I came across a quotation from Ernst Hanfsteangl referring to Hitler’s government as being “dynamic chaos”. I was searching for a definition and what Hanfstaengl meant by it. Can it be compared to any recent regimes/governments?
Sorry, I should have written "referring to Nazi Germany as being “dynamic chaos”.
I think it refers to the difference of totally random chaos, opposed to a central directed cause, that none the less creates chaos. Even beyond the directed cause had intended.
Dynamical chaos pops up in my searches. But the papers I skimmed on the surface do not relate to such a situation as Nazi Germany.
Maybe they do. But it is in a different field. The nature of it also being akin to effects of Nazi Germany.
I suspect that one or more countries are inciting chaos here and there. Maybe that could be a dynamic chaos? The intent is to destroy stable systems. Without knowing what the outcomes may be, aside from chaos.
That sounds reasonable.Thanks Kedikat.
It may refer to Hitler’s habit of playing one against another among his subordinates. See the aircraft carrier (yes they had the Seydlitz). No plane aboard for Goëring (air army) and Raeder ( navy) were endlessly fighting over who would control them, and Hitler never weighted in definitively. And the same was for the intelligence ( SD and Abwehr), the tanks (Porsche, Hanomag, Krupp, …), the occupation forces,…
Even in the defenses of the Normandy beaches, the units were under concurrent command from Rommel and Rundstedt, one seeking victory on the sand, the other a war of movement.
Thanks FrenchDunadan.
The phrase makes sense now.
Franklin Roosevelt’s style could be described that way. He also deliberately played his subordinates off one another, never announced his plans or picks until the very last moment, encouraged contradictory ideas, and started projects without any more than a Congressional authorization of money. Harry Hopkins spent the first $5 million of the Civilian Works Administration in two hours from a desk in a hallway because the movers hadn’t yet shown up.
AIUI, one of Hitler’s core ideas was that those who deserved power (or even just survival) were those who fought for it and won. Even at the end, his political testament in effect says that the outcome of the war showed that the German people weren’t, after all, quite up to his vision.
So his style of government was to set up overlapping/competing responsibilities and authorities and see who won (clue: it was rarely if ever the ones who chose the less extreme option - or who might threaten his own ultimate authority).
A similar image shows up in Steve Schmidt’s takedown of John McCain on Substack.
The story of American corruption in Ukraine is a disgrace, and in part has led to the human disaster in Ukraine. The corruption did not start in the Trump era, but years before. It started in the K Street sewer firms where Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Paul Manafort and Rick Davis thrived.
Why did Senator John McCain choose to ignore this? Because Rick Davis organized the constant chaos of John McCain’s life into something that could resemble a soft coherence to people looking in the window to a constantly destabilized environment.