What really stood out in Allen’s “The Nazi Seizure of Power” is how the Nazi party is able to take over and corrupt the innocence of Northeim. Allen describes the people of Northeim as, “Spiessburger: calm, oblivious to great problems, satisfied with life, pleasantly filled with good food, modest hopes, and a sense of simple order.” p. 24. The town has a small industry, which the depression had a small effect on. Despite being content with life, Northeim always posses a notion fear. This fear caused by any factors that could throw-off the balance of its strong community; for example, Allen says, “the depression engendered fear...” p.24.
The Communists also spread fear, “the extreme Left, led by the Communists, fostered a series of uprisings that proved abortive but also terrifying to the middle classes.” p. 26 The people of Northeim did not want to support this hunch of terror, especially if it had the potential to harm their ‘satisfied’ life.
So how was Germany able to convert such an uninvolved town that believed in ‘simple order’ into one that became heavily involved? It baffles me to think the Nazis were able to prosper in Northeim, despite their past track-record with the Beer Hall Putsch and the illegalization of the Nazi party. Northeim proved themselves to be ‘oblivious to great problems’ as they ignored all of the Nazi’s suspicion.
I found their success to be a result of manipulation at its best. The Nazis are notorious for boiling troubles and provoking fear. But fear + what key ingredient = power? It seems that fear and nationalistic ideologies became the foundation for power. Fear of the economy’s direction and nationalistic ideologies such as democracy became common grounds for the citizens of Northeim.
I really enjoyed Allen’s focus on Northeim in portraying the Nazi’s seizure of power. He makes a great case how the Nazi’s were able to infiltrate their beliefs into an out-of-the-loop town by focusing their propaganda on the town’s foundation of religion, nationalism, economy, etc.
I agree with Cat that this reading was refreshing to read. It was interesting to see how a little town, that geographically correctly represented the rest of Germany, was easily manipulated to conform to the ideologies of the Nazi party. It was intriguing to read that a town that was so self sustaining and “happy” would give into the peer pressure of the Nazi party. I suppose a big cause of it could be the “red scare.” The town to so scared to conform like the rest of the world that they wanted to move to the extreme other side of the political spectrum.
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