On This Day: Big business plays a central role in rise of Nazi party via secret meeting - Feb. 20, 1933

[jgo]

(edited from Wikipedia)
"
Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933

British historian Adam Tooze writes:

The meeting of 20 February and its aftermath are the most notorious instances of the willingness of German big business to assist Hitler in establishing his dictatorial regime. The evidence cannot be dodged.

The Secret Meeting of 20 February 1933 was a secret meeting held by Adolf Hitler and 20 to 25 industrialists at the official residence of the President of the Reichstag Hermann Göring in Berlin. Its purpose was to raise funds for the election campaign of the Nazi Party.

The German elections were to be held on 5 March 1933. The Nazi Party wanted to achieve two-thirds majority to pass the Enabling Act and desired to raise three million Reichsmark to fund the campaign. According to records, 2,071,000 Reichsmarks (equivalent to €9,600,103 in 2021) were contributed at the meeting, although Goebbels also claimed that a full 3 million were received. Together with the Industrial petition, it is used as evidence to support the idea that big business played a central role in the rise of the Nazi Party.

Sequence of events

First Hermann Göring gave a short speech in which he emphasized the importance of the current election campaign. Then Hitler appeared and gave a ninety-minute speech. He praised the concept of private property and argued that the Nazi Party would be the nation's only salvation against the communist threat. The basis of the Nazi Party is the national idea and the concern over the nation's defense capabilities. Life is a continuous struggle and only the fittest could survive. Concurrently, only a militarily fit nation could thrive economically.

In his speech, Hitler declared democracy culpable for the rise of communism. The following are translated excerpts of what remains of his speech:

Private enterprise cannot be maintained in the age of democracy;[…]

We are today facing the following situation. The Weimar Government imposed upon us a certain constitutional order by which they put us on a democratic basis. By that we were, however, not provided with an able governmental authority. On the contrary, for the same reasons for which I criticized democracy before, it was inevitable that communism, in ever greater measure, penetrated the minds of the German people.[…]

Two fronts have thus taken shape which put to us the choice: either Marxism in its purest form, or the other side.

[Complete control needed]

Then Hitler declared that he needed complete control of the state to crush communism:

We must first gain complete power if we want to crush the other side completely.[...] In Prussia, we must still gain another 10 seats, and in the Reich proper, another 33. That is not impossible if we exert all our strength. Then, only, begins the second action against communism.

After Hitler's speech, Krupp expressed thanks to the participants and put special emphasis on the commitment to private property and to the nation's defense capabilities. Hitler then left the meeting. Göring gave a short speech in which he pointed out the emptiness of the Nazi Party's campaign war chest and asked the gentlemen present to help remedy this shortage. Then Göring left and Hjalmar Schacht took the floor. Schacht requested three million Reichsmark.

[Money deposited]

The money was made out to Nationale Treuhand, Dr. Hjalmar Schacht and deposited in the Bank of Delbrück Schickler & Co. A statement from the IG Farben Trial indicated a total of 2,071,000 Reichsmark had been paid. The money then went to Rudolf Hess who transferred it to Franz Eher Nachfolger.

Subsequent events

Joseph Goebbels who had written the previous day of the meeting in his diary, describing the depressed mood at his Berlin headquarters because of the lack of funds, wrote the next the day of the meeting:

Göring brings the joyful news that three million is available for the election. Great thing! I immediately alert the whole propaganda department. And one hour later, the machines rattle. Now we will turn on an election campaign . . . Today the work is fun. The money is there.

Subsequent circumstances were favorable for the NSDAP, so that they were able to make significant gains in the Reichstag elections on March 5, 1933. However surprising to many observers they failed to achieve an absolute majority. The actual conclusion of this development, which was centrally supported by the meeting and the resulting payments, was when Chancellor Hitler seized power with the Enabling Act of March 23, 1933, which authorized his government to enact laws without the approval of the Reichstag. In a letter from Krupp to Hitler dated March 24, 1933, the Reich Association of German Industry welcomed the election result with the words:

The elections have laid the basis for a stable foundation of government, removing the disruptions resulting from the constant political vacillations of the past, which have severely crippled economic initiative.

and explained:

The Reich Association of German Industry - as the economic and political representative - will do everything to help the Reich government in its difficult work.

"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Meeting_of_20_February_1933

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[appalachiablue]

1. K/R Thanks, good selection esp Big Business and Rise of the Nazi Party.

[jgo]

2. You're most welcome.

[orthoclad]

3. In this context,

Keep an eye on who bails out Trump's money troubles.

The US ruling class held 120,000,000,000,000 dollars of family wealth as of 2019, per the Congressional Budget Office. That's enough to pay his fines 240,000 times over.

If the RIght thinks that electing Trump will hand them the US government, his piddling little fines will be just a cost of doing biz.

Did a 750,000,000 dollar judgement change Fox?