Fun History Fact of the Day

From my meager knowledge the faction of the Nazi party less keen on Hitler were, like the Trotskyites of Russia or the Red Guard in China, more radical enthusiasts of revolution. So perhaps it was a good thing? I recall reading in William Weir's Decisive Battles that Ludendorff was so in love with war that Hitler thought he was too crazy, and he came close to power at points.

My 7th grade Civics teacher gave us a list of elections that were supposedly decided by one vote. The Hitler example was one of them. I was so moved by this factoid that I went on to write a terribly written essay about how I wish I had a time machine coupled with the ability to change that one vote.

Oh public school.

In fact the party never won majority in an election. He did win one vote though, literally one vote, when the president appointed him chancellor. Under emergency powers, that provided all the control he needed.

[Comment deleted for supplying false email address. To restore this comment, email the webmaster@econlib.org--Econlib Ed.]

In a dictatorship, everything is decided by one vote.

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" The people who vote decide nothing; the people who count the vote decide everything. "

-- {Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili}(Joseph Stalin)

In one of Terry Pratchett's Diskworld novels, there's a comment along the lines of "Ankh-Morpork operated on a system of One Man, One Vote. Lord Vetinari was The Man, and he had The Vote."

Bryan:

To answer your question, the vote against Hitler came from Rudolf Posch, a librarian who seems to have made little other contribution to history.

Hitler was already the de facto leader of the party by this time (July 1921). This particular vote was to give him "dictatorial" powers over the party, which he used to great effect, sadly .

Regards,
Ken