaremongers' said that emergency powers would not be temporary, that civil liberties were gone for good, that there was nothing in the system that could stop Hitler.

Outside Germany the minimisers said:
"Surely the civil service will hold."
"Surely the president still has authority."
"Surely he’ll calm down now."

<spoiler alert>

He didn't.

Stage Three, 1933 to 1934:
"This is a dictatorship now."

All of the same earlier warners plus social democrats, and foreign correspondents warned that this was no longer politics.

They said it's too late:
> The independent courts are gone.
> The free press is finished.
> Violence is now policy.

They warned that if this wasn't stopped now, there was now no way back.

Outside Germany they kept up the minimisation:
"At least there’s stability."
"Every country needs order."
"Strong leadership can look ugly."

Stage Four, 1935 to 1937:
"They are telling you exactly what they will do."

Refugees, aid organisations, and exiled writers warned that the country wasn't at its endpoint, but that every word from their lips told you where it was going.

They warned:
Dehumanisation came first.
Removal comes next.
What follows is even worse.

They documented beatings, property seizures, disappearances, murder.

All state sanctioned.

They begged people to read the laws, listen to the speeches, to *believe* what was being said openly and publicly.

Outside Germany...
"We need more evidence."
"These are one sided accounts."
"Germany denies this."

Stage Five, 1938:
"Appeasement will accelerate the descent into madness"

Critics warned that concessions would not satisfy Hitler, they would embolden him.

They said:
> This is not about borders.
> This is not about fairness.
> This is ideological.
> This is about *power*.

They warned that every concession taught the same lesson to Hitler:
Push harder, go further, no one will stop you, no one can stop you.

Outside Germany the minimisers continued:
"You're being alarmist."
"You’re pushing us toward war."
"You don’t understand German grievances."

It's worth mentioning at this point that the German Reich spent *millions and millions and millions* on swaying overseas opinion via newspapers and politicians directly bought off.

Many of the major minimisers of the time were directly bought and paid for by Nazi cash.

Stage Six (well done to everyone who spotted I had two stage fives in the first half), 1938 to 1939:
"If you close the doors, people will die."

After Kristallnacht, the warnings were blunt, wavering between exhausted and shrill, and desperate.

Refugee advocates said time was running out, aid groups said delay was lethal, journalists said the line had been crossed and there was no way back.

They explicitly warned that death was coming.

Outside Germany:
"We sympathise."
"Our hands are tied."
"This is tragic, but complicated."

The warnings were not unclear, rare, subtle, or hard to understand.

They were dismissed because they were inconvenient, disruptive, demanding, and terrifying.

No one lacked information.
They lacked vision, nerve, and will.

It's a good thing that all this is just ancient history, and that none of it is relevant today, eh?

How I feel about this thread:

https://x.com/1goodtern/status/2011524891334623556?s=20