German Chancellor Angela Merkel has been decidedly unenthusiastic about undertaking further stimulus programs for combating the current recession/depression. Many attribute this to fear of the sort of inflation that wreaked havoc upon Germany in the past.Today's Wall Street Journal has an interview with historian Richard J. Evans, the third volume of whose trilogy on the Nazi era has just appeared.Here is one of the questions and responses:

Was it inevitable that a government like the Third Reich would emerge in Germany? If so, when did it become inevitable?In "The Coming of the Third Reich," I try to say that it was not inevitable while pointing out that the Weimar Republic did, in fact, bring Nazism. The crucial point to remember is that in the 1928 elections, Nazis scored less than 3% of the national vote. By 1932 they were by far the largest party, with one third of the vote. So it's the Depression. More than one third of the work force is unemployed by the middle of 1932. Businesses have crashed; banks have bankruptcies; people are disoriented by terrible inflation. It's a desperate situation. And in that situation, the sense of activism, dynamism, youth, vigor, and radicalism that Hitler and the Nazis conveyed, tapping into nationalist resentment about the Treaty of Versailles with vague but vehement promises to restore Germany to its greatness.... All that had an irresistible appeal

Robert P. Imbelli, a priest of the Archdiocese of New York, is a longtime Commonweal contributor.

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