Lily Campbell
The rise of Hitler in Germany is one of the most written about and least understood events in history. It is common to explain the Nazi takeover by Hitler’s ‘brainwashing’ of ordinary Germans. But nagging facts point to a hidden history: the Nazis’ votes went down before they were handed power by the previous chancellor, and most workers in Germany still voted for socialists and Communists in 1933. We can only understand this catastrophe by looking back to 1918, when millions of workers and soldiers set the world on fire with the German revolution. They formed mass, democratic workers’ councils, overthrew the Kaiser and ended WWI. This talk will explain how the defeat of this inspiring movement gave rise to fascism.