Review: The Hitler Myth by Ian Kershaw

The Hitler Myth, Image and Reality in the Third Reich.

  Today I’ll be reviewing a book that has already been out for some years, but I still think deserves more attention. In Ian Kershaw’s “The Hitler Myth”, the author sets out to explain the social relationship between the Fuhrer, the Nazi Party, and the populace. Following Max Weber’s “ideal types”, Prof Kershaw categorizes Hitler as a “charismatic” leader, typically emerging in pre-political times or moments of crises, in the absence of a legitimate state and bureaucracy. 

  Through an exhaustive use of reports from the SD, and from the remaining Social Democrat opposition groups, the author reveals how the image of Hitler created through propaganda campaigns, was radically detached from the realities of who he was. 

   Hitler’s speeches inspired the masses, and his early bloodless military victories (over the Sudetenland, the Rhineland coup etc) were enough to prove to them that he was a military genius. It was this image of him - the military genius - that also shielded him from criticism in moments of domestic crisis. The persecution of the churches for instance, which was met with much hostility from the populace, was blamed squarely on the Nazi Party, and the “radicals” that filled its ranks. Hitler on the other hand, was assumed to have known nothing about such excesses, and the excuse was made that if he had only known about what was taking place, he would have done something about it. An instance of this was the Rohm Putsch in 1934, or the “Night of Long Knives”. The SA, by 1934 were not viewed with much respect, as their hooliganish behaviour, and their sexual deviancy was looked down upon. When Hitler spilled their blood, the popular response was not one of horror, but of relief that their dear leader had stepped in to protect his beloved people from the excesses of his Party. So detached was the Fuhrer and his Party, in the eyes of the German people, that one ballot paper in Potsdam had scrawled across it: “For Hitler, Yes, for his Big-Shots (the party), No.” (pp.68). 

Max Weber, (1864-1920),
German Sociologist.

  Using Max Weber’s terms, as a “charismatic" leader, the basis of Hitler’s power lay "principally outside the sphere of everyday life" (pp.120). As long as this distance could be maintained, Hitler retained his influence as a symbol of national unity. 

  An interesting development was that the inner ring of the Nazi party, did not merely view the “Hitler myth” as a tool of propaganda. Goebbels especially, and Hitler himself began to fall under their own spell.
   To use less mystical terms, let me ask the obvious question: Given that Hitler had been vindicated as a strategist after having previously ignored the mounting criticisms and advice from the military leadership  in taking Czechoslovakia, (for more on this, see Irving’s Hitler’s War), what would this have done for his ego? Indeed, as Kershaw puts it, “The day on which Hitler started to believe in his own ‘myth’ marked in a sense the beginning of the end of the Third Reich.” (pp.82).

The boost in confidence from his previous victories, and the high esteem the German people held him in, deprived Hitler of his wits, and caused him make serious blunders. As the sanguinary campaign in the east extended for years - despite being promised a short victory - the German people could no longer bring themselves to exempt Hitler from blame, given that they had previously done so on the grounds that he was too occupied on said military and diplomatic efforts. The Hitler salute faded from public life, direct criticisms of the Fuhrer himself increased in number (as the SD reports demonstrate), and gradually the people increasingly wanted an end to the war, even at the cost of victory. 

“In this sense”, Kershaw argues, “the Hitler myth was a fundamental component of the underlying instability of the Nazi regime and its untrammelled dynamic of destruction.” (pp.264). What we learn then, is that the Hitler myth was not only a great boon to the Hitler state, but eventually planted the seeds of its destruction.

  The book was written (in English) originally in 1987, long before Kershaw received his knighthood, but even today it is hard to find a more impressive work of scholarship on such an important aspect of the Third Reich. Given its short length, its lack of academic jargon when discussing the “Hitler myth” (something commonplace in the works of Roger Griffin and Michael Burleigh for instance), and the importance of its subject, I recommend this book to everyone.

Downfall (2004): Inaccuracies.

 Before I begin, this isn't going to be some scathing review of what is otherwise a very entertaining movie. I hate to be the guy who ruins the magic of Star Wars by pointing out the impossibility of lightsaber technology, or telling everyone there could be no sound in a vacuum and therefore no Formula 1 race car sound coming from the TIE fighters as they fly through space. Nevertheless I'd like to point out two historical inaccuracies in the 2004 movie Downfall, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel.

 If anyone is reading this (god forbid) and can point out some other flaws please do and I will update this post to include them (only if they are properly referenced!).

Goebbels' "Throats cut" remark. 

Around 50 minutes into the movie, Joseph Goebbels is informed that his personal recruits are being "mowed down" due to their substandard weaponry and poor training. Goebbels insists that what they lack in capability they make up for in zeal. Eventually, he becomes impatient and has an outburst about the culpability of the German people.

Script:

"I feel no sympathy. I repeat, I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don't fool yourself. We didn't force the German people. They gave us the mandate. And now their little throats are being cut."

Not to nit-pick here, since Goebbels did express this kind of sentiment to one of his subordinates, but what he really said was was far more powerful.

'His comments represented a total attack on the old officer corps and 'Reaction'. He accused them of treason, treason which they had been committing for years…

   I objected to these ideas, this cheap excuse… 'Even if there may have been instances of treason, are they not more than compensated for by the loyalty, the self-sacrifice, the courage and the faith of the German people, who have shown more good will towards their government than any other nation has ever done.'

   My interjection had an unexpected effect. Dr Goebbels abandoned the topic of the alleged treason of the officer corps and turned, initially full of cynicism and then of anger, against the German people. He accused them of cowardice. He began his objections with the words: "What can I do with a nation whose men don't even fight any more when their women are being raped."

Then, he poured out justifications for his and Hitler's policies. It was no longer the old virtuoso performance of cold, calculating eloquence. It was an outburst in which for the first time ideas poured out with elemental force, which hitherto have been most carefully hidden, even denied.

   For then he suddenly announced: the German people had failed. In the east they were fleeing, in the west they were preventing the soldiers from fighting and receiving the enemy with white flags.

   His pale face became red with anger, his veins and his eyes bulged as he shouted that the German people deserved the fate that awaited them. And then, suddenly, calming down, he remarked cynically that the German people had after all chosen this fate themselves. In the referendum on Germany's quitting the League of Nations they chose in a free vote to reject a policy of subordination and in favour of a bold gamble. Well, the gamble hadn't come off. 

   I sprang up and wanted to interrupt him. I wanted to say that he himself and Hitler had never interpreted that referendum in terms of a choice between peace and an adventure. On the contrary, both had always insisted that they only wanted to use peaceful means in Germany's fight for existence.

   Dr Goebbels saw my gesture but didn't let me speak it. He too got up and continued to speak: 'Yes, that may surprise some people, including my colleagues. But have no illusions. I never compelled anybody to work for me, just as we didn't compel the German people. They themselves gave us the job to do. Why did you work with me? Now, you'll have your little throat cut.'

   Striding towards the door, he turned round once more and shouted: 'but the earth will shake when we leave the scene…' (1)

For reasons other than length, I can't understand why this was altered. My problem isn't merely the lack of historical accuracy, but also the fact that:"but the earth will shake when we leave the scene." would have added far more meaning to Goebbels' tantrum.

Albert Speer visits Magda Goebbels.

 Roughly an hour into the movie, Albert Speer is seen visiting Magda Goebbels alone in her room while she is sick. Just prior to this conversation, Speer also has a brief but sobering conversation with Trudl Junge about whether she plans to escape or stay and die with the Fuhrer. This conversation is not mentioned in Albert Speer's recollection, which is surprising since many other conversations with those surrounding Hitler (which seem far more trivial) are recalled by him. In fact, Trudl Junge/Humps is not mentioned in the entire book.  Speer's visit to Magda Goebbels is also completely different to his recollection.

Script: 

Speer: Fever?

Frau Goebbels: Albert, my heart can't take it. 

Speer: Why don't you take the children and get out of here?

Frau Goebbels: But where to?

Speer: I once told you, I can send a barge to Schwanenwerder. It can be fixed up as a hideout until it's all over... Which won't be long.

Frau Goebbels: I've thought it through carefully. I won't let the children grow up in a world with no National Socialism. 

Speer: Think it over again, Magda. The children deserve a future.

Frau Goebbels: If the idea of National Socialism dies, there is no future.

Speer: (gets up to leave, then turns once more) I can't believe you really want this.

Frau Goebbels: Go...

(Speer leaves)

Albert Speer in his own words:

"An SS doctor informed me that Frau Goebbels was in bed, very weak and suffering from heart attacks. I sent word to her asking her to receive me. I would like to have talked to her alone, but Goebbels was already waiting in an anteroom and led me into the little chamber deep underground where she lay in a plain bed. She was pale and spoke only trivialities in a low voice, although I could sense that she was in deep agony over the irrevocably approaching hour when her children must die. Since Goebbels remained persistently at my side, our conversation was limited to the state of her health. Only as I was on the point of leaving did she hint at what she was really feeling: ''How happy I am that at least Harald [her son by her first marriage] is alive." I too felt confined and could scarcely find words - but what could anyone say in this situation? We said good-by in awkward silence. Her husband had not allowed us even a few minutes alone for our farewell." (2)

 A completely different picture from that depicted in the movie scene, in which Joseph Goebbels is nowhere to be seen.

Anyway, sorry for spoiling everyone's fun! Next week I will be showing how Indiana Jones: Raiders of the Lost Ark and Inglorious Basterds are also somewhat unreliable in an academic setting (sarcasm).

References: 

(1) (1998) Noakes. J, Pridham. G, Nazism 1919-1945, Volume Four: The German Home Front in World War II, doc. 1379. From "Hier spricht Hans Fritzsche. Nach Gesprächen, Briefen und Dokumenten" edited by Hildegard Springer,  (Stuttgart 1949), pp.28-9.

(2) (1995) Speer. A, Inside the Third Reich, Chapter 32: Annihilation, Phoenix, London, pp. 642-3

George Orwell's "Bookshop Memories"

Blogger's remarks:
I thought I'd do something different today. I couldn't help chuckling at this memoir by George Orwell of his experience working in a second-hand bookshop. I can't help but admit to being one of those romantics picturing it "as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios". Working in a second hand bookshop has long been a small fantasy of mine, but I am a little wiser from reading this. Having worked at an Oxfam bookshop, I can also relate to Orwell's experience with the purchasing habits of social rejects with very rare and specific tastes, as well as women looking for books for their nephews (specifically that relative too). Nevertheless I am relieved that there are no complaints of a repeated customer asking for the same items (in my case: ladybird childrens books or books on British birds) but never being satisfied with what is presented to them. Lastly of course, who doesn't enjoy the smell of old books?
Anyway, enjoy!

"When I worked in a second-hand bookshop — so easily pictured, if you don't work in one, as a kind of paradise where charming old gentlemen browse eternally among calf-bound folios — the thing that chiefly struck me was the rarity of really bookish people. Our shop had an exceptionally interesting stock, yet I doubt whether ten per cent of our customers knew a good book from a bad one. First edition snobs were much commoner than lovers of literature, but oriental students haggling over cheap textbooks were commoner still, and vague-minded women looking for birthday presents for their nephews were commonest of all.
  Many of the people who came to us were of the kind who would be a nuisance anywhere but have special opportunities in a bookshop. For example, the dear old lady who ‘wants a book for an invalid' (a very common demand, that), and the other dear old lady who read such a nice book in 1897 and wonders whether you can find her a copy. Unfortunately she doesn't remember the title or the author's name or what the book was about, but she does remember that it had a red cover. But apart from these there are two well-known types of pest by whom every second-hand bookshop is haunted. One is the decayed person smelling of old breadcrusts who comes every day, sometimes several times a day, and tries to sell you worthless books. 
  The other is the person who orders large quantities of books for which he has not the smallest intention of paying. In our shop we sold nothing on credit, but we would put books aside, or order them if necessary, for people who arranged to fetch them away later. Scarcely half the people who ordered books from us ever came back. It used to puzzle me at first. What made them do it? They would come in and demand some rare and expensive book, would make us promise over and over again to keep it for them, and then would vanish never to return. But many of them, of course, were unmistakable paranoiacs. They used to talk in a grandiose manner about themselves and tell the most ingenious stories to explain how they had happened to come out of doors without any money — stories which, in many cases, I am sure they themselves believed. In a town like London there are always plenty of not quite certifiable lunatics walking the streets, and they tend to gravitate towards bookshops, because a bookshop is one of the few places where you can hang about for a long time without spending any money. In the end one gets to know these people almost at a glance. For all their big talk there is something moth-eaten and aimless about them. Very often, when we were dealing with an obvious paranoiac, we would put aside the books he asked for and then put them back on the shelves the moment he had gone. None of them, I noticed, ever attempted to take books away without paying for them; merely to order them was enough — it gave them, I suppose, the illusion that they were spending real money.
  Like most second-hand bookshops we had various sidelines. We sold second-hand typewriters, for instance, and also stamps — used stamps, I mean. Stamp-collectors are a strange, silent, fish-like breed, of all ages, but only of the male sex; women, apparently, fail to see the peculiar charm of gumming bits of coloured paper into albums. We also sold sixpenny horoscopes compiled by somebody who claimed to have foretold the Japanese earthquake. They were in sealed envelopes and I never opened one of them myself, but the people who bought them often came back and told us how ‘true’ their horoscopes had been. (Doubtless any horoscope seems ‘true’ if it tells you that you are highly attractive to the opposite sex and your worst fault is generosity.) 
  We did a good deal of business in children's books, chiefly ‘remainders’. Modern books for children are rather horrible things, especially when you see them in the mass. Personally I would sooner give a child a copy of Petrenius Arbiter than Peter Pan, but even Barrie seems manly and wholesome compared with some of his later imitators. At Christmas time we spent a feverish ten days struggling with Christmas cards and calendars, which are tiresome things to sell but good business while the season lasts. It used to interest me to see the brutal cynicism with which Christian sentiment is exploited. The touts from the Christmas card firms used to come round with their catalogues as early as June. A phrase from one of their invoices sticks in my memory. It was: ‘2 doz. Infant Jesus with rabbits’.
  But our principal sideline was a lending library — the usual ‘twopenny no-deposit’ library of five or six hundred volumes, all fiction. How the book thieves must love those libraries! It is the easiest crime in the world to borrow a book at one shop for twopence, remove the label and sell it at another shop for a shilling. Nevertheless booksellers generally find that it pays them better to have a certain number of books stolen (we used to lose about a dozen a month) than to frighten customers away by demanding a deposit.
Our shop stood exactly on the frontier between Hampstead and Camden Town, and we were frequented by all types from baronets to bus-conductors. Probably our library subscribers were a fair cross-section of London's reading public. It is therefore worth noting that of all the authors in our library the one who ‘went out’ the best was — Priestley? Hemingway? Walpole? Wodehouse? No, Ethel M. Dell, with Warwick Deeping a good second and Jeffrey Farnol, I should say, third. Dell's novels, of course, are read solely by women, but by women of all kinds and ages and not, as one might expect, merely by wistful spinsters and the fat wives of tobacconists. It is not true that men don't read novels, but it is true that there are whole branches of fiction that they avoid. Roughly speaking, what one might call the average novel — the ordinary, good-bad, Galsworthy-and-water stuff which is the norm of the English novel — seems to exist only for women. Men read either the novels it is possible to respect, or detective stories. But their consumption of detective stories is terrific. One of our subscribers to my knowledge read four or five detective stories every week for over a year, besides others which he got from another library. What chiefly surprised me was that he never read the same book twice. Apparently the whole of that frightful torrent of trash (the pages read every year would, I calculated, cover nearly three quarters of an acre) was stored for ever in his memory. He took no notice of titles or author's names, but he could tell by merely glancing into a book whether be had ‘had it already’.
In a lending library you see people's real tastes, not their pretended ones, and one thing that strikes you is how completely the ‘classical’ English novelists have dropped out of favour. It is simply useless to put Dickens, Thackeray, Jane Austen, Trollope, etc. into the ordinary lending library; nobody takes them out. At the mere sight of a nineteenth-century novel people say, ‘Oh, but that's old!’ and shy away immediately. Yet it is always fairly easy to sell Dickens, just as it is always easy to sell Shakespeare. Dickens is one of those authors whom people are ‘always meaning to’ read, and, like the Bible, he is widely known at second hand. People know by hearsay that Bill Sikes was a burglar and that Mr Micawber had a bald head, just as they know by hearsay that Moses was found in a basket of bulrushes and saw the ‘back parts’ of the Lord. Another thing that is very noticeable is the growing unpopularity of American books. And another — the publishers get into a stew about this every two or three years — is the unpopularity of short stories. The kind of person who asks the librarian to choose a book for him nearly always starts by saying ‘I don't want short stories’, or ‘I do not desire little stories’, as a German customer of ours used to put it. If you ask them why, they sometimes explain that it is too much fag to get used to a new set of characters with every story; they like to ‘get into’ a novel which demands no further thought after the first chapter. I believe, though, that the writers are more to blame here than the readers. Most modern short stories, English and American, are utterly lifeless and worthless, far more so than most novels. The short stories which are stories are popular enough, vide D. H. Lawrence, whose short stories are as popular as his novels.
Would I like to be a bookseller de métier? On the whole — in spite of my employer's kindness to me, and some happy days I spent in the shop — no.
Given a good pitch and the right amount of capital, any educated person ought to be able to make a small secure living out of a bookshop. Unless one goes in for ‘rare’ books it is not a difficult trade to learn, and you start at a great advantage if you know anything about the insides of books. (Most booksellers don't. You can get their measure by having a look at the trade papers where they advertise their wants. If you don't see an ad. for Boswell's Decline and Fall you are pretty sure to see one for The Mill on the Floss by T. S. Eliot.) Also it is a humane trade which is not capable of being vulgarized beyond a certain point. The combines can never squeeze the small independent bookseller out of existence as they have squeezed the grocer and the milkman. But the hours of work are very long — I was only a part-time employee, but my employer put in a seventy-hour week, apart from constant expeditions out of hours to buy books — and it is an unhealthy life. As a rule a bookshop is horribly cold in winter, because if it is too warm the windows get misted over, and a bookseller lives on his windows. And books give off more and nastier dust than any other class of objects yet invented, and the top of a book is the place where every bluebottle prefers to die.
  But the real reason why I should not like to be in the book trade for life is that while I was in it I lost my love of books. A bookseller has to tell lies about books, and that gives him a distaste for them; still worse is the fact that he is constantly dusting them and hauling them to and fro. There was a time when I really did love books — loved the sight and smell and feel of them, I mean, at least if they were fifty or more years old. Nothing pleased me quite so much as to buy a job lot of them for a shilling at a country auction. There is a peculiar flavour about the battered unexpected books you pick up in that kind of collection: minor eighteenth-century poets, out-of-date gazeteers, odd volumes of forgotten novels, bound numbers of ladies’ magazines of the sixties. For casual reading — in your bath, for instance, or late at night when you are too tired to go to bed, or in the odd quarter of an hour before lunch — there is nothing to touch a back number of the Girl's Own Paper. But as soon as I went to work in the bookshop I stopped buying books. Seen in the mass, five or ten thousand at a time, books were boring and even slightly sickening. Nowadays I do buy one occasionally, but only if it is a book that I want to read and can't borrow, and I never buy junk. The sweet smell of decaying paper appeals to me no longer. It is too closely associated in my mind with paranoiac customers and dead bluebottles."

- George Orwell: ‘Bookshop Memories’
First published: Fortnightly. — GB, London. — November 1936.

Review: In Defence of History by Richard Evans

 Although originally written fifteen years ago, Richard Evans' In Defence of History is still a book I would recommend to both students of history, and those simply curious about the possibility of historical knowledge. Evans, contrary to various postmodern thinkers hoping to cast doubt on the possibility of objectivity in history, argues that:

"...when Patrick Joyce tells us that social history is dead, and Elizabeth Deeds Ermarth declares that time is a fictional construct, and Roland Barthes announces that all the world's a test, and Hans Kellner wants historians to stop behaving as if we were researching into things that actually happened, and Diane Purkiss says that we should just tell stories without bothering whether or not they are true, and Frank Ankersmit swears that we can never know anything at all about the past so we might as well confine ourselves to studying other historians, and Keith Jenkins proclaims that all history is just naked ideology designed to get historians power and money in big university institutions run by the bourgeoisie, I will look humbly at the past and say despite them all: it really happened, and we really can, if we are very scrupulous and careful and self critical, found out how it happened and reach some tenable though always less than final conclusions about what it all meant." (pp.253) 

 Far from being an angry attack on postmodernists by some orthodox conservative elitist, the book grants many concessions to their criticisms. Rather than denying their validity outright, Evans shows that historians have long since been aware of many of their criticisms, however on most occasions the postmodernists have completely overstated their case. Although I think this book should be read by postmodernists, I suspect that (as acknowledged in the afterword section in the 2000 print) some will see it as an attack on only the more vulgar manifestations of postmodernism, rather than a theoretical treatise or an in depth debate with one specific and more sophisticated viewpoint. One criticism Evans makes can be summed up as "if nothing is objectively true, why should we accept the postmodernist argument as true?". I myself had to roll my eyes at this, which in my view is akin to asking a libertarian "who will build the roads?", or a communist "who will do all the difficult jobs?"

 In my view the real strength of the book lies in its evenhandedness. Despite coming from a (qualified) Marxist tradition himself, Evans has no remorse in taking E.H. Carr to task on the issue of the predictive capabilities of the "science" of history. Furthermore, Evans also brings up the poor scholarship of the now disgraced David Abraham, who in his The Collapse of the Weimar Republic, tried to argue that the Nazis rose to power at the hands of big business. Abraham was eventually accused of falsifying the facts to suit his thesis, and a damning example was his misquote of a German industrialist, in which he left out the crucial "not" in the original document thus completely misconstruing the actual meaning of the statement. (pp.116-124)
 This is not to say that Evans writes without any venom whatsoever. In the chapter Historians and their Facts, Evans mentions a critic of "documentary fetishism" H. Stuart Hughes, who has "of course a strong vested interest" in insisting that progress in the field of history comes not necessarily from the discovery of new material, but also from the re-reading of readily existing material. Evans remarks that Hughes would obviously argue this way given that "he has never discovered any new material himself in any of his publications, but has devoted his entire career to going over old grounds." (pp.84-85) It is unclear if Evans is deliberately trying to be insulting here or simply making an observation. If it is the former then it is ironic because as I have argued elsewhere: in his entire 3 volume history of the Third Reich, probably 99 percent of the sources referenced were secondary, in other words ground already covered by other historians.

 Evans often uses simple common sense to dispel the accusations railed by postmodernists and various "radicals". For instance, when the case is made that history is propaganda and that academia acts as the gatekeeper of the "dominant ideology", Evans simply points out that academia really doesn't have all that much of a sway over public opinion. This can be deduced from the fact that despite overwhelming acceptance among scientists, 46 percent of American's do not believe in the theory of evolution by natural selection, and less than 31 percent of the British public believe in climate change. Evans also mentions the classic The Making of the English Working Class by E.P. Thompson, a non academic historian, with a view against the grain in 1963 who was able to have an immense impact on the field, thus refuting the idea that academia is rigid in its convictions.

 All in all, the book is a fascinating read and provides basic defences against the more vulgarized postmodernist arguments, gives us an insight into the methods and strategies used by the author himself, and provides us with an entertaining history of, well... history!

Rating: 3.5 stars

Protip: "Definitive" history.

A slightly different post here today!

If anyone ever describes the work of an historian, be it their own work or somebody else's as "definitive", (for example: "This recent book by John Historian is the definitive History of the Malaysian Spice Industry!") you can safely write them off as full of it.

There can be no "definitive history" of anything, there will always be new sources previously unknown or overlooked, old translations that need improving upon etc. Anybody who uses the term "definitive" (and is not engaging in deliberate hyperbole), has one of two things in mind:

1) They don't want to have to read the accounts of anyone else out of sheer laziness or dogmatism. 

2) They don't want you to read the accounts of anyone else because they have their own agenda that they need you to play a part of, or at the very least keep out of the way of.

The religious views of Adolf Hitler.

  Was Hitler a Catholic, an Atheist, or otherwise?

Mythical depiction of Hitler as a knight by
Hubert Lanzinger.

 In this post I am not going to discuss the official Nazi policy towards established religion, the collaboration with and attacks against the church, nor do I intend to cover the martyrdom of theologians such a Dietrich Bonhoeffer. This is all well documented and widely known about.* We must not fall into the trap of assuming we can infer Hitler's views on religion by simply observing the party actions. This omnipotent image of Hitler has long fallen out of fashion amongst historians.

Instead, the focus will be on Hitler's own personal spiritual beliefs, and the only way to do this is to examine his own words.

 It has become very popular for atheists to claim Hitler was religious, and for the religious to declare the opposite. A perfect example can be seen in this interview below, in which conservative pundit Bill O'Reilly says that it is "well documented" that Hitler was an atheist, to which Richard Dawkins responds by saying Hitler was a Catholic. 

 It is true that Hitler remained a member of the Catholic church up to his death, as did Goering and Goebbels at the Fuhrer's orders. Nevertheless, formal membership of a religious organization tells us nothing of an individual's personal beliefs, and as Hitler's minister for armaments and war production Albert Speer recalled, despite his continued membership of the Catholic church, Hitler "had no real attachment to it".

 Other atheists like to take certain quotes from Hitler which indicate that his actions were taken with religious motivation. A popular quote is: "I believe today that my conduct is in accordance with the will of the mighty creator."(1)

 The problem with quotes such as these is that they are all from Mein Kampf, which was a book written for the public in the 20s, a semi manifesto. Let us not forget that Adolf Hitler was a politician, and politicians above all have the incentive to mask their true opinions in order to appeal to the population. Therefore we must recognise that there were two Hitlers: the public man and the private man. As Speer also described: "Amid his political associates in Berlin, Hitler made harsh pronouncements against the church, but in the presence of women he adopted a milder tone - one of the instances where he adapted his remarks to the surroundings." According to Speer, Hitler hoped to one day unite the Catholic and Protestant churches, but did not have confidence Reich Bishop Muller's ability to carry out such a radical proposal. (2)

One of the last ditch efforts of objectors is often to say that party radicals such as Bormann and Goebbels may have been anti-church radicals, but that Hitler was personally more favourable to religion. This modern day reasoning bares striking resemblance to the same view of Hitler that was held throughout large parts of the Third Reich. "The Fuhrer does not want this!" and "...inside you are Bolsheviks and Jews! Otherwise you wouldn't be able to carry on behind the Fuhrer's back!" were common objections raised against party upstarts (3). There was no truth behind these rationalisations, which were ultimately the intended result of the 'Fuhrer Myth' that had been constructed by Nazi propaganda. In truth, despite there being no written order for it by the Fuhrer himself, Hitler was in full approval of the closing down of Catholic monasteries. "...one must rejoice that the closing of the monasteries enables us to restore to the life of society many men who are capable of rendering services to the community and wishful to work... monasteries are generally corporations, and consequently can be dissolved by means of private agreements made with the Prior." (4).

 Hitler nevertheless spoke of the inevitable clash between National Socialism and religion, but rather than advocating a war, instead proposed to let the different religions "devour themselves, without persecution."

"...we must not replace the church with something equivalent. That would be terrifying! It goes without saying that the whole thing needs a lot of thought. Everything will occur in due time. It is a simple question of honesty... The German people's especial quality is patience; and it's the only one of the peoples capable of undertaking a revolution in this sphere." (5)

 Hitler would often speak of Bolshevism and Christianity as greatly intertwined, referring to the former as the "illegitimate child" of the latter. (6) It was discussed on the Night of the 29th-30th of November 1944 the relationship between Christianity, Communism, and Jewry. 

 "Jesus was certainly not a Jew. The Jews would never have handed one of their own people to the Roman courts; they would have condemned Him themselves. It is quite probable that a large number of the descendants of the Roman legionaries, mostly Gauls, were living in Galilee, and Jesus was probably one of them. His mother may well have been a Jewess. Jesus fought against the materialism of His age, and, therefore, against the Jews. 

Paul of Tarsus, who was originally one of the most stubborn enemies of the Christians, suddenly realised the immense possibilities of using, intelligently and for other ends, an idea which was exercising such great powers of fascination. He realised that the judicious exploitation of this idea among non-Jews would give him far greater power in the world than would the promise of material profit to the Jews themselves. It was then that the future St. Paul distorted with diabolical cunning the Christian idea. Out of this idea, which was a declaration of the Jews, he created a rallying point for slaves of all kinds against those in dominant authority." The religion fabricated by Paul of Tarsus which was later called Christianity, is nothing but the Communism of to-day.

(Martin) Bormann intervened. Jewish methods, he said, have never varied in their essentials. Everywhere they have stirred up the plebs against the ruling classes. Everywhere they have fostered discontent against the established power. For these are the seeds which produce the crop they hope later to gather. Everywhere they fan the flames of hatred between peoples of the same blood. It is they who invented class-warfare, and the repudiation of this theory must therefore always be an anti-Jewish measure. In the same way, any doctrine which is anti-Communist, any doctrine which is anti-Christian must, ipso facto, be anti-Jewish as well. The National Socialist doctrine is therefore anti-Jewish in excelsis, for it is both anti-Communist and anti-Christian. National Socialism is solid to the core, and the whole of its strength is concentrated against the Jews, even in matters which appear to have a purely social aspect and are designed for the furtherance of the social amenities of our own people. The Fuehrer concluded:

Burgdorff has just given me a paper which deals with the relationship between Communism and Christianity. It is comforting to see how, even in these days, the fatal relationship between the two is daily becoming clearer to the human intelligence."(7)

 This extract gives us much to ponder. Firstly, the opening statement that Jesus was not a Jew, coupled with the speculation about the ethnicity of his mother tells us a great deal about Hitler's own opinion towards the status of those with one Jewish parent. However, on the subject of religion it reveals once again the hostile attitude towards Christianity, but shows explicitly that it was due to its Jewish corruption. Remarks like this bear a striking resemblance to those of Arthur Schopenhauer, who in his magnum opus spoke of the restriction upon Christianity by "an element quite foreign to it", which was the "Jewish doctrine of faith."

German philosophers, Immanuel Kant, Arthur Schopenhauer,
& Friederich Nietzsche

"The sublime founder of Christianity had necessarily to adapt and accomodate himself, partly consciously, partly, it may be, unconsciously, to this doctrine; and so Christianity is composed of two very heterogeneous elements." (8)

 It is more than possible that this speculation was inspired by Schopenhauer, as on the 16th of May 1944, Hitler spoke praisingly of German philosophers Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche and referred to them as the "greatest of (German) thinkers, in comparison with whom the British, the French and the Americans have nothing to offer."

"His complete refutation of the teachings which were a heritage from the Middle Ages, and of the dogmatic philosophy of the Church, is the greatest of the services which Kant has rendered to us. It is on the foundation of Kant's theory of knowledge that Schopenhauer built the edifice of his own philosophy, and it is Schopenhauer who annihilated the pragmatism of Hegel. I carried Schopenhauer's works with me throughout the whole of the first World War." 

 Hegel would later on act as the basis for Karl Marx's own theory of Historical Materialism, and so it is no wonder that Hitler marvelled at Schopenhauer's refutation of him. However, Hitler also rejected Schopenhauer's pessimism, believing it to have "been far surpassed by Nietzsche." (9) Therefore it would be wrong to label Hitler as a Schopenhauerian, especially given Schopenhauer's views on nationalism and individualism.

"Individuality is a far more important thing than nationality... National character is only another name for the particular platform which the littleness, perversity and baseness of mankind take in every country. Every nation mocks at other nations, and they are all right." (10)

 It would also be wrong to label Hitler's views as anything more than "quasi-Nietzschean". As Michael Burleigh argued, the Nazis latched onto a distorted version of Nietzsche that originated with his sister Elizabeth and her "barmy husband, Bernhard Forster". 

 "Much of Nietzsche's thought has to be suppressed to construe him as a proto-Nazi, principally his view of antisemites as part of the nihilistic 'herd', or 'mob' whom he despised: 'worm-eaten physiological casualties [are] all men of Ressentiment, a whole vibrating realm of subterranean revenge, inexhaustible and insatiable in its eruptions against the happy, and likewise in masquerades of revenge and pretexts for revenge. Nietzsche welcomed the creative involvement of Jews in what he hoped would be 'the strongest possible European mixed race', a notion hard to square with Hitler's obsession with racial purity." (11)

 In this extract Hitler also refers to Jesus' fight against the "materialism of His age", which is a common theme throughout his conversations. In fact, Hitler feared that the increasingly apparent problems inherent in Christianity were "ripening mankind for conversion to materialistic Bolshevism" which would be a "terrible tragedy" because mankind would "lose all sense of proportion, and once he considers himself to be the lord of the universe, it will be the end of everything." (12) The absurdity of Christianity then, in Hitler's eyes would give birth to an age of atheism, which was hated at least equally! This echoes his previous denunciation of the Catholic Centre Party during the Weimar years for all too willingly engaging in coalitions with the 'atheist internationalists' of the Social Democrat Party. (13) This view was also carried into the policy of the SS, which forbade atheism as a declared option for its members, leaving only Protestant, Catholic, or 'believer in God' (which appears to mean a non religious theism). This was because atheism signified a denial of higher powers, which constituted a potential source for indiscipline (14).

 Hitler was not always hostile to the "materialistic" Bolsheviks however. On the night of July the 11th 1941, Hitler used the Russians an an example of a people who were unafraid of death despite their lack of belief in a God. This he believed, refuted the idea that religion was necessary because everyone needs "a refuge where he can find consolation and help in unhappiness." Hitler compared this phenomena to two children raised in different environments:

"When one provokes in a child a fear of the dark, one awakens in him a feeling of atavistic dread. Thus this child will be ruled all his life by this dread, whereas another child, who has been intelligently brought up, will be free of it."

 This ability to face death in the absence of a God, due to long being free from dogmatic religious teaching, was "a lesson" that could be "drawn from the Bolshevik front." (15). Hitler declared that "man has discovered in nature the wonderful notion of that all-mighty being whose law he worships." and described the "God" or "the almighty" as "the domination of natural laws throughout the whole universe." (which combined with his belief in divine providence, sounds remarkably like Stoic pantheism) (16).

 One of Christianity's weaknesses in Hitler's eyes, was the precision with which God is explained. This meant that if the Church were to advance with the times and keep up with science (which was never stationary), the ground would "inevitably be cut from under her feet." It was for this reason then, that the Church was opposed to all progress. Islam had an advantage over Christianity in this respect. This was because according to the Islamic faith, "to form a conception of Allah is not vouchsafed to man."(17). Thus Islam could continuously adapt itself to modern science by making the nature of God as mysterious and as nebulous as necessary, unlike the the Christian "conception of the Beyond" which exposed itself to "attacks of unceasing progress". This was not the only positive remark Hitler had towards the Islamic faith. Hitler could "imagine people being enthusiastic about the paradise of Mahomet", but not for the "insipid paradise of the Christians" where one would after having listened to Wagner while alive, hear "nothing but hallelujahs"(18). Furthermore, according to Albert Speer:"Hitler had been much impressed by a scrap of history he had learned from a delegation of distinguished Arabs." Had the Mohammedans won the battle of Tours in the eighth century, they would have moved beyond France and into Central Europe, and thus the world would have been Mohammedan. "For theirs was a religion that believed in spreading the faith by the sword and subjugating all nations to that faith." Due to their racial inferiority, Hitler speculated, the Arabs would have eventually abandonded the harsh European climate,  leaving "Islamized Germans" standing "at the head of this Mohammedan Empire." Hitler regretted that Europe inherited Christianity with its "meekness and flabbiness". "Why didn't we have the religion of the Japanese who regard sacrifice for the Fatherland as the highest good? The Mohammedan religion too would have been much more compatible to us than Christianity." (19). 
Instead, Europe was left with Christanity with its "degenerative effects" which were allegedly partly to blame for the decline of the Roman Empire (20). As an interesting sidenote, Heinrich Himmler made similar remarks to his Croatian volunteers in 1944, stating that he had "nothing against Islam; for it preaches to its members in this division and promises them paradise if they fought and died. A practical and agreeable religion for soldiers!"(21)

 If it is possible to conclude on such a complex subject, it would appear that Hitler was not an atheist, nor was he a Catholic. He shared the same sentiments of Anti-theism with many well known atheists however this hatred was directed almost entirely towards the Christian church which he referred to as "nothing more than a hereditary joint stock company for the exploitation of human stupidity." (22).  Due to the influence of the established Churches over the German population at the time, he had to be strategic and wait patiently for the eventual disappearance of religion from society.

 Though, not a follower of any particular religion, Hitler was by no means an atheist, and remained incredibly hostile towards materialism and Bolshevism, which he tied together with the biggest target of his hatred, the Jews.

* If you want to know more about this I highly recommend The Nazi Persecution of the Churches by J.S Conway. 

(1) Taken from Chapter 2 of Mein Kampf Volume I. Multiple other quotes of this nature can be found at Atheism.About.com.

(2) (1995) Albert Speer, Inside the Third Reich, Phoenix, pp.148-149.
(3) (2001) Ian Kershaw, The Hitler Myth, Oxford University Press, pp.178-179.
(4) (1973) Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-44, Introduced by H.R. Trevor Roper, 7th April 1942.

(5) ibid, Night of the 11th-12th July 1941, pp.6-7.

(6) ibid.

(7) ibid, pp.721-22.

(8) (1819) Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation, Volume I, Dover Publications Inc, New York, 1969, pp.387-388.

(9) Table Talk, pp.720.

(10) (1851) Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena, The Wisdom of Life, Cosimo Inc, New York, 2007.

(11) (2001) Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich, A New History, Macmillan, London, pp.98. "worm-eaten physiological casualties..."is from Nietzsche's The Geneology of Morals.

(12) Table Talk, 1st Aug, 1942, pp.607.

(13) Burleigh, The Third Reich, pp.717.

(14) ibid, pp.196-197.

(15) Table Talk, pp.6.

(16) ibid.

(17) ibid, pp.606.

(18) ibid, 13th Dec, 1941, pp.143.

(19) Speer, Inside, pp.149-150.
(20) (2001) Jeremy Noakes & Geoffrey Pridham, Nazism: 1919-1945, A Documentary Reader, Volume III, 3rd Ed, University of Exeter Press, pp.75 (Doc: 503. Hossbach report 5th Nov, 1937.)
(21) (2012) Peter Longerich, Heinrich Himmler: A Life, Oxford University Press, pp.677.

(22) Table Talk, pp.606.

Why Appease Hitler?

Why did Britain and France try to appease Hitler prior to WWII?

 In 1938, Britain and France signed the Munich Agreement with Germany, which allowed for the annexation of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia. This was an historical act of appeasement and there were various reasons why both Britain and France allowed for it. For instance, many Britons saw Hitler as a possible ally against Russian communism, and the British Labour party also wanted to spend more money on infrastructure rather than on the military. In France, there was also the psychological fear of another war in Europe. France's landscape had been severely scarred by the First World War, and it was no surprise that there was a fear of repeating such an event.

  Though these are legitimate reasons for France and Britain appeasing Hitler, they are not the most significant ones.

  The largest factors that lead to the signing of the Munich agreement were: Hitler's remilitarisation of the Rhineland, the state of the European economy, Britain's lack of reliable allies, and the growing sympathy towards Germany in the British public.

The French Maginot Line

  In 1936 Hitler took a great risk and moved his troops to the Rhineland. This helped to secure an area of great strategic importance to him. The Rhineland was the easiest route between France and Germany, this was precisely why Germany had been forbidden to place troops there as per the Locarno Treaty. Because of this, Germany had not placed troops in the area since World War One. According to the treatise, an act of this nature would be "regarded as a hostile act... and as calculated to disturb the peace of the world". Such a risky move held grave implications for Germany, as it could have been met with completely justified aggression from neighbouring European countries. However, due to various psychological and economic factors, France did nothing. Hitler had gambled, and it had paid off. Had Europe responded to this act "Germany's chances in the event of a full scale attack were hopeless" (Robertson, 2001, pp. 79).

  Hitler was well aware of the strategic importance of the Rhineland, and it was made clear by the German foreign office that "until the Rhineland had been digested no active steps would be taken in foreign affairs... Once the western frontier had been fortified and the countries of Central Europe understood that France could not invade Germany at will, things would change." (Carr, 1972, pp. 70). France had recognised this threat from Germany since the early 30's, this prompted them to work on constructing the great 'Manginot line'. However this was not enough, and the "comforting shelter of her fortresses" has distracted the French from the very real need for an active standing army. (Roberts, 2001, pp.283)

Now that there was no easy means of entering Germany and preventing misdemeanors, the French government finally realised that their greatest leverage had been lost. Any future diplomacy with Germany would have to take this into account.

  The next large factor was the state of the European economy. Most countries throughout Europe and the world were still feeling the effects of the great depression which occurred in 1929 and had lasted throughout the 30's. Britain was suffering due to her reliance on international trade, which was still recovering from the war time disorganisation. By September 1932, unemployment in Britain had risen to a staggering 3.75 million (Thomson, 1965, pp.130-131).

  France was an anomaly in this respect, while Britain and the United States had experienced the economic depression at that time, France would not feel the effects until 1931. This meant that her neighbours had had an additional two years to recover, leaving France behind to suffer. France at this point had little by way of industrial output, and mainly relied upon trade. According to the contemporary economist Leonard Rist: by 1935, "France had to be content with a vegetative economy stabilised at the depressed level to which the previous two years had reduced her after the great disappointment of 1933".

  In the years 1936-38, France had only a 6 percent share in the world exports of manufactured products, as opposed to 1926-29 when they had closer to 11 percent (Mommsen, 1938 pp. 213). During these years, France took a sharp turn in electoral politics. Previously, France had consistently voted for moderately right wing parties and policies, but by 1936 the moderately Socialist Popular Front lead by Leon Blum had won the election. In the same manner as the Labour Party in the United Kingdom, the Popular Front was divided between focusing on public welfare and infrastructure, and arming itself against the impending German threat. This indecisiveness may have been as much of a problem from French militarisation as the poor economy itself.

  It must be acknowledged that Germany too had suffered severe effects of the great depression, due to the abrupt end to American loans. Germany's level of unemployment had increased from a mere 2 million in 1929 to over 6 million by March 1932 (Thomson, 1965, pp.131). Nevertheless, whilst France and others were lagging behind economically, Germany had already began preparing for war and had ended unemployment through the rebuilding of the military and the introduction of public works, thereby boosting aggregate demand considerably. In addition, in May 1933, Hitler had suspended all external debt payments and announced it to all of German's foreign creditors, thereby putting Germany into considerably less debt for a period of time.

Chamberlain in 1938, proudly displaying his peace
agreement with Hitler.

  Turning our attention yet again to Britain, there were additional factors at play which determined Britain's compliance with Germany. Firstly, Britain was militarily vulnerable. Britain still had imperial influence across the world at this point, but after the First World War her place in the world was no longer one of the greatest superpower. Her resources were spread thinly, and the commonwealth was unlikely to assist Britain in an armed conflict. Dominions such as Australia and Canada had little interest in the affairs of Central Europe, and Chamberlain was under pressure to convince them how much of a threat Hitler could be to their own interests. Other than New Zealand, most of the commonwealth was in favour of appeasing Hitler, and did not recognise the threat that he posed. Far away from central Europe, Britain's dominions failed to appreciate the concern she had towards the dictators. Rather than being bound to follow British policy decisions, the dominions were merely informed by them. (Ovendale, 1975 pp. 319). For instance South Africa, under Smuts was under the impression that supporting an armed campaign against Germany would result in their immediate involvement in the war, a path Smuts was reluctant to travel.

  This meant that other than the United States, Britain had nobody left to depend on for aid. Chamberlain was now largely reliant upon support from Roosevelt, who had promised that the US industry would be at Britain's disposal. Roosevelt recognised Hitler as a threat more than the commonwealth had, however military support was not a guarantee. It would seem that Anthony Eden (foreign secretary at the time) was expecting too much from Roosevelt too early on, and any armed conflict with Germany would be a disaster until there could be some way to gather allies and military might.

  Another reason for Britain's compliance with Germany was public opinion. Perhaps the smallest of the four factors listed, but a large one nevertheless. Ever since the end of the First World War and the signing of the Treaty of Versailles, there had been sympathy for the German people and a sense of guilt at her harsh treatment by the allies. Both Britain and the US had recognised the dangers of punishing Germany to such a degree, and had urged for restraint. Although Germany did indeed lose her colonies, the Allies under Wilsons leadership had renounced "annexations" as well as "indemnities" that were usually required from defeated countries, instead these were replaced by "reparations" for the dead civilians in the victorious countries (Howard, 2002, pp.115). Wilson and Lloyd George had both been aiming for peace in Europe through the creation of a League of Nations, whereas Clemenceau's goal was to ensure Germany could never pose a threat to France again, at any cost.

A cartoon depicts the harsh terms imposed on Germany via the
Treaty of Versailles at the hands of French leader Clemenceau.

 In addition, Britain along with the US, had been strongly opposed to the idea of a permanent occupation of the Rhineland as well as the creation of independent buffer states between France and Germany, an idea concocted by Clemenceau to shield France from possible future German invasion (Stevenson, 2004, pp.522).

  Not only was there sympathy towards the Germans regarding the repercussions of the First World War, but there was also an element of understanding towards Hitler's aim to bring German speaking people under his rule. One of the main principles of the League of Nations that had been inspired by Wilson's Fourteen Points, was self determination for all national and ethnic groups. Incidentally, the Sudetenland was home to 3 million German speaking Czechs who wanted self determination, rather than being ruled over by the Czech government.  As Timothy Snyder has recently put it: "The Treaty of Versailles indeed contradicted the very principle for which the Entente Powers had claimed to fight the (first world) war: national self-determination." (Snyder, 2010, pp.8). With this principle in mind, it seemed only fair that the German people in the area should be granted such a right. German-backed Sudetenland Nazi party leader Henlein demanded national determination for the German speaking Czechs. Hitler supported these demands, promising to provide military assistance should they fail to be met. In 1938, without consulting the Czechs, the French, or even his own cabinet, Chamberlain visited Berchtesgaden and conceded self determination for the Sudeten Germans, declaring that "you can get all essentials without war and without delay." (Irving, pp.151). Chamberlain wasn't alone in thinking that Hitler would keep his word, and that this was purely a matter of self determination, and not a means for Hitler to gain control of a strategically useful area for both military or industrial purposes. They were gravely mistaken (Seton-Watson, 1939, pp.111).   Although this sympathy was short lived after Hitler's true intentions in Czecheslovakia were revealed, it must be argued that there was a strong sympathy for the German people in Britain and the United states, and a dedication to guarantee them the same rights as any other nation. Ultimately in Britain, there were differing sides of the argument regarding Germany's future, a struggle between "those who saw in Hitler's Third Reich a challenge and a menace to Western civilisation and those who still experienced a sense of guilt at the inequalities created by the Treaty of Versailles... the chasm which divided them was clearly unbridgeable, and it was in recognition of this lack of public unity that the Government formed their policy." (1966, Wheeler-Bennett, pp.238). Due to this undecided attitide towards Hitler, various half hearted policies were enacted, almost tip-toeing around the prospect of war, aiming to get Hitler to sign more agreements in the hope that it would be difficult for him to break them the more he had to sign. This proved futile as Hitler already had a long history of breaking his agreements, the Locarno Treaty being a perfect example.

  In conclusion, despite the reasons mentioned at the beginning, the largest factors that determined the French and British decision to appease Hitler with the Munich agreement were economic, social, and strategic. Both players were at a disadvantage by the mid to late 30's both militarily and economically (France in particular), and knew that the opportunity for war had either come and gone, or was yet to arise. Whatever public opinions had been at one point, it became clear that Hitler was indeed a threat to European security, therefore the appeasements did not come out of any affection towards Hitler or the Nazis, rather it was out of sheer precaution.

References:

(1973) W. Carr, Arms, Autarky and Aggression, Arnold, London, pp.70.

(1967) M. Golbert, The Appeasers, 2nd ed, Weidenfield and Nicolson, London, pp.189.

(2007) M. Howard, The First World War: A Very Short Introduction, Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp.115.
(2003) D. Irving, Churchill's War: The Struggle for Power, Focal Point Publications, pp.151.

(1983) W.J Mommsen, The Fascist Challenge and the Policy of Appeasement, George Allen & Unwin, London, pp.213.

(1975) R. Ovendale, Appeasement and the English Speaking World, CS Printing, Wales, pp.320.

(2010) T. Snyder, Bloodlands; Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, Vintage, pp.8.

(2004) D. Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of The First World War, Penguin, London, pp.522.

(1965) D. Thomson, England in the Twentieth Century: The Pelican History of Endland 9, Penguin Books, Middlesex, pp.130-131. 

(2001) J.M Roberts, Europe: 1880-1945, 3rd ed, Pearson Education ltd, pp.282-283.

(2001) E.M Robertson, Hitler's Pre-War Policy and Military Plans: 1933-1939, pp.79.

(1939) R.W Seton Watson, Munich and the Dictators, Methuen and co ltd, London, pp.111.

(1966) J.W Wheeler-Bennett, Munich, Prologue to Tragedy, pp.238.

Owenism and the Cooperative movement.

How did Robert Owen's ideas affect the lives of men and women involved in the labour movements of the 19th century?

Robert Owen (1771-1858)

  The political movement known as "Owenism" named after the 19th century reformer Robert Owen, was the result of one man's vision to create a spiritual, social and political revolution among the disenfranchised. Broadly speaking, it was an attempt to create a better world based on the maximum use of reason and co-operation, an abandonment of "individual ignorant selfishness", and embracing "the origin of truth and good". If his aims could truly have been realised, it was Robert Owen's belief that humanity would enter a new age succeeding the unstable and ruthless period of industrial capitalism, where there would be a union "man to man" and lasting harmony "to nature and to God." (1858, Owen. R, pp.III).

  To many these aims may sound unrealistic, archaic, or vaguely defined. Therefore, it must be investigated as to how Owen aimed to achieve this utopian dream of his, and ultimately what the results were.  Was it doomed as a failure?, or were there successes and improvements for the lives of those men, women, and children involved with this historic movement? 
  Owenism itself is a difficult term to narrow down due to the broad array of reformers who were inspired by Owen's ideas of cooperation and self help. "Owenism" itself included thinkers who were anti-chartist, anti-insurrectionary, and on many occasions there were those who were sympathetic to Liberalism and Tory radicalism, with Richard Oastler's paternalism bearing a striking resemblance to Owen's.  Alternatively many of those who embraced Owen's ideas were sympathetic with the more revolutionary forms of syndicalism (2011, E. Hobsbawm, pp.152). 

  E.P Thompson suggests that Robert Owen theoretically was in line with thinkers such as William Godwin, and rather than being the "first of the modern Socialist theorists" he was "one of the last of the eighteenth century rationalists", (1991, pp.863). However, from a philosophical and theoretical point of view "Owenism" is largely considered a form of socialism. Indeed, in the manner of his contemporary radical thinkers he believed that the "natural standard of human labour" should be recognised as the "practical standard of value". This would later inspire the rule: "Cost the Limit of Price" given by Josiah Warren (father of individualist-anarchism and part time associate of Owen).  However, since the time of Thomas Hodgskin's publication of the pamphlet Labour Defended, there had already been a far more systematic criticism of the current economic system, with the declaration that capital, contributing little to nothing on its own to the creation of value, reaped a disproportionate amount of the reward that labour (being the true source of value) was entitled to.
  Nevertheless, Karl Marx and Frederich Engels in certain instances spoke highly of him. In somewhat praising terms, "English Socialism" according to Engels, "arose with Owen," 

 "a manufacturer, and proceeds therefore with great consideration toward the bourgeoisie and great injustice toward the proletariat in its methods, although it culminates in demanding the abolition of the class antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat." (1845, Engels. F, pp.236).

   Another view that is usually considered vital in order to be considered a socialist, is the belief in human equality. For Robert Owen however there had always been a strong sense of paternalism. In Owen's eyes the poor did not simply need to be alleviated from material want, but their intellectual and spiritual outlook also needed to be changed. Without a completely new social order based upon his principles, without proper education and enlightenment, as a class they could never rise above their current lowly way of life. However, despite his views concerning the current moral condition of the poor, it must be noted that he believed human beings were influenced by their environments and were all equally malleable, and therefore everybody had the same potential to be improved as a human being under the correct circumstances.  However, Marx noted in his thesis on Fuerbach that: 

"the materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore, divide society into two parts, one which is superior to society." (1968, Marx. K, pp.660).

  Owen was also attacked by the more contemporary radical reformers for his proposals, and his model co-operative villages were scornfully referred to by William Cobbett as "Mr Owen's Parallelograms of Paupers". The idea of setting up villages for the poor and indoctrinating them into new ways of thinking resembled Malthusianism, and it was feared that under the authority of the already hated British government these villages would quickly show themselves to be no different from the dreaded workhouses. William Sherwin for example, feared that these proposed institutions would be "prisons", "a community of vassals":

 "Mr Owen's object appears to me to be to cover the face of the country with workhouses, to rear up a community of slaves, and consequently to render the labouring part of the people absolutely dependant upon men of property." (1817, Sherwin. W)

 This was of course hyperbole, and Robert Owen firmly denied these claims. In light of this bitter hostility from the democratic reformers and their fear of it escalating into tyranny, it must now be shown if in reality Owen's proposals when taken into action did successfully affect peoples lives in a positive way, or confirmed their criticisms.

  The first of Owen's projects was a textile factory in New Lanark in Scotland. It was here that Owen introduced many improvements to working conditions compared with other factories. Hours were shorter, working conditions were safer, there were schools for all ages, moral education, renovated housing, an end to child labour and insurance plans funded through payroll deduction. Under the influence of Adam Smith and David Ricardo, it was commonly assumed that such measures to insure the well being of the workers would necessarily lead to a decrease in profits, however the factory itself managed to yield considerable profits. It must be noted that Owen was himself morally opposed to the reckless hedonism of the profit motive, but nevertheless intended to generate profits for the factory, which could then be spent on improving conditions within the factory even further. In this sense Robert Owen was trying to create a self sufficient community. Eventually, New Lanark became a common place for tourists to visit our of sheer curiosity regarding this strange new venture (2009, Kreis. S).
  The project would not last long however and took up much of Owen's fortunes, this was because it received too little support from public finance and even less from the private sector. The lack of support and often outright suspicion from the rest of the labour movement made it difficult for it to grow in size. However, this one failed venture must not be seen as a representation of the entire history of Owenism and its war against depravity.

  After the failure of New Lanark, Owen set sail for America in order to repeat similar experiments there. It was here where Robert Owen would be joined by Josiah Warren in the new cooperative village known as New Harmony. Unfortunately, the interests of the nine hundred people who had joined were too disconnected, and many members desired to keep their rewards to themselves individually, a warning Warren had already given. Warren eventually left in 1827 because in in New Harmony he believed that:

Josiah Warren (1798-1874)

"interests were directly at war with the individualities of persons and circumstances and the instinct of self-preservation... and it was evident that just in proportion to the contact of persons or interests, so are concessions and compromises indispensable."



  As this unfolded however, Owen's ideas had begun to take hold among the working class movement in England. Between 1820 and 1840, Owenite ideas were being adopted and fused with the anti-capitalist notions of the "Ricardian Socialists" (including Hodgskin), those who had already taken to their revolutionary conclusions, the implications of David Ricardo's economic theories on rent, wages, and the labour theory of value presented in his Principles of Political Economy and Taxation (1817). It was much to Owen's shock to find that on his return from America his theories were being refined by the likes of Thompson, Grey, and others and were being widely discussed and held in much wider respect than before he had departed. Not merely in theoretical circles and debates over reform were Owen's ideas being taken on board, but many trade unions were now using Owenite schemes and going by cooperative principles of self help and mutual aid. Examples of this would be Dr King in Brighton writing the Cooperator  and conducting multiple experiments in cooperative trading all based upon the New Lanark model of in store credit. Owen had found himself at the head of a movement which led on to the Grand National Consolidated Trades Union. 
   It was because of the increasingly radical aims of movements such as the Grand Union that the liberals eventually began to withdraw their support for the Owenites and quell the more radical tendencies of the left. Eventually the British armed forces, which had been deployed against the Chartists in the past, were now holding the Owenites in check. This happened despite the commander of the armed forces sympathising with their more middle class reformist aims (2011, Hobsbawm. E, pp.149). 
   The arrest of the 6 'Tolpuddle Martyrs' for attempting to create an agricultural workers union was yet another example of an attempt to stifle the potential success of such cooperative movements. This merely solidified the discontent the labouring poor had already had with the liberals and the moderates since the reform act of 1832. According to Eric Hobsbawm, in the 1830's there had been a growing working class movement which considered the Whigs to be traitors. This movement itself was Owenite influenced and support for them grew astronomically between the years 1839-1842 and remained significantly high for many years. The movement however was reduced to little more than an educational and propagandist movement with a co-operative store in Rochdale, due to a lack of effective planning on the part of their leaders. Therefore it was easy for the government and employers to wage offensives against them and gain the upper hand. It is because of this that Owenite socialism would largely fall out of the mainstream of labour agitation, and would be surpassed by the Chartists as the main front for social justice (2011. Hobsbawm. E, 149-152).
  According to George Lichtheim, after having been thrust to the forefront of the cooperative movement after his return from America and being looked towards by a number of labour leaders for guidance, Owen's response was yet another Utopian colonisation scheme which itself failed. Owen would shortly depart from politics, leaving the labour movement to its fate with Chartism, which too eventually failed in turn. A man considered by Engels to be the father of the movement and who had been looked upon by much of the labour movement had had his vibrant political career "succeeded by... sad last years" (1970, pp.42).

Instead of looking for the short term successes of Robert Owen, perhaps it is better to examine what he left behind. 

 In an essay by Sidney Pollard it is pointed out that since the time of Owen, the cooperative movement had been concerned with more than material well being, food, clothes etc. and focused on moral education and teaching people to look after their fellow man. It always taught that cooperation was preferable to standing alone because by himself, "the working man was always helpless against the powers which assailed him; united with others he could "acquire education, accumulate capital, organise large businesses, and ultimately, perhaps, employ himself." (Pollard. S, 1967, pp.111).

 In conclusion, Owenism then is ultimately a term hard to define due to the various differing reformers who themselves adopted Owenism into their own thinking. Nevertheless, the basic principles of co-operation, the maximisation of human potential, self help and surpassing a system of reckless hedonism etc. are all attributable to Owen's thoughts and resonated long throughout the cooperative movement. In terms of his success, it appears that the fatherly figure found himself wasting large amounts of money on schemes to alleviate the poor that largely failed. However, in addition to the few thousand lives he improved on a short term basis, his greatest success was his legacy; the future of the cooperative movement which for years despite many hardships endured and provided pockets of harmony for those fortunate enough to be involved with them. 

 References:
(2009) Engels. F, The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, Cosimo Inc, New York, pp.236
(2011) Hobsawm. E, The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848, Abacus, London, pp.65, 149-152.
(2009) Kreis. S, Lecture 22, The Utopian Socialists: Robert Owen and Saint-Simon (2), [online], Available at <http://www.historyguide.org/intellect/lecture22a.html>[Accessed 23 March 2012]
(1964) Hodgskin, T. Labour Defended Against the Claims of Capital, Hammersmith.
(1970) Lichtheim. G, A Short History of Socialism, Praeger Publishers Inc, London, pp.42.
(1968) Marx. K, The German Ideology, Progress Publishers, Moscow, pp.660.
(1858) Owen. R, The Life of Robert Owen, Vol 1:A, Effingham Wilson, London, pp.III.
(1971) Ricardo. D, Principles of Political Economy and Taxation, 2nd edition, Pelican Classics, Middlesex.
(1817) Sherwin. W, Political Register, 26 April, 9 August, 20 September.
(1991) Thompson. E.P, The Making of the English Working Class, 2nd Ed, Penguin Books, London, pp.861,863.