Hermann Rauschning (1887–1982)
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Foto taget av: By Anonymous photographer, not identified anywhere - Newspaper Lübecker Volksbote, No. 112, 1 June 1933, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15393377
Verk av Hermann Rauschning
Försök med Hitler, brytning med Hitler 4 exemplar
Hitler's Aims In War And Peace 2 exemplar
The Conservative Revolution 1 exemplar
Männen kring Hitler tala 1 exemplar
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Taggad
Allmänna fakta
- Födelsedag
- 1887
- Avled
- 1982
- Kön
- male
- Nationalitet
- Germany
- Födelseort
- Toruń, Kujawien-Pommern, Polen
- Dödsort
- Portland, Oregon, USA
- Bostadsorter
- Danzig, Deutschland
Posen, Preußen - Yrken
- Politiker
- Kort biografi
- Hermann Rauschning (7 August 1887 – February 8, 1982) was a German conservative and reactionary who became a Nazi member in 1932 in the Free City of Danzig, and in 1934 renounced Nazi party membership and fled to the United States where he denounced Nazism. Rauschning is chiefly known for his book Hitler Speaks, in which he claimed to have many meetings and conversations with Hitler. Historians generally regard this book as discredited.
(From Wikipedia)
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- #103,625
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The essential argument of Rauschning's thesis is captured in the title. The National Socialist revolution is at its core nihilist. Whatever philosophy or theory is put forth in Mein Kampf or in books and articles by the leading theoreticians of National Socialism is all for show. It is tactical not strategic and does not end in any complete political or moral system. There is no end of history at the end of the revolution, and indeed there is no end to the revolution. Although the revolution may feature rhetorical appeals to nationalism that would appeal to traditional conservatives, the military and the capitalist class, National Socialism was no more an attempt to restore the politics of the Second Reich than its Socialism was intended to usher in a dictatorship of the proletariat.
The defining characteristic of the National Socialist revolution Rauschning calls "dynamism". There is no final destination possible for the revolution short of world domination. In domestic politics there can be no stasis reached when are crises are resolved and normal relations are restored between the state and society. No restoration of individual rights and traditional norms of freedom and justice can contemplated, let alone achieved.
Rauschning is not reluctant to assign blame to Hitler's accession to power to institutions and political elements that he would otherwise have been in sympathy with. Indeed, as noted above, Rauschning was for a period of time a member of the National Socialist Party. But the conservative and nationalist elements in German politics, the military and to a lesser extent the capitalist class all bear blame for facilitating Hitler's rise. Whether motivated by a fear of Bolshevism, a desire to be revenged upon the Allies, to restore the German military in contravention of the Versailles Treaty, a belief that Hitler's chancellorship would be just a stepping stone to the restoration of the monarchy, they collectively miscalculated and underestimated Hitler.
Once the reins of power were in the Nazis' hands they were able to coordinate their policies through the tactics of Gleichschaltung, the process of Nazifying the state at all levels, along with the commercial and non-commercial institutions and associations in the private sector, right down to each individual. It was a process used over and over in each of his peacetime conquests as well as in war. In effect, all Germans, regardless of party membership, were bound to the party through the state so that opposition of any sort becomes isolated and the ability to function in society is circumscribed by obedience to the party/state. It becomes impossible to obtain or retain a job, provide for a family, maintain a roof over one's head without submitting. The process was similar to that employed by the Bolsheviks as was documented by Hannah Arendt in her classic "The Origins of Totalitarianism". Think of Glechschaltung as a more through efficient and pervasive form of cancel culture.
One of the more fascinating chapters, The Aims of the Revolution in Foreign Policy, covers the geopolitical theories of Professor Karl Haushofer, theoretician of Lebensraum, a "natural right to room to live", the "the state-biological rule of life put into classic form". Rauschning speculates regarding the possible paths of expansion that the Third Reich will pursue in the course of its world conquest. One way lies through the Danube Basin, Turkey, Asia Minor and India. An alternative empire would follow a more northerly route from Flushing to Vladivostok. In this second scenario it would be possible to see the world divided up into the British overseas empire, an Italian empire under Mussolini along a Mediterranean, Africa, Asia Minor axis, an American continental bloc and a Pacific empire ruled by Japan.
All of that speculation aside, Rauschning, who is writing in 1938 forecasts the possibility of an alliance between Hitler and Stalin that would enable Germany to deal with Poland then crush the French without worrying about an Eastern front, which is of course exactly what happened. However, he did pull back from that prediction in his updated version published in the summer of 1939.
Rauschning is firm in the belief that there can be no possible modus vivendi with National Socialism. It will need to be defeated and extirpated. The eventual salvation for Europe if there will be one, lies in the restoration ot its ancient freedoms, "national, political, intellectual, and spiritual" with Germany taking its place in a leadership role, collaborating with the smaller states of Europe in what sounds like a federative association. For better or for worse, it sounds like an arrangement much like the European Union.
It might be objected that Rauschning's work, no matter how topical in might have been in 1938-39 is of very little interest to students and general readers of our time. I would only observe that I am finishing this review on the 90th anniversary of Hitler's appointment as German chancellor on January 30, 1933. It's not that long ago and there are no guarantees that the moral and intellectual devils that spawned National Socialism are not alive among us and cannot threaten us again.… (mer)