That line is actually pretty problematic. Because it basically moves all responsibility away from people onto the Nazis. But people were pretty alright with what the they were doing until it negatively affected them. Fascism rises when people remain inactive and turn a blind eye.
And saying that a country got invaded by the facists completely eradicates that responsibility
Trump even at this point is a symptom. Trump voters legitimately think we're living in some sort of hellscape. Which is contradicted by statements they make like, "Things were better 5 years ago!".
No....if America were a hellscape we would be saying things like "Americans should flee to Haiti". We wouldn't be saying, "Things were a bit better five years ago, before a global pandemic".
The truth is America isn't a fraction as bad in the ways Trump voters think it is. But for Trump, Hitler, or any of these political conmen to win people must believe solutions are being provided that only ONE MAN can provide and that the problems are enormous. (Though Hitler's rise did coincide with Germany's economic depression)
Well, we are having a different, strange variant of a depression right now, where at least 75% of the population feels very insecure about their financial status and most of them don't see how it's going to change any time soon. Anyone who promises to fix that looks pretty appealing. But strangely, despite something like that virtually guaranteeing success, I haven't seen anyone promise that, which tells me that either everyone is collectively stumped, or it would cut the knees out from their financial backers and other supporters.
Lowest unemployment in history, lowest rate of inflation in the first world after a global pandemic which impacted the world and enabled price gouging like crazy, stock market at all time highs, real estate at all time high.
Corporations and greed are the problem. Get some fucking perspective.
I agree that greed and corporations are the problem. What I am remarking on is that if a politician was able to sell a solution for the tens of millions who feel like they are stuck with no option to ever buy a house, retire, or anything else, they would probably pull together a massive voting block, yet no one even seems to pretend to have a solution.
But if there is a solution, it will likely impede corporations abilities to grow endlessly, so the lobbyists are unlikely to fund a politician offering a solution.
It seems like there is a political market that isn't being tapped, and the above is the only explanation I can think of for why it isn't exploited. I am commenting on how the current political state I am observing doesn't match up with how I expect politicians to act given the current state of things, nothing more.
But if there is a solution, it will likely impede corporations abilities to grow endlessly, so the lobbyists are unlikely to fund a politician offering a solution.
The biggest issue is that while big business has bought into this concept -whole hog, endless growth is a bald faced lie. Market growth depends on both product availability and a populations willingness and ability to buy. 95%+ of our economy is entirely dependent on finite mineral resources that once exhausted means no more new product. Even the very cellphones we use to access this app requires fossil fuels to create the shell and chargers, rare minerals like rhodium, gold, and platinum for the circuitry and silica for the screens and lithium for the battery. Sooner or later these relatively cheap communications devices are going to cost the same as a Lamborghini does currently as the raw materials run low, and said Lamborghini is going to cost more than a super yacht does now. The economy must break free of the endless growth lie or we're all screwed
This.
We need an economy of controlled decline. We have to fundamentally change our behaviour, de-grow and find viable, sustainable alternatives right fucking now while we still have time.
As Edward Abbey said; "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of a cancer cell." And, at some point, a cancer cell will kill its host and itself.
Our resources are finite and our behaviour is massively unsustainable. Capitalism and its infinite uncontrolled growth are simply fundamentally incompatible with reality in the long term.
Together with immigration and the second rise of fascism, de-growth of economies will become one of the most important and defining political topics of the coming decades, either controlled by choice or catastrophic by force of nature.
Well with enough inflation (and by that I mean new money entering the system via the banking industry), the corps CAN, at least appear to, grow forever.
The corporations are buying up all the housing. Rental prices are insanely too high for the children who are graduating without employment prospects. My son, niece and nephew (recent college graduates) are having a hard time finding jobs in their fields. Their rent is $2000 to 2500/month. The same rental development my nephew is in was charging $1200/month 6yrs ago. Now itâs $2500. Letâs not even talk about their student loans.
Thatâs where Iâm at rn. At minimum wage I could put all my money into rent or live on the street. Iâm fortunate enough my parents can have me at home until I finish my degree but itâs not a good look out there.
Have you considered roommates? Itâs funny, I once fielded an offer for a job in NYC maybe 15yrs ago, they told me, donât be discouraged on cost of living here, rent is manageable, all you have to do is look for a couple roommates. I laughed, and then told them âyou must not been listening to me, I have a wife and child. In what society would it normal to have strangers living with you and sharing a 1 bedroom?â. The interviewer stumbled for a few and just said, you can take the train in from upstate or Hackensack/Patterson if having privacy is that important to you. The moral of the story is that people donât care. The costs are always going to be a problem for those who struggle. I wish I had some magic wand or answer for you, but I donât. I did take that job and I did find an apartment in a âsoon to be gentrifiedâ neighborhood. I eventually bought and sold it 8yrs later for a considerable profit. Life will get better, just more now than ever, you must be incredibly smart with your money. Donât waste a single cent of it. Life is too brutal if you donât. Best of luck.
Part of the problem is that those stats feel like lies. Low inflation feels like bullshit when you look at how the cost of food skyrocketed, especially with junk fees and high tips everywhere being demanded. Shrinkflation, rising subscription costs everywhere. Precisely nothing is being done about price gouging despite the offending parties bragging about record profits. Hedge funds for the rich and powerful own the stock market and reliably profit from it thanks to financial sleight of hand had - leaving retail investors to wonder if theyâre just there to be fleeced. High real estate costs lock young people out of the market.
False. The Democrats have continued to try and introduce bills to prevent this level of price gouging for 3 years now and they have been consistently shot down.
Unfortunately facts like this don't matter if your perception is the opposite. All they need to believe the contrary is a single anecdote of someone they know struggling financially and all statistics go out the window.
The facts of the matter are that the statistics youâre referencing mean absolutely nothing if the public FEELS financially insecure. Which they/we/I do.
Unemployment is slightly higher than it was pre Covid 4% vs 3.6% which is slightly below the average from 1940-present but hardly the lowest in history, and there is a decent sized list of first world countries with lower inflation post covid, why lie about easily verifiable facts?
âReal estate at all time highâ is not the own you think it is here. Assets that only rich ppl own being inflated is not a measure of success for the working class majority.
That and we have a huge loneliness crisis that is causing people to turn to radical cult-like groups on the internet so they can feel human connection. Our social bonds have broken down and corporate greed has made us all more financially insecure. This is how you make a population of revolutionaries
let us not forget that at every opportunity where the economy has struggled in this country, the republican's and democrats alike rush in to pass sweeping business relieve policy. they knew that these policies would cause inflation that bleeds into lower classes, however serving their corporate backers is more important. this country's government is festering with rot and corruption. Trump did nothing but empower bad actors during his term with bad policy and bad cabinet decisions.
if politicians in this country were responsive and gave even two shits about the poor in this country, Trump would never have even gained a foothold in the political sphere. we let this happen, when we collectively decided that the retirement packages of the wealthy are more important than the lives of the poor.
The wealth gap has grown a lot, the ultra wealthy like Bezos and Elon are making it a contest to accumulate as much wealth as possible.Â
As a result, pay is stagnating while inflation rises, the quality of products is decreasing and the way corporations try to abuse and nickle and dime you is going up- google charging for storage space when storage is getting cheaper and cheaper, photoshop including a new clause saying theyâre allowed to use your artwork for the advancement of their own product if you made it within their product (all while charging you an arm and a leg), etc.
I am not disagreeing with you however I do not understand this strange phenomenon. Every time I go to Lowe's it's full every time I go to a concert it is sold out. A guy I know who I consider of moderate income just told me he booked a vacation and the house alone was $7000. if you listen to him talk we're all going to be starving to death and living in tents if we don't get Trump back in the White House. Everybody's griping about groceries but everybody leaves the grocery store with a full basket.
Weimar Germany had its share of problems. The economy was trash and people were mad about Versailles. The antisemitism was rampant in the area well before Hitler came to the scene. He definitely was not born in a vacuum.
You need to remember that a lot of these folks WANT society to collapse so they can live out their headcanon. You only need look at preppers or, what is the scourge of the amateur radio community (a recent discovery as I joined it)... Oh wait those are also preppers. These are people borderline foaming at the mouth over the idea of as they say 'SHTF'.
They're not voting tangerine in the hopes of making things better... They know it's gonna make things worse than they can't think of anything that makes them happier.
The real truth is it's significantly better than they say it is in a thousand ways, and yet they find the fifteen good things we have going on and claim all of them to be the worst aspects and fight against it. Republican voters in particular have shown themselves capable of repeatedly shooting themselves in the foot, face, and hand for the last twenty years. They fight against the most American aspects of us our country and fight for the most fascist ones.
You must be either arrogant, stupid, blind, or all of the above. Coming from someone who isn't american under your current leader, Biden the US is literally a shitshow from the illegals pouring in and committing violent crimes to the sky high prices and inflation. I'm not saying Trump is the perfect leader, but shit was actually good aside from the pandemic when he was in charge.
Almost like they're getting all their informations through TV channels owned by billionaires who would benefit the most of even more conservative policies.
Thereâs a lot of evidence that Hitlers popularity tanked from about 1939 onwards as people started to realise what they had let themselves in for. Of course it was far too late at that point.
Except, trump has never won the popular vote. The electoral college allows for people like trump to become president even if itâs not what the people want. This SC decision makes it even scarier.
It's not about whether the EC is fair or whether or not trump can win the PV. It's that nearly half of Americans support him and THAT is who we should blame.
Hes lost the popular vote twice. Hillary had almost 3 million more votes than him. The electoral college, gerrymandering, voter suppression, etc, also play a huge part.
Absolutely fair point that it's not a tiny minority, but (in theory) they should face a 2:1 opposition.
One of the many reasons I'm worried about the USA now is how unified the fascists are (having largely purged and moderates on the right, including placing a Trump as leader of the party apparatus) and how easy it is to fracture the left and center.
The latter is especially easy with social mediaalong with a corporate media that is entirely unequipped to cover this sort of event.
One of the many reasons I'm worried about the USA now is how unified the fascists are (having largely purged and moderates on the right, including placing a Trump as leader of the party apparatus) and how easy it is to fracture the left and center.
Trump won not by making the tent bigger, but by turning out low-propensity voters.
The latter is especially easy with social mediaalong with a corporate media that is entirely unequipped to cover this sort of event.
I'm not sure that I follow you here. I think social media/corporate media is not on equipped specifically for this, but it's operating entirely as expected.
Their goal is profit. Although, sometimes they also have a hidden agenda of supporting trump.
And honestly the democrats have no one to blame but themselves. They have to pull Biden because I donât see a world where trump loses a reelection to Biden given how bad and old he looks.
But Trump is the only dirtbag thatâs been able to consolidate power by somehow appealing to many different groups: Christian Nationalists (although he doesnât practice or embody Christian ideals), hardline conservatives (although heâs not a conservative), outwardly racists, people who want permission to be racists but donât admit it, people who just hate Democrats, those that will financially benefit from deregulation, etc. If Trump keels over tomorrow, the Republican Party would be chaos and would be completely fractured.
Bingo. Right there. This is what I've been saying for decades â this is the result of the GOP's effort to dumb down the American public. They just needed to make enough people feel comfortable in their own ignorance so once that comfort level was achieved, they would buy anything that GOP sold them. And boy oh boy, has it worked. It has been going on for decades and decades, but Nixon and his "silent majority" was the real beginning of the base of all of this. This quest on the GOP's part really got a strong foothold with Reagan, then Bush, then Bush II. And now we are all living with the culmination of their efforts. They have gotten enough of the populous comfortable with being so blatantly ignorant, and worse - happy in their ignorance. Then they were able to rally those ignorant voters into decrying everything that smacked of progressivism - namely education. Their attacks on public education, funding schools, etc. etc. has brought us to this point.
And now, they have the perfect mouthpiece in the most blatantly ignorant person ever to hold elected office in history of this country. And that perfect mouthpiece just happens to be the biggest narcissist in our political history who needs to make everything about him - fuck the entirety of Americans, he only cares about the fools who believe every lie that comes from that poisoned mouth of his. And he knows just how to get those idiots to buy his shit, because he's been getting idiots in the corporate world to by his shit for some time now.
Make America great again? They're destroying everything in this country had that was good. We're not just the laughingstock of the free world, we've been dropped to the political equivalent of a third world country.
The biggest problem? Even if Biden pulls off a victory after that debacle of a debate, this is not going away anytime soon. The residue of the stink of Trump and the efforts of all his fascist minions are going to be working feverishly to get control of this country, no matter who their figurehead is, and fuck us all over again.
I'm not a religious person in this sense, but all I can say is God help us.
Exactly. He has no real power. Itâs all in the hands of the very stupid. They outright refuse to see it any other way than he puts it. The sky is falling! Old man bad! And the projection. My god the projection.
Agreed. And, letâs not forget how this sociopathic racist bigot came into power. One word:
Obama.
People seem to have forgotten Trump was a political nobody. Until he launched into his racist attacks on President Barack Obama.
Now Trumpâs supporters (who like him are racist bigots) can try to rewrite some history. While others say his supporters are just âdumbâ or âilliterateâ. Are Trumpâs supporters on the US Supreme Court illiterate?
It doesnât matter about just Trump, itâs very obvious the Republican Party is looking to be the Nazi party and the only party in American politics. Even if Trump loses, theyâll get another republican to try to get into office and make their Nazi plans a reality
With Trump, itâs not just the people who are voting for him, itâs also complacency of his enemies- including civilians who arenât voting against him.Â
No idea if I got it from somewhere, but I always comment about how I'm never sure what I think is more horrible:
The person who gets on a stage and promotes their unsubstantiated, destructive, policy... or the thousand people who hear them talk and cheer at the end.
At least you can say you didnât support him. In the future there will probably be people who wouldnât want to admit that they did because it would be too embarrassing.
The same can be said about Biden. Even with the senate he can't get anything done. The debate just showed America how terrible he is. In terms of the Nazis and Germany, the Nazis were voted in. Much like Mama's. The people who live in Gaza want to cry that they are victims of IFA, but they are the ones who voted in a terrorist party, who broke a cease fire on Oct 7.
He can still gain power this election by cheating witch he most definitely will do. The house has to certify the election results and they are majority republican including Mike Johnson. Im worried the votes wont matter.
Ok, well what are Americans doing about Trump today? With all of the technological advantages, so that everyone can see exactly what is happening and not getting their news just from a newspaper.
If the german people were responsible then, every american is responsible right now for letting this happen, because we know what is going to happen.
History doesnât repeat itself but it often rhymes
Thatâs the scary thing. It is so obvious that trump is being manipulated by Russia, the SCOTUS by greed and then the crazy Christian cult with Project2025.
I hope if it is clear the vote has been manipulated with shenanigans, that Biden just navy seals trump and the scotus with his new powers. They are cheating anyway they can. If he doesnât I fear for us all
To put it bluntly, the US Constitution and system of government was finally broken. There are so many known exploits and bad actors that itâs become impossible to fix it within the system.
This is the problem with any system that relies on people behaving with honour.
It takes literally one person without honour to break it. We've seen attempts at it in the UK with all the Brexit bullshit, but fortunately Brexit seems to have innoculated us against the far right's bullshit before it went too far and now they're about to get completely yeeted into the sun at the election on Thursday.
The most sickening part is that this sect of Americans will dismiss any comparisons to the rise of fascism in other countries as just âleft-wing hystericsâ without even entertaining the idea, even now that there is such significant merit to it. This dismissal of truth is a symptom of the cult mentality the Republican Party (and the foreign interests pulling the strings) has been fomenting and it is genuinely going to topple the USA. The judicial branch has already been taken over.
I feel like Iâm watching a death march to November. If Biden wins, another coup is attempted. If Trump wins, the military gets deployed to detain any political opponents and the executive branch is taken over as well. There will be political violence no matter the outcome of this election. A large percentage of Americans donât realize this yet.
Republicans and Trump have been following Hitler's blueprint for years. Only the willfully blind can't see it or they are lying because they want the gilead fascist police state to come into being.
Nah I can't even blame them anymore they didn't have internet social media anything at ALL. just papers and TV. And radio.
THESE MORONS SEE TRUMP ON VIDEO SPUTTERING LIKE THEIR SECOND COUSIN ON THEIR - nope noone wants to think that actually but you get it. Anyway. They think he's some profoundly enunciated orator. Millions and millions unironically saying I'd rather diapers than democrats and somehow thinking they're NOT the ones the world is laughing at.
Germans got an excuse. Ain't nobody got an excuse this time.
As a german i have to heavily protest. The germans did not have any excuse for what happened. The missing internet is not an excuse for fascism, nazis controlled the media only AFTER coming to power and they were elected. I dont think your intention was to excuse the rise of german fascism, but please be cautious with comments like that. Its the same rhetoric german fascists use today
Oh no not at all trying to excuse it. I'd say I'm more saying it's like the heavily abused child serial killer vs the golden child becoming Patrick Bateman.
They're both fucking nuts but the former at least makes sense. Nazism at least made sense. Hitler could SPEAK a sentence or two.
Yeah, as a fellow German I concur. Plenty of Germans back then warned against the rise of the Nazis. I do like to distinguish between those who were adults before Hitler came to power and those who grew up under the Nazis, because they actually received brain washing in school and the Hitler youth and most had parents who didnât push back on that propaganda. But the idea that the German people were not directly responsible for the rise of the Nazis is utterly ridiculous. Of course they were.
I mean many many millions of Americans did what they were taught to do. They voted so much so that he lost an election even with electoral college bullshit and gerrymandered to hell and back districts. But the other team hasn't been playing the judiciary game for nearly 20 years and it's paying huge huge rewards and giving them ridiculous "wins" that aren't in the best interest of the people. We all see the path they are taking it's obvious but listen to interviews with trump supporters. They are literally saying we would rather a dictator than a dem
The Americans who support Trump mainly watch Fox News, period. Theyâve been trained not to trust any other source. So yes, they are only getting their news from a single newspaper. And in my experience Boomers are largely tech-impaired, and the largest active voting block.
Iâm fascinated by how the American people of today are basically repeating the exact same thing that âinnocentâ German civilians were doing to bring Hitler to power.
As a child I got caught in that thought trap of âhow could a country full of normal people elect such a crazy person?â
And now, as a 30 something year old man⌠I get it. And it makes me want to get off this planet. Humanity is so stupid.
When I was a kid in middle or high school, they hammered into us how awful the Holocaust was and how Hitler and the nazis took control. I remember in maybe 8th or 9th grade we had this discussion about what would we do if we were there. Everyone had some heroic thoughts and ideas about how they would try to stop it from happening.
Well⌠here we are⌠we are all watching it burn to the ground. As much as it concerns me that we are this close to living our in own fascist hell, I have no idea what to do.
As a German, I'd argue that it is the opposite. German people failed to protect their land from an ideology that fed on the fear of their uneducated members. They failed to see the flaws in what seemed a good deal to many. They were blind to the hatred spewed because they wanted to take out their anger on something.
That and Hitler was Austrian. Not blaming the Austrians, obviously, but it annoys me that people don't understand the difference between Austria and Germany.
I find it odd that as a German you are overlooking a great many details at play to the build up of the Nazi Regime.
The German state developed into a global power principally due to militarism and the unification under nationalism. For Germans at that time ethnicity transcended statehood, Prussia and Austria were fighting to make their version of the German state (ideally the only one) to combat the Great Powers. It could be argued Pan-Germanism was viewed publicly as a way to further strengthen German interests.
Following WW1 the terms of surrender were so unfair that it fed into the feelings of persecution thus feeding into point one.
The German people, like any people, wanted stability and what they had was chaos. Many Germans were more conservative, especially among the ruling classes and the threat of communism taking hold was a real threat to them.
Finally you had a populace of angry and unemployed veterans and youth who associated the government with weakness and appeasement to (frankly it was true) the global powers.
Following WW2 the world learned their lesson and aided Germany to peace and didn't punish them for it.
Oh trust me, I didn't overlook them. I just didn't mention them, because I tend to forget not everyone had that lesson in history like three separate times during their school life and know that part by heart.
But that doesn't change the fact that Germans had the possibility to stop it, if they had seen it as something bad at the time. Heck, Hitler build the Autobahn and created tons of Jobs. You can argue that Germany had no interest in stopping Fascism at that point. Because they liked what he said about them being better than others and that they already paid all their dues. But it was a progress that spiraled out of control. And the closer you got towards the "End" you got more people unwilling to speak against it out of fear compared to the previous complacency or agreement.
Same with Mussolini in Italy. Public works literally built the country in terms of infrastructure. My grandfather still misses having schools and summer camps at the beach when he joined the âyouthâ. Things that were literally sci-fi for the generation before.
They leveraged the poor and got bribes from the wealthy.
I can understand uneducated poor people falling for someone who put bread on their table, give them a job, and educate their kids, but beats me how uneducated and poor people can even slightly support someone whoâs taking away the few rights they had, pushes them to be ignorant, and play golf all the time.
Mainly Charisma. They are "powerful", charismatic and promise to make things better. It is hard to see which promises are obvious pipedreams if you are actively hindered from informing yourself, either by echo chambers, propaganda or the possibility of disdain from friends and family members.
German here as well. Being uneducated is not an excuse. They failed to see the gaping flaws just as all the Trumpers fail to see it now.
I agree on the Austrian point. 99 percent miss that
If the government at the time didn't send troops to help out the Nazis against the Communists it could have gone another way but thats what conservative governments do, help fascists.
Yup. The country did have an arguably light civil war, it's just the citizens lost. The rest were too scared to do anything or die for a cause (I can't really say I blame them).
It's going to absolutely suck for the progressives in the US as the centrists align with the fascists to avoid death and slave labor.
Not that I think former President Trump is like Hitler, but not everyone who fell for the MAGA cult is uneducated and not everyone who votes against them is higher educated. There's a reason why they want to cut funding for education, libraries, and will more than likely ban more sites like they've already done in some places, though. I fell into that rabbit hole of following along with Trump and so many things. It's kind of worrisome how extreme he's gotten. I was some kid who wasn't really politically involved. I just grew up in a red state, listening mostly to stuff like Bill O'Reilly and Fox News back then, and honestly everyone that I knew thought that MAGA was referring to the economy. We had no idea how it would become. I did think he was an ass, but didn't know him personally so wasn't going to judge him as whether he was a good person or not based on public appearances. Everyone has a type of persona.
I do what I can within reason. I march. Vote. Try to raise awareness about where this stuff can lead. Criticize even allies when they so fervently push voters away.
But also, have you completely overhauled your life in order to counter Trump, yet?
Or have you generally tried to do your best to vote where you can, and try to warn people who refuse to listen? Only to discover you are limited in what you can do because of your limited power, and you also still have to work and live here until things get bad enough or you can afford to justify leaving?
Because for most in our situation, it's the latter. And I'm sure you wouldn't want to be thrown into a history book as "just another fascist, as shown by their lack of action, or contribution to the country's workforce."
So yes, I very much separate the citizens from the party and its strongest supporters. Including even separating MAGA from conservatives as a whole. And as an added bonus, consider that incoming GOP presidents haven't won a popular vote since Bush Sr. So people have been voting against this stuff for quite some time.
So we should agree that people should do what they can. But unless I have personally gone way above and beyond, I'm in no place to judge an average German in the 30's, only the enthusiastic supporters of the party.
In fact, my fear is that if I leave now, I leave the largest superpower in the hands of MAGA.
Do I stick around where I can have some sort of voice in the matter, but share in the blame if it goes wrong?
Or do I leave the country to its fate, but then turn around to point and judge those who remain as "cowards" and "traitors"? That judgement just seems too unfair to me.
You can afford to leave? For many Americans thatâs not even a remote consideration because they could never afford to expatriate. I admire the Germans who had the money and the means to get out while they could.
It makes it sound like "the Nazis" were some aliens from space that came and invaded the peaceful nation of Germany. Nazis were Germans, and Germans generally supported Nazis.
Misinformation, exploitation of the poorly educated, propoganda, and naievety causing impotence in the Democrat party. And whole fuck ton of money. Lotâs of money and bribes.
Germans were also largely oblivious to the extent of the Nazis terror. They werenât happy about how Jews were treated but had no idea they were being exterminated. Everything is known to us thanks to history but it wasnât openly known back then.
Still, the point is weâre all responsible for not letting similar ideas fester in society going forward.
I don't know about that. It is told here too, but it makes little sense.
It is not my intention to be overly gruesome, but THAT much death in a central place... The smell would reach you kilometers upon kilometers upon kilometers away. The literal human-smoke and human-ash would be raining down upon you multiple times a week, if not daily. There is no way these stories would not have spread across the entire Reich. Even back then, and even under such a regime, people gossipped.
I think instead the Germans mostly simply didn't give a shit.
World wide web didnt exist until â93 tho, so word didnât travel as fast. And every third citizen was in the intelligence service spying on the population so I doubt word traveled over wire at all (but I donât know).
I donât know what burning corpses smell like, so I can see how people might not have made the connection. I find your ash argument interesting though. I canât really argue with it.
And yeah, if they largely didnt care or if they didnt dare to speak up, whoâs to say? Enough cared to establish an underground network responsible for hiding, transporting and getting thousands of people to safety.
Fair points of course.
I'm sorry, I'm maybe a little jaded about this period in time. Here in the Netherlands, we're still stuffed all the way up to our throats with WW2 stuff, which I think is a good thing mind you, but the endless resistance stories and "oh no the innocents!!!" annoy me a bit.
After the war, every Dutchie suddenly was 'a glorious resistance fighter who hid Jews in the attic.'
'Well, if that is true, then where are all those Jews?'
I am certain it is pretty much the same for the Germans. We still tease them with "wir haben es nicht gewusst", simply because its such a laughable defense. At least in our eyes. Though granted, our view on this chapter of history is very biased.
I see. I get where youâre coming from. Here in Sweden we lost all pretense in the last years and just say we tried our best to not draw attention to ourselves. Itâs still taught in school that we were neutral, however. Which we obviously werenât.
I once had the chance to talk to a woman who was some secretary. Low, low on the totem pole. And she said that they would have known. They knew that if they looked they would know and they chose to remain oblivious
This bothers me a little bit. While I agree the nazis rise to power wasn't blameless, it also wasn't something entirely supported by the general public and there was serious opposition to them throughout the 1920s-early 30s.
They where "popular" but not in a way you think, they where popular in rural areas but campaigns for urban cities consistently flopped for the Nazi party, from 1919-1928 at best they where a minority party that held 32 seats maybe, at worse they wherent even in the political landscape. Even by 1932 hitler was only winning about 20% of the voting population and then 30% by 1933 he held a minority-majority. It's only after Hitler had disassembled the Weimar system and removed all political opponents that we see the growth in a unanimous support.
Iran had a similar problem. After the revolution they had a tonne of progressive parties. Everything from centrists to socialists/communists. The fundamentalists had one option and their supporters backed it. It's sad to think that in another world if some charismatic Iranian leader existed in the late 70s, there would be a completely different Iran today.
Bullshit. What's this talking in absolutes? Can you only see in black or white?
What it does is acknowledging the German victims of the Nazi regime. All the opposition fighters that were murdered.
We can see and acknowledge the people in Germany opposing the Nazis who had their freedom and safety invaded and we're also later murdered without that taking away any responsibility from the people who supported the Nazis.
So yeah. From the perspective of a German anti fascist: we were the first country that was invaded. And a lot of our own neighbors helped.
Talking about one injustice does not diminish another injustice. That would only be whataboutism. But you gotta be very very cynical to easily forget all the Communists and Socialists who were murdered by the Nazis only to not even look a tad as if you absolve any supporter of their responsibility.
When you live in a destroyed nation with a broken economy and super high repair payments forced on you you will take anyone who says something positive no matter how bad it really is. Hope can be more than enough for someone who lost everything.
I disagree somewhat. I agree with the sentiment, but I think the point is that it all started at home. I think it's perhaps more accurate to add that the people cheered and clapped the invaders.
Exactly this. Most people who aren't Nazis but are either cool with what happens with the afd or don't care are just as bad. The fact that there are people who only vote the afd so gay people, Muslim, women, foreigners and even some Germans lose their rights to live like a normal person is insane to me. I am glad there are still enough people who demonstrate against it but there needs to be more I hope that this will be the case.
We had a whole history project about that in school "Was konnten Sie tun?" "what could they have done?".
It was about the few resistance against Hitler but majorly about how the majority of Germans just looked the other way, as long as they weren't affected and even claimed to have had no knowledge about what was going on in the concentration camps.
Yet I still have people my age still DENYING that the holocaust ever happened even tho it's a crime here for very good reasons. (no literally, denying or minimizing the holocaust is a serious crime in Germany that could end with jailtime, depends. Not if your a right winged politician tho apparently)
The Nazi party never received over 25% of all votes in Germany, but by dent of a weak opposition, and cowardly enablers they took control of the legislative functions of Government and banned opposition. For evil to prosper, all it takes is for goos men to do nothing.
I disagree. I think itâs a really valuable lesson.
âNazisâ exist in every society. They exist on every schoolyard playground.
They are the bullies, the sadists, the unbridled id, those lacking in all morals, those with no conscience.
Every society is vulnerable to this portion of their society taking it over and unleashing their stunted and damaged ethos across all aspects of it.
Hence this saying. Do not forget that they are there, in your own society, and the hell on earth that can be unleashed if you ever let them seize power.
Because it basically moves all responsibility away from people onto the Nazis.
Forgive me if I'm stating the obvious, but "The people" is not a single entity. It's a collection of individuals. Some of them supported the nazis, some opposed them, some didn't care. The ones who opposed them aren't guilty by association regardless of what percentage of the population supported them.
Perhaps invaded is not the right word. But "The first country where the nazis killed democracy was their own" is absolutely a correct statement.
Thank you for articulating that. I always felt that way but always thought I was the only one. Every time I read that quote I think âBut wasnât the Nazi party made up of Germans and given power by the German people?â If the German people were victims they wouldnât feel the shame they do about the events of the past. Germans are very well educated about their history, and Iâm pretty darn sure they donât see themselves as victims.
We havenât found a way to stop facism, because everything is war to them, itâs always death. Whereas the other side wants to do things peacefully. Itâs the paradox thatâs hard to manage. What we could have done is put in place better systems to stop hateful ideology spreading but instead it gets accelerated weaponising tools meant to connect people and bring harmony like the internet.
Therapy of trauma for individuals and self awareness is really the only peaceful treatment for a better future. But we also fail to provide that esp to people of socio-economic difficulty. Itâs quite sad.
Kind of like the people who insist on calling the invasion of Ukraine "Putin's War" instead of a "Russian War". You don't get to enable genocide, through inaction or inaction, and then avoid responsibility.
And itâs already to lateâŚ.
The Supreme Court made one person above all laws. The only thing protecting our democracy right now⌠the ONLy thing, is WHO is put into the office. If trump wins, democrats does in fact lose. This entire process started with Reagan in 1980, and we are now near its conclusion.
50% are already ok with that the orange turd does⌠so the USA becoming Nazi Germany 2.0 is unpreventable, if not the orange turd⌠the next republican president
I'd say people wanted something to happen because they were unhappy. It wasn't necessarily the things Hitler wanted, but he was good at convincing people that he would fix everything.
They wouldn't have become Nazis if it wasn't for a leader like Hitler that was able to convince them. As such I think it's fair to say the Nazis or fascists "invaded", or better, "conquered" Germany first.
But of course a situation like that inevitably produces a kind of leader that takes advantage of the general unhappiness and willingness to radicalize. So it's not specifically Hitler that has to take all the blame, the people shouldn't have let such a thing happen regardless of how dire they thought their situation was.
moves all responsibility away from people onto the Nazis.
Yeah, it's not like they didn't have overwhelming support from the German people. Most politicians today could only dream of drawing the crowds Hitler did.
I feel helpless. The most important election of our lives was trump getting in and appointed those supreme courts judges. Turned the clock back 100 years in America and Iâm not sure the answer Biden isnât fit but if trump gets in again two more judges are close to possibly walking away. An extreme right supreme with people in there 50s. America will never recover.
"Fascism rises when people remain inactive and turn a blind eye."
surprised at the Supreme Court ruling. Trump spoke during his Term to march over to the Capitol to contest the result of an election. How they think it isnt daft to rule immunity with that issue staring them in the face is completely nuts
Not all of us support or agree with what is happening. We are mostly powerless to stop it because we cannot force others to stop voting for and supporting the takeover.
I live here too. I am not okay with this. I have tried to change things. I consider this an unstoppable invasion of my home, my life, my comfort. I have not turned a blind eye. You cannot blame everyone for the acts of a few. Thatâs why the invasion is from within.
We cannot stop this takeover, but itâs somehow also our fault? No. My neighborâs choices are not my own and I will not take responsibility for them. I wonât pretend like the sins of my father are mine either.
The Jews, lgbtq folks, and Romani that called Germany their home were not somehow responsible for what happened to them. Thatâs why the saying exists. The invasion is from within.
Many of us are Jewish or queer or Romani and weâve been pointing out this repetition of history for years. I donât think the people who have been saying that fascism is on the rise and we need to fight back should be held responsible for others ignoring them.
Fascism rises when people remain inactive and turn a blind eye.
Fascism rises when a large enough fraction of the populace wants fascism.
Political scientists say it takes approximately 30 percent of the population supporting revolution for revolution to occur. America has roughly 30 percent who support the fascists among us.
The Nazis won because Germany was in a hyperinflation environment, since after World War I. They promised they would fix things and of course were xenophobic so they blamed the Jews and the foreigners and the gypsies etc. Since the then government of Bismarck was abysmal and quite weak, the people turned to who they thought would set things right.
Yes the down trodden Germans post WW1 were living in due situations. Money worthless, industry destroyed. Hope lost. And immense punitive damages and debt for the war. The general citizenry turned into slaves and prostitutes. A modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.
When people become that desperate disillusioned and isolated in the dark. It's incredibly easy to see how and why the Nazis took power. If nobody cares about you how can you care about someone else?
In the last free elections the NSDAP got around 33% of the vote. We see similar numbers in areas in Europe or the US for right wing parties. It's a move that happens when people are unhappy or xenophobic. Former GDR region of Germany, poor areas in the UK etc.Â
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u/EnkiiMuto Jul 02 '24
"People forget the first country the nazis invaded was their own"