The Reichstag fire

History Today reminds us that today is the anniversary of the Reichstag fire: February 27, 1933. For some reason the video starts with a note in Hungarian. It says:

The Destruction of the Reichstag

The seat of the German national assembly and one of Berlin's most beautiful Italianate renaissance palaces has become the victim of Communist arson. 

The blog continues:

Coming less than a month after Hitler became Chancellor, the attack was used as evidence of a growing Communist plot against the German government. van der Lubbe was tried, found guilty and executed the next year. Several other Communist leaders were also tried, and acquitted. But the fire was the precursor to a total seizure of power by the Nazis, who began to systematically dismantle Germany's democratic institutions and victimise their political opponents. The real identity of those responsible for the fire remains topic of much discussion amongst historians.

It's an odd way of putting it, the implication being that van der Lubbe was a Communist leader as well, which he most definitely was not. But it definitely was used by Hitler to seize total control and to suppress the Communist party (not that it had put up much of a fight).

It was also used by the Communists to promote their own propaganda, a far more successful enterprise in the end. As I wrote in a long piece a while ago, entitled The big lie or many small lies:

Here is an interesting question for all our readers? Who burnt down the Reichstag in 1933? Can you recall the name of Marinus van der Lubbe, the somewhat crazed Dutchman, who actually set it on fire? And even if you can, do you not think that there was somebody behind it all? After all, it could not be just a lone lunatic?

It would be interesting to know how many of those who read the above paragraph nodded and said: “Of course, Hitler ordered and manipulated van der Lubbe (assuming you can recall the name) and then used the fire to get rid of the opposition and to blame the Communists.”

I am willing to bet that nobody said: “Oh yes, it was the Communists and they managed to get away with it because Dimitrov’s trial (assuming you can recall that name) was unsuccessful. Hitler merely took advantage of the event.”

That, ladies and gentlemen, is the difference between good and bad propaganda.

I am rather proud of that piece and, quite shamelessly, recommend that people read it.

Precision in language matters

It is deeply distressing to hear somebody who is highly regarded as a writer in whatever field using language imprecisely. I caught the beginning of Private Passions on Radio 3 today and they were repeating a programme from some years ago in which Andrew Graham-Dixon, the highly regarded art historian and critic (as well as public intellectual) was to choose his favourite pieces of music. (Yes, it probably is a supposedly more intellectual version of Desert Island Disks. I rarely listen to either.)

He started with a Wagner piece and burbled about it (there really is no other way of describing it) saying very brightly though ever so slightly sheepishly that  this is a revolutionary piece of music and, of course, Wagner was a revolutionary, which is important to remember as he is presented as a kind of neo-Nazi, which he was not really.

Wagner was not a Nazi of any kind though some of his ideas were lifted and greatly simplified by the Nazis. Would he  have liked that? Who can tell? The sheer vulgarity of Nazism might have appalled him. Or not. I have no views on that subject. BUT he could not have been a neo-Nazi. That, Mr Graham-Dixon is completely wrong. Neo, as you ought to know, being an art historian of some repute, mean new or young or, perhaps, renewed. At most, Wagner could  have been a proto-Nazi (which  he was not).

Furthermore, the idea that a revolutionary is something wonderfully good and as the Nazis were bad the two are mutually incompatible is tosh. The Nazis were revolutionaries. Their early history is as revolutionary as that of any other socialist, anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, anti-constitutional group. They were great believers in street violence and acquiring power through that, an idea that was taken up by many others in the twentieth century, not least by Mao and the various urban guerrillas.

A highly regarded art historian and critic ought to be aware of all this and not misuse words in this ridiculous fashion.

Every time one thinks ....

... the Conservative Party has hit rock bottom a completely new chasm opens before one's feet. To be fair, this story started several days ago and has now been covered by a few people but I think I can add something or other to it all.

About three days ago the Daily Wail published an article in which it told us that

Hertfordshire’s Deputy Police Crime Commissioner Rachel Frosh has resigned today after she retweeted a quote said by Adolf Hitler.

The tweet, which was originally posted by a user under the name Fenrir, said: 'Dear Socialists, embrace your inner Nazism.'

A link took web users to a picture of Adolf Hitler captioned with a quote from him describing the fledgling Nazi party as socialist.

Speaking after the gaffe, she said: 'I recognise that I am not able to fully comment on some political issues whilst remaining as Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner.

'It is therefore with great regret that I have tendered my resignation this morning.'

And that seemed to be that.

On Thursday Rachel Frosh (the Dr is a medical one as she has been that, working in the NHS, for twenty years) wrote a feisty article in The Commentator, in which she explained that although holding those views might hamper in her work as Deputy Police Crime Commissioner, she does not wish to distance herself from the fairly widely held opinion that National Socialism had its origins in socialism. The name is something of a give-away though few people on the left accept that. I recall having the usual sort of argument about Nazism being socialism with somebody solemnly assuring me that it could not be. The word "national" gave the truth away. I replied that I did not see why the word "national" should give anything away while the word "socialist" was ignored.

If one goes through the comments on the article one finds the same arguments rehashed though, I am happy to say, people who appear to know history seem to predominate.

However, I was still ignoring the story, as it seemed such a stupid storm in a teacup. No longer.

Yesterday morning The Commentator informed us all that Dr Frosh has now been suspended

from the Conservative Party's candidates list for the next general election, following hysterical coverage of a retweet of hers which linked Nazism to Socialism.

Party sources are reported to have confirmed the suspension in response to the retweet, which mockingly encouraged socialists to embrace their "inner Nazi".

I checked my calendar. No, it was not a particularly cold April 1 but a mildly warm February 15. What on earth is going on?

According to Guido Fawkes a Tory spokesman has confirmed that they viewed the comments as "completely unacceptable" and that she was, indeed, suspended from the party's candidate list.

Douglas Murray points out, as do many of us, that there is a clue in the name. As it happens, there were clues in the various ideas such as the notion of the individual as a cog in the great structure, shared by Nazis and Communists, both of whom grew from socialism.

It is neither an insult to all of the left, nor an attempt to exonerate all of the right, but rather a statement of historical fact that National Socialism had its origins in socialism. If the Conservative party’s apparatchiks look hard enough they will even find a clue in the name. But evidently they are too busy giving in to left-wing twitter-mobs to have time for such a bland and useless thing as historical truth.

They might also read the excellent Liberal Fascism by Jonah Goldberg that gives a detailed analysis of the historic development.

James Delingpole calls his blog The Conservative Party - where telling the truth is a sackable offence and points out that the obvious connection between fascism, socialism and Nazism has always annoyed the left but it is a little odd, to put it mildly, for the Conservative Party to worry about that. When I think what Conservatives of the past, such as Margaret Thatcher, used to say about socialism I have to admit that not one of them would now be able to get to the candidates' list.

Iain Dale points out that he has made comments along those lines years ago and is, therefore, clearly not candidate material. (Actually, he is a better journalist than politician but let that pass.) And we get the same arguments about whether the fact that something is called socialist makes it socialist with at least one commenter saying that neither Stalin nor Hitler ended up as socialists. Let us forget the ideology: socialism is a lovely cuddly-wuddly set of ideas that wants to make a better world and everybody happy but people who claim to be putting that into practice always end up murdering and torturing millions so they cannot possibly be socialists. Or something like that. At least the Nazis had the sense not to confiscate everybody's property and allowed private business as long as the state remained totally in control; the economy did well unlike in the Soviet Union but that does not alter the basic ideas.

Dr Frosh herself has a website on which she explains that she, of all people, having studied Judaism and converted to it, can speak about the roots of Nazism. The special pleading, in my opinion, is unnecessary. Anyone can speak about the roots of Nazism and anyone can point to their essential socialist qualities; and anyone can disagree.

Setting aside what one thinks about the roots of Nazism, there are two things I find particularly appalling. One is the ignorance that is clearly displayed by the Conservative party hierarchy and the other is the notion that perfectly reasonable political views cannot be expressed by candidates if they upset the left-wing consensus of the twitterati. Here, if anywhere we can see the extent to which the left has captured the commanding heights of our cultural life.

It is as if all political parties (including UKIP) are now competing as to which can show itself in a stupider light and lose more support.

Hammer and Sickle or the Swastika?

I was not going to write about Eric Hobsbawm again for some time and, in fact, this piece is not about him. I was sent a link to Peter Hitchens's column on the subject in which he quite correctly notes that young people will cheerfully wear a hammer and sickle badge (or a Che Guevara t-shirt) and not understand the question when asked whether they would wear a swastika. In fact, I was amazed at the number of people who pointed out quite seriously during the vehement discussions in the wake of Hobsbawm's death that there is a huge difference between supporting murderous Communist dictators and murderous fascist/Nazi ones as the former were motivated by a sense of decency and a desire for a better and more free world. I asked some of them whether the deliberate starvation of 13 million peasants, men, women and children, was a sign of decency. It is always fun to watch people like that squirm.

Mr Hitchens's piece does bring out a couple of other points. In the first place, he mentions one of the best books on the subject, Under Two Dictators by Margarete Buber Neumann, about which I have written before. (I still think everyone should read it.) Hitchens describes well the handing over of German Communists (those that had survived) to Hitler in 1939 but does not mention the real irony of the situation.

Not all of them were sent to camps by the Gestapo. The Jews were, as one would expect but the others, with a couple of exceptions, to their surprise were packed off home and told to report to the local police regularly. Margarte Buber Neumann was one of those who was sent to Ravensbrück and she did, indeed, have a bad time there from the Communist inmates as much as the guards because she tried to tell the truth about the Soviet Union.

The reason for her being separated from the others was that the Gestapo did not believe her protestations that she thought Heinz Neumann had been murdered (pace Peter Hitchens, she did know or, at least, heard reliable rumours from other prisoners). The Gestapo simply would not believe that Stalin would have somebody who was not just a Communist (they knew what was happening to them) but a complete Stalinist who was prepared to turn on his own colleagues at the slightest word from the Great Leader. Yet it was true.

The other amusing part of the article is the description of the way the Daily Worker twisted and turned in 1939 and 1940 when, in the wake of  the Nazi-Soviet Pact and the Nazi-Soviet invasion of Poland, they were on the other side of the battle. Let us not forget that while Britain did not stand alone during the Battle of Britain (there was the small matter of the Empire and the Dominions as well as individuals who had escaped from occupied countries to join the battle and other individuals who had come from supposedly neutral ones like Ireland and the United States) it most certainly did not have the Soviet Union on her side. Au contraire. Germany could not have fought in those months in the air or on sea without Soviet help. And a lot of thanks Stalin got for his assistance. About as much, in fact, as he gave to his most loyal servants.

Some logic in this

Hungary has decided to display a certain amount of logic in its prosecution of past war criminals. I am not saying that Hungarians do not display logic at other times (it is, after all, a country that has produced more first-class mathematicians per head of population than any other) but when it comes to matters of this kind, burying of heads in the sand is the order of the day.

Having detained and put under house arrest "97-year-old Laszlo Csatary, the former police chief of the Jewish ghetto in Kosice, who oversaw both the ghetto and the deportations to Auschwitz in the spring of 1944" the Hungarian authorities have finally got round to arresting former Interior Minister Bela Biszku, who

is accused of responsibility for ordering the security forces to open fire on crowds in Budapest and Salgotarjan in November and December 1956. About 50 people were killed in those two incidents alone.

Further charges, relating to his role in allegedly interfering with the courts to ensure heavy sentences, including the death sentence for the revolutionaries, may be added. At least 226 people were executed.

There is more on the story here and on Xinhuan.

It is, of course, logical to deal with Communist criminals as harshly as with Nazi ones but one does wonder why it took the Hungarian authorities quite so long to do so.

One of the mysteries of the case is exactly why it has taken so long. It is 22 years since the fall of communism, and 44 years since Hungary signed the 1968 New York Convention on bringing those responsible for war crimes to justice.

In 2011 the so-called Biszku Law was drawn up, allowing for the 1968 New York Convention to be incorporated into Hungarian law.

In February this year, the Budapest Prosecution Service began an investigation, in reaction to an individual complaint against him.

Asked by the BBC to explain the timing of Mr Biszku's arrest, the chief prosecutor mentioned the change in the law.

That merely rephrases the problem. Why did it take so long for the New York Convention to be incorporated into law? By now, Mr Biszku is practically the only man alive who could be held responsible and he, like the arrested former Nazis is very old.