rise was the decision of Alfred Hiigenberg,nhead of the Conservative Party and anpress magnate, to wori< cooperativelynwith them. This meant that nazi leadersnsuch as Hitler, Goring, Goebbels, et al.,nhad their speeches and appearances resf)ectfullyncovered in Hugenberg’s newspapers.nThis had the effect of making thennazis appear respectable from 1928 ton1932.nMany persons who voted for the nazisnswitched from conservative parties. Thenmajor reason for this, according tonHamilton, is that these parties stressednnationalism and opposition to the VersaillesnTreaty, harbored strands of anti-nSemitism, and, in a number of fundamentalnrespects, had programs that werensimilar to those of the nazis but whichnwere less effectively presented.nIn terms of general press coverage,nHamilton points out, most respectablenGermans didn’t read Julius Streicher’snscandalous paper, but they did read thenconservative press. That press spentnmuch of its time portraying the communistnmenace in lurid terms, to suchnan extent that many Germans, by 1932,nexpected a recurrence of the communistnrevolutionary efforts of the immediatenpost-World War I period. The nazis werendepicted as fighters against communists.nHamilton has also made some otherninteresting observations about the Germannpolitical situation in the early 1930’s.nRising unemployment (due largely to ancutback in American investments) resultednin declining government revenues.nThe prevailing economic theory uponnwhich Chancellor Bruning relied wasnone that involved curtailing social expendituresnand raising taxes in order tonbalance the national budget. Tlie Marxistnparties (communists and Social Democratsn) in the Reichstag would not agreento a cut in social services, and the conservativesnwould not agree to an increasenin taxes. The result was governmentalnparalysis and an intensified atmospherenof crisis in 1932. Dr. Hamilton does notndiscuss the economic situation in Germanynin detail, perhaps because it is outsidenhis chosen area—election returnsnand how they were achieved. But it isnworth noting that by 1932 the Germanngovernment had intervened in the privatensector to a marked degree. A majorndevelopment in that intervention wasnthe nationalization of the banks. Thisnmarked a final stage in economic controlnby the government—before Hitler.nAnother factor assisting the nazisnwas the persistent revolutionary rhetoricnof the communists and the continuousnsight of the unemployed on the streets.nIn reality, the communists were lessnnumerous than has been assumed: theirncore membership was only 120,000 inn1928, when their votes amounted to 4.5nmillion. A major communist error wasnin claiming to be a revolutionary rathernthan an electoral party. But a greaternerror was their decision in 1928 to attacknthe Social Democrats. This split thenleft, and opened the way for the minoritynnazis.nIn February 1933, after Hitler’s accession,nthe mayor of Altona, Max Brauer,nasked the chairman of the Reichstag’sncommunist faction, Ernst Torgler, tonunite widi his Social Democrats againstnthe nazis. Torgler replied: “It doesn’tnenter our heads. The Nazis must takenpower. Then in four weeks the wholenworking class will be united under thenleadership of the Communist Party.” AnAdolescence at FiftynIn a recent interview with Playboy,nactress Joan Collins further enriched thatnmagazine’s lustrous tradition of interviewsnwith such deep thinkers as Sartre,nDali, and Toynbee by explaining some ofnthe mysteries of celebrity neoteny. Innassessing public responses to her recentlynpublished autobiography in which shendisclosed all of the details of her threenMed marriages and her dozens of affairs,nMs. Collins said: “The compartment that’sneasy to put me in is ‘free thinking, sexynbroad with a dirty mouth, who prettynnnfew days later Brauer spoke to the Sovietnambassador, who repeated the same partynline. On February 27, 1933, Hitler outlawednthe German Communist Party.nOf course, the communists and SocialnDemocrats were not the only ones whonmisunderstood the nature of the nazinperil. Business groups, too, have comenunder fire, mosdy from Marxists whoncharge that fascism is “the final stage ofncapitalism.” Dr. Hamilton makes it clearnthat, while some big businessmen didnhelp Hitler (notably Fritz Thyssen andnAlfred Hugenberg), until he becamenpolitically dominant the majority ofnGerman industrialists had spread theirnmoney lairly widely, as a sort of iasurance.nTheir interest in politics was minimal.nThe majority of businessmen found operatingnthefr enterprises a full-time task,nand left politics to politicians. Once Hitlernwas in power, these businessmennlearned that the world had changed.nSummoned before Hitler, Goring, andnDr. Schacht, they coughed up three millionnmarks at a single meeting—and fromnthen on, danced to the nazi tune.nSo did all of Germany. The nazis obtainednpower according to the forms ofnWeimar, which is to say, democratically.nThey then proceeded to eradicate democracy.nThey maintained the facade ofncapitalism in the sense of disparate incomesnand titular ownership, but thenLIBERAL CULTURE^nmuch does what she wants.'” But reasonnfor hope still exists: “There’s more to menthan that.” Ms. Collins then added:nI’ve only started to become mature innthe past few years. I was really a kid.nWhat more? An aging amoeba? CHnwm^ammZlnJune 1984n