For part 1 of this series, click here!
Eventually, I shall probably make an index.
I'm going to read a bit more about what Lord Wiki has to say about Paul von Hindenburg....see if anything jumps out at me.
Here's something.
He was a direct descendant of Martin Luther—that guy who helped develop the Protestant line of Christianity.
There's lots of military stuff here which is boring to me.
Sorry.
I'm skipping over most of it.
Here's something kind of interesting to me—The Battle of Tannenberg during World War I.
This was Germany vs. Russia.
Germany won big time.
Russia lost.
There's a lot more military stuff.
I'm trying to bring myself to be interested.
I'm failing.
Sorry again.
I'm skipping tons of stuff.
I'm going to try to read the section titled "Defeat and Revolution".
The American President Woodrow Wilson was pushing for a Democratic Germany.
He wanted the Kaiser gone. I think that was Germany's leader-type back then.
There was also a prince.
The Prince and the Kaiser resigned/abdicated. Then a guy from the Social Democratic Party, Friedrich Ebert, became the first President of Germany.
Let me get back to him later....
I do feel he's kind of important, since he was Germany's first (probably) elected leader...and also he was from a left-leaning party.
Back to Hindenburg.
Lord Wiki says despite Germany losing the war (which was at least partly Hindenburg's fault; though I can't be clear on the how's, what's, and why's, since I skipped reading most of the part) Germany paid for a lovely villa for him to retire too.
* * *
Lord Wiki has some helpful and interesting information about Germany political leadership structure back in those days.
The President, who is elected, has a term of seven years.
The President chooses his Cabinet and the Chancellor. But his choices have to be ratified by the Reichstag (German Legislature).
Okay. Here's some good drama.
So the Allies presented Germany with the Treaty of Versailles. Their message was accept the terms of the treaty, or we're coming back to kick your ass.
Most German politicians were not happy with the Treaty, but some felt it had to be accepted.
President Ebert consulted Hindenburg to find out if Germany could handle fighting back an invasion.
Hindenburg said no...via a messenger.
And this all happened with some kind of down-to-the-minute timeline.
Nineteen minutes to spare.
I'm imagining there are books in Germany called Nineteen Minutes.
I bet there's a movie.
OR.....
Maybe not.
I'm Googling and not finding anything.
Anyway....
It turns out President Ebert didn't make it through the seven years.
He died of Appendicitis.
Some more interesting things about the Presidential election (which I talked about in my previous post)
A) Lord Wiki says that Hindenburg's campaign stressed "social justice, religious equality, genuine peace at home and abroad".
That sounds like something left wing/progressives would want. Though I guess there are different ways to define social justice. For some, it could be justice for white men. Religious equality could mean all Protestant churches have the same rights as other Protestant churches.
B) Lord Wiki partially credits the Communists refusing to withdraw their candidate for Hindenburg's win.
I'm guessing there were too many left-wing candidates, so none of them got enough votes to beat Hindenburg.
Well, there were two actually and one was centrist rather than left.
There were three candidates all together—Hindenburg, Ernst Thalmann (the communist) and Wilhelm Marx from the Centre Party.
I wonder, though, if it could have gone the other way—Right-leaning people choosing the centrist over Hindenburg.
* * *
Now I'm going to read about Hindenburg as President.
He angered the right-wing people, because he sided with the Foreign Minister about being friendly with the countries that won the war. But it seems their anger got to him, and he was later less enthusiastic about the friendly-Germany plan.
I hope I'm getting this right.
It's a struggle for me to understand.
In 1927, Hindenburg pissed off the International Community by denying that Germany was responsible for World War I.
He did the DARVO.
Hindenburg said that war was the means of self-assertion against a world full of enemies. Pure in heart we set off to the defence of the fatherland and with clean hands the German army carried the sword.
How did the Allied countries get back at him?
By not wishing him a Happy 80th Birthday.
Ouch.
* * *
Here's something that's surprising to me.
Hindenburg liked Mueller as Chancellor.
Lord Wiki says he found him clever and agreeable.
I had been picturing a situation of right-wing Hindenburg vs. left-wing Mueller. But I think it's more nuanced than that. I don't think Hindenburg was far-right. I'm getting the idea he was more center-right.
Wait...
Maybe he got more right-winged later.
And/Or his advisors pushed him into certain directions.
There were four advisors known collectively as his Kamarilla.
If I'm understanding this right, there was a push to exclude the Social Democrats and Marxists from the government and make the Government less Parliamentary.
Oh wow.
It seems like these four advisors were pretty much what caused the end of Germany having a balance of left and right...and also caused the destruction of Germany's new democracy.
I mean not that the left and right had a perfect balance.
But it seems that they were at least TRYING to compromise and that Hindenburg supported that approach.
It seems he was very much poisoned.
Anyway...it was an advisor named Kurt von Schleicher that pushed Hindenburg to reject Mueller's Article 48 proposal.
Mueller's run as Chancellor came to an end.
Four Social Democrats in the Cabinet were replaced. I'm assuming those were the only lefties in the Cabinet. I mean I'm doubting he let others from other left-wing parties stay in the Cabinet.
The next Chancellor was Heinrich Bruning from the Catholic Zentrum Party.
I think I mentioned him in a previous post.
There was hope that all these exciting political changes would lead to better days.
But things got worse for the economy.
Bruning used a lot of the Article 48 which annoyed Hindenburg.
Here's something interesting. Lord Wiki says that Hindenburg once wrote to his daughter saying, What pains and angers me the most is being misunderstood by part of the political right.
I don't know for sure. But I'm guessing this is one of those cases where Hindenburg felt he was on the right. But for some on the right, he wasn't right enough.
He might be kin to the people called Rhinos by Trump supporters.
* * *
Hindenburg met Hitler in 1931.
They didn't like each other.
Despite being rejected earlier by Hindenburg and his advisors, the Social Democratic Party supported him having a second term as President, because they felt he was their only chance of keeping Hitler away.
* * *
It's been awhile since I wrote the paragraph above. I think Monday night.
Tuesday we watched the hearings, so I didn't have the time or energy to do research.
And much of today was spent on cleaning and packing up Jack's apartment.
In these past several hours, I've thought about all this political drama. Well...obviously (and especially) during the hearings.
I'm still trying to define Left vs. Right.
I'm not sure if define is the right word.
It's more like trying to fit things into categories? To divide things neatly. Or at least MORE neatly.
So right now, I think the right is about keeping up the status quo...which would fit well into it's French Revolution origins.
I think often usually the status quo is about maintaining white supremacy, the patriarchy, and a very wide gap between the wealthy and the poor.
The patriarchy is not always someone believing that 100% of women should stay in the kitchen. It might be someone...
Saying they don't necessarily support a ban on abortion but that women should actually just keep their legs closed or use birth control.
White supremacy is not always about hating Black people or wishing we could return to slavery. It might be someone....
Deliberately staying ignorant about systematic racism in our criminal justice system and then complaining about how Black people need to work harder on staying together as a family.
I think capitalism is very often tied to the right, because you can more easily trap communities who are already disadvantaged (from decades upon decades of systemic racism) by making childcare and higher education close to impossible to afford. Capitalism helps support the super wealthy CEO's (who are usually white and usually male) by providing them with a population that needs to work way too many hours, so they can pay for those doctor visits, shelter, food, prescriptions...AND also pay back student loans.
* * *
Sometimes right-wing is a White man with a big cake refusing to share any of it and threatening anyone who gets to close.
But other times it's a white man with a big cake, happily throwing out crumbs to others...sometimes even giving out an actual slice every so often. And then when people start coming for bigger slices, because really that cake is big enough to share, the white man starts crying, stomping his foot and saying that HE is the one who's being treated the most unfairly.
* * *
It's not always white men.
Sometimes it's men of color upholding the patriarchy.
Sometimes it's white women upholding white supremacy.
Sometimes instead of WHITE supremacy, it's other types of supremacy. It's having a very rigid idea of what the ideal human should be—Heterosexual, cis-gender, thin, Christian, extroverted, neurotypical, (only) minimally disabled, dresses a certain way, uses standard English, procreates, etc.
Sometimes people are caught between the left and the right. Because they want white men to share the cake. But uh...not with THOSE people.
OR those people can certainly have some cake. But first we need to fix them. First we need to make them more like us.
* * *
I will get back to the Hindenburg drama tomorrow.
* * *
I think I'm going to start using more of these breaks. It will save me from the awkward transitions. And when I read, I prefer lots of breaks, so I'm going to...
Well, I can't assume everyone is the same as me when it comes to reading.
But I'm going to side here with the people who are.
* * *
I just learned that the three little asterisks are called a Dinkus.
I'm going to be using much more of them for now on.
Read my novel: The Dead are Online
No comments:
Post a Comment