Winston Churchill and the years of appeasement

The number of participants who signed onto the cruises, which ranged from approximately 60,000 in 1934 to as many as 140,000 in 1939, never approached that of the homeland vacations nor that of the shorter excursions. Yet aside from a dip in 1938, the number of vacationers taking sea voyages steadily increased until the outbreak of war.

In May 1934 as soon as weather permitted, KdF initiated its cruise program by sending the steamships Dresden and Monte Olivia from Bremerhaven to the North Sea island of Helgoland. The ships, filled with well-dressed and allegedly awestruck workers at sea for the first time in their lives, sailed through the Straits of Dover to the English Channel and Isle of Wight before returning to their port of disembarkation.
from: "Strength Through Joy: Consumerism and Mass Tourism in the Third Reich" by Shelley Baranowski.

 

For a Krupp ironworker, a cruise on the steamer Oceana also fulfilled a lifelong desire that he finally realized under National Socialism. From the departure of his train from Essen to his return to the same station, vacationers behaved more like a family than a collection of strangers, dancing together and sharing their food and drink. He praised the accommodations and food onboard ship, noting that the allocation of the former encouraged a welcome democratization. He, after all, shared a cabin with a champion sprinter.

The cruise allowed him to see sights that deepened his love for Germany and his faith in the current regime. Observing the yacht of an "American millionaire" in the Hamburg harbor, which he was told had a crew of 120 for six people, caused him to ask,
"Will this woman with all her money be happier than we who are on this marvelous trip? I hardly think so."

As for the English Channel and the Isle of Wight, he commented that "almighty Albion" was certainly beautiful, but no place was as captivating and orderly as Germany. Lying in a deck chair, the ironworker recalled the words of the Social Democratic party "boss" and the first chancellor of the Weimar Republic, Philipp Scheidemann, who once promised workers tourism and automobiles. Yet only Hitler had come through.

The Siemens worker, Maria Hohensee, one of nine Siemens employees from Berlin chosen for a three-week cruise to Lisbon and Madeira at company expense, found the exoticism of the sites she visited as central to the quality of vacationers' experience and to their perceptions of German distinctiveness.
Visiting a foreign land strengthened the common identity among the ship's passengers; indeed so much so that regardless of what part of Germany they hailed from, passengers collectively experienced a national pride.
...
If the bond with other passengers strengthened her Germanness, however, her gender sharpened her perceptions of difference. During a side tour on Madeira, one led by Ley and the German consul, who introduced the vacationers to local customs, Hohensee was amazed that unmarried women were not allowed on the streets unless accompanied by their mothers.
In her eyes the Third Reich was not a repressive dictatorship; rather, it combined individual freedom and community.
The same source.

 

Indeed, if you were willing to see your countrymen declared undesirables, see their homes, business's and then very freedom taken away, inform on your neighbors, kill your own children that the state declared defective, subjugate the populations of other peaceful countries, stealing everything of value they have, then yes Nazi Germany is the very model of a Jeffersonian Democracy.

 

Simply take the Dreyfuss military court in France and understand who got the blame.everywhere. Even today we can see the right-wing marking as things are getting tighter.Who is to blame: the Jew.

 

Quoting 1935 Nazi propaganda does little in the way of convincing. Want to bet the yacht they were looking at was Hitler's.

 

That's not Nazi propaganda, it's a heavily annotated scholarly work written by one of the few experts on this.
Don't malign people you know nothing about.

And Hitler never had any yacht. His yachts were his trains.

 

Have you read the book or just cut and paste? Did you read the footnote that states the source she got it from? The author is quoting Nazi propaganda.
Next time read the annotations.

Aviso Grille was the yacht of the German head of state. Hitler was that head of state.

Hitler did not own any trains...

 

It was a state yacht (i.e., used by various state officials) for two years or so, and Hitler visited it twice for a few days.
And it wasn't any real yacht, it was a minelayer with 11 guns of various calibers.

 

Clueless as always. By your logic, Vincent Astor's yacht "Nourmahal" was not a real yacht, because it was outfitted with 16 guns, 2 depth charge rails, 4 depth charge projectors, and 2 Mousetraps. Early in the war, the US took over many yachts and converted them into patrol boats. Actually, the Grille was a yacht that could be converted into an auxiliary mine layer.

 

Vincent Astor never owned any yacht with guns, you are inventing things.

 

The Vanderbilt yacht, Alva, was converted ointo a Patrol Gunboat, USS Plymouth. She was eventually sunk by U-566.

How man examples of yacht conversions to military use would you like?

 

So what it was sold and converted to a warship.
Grille was a warship from day one. It was used for state purposes (mostly by other people, not Hitler.)
Maybe Bismarck was a yacht too because Hitler used it for state purposes once.

You've said Hitler owned a yacht, prove it first before engaging in esoterics.

The trains were built for Hitler, for his personal use. That's why they were "his."
Grille and Bismarck weren't. They were warships he visited a few times.

 

Astor's yacht in Coast Guard & Navy service.
Nourmahal
But yachts don't carry guns...Apparently they can & do at times.

 

It was a "real" yacht converted for military purposes. According to you, it must have been a "fake" yacht because it was converted to military purposes - your logic for the Grille not being a "real" yacht, because it could be used for military purposes.

It was a warship from day one?

But you said it was a state yacht...

If it was a warship from day one...Why did you call it a state yacht when it was a warship. You know...Because yachts cannot be warships.

But Hitler did use it. And as head of state, it was his.

Show me any yacht with 15-inch guns & belt armor...Any ones at all.

But, they were not "his", because he neither paid for them, nor owned them. Show me a bill of sale or invoice showing that Hitler bought and paid for them. Otherwise, the were property of the state, not Hitler's.

And Hitler travelled on a train on occasion, but mostly used other means of transportation.

 

You are pointlessly nitpicking.
Stop that and allow us to discuss appeasement or consumerism in the Third Reich.

 

Considering the topic of this thread 'Winston Churchill and the years of appeasement' discussing consumerism in Nazi Germany might seem like 'nitpicking' to some.

 

Consumerism has arrived here because of the point that Nazi Germany wasn't a country that much different from others - maybe even better.
A country that organized the Olympics, sent their workers all around Europe on cruises, introduced consumerism for all.
Such a country didn't look especially threatening so appeasement was understandable.

Hitler started to play hardball in March 1939. Earlier even Poland, Germany's closest neighbor didn't expect anything.

Everybody talks about appeasement towards the Nazis although they didn't behave especially badly in the years of appeasement.
But nobody about appeasement towards the Soviets who murdered by millions at the same time.

 

With respect you seem to be trying too hard to put lipstick on a pig here.

Lets take the Olympics, the modern games have been held in different countries every two years (Summer/Winter) since 1896 with only a interruption during the Great War, so holding one is not a exceptional achievement and was accomplished by presenting a image of themselves that was false (allowing foreign papers/radio, curtailing anti-Jewish measures etc.).

Having the government pay for cruises is nice, but then again throwing up endless hurtles to people they didn't even want to emigrate out of Germany is the dark side to this, and we must recognize these cruises were propaganda exercises for those who went on them. You get a vacation, but on Nazi terms.

The Nazi did not introduce consumerism, it existed under Imperial and Weimar rule, Germany simply suffered more from the Great Depression than others, largely due to the Versailles Treaty. As for the 'improved' economy, setting aside increased munition production and conscription of thousands of working age men, much of it was achieved by robbing peter to pay paul. Closing Jewish shops and business's and firing Jewish doctors, professors, teachers and government officials meant a higher standard of living for 'Aryan Germans' at the expense of other Germans.

Actually Germany begin playing 'hardball' with Austria in 1938, some say 1936 with Saar/Rhineland.

This thread is about appeasement to Germany, not Russia, but the west treated the Soviet Union as a pariah nation since the October Revolution which only began to thaw after the Nazi take over of the Czech Republic. It should also be noted that Russia did not move until after Germany invaded Poland. Absent a Nazi Germany Russia may have stayed within their own borders, not a paradise for Russians, but a big win for a peaceful Europe.

 

Really, a pariah?
Soviet industry was built by the Americans and the British (Magnitogorsk = copy/paste of Gary, Indiana) Soviet cars were Fords, Soviet tractors Fordsons, locomotives were delivered by General Electric.

In 1932 six American engineers were awarded the Order of the Red Banner for finishing the enormous Dnieper Hydroelectric Station (itself built by General Electric.) Russia was electrified by Metro-Vickers.

And Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual Assistance was signed in 1935.

It wasn't any pariah nation.

What Vladimir Ilich Lenin said?
The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.
And they did deliver the rope.

 

"Throwing up endless hurdles to [some] people" had nothing to do with the quality life of Germans.
Many countries had their own undesirable minorities.
The US had 10 percent of them, no? In Germany, it was less than 1 percent.

It's all about everyday life because most Germans only really cared about their lives - not politics or Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité.
There were very few real Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité countries on this planet at that time, anyway.

As to "The Nazi did not introduce consumerism" the book says they did, in their own way. And that it didn't exist earlier.