What lessons should have been learned and implemented from the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in their ascension to power to prevent a recurrence of similar actors and ideological campaigns in future?
What lessons should have been learned and implemented from the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in their ascension to power to prevent a recurrence of similar actors and ideological campaigns in future?
Seems appropos
Not an expert but it seems to me the most important thing is education. In the U.S. they've been chipping away at that since at least the eighties. I'm not "handing it to them" but the right has put in the long term work to get us where we are today, with only feeble liberal centrist pushback.
Lotta very well-educated MAGAs. Not sure if education cuts to the heart of the illness.
Also a lot of well-educated and intelligent people who are not happy and/or governed by their inner darkness. Education is important but I think there's something far more fundamental at issue
There's not one illness, strictly speaking.
Russia found a guy who appealed enough to the legacies of confederate know nothings who were about to become politically irrelevant if the GOP had died as expected in 2015.
The two illnesses are A) lawful evil, Roman republicans who are working to sell us out to Christian fascists. B) patriots of the Confederacy who think that if they lie to themselves long enough it will become truth. The stupidity of people in group B is profitable enough to turbocharge into political power for people in group A. The heart of the illness is the entire mass of B being held together by group A disinformation, you could call it propaganda but that would imply concern with truth. The hearts of the illness are the links holding them together.
Being MAGA and being educated are mutually exclusive.
To believe in MAGA you need to believe there was a time in the past where America was great, but that that time has passed and that somehow there is a way to return to it.
Anyone with decent education realizes the myriad flaws with the very idea the movement is based on.
I'm sure you're correct. Just as a poor education along with lack of socio-economic opportunity and inavailability of mental healthcare might contribute to radicalization in the working poor, it stands to reason that a basic lack of empathy, whether taught or innate, likely coupled with greed must play a role for radicalization of the wealthy.
That we should never have allowed the nazis to get painted as this existential, somehow outerworldly pure evil. They understandably got that reputation after the holocaust and losing the war, but it obscures why so many people were so attracted to them in the first place.
It has made it impossible for most people to see what is truly the resurrection of fascism: many people don’t see it as such because they’re not (yet) having people shot or books burned. They think ‘if I’m not pure evil, surely I can’t be nazi’. And there’s the real danger.
One important lesson of the Nazi rise to power and the Holocaust is that Nazis characterized their enemies as disgusting rather than scary.
Disgust is a different feeling than fear, and it leads to different responses. Hitler used imagery of infection and disease to describe not only problems in society but eventually groups as well. This talk of filth and infestation laid the emotional groundwork for the “purge” solution.
If we want to avoid another Holocaust, we need to be wary of analogies like rot, cancer, infection for describing people and points of view.
Things that changed here in Germany (which I can think of off the top of my head):
- No presidential role. We don't have a single person with that much power anymore. The most powerful is the chancellor now.
- No emergency laws. Many nations have laws that when something goes wrong, their president gets superpowers to do whatever they want. This is regularly abused, not just by Hitler. To my knowledge, we don't currently have any such law.
- Secret voting. It is now illegal to make it public who you voted for. When Hitler rose to power, Nazis would sit in voting places and pressure people to vote for Hitler. And they would heckle people who didn't want to show their ballot card.
Having said all that, it should also be said that we do still currently have a very real Nazi problem. It's a few steps in the right direction, but no silver bullet.
The US has had "secret voting" laws for a while, and although it's not illegal to say you voted for X, it is illegal for anyone to pressure you into voting a certain way.
Having said all that, it should also be said that we do still currently have a very real Nazi problem.
Nearly every country in the world is experiencing a shift to the right and it's accelerating.
The emergency laws seems like an interesting one because whatever its plausible justification, in practice, it seems like the only downside it would curb would be moreso any governmental liabillity for lawsuits and judicial review.
If the government wants to do something, it will do it and the courts will maybe take it up later. Any measure they say the needed to do they would probably just do anyway regardless of the true necessity or for whom it was evaluated in that light, the only benefit to an emergency law in that context seems to be dissolution of regular liabillity and having a talking point about being justified after the fact.
Seems like it incentivizes an opening for bad behavior
Erich Kästner wikipedia.org, a german writer and satirist of the time, had this to say:
The events from 1933 to 1945 should have been battled in 1928 at the latest. Later was already too late. One must not wait until liberty is called treason. One must not wait till the snowball has become an avalanche. One must squelch the rolling snowball. The avalanche can't be stopped anymore...
"The avalanche had already begun. It is too late for the pebbles to vote. "
Create a state that cared for and protected the majority, things like insured retirement, paid vacations, universal health insurance, In Europe we have all that, in the USA it was thought that they were rich enough not to need it and it may have been like that for decades, but it seems that not anymore.
If the system takes care of you, you are not going to sign up to destroy it, If the system doesn't give you anything, you won't care if it is destroyed or you will even sign up to do it.
In Europe we have all that
You had all of that but as it has trickled away your populations are also accelerating their move towards the Right Wing. I can't believe how many people in here think that this is only a problem in the United States when it's happening in nearly every country.
It's true, I shouldn't have said we have, I should have said we had. Since the 80s, everything has been dismantled, making everything worse, both right and left. Comparing ourselves to other parts of the world we are not so bad, but comparing my living conditions with those of my parents it is shameful.
The Nazis are only the yardstick of evil by convention. Their crimes exist in an enormous set of savage acts including genocides and invasions that suffuses history.
The lesson “of the Nazis” needs to be that the Nazis are not unique in history, nor are they the only sort of people who commit such acts.
Just replying to my own shit to add here:
I think the Nazis were the first instance of this kind of behavior that got caught on video. Just like the Vietnam war was the first war US citizenry saw on TV, I think the Third Reich and whatever the term is for the whole campaign of land grab invasions, and the Holocaust, is a pattern that’s been going on for thousands of years, and it’s the first time the whole world was witness to it.
For the majority of history a king or emperor or whoever could march out armies, destroy, use a ton of his own internal political enemies as slaves and work them to death, then just murder the rest of them … and cover it up almost effortlessly by telling the town criers to announce whatever horseshit they want the farmers to believe.
We know historically this happens. But the Holocaust is the first of the pogroms that everybody around the world saw, and in the greater set of genocides. It was the first time (I think?) that absolute mass atrocity on civilians was televised.
But it’s not a unique event is the key thing. It’s the most well-known example of the eruption of evil into the world, but it’s a recurring part of humanity to do this kind of thing.
I'd warn against the idea that Hitler was somehow indispensable to the movement.
I think MAGA is instructive here. Do you think Trump is an evil genus, or just a lucky blow-hard carried by the worst impulses of the right? Fascism is popular, and we need to stop acquitting the societies that nurture it.
To answer your question, I'd ignore the fascist leader and the rabid followers. I'd find a scheme to impose social and financial costs on those who don't support fascism, but are wiling to tolerate it for their own interests.
Democracy dies with half the country cheering
Unchecked conservatism naturally develops into fascism. Genocidal oppression is the natural tendency of conservatives. It always has been.
moderates need to stop only punching left.
hitler got into power because their moderates refused to appeal to their leftist voters and supported facism and so hitler's side won the election and, later, the country after they disenfranchised the moderates and executed the leftists; right now it's looking like americans are going to follow suit.
Idk I feel like moderates punch both left and right lol. The extremists on both sides are annoying.
If you're talking about the US, they certainly aren't punching hard enough then. Trump is an extremist and basically leading right wing politics.
i can only speak for the western world since that's what i learned about as an american and there's a recorded history of punching left significantly harder than punching right.
Trying to appease fascists by avoiding confrontation or acting when they start chipping away at our insitutions willl just lead to more fascism. The nazis didn't spring forth overnight, they consolidated their power through legal means and appealed to the population's bigotry and hatred of 'others' without enough of a response to stop their ascension.
Basically the same thing that is happening in the west right now.
I don’t know that authoritarian/fascist regimes can be stopped once they’re in motion. They seem to be more the default rather than stable democracies. Even countries that you’d think would have sufficient legal barriers and processes for citizens to keep political extremists out of office seem to be failing and moving to the right.
There comes a point where "marginalized white men" fight back and can become dangerous. There is then a false narrative that we are under attack, and bringing back the Old Ways will fix everything. And who doesn't like safety? Easy selling point.
That's why Trump won in 2016 and why he can win again. He knows that's what gets him the votes. And the media plays into it too.
That the only good Nazi is a dead Nazi.
Every single one of them should have been executed. Might not have prevented the return entirely, but it would have made it harder, and perhaps made the newer ones less certain of their reception.
It's already too late, America. Even if he loses the election, he's already rigged the supreme Court.
AI answer in the style of a riled up eighth grader:
Alright, so here's the deal. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis taught us some super important lessons that we absolutely cannot forget. Like, seriously, it's crucial.
First off, always question leaders who promise simple solutions to complex problems. Hitler fed on the economic chaos and social unrest, offering easy fixes and blaming specific groups. Don’t fall for that garbage. Critical thinking, people!
Second, don't let hate speech and discrimination slide. The Nazis started with anti-Semitic rhetoric and it escalated into the Holocaust. If someone is spreading hate, call it out and stop it in its tracks. Silence equals acceptance.
Third, protect democratic institutions. Hitler got power partly because the Weimar Republic was weak. Strong checks and balances, a free press, and active civic engagement are vital. Don't let anyone mess with that stuff.
Fourth, education matters. The Nazis indoctrinated youth with their ideology. We need to teach history accurately, promote critical thinking, and encourage empathy. An educated, aware population is harder to manipulate.
Lastly, stand up against injustice, no matter how small. If people had stood up to the Nazis early on, things might have been different. Don’t wait for someone else to act. Be brave, take a stand.
So, yeah, these lessons are super important. We can't let history repeat itself. Stay woke!
I can see each of your points being actively exploited by my government. We're fucked.
I'm sorry to hear that. Do you believe it's possible to correct course, or are we all fucked?
It’s always a good day to punch a Nazi
Well dont have Great Depressions is a major one.
Preventing the victims of the Nazis to do something similar to another group of people.
But that would never happen /s
That would be absolutely ridiculous.
Wait a minute... why is everyone talking about it all of a sudden? /s (again)
Make the left worth voting for again. And no, social democracy does not make the cut in any way, shape or form.
Imo, a big part of what I am seeing now stems from a lack of proper history and or civics education. I went to school in Texas, my whole education up to college we were taught that the U.S. was this beacon of good and positive things, there was an intentional effort to misrepresent Texas and U.S. history in a way that minimized slavery, racisim, and the genocide of the native population of the U.S. In short, it was a bullshit whitewashed fantasy novel. We should be saying:
"The United States did some really horrifying shit in the distant past, the recent past, and is still doing it today, those are the facts. We should try to do better than we are doing, and part of that is recognizing where we as a country came from, good and bad, so we can do better. You students are not bad people by default for living or being born here but you need to realize that fetishizing this country as the greatest country in the world and intrinsically linking YOUR identity to that of a false vision of a flawed nation, is hugely problimatic, especially when you base that identiy on the ideals of manifest destiny or other weird and/or rascist ideals."
When you separate the current individual from the history, and say this was/is the U.S. but it doesn't have to be YOU or the U.S. of the future, people are more receptive of hearing the bad. That is not to say we should minimize the awful things in our past and current, just that if a young kid is shamed, intentionally or unintentionally, they are more likely to fall into fringe and radical ideas and seek validation for them.
That doesn't help the brainwashed/backwards people who want to revert the country to the good ole days though.
The other thing that was really fundamental for me from good history teachers and professors was the way that they linked historical events with current events. That has been explicitly outlawed in Florida iirc and likely Texas too, this state does so much backwards shit though, I can't keep up with all of it.
We probably also need to remind people that facts don't care about their feelings, there isn't a such thing as alternative history, and that's just the end of it, there is no room for denying the horrors of slavery, the Holocaust, or any of the other numerous fucked up things in history. They happened, we have to remember that to prevent it from happening again.
Imo, a big part of what I am seeing now stems from a lack of proper history and or civics education.
That doesn't explain what's going on in much of Europe. You bring up the Holocaust but Germany has about the strong laws imaginable against Nazism / Neo-Nazism and yet the far right is about two whiskers away from holding power. It's much the same in France and they already have power in Italy. This accelerating trend towards the right is a Global phenomena.
I think what's really happening is a populist uprising against globalization and the hardships its created for so many people. Those same people are trending right wing because the RW are actually talking about the problem and possible solutions.
Fair point, I can only speak directly about my local experience. Maybe I am too idealistic in thinking that you can partially teach or learn this kind of stuff away.
Realistically, the standard of living has been falling for a while. I work the same type of job my parents did but in real money terms, I bring home less than they did at my age. People look for someone to blame for that kind of stuff and will listen when someone validates their feelings then points a finger and says "they fucked you but I'll help" even if they are problimatic.
That it’s very easy for far-right parties to win under bourgeois democracy. That the center (right or left) will always side with the fascists. That the ruling class will quickly change to their side at the first sign of a mass left movement. That mass campaigns of violence against minorities will be overlooked, and far-right militias and mobs will be allowed to enact their own twisted justice on minorities, while authorities look to the side.
I… feel like I’m describing basically what is happening right now all over the “west”. So… yeah. It’s not something we can stop until we take power. The people in power will always side with the fascists, against us.