Comparisons of tyrannical and dictatorial phenomena to Nazism (or Fascism) are often hyperbolic, and these hyperboles are usually foolish. Moreover, Nazism (and Fascism) is much more than just a mere insult and far too dangerous to be so. One of the terrible aspects of the political discourse that Stalin established was that it diluted the term, obfuscating its meaning and particularly through its application to his opponents in general, whoever they were, and with or without any justification.
Nevertheless, the broad trends of Nazi cultural policies, as well as the pivotal junctures in the life of its "fuhrer" as an "intellectual", present an ideal model against which one can measure the proximity of varied cases. Today, with all the different forms of populism and the explosion of all kinds of identities across the globe, including our region of course, we are seeing increasing numbers of inclinations that can rightly be measured against that exemplar, whether those who have them are aware of this fact or not.
Adolf Hitler, who was often described as a "frustrated artist", "failed painter", and "architect who never was,” was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, citing his lack of talent. Just as he had, in his youth, resented the Habsburg capital he lived in between 1906 and 1913 - despising its modernity, the complexity of its cultural life, its sense of freedom, and the plurality of peoples in its imperial world - he found much to despise in Berlin, where he later on moved, like its cosmopolitanism during the Weimar Republic and what he saw as the strong influence of its Jews.
With the slogan "Germany, awake!," Hitler launched his attack on the cultural life he believed to have been numbed by the Jews, who else, but also Marxism, Bolshevism, Liberalism, and the unbridled calls for freedom and debauchery, not to mention the devilish roles played by the degenerate Slavs, foreigners, and the United States, which has always symbolized evil. These many enemies stretched to include most of Germany’s prominent intellectuals, who were "destroying the family", "violating mores", and "undermining the nation's immunity". Some of these intellectuals were among the most important creative figures not only in Germany but anywhere in the entire world. While some intellectuals were killed and some took their own lives, those who could, escaped from this Nazi hell, in one of the largest cultural migrations in history. And because books, unlike their authors, cannot escape, they were burnt in public ceremonies and elaborate rituals. Setting alight works authored by Germans and non-Germans, Jews and non-Jews, was among the first actions the Nazis undertook just after their rise to power in 1933. Thus, the purification of Germany and Germans, shadowed by the fiery and fervent speeches of Joseph Goebbels, rid them of everything that threatened moral corruption and the destruction of the family, traditions, and values.
One prevalent Nazi theory was that a German’s sound convictions are not informed by argument and debate - that is, through logic and reason - but by unleashing the nation’s vital energies. This theory went hand in hand with another that was no less contemptuous of reason; glorifying the countryside, nature, instinct, physical perfection, and masculinity, it presented peasant folklore in all of its forms as a mirror into "our spirit and traditions." We are all one happy, ever-vigilant national family radiating our blood, soil, and noble lineage, proud that society is everything as the individual is renounced as nothing. Of course, Nazi totalitarianism was not frugal in making sweeping judgments on everything within its sight and grasp: from women's role in society, which was motherhood, homemaking, churchgoing, and nothing more, to music, with Richard Wagner glorified and anyone drawn to jazz music labeled a degenerate sick with "negro love"...
In other words, if culture is the expression of individual freedom and choice, and about what humans share, then to the Nazis, it was a means for segregating and labeling people, as well as subjugating and excluding them. Indeed, it was shaped and driven by a non-cultural concern that amounted to the individual being made subservient to the community, which in turn, is subservient to the leader. Some "public interest," a nationalist or religious vision, or the requirements for resilience in some battle, determined what would be deemed acceptable, with these notions always defined by the ruling junta and a leader lacking in talent.
Meanwhile, "the great dictator," as Charlie Chaplin portrayed and mocked him in 1940, can turn his inadequacy as an intellectual into authority through which he shapes cultural life and teaches the people their values and traditions, and how they should live, think, and perceive things to avoid falling into degeneracy, treachery, or any of the other defamatory epithets their lexicon is riddled with.
This column is intended to serve as a mere reminder, especially since leaders seem to be proliferating at an astonishing rate without a single one of them possessing a Richard Wagner to command us to listen to...
