In Korea, tyranny on

<Taegyu Oh Report>

Book review 190: Can we not repeat the tragedy of the birth of Hitler? <The country that chose Hitler>

"How is democracy?" It is a gloomy question that comes to mind while witnessing what is going on at home and abroad these days.

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In Korea, tyranny on the Yoon Suk Yeol administration is increasing to a higher degree. The most representative example is the president's unwavering veto over the "Sickness Special Counsel Act" and "Kim Gun-hee Special Counsel Act" passed by the National Assembly to protect herself and her wife. Although the president might argue that it is legal as it is stipulated in the Constitution, it is an act of privatizing the law for the sake of personal interest. It is a riot that tramples on the spirit of the Constitution and the will of the people. The fact that the president has never vetoed the special counsel bill that was passed by the National Assembly in connection with her own family in the post-democratization administration shows how ruthless politics President Yoon is engaged in.

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What about overseas? Donald Trump, who is suspected of defying the presidential election and supporting his supporters' political coup d'etat, is running for president again and is seeking to invade the U.S. The possibility is quite high. This is happening in the U.S., which is said to be the oldest and most exemplary democratic country. What about the drastic strides made by the ultra-rightist forces that declared anti-Muslim, anti-immigration, and anti-globalization in the recent European Parliament elections.

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What these shocking events at home and abroad have in common is that they are all the result of legal proceedings. The Yoon Suk Yeol regime was also born through elections, and the European Parliament's shift to the right is the product of a legal procedure called elections.

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If these results are called 'the birth of evil through legal procedures', the originator would be Hitler's Nazi regime. "The country that chose Hitler - How Democracy collapsed" (translated by Benjamin Carter Het, translated by Lee Sun-joo, April 2022) is a meticulous analysis of how democracy collapsed with Hitler's birth, as the subtitle says.

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The author, a professor of history at the City University of New York in the United States, examines the situation at the time of Hitler's birth based on vast literature and the latest research data, showing three-dimensionally how the Weimar Republic, a democratic country, is accepted by Hitler. If history is a conversation with the past from the present point of view, this book is a good history book that allows us to understand the far-right populism that spreads like poisonous mushrooms in and out of the country these days through past facts.

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The author travels back to the past with the question of how Hitler, the worst dictator, was born in the Weimar Republic, which realized the best democracy at the time. The Weimar Republic, which was born as a result of the defeat and revolution of World War I, systematically guaranteed common, equal, direct, and secret elections, and adopted a proportional representation system in the general election to faithfully reflect the will of the voters. At that time, he operated the world's best system of democracy.

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However, the Weimar Republic sinks and devotes power to Hitler due to various domestic and international circumstances and reasons. The author says it is too simple to hold only the German people accountable for this. It is said that a variety of factors, including distorted collective memory, mistakes in mainstream politics, economic crisis, anti-globalization and anti-democratic sentiment, and camp conflict, worked in combination. Hitler was not without Hitler's particular talent for inflammatory speech, but he would never have been in power without the senselessness of the elite groups who made the easiest choice to realize their wishes and the misjudgment of the established politicians who tried to maintain power by establishing Hitler as a "face story."

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In this book, the author analyzes the death of democracy in the Weimar Republic, covering the international situation, law, politics, economy, and society. To this end, he freely draws the perspective of the major events that took place at the time and the remarks and gazes of major politicians. From the atmosphere of the defeat of World War I to the failure of Hitler's removal plan, the analysis is conducted in chronological order. Although specific events and characters are unfamiliar because the book is about German history, the introduction of major figures and political topography attached to the front of the book, and explanatory materials for major political parties in the Weimar Republic are helpful.  

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The Weimar Republic, which was founded by left-wing forces such as the Social Democratic Party just before the defeat of World War I, collapsed the German Empire with a revolution, was excellent and advanced, but the situation was not good. Globalization, which caused the international order, trade, and economic and refugee crises that came with war compensation and the gold standard, became the soil for those who were angry about it to become antagonists of liberal democracy.

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President Paul von Hindenburg (military commander-in-chief at the time of the ceasefire) and other military forces repeatedly instigated them to tolerate the inevitability of a ceasefire, but they lost the war because left-wing forces such as the Social Democratic Party put a sword in their backs. After the defeat, the Social Democratic Party opposed the increase in defense spending, and implemented a system in which the state mediates the wage increase agreement. However, large corporations wanted to abolish the wage arbitration system and weaken unions, and the military wanted to increase defense spending further. Farmers were extremely angry because they failed to pay taxes or went bankrupt due to a worldwide collapse in agricultural prices. Since then, farmers have become opponents of the Social Democratic Party and the most enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis.

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President Hindenburg and conservative politicians like Franz von Schleicher and Franz von Papen, the president's key confidants, wanted to drive out the Social Democratic Party regime and establish a unified right-wing government with popular support in this circumstance. Hitler was the one who temporarily tried to 'hire' him with this idea. However, this was a major misjudgment. Hitler's former prime minister, Franz von Papen, assured him, "We hired him" and "We'll corner him and get him stuck in a few months," but within a few years Germany was transformed into Hitler's world. He paved the way for a legitimate dictatorship by enacting the 'Parliament Fire Act' similar to the Park Chung-hee regime's Yushin Constitution using the fabricated Capitol fire (February 27, 1933). Then, the government forcibly passed the authorization law, which exercised all legislative powers for four years, completing the dictatorship. Hitler completed the dictatorship through this process, allowing him to do everything at his disposal