"Progressives should not make the same mistake that Ernst Thälmann made in 1932. The leader of the German Communist Party, Thälmann saw mainstream liberals as his enemies, and so the center and left never joined forces against the Nazis. Thälmann famously said that ‘some Nazi trees must not be allowed to overshadow a forest’ of social democrats, whom he sneeringly called ‘social fascists.’
After Adolf Hitler gained power in 1933, Thälmann was arrested. He was shot on Hitler’s orders in Buchenwald concentration camp in 1944."
There’s a lot you can say about how broken US electoralism is, but using this as an example is just not accurate.
Hitler wasn’t elected by people, he lost to Hindenburg in 1932 and was appointed Chancellor later.
The Nazis who appointed him Chancellor had the majority, meaning more than every other party combined. Meaning third parties didn’t syphon the Hitler vote
Hindenburg didn’t want to appoint him, but meetings with industrialists made him change his mind
Hindenburg then gave Hitler more powers after the Heischtag fire.
If anything, it’s an example of what happens when you reach over the aisle and compromise with nazis.
Number 2 is wrong. The nazis never had a majority, only a plurality. If the other parties, the social democrats, the communist party, and the Centre party had banded together instead of fighting amongst themselves, he wouldn’t have been made Chancellor.
Banded together and all refused to have a Nazi Chancellor? They could have done that, this just happened in France but this time the left had a majority. Centrists are more likely to join the Nazis than the communists though
I’m gonna assume you’re still talking about the Nazis since that was your original comment so let’s look at the reichstag breakdown of the election prior to Hitler being appointed Chancellor.
The Social Democrats won 121 seats in November 1932, the communists won 100 seats. The Social Democrats were socialists and the communists were communists. The nazis had 196 seats in the 1932 election. So if the socialists and communists had combined they would have had 221 seats which is more than 196. And those were leftist parties who were bickering. So if the leftists had combined they would have kept Hitler from being chancellor when he was appointed that in January 1933. But what about the centre party? Well, they had 70 seats and had a significant wing that was left and wanted to work with the social democrats. Now if we are conservative about it and say just 25 of those 70 were leftists, that would bring the 221 up to 246. And if the other 45 went to the nazis, which all of them never would because it was a big tent with diverse view points, that would have brought a nazi coalition to 241. So not as big of a majority but still a majority for leftists.
So yes, again, if the socialists, communists, and leftist wing of the centre party had combined their powers and hadn’t been bickering, hitler wouldn’t have been chancellor.
Basic source for the election results of November 1932. There’s more pages for the parties and stuff on there so go ahead and poke around.
The problem here isn’t “leftist parties bickering”, it is self-evidently “the SPD aligning themselves with liberalism and fascism”. It’s not like the KPD refused to form a majority with other parties.
As an aside, “socialist” and “communist” are generally interchangeable terms and the SPD were neither by conventional definitions, but were instead (being very charitable to them) what we would call DemSocs.
No, that still incorrect. First, KPD, SPD and Centre did not have an outright majority together. Second, it is the Chancellor that is in charge of forming coalitions, they can’t just form a coalition if they had an outright majority anyway in the Weimar system and at no point did Centre try to form a coalition and was turned down by the KPD. The entire point of Hindenburg appointing Franz Von Papen was that he thought that he could convince both the Nazis and Centre to form a coalition with the conservative and monarchist parties. And the reason later to appoint Hitler as chancellor was to form a Nazi led coalition.
The real lesson, I think, is that fascists take power when the mechanisms of liberal democracy crumble away.
I have great reason for concern on this in modern times, even if the details are different.
The only part that is wrong is that Nazis did not have an overall majority, it was because of Hindenburg, monarchists, conservatives, and right-wing liberals deciding to side with the Nazis.