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10-06-2025
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Hitler Used a Bogus Crisis of ‘Public Order' to Make Himself Dictator
The Atlantic Daily, a newsletter that guides you through the biggest stories of the day, helps you discover new ideas, and recommends the best in culture. Sign up for it here. Adolf Hitler was a master of manufacturing public-security crises to advance his authoritarian agenda. He used inflammatory tactics and rhetoric to disable constitutional protections for the Weimar Republic's 17 federated states, crushing their leadership and imposing his will on the country. 'I myself was once a federalist during my time in the opposition,' Hitler told Hans Lex, a Reichstag delegate for the Bavarian People's Party, in mid-March 1933, 'but I have now come to the conviction that the Weimar constitution is fundamentally flawed.' Federalism, Hitler said, encouraged states to pursue local interests at the expense of the nation. 'The rest of the world watched in astonishment and glee as democratic leaders of the individual states, relying on the Weimar Constitution,' Hitler continued, 'did not hesitate to attack the Reich government in the fiercest way possible at public rallies, in the press and on the radio.' Hitler vowed to end the 'eternal battle' between the states and the central government by dismantling the federated system, crushing states' rights, and forging 'a unified will' for the nation. In a statement to the press, Hitler said that the imposition of central authority should be seen not as the 'raping' of state sovereignty but rather as the 'alignment' of state policies with the central government's. [Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler] Hitler had been more circumspect when he addressed the Reichsrat, a federal body of state representatives intended to monitor the relationship between the Reich and state governments, on Thursday, February 2, 1933, three days after his appointment as chancellor. The country's federated states, Hitler had said then, were the 'historic building blocks of the German nation.' He insisted that he had no intention of intruding on state sovereignty. He would assert Reich control only 'where absolutely necessary.' Three weeks later, on February 27, the Reichstag fire provided Hitler with the 'absolutely necessary' excuse he needed. Hitler claimed that an arson attack on the Reichstag by a lone perpetrator—who was caught in the act— was the start of an attempted Bolshevik revolution, using that false claim to suspend civil liberties and suppress the voting rights of the German Communist Party, thereby enabling his supporters in the Reichstag to pass legislation granting him authoritarian power. At Hitler's urging, President Paul von Hindenburg issued an Article 48 emergency decree, 'Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.' The first paragraph suspended civil liberties, providing Hitler the means to suppress political opposition in advance of the upcoming elections on March 5. The second paragraph gave Hitler the power to trample states' rights: 'If any state fails to take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, the Reich government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.' That second paragraph sent alarm bells clanging in state capitals across the country, nowhere louder than in Bavaria, where concern over state sovereignty had run high from the outset of Hitler's chancellorship. Heinrich Held, the minister president—the equivalent of a U.S. state governor—of Bavaria, the second-largest federated state after its neighbor Prussia, was among the Weimar Republic's fiercest states'-rights advocates. He had a jurist's keen eye for legal loopholes and political subterfuge. Though the Weimar constitution was lauded by legal experts as one of the most democratic and progressive of its time, Held considered it to be disquietingly unclear and pliable when it came to states' rights. In the emergency-powers provision of Article 48, he detected the 'seeds of dictatorship.' 'The developments in public affairs in Germany fill the Bavarian state government with grave concern,' Held had written to Hindenburg five days into Hitler's chancellorship. 'Based on what has been announced, it seems the relationship of the states to the Reich could undergo a significant change.' By 'developments in public affairs,' Held was referring to what had happened in Prussia the previous year. In July 1932, a Reich governor had been installed there, ostensibly to restore public order following street violence between communists and National Socialists. Prussia claimed that the Reich government had overreached, and took the matter to the Constitutional Court. Fearing what a ruling for the Reich would forebode for other federated states, Held had Bavaria join the lawsuit. State of Prussia v. Reich Government placed the high court in a precarious position not just judicially but also politically—the Reich governor's installation in Prussia was a fait accompli. If the judges ruled in favor of Prussia, the Reich could simply ignore the court. But the greater danger, Held feared, was that Hindenburg would exercise his Article 48 powers to invoke a constitutionally permissible 'Reich Execution' that would permit the army to impose central authority on a state. If Prussia were to resist such an imposition, a constitutional crisis could quickly devolve into civil war. On October 25, 1932, the court ruled that although Hindenburg had acted within his constitutional authority in installing a Reich governor, Prussia nonetheless still retained administrative control over its territory. The tangled ruling baffled legal experts and general observers alike. Vorwärts, the Social Democratic newspaper, wrote, 'Only the gods know how this situation can realistically be resolved.' Hitler resolved the situation rather bluntly: After taking office as chancellor, he simply dissolved the Prussian state government. Having watched the Reich government do this, Held now feared a similar intrusion—or worse—in Bavaria: At Hitler's first cabinet meeting as chancellor, he had considered deploying the army to quell public unrest. Hitler's defense minister informed the new chancellor that ordering German soldiers to shoot German citizens on German soil was unthinkable—the army was trained exclusively to fight an 'external enemy.' In his letter to Hindenberg, Held had reminded the German president of his solemn oath to uphold the democratic principles and federated structures of the Weimar constitution. 'The Bavarian state government places its trust in Your Excellency as protector of constitutional rights and of justice,' Held wrote. Hindenburg wrote back offering reassurance. 'Neither the Reich government nor I personally,' he wrote, 'are pursuing plans designed to eradicate the sovereignty of the federated states and to establish a centralized state.' Hindenburg added that he also had no intention of 'inserting Reich Governors into the business of state governments.' Still, rumors of Hitler's designs on Bavaria's sovereign authority persisted. [Timothy W. Ryback: How Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days] Two weeks later, Fritz Schäffer, the head of the Bavarian People's Party, traveled to Berlin to meet with Hindenburg and reiterate the state's concerns about Hitler's anti-federalist designs. Schäffer did not mince words. 'If the Reich sends a Reich governor to Bavaria, he will be arrested at the state border,' Schäffer told Hindenburg. Further, if Hitler's storm troopers attempted to stage a coup in Bavaria, Schäffer said, the state government would mobilize the Bavaria Watch, a state militia of 30,000 men that was aligned with the Bavarian People's Party. The Bavarian militia, battle-hardened by the Great War, Schäffer warned, would crush Hitler's ragtag bands of brownshirt storm troopers 'with ruthless force.' Hindenburg assured Schäffer that even if the state government were not politically aligned with the Reich, he had 'no intention of installing Reich governors in states where order prevails.' Hindenburg said that he valued 'Bavaria and the Bavarian people and would avoid anything that would bring Bavaria into conflict with the Reich.' Ten days later, the Reichstag fire and ensuing emergency decree scrambled the constitutional calculus. A day after Hindenburg exercised his Article 48 authority, Heinrich Held was in Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. The Bavarian minister president informed the Reich chancellor in no uncertain terms that his federated state did not require Reich assistance in maintaining public order. After an hour and a half, Held emerged, with Hitler's assurance 'that there will be no use of paragraph two against states in which, like Bavaria, law and order are maintained by state authorities.' The March 5 Reichstag elections delivered Hitler 44 percent of the electorate and with that a claim on political power at every level of government. The next day, 200,000 National Socialist brownshirts stormed state and municipal offices across the country. Swastika banners draped town halls. Civil servants were thrown from their desks. But not in Bavaria. Held's solid block of more than 1 million voters, along with the threat of armed resistance by the Bavaria Watch, gave Hitler pause. So did Schäffer's threat to call on Bavaria's Prince Rupprecht to reestablish monarchical rule. Hitler huddled with his lieutenants to frame a strategy for Bavaria. Storm troopers would stage public disturbances, triggering a response under paragraph two of Article 48, enabling Hitler to suspend the Held government, and install a Reich governor in its place. Three days after the election, on Wednesday, March 8, Held was in his office when he heard Hitler storm troopers singing the Nazi Party anthem in a public square. Shortly before noon, three Hitler lieutenants—Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Wagner—all in brown uniforms and jackboots, stomped into Held's office. Noting the 'protesting' Nazi storm troopers outside Held's office—staged there per Hitler's secret decree—Röhm expressed concern about public safety, and demanded that Held agree to install a Reich governor. Wagner slapped a whip across Held's desk. Held rose to his feet. He informed the three men that, as minister president, he needed to consult his cabinet. Wagner demanded an answer by noon. Held refused. 'Noon is lunchtime,' he is reputed to have said. 'I never make decisions at lunchtime.' By the time Hitler's lieutenants reconvened with Held, at 3:40 that afternoon, this time in the company of a prospective Reich governor, Franz von Epp, Held had conferred with his cabinet. 'The Bavarian government is fully capable of maintaining peace and public order on its own,' he said, adding that he would not be coerced or intimidated. That evening, Held telegraphed Hindenburg. He requested support from Reichswehr Division VII, garrisoned in Munich, in case the National Socialists staged a coup. Hindenburg declined to help. That Friday, Franz von Epp made his first public appearance as Bavaria's Reich governor. Armed storm troopers swarmed state administrative offices. Still, Held didn't budge. A pair of Nazi storm troopers, intended to intimidate the intransigent minister president, were posted outside Held's office, rifles slung over their shoulders. [Timothy W. Ryback: The oligarchs who came to regret supporting Hitler] That weekend, Hitler flew south to try to resolve the crisis personally. He summoned Hans Lex, the Reichstag delegate who now headed the Bavaria Watch militia. Hitler told Lex he wanted to discuss, in confidence, a potential coalition. Lex cautioned Hitler that the degree to which the Bavarian People's Party would be willing to cooperate with the National Socialists was limited. For instance, Lex said, he could in good conscience imagine placing '1,000 Social Democratic functionaries' in protective custody—but only so long as they were detained within the parameters of the law and were 'treated humanely.' However, 'one could not,' Lex continued, 'align with Christian values, for example, a terrorist action that saw political opponents randomly snatched and thrown up against a wall.' Lex assured Hitler that Minister President Held had matters in Bavaria well in hand, and he explained that, having won more than 1 million votes in the latest election, Held represented 'a solid and unshakable' political force, supported by the martial force of the 30,000 armed men of the Bavaria Watch. Unable to close a deal, Hitler returned to Berlin. But Hitler didn't need a deal. Instead, he unleashed his own storm troopers—both the SA and the SS—on Bavaria. The Bavaria Watch did not mobilize. Prince Rupprecht did not intervene. Fritz Schäffer was accosted and beaten on the street, then hustled to the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich for interrogation. Held was forced from his official residence, and his family was threatened; eventually, he was forced to flee to Switzerland. With Held gone, the Reich governor assumed full authority over Bavaria. 'With the führer at midday when we receive the latest news from Munich,' Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 15. 'There can no longer be talk of resistance anywhere.' The New York Times reported that Hitler's efforts to 'steamroller' the country on his path to unchecked power were proving successful. The ironies of history can be multilayered. Heinrich Held understood the threat that Hitler posed to democracy long before most people had ever heard of National Socialism or its leader. And a decade earlier, at a moment when Hitler was effectively a stateless immigrant in Germany, Held had been unable to deport him from the country. In September 1924, the warden of Landsberg Prison, where Hitler was serving a five-year sentence for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, reported that incarceration had done nothing to temper the Nazi leader's authoritarian impulses. If anything, he wrote, Hitler had grown 'more mature, calmer, more calculating in his convictions.' 'There is no doubt that Hitler, after his release from the detention facility will return to political life,' the warden cautioned. 'He will seek to revive the nationalist movement according to his vision.' Held, then newly installed as minister president of Bavaria, moved to action. He prepared for Hitler's immediate deportation to his Austrian homeland upon release from prison. A Bavarian delegation was dispatched to Vienna to discuss the handover, only to be told that the Austrians would under no circumstances allow the return of their native son. Vienna argued that Hitler had forfeited his Austrian citizenship as a result of his service in a Bavarian regiment. 'Hitler is considered as stateless, and as a result of the refusal by Austria to receive him, his deportation is no longer possible,' Held lamented in an internal memorandum. 'The government fears nonetheless that incarceration has in no way sobered or calmed Hitler, rather compelled him to continue to pursue his goals with undiminished energy.' Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
10-06-2025
- Politics
- Atlantic
Hitler's Bogus Crisis of ‘Public Order'
Adolf Hitler was a master of manufacturing public-security crises to advance his authoritarian agenda. He used inflammatory tactics and rhetoric to disable constitutional protections for the Weimar Republic's 17 federated states, crushing their leadership and imposing his will on the country. 'I myself was once a federalist during my time in the opposition,' Hitler told Hans Lex, a Reichstag delegate for the Bavarian People's Party, in mid-March 1933, 'but I have now come to the conviction that the Weimar constitution is fundamentally flawed.' Federalism, Hitler said, encouraged states to pursue local interests at the expense of the nation. 'The rest of the world watched in astonishment and glee as democratic leaders of the individual states, relying on the Weimar Constitution,' Hitler continued, 'did not hesitate to attack the Reich government in the fiercest way possible at public rallies, in the press and on the radio.' Hitler vowed to end the 'eternal battle' between the states and the central government by dismantling the federated system, crushing states' rights, and forging 'a unified will' for the nation. In a statement to the press, Hitler said that the imposition of central authority should be seen not as the 'raping' of state sovereignty but rather as the 'alignment' of state policies with the central government's. Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler Hitler had been more circumspect when he addressed the Reichsrat, a federal body of state representatives intended to monitor the relationship between the Reich and state governments, on Thursday, February 2, 1933, three days after his appointment as chancellor. The country's federated states, Hitler had said then, were the 'historic building blocks of the German nation.' He insisted that he had no intention of intruding on state sovereignty. He would assert Reich control only 'where absolutely necessary.' Three weeks later, on February 27, the Reichstag fire provided Hitler with the 'absolutely necessary' excuse he needed. Hitler claimed that an arson attack on the Reichstag by a lone perpetrator—who was caught in the act— was the start of an attempted Bolshevik revolution, using that false claim to suspend civil liberties and suppress the voting rights of the German Communist Party, thereby enabling his supporters in the Reichstag to pass legislation granting him authoritarian power. At Hitler's urging, President Paul von Hindenburg issued an Article 48 emergency decree, 'Decree of the Reich President for the Protection of People and State.' The first paragraph suspended civil liberties, providing Hitler the means to suppress political opposition in advance of the upcoming elections on March 5. The second paragraph gave Hitler the power to trample states' rights: 'If any state fails to take the necessary measures to restore public safety and order, the Reich government may temporarily take over the powers of the highest state authority.' That second paragraph sent alarm bells clanging in state capitals across the country, nowhere louder than in Bavaria, where concern over state sovereignty had run high from the outset of Hitler's chancellorship. Heinrich Held, the minister president—the equivalent of a U.S. state governor—of Bavaria, the second-largest federated state after its neighbor Prussia, was among the Weimar Republic's fiercest states'-rights advocates. He had a jurist's keen eye for legal loopholes and political subterfuge. Though the Weimar constitution was lauded by legal experts as one of the most democratic and progressive of its time, Held considered it to be disquietingly unclear and pliable when it came to states' rights. In the emergency-powers provision of Article 48, he detected the 'seeds of dictatorship.' 'The developments in public affairs in Germany fill the Bavarian state government with grave concern,' Held had written to Hindenburg five days into Hitler's chancellorship. 'Based on what has been announced, it seems the relationship of the states to the Reich could undergo a significant change.' By 'developments in public affairs,' Held was referring to what had happened in Prussia the previous year. In July 1932, a Reich governor had been installed there, ostensibly to restore public order following street violence between communists and National Socialists. Prussia claimed that the Reich government had overreached, and took the matter to the Constitutional Court. Fearing what a ruling for the Reich would forebode for other federated states, Held had Bavaria join the lawsuit. State of Prussia v. Reich Government placed the high court in a precarious position not just judicially but also politically—the Reich governor's installation in Prussia was a fait accompli. If the judges ruled in favor of Prussia, the Reich could simply ignore the court. But the greater danger, Held feared, was that Hindenburg would exercise his Article 48 powers to invoke a constitutionally permissible 'Reich Execution' that would permit the army to impose central authority on a state. If Prussia were to resist such an imposition, a constitutional crisis could quickly devolve into civil war. On October 25, 1932, the court ruled that although Hindenburg had acted within his constitutional authority in installing a Reich governor, Prussia nonetheless still retained administrative control over its territory. The tangled ruling baffled legal experts and general observers alike. Vorwärts, the Social Democratic newspaper, wrote, 'Only the gods know how this situation can realistically be resolved.' Hitler resolved the situation rather bluntly: After taking office as chancellor, he simply dissolved the Prussian state government. Having watched the Reich government do this, Held now feared a similar intrusion—or worse—in Bavaria: At Hitler's first cabinet meeting as chancellor, he had considered deploying the army to quell public unrest. Hitler's defense minister informed the new chancellor that ordering German soldiers to shoot German citizens on German soil was unthinkable—the army was trained exclusively to fight an 'external enemy.' In his letter to Hindenberg, Held had reminded the German president of his solemn oath to uphold the democratic principles and federated structures of the Weimar constitution. 'The Bavarian state government places its trust in Your Excellency as protector of constitutional rights and of justice,' Held wrote. Hindenburg wrote back offering reassurance. 'Neither the Reich government nor I personally,' he wrote, 'are pursuing plans designed to eradicate the sovereignty of the federated states and to establish a centralized state.' Hindenburg added that he also had no intention of 'inserting Reich Governors into the business of state governments.' Still, rumors of Hitler's designs on Bavaria's sovereign authority persisted. Timothy W. Ryback: How Hitler dismantled a democracy in 53 days Two weeks later, Fritz Schäffer, the head of the Bavarian People's Party, traveled to Berlin to meet with Hindenburg and reiterate the state's concerns about Hitler's anti-federalist designs. Schäffer did not mince words. 'If the Reich sends a Reich governor to Bavaria, he will be arrested at the state border,' Schäffer told Hindenburg. Further, if Hitler's storm troopers attempted to stage a coup in Bavaria, Schäffer said, the state government would mobilize the Bavaria Watch, a state militia of 30,000 men that was aligned with the Bavarian People's Party. The Bavarian militia, battle-hardened by the Great War, Schäffer warned, would crush Hitler's ragtag bands of brownshirt storm troopers 'with ruthless force.' Hindenburg assured Schäffer that even if the state government were not politically aligned with the Reich, he had 'no intention of installing Reich governors in states where order prevails.' Hindenburg said that he valued 'Bavaria and the Bavarian people and would avoid anything that would bring Bavaria into conflict with the Reich.' Ten days later, the Reichstag fire and ensuing emergency decree scrambled the constitutional calculus. A day after Hindenburg exercised his Article 48 authority, Heinrich Held was in Berlin for a meeting with Hitler. The Bavarian minister president informed the Reich chancellor in no uncertain terms that his federated state did not require Reich assistance in maintaining public order. After an hour and a half, Held emerged, with Hitler's assurance 'that there will be no use of paragraph two against states in which, like Bavaria, law and order are maintained by state authorities.' The March 5 Reichstag elections delivered Hitler 44 percent of the electorate and with that a claim on political power at every level of government. The next day, 200,000 National Socialist brownshirts stormed state and municipal offices across the country. Swastika banners draped town halls. Civil servants were thrown from their desks. But not in Bavaria. Held's solid block of more than 1 million voters, along with the threat of armed resistance by the Bavaria Watch, gave Hitler pause. So did Schäffer's threat to call on Bavaria's Prince Rupprecht to reestablish monarchical rule. Hitler huddled with his lieutenants to frame a strategy for Bavaria. Storm troopers would stage public disturbances, triggering a response under paragraph two of Article 48, enabling Hitler to suspend the Held government, and install a Reich governor in its place. Three days after the election, on Wednesday, March 8, Held was in his office when he heard Hitler storm troopers singing the Nazi Party anthem in a public square. Shortly before noon, three Hitler lieutenants—Ernst Röhm, Heinrich Himmler, and Adolf Wagner—all in brown uniforms and jackboots, stomped into Held's office. Noting the 'protesting' Nazi storm troopers outside Held's office—staged there per Hitler's secret decree—Röhm expressed concern about public safety, and demanded that Held agree to install a Reich governor. Wagner slapped a whip across Held's desk. Held rose to his feet. He informed the three men that, as minister president, he needed to consult his cabinet. Wagner demanded an answer by noon. Held refused. 'Noon is lunchtime,' he is reputed to have said. 'I never make decisions at lunchtime.' By the time Hitler's lieutenants reconvened with Held, at 3:40 that afternoon, this time in the company of a prospective Reich governor, Franz von Epp, Held had conferred with his cabinet. 'The Bavarian government is fully capable of maintaining peace and public order on its own,' he said, adding that he would not be coerced or intimidated. That evening, Held telegraphed Hindenburg. He requested support from Reichswehr Division VII, garrisoned in Munich, in case the National Socialists staged a coup. Hindenburg declined to help. That Friday, Franz von Epp made his first public appearance as Bavaria's Reich governor. Armed storm troopers swarmed state administrative offices. Still, Held didn't budge. A pair of Nazi storm troopers, intended to intimidate the intransigent minister president, were posted outside Held's office, rifles slung over their shoulders. Timothy W. Ryback: The oligarchs who came to regret supporting Hitler That weekend, Hitler flew south to try to resolve the crisis personally. He summoned Hans Lex, the Reichstag delegate who now headed the Bavaria Watch militia. Hitler told Lex he wanted to discuss, in confidence, a potential coalition. Lex cautioned Hitler that the degree to which the Bavarian People's Party would be willing to cooperate with the National Socialists was limited. For instance, Lex said, he could in good conscience imagine placing '1,000 Social Democratic functionaries' in protective custody—but only so long as they were detained within the parameters of the law and were 'treated humanely.' However, 'one could not,' Lex continued, 'align with Christian values, for example, a terrorist action that saw political opponents randomly snatched and thrown up against a wall.' Lex assured Hitler that Minister President Held had matters in Bavaria well in hand, and he explained that, having won more than 1 million votes in the latest election, Held represented 'a solid and unshakable' political force, supported by the martial force of the 30,000 armed men of the Bavaria Watch. Unable to close a deal, Hitler returned to Berlin. But Hitler didn't need a deal. Instead, he unleashed his own storm troopers—both the SA and the SS—on Bavaria. The Bavaria Watch did not mobilize. Prince Rupprecht did not intervene. Fritz Schäffer was accosted and beaten on the street, then hustled to the Nazi Party headquarters in Munich for interrogation. Held was forced from his official residence, and his family was threatened; eventually, he was forced to flee to Switzerland. With Held gone, the Reich governor assumed full authority over Bavaria. 'With the führer at midday when we receive the latest news from Munich,' Joseph Goebbels wrote in his diary on March 15. 'There can no longer be talk of resistance anywhere.' The New York Times reported that Hitler's efforts to 'steamroller' the country on his path to unchecked power were proving successful. The ironies of history can be multilayered. Heinrich Held understood the threat that Hitler posed to democracy long before most people had ever heard of National Socialism or its leader. And a decade earlier, at a moment when Hitler was effectively a stateless immigrant in Germany, Held had been unable to deport him from the country. In September 1924, the warden of Landsberg Prison, where Hitler was serving a five-year sentence for his failed Beer Hall Putsch, reported that incarceration had done nothing to temper the Nazi leader's authoritarian impulses. If anything, he wrote, Hitler had grown 'more mature, calmer, more calculating in his convictions.' 'There is no doubt that Hitler, after his release from the detention facility will return to political life,' the warden cautioned. 'He will seek to revive the nationalist movement according to his vision.' Held, then newly installed as minister president of Bavaria, moved to action. He prepared for Hitler's immediate deportation to his Austrian homeland upon release from prison. A Bavarian delegation was dispatched to Vienna to discuss the handover, only to be told that the Austrians would under no circumstances allow the return of their native son. Vienna argued that Hitler had forfeited his Austrian citizenship as a result of his service in a Bavarian regiment. 'Hitler is considered as stateless, and as a result of the refusal by Austria to receive him, his deportation is no longer possible,' Held lamented in an internal memorandum. 'The government fears nonetheless that incarceration has in no way sobered or calmed Hitler, rather compelled him to continue to pursue his goals with undiminished energy.'
Arab News
30-04-2025
- Business
- Arab News
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has the mind of a great architect
Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman launched on March 17 the Saudi Architecture Characters Map, encompassing 19 distinct architectural designs that reflect the geographical, cultural and natural identity of the country's regions and cities. The initiative celebrates architectural heritage, enhances quality of life and revitalizes urban landscapes by innovatively reinterpreting traditional designs. It is expected to boost the economy by more than SR8 billion ($2.13 billion) and generate 34,000 jobs by 2030, primarily in the engineering, construction and urban development sectors. This marks a significant economic shift, transforming architecture into a viable economic asset. The project will roll out in phases, starting with Taif, Al-Ahsa, Abha and Makkah. Initial efforts will focus on the facades of existing buildings, alongside major projects, government structures and commercial properties. The designs will serve as a form of soft power, transcending mere cultural or architectural significance. Buildings will become part of a unique visitor experience, aiming to increase tourism spending. The guide introduces 19 geographical zones for architectural styles, expanding beyond the Kingdom's 13 administrative regions. The initiative is timely and pivotal, reinforcing regional identities through urban fabric, building densities, heights, materials and terrain adaptation. For instance, constructions in plains will differ from those in mountains, oases, coastal areas and deserts. Riyadh stands out as a leading city in adopting the Saudi architectural identity, particularly during the tenure of King Salman bin Abdulaziz as its administrative governor. This is evident in the Qasr Al-Hukm area, Tuwaiq Palace and other locations, positioning Riyadh as a reference point for this architectural map. Complementing this is the King Salman Charter for Architecture and Urbanism, approved in late 2021, which serves as a guiding framework providing a national methodology and strategy for urban design based on specific values. The charter also includes an award for the best creative institutional and student architectural designs. Throughout history, architecture has served as a significant barometer of civilizational distinction. Notable examples include the grandeur of Greek temples and the enduring presence of Roman theaters. During Germany's reunification in the 1990s, it undertook the reconstruction of its former parliament building, the Reichstag, originally erected in 1894. This act symbolized the renewed unity between its eastern and western halves. The redesign principles emphasized the building's importance as a democratic institution and its historical role in German life. A glass dome was incorporated to represent the transparency of the parliament, allowing visitors to observe lawmakers during debates and the passage of legislation. The Reichstag has since become a prominent landmark and tourist attraction in Berlin, drawing about 4,000 visitors a day. Another transformative approach was witnessed in Azerbaijan in 1991. Following its decision to shed the Soviet architectural style that dominated 33 percent of the buildings in its capital, Baku, the nation embarked on replacing it with structures that reflected its own history and culture. This resulted in iconic developments such as the Flame Towers, completed in 2013. Their name alludes to Azerbaijan's historical identity as the Land of Fire, a designation stemming from its rich natural gas reserves. A 2016 study published in the journal Omran explored the symptoms of what it termed 'urbanization disease,' particularly within the context of the modern Arab city. The study argued that this condition afflicts the subjugated individual in contemporary urban environments, where life has become a sphere of exploitation, noise and visual pollution and economic distress. From the study's perspective, the inhabitants of today's Arab cities are akin to caged predators in zoos. French sociologist and anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss, in his seminal work 'Tristes Tropiques' ('Sad Tropics'), posits that humans inhabit urban environments to fulfill their material and aesthetic needs, much like they use language to secure their communicative and symbolic requirements. He believed that language preserves ideas and beliefs, while architecture provides tangible forms to people's experiences and knowledge, intersecting with their cultural heritage and aligning with their historical priorities. In his five-volume novel, 'Cities of Salt,' the late Saudi novelist Abdulrahman Munif recounts the state of a small coastal village in the Gulf, once a haven for fishermen and returning travelers. It was transformed into an industrial oil city that no longer served anyone and its people became identical and lacked distinctive features. It is hoped that the Saudi architectural map will break these pessimistic stereotypes, especially about the Gulf oil city, and restore it to its humanity, ancient scents and intimate, open spaces. This is consistent with the vision of the ancient Roman architect Marco Vitruvius, who believed that architecture was based on three main things: strength that protects its inhabitants, utility that gives the building a function that people need and beauty that is distinctive.
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hitler's Terrible Tariffs
From almost the moment Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany, tariffs were at the top of his government's economic agenda. The agricultural sector's demands for higher tariffs 'must be met,' Hitler's economic minister, Alfred Hugenberg, declared on Wednesday, February 1, 1933, just over 48 hours into Hitler's chancellorship, 'while at the same time preventing harm to industry.' Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath was concerned about lumber imports from Austria and a 200-million-Reichsmark trade deal with Russia. With several trade agreements about to expire, Hitler's finance minister, Count Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, insisted that 'immediate decisions' needed to be made. Hitler told his cabinet he had only one priority—to avoid 'unacceptable unrest' in advance of the March 5 Reichstag elections, which he saw as key to his hold on power. Hitler had what one might call a diffident, occasionally felonious disregard for financial matters. He owed 400,000 reichsmarks in back taxes. His understanding of economics was primitive. 'You have inflation only if you want it,' Hitler once said. 'Inflation is a lack of discipline. I will see to it that prices remain stable. I have my S.A. for that.' (The S.A., or Brownshirts, were the original paramilitary organization associated with the Nazi Party.) Hitler held Jews responsible for most of Germany's financial woes. Hitler relied on Gottfried Feder, the National Socialist Party's long-serving chief economist, to develop the specifics of an economic program. Feder had helped concoct the strange brew of socialism and fanatical nationalism in the original 25-point program of this putative 'workers' party.' In May 1932, Feder outlined what would become the first Nazi economic plan a 32-page position paper designed for ready implementation were Hitler to suddenly find himself in power. High on Feder's agenda for a Hitler economy were tariffs. [Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler] 'National Socialism demands that the needs of German workers no longer be supplied by Soviet slaves, Chinese coolies, and Negroes,' Feder wrote. Germany needed German workers and farmers producing German goods for German consumers. Feder saw 'import restrictions' as key to returning the German economy to the Germans. 'National Socialism opposes the liberal world economy, as well as the Marxist world economy,' Feder wrote. Our fellow Germans must 'be protected from foreign competition.' Even though Hitler's own foreign minister, Konstantin von Neurath, was concerned that the strategy would spark a trade war, and could drive up the price of imported eggs by 600 percent, Feder's tariffs fit into Hitler's larger vision for 'liberating' the German people from the shackles of a globalized world order. The crash of 1929 had plunged Germany, along with much of the rest of the world, into an abyss. Markets collapsed. Factories were idled. Unemployment soared. In the early 1930s, one out of three German workers was unemployed. But Hitler had inherited a recovering economy: In December 1932, the German Institute for Economic Research reported that the crisis had been 'significantly overcome'; by the time Hitler was appointed chancellor, in January 1933, the economy was on the mend. Thus Hitler's main economic task as chancellor was not to mess things up. The German stock market had rallied on news of his coming to power. 'The Boerse recovered today from its weakness when it learned of Adolf Hitler's appointment, an outright boom extending over the greater part of stocks,' The New York Times reported. But rumors of potential tariffs and the abrogation of international agreements, along with Hitler's challenges to the constitutional order, sent alarm bells clanging. The conservative Centre Party warned Hitler against 'unconstitutional, economically harmful, socially reactionary and currency endangering experiments.' Eduard Hamm, a former economics minister who served on the board of the German Industry and Trade Association, dispatched a stern letter to the new chancellor instructing him on the 'legal, economic and psychological prerequisites for building capital.' The free-market system, Hamm reminded Hitler, was based on trust, the rule of law, and adherence to contractual obligations. Hamm went on to explain that even though Germany imported more agricultural products than it exported to its European neighbors, these countries provided markets for German industrial production. (At the time, Germany imported on average 1.5 billion reichsmarks annually in agricultural products, while exporting an average 5.5 billion reichsmarks in industrial and manufactured goods.) 'The maintenance of export relations to these countries is a mandatory requirement,' Hamm wrote. If one were to 'strangle' trade through tariffs, it would endanger German industrial production—which, in turn, would inflict severe self-harm on the German economy, and lead to increased unemployment. 'Exporting German goods provides three million workers with jobs,' Hamm wrote. The last thing Germany's recovering but still-fragile economy needed was a trade war. Hamm urged Hitler to exercise 'greatest caution' in his tariff policies. But Hitler made no effort to reassure the markets, insisting that the tariffs were necessary and that he needed time to fix the ruined country his predecessors had left him. 'Within four years the German farmer must be saved from destitution,' Hitler said in his first national radio address as chancellor. 'Within four years unemployment must be completely overcome.' Hitler provided scant details as to how this was to be accomplished. By this point, he had broken even with the tariff cheerleader Feder, and had abandoned most of the action items for developing a nationalist and socialist economy. These items had included increased taxation of the wealthy; state supervision of large corporations; and the prohibition of 'new department stores, low-priced shops, and chain stores.' As chancellor, Hitler left his own plans for the German economy intentionally vague. His chief priority, as he told his ministers, was to secure an outright majority in the March 5 Reichstag elections. Hitler calculated that he needed between 18 million and 19 million votes. 'There is no economic program that could meet with the approval of such a large mass of voters,' Hitler told party leaders. But although the average voter may not have cared about the details of the Hitler economy, the markets did. The initial surge in stocks that greeted Hitler's appointment halted then dipped and flattened amid the political and economic uncertainty of Hitler's chaotic first weeks as chancellor. The German Industry and Trade Association issued a public warning on tariffs. 'Germany has the largest export surplus of all major trading countries,' the association reported. 'This situation calls for double caution in trade policy measures that could lead to countermeasures.' Hans Joachim von Rohr, who worked at the Reich's nutrition ministry, went on national radio to explain the logic of Hitler's tariff strategy. 'The products that Germany lacks must be made more expensive; then farmers will produce them in sufficient quantities,' Rohr explained. 'And if foreign competition is kept at bay by tariffs and the like, city residents will prefer domestic production.' Rohr offered lard—'Schmalz'—as an example. If Germany raised the import duty on Schmalz, a staple of the German diet, the German farmer would be motivated by the price increase to raise 'three-ton pigs,' the main source of lard, instead of the more common 'two-ton pigs,' the major source of bacon. The problem, as one critic observed, was that bacon was more lucrative than lard, even as 'lard pigs' consumed more feed than 'bacon pigs.' Switching from bacon pigs to lard pigs, this critic calculated, would ultimately drive the pig farmer into bankruptcy. He noted further that the international trading system had been in place for 200 years and proved itself beneficial to all parties. Hitler's proposed 'national economy,' with its self-defeating tariff policies, would plunge the country into a 'severe crisis' that could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that was even before any damage wreaked by retaliatory tariffs. The Hitler tariffs, announced on Friday, February 10, 1933, stunned observers. 'The dimension of the tariff increases have in fact exceeded all expectations,' the Vossische Zeitung wrote disapprovingly, proclaiming the moment a 'fork in the road' for the German economy. It appeared that Europe's largest and most industrialized nation would suddenly be returning 'to the furrow and the plow.' The New York Times saw this for what it was: 'a trade war' against its European neighbors. The primary targets of the Hitler tariffs—the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands—were outraged by the sudden suspension of favored-nation trading status on virtually all agricultural products, as well as on textiles, with tariffs in some cases rising 500 percent. With its livestock essentially banished from the German market, Denmark, for example, was facing substantial losses. Farmers panicked. The Danes and Swedes threatened 'retaliatory measures,' as did the Dutch, who warned the Germans that the countermeasures would be felt as 'palpable blows' to German industrial exports. That proved to be true. [Read: Worse than Signalgate] 'Our exports have shrunk significantly,' Foreign Minister Neurath informed Hitler in one cabinet meeting, 'and our relations to our neighboring countries are threatening to deteriorate.' Neurath noted that informal contacts with Dutch interlocutors had been 'bruskly broken off.' Trade relations with Sweden and Denmark were similarly strained, as were those with France and Yugoslavia. Finance Minister Krosigk anticipated that the agricultural sector would require an additional 100 million reichsmarks in deficit spending. Hitler launched his trade war on the second Friday of his chancellorship. That evening, he appeared in the Berlin Sportpalast, the city's largest venue, for a rally in front of thousands of jubilant followers. It was his first public appearance as chancellor, and it served as a victory lap. Hitler dispensed with the dark suit he wore in cabinet meetings in favor of his brown storm-trooper uniform with a bright-red swastika armband. In his address, Hitler declared that the entire country needed to be rebuilt after years of mismanagement by previous governments. He spoke of the 'sheer madness' of international obligations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, of the need to restore 'life, liberty, and happiness' to the German people, of the need for 'cleansing' the bureaucracy, public life, culture, the population, 'every aspect of our life.' His tariff regime, he implied, would help restore the pride and honor of German self-reliance. 'Never believe in help from abroad, never on help from outside our own nation, our own people,' Hitler said. 'The future of the German people is to be found in our own selves.' Hitler did not refer specifically to the trade war he had launched that afternoon, just as he did not mention the rearmament plans he had discussed with his cabinet the previous day. 'Billions of reichsmarks are needed for rearmament,' Hitler had told his ministers in that meeting. 'The future of Germany depends solely and exclusively on the rebuilding of the army.' Hitler's trade war with his neighbors would prove to be but a prelude to his shooting war with the world. Article originally published at The Atlantic
Atlantic
20-04-2025
- Business
- Atlantic
Hitler's Terrible Tariffs
From almost the moment Adolf Hitler took office as chancellor of Germany, tariffs were at the top of his government's economic agenda. The agricultural sector's demands for higher tariffs 'must be met,' Hitler's economic minister, Alfred Hugenberg, declared on Wednesday, February 1, 1933, just over 48 hours into Hitler's chancellorship, 'while at the same time preventing harm to industry.' Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath was concerned about lumber imports from Austria and a 200-million-Reichsmark trade deal with Russia. With several trade agreements about to expire, Hitler's finance minister, Count Johann Ludwig Graf Schwerin von Krosigk, insisted that 'immediate decisions' needed to be made. Hitler told his cabinet he had only one priority—to avoid 'unacceptable unrest' in advance of the March 5 Reichstag elections, which he saw as key to his hold on power. Hitler had what one might call a diffident, occasionally felonious disregard for financial matters. He owed 400,000 reichsmarks in back taxes. His understanding of economics was primitive. 'You have inflation only if you want it,' Hitler once said. 'Inflation is a lack of discipline. I will see to it that prices remain stable. I have my S.A. for that.' (The S.A., or Brownshirts, were the original paramilitary organization associated with the Nazi Party.) Hitler held Jews responsible for most of Germany's financial woes. Hitler relied on Gottfried Feder, the National Socialist Party's long-serving chief economist, to develop the specifics of an economic program. Feder had helped concoct the strange brew of socialism and fanatical nationalism in the original 25-point program of this putative 'workers' party.' In May 1932, Feder outlined what would become the first Nazi economic plan a 32-page position paper designed for ready implementation were Hitler to suddenly find himself in power. High on Feder's agenda for a Hitler economy were tariffs. Timothy W. Ryback: What the press got wrong about Hitler 'National Socialism demands that the needs of German workers no longer be supplied by Soviet slaves, Chinese coolies, and Negroes,' Feder wrote. Germany needed German workers and farmers producing German goods for German consumers. Feder saw 'import restrictions' as key to returning the German economy to the Germans. 'National Socialism opposes the liberal world economy, as well as the Marxist world economy,' Feder wrote. Our fellow Germans must 'be protected from foreign competition.' Even though Hitler's own foreign minister, Konstantin von Neurath, was concerned that the strategy would spark a trade war, and could drive up the price of imported eggs by 600 percent, Feder's tariffs fit into Hitler's larger vision for 'liberating' the German people from the shackles of a globalized world order. The crash of 1929 had plunged Germany, along with much of the rest of the world, into an abyss. Markets collapsed. Factories were idled. Unemployment soared. In the early 1930s, one out of three German workers was unemployed. But Hitler had inherited a recovering economy: In December 1932, the German Institute for Economic Research reported that the crisis had been 'significantly overcome'; by the time Hitler was appointed chancellor, in January 1933, the economy was on the mend. Thus Hitler's main economic task as chancellor was not to mess things up. The German stock market had rallied on news of his coming to power. 'The Boerse recovered today from its weakness when it learned of Adolf Hitler's appointment, an outright boom extending over the greater part of stocks,' The New York Times reported. But rumors of potential tariffs and the abrogation of international agreements, along with Hitler's challenges to the constitutional order, sent alarm bells clanging. The conservative Centre Party warned Hitler against 'unconstitutional, economically harmful, socially reactionary and currency endangering experiments.' Eduard Hamm, a former economics minister who served on the board of the German Industry and Trade Association, dispatched a stern letter to the new chancellor instructing him on the 'legal, economic and psychological prerequisites for building capital.' The free-market system, Hamm reminded Hitler, was based on trust, the rule of law, and adherence to contractual obligations. Hamm went on to explain that even though Germany imported more agricultural products than it exported to its European neighbors, these countries provided markets for German industrial production. (At the time, Germany imported on average 1.5 billion reichsmarks annually in agricultural products, while exporting an average 5.5 billion reichsmarks in industrial and manufactured goods.) 'The maintenance of export relations to these countries is a mandatory requirement,' Hamm wrote. If one were to 'strangle' trade through tariffs, it would endanger German industrial production—which, in turn, would inflict severe self-harm on the German economy, and lead to increased unemployment. 'Exporting German goods provides three million workers with jobs,' Hamm wrote. The last thing Germany's recovering but still-fragile economy needed was a trade war. Hamm urged Hitler to exercise 'greatest caution' in his tariff policies. But Hitler made no effort to reassure the markets, insisting that the tariffs were necessary and that he needed time to fix the ruined country his predecessors had left him. 'Within four years the German farmer must be saved from destitution,' Hitler said in his first national radio address as chancellor. 'Within four years unemployment must be completely overcome.' Hitler provided scant details as to how this was to be accomplished. By this point, he had broken even with the tariff cheerleader Feder, and had abandoned most of the action items for developing a nationalist and socialist economy. These items had included increased taxation of the wealthy; state supervision of large corporations; and the prohibition of 'new department stores, low-priced shops, and chain stores.' As chancellor, Hitler left his own plans for the German economy intentionally vague. His chief priority, as he told his ministers, was to secure an outright majority in the March 5 Reichstag elections. Hitler calculated that he needed between 18 million and 19 million votes. 'There is no economic program that could meet with the approval of such a large mass of voters,' Hitler told party leaders. But although the average voter may not have cared about the details of the Hitler economy, the markets did. The initial surge in stocks that greeted Hitler's appointment halted then dipped and flattened amid the political and economic uncertainty of Hitler's chaotic first weeks as chancellor. The German Industry and Trade Association issued a public warning on tariffs. 'Germany has the largest export surplus of all major trading countries,' the association reported. 'This situation calls for double caution in trade policy measures that could lead to countermeasures.' Hans Joachim von Rohr, who worked at the Reich's nutrition ministry, went on national radio to explain the logic of Hitler's tariff strategy. 'The products that Germany lacks must be made more expensive; then farmers will produce them in sufficient quantities,' Rohr explained. 'And if foreign competition is kept at bay by tariffs and the like, city residents will prefer domestic production.' Rohr offered lard—'Schmalz'—as an example. If Germany raised the import duty on Schmalz, a staple of the German diet, the German farmer would be motivated by the price increase to raise 'three-ton pigs,' the main source of lard, instead of the more common 'two-ton pigs,' the major source of bacon. The problem, as one critic observed, was that bacon was more lucrative than lard, even as 'lard pigs' consumed more feed than 'bacon pigs.' Switching from bacon pigs to lard pigs, this critic calculated, would ultimately drive the pig farmer into bankruptcy. He noted further that the international trading system had been in place for 200 years and proved itself beneficial to all parties. Hitler's proposed 'national economy,' with its self-defeating tariff policies, would plunge the country into a 'severe crisis' that could cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. And that was even before any damage wreaked by retaliatory tariffs. The Hitler tariffs, announced on Friday, February 10, 1933, stunned observers. 'The dimension of the tariff increases have in fact exceeded all expectations,' the Vossische Zeitung wrote disapprovingly, proclaiming the moment a 'fork in the road' for the German economy. It appeared that Europe's largest and most industrialized nation would suddenly be returning 'to the furrow and the plow.' The New York Times saw this for what it was: 'a trade war' against its European neighbors. The primary targets of the Hitler tariffs—the Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands—were outraged by the sudden suspension of favored-nation trading status on virtually all agricultural products, as well as on textiles, with tariffs in some cases rising 500 percent. With its livestock essentially banished from the German market, Denmark, for example, was facing substantial losses. Farmers panicked. The Danes and Swedes threatened 'retaliatory measures,' as did the Dutch, who warned the Germans that the countermeasures would be felt as 'palpable blows' to German industrial exports. That proved to be true. 'Our exports have shrunk significantly,' Foreign Minister Neurath informed Hitler in one cabinet meeting, 'and our relations to our neighboring countries are threatening to deteriorate.' Neurath noted that informal contacts with Dutch interlocutors had been 'bruskly broken off.' Trade relations with Sweden and Denmark were similarly strained, as were those with France and Yugoslavia. Finance Minister Krosigk anticipated that the agricultural sector would require an additional 100 million reichsmarks in deficit spending. Hitler launched his trade war on the second Friday of his chancellorship. That evening, he appeared in the Berlin Sportpalast, the city's largest venue, for a rally in front of thousands of jubilant followers. It was his first public appearance as chancellor, and it served as a victory lap. Hitler dispensed with the dark suit he wore in cabinet meetings in favor of his brown storm-trooper uniform with a bright-red swastika armband. In his address, Hitler declared that the entire country needed to be rebuilt after years of mismanagement by previous governments. He spoke of the 'sheer madness' of international obligations imposed by the Treaty of Versailles, of the need to restore 'life, liberty, and happiness' to the German people, of the need for 'cleansing' the bureaucracy, public life, culture, the population, 'every aspect of our life.' His tariff regime, he implied, would help restore the pride and honor of German self-reliance. 'Never believe in help from abroad, never on help from outside our own nation, our own people,' Hitler said. 'The future of the German people is to be found in our own selves.' Hitler did not refer specifically to the trade war he had launched that afternoon, just as he did not mention the rearmament plans he had discussed with his cabinet the previous day. 'Billions of reichsmarks are needed for rearmament,' Hitler had told his ministers in that meeting. 'The future of Germany depends solely and exclusively on the rebuilding of the army.' Hitler's trade war with his neighbors would prove to be but a prelude to his shooting war with the world.
