Alan Bullock Quotes

The street gangs,” in the words of Alan Bullock, “had seized control of the resources of a great modern State, the gutter had come to power.” But—as Hitler never ceased to boast—“legally,” by an overwhelming vote of Parliament. The Germans had no one to blame but themselves.

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, A History of Nazi Germany, by William L. Shirer, Simon and Schuster, 1960, New York; Hitler, a Study in Tyranny, by Alan Bullock, Harper, 1953, New York;

I would recommend to anyone Professor Alan Bullock’s definitive Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Daniel Goldhagen’s brilliant Hitler’s Willing Executioners as well as the above mentioned Those Were the Days.

The corruption at the heart of Communist ideology lay in the means. Social justice, greater freedom and equality, an end to exploitation and alienation are noble, humane ends. What compromised them fatally was the inhuman methods employed to achieve them. This was as true of Lenin and Trotsky as of Stalin.

Para una dictadura moderna, toda organización que sea independiente ya es política.

Si monumentum requiris, circumspice,’ concludes Alan Bullock’s study of Hitler: ‘If you seek his monument, look around.’ The division of Germany, the exhaustion of British power, the entrenchment and paranoia of Soviet Russia, the denials of freedom in the Eastern half of Europe, the entanglement of America in the Western half, the creation of the State of Israel and the consequent instability of the Middle East – all, in a sense, have been bequeathed to us by Adolf Hitler.

one of whom, Goebbels, later described him as hating Christianity. His biographer, Alan Bullock, also wrote that he did not believe in God, but rather was a rationalist who objected to Christianity on the basis that it rebelled against the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest. Bullock added that Hitler only espoused divine providence

La ideología, en su acepción general de conjunto coherente de creencias, es algo de lo que la mayoría de los partidos políticos se jacta de poseer, o admite tener, aun cuando les moleste la palabra. Sin embargo, los regímenes creados por Stalin y Hitler fueron ideológicos en un sentido mucho más restringido: en el de un cuerpo de creencias cuya aceptación era obligatoria para cada ciudadano, siendo cualquier desviación de las mismas susceptible de ser considerada como crimen capital.

Hitler’s electoral success—far greater than Mussolini’s—allowed him more autonomy in bargaining with the political insiders whose help he needed to reach office. Even more than in Italy, as German governmental mechanisms jammed after 1930, responsibility for finding a way out narrowed to a half-dozen men: President Hindenburg, his son Oskar and other intimate advisors, and the last two Weimar chancellors, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher. At first they tried to keep the uncouth Austrian ex-corporal out. One must recall that in the 1930s cabinet ministers were still supposed to be gentlemen. Bringing raw fascists into government was a measure of their desperation. The Catholic aristocrat Franz von Papen tried as chancellor (July– November 1932) to govern without politicians, through a so-called Cabinet of Barons composed of technical experts and nonpolitical eminences. His gamble at holding national elections in July let the Nazis become the largest party. Von Papen then tried to bring Hitler in as vice chancellor, a position without authority, but the Nazi leader had enough strategic acumen and gambler’s courage to accept nothing but the top office. This path forced Hitler to spend the tense fall of 1932 in an agony of suspenseful waiting, trying to quiet his restless and office-hungry militants while he played for all or nothing. Hoping to deepen the crisis, the Nazis (like the Fascists before them) increased their violence, carefully choosing their targets. The apogee of Nazi street violence in Germany came after June 16, 1932, when Chancellor von Papen lifted the ban on SA uniforms that Brüning had imposed in April. During several sickening weeks, 103 people were killed and hundreds were wounded. Von Papen’s expedient of new elections on November 6 diminished the Nazi vote somewhat (the communists gained again), but did nothing to extract Germany from constitutional deadlock. President Hindenburg replaced him as chancellor on December 2 with a senior army officer regarded as more technocratic than reactionary, General Kurt von Schleicher. During his brief weeks in power (December 1932–January 1933), Schleicher prepared an active job-creation program and mended relations with organized labor. Hoping to obtain Nazi neutrality in parliament, he flirted with Gregor Strasser, head of the party administration and a leader of its anticapitalist current (Hitler never forgot and never forgave Strasser’s “betrayal”). At this point, Hitler was in serious difficulty. In the elections of November 6, his vote had dropped for the first time, costing him his most precious asset—momentum. The party treasury was nearly empty. Gregor Strasser was not the only senior Nazi who, exhausted by Hitler’s all ornothing strategy, was considering other options. The Nazi leader was rescued by Franz von Papen. Bitter at Schleicher for taking his place, von Papen secretly arranged a deal whereby Hitler would be chancellor and he, von Papen, deputy chancellor—a position from which von Papen expected to run things. The aged Hindenburg, convinced by his son and other intimate advisors that Schleicher was planning to depose him and install a military dictatorship, and convinced by von Papen that no other conservative option remained, appointed the Hitler–von Papen government on January 30, 1933. Hitler, concluded Alan Bullock, had been “hoist” into office by “a backstairs conspiracy.

His biographer, Alan Bullock, also wrote that he did not believe in God, but rather was a rationalist who objected to Christianity on the basis that it rebelled against the Darwinian concept of survival of the fittest. Bullock added that Hitler only espoused divine providence in order to defend his own myth.