I came from a more progressive, artistic family, and I was more of a loner, a listener and observer. At first, Marianne and Melita agreed about politics. Gradually, these discussions erupted into serious conflict. Melita joined the B. I was horrified. She persuaded me to attend meetings where Hitler would speak; her intent was to have me convert. She told me that I was not able to appreciate his greatness because I had Jewish blood. Eighty years later, Marianne recalls that she found this remark ridiculous.
In , Melita suddenly disappeared. Marianne recalls being devastated that Melita had left without a word, and pressed Dr. Flashar, their favorite teacher, for answers. The Maschmanns, she explained, had decided that Melita needed more rigorous academic preparation for her Abitur end-of-school exam , and had transferred her to a boarding school. In the memoir, Maschmann writes that they sent her away to curtail her Nazi activities. In the fall of , Melita reappeared to the Schweitzers, asking to renew the friendship.
Their mother was also arrested, and was released after a week. Most of them wanted to remain in Berlin, but Marianne, remembering family friends who had visited from America when she was a child, had long dreamed about California.
Hitler had long held right-wing nationalist views, but in a "critical development," Schleunes said, the army sent him to attend university lectures on German history , socialism and bolshevism — from a right-wing perspective. It was Hitler's power as a speaker that turned him from informer to party member, Schleunes said. During a German Workers' Party lecture, someone suggested that it might be best for Bavaria to break from the rest of Germany, splintering the country.
Hitler, a German nationalist, was appalled and argued against the idea. The leader of the party, impressed with his speaking style, asked him to join the party. A few days later, on Sept. Hitler became a fiery speaker on the beer-hall circuit and was willing to risk the humiliation of low turnout by organizing rallies in large spaces, Kershaw wrote. His organizing talents propelled him to the top of the party's leadership. In , Hitler was voted chairman of the party and took total control.
The once-tiny group began to draw new members, absorbing other right-wing groups, Schleunes said. Hitler remained a cold presence in person.
He could milk an audience and shape it and get it to feel. If Hitler's speaking abilities gave him the roots to flourish in the early Nazi Party, the chaos and resentment of Germany at the time were the soil that made his growth possible.
They'd been told throughout the war that they were winning. They faced food and coal shortages, and ended the war with millions killed and wounded. Instead of the swastika, I'm now looking at the black-red-and-gold flag of the Federal Republic. The political leadership has been replaced, and people seem happy with their country.
They're especially happy with their new currency, the deutschmark. It's brought Germany back into the fold of international commerce, reviving the economy. The museum has dedicated a whole room to the period of the so-called "economic miracle. After that, another big exhibition room documents the start of another era: the fall of the Wall and the process of reunification from onwards.
Again, I ask some of the visitors whether they're proud of German history. Here, in this room, people answer differently. It seems some Germans do identify with the period before and after the 12 years of Hitler - but not with the period between and From one room to the next, I follow the course of recent German history. This exhibition makes me realize how differentiated Germans' feelings are about their country and history. It's as if I'm reading a breathtaking novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez : The book opens with the war on the first page, then the white flag of capitulation flutters before the reader's eyes, before going on to a new, exciting chapter: the Cold War - the face-off between West and East, capitalism and communism.
Some answer with an emphatic "No," while others are more hesitant. Their faces reflect the complexity of the question. Some reject national pride entirely, others only with regard to certain periods in German history. I wander around the museum, trying to find one visitor prepared to answer my question with an unqualified affirmative: "Yes! I am proud of German history. My visits to the museum have helped me to understand something.
Unlike many Arabs, Germans are not at all proud of their country's military history. In trying to understand why this is, I think of what colleagues in DW's Arabic Service have told me about German schools. Children are taught in the spirit of tolerance and acceptance of others.
In the s, however, the Nazi Party was still a fringe group of ultraextremists with little political power. It received only 2. But the worldwide economic depression and the rising power of labor unions and communists convinced increasing numbers of Germans to turn to the Nazi Party.
The Nazis fed on bank failures and unemployment—proof, Hitler said, of the ineffectiveness of democratic government. Hitler pledged to restore prosperity, create civil order by crushing industrial strikes and street demonstrations by communists and socialists , eliminate the influence of Jewish financiers, and make the fatherland once again a world power.
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