What if your sense of prescience also tells you "it doesn't have to go that way?"
Then what? What is the thing that people did not do in 1932 that they could have done, to prevent what followed?
(I'm thinking of the way that they had election after election, and the Nazis never got more than forty percent of the vote, and yet the government was handed over to them -- what could Germans do to prevent that? Or to prevent it from going forward when it was done?)
I think 1932 is way too late for a single person to change anything, and in essence you are talking about a single person who needs to convince his friends and organise others - and by that time, the whole machine was far too much in motion. In the beginning, there _was_ strong support for the NSDAP - both direct and the 'well, everything is so messed up, let's just see whether they can deliver what they promise.'
As for the 'only fourty percent' - don't forget that you have four or five main parties plus a handful of smaller parties, so any one party that gets fourty percent is likely to get the mandate to form the government.
( http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/ has a nifty map that allows you to view the statistics of the Weimar republic. If you choose a country and click on 'Reichstag' you see the election results. It's an incredibly detailed site.)
After 33, things proceeded at a nasty pace. Little by little, freedoms were taken away, and there was a sublimal preparation for the war, for scarcity, for unthinking obedience. The problem is, I think, that anyone who read Mein Kampf before Hitler came to power would have been incapable of imagining that it was meant to be an actual programme, and would be implemented; or that decent people should take part in it. That was - and to some degree, still is - unthinkable.
I think you need to go back further than 1932 to facilitate a change in society. (There is always the tired old plot of assasinating the bad guys; and in the case of a charismatic leader that certainly will work, but even so, I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start with that, whereas I _would_ have an idea how to mobilise the masses. Well, in theory.)
So many of the problems - geopolitical situation, end-of-empire feeling, very high unemployment, an economy in shreds, no idea how things would develop - are what gave rise to the NSDAP, and some of their solutions worked. Of sorts. At least initially; and many of their policies grew out of the times - not just in Germany, but elsewhere in Europe (and America) similar ideas were uttered.
I think that the opportunities to change things from within Germany were more limited than those from without - there's a lot that wasn't done, and could have been done. Strengthening the surrounding countries so they wouldn't fall over so quickly, for instance, organising an underground railway-type thing, sabotaging the efficient killing mechanisms of the death camps, and above all setting up a much more efficient propaganda machinery that would have kept Germans informed, or at least much more wary of what was going on in their own country.
If 40% of people are in favour of the Nazis and you're afraid they're going to parlay that into 100% of the power, you can try talking to the other 60% to make them see how bad the 40% are, you can try nibbling around the edges of the issues for the 40%, you can write things that can try to make a butterfly wing difference so that they don't have elections that are 49% either way and stealable.
Or you can move to Canada, as I did in 2002, however selfish infernal might think it.
I'm not sure it's that bad yet, but I would have to stay because no countries take disabled old people as immigrants. I'd have to try to get others out instead.
Ah. There is the root of the question. What's your reasoning, here? For the moment, at least, the radical right is out of power, their opposition is fairly unified, and the world situation is very different. It doesn't seem to me very similar to Germany in 1932; I think we've already stepped off the road to reactionary authoritarianism, though not all battles are won yet. What parallels are you seeing?
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timeasmymeasure
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What if your sense of prescience also tells you "it doesn't have to go that way?"
Then what? What is the thing that people did not do in 1932 that they could have done, to prevent what followed?
(I'm thinking of the way that they had election after election, and the Nazis never got more than forty percent of the vote, and yet the government was handed over to them -- what could Germans do to prevent that? Or to prevent it from going forward when it was done?)
no subject
As for the 'only fourty percent' - don't forget that you have four or five main parties plus a handful of smaller parties, so any one party that gets fourty percent is likely to get the mandate to form the government.
( http://www.gonschior.de/weimar/ has a nifty map that allows you to view the statistics of the Weimar republic. If you choose a country and click on 'Reichstag' you see the election results. It's an incredibly detailed site.)
After 33, things proceeded at a nasty pace. Little by little, freedoms were taken away, and there was a sublimal preparation for the war, for scarcity, for unthinking obedience. The problem is, I think, that anyone who read Mein Kampf before Hitler came to power would have been incapable of imagining that it was meant to be an actual programme, and would be implemented; or that decent people should take part in it. That was - and to some degree, still is - unthinkable.
I think you need to go back further than 1932 to facilitate a change in society. (There is always the tired old plot of assasinating the bad guys; and in the case of a charismatic leader that certainly will work, but even so, I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start with that, whereas I _would_ have an idea how to mobilise the masses. Well, in theory.)
So many of the problems - geopolitical situation, end-of-empire feeling, very high unemployment, an economy in shreds, no idea how things would develop - are what gave rise to the NSDAP, and some of their solutions worked. Of sorts. At least initially; and many of their policies grew out of the times - not just in Germany, but elsewhere in Europe (and America) similar ideas were uttered.
no subject
no subject
no subject
If 40% of people are in favour of the Nazis and you're afraid they're going to parlay that into 100% of the power, you can try talking to the other 60% to make them see how bad the 40% are, you can try nibbling around the edges of the issues for the 40%, you can write things that can try to make a butterfly wing difference so that they don't have elections that are 49% either way and stealable.
Or you can move to Canada, as I did in 2002, however selfish
no subject
no subject