GERMAN RE-ARMAMENT and MILITARY OPERATIONS

1933 to 1941

A Nazi Rally at The Stadium in Nuremberg in 1934

Adolph Hitler was the most evil dictator the world has ever known*. During Hitler’s 12 years in power, some 11 Million people were put to death and, as a result of the World War he caused, some 70 Million military and civilian people died.

This paper is not about Hitler; it is an account of the re-armament and the military operations of the German armed forces in the eight years from 1933, when Hitler and the Nationalist Socialist Democratic Workers Party (Nazi party) came to power, to the year that Germany was at the peak of its power, 1941.

At the beginning of 1933, the unemployment rate in Germany was over 30%. The standard of living was low; the country was in a demoralized state. The Versailles Treaty limited the German Army to 100,000 men for security duties only. There was no Air Force. The Navy was restricted to 24 old WW1 ships and 15,000 men.

As soon as Hitler and the Nazis took power in 1933 they set about dismantling the existing democratic form of government and installing Nazism throughout Germany. By 1934, Germany was a totalitarian state. From the start, Hitler’s policy was World Domination. In 1935 the Versailles Treaty was torn up and a Four Year Re-armament Plan was launched.

In 1935, the whole nation was put on a war footing. Over the next four years enormous and wide-ranging projects were undertaken. Industry was expanded to produce armaments in large quantities. Over 2,000 Km of motorway (autobahn) was constructed. Strikes were illegal. Every fit man had to take part in the war effort or was conscripted into the armed forces. Unemployment went down to zero.

The German Armed forces underwent massive expansion. The military strategy of Germany’s new armed forces was to be the ‘Blitzkreig’ (lighting war). There were to be Stuka dive-bombers to terrorise the enemy ground forces; highly mobile ‘motorized’ infantry and artillery to overwhelm them; the tanks were to be of greater speed and fire-power than of any other European army; the Luftwaffe was to have a greater number of, and more advanced fighter and bomber aircraft, than any other European Air Force; the Navy was to have ‘pocket battleships’ (small, fast and superior fire-power cruisers) as well as some modern battle ships, destroyers etc; the main naval weapon was to be the ‘U-Boat’ (submarine), in numbers greater than in any other Navy,

By 1940, at the end of the Four Year Plan, the German Army had 2.5 million men and 2,500 tanks. The Air Force had been re-established and was equipped with 3,200 warplanes. The Navy had some 40 new warships and 67 submarines -- and a U-boat building programme which launched several hundred more in the following years.

In 1938, Hitler started to implement his plans for world domination – “Greater Germany”. First was the annexation of Austria. Next that year was the annexation of Sudetenland, a part of Czechoslovakia.

In 1939 the rest of Czechoslovakia was invaded by German forces and occupied. Next, Poland was invaded and the Polish armed forces were quickly overcome. Poland was divided in two – half being occupied by Germany and the other half by USSR.

In 1940 the German Army attacked and overran the Armies of France, Belgium, Holland, Norway and took control of Denmark by non-violent agreement. The British Expeditionary Force in France comprising some of 400,000 men was defeated. Later that year, the German Army occupied Hungary and Romania.

It was in 1940 that the German forces suffered their first set-back. Having occupied most of Western Europe, the German Army prepared to invade Britain from France. This required German air supremacy over the English Channel. The Luftwaffe (German Air Force) attempted but was unable to achieve this while suffering heavy losses in the attempt. The invasion was abandoned and, instead, the Navy’s Submarine fleet was given the job of securing the UK’s submission by denying the Atlantic to Britain’s merchant ships and thus cutting the vital supply line between the UK and the USA and Canada. In this the U-boats nearly, but not quite, succeeded.

In 1941 the German military occupations continued. Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Crete fell. The German Army landed a force in North Africa which threatened to conquer Egypt and the Suez Canal, and onwards to the Middle East and the oil-fields. (In the event, that plan failed.) In June that year, the German Army invaded the Soviet Union and in the following six months they took control of a very large area of Western USSR – by December they were nearing Moscow.

At this point, the end of 1941, just eight years after Hitler came to power, Germany had gained control of 15 countries, a territory several times greater than Germany itself, and the number of people now under German rule was several times greater than Germany’s own population of 80 million. In the annals of history, for one nation to accomplish such industrial and military results in just eight years has to be unique.

POSTSCRIPT
By the end of 1941, the advance on Moscow had failed and the German Army was forced to retreat. It was the beginning of the end of Hitler’s plans for world domination. By 1945, 12 years after he came to power, the Germans had left all the territories they had occupied, Germany itself was occupied and in ruins, millions of Germans had lost their lives in the war, and Hitler had killed himself.

* A possible exception is Joseph Stalin, Dictator of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1953, who put to death an estimated 20 Million to 30 Million people.

L.Berney
July 2008

DEMOCRACY

The foreign policy of the USA is to install Democracy in every country throughout the World.

What constitutes a Democracy?

"Government of the people, for the people."

---Abraham Lincoln

Democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

---Sir Winston

How many people live in a Democracy?

How many do not?

by L. Berney

THE FOREIGN POLICY OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

President George W.Bush and his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Condoleezza Rice, frequently reiterate that, “…in the National Interests of the United States of America…”, all the countries in the World which are not Democratic should be converted to Democracy. Regime change -- converting non-Democratic governments to Democratic governments -- is one of the stated principle objectives of the American government’s foreign policy.

The reasons they give are, primarily, to “prevent the destabilization of international order” which, they presume, will inevitably threaten the security of the USA; Democratic states are likely to be more stable than non-Democratic ones. Another reason is “the fight against terrorism” -- to protect US interests at home and overseas from acts of terrorism. It is thought that terrorists are supported by non-Democratic countries and that Democratic governments would help the USA to fight terrorism.

A third reason (not usually emphasized) for the USA’s need to install Democracy in non-Democratic countries (at least, in certain ones) is concerned with the supply of oil and gas. For the survival of the Americans’ way of life, the uninterrupted availability of oil and gas is not a luxury, it is a basic necessity – just as vital as the other necessities: water, food, clothing, and shelter. The USA’s own oil and gas fields cannot supply all the country’s needs and it is essential, therefore, for the USA to import oil and gas from overseas. It is thought that the security and continuity of this foreign supply is more certain if the supplying country is Democratic than if it is not.

(It is interesting to note that neither the United Nations, nor the European Union, nor any sovereign country other than the USA has a policy of imposing Democracy on any other country – the USA is alone in this.)

So, the USA wants to install Democracy throughout the World. But what is a Democracy? I was interested to find out what constitutes a Democratic Government.

HISTORIC BACKGROUND TO 21^st CENTURY DEMOCRACY

From the beginnings of human civilization, some 10,000 years ago, mankind has formed communities, then states, then nations. For a civilization to exist, there has to be some form of government. From the beginning, the form of government has been “Autocracy”, a one-person all-powerful Ruler, a King or Queen, a Pharaoh, Caesar, Mogul, Kaiser, Tsar etc. In Islamic lands the religious leaders, the Ayatollahs and Imams, were the autocratic Rulers. The Ruler laid down the rules (laws) that the people over whom he ruled must obey. The Ruler gathered around him a group of barons (or Ministers as they are now called) to enforce his rules. The barons appointed their own enforcers.

All Rulers have the same personal objective: the attainment of personal POWER and WEALTH. Power to enforce other people to obey his laws and to punish them if they don’t -- Wealth to enjoy a high standard of living for himself and his family, and to accumulate personal enrichment. The objective of the barons (Ministers) and enforcers is, likewise, attaining their own personal Power and Wealth.

Throughout history, the people being governed have wanted to have some say in the rules they have to obey, and especially in the taxes they have to pay, and on how that money is spent. To appease this pressure, Rulers have allowed the existence of advisers, councils, parliaments etc., but the Rulers always maintained their ultimate and overall power.

From the beginnings of civilization, this ‘one person ruler’ form of government (Autocracy) was universal. It was virtually the only known form of government until the latter part of the 19^th Century when a new form of government, named “Democracy”, started to take root. (The word ‘”Democracy” is derived from the Greek, demos, ‘the people’ and ‘kratia, ‘power, rule’.)

In 1775, 13 of the British Colonies in North America rebelled and declared themselves independent of the rule of the British King (then King George III) and formed the ‘United States of America’. A Congress (a National Government) was formed consisting of 65 Representatives of the people of those ex-colonies. This was the World’s first Government by Representative Democracy. Representative Democracy is a system of government in which power is vested in the people who rule through freely elected representatives. All rules/laws were to be enacted by these representatives by majority vote “for the general good”. All men were to be equal under the law. There was a written Constitution to protect minorities and there was to be a system of “checks and balances”

Over the next decades, the concept of government by Representative Democracy slowly replaced government by one person Autocracy (Monarchy) throughout Europe. First was France – the French Revolution in the 1789 replaced King Louis XVI. In Britain, during the 19^th and early 20^th Centuries, the Monarchy gradually and finally handed over its powers to a democratically elected parliament. In all of the new European Democracies, it was the parliaments that made the laws and decided on the taxes; the Monarchs either became Constitutional Monarchs or the Monarchy was abolished.

In the 10,000-year history of civilization, government by Democracy, commencing only just over 200 years ago, is still very new. In the last two Centuries we have seen autocratic Monarchy and Colonialism replaced by several other forms of government: Communism, National Socialism, Fascism, Apartheid, Authoritarian Regime, and of course Democracy. Some failed – Communism, Authoritarian Regimes and Democracy still exist. As to the future of Democracy, some think, “the jury is still out”!

DEMOCRACY AS IT IS PRACTICED TODAY

The USA wants every country to be Democratic. But what, exactly, is Democracy? How do you measure it? To answer that question, in January 2007 the Economist newspaper conducted a survey of the level of Democracy in 167 countries, the inhabitants of which comprise 95% of the total population of the World. They said about measuring Democracy:

There is no consensus on how to measure democracy, definitions of democracy are contested and there is an ongoing lively debate on the subject. The issue is not only of academic interest. For example, although democracy- promotion is high on the list of American foreign-policy priorities, there is no consensus within the American government on what constitutes a democracy. As one observer recently put it, “the world’s only superpower is rhetorically and militarily promoting a political system that remains undefined.

They graded each country in five basic areas of Democracy:

Electoral Process – Free, fair, and competitive elections.

Civil Liberties – Protection of basic human rights; freedom of speech, religion and assembly; the right to judicial process; decisions by majority rule.

Functioning of Government – the quality of government; the implementation of decisions.

Political Culture – acceptance by losing parties of the judgment of the majority; peaceful transfer of power.

Participation – citizens’ active and freely chosen participation in public life.

Out of a maximum score of 100 points, the results of the 167-country survey were

Fully Democratic, over 80 points 28 countries with 13.0% of World population

Partially Democratic, 60 to 80 points 54 countries with 38.3% of World population

Not Democratic, less than 60 points 85 countries with 48.7% of World population

The Economist scored the USA at 82 points out of 100; the UK 81 points. The highest score was Sweden with 99 points out of 100.

Clearly, with half the peoples and half the countries of the World not Democratic, to convert all countries to full or even partial Democracy, there is a lot of regime change to be done!

DEMOCRACY HAS MANY DIFFERENT FORMS

From an examination of how Democracy is applied in the 28 countries that the Economist rates as “Fully Democratic”, it is apparent that the form of Democracy is use today varies greatly from one country to another. For example:

• Head of State – in some Democratic countries the Head of State has executive powers, in others none.
• Legislative body – in some there is an Upper and a Lower chamber, in others one only.
• Political Parties – In some there are only two parties, in others many parties.
• Voting –Some are “first past the post”, some have proportional representation.
• Written Constitution – some have a written constitution, others do not.
• Prime Minister -- some are appointed by the President, others are the leader of the party in power.
• Civil Service – Some heads of departments are appointed by the political party in power, others have permanent heads.

Which form of Democracy is it, one wonders, that the USA would impose on non-Democratic countries?

IS DEMOCRACY RIGHT FOR EVERY COUNTRY?

For the government of a country to be Democratic, certain pre-conditions must exist. All, or the great majority, of the citizens of the country must have a sense of loyalty, of belonging to, that country. They must be willing to be subject to “rule by majority” -- to comply with by laws so passed.

There are many countries in the World today whose boundaries were set by colonial powers in the 18^th and 19^th Centuries. The boundary lines between one colony and another were set arbitrarily for the convenience of those powers. They paid little or no heed to the ethnicity, religions or languages of the people living within those boundaries. As an unfortunate result, some countries are populated by two or more different peoples who are antagonistic to each other. Parliamentary representatives of such countries form groups of their own ethic origin and no Democratic consensus is possible.

In these countries, probably Autocracy, not Democracy, is the only form of government that can ensure reasonable security and normality for its citizens. It seems to me, therefore, that Democratic government is not practical in all countries.

PRESIDENTS and PRIME MINISTERS

(In the following, for ‘he’, ‘him’, and ‘his’, read ‘he/she, ‘him/her’, and ‘his/hers’.)

by L. Berney

British Prime Minister, Gordon brown with US President, George Bush

On the face of it, the job of being a President or Prime Minister has many serious disadvantages.

• It is potentially dangerous. There is a constant risk of an attempted assassination.
• Considering the responsibility, he is paid less than comparable jobs in industry and commerce.
• Everything he does or says is minutely scrutinized. Every opportunity is taken by the media, the opposition, even by some members of his own party to criticize him.
• It is impossible, at best very difficult, for him or his family to enjoy a private life.
• The work schedule and pressure must be tremendous.

Why, then, do Presidents and Prime Ministers undertake such a job? Why do they fight tooth and nail to get it?

If one were asked, “Why do you want to be the President / Prime Minister?” his answer would probably be something like this:

“I have been a life-long member of the XXX party and I firmly believe that our policies are absolutely right for our country -- for all classes of society, for the young, the students, for families, for the elderly. Our policies will ensure financial stability and economic growth, for this generation and for generations to come”.

“I vow to strive for the good of all, and I will devote the whole of my abilities for the welfare of our people I believe I am the right person to lead the Party and the Country”.

If he were to speak the truth, the real reason why he wants the job would go something like this:

“Many years ago, I had to decide what career I would follow; I liked the Power and Status that professional politicians have. People look up to them; they make the laws which people have to obey, whether they like them or not. Their work-load seemed not too onerous; they have long holidays; as an MP they have an office and a staff paid by whatever political party they belong to. The pay is quite good and there is a generous expense account”.

“I reckoned I was good at making speeches and convincing people. I decided to become a Career Politician, a Member of Parliament. I wasn’t too concerned about which party I would join.”

“My ambition, having become a MP, was to be the President / Prime Minister. Think of it! To be the Most Powerful Person in the whole country! I knew that, in addition to the substantial salary, there would be considerable additional incomes from newspaper articles and after-dinner speeches. And, of course, while in office, a luxury all-expenses-paid life-style, for me and my family. At the end there will be substantial incomes from memoirs and lectures, and an appointment to the board of one or more of the major private sector companies I had been able to ‘help’ while I was in office -- with a REAL financial reward. And, no doubt, a Title for services rendered”.

That is something worth fighting for, fighting very hard for.

It is very clear that the motivation of the person fighting for the President’s / Prime Minister’s job is solely SELF-INTEREST – it is NOT what it is supposed to be: the welfare of the people. Is this the ultimate in hypocrisy?

In the light of this, the question about a would-be or an incumbent President / Prime Minister that every citizen must, or should, ask himself is this:

A mentally well-balanced normal person would not want the job. As this man is so clearly desperate to get, or to hold on to the job, he must be to some degree unbalanced, not normal. Moreover, his basic motive is egotistical, self-seeking; it is not what it should be: ‘for the good of all’

Question: Is he a fit and proper person to govern?

Answer: Almost certainly NO!

It is exactly this problem – the ‘one-person Ruler’ problem – that resulted in the American Revolution of 1775. The British American colonies broke away from having their lives governed by King George III and set up their own form of government; a Democratic Government. It was to be a Government of the people by the people and for the people. Most essentially, there would be no ‘one-person Ruler’. Over the next decades, Democracy spread throughout Europe.

The first few meetings of the people’s Representatives in the new United States Congress were indeed Democratic -- matters were decided by ‘free majority vote’. But it was not long before Political Parties and their Leaders emerged. The form of government changed from the original ‘…Government by the People’ to ‘…Government by the Political Party in power’. The leader of the party in power became ‘the President’, a `’one-person Ruler’. The system of government returned to (almost) the same system as it was before.

In the new Democratic Governments of Europe, party leaders, as ‘Prime Minister’ or ‘Premier’ took over as ‘one-person Rulers’ with overall power, just as they had in America. And that is still how it is today.

IS THERE AN ALTERNATIVE?

The style of government practiced in Western called Democracy, in spite of the name, is not a Democracy (rule by the people); what we have is an Autocracy (rule by one person). The ‘one-person Ruler’ system of government we have today is, for the reasons set out above, seriously flawed.

There is an alternative: Return to the original concept of what a Representative Democracy was meant to be – a Parliament without Political Parties and without Leaders or Rulers or Prime Ministers or Presidents – a Parliament that enacts legislation by its members exercising a ‘free majority vote’- a True Democracy.

Government of the people, by the people, for the people.

Is a Government without a one-person Leader or Ruler possible? I believe it is.

(See This Can't Be The Best Way To Run The Country! series: “Democracy and Party Politics”)