Were there physical altercations between the people of 1930's Germany and the Nazi party prior to them becoming the main political power?
I'm usually told that people were very standoff-ish to Hitlers party, which led to them seizing power easier, and it's one of the main arguments of people who say punching Nazi's is a good thing. I'm hoping to be more informed about what happened in the past and how it correlates (Or how it doesn't) with what's happening now.
Thank you.
Commies and nazis were beating the shit out of each other on the streets
Who are "the people of Germany" exactly, since we're not counting the Nazis among them? Do the Communists who the Nazis fought their street battles with count as "the people of Germany"?
I apologize if the question was worded in a weird way. From what I read up on so far, the Nazi party were a very small minority of the country as a whole. My question could be framed as "Everyone else in Germany and the Nazi Party".
political violence was a staple of weimar life from the formation of the government to the eventual nazi reich, they would batter each other in the streets
it's very bad that we're seeing this kind of political culture return, from the left and the right
Would you know of any incidents off of the top of your head?
no it's not a period i've studied in a very long time but Ernst Rohm's brownshirts were all about the every day street violence so if you want to start anywhere start with reading about them(SA)
Thank you! I needed a good point to start, the amount of literature and documentation around that time period is pretty daunting to jump into.
Well let's look at the election in 1932. Hindenburg was still ahead even though hitler had around 37% of the votes(around 11 million) and the government would suspend the actions of the SA and SS in fear of the state of Germany losing control and power. Basically they had too much leeway in their actions
These actions included assaulting communists and Jews in the streets. But I guess it really never mattered whether or not there was resistance against the Nazis.
Germany was in turmoil, people were poor and everyone needed jobs. Hitler took power simply with the night of the long knives affair and the murder of Rohm. The SA was now under Hitler's control and nobody could contest this
and I apologize for wording my response in a seemingly hostile as I did.
What you have to understand is that there was a very strong revolutionary communist movement in Germany after WW1, there was even a short lived attempt that had to be put down with military force. The Nazis were only one of many organizations that arose as a counter force to these revolutionary communist organizations.
The most important historical lesson from that time period you can apply to today is that the infamous Nazi Brownshirts were formed by veterans of the Great War who opposed Communism and wished to organize themselves against mobs of violent communist revolutionaries. In other words "punching Nazis" just creates tougher, better organized, and more militant Nazis.
This is the kind of answer I was looking for, thank you.
>it's very bad that we're seeing this kind of political culture return, from the left and the right
This culture is solely from the Left. The Right are not starting riots and beating up their political opponents.
youtube.com
It's being going both ways from what I've been seeing. I don't want to turn this into /pol/, so I'll provide some more sources if you'd like.
The scariest part og projecting the political reality post WW1 pre-Nazi Germany onto modern politics is that realistically the "Nazis" haven't even arrived on the scene yet. We're still in the rioting communist phase with no real reactionary response from the right.
Yes, they were basically street thugs in the years leading up to actually gaining power.
Fascism thrives in a climate of violence, and an "us vs them" mentality. That's why antifa is so retarded.
>Several hundred fans of the racist "Alt-Right" figure Milo Yiannopoulos
It doesn't help your cause when that's your first sentence.
From what I read of this, the Right wanted to go see someone speak and the Left resorted to blocking peoples path/militant groups/ "small melees' to stop that.
Honestly, I think the next bit of political violence will come from the Right. When you have people being overtly aggressive to you and the media treats them as the victims, you might one day say 'fuck it'.
I appreciate all the replies to my thread, I honestly wasn't expecting so many of them. I'm glad I can be more informed and talk to most of my "antifa" friends (The joys of living in California) about how to approach these issues instead of feeding into them. Hopefully, anyways!
Thank you all, I'm glad I found at least one place with a civil discussion about this.
>I'm glad I can be more informed and talk to most of my "antifa" friends
There's your problem. You can't talk to 'Antifa'. These people are past that point and would beat you just for suggesting it. This violent ideology can only be defeated by one thing; violence. I wish it wasn't this way but it is.
von Papen played the communists against the SA in order to drum up support for an authoritarian regime (before the Nazi seizure of power). He then used it as an excuse to stick Hitler into power because he thought he could control the Nazis with Hindenburg and the rest of the conservatives. he was wrong.
the violence in the streets, like the reichstag fire, was a smokescreen to erode civil liberties in the republic. fear creates desire for security which overrides compassion for liberty.
You have no idea about the organised street thuggery nationalist parties dish out in European countries, do you? Left or Right, it doesn't matter. Political violence is a staple of radical movements.
Good thread.
One of the reasons the fascists reached power in Italy and the National Socialists reached power in Germany was because the judiciary and the police establishment were still conservative, so when fascists, Nazis and commies beat up each other, the Nazis and fascists got away easily, while the commies stayed in jail.
Nowadays the situation is the opposite. If antifas beat up cuckservatives whom they consider to be Nazis, they get away with only a slap in the wrist.
>leftist thugs come to disrupt an event
>people get into self defense when attacked
>hurrr how dare these right wingers defend themselves