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To: Alter Kaker
Alter Kaker: "August 19, 1934 - 88% of Germans vote to support Hitler assumption of dictator power in plebiscite. You seem to promote myth - very popular after May, 1945 - that there were never Nazis in Germany. Everybody was tricked. Sorry, but overhwleming majority German people supported Hitler. "
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From K.D. Bracher in The Formation of The Third Reich...

    ...the plebiscite of August 19, 1934, was nothing more than the final farce of the pseudo-legal revolution. The voter was given no genuine choice, either then or in the plebiscites of 1936 and 1938. The vote of August 19 was an act of confirmation without any alternative and without constitutional or political significance. Nonetheless the acclamation was not an unqualified success. Even a new wave of propaganda and psychological coercion, of intimidation and terror, of interference in the electoral process and fraud could not bring the votes up to the 99 per cent to which the plebiscitary acclamations of dictatorial regimes generally aspire. Taking into account the conditions of the elections, a disproportionately high number of no votes were cast, particularly in Hamburg and Berlin, were only 72.6 and 74.2 per cent, respectively, of the qualified voters cast affirmative ballots 23 . Let us keep in mind that in totalitarian 'elections' non-voters and invalid ballots generally should be considered as an opposition voice.
This plebiscite was not a free election. Hitler had already been virtual dictator of Germany for the past year. The Army had already sworn a personal oath of loyalty to him. Political parties other than the nazi party had been outlawed. And all over the country, his political opponents had been beaten, imprisoned, murdered. The nazis were already in complete control and Hitler was already ruling by edict, including his own declaration that his unconstitutional assumption of absolute power was "legal." His uniformed goons were stationed at every polling place to "oversee" the vote, and although the nazis went to great lengths to present the appearance of a "fair election," they possessed the voter rolls pairing every voter's name with the unique number on his ballot. If a German voter had wanted to imperil the lives of his family and himself, all he needed to do was vote "no."

IOW, this was no "free election," as you've falsely implied. In the previous elections which were free, Germans had handed Hitler two resounding defeats and had denied the nazis majority status in the Reichstag. His vote in the August 1934 plebiscite more than doubled for one reason only: Fear.

And your claim that I said "there were never nazis in Germany" is a blatant lie. I never said anything like that and you know it. Nor did I ever say that "everybody was tricked" into voting Hitler's way. Another lie. As I've stated above, the phony plebiscite of 1934 was not a free election. Hitler made it illegal to not vote or to submit an illegible or mutilated ballot. Germans had to vote and once they did, the nazis knew exactly who their opponents were.

Under these circumstances, how would you have voted?

108 posted on 09/24/2003 1:19:07 PM PDT by Bonaparte
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To: Bonaparte
Thank you for going into more detail. It is sad to see how many people make stupid allegations without doing some research first.
115 posted on 09/26/2003 2:46:27 AM PDT by anotherGerman
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