Uncovering Who the Nazis Really Were Law & Liberty

So in 1933, January the 30th, 1933, which was a very recent date, was the 90th anniversary. We just experienced the 90th anniversary of the President Hindenberg, the Great World War I military hero who was president of Germany, inviting Hitler and two other Nazis to become part of the Reich government. Hitler becomes chancellor and two other Nazis enter the cabinet. And the Nazis always viewed this as the day when they effectively seized power. And at the time, there was some concern about this, both domestically and internationally. But even for example, German-Jewish organizations. I mean, they obviously didn t like the Nazis, but they were not convinced that the Nazis were going to do what Hitler said that they were going to do.

So in eight days after the Nazis took power, Wilhelm Röpke gives a speech, a public lecture in Frankfurt am Main, in which he basically goes through and says, this is how we ve got to this point. This is how we ve got to this point where this party that is not just economically not in favor of free markets or any of these things, but actually is representative of a trend in the German-speaking world, and more generally in Europe, to reject what he calls liberalism. And by liberalism, he doesn t mean sort of 19th century liberalism, as a lot of people understood that at the time. He s not even talking about the German liberal parties that had, to a certain extent, participated in government in Weimar, Germany in the 1920s. For him, liberalism is another way of saying western civilization.

He s very clear about this if you read the speech. He is very clear in detailing what he means by this. He means Greece and Rome. He means Jerusalem. He means Judaism and Christianity. He means what you would call broadly speaking natural law ideas. And he also means the particular contributions of the enlightenment. All of which adds up to what he calls Western civilization. And he says the Nazis are in the business of taking this down. And not just the Nazis, but the Bolsheviks as well. Because remember, it s not just the right that s been radicalized in this period, it s also the left. The Communist Party in Germany is very strong at this time, the same time as well. So that is the essence of the speech.

And you think about it, it s a pretty brave thing to do, because Hitler had made no secret of how he proposed to deal with opponents once he got into power. He s very clear about this. He says, I m going to achieve power by legitimate means, which is what he did. But when I get into power, I m going to dismantle the Weimar Republic. So to get up eight days after these people have been admitted to power, and very quickly start taking over a lot of state institutions to get up and give a speech like that and say, I m telling you now, these people are not just economically problematic. They are a threat to civilization, in what you might call high German intellectual culture, was a very, very brave thing to do. And he paid a price for that pretty soon afterwards.

via lawliberty.org