Rand Paul’s History Lesson
Robert Waldmann
Republican candidate for Senator from Kentucky Rand Paul said
“In 1923, when they destroyed the currency, they elected Hitler. “
He’s off by a decade. Hitler was elected in 1933 not 1923. This is not just a slip or a typo. The German hyper-inflation ended in 1923. At the time Hitler was in jail having taken over a beer hall.
Paul wouldn’t have been twice as far off if he had written “In 1914 when they invaded a country that hadn’t attacked them, they elected Hitler.”
German democracy ended during the depression when sensible moderates decided that there was no fiscally sound way to fight unemployment.
This man could be a US Senator.
via Steve Benen
“Hitler was elected in 1933 not 1923”
Hitler wasn’t elected you Putz!
Election #1 (March 13, 1932) results:
Hindenburg 49.6 percent
Hitler 30.1 percent
Thaelmann 13.2 percent
Duesterberg 6.8 percent
Run-off Election #2 (April 19, 1932) results:
Hindenburg 53.0 percent
Hitler 36.8 percent
Thaelmann 10.2 percent
On January 30, 1933, Hitler demanded that President Hindenburg appoint him chancellor and place him in complete control of the state, since the run-off election had given The Nazi Party the majority of seats. Hindenburg appointed Army General named Kurt von Schleicher instead, and after violence and pressure from the Nazi Party and the SA, Schleicher resigned 57 days later. President Hindenburg appointed Adolf Hitler chancellor of Germany to appease and remedy the situation.
On February 27,1933, The Reichstag Fire
Two weeks after the Reichstag fire, Hitler requested the Reichstag to temporarily delegate its powers to him so that he could adequately deal with the crisis. Denouncing opponents to his request, Hitler shouted, “Germany will be free, but not through you!” When the vote was taken, the result was 441 for and 84 against, giving Hitler the two-thirds majority he needed to suspend the German constitution. On March 23, 1933, what has gone down in German history as the “Enabling Act” made Hitler dictator of Germany, freed of all legislative and constitutional constraints.
http://www.fff.org/freedom/fd0403a.asp
Good job, jimi! Your post thoroughly discredits Rand Paul, the bubblehead GOP candidate from Kentucky.
It’s clear to me and mom that Germans have a problem with elections. Mom thinks it was hyper-inflation, hyper-unemployment and all the gold(money) left the country to pay WW1 war reparations that caused Herr H’s rise to power. But mom isn’t an economist, she was just born there.
On the other hand, clearly Herr H caused Mussolini and made Stalin into a bad boy. Then there was the axis of evil thing with Japan. Herr H would deal with them after securing Siberia.
I’ve been wondering about something for a while, and maybe this is the opening to bring it up.
In 1923 Germany’s economy was in a shambles. A mere 16 years later (confirmed via Wikipedia, natch) they mounted a pretty serious attempt to conquer the world. (Better war management might actually have led to their success, but that’s off topic.)
War, declared or not, as we’ve learned again these past several years, is expensive as hell.
How was Germany able to obtain the financial wherewithal to accomplish this? I know Prescott Bush was in on making loans to the Nazis, but they also had to be credit-worthy. Presumably, he was a business man, not a sponsor.
Any thoughts?
Cheers!
JzB
I think it was a little MMT, mixed with a lot of slave labor, but mom isn’t sure on the fine points.
His party achieved clearly plurality in the parliamentary system in 1933 but Hitler himself was not “elected” in 1933. But the overall point that the NSDAP came to the political forefront in the 1932-34 period, not the early 1920s, is important and what Jimi is trying to obfuscate in his knee-jerk defense of any and all nutballry from the right.
And of course, since the quasi-good doctor is the one talking about Hitler being “elected”, using the same term to describe his first rise to the Chancellorship is not at all incorrect.
An economy that can feed itself can do anything with the right attitude.
One nice thing all that Weimar inflation did is totally wipe out most debts, resetting the system something like the 1970s inflation did for us.
The financial legerdemain in the 30s to get the industrial plant moving again was in fact impressive. This consisted of engaging in raw mercantilism and fighting to control all foreign currency, preferring barter deals, etc.
The German economy was beginning to fall apart in the late 30s, but Hitler found further national projects to occupy German labor right around then.
Is putz another name for idiot…where is pgl when you need him to retort?
I think the war reparations had to be paid in gold. I think that was a key reason the wiemers kicked up the printing press full bore for the local economy. Wiping out debt means you also wiped out capital, so the seeds of “socialism” or “communism” are clearly sowed. Just takes some fascism and a well fed military to get it done. If you tell people fiat money IS worth something, and they better believe it, that certainly helps a lot. They made diesel from coal, so the Arabs didn’t need convincing. Plus invading other countries is economic growth under the new rules.
But mom said they wouldn’t have had food without the farm.
I should probably clarify that mom isn’t that old, most of the story got passed down from grandma.
Thanks to Jimi for getting me to read this:
http://www.schudak.de/timelines/germany1918-1919.html
I’d known the general outline of the postwar chaos but not had an idea of the bloody details of a state falling apart.
Farmers tend to survive hyperinflation fine. As I like saying, Land is the source and sink of all wealth, after all.
robert
would that make him dumber than the other senators?
Cedric
you want to be careful with this sort of thing. if you sound like one of the inmates, the nurses might not let you go home.
jazz
i think cursed said it was Rothschild. i wouldn’t know. but the thing about economics is that it’s mostly an illusion… or based on an illusion. there was never any reason for a country like Germany to be poor. all they had to do was start working. if the capitalists wouldn’t supply the money, there is no reason why the state couldn’t. disclaimer: i do not know the actual facts. this is just me speculating.
farmers survive if they can keep the bankers from taking it away.
If the military doesn’t stop by for dinner too often.
if the capitalists wouldn’t supply the money, there is no reason why the state couldn’t.
From wikipedia:
Seen from an economic perspective, Brüning made unemployment worse through his rigid program of budget balancing [1930-32].
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machtergreifung
Brüning was the leader of the Center Party, a pure-Catholic party aligned with the Social Democrats in trying to preserve the Republic from leftist and rightist forces who wanted further revolution in their respective directions.
Sorta opposite Dr Paul’s point, innit.
Man, German parliamentary moves in the crisis of 1932-33 were sure complicated. I had known about von Papen but not the Center Party’s critical role in acquiescing to killing German democracy with the Enabling Act. Hitler needed the CP’s votes to get the supermajority to take government action away from the assembly and give the cabinet powers unhindered by the Constitution.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centre_Party_(Germany)
That is some website! Way more than grandma told us. They actually cover 3 German timelines.
here’s the other two.
http://www.schudak.de/timelines/germany-therepublicincrisis1920-1923.html
http://www.schudak.de/timelines/germany-abriefperiodofstability1924-1929.html
took about a half hour to skim the first two. one more to go.
Interesting quote and date:
1922
July 28 Adolf Hitler delivers an address on the Jewish “threat” at Munich. The Nazi leader expounds on the definition of the word socialist. A socialist in Nazi parlence is, “someone ready to marry the national cause to such point as he knows no other ideal than the well being of his nation; someone who understands that our great national anthem, Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles, means that nothing in the world can exceed Germany, her people and her land, her land and her people. Such a man is a Socialist.”
The stock market crashed 3 days later.
sounds like coal and steel exports went a long way for foreign trade as the mark went to zero in Fx. They owed 25% of GDP to the world in addition to gold payments, so they certainly needed to stimulate the heck out of the economy. Then finally partially reneged on those terms. Luckily Keynes published just in time.
grandma said the place was insane, but words can barely describe it.
Big deal Rand Paul is off by a decade. He is no dumber then most. You just don’t like him and want to take cheap shots.
April 26
The second round of the presidential election draws a 77.6% turnout. Marshal Hindenburg narrowly defeats Centerist Wihelm Marx by a 48.3 to 45.3% margin. Communist candidate Ernst Thälmann trails with 6.4% of the vote.
They had Naderites back then too!
He is no dumber then most
true dat
Steve Benen’s following statement in two Washington Monthly columns is worthy of further examination: (22 Sep and 1 Aug, 2010)
Steve Benen, Washington Monthly: “Our debt, created by Paul’s Republican friends, is not destroying the currency and won’t lead to American fascism. The very idea is so blisteringly stupid it’s hard to believe anyone arguing this publicly could ever be taken seriously again.”
There are probably some citizens still alive in Germany, USA, and elsewhere on this planet who would disagree with Benen’s wild-eyed, naive claim.
Can anyone figure out which part of Benen’s sentence Benen doesn’t like???
“Our debt, created by Paul’s Republican friends, is not destroying the currency and won’t lead to American fascism.”
MG, we need a weak dollar not a strong dollar. We also need to get off our addiction to oil imports so this energy bill doesn’t strip our wealth away.
Furthermore, inflation of the 1970s variety did not cripple the US economy. Between when i was born and when I learned to drive the USD fell 66%. I did not feel a thing.
What happened 2001-2007 was the massive overleveraging of the household finance sector, with debt rising from $8T to $14.4T. This is all going to come crashing down on us, or we can inflate through it.
The latter is more attractive but more difficult to pull off.
Also, TP attempt to constructi a bugbear history lesson of Wiemar Republic is all wrong. The hyperinflation event happened in 1923. By the late 20s the economy was under very conservative direction mostly under Center Party administration.
Then the global trade crisis happened 1929-31 and everything blew up. The Center Party held the Chancellorship 1930-32, and actually imposed fiscal discipline on Germany . . . with higher taxes and spending cuts. This additional pain added to the chaos.
So your TP history is 180 degrees out of phase with reality. No surprise there of course.
Bad news for MMT fans. That certainly didn’t last long, and gold backed currency sure does take all the fun out of it. Drat.
1924 April The Rentenmark is replaced by the Reichsmark at the same gold value and exchange rate with the dollar. $1 US = 4.2 Reichsmarks.
America to the rescue! Herr H was tried for treason the month before and sentenced to 5 years. Germany goes back on the gold standard, for foreign exchange at least.
1924 May 19 The United States loans Germany $100 million.
But we know the story doesn’t end well……..
1924
September 1 The Dawes Plan goes into effect. After an initial payment of 200 million Reichmarks in 1925, Germany’s annual reparations will steadily increase from 1.2 billion to 2.5 billion Reichmarks in 1929. The revenues are to be raised by indirect taxes; taxation of transport, incomes of the Reichsbahn which is to become a joint stock company independent of the State and internationalized and the incomes of the large industrial companies. American Gilbert Parker is appointed by the Reparations Commission to supervise German monetary policy and ensure payment.September 3 Germany signs a contract with the Soviet Union to purchase Russian petroleum.October 10 The Dawes Committee arranges an immediate loan of 800 million gold marks to Germany. The United States provides half and Great Britain a quarter of the funds.December 20 Adolf Hitler is released on parole from Landsberg Prison after serving eight months of a five year sentence for high treason.February 14 The ban on Hitler’s Nazi Party (NSDAP) is lifted.Bavaria legalizes the Communist Party which has been banned since the 1918 revolution.February 27 Adolf Hitler makes his first public appearance since his release from prison. He is allowed to reenter politics but his required to use legal means to reclaim power.April 7 Hitler renounces his Austrian citizenship to avoid the risk of expulsion from Germany.
(Herr H publishes a book, but that’s normal)
And it’s off to the races…..
Troy – “So your TP history is 180 degrees out of phase with reality. No surprise there of course.”
It’s not my history, fella.
You appear to miss Rand Paul’s larger point which covers the 1923-1935 period of time.
There are plenty of issues that can be raised with Rand Paul’s thinking, but Waldmann and other main posters at this time aren’t focusing attention on the meat of R. Paul’s campaign issues.
Troy – “Furthermore, inflation of the 1970s variety did not cripple the US economy. Between when i was born and when I learned to drive the USD fell 66%. I did not feel a thing.”
Laughable. You weren’t running a business during the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. You certainly don’t appear to know what the energy costs and loan interest rates for businesses and consumers were during that period of time and what impact that had on the U.S. economy. A repeat of that exercise right now would significantly harm the U.S. economy. Volker’s Fed Reserve actions were understandable, but they also had a serious impact on business operations and consumer financing.
“Bad news for MMT fans.”
You have no idea what you’re talking about.
Waldmann MG nailed you. You have been exposed for having totally distorted the facts. You have ZERO credibilty.
There is a semi-famous bit of TV tape in which Isaac Singer is instructed by Dick Cavett (if memory serves) about the meaning of the word “schmuck”. Cavett declares that schmuck means something along the lines of “idiot”. Singer gently explains to Cavett that it means penis. Cavett unwisely tries to disagree before coming around to the realization that Singer speaks Yiddish, so probably knows.
In that light, I offer the following, from Urban Dictionary:
Putz: Literally, vulgar slang for penis, not to be used lightly. More offensive than the schmuck, which can be used affectionately or teasingly.
Elsewhere, definitions relate “putz” to “putzen” which is “to clean”, suggesting knick-knacks of little consequence but which require attention. Still, thought you should know.
It is generally possible to quibble over details, and often advantageous to do so, if the broader story is not favorable. As of right now, Paul is arguing that the US is becoming more like Germany in a time before Hitler took power. As of right now, the US inflation rate is nearer zero than wheelbarrow. The rightness or wrongness of Paul’s dates is a distraction. He’s using his daddy’s economics, and tossing in Hitler to make it scarier and does so with some regularity.
OK, fine. If one chooses to see strong similarities, then one does. Those who do, however, are confusing zero with a wheelbarrow in the case of inflation. When it comes to social safety-net issues, they are confusing Bismark with Hitler. If Paul’s misguided Hitler analogy were a one-time thing, no big deal. However, Paul makes regular use of Hitler in his speeches, and is generally making a mess of his analogies. The guy running for the Senate thnks he knows things that are in reality simply wrong. It isn’t just an argument about his use of one decade rather than another.
kharris
thanks. always glad to learn a little Yiddish.
but there is a sense in which Cavett is right: words mean what they mean to the people who use them, and to the people who hear them in context. there are lots of words in english and every other language that no longer “mean” what they meant when they were first heard. though right now i can’t think of any. certainly some of the expressions heard right here on AB don’t mean the nasty things they meant originally. i doubt if “rocket” means small rock.
cursed
i’d like to think you are being ironic here. what the movie guide has done is swallowed the rand paul speech whole, taking it in its own terms. fine. that is what paul wanted folks to do. but waldman is entitled to … and correct…. to point out that it doesn’t quite correspond to any known reality.
kharris
yes. exactly.
it’s true that politicans, and ordinary peole like me, on both sides do that all the time. but it is necessary, if dangerous, to point it out. about the only thing more dangerous than shoting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, is standing in the door way and saying, “No, no, sit down, there’s no problem, keep cal…”
“confusing zero with a wheelbarrow”
Each finacial crises plays out differently. In the 20’s some of the newly printed reichmarks made there way to hungry people who were forced to spend them as fast as the got them. In the US today the electronic printing presses just credit the accounts of the wealthy, and it is not clear how this will play out in the end, but there is very real reason to believe that we are planting the seeds of future inflation.
People are concerned about the solvency of their currency. It does not seem to be on a sustanable course, and the Weimar Republic is a frieghtning example of how things can go wrong.
While we are on the subject of history. One thing made abundently clear, is that people are more motivated when they are afraid, and that every leader has played into this. By asking that Rand Paul do otherwise would make it an uneven playing field. That’s bogus. You might write like Nefertiti walked kharris, but all your really doing is shoveling slime on Rand Paul.
In the 20’s some of the newly printed reichmarks
Learn your f—ing history. Reichmarks weren’t inflationary. That’s why Germany cracked in the early 30s when they needed fiscal stimulus but couldn’t create it via monetary policy.
What they were printing in 1923 were — guess what — Papiermarks.
One RM was worth 1 trillion M.
People are concerned about the solvency of their currency.
Shoulda been worried back in the 1995-2005 period, that’s when Greenspan opened the gates of hell on that.
Money is mostly created by banks, and the banks created a lot of it, especially during the housing bubble. What the System is doing now is trying to keep that $5T debt overhang from falling on us.
Depends on what time frame from ww1 thru ww2 you want to cherry pick. I prefer the whole thing, but if you want to start with 1924, then you could say that Germany going back on the gold standard caused Her H’s rise to power, because it was at that point they could get foreign loans, buy oil from the Soviets, etc…but then the war reparations had to be paid back in real money and that put a serious crimp in the economy and tax burden.
Of course they also let Herr H out of jail after only 8 months, and decided politics is a great place for his skill set, so proponents of the death penalty could jump all over that one.
This all chicken little squak. Follow the money. The Koch brothers are opening there wallets to the tea party. Their daddy gave money to help found the John Birch Society. Their grand dad obviously gave money to the Bulsheviks, how else could he have come up with plum oil concessions under Stalin. Today the Kock brothers short change the government and various indian tribes via thier pipelines. This just shows that screwing indians and making a mockery of democracy never goes out of style. Another thing sure not to change is America’s penchant for war. Notice the two Pauls part on this issue. The core demographic of the Tea Party does not want endless war. They will find no representation. This is all a sham.
ah cursed
sorry to see that. sometimes you are quite rational. while it’s true that some “leaders” play the fear card, it is not true that they all do, or that any of them do it to the extent that Paul is doing it with his particular audience. and in any case it is important that someone point out what he is doing. that is not shoveling slime on him, though hopefully it is pouring cold water on him.
cursed
there are an infinite number of ways things can go wrong. we need to evaluate the risks, not just pick the one with the most emotional appeal to us and go into full panic mode.
coberly
Machiavelli claimed that an armed prophets are always more secessufull the unarmed prophets. By and large this is true, although there might be exceptions. Same thing with leaders and fear. Religious leaders are the worst. Politicians are not far behind. Bush was a terrible example. He was able to bamboozle the masses: Buildings falling down. Anthrax attacks. He fanned the flames of fear and scared America into surrendering liberties and slaughtered so many Iraqis that one in six Iraqi kids is an orphan. Rand Paul is not doing that. What he is doing is pointing out that America has some finacial problems.
I have not seen one position of his brought up and criticized. Instead I see smirkers who hold that Rand Paul said something stupid therefore Rand Paul is stupid and so are all his supporters. This is a bread and circuses approach by those who fancy themselves high brow.
I’m not a fan of Paul!
And that was an honest election wasn’t it? Kinda like the re-election of the recent re-election of the Iranian Prez?
Kinda of point point you making when Hitler and the Nazi’s already had absolute Power don’t ya think?
Yes it is! They both are wrong. The Nazi’s conspried and manipulated their way into power, there is no honest “election process.”
Once they siezed power what difference what elections were, held, it’s not like the truth was revieled, and it’s not like the Nazi’s intended to give up the power just because the people said so!
Is the conversation going a bit far afield? Rand Paul was not making a point about the German economy so much as he was making a speculative analogy regarding a societiy’s willingness to give up its freedom during a time of crisis. His analogy to anything going on in this country is totally off base for more than one reason. First and foremost, the draconian legislation aimed at “combating terrorism in the homeland” was foisted upon us by the Bush White House and the Republicans controlled the House during the 106th – 108th Congress and controlled the Senate during the 107th and 108th Congress. If anyone can be blamed for a loss of freedom it would seem that conservatives should take that credit.
As far as actions in times of crisis we can point to FDR and the last significant economic crisis for historical evidence of a progressive’s approach to the issue of freedom. FDR and the Democratic Congress at the time did nothing that could be interpreted as an encroachment upon the freedom of the people. In modern times it has the forces on the right that have been responsible for stealing the freedoms of the people. We confound the concept of conservativism with the political ideology of the right wing and the political leadership of the right wing exploits that confusion.
Troy – “Money is mostly created by banks, and the banks created a lot of it, especially during the housing bubble.”
How do U.S. banks create money? Explain the details of that one.
It appears that Rand Paul depends on Nazis other than Hitler to advance his agenda. He certainly takes to heart Hermann Goering’s philosophy:
” . . . it’s always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”
By pushing his false historical analogy, Paul wants his audience to believe that their freedom is under attack by an incipient crypto-Hitler fueled by economic crises. America should be immune to such fatuous demagoguery.
FDR and the Democratic Congress at the time did nothing that could be interpreted as an encroachment upon the freedom of the people.
That’s if your overlooking that FDR plotted a deliberate course towards the Pacific door of a European war that the American people did not want.
The hyperinflationary horror that befell the German people made them more suseptable to those who would harness there talents to inflict agony upon the world. This era is pregnant with emotions and harkening back summons unchecked passions. It would be nice if Rand Paul was able to make his case that a stable currency is necessary to maintian a stable middle class, which is the essential foundation of a stable democracy, without bring up those terribly sad times.
“wants his audience to believe that their freedom is under attack”
He doesn’t want them to believe, that’s what they already believe! And in Paul’s defense, if you don’t believe your freedom is under attack, not only are you really naive, your opinion should be discredited do to lack full understanding of the situation, political and economical.
Uh, bullshit, Jimi.
My freedom is in no danger, my simple friend. Neither is yours.
Of course, as Goering pointed out, the sheeple are easily led to believe that their freedom is under attack.
cursed
i don’t fancy myself high brow, but reading Paul’s speech, as provided here by MG, makes my teeth itch.
oh, and i agree with you about bush. and i might even agree with Paul about some of the financial problems. but you know my answer to those: raise taxes. on everyone. then when the bills are under control we can discuss what we really need to buy with the money we have.
this goes against “stimulus” thinking. but i think that if a stimulant, like champagne, is what it takes to get the party going, fine. but if it’s what it takes to get you out of bed in the morning to go to work, something has gone terribly wrong with the stimulus cure.
oh, shoot, jack,
fdr destroyed the freedom of the rich to make as much money as they thought they deserved while tanking the economy. don’t you understand that yet.
As Ayn Rand explained it. Money is work and work is time and time is life, so taxes are murder.
cursed
i don’t know what honest historians would make of your claim that FDR steered us into war, but i am inclined to believe he did. just as Lincoln may have steered us into the civil war…(or didn’t… i am inclined to believe he didn’t) there would remain a question of whether the steering was in a good cause or a bad one. i am a pretty good pacifist on most days. but i can’t convince myself the civil war was in a bad cause, and i can’t convince myself the war against hitler and the greater east asia co prosperity sphere was a bad cause.
in any case when you are looking for parallels to hitler in contemporary american politics, you are looking on the wrong side of the aisle.
but i’ll give you this.. all politicians at the executive level are fully capable of cold blooded murder. the ones at the legislative level mostly stop with larceny. we don’t have to like these guys, we are stuck with them. we try to make the best of a fallen world.
MG
in case Troy doesn’t get back, banks create money by lending it to people. this is all pretty standard stuff. you could probably read about it in a basic economics text.
well, Joel
i’m with jimi on this one, except he’s got his eyes crossed.
your freedom is in danger when the people stand idly by while the congress and the courts affirm the right of the executive to arrest and imprison people without what we used to call due process. your freedom is endangered by the idea that the country has a right to draft you into the armed services… though god knows how we reconcile that with the possibility of a real war where all our freedoms are imperiled by a dangerous enemy and a population of folks who say, “let the other guy fight”.
i’d go so far as to say your freedom is largely theoretical… maybe no more real than it was in the Soviet Union which had a democracy on paper as enlightened as ours.
which is to say we still have a real measure of ‘freedom’ but it is always tentative, and these days it is in most danger from those who shout most about protecting it. come to think of it, it always was.
Joel,
Ha!
Don’t worry….we’ll let you know when it’s time to pull your head out of the sand!