The Visionaries: From Recovery To Rearmament (Part 2)

[Music] Thank you for listening to We Have Ways of Making You Talk. Sign up to our Patreon to receive bonus content, live streams and our weekly newsletter with money off books and museum visits as well. Plus early access to all live show tickets. That's patreon.com/wehaveways. [Music] Economic privation proceeds by easy status and so long as men suffer, patiently the outside world cares little. Physical efficiency, resistance to disease, slowly diminished but life proceeds somehow until the limit of human endurance is reached at least and councils of despair and madness stir the sufferers from the lethargy which precedes the crisis. Then man shakes himself at the bonds of customer-loosed. The power of ideas is sovereign and he listens to whatever instruction of hope, illusion or revenge is carried to him on the air. That's John Maynard Keane's course, the economic consequences of the peace in 1990. Welcome to We Have Ways of Making You Talk for the second part of our series of the visionaries. Looking at the swirl of events and ideas before and after the Second World War and the way that presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman responded to those ideas. I think that's the best summary isn't it Jim? Yeah, I think it's absolutely perfect. In our last episode we dangled you, the ultimate economic cliffhanger, the mother of all crashes. I think synonymous with the idea of economic crashes in fact, the Wall Street crash because Germany was getting back on its feet. Reparations were playing themselves out. The British had done what they could Winston Churchill. Not good with his personal finances and not brilliant with the nation's either. Let's be honest now. I tried to get Britain back on the gold standard. The French were doing what they could to cope with the trauma of the First World War. And Germany is recovering very well. Germany is doing really well. I mean, Vimer is thriving. It's progressive, it's liberal, it's cultured. It's becoming a by word for high quality engineering and manufacturing. And it's getting a growing export market, which is exactly what it needs. All is fine and dandy. One of the consequences of the First World War is that America is now the dominant economy in the world. So what happens in America will affect everywhere else. This is why when the Wall Street crash happens, it buggers stuff up for everybody else. Let's just say it like that. Why not? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just say that. But let's also just contextualize the Wall Street crash a little bit. So it is becoming clear in the 1920s that the US has very much abandoned Wilson's utopian vision for unconditionally cooperative global relations. It's not in the League of Nations. It's this long decades of isolationism is starting to take root. There is definitely a degree of elufness towards Europe. It's the also regime. You know, Americans got to America because they were trying to escape Europe in the first place after all. But it is also entrenched by now by new immigration policy, which is much tighter. They know one lots of people coming in. Much tighter immigration laws. There's a reduced demand for labor. So they have the National Origins Act of 1924, which reduces the immigrant quota from 800,000 per year to just 150,000 per year. And they act on it very quickly. There's none of this sort of political asylum or anything like that. The act also splits the 150,000 international quotas. And if one national quota isn't filled, the excess can't be picked up by another country, which is going to be important later on in the 1930s. And it denies visa entry to anyone likely to be a significant cost of public finances. And there's no provisions for any religious or political asylum seekers at all. You know, America is changing in the 1920s. I think it's fair to say. There is also legislating protectionism. So in late September 1922, there's a Fordney Macomba tariff act, which hikes up duties on imports. So 38.5% for dutyable imports, with an average of 14% across the board. And this is to protect American industry. But of course, and foreign countries impose retaliatory tariffs, which of course is always what happens. So France increases tariffs on cars coming into America, for example, from 45 to 100%, which is why you don't see large numbers of American cars in Europe in the 1920s and 30s. You know, what you see is, Citroëns and Renaes and, you know, Austen's and Morraces and all the rest of it. Henry Ford is against the tariffs. He comes out in 1928 and sits on the importance of foreign markets. He's absolutely right about all this. American farm has also become discontented because there's no foreign competition, which means the cost of America made agricultural equipment is doubling, which is stifling progression, because most farmers can't afford the mechanization, which is coming in. Food and clothing prices are also soaring as well. But cracks are appearing, of course, by the end of the 1920s in this triumph of the abuming American economy. White supremacy is gaining strength in the South, and there is this growth of the Ku Klux Klan. You know, there's white supremacists. These are the white hoods and all the rest of it and so on. And there's over 460 lynchicks between 1919 and 1945 or something like that. There is also prohibition has been brought in. So this is the age of the gangster and prohibition related crime is also growing. But at the same time, the automobile, as we touched on in the last episode, is having this transformative effect on the American society and economy because of the rise of consumerism. It means it's easier for even working class people to buy a car on credit. It has to be said. So it's huge. It's spiking to mild for petrol, steel, rubber, glass, paint, lever, more cars, more roads, more mobility, more wealth. Increasingly interconnected and modern America and wages, of course, of rising. The rise 26% from 1920 to 1929. And of course, this means there's more purchasing power for ordinary people to buy company shares and what does this need to? It means that debt, mountain rises deeply. Yes, there's storing up some troubles for themselves here. And there are some sort of like tinglings of warnings. So American farmers in early 29, their prices fall due to surplus production. If you're tariffing stuff and overproducing, you know, and you can't export, there's going to be a crunch, isn't there? And American consumers also start spending less, which again leads to a surplus in manufacturing industries. You could see why Ford wants to sell cars abroad because basically you can only sell so many cars in America. Wages stagnates, the consequence and consumer spending starts to slow down. And I think it's important to say just very quickly is that banks are unregulated at this stage. Let's say they're not going to have any legal issues with that. And so on the 24th of October, 1929, investors panic and start selling shares in huge numbers. There's something snaps, like just like that. Black Thursday, it's known as in the sort of panic, bankers and finances, they try to stabilize the situation, but people keep carry on selling shares. They're funded by loans that they can't afford anymore because this is the cycle that's now in motion. Banks collapse also with loans that they've taken out that they can't repay. And 16 million shares sold on the Wall Street stock market on that day, on the 24th of October, 1929, billions of dollars of value wiped off the stock exchange. 110 billion in fact. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's incredible, isn't it? As we said, as we said in the last episode, millionaires meant millionaires back then. That was, you know, some millionaires lose pretty much everything overnight. And so the great big rock of an economic disaster that's been lobbed into the global pool. And so the ripples are going to be immediate and global. And the country that owes the Americans the most money that's tangled up most in American finance is Germany, of course, because the British are trying, the British have got their own issues with the empire, the French have got their own situation. And this is the economy that's needed help. It's gone to the Americans for help. And with the Americans now in the, in the do do, Germany has to be the first to be affected. Because it's basically pours gasoline onto the German situation and sets fire to it. And we intimated this in the last episode. There's a slice of German opinion that thinks they, that if they did lose the first World War, but it was nothing to do with them, that in fact they didn't lose the first World War. And they were winning the first World War. And though there are signs to indicate that in March of 1918 that's the breast of Tofsks treaty where Lenin's brand new Soviet government basically to get out of the war and to, to shot the war down because after all a big, a big accusation against the Zaris government is that the war is unnecessary. And it's bad at fighting the war when we need to get out of the war. And the current ski, the interim government, the current ski government doesn't pull out of the war tries to carry on fighting it. So Lenin throws in the towel. And in the, in doing so. gives up tons of territory, a third of its pre-war population, and 90% of its coal, lots of its natural resources. So this is a huge victory for the Central Powers. It's a huge victory for Germany. And this comes in March 1918. So at the start of 1918, the Germans think they're winning. And you know, there's not very many who would doubt that to be perfectly honest. And as if to prove the point, they then launched this huge offensive that same month, March 1918, which pushes back the French and the British particularly, past San Quentin, and you know, back across the soil and all the rest of it. And it looks like they're winning. I mean, it really, really does. But they can't make the final breakthrough. They run out of steam, makes them vulnerable to the counterattack. There's also massive casualties in the course of this huge offensive. What the French and the British realize, the British particularly, because they've absorbed the greatest weight of this spring offensive thrust, is that actually the front can be a lot more mobile and flexible than they thought it could be. And by retreating backwards, they then waiting to the Germans have got to the point of greatest weakness, and then they counterattack. Does that sound familiar? By the way, to anyone who's listened to us talking about the German way of war and the Second World War, it's exact reverse, isn't it? It's the Germans. Yeah, yeah. The counter attacking the point of greatest weakness, etc, etc. Anyway, the Allies are able to push back. The Germans by this point have just run out of steam. They've lost their opportunity to win. They can't afford it anymore. They're running out of resources, running out of everything. The victory against Russia in the spring has not provided the dividends they've wanted. A couple long story short, they call for an armistice in November 1918, which leads us neatly to a certain character called Adolf Hitler. Well, yes, if you're a corporal in the army and you think things have been going well, and interestingly, he's also made it through the entire thing relatively unscathed, which I think is kind of interesting, isn't it? You know, you'd think it was going all right, right? Yeah, but a gas, a bit of blindness. That's all right. But he's in one piece, right? And the thing is, and if you've endured four years of that, and it turns out you've lost, and it was for nothing, and the world is asking you to empty your piggy bank as a consequence, you might have some feelings about that. You might not be in a happy place. You might not be in your best mood. Particularly if all your dreams had been crushed before the war, your dreams of being an artist or an architect. What's interesting, though, is that really, without the Germany's has been essentially a military government for the last four years, and that the military have been running the war, not politicians. It's been the military that have run the conduct of the First World War on all fronts for the Germans. And it's men like von Hindenburg and Ludendorff, who, and it's the Ludendorff Offensive, you know, Operation Michael, which is the German Spring Offensive in March of 1980s, is the Ludendorff Offensive. It's his bloody scheme, right? They get to work on it right away as soon as the war ends. It's blame it on everyone except themselves. And it's them that know they have to sue for peace. There's a communist back mutiny in the German Navy at Keel in November of 1918. And von Hindenburg claims basically that they were stabbed in the back by the socialist government that's incoming, the parliament that exists in Germany, there's a puppet parliament. And obviously, they start pointing at the people who've made money out of the war and they start pointing at, you know, Germany is an anti-Semitic country before the First World War, make no mistake. You know, the word anti-Semitism is invented by a German politician in order to sort of make it sound like hating Jews is scientific or rational or something. And he leans hard into that. And this narrative is then sort of turbocharged by the Versailles Treaty, by the War, the War Guild clause, which in the last episode I think we emphasized might be something that might upset German Germans, the army, the fact that the army that believes it isn't defeated, it has to be reduced to a hundred thousand soldiers. They're not allowed any proper shipping, they're not allowed any planes. And also, there's a feeling that Wilson came to town all idealistic and that he's let Germany down, betrayed Germany, which is quite, I mean, it's quite the flex, isn't it, for Germany after the First World War to say we have been betrayed. I mean, this just shows that when people are upset and angry, it doesn't matter what the facts are, their feelings are the facts. Yes, absolutely. And the War Guild clause, which they call a Dictat, don't they, is basically, you know, signing the confession when you've just been water-bored it. I mean, that's basically what they're saying. And therefore, it doesn't really count. You know, the start of the back myth is really common-dead by a certain part of the population and those old military war leaders, to master reality of German hubris and militarism at the beginning of the war, which fueled the disastrous misjudgments and ultimately led to defeat. You know, senior figures live on Hindenburg, just simply can't face this truth. And neither can the rank and file such as Hitler or most of the soldiers who who feel they've now suffered for nothing. And the newly formed DAP, which is the Deutsche Arbite Partij, the German Workers' Party, helps disseminate this myth. And it argues that Jews and Bolsheffiks are at a centre of a global conspiracy that causes German, Germany's downfall. And that the Jews are also responsible for the Treaty of Versailles too. And the party is based in Munich in Bavaria, to which Hitler has gravitated after the war, even though he's Austrian and from Lins. And he also observes the rise and swift fall of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, whose leaders were mainly Jewish as it happens. And Hitler had won an iron cross for his service in the First World War, but emerges from the conflict only at last court-proc. And there is intense anger within him and resentment for his personal failures and those of his countries. He's removed from the army in October 1918, have it been temporarily blinded by Mosterkasse right at the end of the war. And there's some dispute about his blindness of how much his physical blindness and mental is one. But anyway, he recovers. And he's sent to a proper gander course by a kindly old officer of his. And he's employed to lecture former soldiers on the dangers of Bolshevism. And what he discovers is that this is an outlet to articulate ideas of been forming for a while. And it's also his first taste of Orish. It turns out he's really good at it. Well, it's for once in his life he's good at something. It's a very odd moment in Hitler's life as he finds something he's actually good at. And the crowds love him. He likes the crowds. I know nothing about what fun it is to have crowds on your side. And it's a long time ago. But you know what I mean. He's completely intoxicated by it. And his skate-goating of Jews resonates with people still ridding for the war. I mean, the Deutsche Part of Pytate, they do, they do amp this myth up. But this is a common idea. This is an idea that's very much got its got its boots on. And in the party you've and another nationalist and anti-Semite and on Drexler changes the party's name to the National Socialist Dutcher-Arbiter-Pytate, which is the Nazi party for short, the Nazis. And he does that in February 1920. And then Hitler, whose success, nothing succeeds like success. So Hitler in the following summer in July of 21, Elbow's Drexler aside as party leader. And it's all about being hypermasculine. It's about a controlling aggressive ideology, possible compensation on a personal level. We, you know, I guess we'll never know. And his past failures are all part of part and parcel of how he expresses himself through his politics. It's all about them and us that there's them, the enemy, Jews and communists. And because Marx is a Jew, he can say that communism is a Jewish idea. This is the intellectual temperature of the racism that Hitler has at the centre of his thinking. If someone Jewish thought it up, then it's Jewish. And you know, enough significant players in the Soviet Union who are Jews that he can go, "Look, you see, I mean, that's the depth of the thinking here. And the us is the us to the them is white northern European, racially pure Christian Germans who'd fought at the first World War." The deal between them and the country has been betrayed and undercut by the Jews, the Bolsheviks, Woodrow Wilson, the West, Pafidius Alba in the ghastly French, and of course the lurking Bolshevists' slaw of threat to the East. And of course, this horrible upstart Poland thing that is a product of all of those, all of those people, agents and circumstances. This is all about the idea of feeling left behind and betrayed and the back of the world's queue when in fact you should be at the front of the world's queue because you're the greatest people on the planet who only lost because you were tricked not because you bit off far more than you could chew. And so this idea of a people's community, a folk schemineshaft, which is the idea of a cultural and ethnic beliefs that are shared within a German people. There's an idea of a race. purity that is inherently anti-Semitic as well. There's Jews on one side who are evil and rotten and undermining Germany at the same time as being brilliantly clever and manipulative, so there's all the contradictions in its thinking. Even though Jews have been in Europe in Germany for ages for all time basically and they're not new in Germany at all and in fact many have vanished and vanished effectively and integrated completely although of course that is seen as sneaky in the in the anti-Semitic mindset that scene is wicked in itself hiding you know because they're basically if you're an anti-Semite you can you can come up with a you know you can say that's a false flag and then if someone's found to really be actually anti-Semitic say well the Jews have made them do it but but it's interesting because there's Volkswagen mind shaft but then there is this occasion which is brought around by the factions of the First World War blocs in their 20s and 30s and this is called front-gaming shaft and this is basically an extension of Volkswagen mind shaft a community. Yeah, specifically comprising Germans who fought the war a sense of military brotherhood, tribalism you know the unique kind of awfulness of their experiences brings them together under an entirely false but but quite compelling narrative and Hila when he does his talks it's is very clear and is messaging you know the Germans are a great people but their two enemies the Jews and the Bolsheviks are the root of all the evil a new order would expel these people and offer Aryan a genemy and prosperity amongst Leibhens wrong this living space is expansionist idea for for complete national self-sufficiency and you know it has a resonance all this you know people want to be part of a gang They want to feel that the grievances and resentment and anger their feeling is shared by other people and here You've got someone articulating it in a very very compelling way But it has to be said that the Nazi party is still only a very much a fringe force You know the Vyma Republic as a social democracy is growing in strength after the stabilization of the currency and and the doors plan post 1923 end of 1923 Which is when it when it all all changes and they're known as the golden 20s a goldena's van Ziger And you know it is amazing to think that the Nazis win 2.6% of the vote in the 1928 election which is you know did Lee Scott isn't it and the young plan further In hearts is Germany's chances which is sorted out in the early part of night in the spring of 1929 It spreads the war reparations over an evil on the period until 1988 is when the reparations have to be repaid So this means that and your payments are reduced which means as less injustice so to speak for the Nazi rhetoric to exploit And you know all looks swimmingly well all looks absolutely fine Until yeah the wall street crash Yeah, yeah exactly and I think what what what's what this is a moment that is sort of really quite contingent Isn't it is that the Americans don't have to do what they decide to do could have done something differently And we maybe we get a different outcome because the Nazis only winning 2.6% of the vote is the glimmer of hope that all fringe parties Must console themselves with when they you know after they have a battering at a general election They all go to the pub together in their costumes, right and and and their and their leather underpants or whatever and say Yeah, yeah, but in 1928 Adolf only got 2.6% of the vote and I got a few years later That must be what you do you'll sat round drinking your drinking your post-election drug it dropping drinks Yeah, you know, there's the glimmer. There's the glimmer. You know he did it. We can do it Germany is pregnant with Possibility in that that there are people are upset about the war and there are people who have had a rough ride up with the hyperinflation But there's also it's contingent in Germany too because what you know what the Americans do is one thing and then how German politicians also respond to it It's very very interesting and this none of this is faded. I think it's the interesting thing about it So as we said 8.10 billion US dollars have been wiped out the stock exchange By the time it closes at 3 o'clock or black Tuesday I'd have shot at noon. I don't know about you Jim. I wouldn't have waited till three Yeah, so it's it's it's basically there's the first day which is back first day then there's a Friday then there's a weekend Then there's Monday and Tuesday it's all over so it's kind of four days of financial market mayhem absolute carnage Yeah, and banks go under 100,000 businesses go bankrupt Unemployment goes from 1.6 million to 14 million by 1933 So one in four of the working population had to work So it's not just that the things is not just that weak. It's like a massive massive massive shock There's no confidence in stocks and shares so credit collapses. No one can no one will lend no one can borrow There's not enough cash in circulation because a lot of what was previously circulation was actually debt was borrowed money So once you get the pin you know the pinch on debt and credit There's no money around um, so wages loans and bills can't be paid. It's a sort of perfect storm really financially And so if you're the government Jim you got a different president from from from The days of Warren Harding you've now got president Herbert Hoover. He's little bit in above his head. He's neat to put him mildly Yeah, urges businesses not to lure wages Federal reserve which thank god they've even got that Now cuts interest rates Congress agrees to a hundred million bailout It's briefly briefly briefly helpful But then they do this terrible terrible thing which is sort of it has been talked about in recent times but but but has up until president trump's tariffs I think had been kind of consigned to the dustbin of history Comes the smooth holy tariff act which is passed on the 28th of May 1930 It introduces agricultural industrial tariffs as predictionist measures for farmers A past in the house before the crash and should have immediately being you know thrown out with the dishwasher but it isn't and 1028 leading economist sign of addition urging who were not to do it go sign the bill mr. President And he is personally against it But but he signs it anyway in in the kind of midst of pressure from his capitol members and and also from from congress And so This tariff war begins and the consequences are just absolutely I mean mayhem Insews it's fair to say not just within america's borders. I mean the the the smooth-tourly tariff act is a catastrophe for the united states But it's even worse for those those economies which are just sort of crawling out of Out of the mile of the first world war on the spanish flu and starting to make sense of things and get back on track It is absolutely calamitous Yeah, well and mayhem in sews so obviously Many of america's trading partners impose retaliatory tariffs. Of course they do so Canada, Mexico and Cuba US imports fall by 66% so from 4.4 billion in 1929 to 1.5 billion in 1933. It's quite a lot of the crop withdrawal Yeah, but also no one's got the money to buy anything So you know that it's compounded isn't it like you you you you've doubled you've doubled dipped here US exports fall by 61% I'm 5.4 billion to 2.1 billion I mean that's good, you know, that's that's gonna hurt and given that we were earlier saying Henry Ford is saying can we please export Vehicles abroad because he knows there's only so many that can be sold in america anyway, so It is hard to understand how anyone today could think that a tariff trade war would be a good idea but anyway Well, oh because you know because if you don't understand that the world is an integrated system The global system where you know you pull one lever in one place and the other other governments have agencies Well, you can't just do things unilatually expect expect other people not to go hang on if you don't understand that Problems and see you and it's but we are that you it's weird that you might not as well GDP is falling all across Europe between 1925 and 1935 falls 5% in Britain Yeah, and that's considering Britain as a big empire. That is a big drop 15% in France and in Germany It's far worse so production is halved by 1932 and more than one third of the population 8 million people is unemployed And a German observer says the whole nation is enveloped in distress official interference of no avail The people live in a veritable hell of meanness, oppression and disease The worst thing of all is that the national banks in Vienna and Berlin collapse and things have been okay We'd had that we'd had the a golden as vanzigar we'd just we'd just come out of things being okay And very often revolutions happen when the good times stop Rather than during a necessarily a period of bad times It's when the when the when things grind to a halt and suddenly life is disrupted that you can get you can get You get a revolutionary disruption if the Nazis are one thing their revolutionaries So Hoover is ideologically wedded to American individualism because he's come from Iowa It's been my mining millionaire and all that sort of thing so he doesn't think that the state should intervene and America This is this is the sort of you know iconic age of the Great Depression tent city shanti towns Nick named Hooverville's pop up. Hoover then thinks, right, okay, we need to raise money. So the government needs to raise money. So he introduced the revenue act in 1932, which is, you know, austerity measures raising taxes for everybody. The highest rate is 63% of tax, which is, you know, you want rich in the situation. One thing you might want to do is get rich people spending money to kickstart the economy and they're being tax heavily. You know, he goes against Keynes's advice for governments, which is to spend more to bolster the economy, boost jobs and growth. This is called counter-cyclical economy. This principle that you spend more to get the whole thing the ball rolling again. And then once the ball's rolling, you can spend less. But Hoover's measures don't work. Then natural disasters exacerbate existing poverty. So you have a drought that starts in 1930. In the Midwest and the Great Plains, the prairies, there's been better weather in the 20s. So there's been over farming. And it's interesting how the economy and farming sort of mirror one another in this, you know, the better time for farming is when there's a better time economically. Yes, but also because there's greater demand for food and because people are expanding and there's better means of getting this food around America. So it's less localized. It's more nationalized. So there's greater pressure to produce more food, which means it's greater pressure on the land, which means that when you've got only a climate disaster, the pressures on that land suddenly increase in a way that they hadn't when there was a climate disaster. So in other words, the boom years of the 1920s are directly responsible for what becomes known as the dust bowl, which is where the drought causes these massive dust storms, of strips, the top soil of this area, the scatters it under the Mars way, as far as Chicago and even in DC, you know, in Washington DC, where there's this sort of red fog, it descends over, you know, coming out of the sky, where it's been, you know, this soil has been dropped down on it. So huge waves of land become untenable for farming. And it's really worth people just looking up photographs of the dust bowl, because there's sort of half berry model T-fords and, you know, wooden farms, sort of, you know, up to the second floor and all this kind of stuff. And huge rural poverty and sews, you know, and this is the dust bowl. It's just amazing. How symbolic the dust bowl is of America's problems. It's sort of, it's a bit on the nose, isn't it? I mean, often we joke on this on this podcast about, you know, the writers overdone it here, but the dust bowl, the dust bowl coinciding with the crash feels like someone's just leaning too hard into the clichés. The problem in Vimar is that for all the success that comes with economic, you know, really establishing the German economy and of its democratic government, there are some extremely conservative players, institutions, elites within Germany that do not like the democracy that's been imposed on Germany after the first one more. They are not happy about it, especially in the military, which after all has had it has been emasculated by the Versailles Treaty. They're feeling very, very, very, very sore and in government and in business as well. And there's a sense that party politics isn't working. Democracy isn't the answer that whatever levers they pull, they don't work. And the depression, the crash makes this, makes this far, far worse. That there are enough conservative forces prepared to work in coalition together to keep the left out so the left can't come in and do whatever they want to do to solve the problem or even the centre left. There's a critical mass of conservative voters and politicians that mean that in March 1930, President von den Boe with a collapse of a five-party coalition in March 1930, he brings in an economist called Heinrich Bruning, using his emergency powers, he brings in an, as an unelected and independent technocratic Chancellor basically. Bruning is an economist and he's been very involved in the Renton Mark, which was brought in in 1923. He is a very sound economist, but the problem is the very rich are all right because just let's say, for example, you're worth in today's money, five billion and you lose one billion. He's still got four billion, obviously. He's still fine. It's the people, it's the middle classes and the working classes you aren't fine because suddenly their jobs are lost and their, their incomes are being smashed or taken away from them in Italy and that means they've got to sell their house and there's lots of very, very angry people are going, here we go again, this, this democracy lock isn't working and they're not very impressed by austerity measures, which he tries to introduce a twice rejected by the Reichstag, which then means he has to dissolve the Reichstag to force some fruit and force another election, which isn't very democratic anyway. And so suddenly the Nazi vote, sheurve rises to 18.3%, no longer 2.6%, and the German Communist Party, the KPD, becomes this country's second largest party. So this is not good. Bruning pushes through these measures, his austerity measure nullified various progressive welfare policies of previous years and also stresses to the US that Germany can't pay the reparations anymore. So the US agrees to a one-year pause, which is later extended and this does mean of course that reparations are effectively cancelled from this point, but as the suffering of the people continues in an echo of that opening statement that we read out, that you read out from Maynard Keynes, so the trusted democracy arose and there is this feeling that when the working class people of any nation are subjugated too far, that is when they rise up and look for alternatives. And the fact that the Communist Party's second largest party is really putting the wet fear in the conservative elements of German politics and society. You know, yes, the Nazi party vote share rises to 18.3%, but the fact that the Communist is the second largest party, if anything, if anything's going to like upset people's concern about a possible revolutionary moment, that's it, isn't it? And you know, all you have to do is point at Bolshevik Russia and say, look, look, this is this is what we want. And so the and this brings Hitler and his rhetoric into alignment with basically people on the on the mainstream right, because they know the last thing they want is this to happen. So, brooning, brooning resigns in March 1932, is that enough? And Hitler is exploiting this mass disaffection to rally support. Is rhetoric is very, very inflammatory, passionate, angry, but also he always he always bungs you a note of hope. But if you vote for me, this one will stop. Don't you worry what you get when in democracies in democracies when the economy is not working, people go, well, the traditional conservative way of doing things isn't working for me. This gives a voice to the more fringe and people go, well, I wouldn't normally try that, but the the established political parties aren't working for me. So what have I got to lose from trying something that there's a little bit more out there? You know, these commies, I don't really like them, but the Nazis, I mean, Hitler seems to speak a lot of sense to me and frankly, what a lot of what are you saying? I kind of agree with and okay, maybe his anti-Semitism is a little bit too far, but you know, all I care about now is getting my job back and having some more money in my pocket. So I'm going to give it a go. And that's basically how it works and frankly nothing has changed. Even if your qualification is right though Jim, because Germany is somewhere quite prepared to go anti-Semitic. Fully, I think sometimes we make that qualification and maybe we shouldn't, you know, it's part and parcel of his world. If you don't like the Bolsheviks, they're Jewish and if you don't like the Jews, they're Bolshevists is how it works in the Nazi mindset and people are buying it. And also he projects modernity, doesn't he? Because he's using air transport to get all over the country, make his speeches, he's got a good campaigning machine. And in 1932, in July 1932, they win 37% of the vote in the elections to become the biggest party in the Reichstag to leapfrog over the communists. We go back to the 2.8%, only five years previously. We go, we go to our friends sat in the pub, nursing their baby shams going, you see, maybe one day we can get the 10% of the vote. And they do start losing seats. Because there's another election in November, they start losing seats, but they're still the biggest party. In 1933, in January 1933, he's made Chancellor in an attempt to bring him to heal, give him what he wants, the establishment thinks, give him what he wants and then we can contain him, we can fence him in. They don't have the measure of Hitler at all. He immediately dismantles the democracy. There's the enabling act in July 33. It basically gives all powers to the cabinet and therefore to him. Other parties are banned, the Reichstag is dissolved, they call a snap election. And of course, because there are no other parties, they win all the seats. Genius. I know, I mean, it's effective. Following this, though, and I think the sort of the synchronicity here is fascinating. Only six weeks after Hitler becomes Chancellor Roosevelt is sworn in as president of the USA. And if the irresistible force is about to meet the immovable object, this is the moment where that is set in motion. And we're going to take a break and we'll come back to look at FDR. Welcome back to "We Have Ways To Make You Talk" with me, Almarine James Holland. We ended that half with the synchronicity of Hitler becoming chancellor and FDR being sworn in as president. And Jim, you absolutely love FDR, don't you? Well, you know, he's on script-pulless, he's Machiavellian and all those sort of things, but I think he's coming, you know, he's being Machiavellian on script-pulless from a good place. And I think he's, and he's unquestionably enlightened, he is forward thinking. He has a vision, I'll give you, you can save one of the reasons he's able to enact this vision, is because he has fought terms as president rather than two, or even once. Yes. But anyway, you know, that's a move point. By the by. By the way, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, but, interesting to you, although the elections are the previous November, and you then have the transition period, in this period, you take power in March, not January, it becomes January by 1945, but it is, it is March in 1933. And in his inaugural address, he makes a really, really interesting point. It's lots of sort of thing, you know, we only have, the only fair we have is, of, of fair itself and all the rest of it. So he's trying to give, yeah, if the people, the American people confidence, and there is this confidence that comes in with a new president. But for me, one of the things I think is really interesting is, is the bit that's kind of largely forgotten in his speech, which is about what he calls the good neighbor policy. And he says on the 4th of March, 1933, in the field of world policy, I would dedicate this nation to the policy of the good neighbor, the neighbor who, resolutely respects himself, man, because he does so, respects the rights of others, the neighbor who respects his obligation and respects the sanctity of his agreements in and with a world of neighbors. Although he has come into power on an isolationist ticket, FDR is an internationalist to his core. And, and I think this is really important and very, very consequential for world events. So do not be under any illusion that this is a guy who's only thinking in terms of United States internal domestic issues. He is thinking big right from the world, go, and I think it's important that we give a bit of context and background to FDR, don't you? I mean, he's so, he's born in upstate New York in 1882. He's from a wealthy family. He's had a top, top draw upbringing education. He's clever, he's tall, he's handsome, he's good at everything. His international statut, look, must come from the fact that, you know, he went to your, first went to your when he was seven. He's aware of it, not afraid of it. He speaks Joan of French. He went to Harvard, then to Columbia Law School. He becomes a lawyer in New York City. He marries a distant cousin, Eleanor Roosevelt, who's a niece of Teddy Roosevelt, a president, form president. He becomes New York State Senator in 1911, then assistant secretary of the Navy under Wilson. And interestingly, he advocates for America to enter the First World War because he believes that democracy needs to defeat German militarism. And that self-determination was the key to global peace. So he's on message with Wilson in that respect. He has an affair during the First World War with his secretary, isn't he, Lucy Mercer, that gets found out. And then I think the thing that possibly I think people know about that shapes his life enormously is in 1921. He gets polio, which leaves him dependent on a wheelchair, although he does everything he can to make sure the public don't see him in the wheelchair. And this puts him under enormous personal strain in his day-to-day life, getting about going to the toilet, having the strength to get things done, standing up to make speeches. It's all very, very hard work for him. Incredibly debilitating disability that he has as a result of zilness. But that doesn't stop him quite the opposite. He's governor of New York in 1929. He stands for president in 1932. So pretty rapid zip up through the higher ranks of American politics. You know, he hasn't done four years as someone's VP, as a trot water. And the state of American politics in 1932 is the kind that delivers landslide victories because presidents have failed up to this point, haven't they, in all their efforts. He's an idiot. And he wins all but six states. That's a proper landslide as well. Yep. The following year, the country is still struggling in '33, two-thirds less money in the US than before the crash. But Roosevelt's a man of action and with a keen mind. And he's charismatic. Yeah, and he also knows how to listen. He knows how to take a pinion. He knows how to make up his mind. He's very, very, very good at that. He's in screw-tipal. No one really knows what he's going to do next. He's his own man and his own thinking. And so in the first 100 days he passes a new banking bill, he brings the country off the gold standard, which means the dollar, the dollar is no longer static, pinned to an exchange rate that it doesn't suit it. It's fair to say that in those first 100 days, I mean, it is a time of unprecedented legal action and a raft of legislation that goes through. I mean, it is a period of incredible energizing and dynamism. And it has an impact, I think, it's fair to say. And I think what's interesting, isn't it? We said that Hitler is using modern methods of campaigning, like flying around the country and takes to adopt the Nazis very much lean into radio. Radio is how FDR gets his message across and he uses radio. He's got a calm, soothing voice. He does his fireside chat. The idea is he's like a family member or a friend or a pastor or a bank manager talking to you in a friendly manner. Yeah. So he's using everyday analogies all the time. So he's saying, we're going to do this. And this is a bit like X and Y. And everyone goes, oh, OK, well, I got it now. And it's just genius. I mean, he is absolutely the master of this. He just gets the popular backing for all these various initiatives and stuff. So he's very, very smart. And what he does, as he really gets the economy into some kind of shape or starts putting down some pretty good foundation. So he announces the emergency banking act, which is the reopening of federal banks and the guaranteed safety of the cash of it. And the next very next day deposits exceed withdrawals. At last, stock prices rise by 15%. And one billion dollars of cash is previously in private homes returns to the vaults. And there is the beginning of what it becomes known as the new deal. So prohibition, you know, where our collar being banned is overturned by the 21st amendment, which is a very, very popular move. I mean, why and they fall to do this before? Works programs are created. There's, for example, the civilian conservation call the CCC, which is young jobless men employed by the government for projects like clearing marshes, building dams, cutting down lumber, all this kind of stuff. There is the agricultural adjustment act under rights mortgage farmers and prevents foreclosures. As the federal emergency relief act introduces unemployment benefit for the first time ever. There is also the National Recovery Administration, the NRA, the public works administration, the PWA and the works progress administration, which is a WPA. And these are all known as the sort of alphabet acts on. And the new deal impact isn't completely totalizing. You know, there's still a high private sector unemployment, for example. But it does bring jobs. It brings purpose and public works to those who need it most. You know, and the Democrats actually gain more seats at the midterms, which signals the new deal's popularity, I would say. There's the second new deal, which includes electricity for farms and the rural electrification administration. They have a heartwarming motto if you put a light on every farm, you put a light in every heart. I mean, I can't argue with that. Can you argue with that? Of course not. You'd have to have a heart of stone, a heart of darkness to argue with that. A social insurance program for the elderly, the poor, the sick, National Labor Relations Act, which gives workers the right to organise unionise. And the number of union members tripled by 1938. That's Canny politics too, because basically what you're doing is solidifying a group of people who are part of the new deal politically, aren't they? They're going to vote for you, aren't they? I mean, he's no fool. And this is in such stark contrast to previous, well, you know, the American individual, rugged individual, can cope regardless. This is a massive expansion of the state. The CCC, for instance, is likened to communism and German work schemes, Nazi work schemes. Are bite-deeds? Yeah. What's happening though, is he is rebooting the economy. It's beginning to work. So basically, he wins another landslide in '36. To go back to the good-nobar policy, there's the Reciprocal Trade Agreements Act, which he gets through Congress in '34, which means he can overturn the tariffs from the '20s. And the smooth-hauled tariff act, of course, you know, which is kicked into the long-grass. Yeah. Previous American, into American politics, you know, with the rest of what they say is the sphere of influence. Monro doctrine has been the 1898 Spanish Civil War, the Philippine American War. And that's quite a sphere of influence all the way over to the Philippines, isn't it, from America? That's quite a stretch. Yeah. That's, uh, ugly, entirely imperial. Um, the, um, Roosevelt's, as this, the Cororally idea, which is that the Americans have, authority to intervene in Latin American affairs. So, you know, Wilson sends troops to Mexico 1914, Haiti in 1915, the Dominican Republic in 1916, Cuba in 1917, and then again to Mexico. And there's American soldiers in Nicaragua after the American government, pro-American governments installed there. So, yeah, but the point with this is up until FDR and is good neighbor policy, which he announces in his inaugural address in March 1933. The American approach to Latin America, Central American South America, has been very aggressive, very dominating. It's our way all the highway. You know, you have the right people. The moment you have a president or someone that we don't approve it, we're going to come and kick them out. It's all our terms, very dominant, very bullying. And what Roosevelt says is, "Nah, we're not going to do that anymore. We're going to be nice to you guys. We're going to help you out financially because then you'll be more prosperous, you'll be more stable, and then guess what? You'll do more trade with us, which then will make us richer." That's basically the principle. This leads him, however, to saying with his Secretary of State Kodohal, they say that no more intervention. FDR declares the definite policy of the United States from now on is one opposed to armed intervention. So, they withdraw from Haiti, the Marines from Haiti, and they overturn the platter men, which is how they justified intervention in Cuba. And FDR is going to apply this globally. It's fair to say that FDR makes mistakes in a second term. I mean, particularly the start of a second term, seven out of nine Supreme Court judges are Republicans. I've already struck down various New Deal centerpieces in his first term. And one justice James McRennels once said, "I'll never resign as long as that crippled son of a bitch as in the White House, even though he actually is a demographed himself as his FDR." Just as the Supreme Court becomes more accepting of FDR, he then tries to stack the court in his favor, proposing that he can appoint additional judges if existing ones don't retire by the age of 70. This sounds all reasonably harmless on the face of it. But it turns out to be a really bad move because it doesn't work and antagonizes lots of political colleagues. And despite the fact that of course that the economy recovery is a bumpy one, Roosevelt undeniably transforms the presidency. There's an unprecedented expansion of federal government. The federal policy is more palpable in ordinary people's lives and ever before. And there is the complete overturning of hooverism. And the positives by 1939 are that suddenly there is a welfare system in the United States. There are successful public works projects. There are food surpluses. There is huge automobile production. 4.45 million vehicles are manufactured in 1936 alone. Ten times more than are produced in Britain for example. Exports are up. There are the world leader in essential materials such as iron, steel, coal, cement and so on. There is also a cultural dominance which is really emerging and this is really important because this is soft power. This is soft influence. Hollywood is largely resistance to the resistance to the depression because movie theaters keep tickets cheap. And by the mid 1930s over two thirds of all Americans are going to the movie theater at least once a week. There is even color film, Technicolor by the late 1930s. So Snow White, Gone With The Wind, The Adventures of Robin Hood, it's a justice I hate, not Normans, with Harold Flynn battling Buzzle Raffbone on the steps of not in Han Castle. You know Los Angeles in New York City are globally renowned centers of modernity and culture. And Hollywood is effectively broadcasting this to the wider world. And the wider world with hardships and you know run downers and difficulties are seeing this glittering neon seeing this modernity, the modern cars, the Hollywood stars and all the rest of it and thinking that looks quite attractive. But there is a shift of emphasis going on in Europe isn't that? Well yes, I mean so in Europe it's the events I think we're all really really really familiar with. The failure of the Munich agreement, the failure of what gets called a piecement. If you've listened to this podcast long term you probably know that there's kind of more to it than that than the sort of simply sketched version of the Chamberlain government getting everything wrong and being outfoxed every turn. Britain is rearming, it's still not ready yet for the war. It expects it will have to fight against the Germans, which of course turns out to be very different to when it ends up fighting. And Chamberlain and Deladier are still hanging on in there in 1938, in the autumn of 1938. They're not going, they haven't caved yet to Hitler and given him a green light for expansionism. And of course this is a moment one can argue that had Britain and France sort of bit a bit tougher Germany, Germany might have hit the might have come undone. But we you know we all never know of course FDR makes it clear in in October 1938 that they're not interested. We cover nothing, save good relations with our neighbours and we recognise that the world today has become our neighbour. So the idea of the good neighbour policy is it's global. He reiterates his call for universal self-determination and that the Americans have no claim over any other torture. Of course the the issue with self-determination after the Versailles Treaty is that it's a thing the Nazis can play on after all. But because Germany has been dismembered and slices of the German population have been given to these new post-Austral Hungarian Empire statelets that the Germans could say, well I thought Nazis can say, well what about self-determination? Those Germans are Czechoslovakia, they're German, they belong to us, they belong to Germany, they want to belong to Germany. And it's a real it's a real it's the Achilles heel of the Versailles Treaty for Western politicians is that they can't they're hypocritical if they deny Hitler's call for German self-determination in this respect. And you know Roosevelt's in line with that in essence isn't he politically. And then not long after this you have Kristallnacht on the 9th 10th of November 1938 which is the massively radicalizing moment of antisemitism in Germany where Jewish homes, synagogues, businesses are ransacked and destroyed, 30,000 Jews are arrested and set to concentration camps. Jews are expected to pay for the damage done. They're told they have to pay for the damage done by rampaging Nazis. The fact that the state doesn't do anything about this is a test by the Nazi regime to see what they can get away with in terms of antisemitism. And there's international outcry, you know the Times says no foreign propaganda is bent upon blackening Germany. For the world could outdo the tale of burning some beatings on defences innocent people which disgraced that country yesterday. But basically they're not the Nazi government's trying it on with its own population to see what it can get away with. And also put two fingers up firmly to world opinion. But but but FDR is now thinking oh hang on a minute this isn't looking good. And there's a lot of people in America thinking we don't really care. I mean that's in Europe, it's the other side of the Atlantic wants to worry about it. But Roosevelt is thinking well I think we do need to worry about this. So he calls on meeting in the Oval Office in the White House to increase the size of the US Army Air Corps. Four days you know this happens four days after Crystal Nact to 20,000. Well great. I mean you know that means nothing doesn't it. I mean he sees expansion of the military is potential deterrent against Nazi aggression but the mood is not there for this. And he can't sell this through the public. You know he'd he'd he'd run and wants two elections on a nice nation's ticket. So you know what is it what is the Midwestern farmer care if totalitarian governs of governments are becoming more aggressive on the other side of the world. You know better care about Japan and vat China or Italy wanting to conquer East Africa. Let them you know so there is a big group of influential isolationist lobbyists in the US. And this also includes Charles Limburg who's one of the great heroes most famous people in America. You know he's the guy who's who's flown solo across the Atlantic in 1927. But it is a very fact that he's playing solo across the Atlantic in 1927 that gives Roosevelt such a pause for concern because he's thinking well that was then here we are kind of you know more than 10 years on. The Atlantic is no longer the the the great military barrier that it once was. And also you know in America despite widespread American sympathy for German Jews many of the vast majority of Americans polls and popular opinions suggest want to uphold the immigration limits of the National Origins Act which we discussed earlier you know which back in the 1920s. And in other words prevent more Jews than the Quotular Lows from fleeing to the US. So you know then in the mid 30s Japan and Italy Renee gone the London Naval Treaty of 19th Fulite which limits the size of of navies. And Germany announces the existence of the Luftwaffe in February 1935. So it increasingly looks like the US will need to compete technologically and militarily to to exert any kind of resistance against totalitarianism. Yeah. And there are some signs of this in the mid 1930s you know which which is interesting this is the development of the B-17 Flying Fortress bomber you know which comes in in 35, 1945 I think it is. There is a new civilian airline of the Douglas DC free, which as we all know will become the C47. You know, it will drop. Easy company over D day in June 1944. America also has the biggest automobile industry in the world, bar none. And therefore, lots of mechanics, lots of people you know, how to drive lots of garages and so on. And the industrial strength to be able to kind of transport that into military building should they want to, but the big thing that's missing is the willingness of the American public. And more importantly, in many ways, the legal framework to make this happen. And in our next episode, we'll be looking at just that because it is one of the great political back flips of all time. Is America can entry into the, I mean, it's it's truly astonishing. You know, we we've our own narrative of the British government having to figure it out and Winston Churchill waiting, waiting off stage for his moment. Roosevelt is center stage, a man just to turn things around completely, which is really rather amazing. So in our next episode, so we'll be looking at that. If you want to hear that episode straight away, go to our Patreon, become a way of ways to make you talk Patreon for the price of a, I mean, not even it's not even probably two thirds of a point now. I mean, we were talking about high pro inflation in the last episode. What's happened to the British point? Discuss. Anyway, and with live casts and ticket offers for our We Have Ways Festival this September, which we would love to see you out for much of this kind of war waffle. We will see you very soon. Thank you for listening. Cheerio. (upbeat music)