A conference at the NS Documentation Center in Munich compares the years 1923, 1933 and 2023

2023-06-18 18:04:32

Who votes for him votes for youth? When Adolf Hitler, together with Reich President Paul von Hindenburg, drove to the rally of the national youth organizations in Berlin’s Lustgarten on May 1, 1933, the last free Reichstag elections had already taken place
Image: AP

There is no lack of historical knowledge about the reasons for the failure of democracies. Stabilizers are harder to spot. A conference at the NS Documentation Center in Munich compares the years 1923, 1933 and 2023.

In Munich, the path from Königsplatz to Max-Mannheimer-Platz is lined with magnificent buildings. They look so splendid, as if they had escaped unscathed. For three days, the NS Documentation Center will focus on “Fragile Democracies”. The “Brown House” once stood there NSDAP. Could there be a better place to set up investigating cases in fragile democracies? For three days we move to the second basement. Discussing so deep underground, as if we were in a bunker, creates a symbol of its own.

The three years 1923, 1933 and 2023 in the conference title suggest a path to disaster. They lack the question mark, the most beautiful punctuation mark to withstand uncertainty. Hitler had tamed the prison, reported on December 21, 1924 headline a short report in the New York Times; he looked like a sadder and wiser man when he was released. That’s how you let yourself be fooled. Michael Wildt (Berlin) discusses what causes a society to tip over. The first attempted coup in 1920 failed due to a general strike. In the galloping inflation of 1923, confidence in democracy plummeted. The turning point came with the introduction of the Rentenmark. But the mistrust did not go away. Chancellor Stresemann acted with the approval of the great European powers and America. But the experience of inflation remained a German trauma.