There were many obstacles Hitler endured to obtain power in 1933, in this year he was appointed as Chancellor however the establishment that gave him this title were keen to hold onto their power. Hindenburg, a powerful and prestige president at the time, had support from, and control over the army, Hitler’s hope to consolidate full power was also restrained by the power of institution such as the Reichstag. Hitler was aiming to bring about a Nazi revolution in Germany, and his position as Chancellor would help him to achieve this.

Hitler used violence in order to consolidate power; however he balanced the use of terror with legal means. The Nazis understood that power had to be taken legally in order to get the widespread support from the majority of the German population.  50,000 SA, SS and Stahlhelm members were appointed as auxiliary policemen on the 22nd February in order to intimidate and terrorize Nazi opponents. This led to violence against communist and socialists, who were reluctant to act against Hitler; they misread the situation and believed Hitler’s new role as chancellor would lead to political and economic collapse, and in turn the formation of communist rule in Germany. With members of the Nazi party in the police force this enabled Hitler to order a police raid on the head office of the communist party, KPD. Hermann Goering, then claimed that evidence was found during the raid, communist conspiracy theories to seize power through force were supposedly found. With this new evidence Hitler had an excuse to use violence and terror as he could claim it was merely defensive. The Nazis closed down socialist newspapers, cutting off socialist propaganda, and members of the SA disrupted political meetings damaging any chances of the left side developing an idea on how to stop the increasing power of the Nazis. Violence was an important factor whilst consolidating Nazi power and it is proved to be increasingly important when paired with the strategy of propaganda.

On the 27th February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire and the communists were blamed. The use of propaganda meant that the Nazis could take full advantage of the event, and pass all the blame onto the communists who were portrayed as dangerous threats. Terror was used, as the next day 4000 communist were arrested due to the event, weakening the communist threat and proving the power of the Nazi party and Hitler. The Reichstag fire gave the Nazis the opportunity to use legal actions in order to consolidate power as the emergency decree gave the police the power to arrest suspected Nazi opponents without confronting the courts.  Goebbels portrayed the emergency decree as a way to stop the spread of communism, and therefore it was welcomed by the vast majority of the German population as many feared communism. The decree gave Hitler legal reasons to arrest those he saw as a threat; because of propaganda he was able to use the decree to justify the arrest, imprisonment, and torture of many political opponents. By using violence, terror and intimidation Hitler was able to remove his political threats; at the General election in March 1933, all the communist deputies were barred from the Reichstag as a result Hitler gained a political advantage as the Nazis won the 1933 elections. After the elections the Nazis had gained the legal rights once again to destroy political opposition. The leader of the SS, Heimlich Himmler set up a concentration camp at Dachau where political opponents could be help in “protective custody”.

When presenting the Reichstag with the enabling act Hitler used force and intimidation as he brought with him the SA who swarmed the building. Again the presence of the SA put pressure on the government to pass the act, as they were reminded of the true power of the Nazis.  The act granted Hitler four years of power as dictator in order for the act to be granted, the communist deputies were barred from the Reichstag and Goring was able to reduce the required number of votes needed to achieve the overall majority. In February 1933 attacks on churches took place as the Nazis saw organized religion as an enemy.  The churches and religious figures supported the Enabling act as they feared the consequences if they didn’t, as they had seen what had happened to socialists and communists and did not wish to have the same fate.

After the Enabling Act had been passed, Hitler aimed to control all the social and economic aspects of Germany. First he dissolved the local state governments and introduced new state governors who were able to introduce Nazi policies. On May 2nd the offices of the social socialist trade union organization were raided by SA members and the organization was split up. The violence and terror used by the Nazis led to many socialist leaders fleeing the country as many had been killed or arrested and on June 22 the SPD was officially disbanded. The centre party, was the last party to be disbanded, and in June 1933, due to Himmler’s orders the most significant members of the party were arrested; again violence and terror was used to disband a political opponent, proving how important violence was in order for Hitler to consolidate power.

The use of violence was a key part in consolidating power in 1933; Hitler was able to use his position as chancellor to place members of the Nazi army into the police force. The propaganda used to exploit the Reichstag fire meant that Hitler could then use his legal rights to arrest communist and expose their theories of spreading communism worldwide. In order for the terror used to consolidate power to be effective it had to be connected with propaganda and legality, in order for the German people to side with the Nazis despite all the violence that was taking place. Therefore I agree that without violence Hitler wouldn’t have been able to intimidate and force his way to dictatorship as the terror was what caused people to back down and also caused parties to disband, paving the way for Hitler and the Nazi party to consolidate power. 

I think Life in Germany was not that bad during my times. I went to the Hitler Youth and met a few people I knew but it was always so rough there. My friend Adolf, who had the same name as The Fuhrer, was a totally dedicated Nazi. I guess he only followed Nazis so well because he was the perfect Aryan and had the same name as The Fuhrer. Heil Hitler! Heil Goebbels! Heil Himmler! I have some Jewish friends I had to say goodbye to. I wonder where the Nazis sent them, maybe to another country? The only thing I hated about Adolf is that he notes everything anybody did and reports them.

            Normally I would call my teacher as Lehrer, but now I must call her Erzieher. This meant I had to treat her as an iron disciplinarian who does not instruct, but commands. There’s my old friend Van Golf. We didn’t really like him because he came from Austria and had a broken leg. It just never occurred to me why we bully him. But maybe it’s because he didn’t join the Hitler Youth. It’s weird that we don’t get to meet women as often as we used to. We were kind of separated from each other. We only had Sundays to go to the movies, but I only went like 3 times every year because I usually stayed home and practiced marching.

            Whenever I have anti-Nazi ideas, I am even scared to keep them to my own self. 

The seemingly ridiculous title stands for Himmlers Hirn heist Heydrich, or ‘Himmler’s brain is called Heydrich.’  Heydrich is one of the main ‘characters’ in this book, which Binet, after much debate with himself, calls an ‘infranovel.’   David Annand in The Telegraph explains that by this Binet means a novel ‘that is constantly examining its own particular claim to truth.’  Not that Binet himself explains what it means in so many words; his ‘explanation’ is scattered throughout the book as he argues with himself whether he’s writing fiction, or an historical novel, or history, or whether his aim is to stick to just what he knows or whether he must invent some conversations (he does, and then admits to it). 

The book’s main focus is the Second World War assassination attempt in Czechoslovakia on Reinhard Heydrich, the chief of the Nazi secret services, known variously as the ‘hangman of Prague,’ the ‘blond beast’ and the ‘most dangerous man in the Third Reich.’  We discover early in the book that the assassination goes badly wrong, but what specifically happened is only discussed in detail in the last section of the book, when Binet finally brings himself to write about it in detail.  (He also tells us how often he’s put off writing this section.)

Through some 257 chapters (some no longer than a couple of sentences) Binet manages to keep us in suspense throughout the book as he delves into the background of the various actors in the drama, and offers a wide-ranging view of the events that finally unfold.  He does this in an intriguing way, making himself as much of a ‘character’ as any of the other people he discusses.  We never quite know whether his conversations with his girlfriend, or his other friends, are fact or fiction.  And the same applies to the rest of the story: he gives the impression that he only wants to rely on what he knows happened, even to the extent of including recorded conversations, but he then tells us how often he’s failed at his own intentions. 

If this sounds tedious, it’s not.  The book is a remarkably good read, and Binet has researched to the extent of obsession (he tells us about that too).   He certainly approaches the writing of the book in an unusual way, but his writing is at all times interesting, striking and, in spite of the grimness of the subject matter, often humorous.  He’s aided enormously in this by his translator, who presents the text in a way that makes the book appear to have been written in English in the first place.

I’m not a reader who enjoys WWII history, feeling as though we’ve been saturated with it for more than half a century, but this book was gripping enough not only to help me through a lengthy wait at the Dental School but to stay up late to finish it.

Fun reality about Hitler: In the Thirties, he requested Catholic educational institutions to substitute their educational establishing crucifixes with images of him. If ever there was a item of trivia that exemplified how Adolf saw himself in the bigger community, that was probably it. In hindsight, it’s type of simple to boost the papacy for not doing enough to help Western Jewish people during the Holocaust, just provided that you keep in mind that they were interacting with a guy who was only actions away from abolishing all belief systems and establishing himself up as Germany’s master and messiah.

Step one in that plan: Take the Vatican. Stage two: Kidnap the Pope. Stage three: Adolf hitler … is announced God, we guess?

The Stupidity:

By 1943, Pope Pius XII started creating hazy yet community condemnations of Nazi individual privileges violations, and Adolf hitler started creating hazy risks of eliminating him for it. Not to the community at huge, of course, because he was insane, not ridiculous. Or not that ridiculous, anyway. According to SS Common Karl Wolff, Adolf himself provided him a unique objective in Sept 1943, saying, “I want you and your soldiers to take up Vatican Town as soon as possible, protected its information and art gifts and take the Pope and curia to the northern.”

OK, but that’s just getting up the Vatican, kidnapping the Pope and getting some art, right? All of that will fit the Nazi information we’ve come to know and dislike. But there was a second element to the technique. Once the first trend of defense force properly secured the Vatican and got their arms on Pius, a second, key team would come in under the pretense of saving the Pope, destroy the first team under the pretense that the folks in the first team were really French language assassins, then unintentionally capture the Pope in the insane melee that followed. But it would be awesome, because the Nazis could responsibility the Italians for the gaffe when it was all over. What could perhaps go wrong?

Fortunately, the plan never took position because one of the within men notified the Italians before it ever got ongoing. The craziest aspect is that the program even got previous the “What if we took over the Vatican?” phase in the first position. According to historian John Katz, assassinating Pope Pius XII presented zero prospective advantages to the Axis abilities, and probably would have introduced in a international backlash that would have created “the Ten Affects that rained down on the pharaoh … look like images.” Which is a difficult factor to take off, if you think about it.
There were two elements the Nazis disliked the most, and the second was getting bombed by their opponents. So when Excellent England started bombing In german inhabitants facilities, the Nazis took the fluff by the horns and designed a whole firearms system particularly targeted at revenge. Upon studying that their first-choice name “Das Shit-ton of Vengeance” wasn’t appropriate, the venture was known as “Vergeltungswaffen,” which is “reprisal bombs” in In german.

This sequence of rockets, weapons and cannons were gradually known as Germany’s V-weapons, because even Spanish people couldn’t be overwhelmed with saying “Vergeltungswaffen” every day.

The Stupidity:

It’s difficult to study about the V-weapons system without visualizing an Aryan edition of Wile E. Coyote technological innovation the whole factor behind the curtain. Especially when rockets consistently unsuccessful for such very funny factors as “too extreme,” “fell on airport” and “steam turbine misbehaved.” According to one unhappy professional whose V-2 erupted only three a few moments after key, “We just blew a thousand represents to be able to think what could have been revealed perfectly by an device probably value the cost of a little motorbike.”

Of the nearly 6,000 V-2 rockets designed, only 3,170 were actually released. Of the 1,403 lobbed at England, nearly 300 somehow skipped. And we mean they skipped England, a 50,000-square-mile focus on. The V-2s targeted at London, uk worked out no better, with only 517 visits out of 1,359 efforts. It seems like you could continually do better with huge, cartoonish catapults.

Still, we think that’s not bad as far as trial firearms applications go … unless you evaluate its cost tag of 3 thousand war time money to, say, the $1.9 thousand the U.S. invested to make a much more efficient system known as “the nuclear explosive device.”

Even when they achieved their objectives, they couldn’t do all that much harm — the popular V-2 explode only had a 2,200-pound warhead. In evaluation, one allied B-29 bomber could fall 10 periods as much, on a focus on 2,667 kilometers away, all while showing attractive artwork of exposed women on its fuselage. Guess who won that war for international army supremacy?

Maybe you think of the Europe as the Expenses Paxtons of Europe, slightly clinging out as neutrally as possible, mixing in with the qualifications, absolutely insignificant in the plan of the tale. And you’d be right, if Expenses Paxton was swaying some serious rounds up in that wonderful locks of his.
Because there’s a purpose Europe handled to remain impartial when the community was losing all around them: They’re amazingly difficult to get into. They’ve got hills on the the southeast aspect of and south boundaries, and despite what the Von Trapps would have you believe, ascending isn’t a picnic. It’s even more complicated when you’re trying to get a huge number of plenty of rounds behind you.

For another factor, the Europe have jealously covered their neutrality in the best way known to man: with weapons. When the Nazis started enhancing, the Europe got their crap together in three periods. Most nations are fortunate if they can get all their congressmen in city for three periods, much less arm an whole army 500,000 powerful. So, sure, you can take Europe — but you’ll keep many, many systems behind. And at the end, all you’ll have to demonstrate for it is throwing Europe.
But Adolf hitler, with community control on his to-do record, just would not quit discussing it.

The Stupidity:

So right in the wide of World War II, just as Winston Churchill was getting workplace and the Nazis started preparing for fight with the last Allied energy in Europe, Adolf Adolf hitler requested his mature technique folks to come up with a huge way to get into Europe. He disliked Europe for some purpose, contacting them the “pimple on the experience of Europe,” as if Malta didn’t even are available or something. And he was curiously psychological about the whole cope, producing his primary of the Common Personnel to grumble, “I was regularly listening to of reactions of Hitler’s rage against Europe, which, given his mindset, might have led at any instant to army actions for the army.”
What they came up with was Function Tannenbaum, a way to put ridiculous Europe in its position once and for all. Want to know how difficult it is to get into the area of candy and flexible wallet knives? The technique known as for approximately 25 departments and up to 500,000 throwing men — as many as four periods the defense force implemented for the intrusion of Norwegian.

And for what? A little, tremendous hill lot that one In german diplomat known as “an indigestible lump” that wasn’t value choking down. IN YOUR FACE, SWITZERLAND!
In brief, instead of getting stalled in Italy, Nazi Malaysia nearly got stalled in their own back garden against an attacker that was no risk to them at all, farming out a weakling stress in cold hills covered by 500, 000 Europe Rambos.

Hitler shelved the way of factors mysterious to this day (maybe it was he was looking at a different nation the whole time?), and the nearest Europe ever came to battling in WWII was when they sometimes got bombed by the Companions.

            Hitler’s goal was to kill of all those who did not fit the requirements for his master race. This was part of the Nazi philosophy of eugenics. He believed the ideal human was blonde, blue eyed, and of no physical or mental defects. He shipped Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, Muslims, Christians, Gays, and the disabled off to his death camps, majorly, Auschwitz, and Dachau. However the Jews were the main target of Nazi aggression. After World War I, the usage of the Jewish people as a scapegoat for the German depression became popular with the German people, which was exploited by Hitler in his rise to power. The prisoners where given little food and forced to work in the factories or in some cases deranged medical experiments. However the starving is an icon reflecting the pain of the victims. “Bread, soup – these were my whole life. I was a body. Perhaps less than that even: a starved stomach. The stomach alone was aware of the passage of time.” (Elie Wiesel, Night). The most feared element of the death camps, other than the gas chamber, was the furnaces. Elie Wiesel writes: “I told him that I did not believe that they could burn people in our age, that humanity would never tolerate it . . . “. The cruelty stemmed from Hitler’s hatred based on discrimination, as does all genocide.

The discrimination against certain ethnic minorities, as seen in the Holocaust, is also the main cause of other genocides. In the Rwandan genocide of 1994 the Tutsi monarchy was overthrown by the oppressed Hutu people. The Hutus saw the Tutsis as the source of many of their hardships and responded by systematically killing the Tutsi people. The scapegoating of a race or people of a certain cultural background is very similar to what the Nazis did in Germany.

            For genocide to occur there needs to be three elements cohesively established. The first is the perpetrator. This is the commander, dictator, president, or whoever is in charge of the forces used in the systematic killings characteristic of genocide. The second is the victim. This is the group of people targeted for extermination, and is usually not equipped to resist the aggressor. “What exactly was the difference? He wondered to himself. And who decided which people wore the striped pajamas and which people wore the uniforms?”  (John Boyne). “The victims are of a certain class, ethnicity, or disposition, which at one point lived as neighbors of the perpetrators.” The last and most important element is the bystander. The bystander offers no aid to the victim, and no retaliation against the aggressor. Yehuda Bauer writes: “Thou shalt not be a victim, thou shalt not be a perpetrator, but, above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” There are many excuses for being a bystander: fear that the perpetrator will shift to the bystander if the bystander acts; complacency with the situation; and profitability in the case of arms dealers or regimes looking to destabilize a country. In the case of the Holocaust in Germany many of the Polish and German civilians acted as the bystander. They refused to shelter the Jews from the Nazi death squads out of fear of reprisal or in some cases were paid by the Nazis to hand over Jewish refugees.  

            The root of genocide, and The Holocaust, is bigotry. To prevent further genocides, the hate needs to be extinguished. People need to be educated on how the act of discriminating against another human being is counter productive to the advancement of man. People need to be educated in a manner that accepts all cultures and recognizes their equality. Racial combatants need to be treated as a threat. “Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.” (Primo Levi) Most of all, the events of the Holocaust need to be taught and reflected on. Some people belittle the importance of the Holocaust while others deny it ever occurred. This is due to widespread ignorance and anti-Semitism. Iris Chang writes: “As the Nobel laureate Elie Wiesel warned years ago, to forget a holocaust is to kill twice.” It is important that generation after generation learn of the past tragedies as an example of what can occur without unity.

            In conclusion, the Holocaust will never end if the impact of the event is denied or goes unrecognized; it may find another perpetrator, another victim, and another bystander. The trail of destruction has affected millions. It is important to teach the history to ensure it is not repeated. It is equally important to remember the factors needed to initiate genocide: a perpetrator, a victim, and a bystander. Without one, genocide can not occur. All it takes to prevent such terrible events is the memory of what took place, and the spread of that memory.

According to an article published on the website LiveScience, revealed the facts of Hitler’s medical documents, records that were auctioned in the historic Alexander Auctions in Stamford.

The document includes ten skull X-ray images of Hitler, some test results of electroencephalogram (EEG) – a tool to detect abnormalities related to brain activity, and the sketch of the inside of the nose.

Confidential documents comprising 47 pages of notes compiled by six different physician specialties of Hitler, and the 178 page report dated June 12, 1945 prepared by Dr. Erwin Giesing as dimagangkan U.S. soldiers.

Although no official documents about Hitler’s favorite on cocaine, but Giesing wrote that German Chancellor inhalation of powder cocaine to “cleanse” the sinuses and throat “calm”.

The paper also shows that der Führer which made the Nazi party in Germany, the single was “suffering from stomach discomfort out of control” and taking 28 medications at once to overcome, including the pill “anti-gas” based on the strychnine.

A doctor, Theodore Morrell, also reported that Hitler was given an injection of testicular and prostate extract the calf.

Aidan King

Sylvia Plath Analysis

On: Daddy & Lady Lazarus

            Sylvia Plath, though a talented student and a virtuosic poet, spent the majority of her life combating severe depression, leading to her successful suicide at the tragically young age of thirty. One of the roots of this mental and emotional instability, as seen in Daddy and Lady Lazarus, can be attributed to Plath’s destructive relationship with her father and the years of despise towards society’s patriarchal figures.

            Plath masterfully uses the first person perspective in these two semi-autobiographical poems. As the victim, she uses “I,” evoking sympathy from those who also associate themselves as victims. She refers to the antagonist – and the reader – as “you,” which also produces feelings of remorse, pity, and even guilt. Her confessional hatred in “Daddy,” with the phrases “You bastard” (80) and “Brute heart of a brute like you,” (50) attack the reader as if to compare you to her father. She even italicizes “you” in the line “I have always been scared of you” (41), further adding to the comparison.

            While “Lady Lazarus” contains much subtler references to the Holocaust than in “Daddy,” it does however draw a stark connection between the experiences of Nazi-enslaved Jews and her own suffering. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (4-9, Lazarus). Here, while again describing herself as objects – lampshade, paperweight, linen – Plath details the suffering surrounding her attempted suicides and equates it to the pain that Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

The pain she experienced was caused by her very own “Nazi:” her father. “I have always been scared of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. / And your neat mustache / And your Aryan eye, bright blue. / Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -” (41-45, Daddy). In these lines, Plath refers to her father’s time spent as a tank operator, and the trauma it inflicted on him over the years. This trauma was in turn passed along to her, who was not even ten years old at the time. She symbolizes this with her innocent and childish references to ‘Daddy’, ‘gobbledygoo’ and ‘Achoo’. The rationalization of her concentration-camp-Jew comparison is much more believable when told through the lips of a traumatized eight year old.

Plath sees Nazis the same way she saw her father: sadistic, controlling, and manipulative, and she connotes these traits with those of all men. Examples can be drawn countlessly from both poems. “Lady Lazarus” captures how men view women as aesthetically-appealing objects, showing little concern for any internal flaws. Plath refers to the men as “The peanut-crunching crowd” (26) observing “the big strip tease” (29). This is a criticism of the male obsession with women as sexual objects.  “I am your opus, / I am your valuable” (67-68). After her failed suicide, she felt as though she were merely seen as a specimen of sorts, rather than a real human being – an equal – with severe, distressing emotional problems.

In “Daddy”, Plath uses Nazism and her father as a metaphor of the oppressive force of men. “I thought every German was you. / And the language obscene / An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (29-35). Plath sees all men (Germans) as her father, each one hoping to cause her suffering (Chuffing her off to Dachau). After enough time had passed, and she had been treated like an insignificant pest (like a Jew) for long enough, she began to believe it to be true.

Both “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” serve as great examples of Plath’s intricate and intense metaphorical writing. Without directly chronicling her autobiographical history, she successfully is able to depict her distrust and distaste for men, her father, and the Nazi regime, fitting it into one big analogy.  “Every woman adores a Facist,” (48, Daddy) serves as her mockery towards the men who do in fact believe that one must act like a hegemon to live a fulfilling life. Her father acted that way, the Nazis acted that way, and the men in her life did as well. And although her predisposition may have hastily clumped all men together, it’s undeniable that Plath, who fought a bout of depression as extensive and painful as any, had just-cause to spite the patriarchy surrounding her, and “Eat men like air.” 

Aidan King

Sylvia Plath Analysis

On: Daddy & Lady Lazarus

            Sylvia Plath, though a talented student and a virtuosic poet, spent the majority of her life combating severe depression, leading to her successful suicide at the tragically young age of thirty. One of the roots of this mental and emotional instability, as seen in Daddy and Lady Lazarus, can be attributed to Plath’s destructive relationship with her father and the years of despise towards society’s patriarchal figures.

            Plath masterfully uses the first person perspective in these two semi-autobiographical poems. As the victim, she uses “I,” evoking sympathy from those who also associate themselves as victims. She refers to the antagonist – and the reader – as “you,” which also produces feelings of remorse, pity, and even guilt. Her confessional hatred in “Daddy,” with the phrases “You bastard” (80) and “Brute heart of a brute like you,” (50) attack the reader as if to compare you to her father. She even italicizes “you” in the line “I have always been scared of you” (41), further adding to the comparison.

            While “Lady Lazarus” contains much subtler references to the Holocaust than in “Daddy,” it does however draw a stark connection between the experiences of Nazi-enslaved Jews and her own suffering. “A sort of walking miracle, my skin / Bright as a Nazi lampshade, / My right foot / A paperweight, / My face a featureless, fine / Jew linen” (4-9, Lazarus). Here, while again describing herself as objects – lampshade, paperweight, linen – Plath details the suffering surrounding her attempted suicides and equates it to the pain that Jews endured at the hands of the Nazis.

The pain she experienced was caused by her very own “Nazi:” her father. “I have always been scared of you, / With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. / And your neat mustache / And your Aryan eye, bright blue. / Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You -” (41-45, Daddy). In these lines, Plath refers to her father’s time spent as a tank operator, and the trauma it inflicted on him over the years. This trauma was in turn passed along to her, who was not even ten years old at the time. She symbolizes this with her innocent and childish references to ‘Daddy’, ‘gobbledygoo’ and ‘Achoo’. The rationalization of her concentration-camp-Jew comparison is much more believable when told through the lips of a traumatized eight year old.

Plath sees Nazis the same way she saw her father: sadistic, controlling, and manipulative, and she connotes these traits with those of all men. Examples can be drawn countlessly from both poems. “Lady Lazarus” captures how men view women as aesthetically-appealing objects, showing little concern for any internal flaws. Plath refers to the men as “The peanut-crunching crowd” (26) observing “the big strip tease” (29). This is a criticism of the male obsession with women as sexual objects.  “I am your opus, / I am your valuable” (67-68). After her failed suicide, she felt as though she were merely seen as a specimen of sorts, rather than a real human being – an equal – with severe, distressing emotional problems.

In “Daddy”, Plath uses Nazism and her father as a metaphor of the oppressive force of men. “I thought every German was you. / And the language obscene / An engine, an engine / Chuffing me off like a Jew. / A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen. / I began to talk like a Jew. / I think I may well be a Jew” (29-35). Plath sees all men (Germans) as her father, each one hoping to cause her suffering (Chuffing her off to Dachau). After enough time had passed, and she had been treated like an insignificant pest (like a Jew) for long enough, she began to believe it to be true.

Both “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus” serve as great examples of Plath’s intricate and intense metaphorical writing. Without directly chronicling her autobiographical history, she successfully is able to depict her distrust and distaste for men, her father, and the Nazi regime, fitting it into one big analogy.  “Every woman adores a Facist,” (48, Daddy) serves as her mockery towards the men who do in fact believe that one must act like a hegemon to live a fulfilling life. Her father acted that way, the Nazis acted that way, and the men in her life did as well. And although her predisposition may have hastily clumped all men together, it’s undeniable that Plath, who fought a bout of depression as extensive and painful as any, had just-cause to spite the patriarchy surrounding her, and “Eat men like air.” 

The German Papiermark was printed in excess by the Weimar Republic, during the end of 1923 the Government were printing 100 Trillion mark notes, the Papiermark lost so much value that it was practically worthless, it was so worthless in fact that the basics, for instance a loaf of bread would cost many trillion marks, there would be no return for the Papiermark, so in 1924 it was replaced by the Rentenmark, 1 trillion Papiermarks for 1 Renten. This step did help stabilise the economy to some degree but even though the Rentenmark was helping things in Germany it did not solve all of her problems, she still had the fact that many extreme parties had a lot of votes in the Reichstag, people were not happy with the way the Weimar Government was running the country, just under half of all German voters were also not happy with Hindenburg, 36% wanted Hitler as prime minister and 11% went to a Communist leader. The fact that the country did not agree with the Chancellors ultimately led to more and more people believing he only way out of the rut Germany was in would be to vote for an extreme party.

Chancellors and Hindenburg between 1929 and 1933 were as equally responsible for the downfall of democracy in German society as the Wall Street Crash and unemployment was. Out of the 4 chancellors, Herman Muller, Heinrich Bruning, Franz von Papen and Kurt von Schleicher the two that were in my views most responsible were Bruning and von Papen. Whilst Herman Muller was chancellor many devastating world events occurred, however he could not have changed the fate of German under his chancellorship, the Wall Street Crash was inevitable, he introduced the Young Plan, which allowed German people to pay reparations slower so she had time to recover. Many people in Germany were happy with this plan, however the Nazi party were not, they believed that reparations should not have been paid from the very beginning and paying them was an injustice to the German people. The campaign the Nazi’s held against it, organised by a Nationalist (Alfred Hugenburg) gave national exposure to the Nazi party and other right-wing political parties. The extra exposure may have led to the Nazi party gaining a place in the State Government. The Nazi party was now supported by some industrialists who injected money to fuel the machine. Bruning, to my mind was the beginning of the end of Democracy. Chancellors had to be voted in, just as Prime Ministers are, Bruning was appointed by Hindenburg and not voted due to no party having a majority, Hindenburg himself was a conservative, we can tell this by Muller who resigned due to no change in state welfare, which is a right-wing idea. The Reichstag was in chaos, no one had majority so Article 48 was used to pass laws, by 1932 the Reichstag met for 13 days and had only passed 5 laws, Hindenburg alone had passed 60 laws. People living in Germany would have seen the state that their country was in and how Hindenburg was, by this time already acting like a dictator himself.

The SA were a strong tool to gaining support for the Nazi party, they fought the Red Menace, which gained mixed reviews with people, Communist supporters were, obviously, not happy with this, but democratic voters and right wing voters were, the Nazi party always had more support than the Communist party, people were fearful of what they did not fully understand or what they had been told, the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 was still fresh in many peoples mind, and the Germans never were much more than at a political stalemate with each other. Most German people did not want to be associated with the Russians. However Mussolini’s Italy was prospering, her people were fed, riots were practically and they were amongst the fastest recovering nations after October 1929. People admired this; they saw unemployment figures well below that of their motherland. What the Nazi party stood for gave people what they wanted, however the Nazi party although were the biggest party in the Reichstag they never managed to gain a majority, in 1933 they had just over 1/3 of the seats in Parliament. Hindenburg had doubts about the genuineness of Adolf Hitler himself, and it was not until late in 1933 that he agreed to allow Hitler to become Chancellor.

Joseph Goebbels, leader of propaganda used many new techniques the world had never seen before to spread the word about the Nazi party, with Hitler becoming leader of the Nazi party in 1921 meeting Goebbels only 2 years later, he arranged massive rallies to show the power of the Nazi party to every state. Hitler travelled by plane and could deliver a speech in Nuremburg and then fly on to Munich or deeper into Bavaria on the same day, this gave many people exposure to the Nazi party and their beliefs. Goebbels himself was known for his anti-Semitic views and became very close to Hitler from the years 1923 to 33. Without Goebbels spreading the word I don’t think enough people would have known about the Nazi party, the Munich Beer hall Putch is a classic example of this, with as many as 3 people being sentenced to death, and Hitler only getting a 5 year sentence in Landsburg prison, in this time he wrote his book Mein Kampf, which was further propaganda. The Nazis really relied on Proppaganda and violence against communists to achieve the stature that 3 million people in Germany voted for them. Hitler was either incredibly lucky or just in the right place at the right time. With the world economy declining rapidly people turned to him to sort the mess of their country out, coupled with von Papen’s secret deals with Hitler and Hindenburg.

In conclusion I believe the massive spike in support for the Nazi party would have been short lived if Hitler had not become Chancellor and rapidly improved things in Germany, even if he did it in an illegitimate way. The Wall Street Crash, although inevitable was the perfect opportunity for the Nazi party to gain as much support as they could, people always turn to extreme parties when things are not going right and tend not to choose these parties when everything is okay. The German bitterness towards the Treaty of Versailles also played a part in the rapid expansion in support for the Nazi party, with the promises the Nazi party put forth they believed that they could sort out the mess the ‘November Criminals’ had got their country in, to some extents they were correct. Hindenburg and von Papen were also to blame for the support rise in German politics, Hindenburg himself almost lost his place as President. They allowed exposure to the Nazi party and did nothing to stop it, and even lifted curfews on the SA  allowing more people to join and more people to take notice. But ultimately I believe that unemployment due to the Wall Street crash was to blame, if things had remained and Germany was still becoming more economically stable then people would have had no reason whatsoever to vote for the far-right party. People were tired of having no money, and state welfare could not provide for them, what the Nazi’s were offering to many people seemed too good to be true, ‘A chicken in every pot and a Car on every drive’ as Goebbels once stated. The agenda of the Nazi party was vastly appealing and appealed almost everyone. The rich could keep their riches; the poor would no longer be poor.

The ethics and moral issues raised in regards to legislating who can have kids, or how many, has often been a debate. Some proponents claim that intelligent people are having fewer kids, and less intelligent people are having too many; this being the basis for the 2006 movie Idiocracy. The movie attempted to illustrate that smart people are making decisions not to have kids, while less intelligent people tend to have large families, breeding a future of lower intelligent human beings.

When most people think of mandatory sterilization laws they think of Nazi Germany, however there were sexual sterilization acts drafted in another parts of the world first; designed to protect the gene pool of humanity from weaker genes.

The Sexual Sterilization Act was enacted in the Canadian province of Alberta in 1928. Eugenicists pointed fingers at many things as being genetic flaws, mental retardation, mental illness, as well as things like alcoholism, prostitution, sexual perversions, and other socially unacceptable behaviors.

The idea of the law was that the good of humanity was more important than the persons “rights” to have offspring.

This was not a wide sweep, nor was it arbitrary, in fact of 4,725 people suggested for sterilization, only just over 2,800 were actually sterilized.

The Alberta Eugenics Board established guidelines which included requiring the permission of the person, or that of their guardian.

In 1942 the Act was amended to include people with the genetic condition known as Huntington’s Disease.

The Sexual Sterilization Act of Alberta came under fire in 1969, and was eventually repealed in 1972.

Eugenics World Wide

Eugenics, or genetically manipulating a population through selective breeding, as it applied to humans, was not exclusive to Alberta. Of course it had been in practice with animal husbandry for thousands of years.  Dog breeders do it all the time.

In the United States one of its strongest advocates was Alexander Graham Bell who suggested deaf people not bare children with other deaf individuals, as he had noted an genetic connection.

Laws went into place in 1896 in Connecticut in regards to forbidding epileptics and feeble minded people from getting married. Eventually the eugenics laws also became racist in nature with immigrants being targeted.
In 1907 the state of Indiana, and later another 29 states, passed laws suggesting mandatory sterilization, which was often directed at those being housed in mental institutions.

Between 1907 and 1963 roughly 64,000 individuals were sterilized, with a large majority being in the state of California. It came to be known that many of these sterilizations were directed at minority races, as the Immigration Restriction League was very much associated with the sterilization programs of the times.

The Nazi’s actually suggested that the American eugenics program was their inspiration for their own sterilization programs.

It was not until the discovery of the death camps that Americas truly understood that eugenic ideas could lead to genocide.

What are your thoughts on eugenics? Should people have the rights to sterilize others with poor genetics for the good of the human race? Or should those with poor genetics have the rights to have children at any cost?