An Age of Anxiety Lecture Flashcards

Adolf Hitler and the Roots of Anxiety

• Early Life and Background:
      - Adolf Hitler was born in an Austrian village in $1889$.
      - Family Dynamics: He was indulged by his mother, Klara, but experienced tension with his father, Alois, who wanted him to enter the Austrian civil service. Hitler preferred the arts.
      - Education: Following Alois’s death in $1903$, Hitler pursued art, leaving school in $1905$ with a ninth-grade education.
• The Vienna Years:
      - Rejection: In $1907$, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts rejected his application. Klara died in $1908$.
      - Social Dislocation: Hitler lived off a pension and inheritance, eventually becoming homeless. During this time, he embraced the music of Richard Wagner and began internalizing radical political ideas.
      - Development of Ideology: He adopted beliefs in Aryan supremacy and virulent anti-Semitism, blaming Jews and Marxists for societal ills. He also developed a hatred for liberalism and democracy.
• Military Service and Mission:
      - Move to Munich: In $1913$, he moved to Munich to avoid the Austrian draft, feeling no loyalty to the "decaying" Austria-Hungary empire.
      - WWI Service: He volunteered for the German army ($1914$–$1918$). He was wounded twice and decorated for bravery.
      - Postwar Rage: Blinded by mustard gas at the war's end, he reacted with "impotent rage" to Germany's defeat. He became convinced that Jews were responsible for the national humiliation and vowed to enter politics to save the nation.
• Symbol of an Age: Hitler’s personal dislocation and trauma mirrored the broader European "age of anxiety" following the Great War and the Great Depression.

Postwar Pessimism and Cultural Frontiers

• The "Lost Generation":
      - Origin: Gertrude Stein ($1874$–$1946$) coined the term "lost generation" to describe American intellectuals in Paris.
      - Literary Expression: Writers like Ernest Hemingway (A Farewell to Arms, $1929$) and Erich Maria Remarque (All Quiet on the Western Front, $1929$) depicted the meaninglessness of death and suffering in industrialized warfare.
• The Decline of Western Civilization:
      - Oswald Spengler ($1880$–$1936$): Published The Decline of the West ($1918$–$1922$). He argued that all societies pass through a biological-like cycle of growth and decay; he concluded European society was in its final stage of decline.
      - Arnold J. Toynbee ($1889$–$1975$): Wrote the $12$-volume A Study of History ($1934$–$1961$), analyzing the growth and disintegration of $26$ societies.
• Religious Uncertainty:
      - Karl Barth ($1886$–$1968$): Published Epistle to the Romans ($1919$), attacking liberal Christian belief in progress and emphasizing the depravity of human nature (original sin).
      - Niokolai Berdiaev ($1874$–$1948$): Russian Orthodox thinker who stated, “Man’s historical experience has been one of steady failure.”
• Attacks on Progress and Democracy:
      - Science and technology were viewed with suspicion after being used to create poison gas and explosives.
      - Anti-Democratic Sentiment: Intellectuals like José Ortega y Gasset (Revolt of the Masses, $1930$) warned that the rise of the "masses" threatened to destroy Western achievements. Many equated democracy with the "rule of inferiors."

Revolutions in Physics and Psychology

• The Revolution in Physics:
      - Albert Einstein ($1879$–$1955$): Formulated the theory of special relativity ($1905$). It posited that space and time are relative to the observer, suggesting there is no single spatial or chronological framework in the universe.
      - Werner Heisenberg ($1901$–$1976$): Published "About the Quantum-Theoretical Reinterpretation of Kinetic and Mechanical Relationships" in $1927$, establishing the Uncertainty Principle.
      - The Uncertainty Principle: States it is impossible to simultaneously specify the position and velocity of a subatomic particle ($e^{-}$). This challenged the law of cause and effect and suggested that the observer is part of the process being observed.
• Freud’s Psychoanalytic Theory:
      - Sigmund Freud ($1856$–$1939$): Developed psychoanalysis, focusing on unconscious mental processes and repression.
      - Core Concepts: Identified the Oedipus complex (erotic attachment of male children to mothers) and argued that dreams held the key to the human psyche.
      - Impact: Suggested human behavior is fundamentally irrational. His work deeply influenced $1920s$ literature and the arts, focusing on memory and sexuality.

Experimentation in Art and Architecture

• Modern Painting:
      - Artists moved away from mirroring reality (realism) toward creating it, partly due to the rise of photography.
      - Schools of Art: Including Les Fauves ("wild beasts"), expressionists, cubists, abstractionists, dadaists, and surrealists.
      - Goal: "To abolish the sovereignty of appearance."
• Artistic Influences:
      - Japanese Prints: Influenced Edgar Degas ($1834$–$1917$) with asymmetrical compositions and flat surfaces.
      - "Primitive" Art: Paul Gauguin ($1848$–$1903$) was inspired by the art of Tahiti. The "Bridge" group in Germany and Pablo Picasso ($1881$–$1973$) were influenced by African and indigenous art forms.
• The Bauhaus and Modern Architecture:
      - Bauhaus: An institution in Weimar and Dessau, Germany, focused on functional design for the industrial age.
      - Walter Gropius ($1883$–$1969$): First director; championed the doctrine that "form must follow function," emphasizing glass and simple shapes.
      - Ludwig Mies von der Rohe ($1886$–$1969$): Second director; pioneered the glass-box skyscraper with steel frames.
      - The International Style: Prevailed after $1930$; functional for large office/apartment complexes.
      - Le Corbusier (Charles Edouard Jeanneret): Designed government buildings in Chandigarh, India, at the request of Jawaharlal Nehru.

The Global Depression

• The Fragility of Prosperity:
      - International economy relied on a tangled system: Germany/Austria used U.S. loans to pay reparations to France/Britain, who then paid war debts to the U.S.
      - Raw Material Collapse: Technological advances led to gluts (e.g., reclaimed rubber hurt the Dutch East Indies; oil hurt coal; synthetic nitrogen hurt Chile).
      - Agricultural Crisis: Overproduction during and after the war led to collapsed prices. By $1929$, wheat prices were at a $400$-year low.
• The Crash of 1929:
      - Speculative buying "on margin" (as little as $3\%$ cash) drove stock prices up.
      - Black Thursday (24 October 1929): Panic selling on the New York Stock Exchange. Eleven financiers committed suicide that day.
      - Economic Contraction: National income in the U.S. dropped by half by $1932$; $44\%$ of U.S. banks failed.
• Global Impact:
      - Germany and Japan: Suffered most due to dependence on U.S. capital and exports. German unemployment reached $35\%$ by $1932$; industrial production fell by $50\%$.
      - Primary Producers: Latin American, African, and Asian economies depending on single exports (coffee, sugar, rubber) were devastated.
• Economic Nationalism: Governments imposed tariffs (e.g., the U.S. Smoot-Hawley Tariff of $1930$), which provoked retaliation. World trade dropped by more than $66\%$ between $1929$ and $1932$.

Despair and Government Action

• Personal Suffering:
      - Unemployment reached $30$ million by $1933$.
      - Women were often pushed out of the workforce to save jobs for men (Charles Richet argued this would also increase birthrates).
      - Breadlines and Shantytowns: Became common. Rates of marriage and childbearing fell; suicide rates rose.
• Literature of the Depression:
      - John Steinbeck: Wrote The Grapes of Wrath ($1939$), depicting the Joad family (“Okies”) and criticizing the government's “planned scarcity” where crops were destroyed while people starved.
• Economic Experimentation:
      - John Maynard Keynes ($1883$–$1946$): Wrote The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money ($1936$). He argued the cause of depression was inadequate demand, not oversupply.
      - Keynesian Solutions: Urged governments to stimulate economies through public works, increasing money supply, and running deficits if necessary.
• The New Deal: Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s program ($1933$ onwards) included bank reforms, agricultural subsidies, collective bargaining rights, minimum wages, and Social Security. He famously stated, "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself."

Communism in Russia

• Civil War ($1918$–$1920$):
      - Reds vs. Whites: The Red Army (communists) fought the Whites (anti-communists supported by Britain, France, Japan, and the U.S.).
      - Red Terror: The secret police executed roughly $200,000$ people, including Tsar Nicholas II and his family in July $1918$.
      - Casualties: Approximately $10$ million lives were lost, mostly due to disease and starvation.
• War Communism vs. New Economic Policy (NEP):
      - War Communism: Massive nationalization and seizure of crops. Industrial production fell to $1/10$ and agriculture to $1/2$ of prewar levels.
      - NEP ($1921$): Lenin reversed course, restoring market economy for small-scale industries and allowing peasants to sell surplus crops. It included a major electrification program.
• The Rise of Stalin:
      - Following Lenin’s death in $1924$, Joseph Stalin (born in Georgia, "man of steel") outmaneuvered rivals like Trotsky. He promoted "socialism in one country."
• The Five-Year Plans:
      - First Five-Year Plan ($1929$): Aimed to transform the USSR from agricultural to industrial. Managed by Gosplan.
      - Collectivization of Agriculture: Private land was converted into collective farms to feed industrial workers. Targeted the Kulaks (wealthy peasants, $3$–$5\%$ of the population).
      - Outcome: Violent resistance (peasants slaughtered livestock). At least $3$ million peasants died. Despite this, the USSR industrialized rapidly while the West was in Depression.
• The Great Purge ($1935$–$1938$):
      - Stalin eliminated suspected opposition within the party and military.
      - In $1939$, $8$ million citizens were in labor camps; $3$ million were dead due to the "cleansing."

The Fascist Alternative

• Defining Fascism:
      - Derived from the Latin fasces (symbol of authority). It was a reaction against liberal democracy, socialism, and communism.
      - Characteristics: Veneration of the state, devotion to a strong leader, ultranationalism, ethnocentrism (xenophobia), and militarism (preference for uniforms and parades).
• Italian Fascism:
      - Benito Mussolini: Former socialist who founded Il Popolo d’Italia. His movement gained ground via the Blackshirts, who used violence against socialists.
      - March on Rome (October $1922$): King Victor Emmanuel III invited Mussolini to become prime minister to avoid civil war.
      - Mussolini’s Rule: Ruled as Il Duce. Established a "one-party dictatorship," outlawed free speech, and attempted a corporatist order where the state settled labor disputes.
      - Alliance with Hitler: Issued anti-Semitic laws in $1938$. Signed the Pact of Steel (May $1939$) with Germany.

German National Socialism

• Rise of the Nazi Party:
      - Hitler became chairman of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party in $1921$.
      - Munich Putsch ($1923$): Failed attempt to overthrow the Weimar Republic; Hitler was jailed.
      - Mein Kampf: Written in prison, outlining his racial ideology (Aryan superiority vs. Jewish "evil").
• Path to Power:
      - The Great Depression and hyperinflation radicalized the electorate. By $1932$, the Nazi party was the largest in parliament.
      - Chancellorship: President Paul von Hindenburg offered Hitler the chancellorship in $1933$. Hitler quickly moved to establish a single-party state, outlawing all other parties.
• The Racial State:
      - Eugenics: A compulsory sterilization program ($1934$–$1939$) targeted more than $30,000$ people with hereditary illnesses.
      - Euthanasia: Approximately $200,000$ physically or mentally handicapped people were killed between $1939$ and $1945$.
      - Pronatalism: Cult of motherhood to increase the "Aryan" population. The Honor Cross of the German Mother was awarded on 12 August (Hitler's mother’s birthday).
• Anti-Semitism:
      - Nuremberg Laws ($1935$): Deprived Jews of citizenship and banned marriage/intercourse with non-Jews.
      - Kristallnacht (9–10 November 1938): "The night of broken glass." Nazis destroyed thousands of Jewish stores/synagogues and murdered over $100$ Jews.
      - Emigration: Approximately $250,000$ Jews left Germany by $1938$, though many remained behind facing an uncertain future.

Questions & Discussion

• Expanse of Fascism: Why did fascism flourish in Europe but fail to take the same root elsewhere in the $1930s$?
      - Response: While potential movements existed in Latin America, Japan, and Arab lands, the specific combination of the Great War's trauma and the Great Depression’s impact in Europe created a unique environment for the total overthrow of parliamentary systems.
• Roosevelt’s Outlook: How does Roosevelt believe U.S. citizens can profit from the dark days of the Great Depression, and why is it that all they have to fear is fear itself?
      - Response: Roosevelt argues that the dark days teach a lesson about true destiny—that people must "minister to ourselves and to our fellow men" rather than focus on “evanescent profits.” Fear itself is the problem because it is an “unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts.”