Drawing lessons for Ireland from the rise of the Nazi

Weimar Republic expert to give Annual Arthur Griffith Lecture at Cavan County Museum this evening

A history professor insists some parallels can be drawn from the rise of Nazism in 1923 and the growing emergence of the far right in Ireland.

Mark Jones is set to give the Annual Arthur Griffith Lecture at Cavan County Museum this Thursday, where he will explore ‘1923: Hitler’s Breakthrough Year and its lessons for today’. The talk retraces ground covered in his critically acclaimed history book ‘1923’ which confirms his reputation as an authority on the ill-fated Weimar Republic.

“At the end of 1922 someone suggested that Hitler could become the next prime minister of Bavaria in the Bavarian Parliament,” begins Mark, “and everybody roars out laughing because he’s seen as a dilettante, a bit of a joke figure. By November of the next year he comes quite close to seizing power using violence.”

In the aftermath of defeat in the Great War, the Weimar Republic was established as a liberal democracy, and in January 1919 70% vote for parties who support liberal democracy. However in just over a decade that system put Hitler in power and it becomes “dedicated to extraordinary violence”.

Mark identifies 1923 as Adolf Hitler’s “breakthrough year” and uses it as a lens into this rapid change, which culminates in his ascent to the post chancellor of Germany in 1933.

At the end of 1922 Hitler is on the political fringes with only 8,000 followers, largely around Munich. However the leaders of the Social Democrats, in Mark’s words ,“start to notice Hitler at this time”.

Take notice

“Hitler’s name in the newspapers is kind of hard to find in the second half of 1922. But from Christmas/January 1923 it becomes more and more frequent, so he is a figure who gets noticed, not just in a micro-climate in Munich, but he gets noticed nationally. His radical speeches act as calls for violence, and his threats to use violence to overthrow the state.”

The Nazis’ host their first party conference in Munich in 1923, which Mark regards as “the starting point for what becomes the Nuremberg rallies.

Nazis from across the region took trains to Munich and “a bit like football hooligans marching to the ground” they presented a loud menacing sight as they headed to various beerhalls, attacking “people they didn’t like the look of”. Hitler would then visit each to give inflammatory speeches.

“There’s a kind of taking possession of the streets of the city - that’s what they’re getting attention for.”

Reparations

This is happening in the context of economic turmoil, the divisive Treaty of Versaille 1919 and enforcement of reparations.

“How do they get Germany to pay for the war as the Versailles Treaty demands? It’s not that German governments of this time don’t want to pay reparations, it’s that they are claiming that the amount they are being asked to pay and the rate they are being asked to pay it at is too much, and is destroying their economy as a result.”

Mark says whether there is merit to the German argument remains a subject of debate amongst historians.

“I think that the expectations of Germany to pay are putting a burden on Germany, but the Germans are also clever enough to manipulate their economy to make things seem worse.

“What historians argue about on this is: did the leaders of the Weimar Republic put the economy at risk to make it easier for them to get debt relief from Britain and France?”

France suspect Germany are sabotaging their own economy and by Christmas ‘22/23 they send in 100 engineers, backed up by 100,000 soldiers to occupy the Rhur - Germany’s coal producing heartland.

“That creates a spiral of crises, domestic and international in Germany and Europe that leads to the near collapse of the German economy in the year 1923, and that leads to the printing of money at rates not known in a modern industrial economy ever before up to that point.”

He says there’s a breakdown along “polarised radical national lines”.

“On all sides no one is prepared to step back from the conflict and think: we can all sink together in this conflict or we can get out of it together.”

Germany perceive the French occupation as an annexationist policy to separate the Rhur.

“Germany can’t militarily respond but they can get the miners to respond by going on strike. To pay them the German government start printing money.

“We might call it the summer of the wheelbarrow,” he says of hyperinflation. “People are walking around with wheelbarrows of money. Family tales told from this time down in Germany is that you could leave a wheelbarrow full of money and someone would come and steal your wheelbarrow and leave the billions of notes.

“France’s policy is: this is going to destroy us, but it will destroy Germany first so we’ll keep going with it.”

Now or never

Soon after becoming Chancellor, Gustav Stresemann runs out of options and in September 2023 pulls back from both hyperinflation and passive resistance.

“To alleviate famine conditions which has begun to take hold he introduces a new currency and structural reforms,” Mark explains. With reform signalled, radicals recognise, as Mark puts it: “This is our now or never moment.”

Rhineland separatists, Communists and Nazis each make their moves.

“That ‘now or never moment’ is the pinnacle of the crises in October/November, and it’s the point where the supporters of democracy manage to defeat the separatists, communists and Nazis in about a month.”

Hitler’s attempt is the infamous Munich Beerhall Putsch. Tried for Treason, he receives the minimum sentence.

Mark sees the trial as having parallels for today. “When Hitler is put on trial, his supporters claim the State is out to get him.” He compares this to Trump supporters’ anger over his cases in this election year.

“They believe ‘the Deep State’ are out to get him; they are persecuting their hero,” he says which leads to the courts being seen as “the tool of their political opponents”.

Riots

He asserts “without pushing the panic button too dramatically” Weimar Germany also has lessons for Ireland.

“I think 2023 was a breakthrough year for the Far Right in Ireland. They became more important to the wider political body in Ireland in 2023, and you can see that in the number of media reports about the Far Right and you can see it in the confidence of the Far Right themselves and that culminated in the Dublin Riots.”

He insists no one could have foreseen at the start of 2023 the riots in Dublin City Centre.

“And yet it happened. We were very lucky no one was killed. The city centre of our capital was not in the possession of the state at that time.”

He notes for a few hours it was not for people of colour to go into parts of the city.

“That is a huge problem - that is Weimar Germany on the streets of Dublin.”

He also notes a similarity in language.

“The Far Right use language targeting ‘unvetted males’. Refugees are all unvetted males, there’s a threat to women’s safety. Refugees and migrants are all rapists - that kind of idea is all part of their propaganda.

“That’s exactly what the Far Right did in Hitler’s message about Jews in the 1920s and ‘30s: they’re sexual predators.”

The Celt notes many people who use such terms wouldn’t regard themselves as Far Right.

He asks: “Are we sleepwalking into the same processes in our present that is allowing somebody who’s normally a reasonable, really nice person to say, ‘Unvetted men of military age are coming into my town and my voice is not being listened to in Dublin...’

“Pause and say: think about how you are framing what is happening right now and how somebody might be manipulating you.”

Manipulation is occurring in “digital beerhalls” of today.

“It’s digital beerhalls where people are being manipulated into thinking that everybody who is different is a threat and they are being whipped up into a frenzy of hatred and that is tipping over into incidents of violence in different places and it will continue to tip over if we don’t stop it. The way we stop it is we say: look at this history of manipulation of the past, this is what propaganda is, this is how it works. This is how you’re being manipulated.”

Mark Jones is set to give the Annual Arthur Griffith Lecture at Cavan County Museum this Thursday, April 18 where he will explore ‘1923: Hitler’s Breakthrough Year and its lessons for today’.