In 1923, Hitler Used His Trial to Win the Hearts of Many Germans

Donald Trump will speak at his trial in New York - are we ready?

Courtesy of Verlagsdruckerei

Between November 8th and 9th, 1923, Adolf Hitler (sitting far left in the photo above from his prison digs) and his young party of National Socialists tried to take over the German government. For a few hours, they succeeded in taking over a sliver of the Bavarian government but were eventually crushed.

From the prison in the lovely little town of Landsberg am Lech, Hitler wrote his Mein Kampf saga and prepared himself for trial. In February of 1924, Adolf Hitler took the stand before a packed courtroom. For the next several days, he was permitted to speak in his defense and explain why he did what he did. His words were reported to an economically struggling nation struggling to make payments to cover the reparations demanded of them in the Versailles Treaty. If Hitler was seen as a radical before the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, millions of Germans viewed him as a savior after his trial.

Trump has no speaking role on Monday, but he is expected to return to the courthouse in lower Manhattan toward the end of the state’s case when court records show he will be called as a witness (Trump Expected to Attend Civil Trial).

While there is no practice in the U.S. judicial system that permits a defendant from the stand to go on for days, Hitler was up and roaming around the courtroom like he had been in the Roman Forum, Trump’s words, thanks to the abject sycophancy of the right-media and the shitshow that has become the Republican Party will be magnified in ways that no defendant in U.S. history has had.

A partial gag order was issued by the judge in the civil trial yesterday because Trump, in the typical fashion of a bully, went after one of the weakest and most indefensible people involved in the case against him, a law clerk for Judge Arthur Ergoron. Trump attacked her on his ridiculous Truth Social alt-tech social media platform.

Trump continues to incite violence, and he will undoubtedly, and multiple times, purge himself when he takes the witness stand this week; nonetheless, his rabid followers and the most hysterical ones, will regard every lie he unfurls from the stand as the Gospel truth simply because he is saying under oath — and in their world, Trump does not lie. In their world, Trump is a God-fearing man who would never dare “solemnly swear” to tell the truth with his tiny little hand resting on a Bible. Trump would never lie before the eyes of their white, blue-eyed, gun-toting god.

We are doing the right thing by prosecuting this mobster and bully, but our nation is not ready for Trump in many ways. Trump realizes this in the same way that Adolf Hitler did. Democracy is inherently weak because it empowers people to think they know better than those running the government’s day-to-day. When someone comes along and says, “Those in power are disrespecting you,” it rings loud and clear for many people. When these people are down on their luck, maybe their own fault or no one’s fault, those words give them hope.

In 1922, The New York Times profiled Hitler. It said that his anti-Semitism was so over the top and full of “violent fulminations” that there was speculation as to whether he was really an anti-Semite or not. The propaganda was suspected to be used as bait to keep the masses aroused. Since Trump came onto the scene, too many of us have underestimated his ability to lead the country down the fascist rabbit hole. After each crazy and racist proclamation, his followers have said, “He doesn’t really mean that. He’s just trying to get votes.”

Will Trump’s defense of himself this week give enough people the hope they don’t have this morning? Will they wake up later this week and finally “get” Trump?

Could that translate into a victory for Trump and fascism next November? All is very possible.