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> Nazi also got comparably lower sentences then radical communists or left wing for same offenses. Right wing in Germany was treated with more lenience then left wing in Germany during that period. Hitler could be sent to jail for long, till forgotten, but was not. He could be kept there and his jail could be less of holiday then it actually was. Nazi got plenty of support and benefit of doubt on all kinds of levels which along with fear of communism and wish to build a military imperium again played more role then office sacking. It is not like only Nazi were censored at the time or that specially strict rules were applied to them. The precipitating issue in Weimar Germany was that a very clear social and cultural divide existed between those engaged in culture production and those involved in maintaining law and order. The former, generally, were the cosmopolitan worldly types and the latter, generally, were the Prussian law and order types. I would say, like today in America, that there was not a homogenous treatment by society at large. I would argue instead that there was a layering of reactions by different parts of society, each of which had different reactions and frames of reference. You can make sweeping assertions about what "the media" or "the police" said, did, or thought in Weimar Germany, but that's already reducing extremely diverse portions of society to nothing more than singular unthinking mobs. Yes, Freikorps members and National Socialists frequently received more lenient sentences in the Weimar Republic. This was because of a panoply of factors, not the least of which was that the accused were almost universally veterans of the war. Combined with the aforementioned Prussian law-and-order types that were democratized unwillingly, it's almost a guarantee that, on the whole, judges would view militant reactionaryism as less severe a crime (if a crime at all) than further perceived attempts to Sovietize the Weimar Republic. Conversely, the media tended to excoriate the judicial sectors for being too lenient against reactionaries and too harsh on communists for similar but opposite reasons. > Somehow, nazi openly trying to silence Jews (even before they got power) or democratic politicians did not caused Streissand effect making Jews or democrats more heard. I also remember that their opposition was targeted by Nazi strongly and successfully. The Streisand effect is when an already ubiquitous public figure accidentally enlarges the scope of a minority issue by publicizing it. The Nazis could not have created a Streisand effect when they were a disempowered minority party in the same way that the KPD couldn't have created a Streisand effect pre-1933. However, the Weimar authorities and media did create Streisand effects constantly for both the KPD and the NSDAP during the Weimar Republic by patrolling and outlawing various activities of both parties, which definitely contributed to their overall growth and popularity. |