271: The Roots of Fascism

Mark Podcast
Horst Wessel and his SA unit at the 1929 Nuremberg Rally. (Photo: Deutsches Bundesarchiv)

In this first episode of a three-part series, we look at the origins of fascism.

At the turn of the century, socialists were becoming increasingly confident that expanding the right to vote to the working classes would inevitably bring socialism via the ballot box. But what happened instead was a new right-wing ideology came into being, one that competed with socialists for that new working-class vote: Fascism.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Bullets and Bayonets”
Composed in 1917 by John Philip Sousa. Public domain.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

270: The Reichstag Fire

Mark Podcast
The famous photograph of Adolf Hitler bowing to President Hindenburg at the opening of the Reichstag in Potsdam, March 21, 1933. (Photo: Deutsches Bundesarchiv.)

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler became chancellor of a German government in which Nazis held only a couple of cabinet posts. But Hitler had demanded yet another Reichstag election (Germany’s third in less than a year), and the Nazis set out to create a crisis out of a supposed impending Communist revolution.

When a fire was set in the Reichstag just days before the election, Hitler and the Nazis got everything they needed to declare an emergency, crack down on the left, and persuade the Reichstag to grant them sweeping “emergency” powers that they would retain until 1945.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Sonata for Clarinet and Piano, Opus 167
Composed in 1921 by Camille Saint-Saëns. Public domain.
Performed by Jordi Rumbau. Recording used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

269: Chancellor Hitler

Mark Podcast
Adolf Hitler stands at a window in the Reich Chancellery the evening of January 30, 1933, just after taking office, as a crowd on the street below cheers.

The year 1933 opened with Hitler and his Nazi Party seemingly no nearer to political power than they had been a year earlier.

But 89 years ago today, on January 30, 1933, after a few right-wing nationalist politicians struck a deal with Hitler, a coalition government took office with Hitler as chancellor.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Symphony No. 6 in F major
Composed in 1808 by Ludwig van Beethoven. Public domain.
Recording used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

268: A Private from Bohemia

Mark Podcast
German party workers campaign outside a polling place in Berlin during the July 1932 election. Left to right: two NSDAP stormtroopers, then Centre Party, SDP, KPD, DNVP, and People’s Party. (Photo: Deutsches Bundesarchiv.)

Germany held four national elections in 1932: two rounds of Presidential elections, and then two Reichstag elections. The Nazi Party competed vigorously in each one, and in a number of state elections, but while it racked up impressive support, it never translated into a majority.

Hitler’s unwillingness to compromise with other parties made it difficult for the Nazis to form coalitions, even when they won the largest share of the vote. By the end of the year, they seemed no closer to power than they had been at the beginning.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Intermezzo No. 2
Composed in 1898 by Johannes Brahms.
Performed by Markus Staab, and used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

267: The Brown Battalions

Mark Podcast
Horst Wessel, shortly before his death. (Photo: Bundesarchiv)

The dramatic result of the 1930 German federal election was that the NSDAP, the Nazi Party, was now the second-largest in the Reichstag and thus a major player in German politics.

But being a major party is not the same thing as participating in the government. The NSDAP, like the Communists, stubbonly refused to join any coalition, unless the party leader, Adolf Hitler, was made chancellor.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Prelude to Act III from Lohengrin
Composed in 1848 by Richard Wagner.
Performed by the United States Marine Band. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

266: After Hitler, Our Turn

Mark Podcast
Ernst Thälmann, chair of the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands, the Communist Party of Germany or KPD.

The last years of the 1920s saw an upsurge in support for both the German Communist Party (KPD) and the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP).

Although they had different reasons, the two parties shared a strategy of refusing to enter into coalition with other parties, as is the norm in parliamentary democracies. But as these parties grew in representation in the German Reichstag, it became increasingly difficult for the other parties to put together a majority coalition.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

Overture to Egmont
Composed in 1810 by Ludwig van Beethoven.
Performed by the Czech National Symphony Orchestra. Public domain recording. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

265: Foreign Commentary Changes Nothing

Mark Podcast
Members of the Lytton Commission examine the South China Railway track at the site of the explosion which the Japanese used as justification for occupying Manchuria.

The Japanese military seized control of Manchuria on a pretext and proclaimed it an independent state. The civilian government in Tokyo reluctantly went along with this.

The League of Nations had been created for exactly this situation: to intervene when a strong country attacked or bullied a weaker one. Now the League faced its first real test.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Edo Lullaby”
Traditional. Public domain.
Performed by Wikimedia Commons user Akaniji. Used pursuant to a Creative Commons CC BY 3.0 license. Source.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

264: What Is a Planet?

Mark Podcast
Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto (indicated by arrows) by detecting its movement in the six days between when these two photos were taken.

Ever since the discovery of the eighth planet, Neptune, astronomers speculated about a possible ninth planet. Some, like American Percival Lowell, used mathematical analysis of the orbit of Uranus to trace the undetected planet’s gravitational effects.

In 1930, astronomer Clyde Tombaugh, building on Lowell’s work, discovered the ninth planet. Or did he? (This is a special Christmas episode of the podcast.)

(Correction: Clyde Tombaugh received his degrees in astronomy from the University of Kansas. In an earlier version of this episode, I mistakenly said they were from Kansas State University. I apologize for the error, and the podcast and transcript have been corrected.)

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

eDream

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

263: Discussion Is Useless

Mark Podcast
Japanese newspaper reporting the assassination of Prime Minister Inukai.

The decade of the 1920s began and ended with global economic slowdowns. Between them, Japan was hit with a devastating earthquake.

As Japan struggled with its economic problems and rebuilding from the disaster, right-wing Army commanders took it upon themselves to seize control of Manchuria, which they saw as essential to Japan’s economic and military security.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

“Kojo no Tsuki” (“Moon Over Desolate Castle”)
Composed in 1901 by Taki Rentaro. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.

262: The Long March

Mark Podcast
Mao Zedong in 1938.

By 1929, Chiang Kai-shek had realized Sun Yat-sen’s vision of a united China. But much of “united” China was still controlled by warlords, Communists, and the Japanese. Of these, Chiang regarded the Communists as the gravest threat.

As for the Communists, they were forced to abandon their efforts to foment the revolution through organizing China’s small urban proletariat and increasingly the Party came to accept Mao Zedong’s argument that the revolution would spring from China’s numerous disenchanted rural peasant farmers.

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Playlist:

Fanfare

Opening Theme

The Nanjing Decade

“Wa Ha Ha”
Traditional. Public domain.

Closing Theme 


Except when otherwise indicated, the contents of this podcast are © and ℗ 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 by Mark Painter, all rights reserved. Some music and sound effects used by arrangement with Pond 5.