Vol. II Number 34                       September 6, 1998

      

The United States Government and the rest of the world are utilizing the same tactics that Adolf Hitler used in Germany back in the 1930's. Hitler's rise to power was at a time of distress. There was a world wide depression that he used to cajole and convince that there had to be a diminishing of civil liberties. These same tactics are being used today by the government. For instance, the FBI is instituting a national surveillance program that at a push of a button they can monitor your phone conversations. This was instituted because of the threat of terrorists.

But, with the ability of superior data encryption that is available on the world wide web, why would the FBI desire to be able to wire tap with a press of a button. Also, there are those in the government that feel that the ``Bill of Rights'' is a hindrance to them. For instance, your property can now be confiscated without due process of law. All that is needed is someone accusing you of illegal drug usage and your car and home can be confiscated without recourse. What about the 4th amendment about illegal search and seizure? These are the same tactics that Hitler used in his rise to power.

Hitler used fear, threats, secret police, neighbors, and whatever necessary to report illegal activity. In New Jersey for instance there is now a reward for turning in anyone growing, using or selling Marijuana. It doesn't matter if the accused isn't using or doing anything, it is a tactic to recruit a secret police network. If your neighbor doesn't like you, she could report you and collect the bounty, although you are innocent. Can you see where this is heading? Can you see how these actions will lead to the government of the anti Christ?

2 Peter 3:1-10
1 This second epistle, beloved, I now write unto you; in both which I stir up your pure minds by way of remembrance:
2 That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
3 Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days scoffers, walking after their own lusts,
4 And saying, Where is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation.
5 For this they willingly are ignorant of, that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water:
6 Whereby the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished:
7 But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.
8 But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.
9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

Revelation 13:1-18
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death; and his deadly wound was healed: and all the world wondered after the beast.
4 And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?
5 And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two months.
6 And he opened his mouth in blasphemy against God, to blaspheme his name, and his tabernacle, and them that dwell in heaven.
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints, and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.
9 If any man have an ear, let him hear.
10 He that leadeth into captivity shall go into captivity: he that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword. Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.
11 And I beheld another beast coming up out of the earth; and he had two horns like a lamb, and he spake as a dragon.
12 And he exerciseth all the power of the first beast before him, and causeth the earth and them which dwell therein to worship the first beast, whose deadly wound was healed.
13 And he doeth great wonders, so that he maketh fire come down from heaven on the earth in the sight of men,
14 And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
16 And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

The reign of the anti Christ is going to be an absolute reign just like Hitler's. He will use people's fears and innuendo to make them give up their personal freedom for the sake of safety. He will use the fear of drugs, terrorists, and etc. to cause you to give up your rights. He will use the fear of a financial collapse or some other catastrophe to make you accept a debit card, and then his mark. It has already been put into motion with the welfare recipients. There is no longer food stamps, but a debit card with each user's account that gets deducted with each purchase. And the government controls the funds and assets. Now the government has total control of the welfare recipients. You are next!

The days that we are living in has been described in the Bible! The whole world is becoming one through the Internet. There is a ``group thought'' today. It seems that the tide of public opinion can be swayed moment by moment utilizing fear and innuendo. The same tactics that Hitler used. Create a common enemy, create fear of that enemy, and increase the rhetoric. This is what is happening today across the world. This is what is happening in the United States today. Fear is causing people to willingly turn over their constitutional rights to the government. The rise of the anti Christ is imminent!

The following is from: http://www.scruz.net/~kangaroo/L-hitlerdemo.htm

Myth: Democracy elected Hitler to power.

Fact: Hitler used back-room deals, not votes, to come to power.



Summary

Hitler never had more than 37 percent of the popular vote in the honest elections that occurred before he became Chancellor. And the opposition among the 63 percent against him was generally quite strong. Hitler therefore would have never seen the light of day had the German Republic been truly democratic. Unfortunately, its otherwise sound constitution contained a few fatal flaws. The German leaders also had a weak devotion to democracy, and some were actively plotting to overthrow it. Hitler furthermore enjoyed an almost unbroken string of luck in coming to power. He benefited greatly from the Great Depression, the half-senility of the president, the incompetence of his opposition, and the appearance of an unnecessary back-room deal just as the Nazis were starting to lose popular appeal and votes.



Argument

Critics of democracy often claim that Hitler was democratically elected to power. This is untrue. Hitler never had the popular votes to become Chancellor of Germany, and the only reason he got the job was because the German leaders entered into a series of back-room deals. Some claim that Hitler's rise was nonetheless legal under the German system. The problem is that what was "legal" under the German system would not be considered legal under a truer and better-working democracy. In a democracy along the lines of the United States or Great Britain, Hitler could have never risen to power.

The background to Hitler's rise to power

The German Weimar Republic was doomed from the start. (1) Germany had no democratic tradition, and in fact many parties were deeply opposed to the creation of a democracy. These included old monarchists, the Army, the industrialists, the Nationalists and several other conservative parties. Many, like the Nazis to come, were not so much members of the Republic as they were conspirators to overthrow it. When it came time to create the Republic, the conservative parties took no part in the process. They left that responsibility to the Social Democrats, who were not enthusiastic about building a Republic either, but did so anyway, by themselves.

Yet this would allow the conservative parties to blame the Republic and the Social Democrats for all of Germany's future problems. The new government, led by the liberal parties, inevitably had to sign Germany's surrender documents and terms of peace. Unfortunately, the punitive Treaty of Versailles humiliated Germany before the entire world. This event was really beyond Germany's control, but conservative parties would blame liberals and the Republic forever afterwards, calling it a "stab in the back" by the "November criminals." To be loyal to the Fatherland, conservatives often said, one had to be disloyal to the Republic. Hitler himself would rely heavily on this very rhetoric.

The constitution of the new Republic was also doomed from the start. On paper, it seemed like one of the most liberal and democratic constitutions of Europe at the time. It called for the government to be led by a president with limited but sometimes strong constitutional powers. The Reichstag, or parliament, would be filled with a varying number of elected representatives (usually about 600). These representatives would in turn elect the Reichstag's chancellor and cabinet, which would remain in power only as long as they commanded majority approval in the Reichstag. In the event that no single party or candidate commanded a majority, then coalitions would have to be forged.

Unfortunately, the constitution also contained several fatal flaws. One of the worst was Article 48 of the constitution, which granted dictatorial powers to the president in times of national emergency. Unfortunately, the president would frequently evoke this clause, and it ultimately proved the downfall of the Republic.

Another flaw was an elaborate and complex system of proportional voting and voting by list, intended to give minorities the fairest possible representation. This is a laudable goal, of course, but other democracies use different methods to achieve it. Germany's approach had the practical effect of splintering the parties; by 1930, there were no less than 28 parties competing for election. This made it virtually impossible to establish a majority in the Reichstag, and led to instability and frequent changes in the government. What made this worse is that Germany's middle class was too small, and there were too few middle-class parties to stabilize German politics. With Communists on one side, and Nazis on the other, there was little room for compromise and coalition-building.

Finally, the constitution created a government that was not sufficiently centralized. Many of the German states retained a high degree of autonomy under the new government. This was not the original intention of Professor Hugo Preuss, the constitution's chief architect. He had called for states like Prussia to be turned into provinces under a unified German state. But his suggestion was rejected, creating a situation where strong German states would endlessly squabble for power.

In addition to these constitutional defects, there were two other problems that weakened democracy in Weimar Germany. One was the advanced age of its president, Paul von Hindenburg, a strong-willed field marshal and war hero. Unfortunately, Hindenburg would be in his middle 80s and partly senile by the time Hitler started achieving real power. Although he personally detested Hitler, he made many costly blunders and miscalculations about him, thinking he could easily control him. But by then the aged field marshal had lost much of his competence.

The second problem was that the Army was not subordinated to the government, but was a strong political player in its own right. By the time Hitler started his final rise to power, the Army's most influential political figure would be Lieutenant General Kurt von Schleicher, who was a close personal friend of Hindenburg and other government leaders. He would emerge as a major power broker -- and an undemocratic one -- in the power struggles that erupted in the early 30s. Of course, Hitler had long made sure to cultivate his alliances with the Army.

These were the conditions under which Hitler began his political career.

Hitler's rise to power

Like all mass movements, Nazism only thrived in times of great national distress. However, it is important to note the significant limits of Nazi popularity even then. After World War I, Germany lay defeated, humiliated by the Treaty of Versailles, its industrial regions occupied by foreign powers, saddled with enormous war reparations, and with no military to defend itself. Yet throughout the 1920s, Hitler could not exploit these setbacks to achieve political power. As late as May 1928, the Nazis had obtained only 12 seats in the Reichstag.

It took the Great Depression -- which hit Germany harder than any than any other nation -- to turn Nazism into a true mass movement. But even then, the Nazis never gained a majority of the people's vote. Nazism generally appealed to only a third of the German people, and these came from its lower classes, armed forces and war industries. Nearly two-thirds of Germany were opposed to Hitler, and adamantly so. There was never any hope that Hitler could have won their support. It goes without saying that if the German Republic had been truly democratic, it would have survived even the test of a depression.

Still, the Great Depression gave Hitler a chance to blame the status quo, and he expertly exploited the people's misery to increase his political power. In elections held on September 14, 1930, the Nazis won 18 percent of the vote, increasing their seats in the Reichstag to 107. Overnight they went from the ninth to second largest political party in Germany.

Between 1931 and 1933, vicious power struggles would break out between rival political parties. The power brokers in these struggles were Hindenburg and Schleicher. The problem during this period was that no party even came close to achieving the majority required to elect its leader Chancellor. Coalitions were either impossible to build, or were so transient that they dissolved as quickly as they formed. Ambitious leaders from every party began maneuvering for power, striking deals, double-crossing each other, and trying to find the most advantageous alliances. Hitler himself would ally the Nazis to the Nationalist Party. "The chess game for power begins," Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary. "The chief thing is that we remain strong and make no compromises." (2)

In 1932, hoping to establish a clear government by majority rule, Hindenburg held two presidential elections. Hitler, among others, ran against him. A vote for Hindenburg was a vote to continue the German Republic, while a vote for Hitler was a vote against it. The Nazi party made the most clever use of propaganda, as well as the most extensive use of violence. Bloody street battles erupted between Communists and Nazis thugs, and many political figures were murdered.

In the first election, held on March 13, 1932, Hitler received 30 percent of the vote, losing badly to Hindenburg's 49.6 percent. But because Hindenburg had just missed an absolute majority, a run-off election was scheduled a month later. On April 10, 1932, Hitler increased his share of the vote to 37 percent, but Hindenburg again won, this time with a decisive 53 percent. A clear majority of the voters had thus declared their preference for a democratic republic.

However, the balance of power in the Reichstag was still unstable, lacking a majority party or coalition to rule the government. All too frequently, Hindenburg had to evoke the dictatorial powers available to him under Article 48 of the constitution to break up the political stalemate. In an attempt to resolve this crisis, he called for more elections. On July 31, 1932, the Nazis won 230 out of 608 seats in the Reichstag, making them its largest party. Still, they did not command the majority needed to elect Hitler Chancellor.

In another election on November 6, 1932, the Nazis lost 34 seats in the Reichstag, reducing their total to 196. And for the first time it looked as if the Nazi threat would fade. This was for several reasons. First, the Nazis' violence and rhetoric had hardened opposition against Hitler, and it was becoming obvious that he would never achieve power democratically. Even worse, the Nazi party was running very low on money, and it could no longer afford to operate its expensive propaganda machine. Furthermore, the party was beginning to splinter and rebel under the stress of so many elections. Hitler discovered that Gregor Strasser, one of the Nazis' highest officials, had been disloyal, attempting to negotiate power for himself behind Hitler's back. The shock was so great that Hitler threatened to shoot himself.

But at the lowest ebb of the Nazis' fortunes, the back-room deal presented itself as the solution to all their problems. Deal-making, intrigues and double-crosses had been going on for years now. Schleicher, who had managed to make himself the last German Chancellor before Hitler, would eventually say: "I stayed in power only 57 days, and on each of those days I was betrayed 57 times." (3) It's not worth tracking the ins and outs of all these schemes, but the one that got Hitler into power is worth noting.

Hitler's unexpected savior was Franz von Papen, one of the former Chancellors, a remarkably incompetent man who owed his political career to a personal friendship with Hindenburg. He had been thrown out of power by the much more capable Schleicher, who personally replaced him. To get even, Papen approached Hitler and offered to become "co-chancellors," if only Hitler would join him in a coalition to overthrow Schleicher. Hitler responded that only he could be the head of government, while Papen's supporters could be given important cabinet positions. The two reached a tentative agreement to pursue such an alliance, even though secretly they were planning to double-cross each other.

Meanwhile Schleicher was failing spectacularly in his attempts to form a coalition government, so Hindenburg forced his resignation. But by now, Hindenburg was exhausted by all the intrigue and crisis, and the prospect of civil war had moved the steely field marshal to tears. As much as he hated to do so, he seemed resigned to offering Hitler a high government position. Many people were urging him to do so: the industrialists who were financing Hitler, the military whose connections Hitler had cultivated, even Hindenburg's son, whom some historians believe the Nazis had blackmailed. The last straw came when an unfounded rumor swept through Berlin that Schleicher was about to attempt a military coup, arrest Hindenburg, and establish a military dictatorship. Alarmed, Hindenburg wasted no time offering Hitler the Chancellorship, thinking it was a last resort to save the Republic.

On January 30, 1933, Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor. As Hitler historian Alan Bullock put it:

"Hitler came to office in 1933 as the result, not of any irresistible revolutionary or national movement sweeping him into power, nor even of a popular victory at the polls, but as part of a shoddy political deal with the 'Old Gang' whom he had been attacking for months… Hitler did not seize power; he was jobbed into office by a backstairs intrigue." (4)

"Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression of opinion, including freedom of the press; on the rights of assembly and association; and violations of the privacy of postal, telegraphic and telephonic communications and warrants for house searches, orders for confiscations as well as restrictions on property, are also permissible beyond the legal limits otherwise prescribed." (6)

"Police officers who make use of fire-arms in the execution of their duties will, without regard to the consequences of such use, benefit from my protection; those who… fail in their duty will be punished…" (7)

"Full powers -- or else! We want the bill -- or fire and murder!"

"We German Social Democrats pledge ourselves solemnly in this historic hour to the principles of humanity and justice, of freedom and socialism. No enabling act can give you power to destroy ideas which are eternal and indestructible."

"You are no longer needed! -- The star of Germany will rise and yours will sink! Your death knell has sounded!" (8)

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