Nazis? Not exactly
Commenter “Mrs Whatsit” has made this thoughtful observation:
I used to wonder how on earth the “good Germans” allowed Hitler to happen. I’m afraid that now I see, as it’s happening around me among many people who sincerely think of themselves as good and yet are blindly, enthusiastically cooperating with evil.
I’ve been reading Douglas Murray’s extraordinary new book, “On Democracies and Death Cults: Israel and the Future of Civilization.” It’s painful to read, but illuminating as to how so many meaning-to-be-good people — including too many of my friends and relatives — have let their prior certainties lead them into this abyss of hatred and upside-down thinking. I’m losing sleep over it.
Yes, but for me the analogy isn’t so much to the Germans and Hitler, but rather to the Orwellian upside-down world of Nineteen Eighty-Four and its inversion of the truth. The details are quite different in both analogies, but the common denominator is how chilling it is to see how easily people can be made to believe lies, and how those lies become entrenched, and how that leads to demonizing the Other – including the widespread idea on the left that it’s the pro-Trump right who are the real Nazis.
Sobering.
After Trump’s 2024 victory, a friend who had stuck with me as a friend through many decades of “agree-to-disagree” politics stopped talking to me and explained that she can no longer talk to people who support Trump. Also after his election, another old friend told me, only slightly jokingly, that if she had a terminal medical diagnosis she would purchase a gun and make plans to assassinate him and consider it well worth it to suffer the consequences.
This latter person is someone I grew up with and have been at least somewhat friendly with all these years, but I probably only speak to her (on the phone; she lives far away) about once a year. I seem to recall that the prior time we mentioned politics – maybe ten years ago? – she was fairly moderate and not enamored of the Democratic Party. Apparently, something about Trump had subsequently pushed her over the brink into raw hatred – although she knew I support him and was perfectly happy to talk to me. During the recent conversation, I asked her what made her hate Trump so very much, and she cited his Charlottesville remarks – which tells you how important propaganda is in shaping such deep antipathy. She seemed to think that the incident proved he was a Nazi, or Nazi sympathizer and enabler. Even though I informed her that his Charlottesville remarks had been twisted and distorted by the press and the left, she wasn’t particularly interested in hearing details or softening her point of view.
But back to the actual history of the actual Nazis. Germany in the 1920s and 1930s had really been through the mill. First there was their huge losses in the First World War plus the Versailles Treaty, and then their economic hardship during the Weimar years. I don’t think our recent history compares. Not only that, but I think it’s important to remember that although the “good Germans” did indeed allow Hitler to happen, they didn’t actually elect him. Yes, there were plenty of Nazis, but not a majority of Germans when he was appointed in the proverbial “backroom deal.”
But perhaps even more importantly, the Nazis imprisoned and/or even murdered a great many of the “good Germans,” as soon as the Nazis got to power, and then used a great many approaches to make it very very difficult and very frightening to oppose them. They consolidated their power very quickly with the Enabling Act (it was passed about seven weeks after Hitler’s ascension), something that has not happened here and hopefully never will.
Until I became especially interested in how the Nazis came to power, I really didn’t know the extreme nature of what they did quite early on in their rule, but I’ve written about it on this blog in the following posts: this one on the passage of the Enabling Act, and this one on the speed and violence of their actions to make sure everyone who might even think of opposing them was terrified, except for the exceptionally courageous.
The book I describe in the latter post – The Nazi Seizure of Power – is especially edifying and I recommend it highly. It describes step by step how it was done, and why resistance was futile. If you read the book, you’ll see that, for example, although our own J6 prosecutions were akin to some of these actions, the crackdown on the J6-ers and on the right in general during the Biden years was far milder than what the Nazis did to their own opponents. The book describes how this was accomplished in the first six months of the Nazi regime:
Very early in the Nazi era an event occurred in Thalburg [the fictitious name of the actual German city that was the subject of the book] which effectively fused propaganda and terror. This was the boycott of the Jews, April 1 to 4, 1933. … [T]his particular action was also a miniature example of what the Nazis intended to do to the entire German population. For the essential effect of the boycott of the Jews was to atomize them socially: to cut them off from the rest of German society so that normal human ties could not work to restrain the dictatorship. …
Thus the position of the Jews in Thalburg was rapidly clarified, certainly by the end of the first half-year of Hitler’s regime. …
Thalburg’s Jews were simply excluded from the community at large. At the same time the Nazis undertook their most Herculean task: the atomization of the community at large. Though the methods differed, the result was the same, and by the summer of 1933 individual Thalburgers were as effectively cut off from effective intercourse with each other as the Jews had been from the rest of the townspeople. …Eventually no independent social groups were to exist. Ultimately all society, in terms of human relationships, would cease to exist, or rather would exist in a new framework whereby each individual related not to his fellow men but only to the state and to the Nazi leader [Hitler] who became the personal embodiment of the state. …
Most of this was accomplished in the first few months of the Nazi era. Clubs were dissolved; others were fused together; others lost their purpose and went into rapid decline. All societies came under Nazi control …
… [By this process] individuals had a choice: solitude or mass relationship via some Nazi organization.
There’s so much else in the book that I can only recommend reading the entire thing, because it gives a highly detailed and comprehensive step-by-step picture of that era. And although there are some similarities – after all, clubs have been on the wane in the US for quite some time – what’s happened here is neither as fast nor as organized and totalitarian in every sense of the word.
For that, we can be thankful that we don’t have the Germanic tendency towards efficiency or obedience. COVID lockdowns showed that we have more of a tendency towards obedience than most of us had previously thought – and yet it was by no means a universal response, and many states regained their freedoms relatively early in the game. Consider it a warning.
@ Neo > “clubs have been on the wane in the US for quite some time”
And some have been actively throwing out conservative members because of TDS: knitting is a hobby that was in the inter-news for that not too long ago.
COVID also precipitated a lot of decline in social communities, including churches; you couldn’t even bowl alone in those years.
Perhaps the big difference between the Nazi/1984 eras and ours is that the atomization is occurring mostly due to uncoordinated but similar actions of many people, rather than being directed from the top down, although there are probably examples of that as well.
We don’t know what Biden & Harris Inc. would have done to at least nibble its way forward to a de facto Enabling Act, even if not able to pass one de jure.
And a LOT of our government regulations have been de jure-ing in that direction.
My favorite part of Trump 45 was his “1 in 2 out” direction for regulations issued (IIRC sometimes the ratio was even better).
DOGE is a financial analog of that process, they are clearly related in functionality.
NOTE: because of vacation, citations will be less numerous than is my custom; I’m sure that will break your hearts 😉 – feel free to correct any IIRC disclaimers. (As if anyone here was ever reticent about doing that!)
It did not escape my notice that COVID extremist jurisdictions in 2020, and then continuing in the Biden years, shut down churches in particular.
Speaking of Nazis, I will long remember trying to get into restaurants in my blue area during Covid. “Papers please!”
Fortunately, enforcement was lax at the many eateries that flouted the law.
Over the years, Dennis Prager [an Orthodox Jew] has had a few things to share about Nazis and the German people. Here is one sample of many, from 2021.
“That’s why I no longer judge the average German as easily as I used to. Apathy in the face of tyranny turns out not to be a German or Russian characteristic. I just never thought it could happen in America.”
https://www.creators.com/read/dennis-prager/01/21/i-now-better-understand-the-good-german
— — — — —
While I’m at it, here’s one more sample, this one from 2024.
“Hamas boasting to their fellow Palestinians about what they did to Jews while the Nazis tried to hide what they did from fellow Germans means there is not only a moral difference between Hamas and the Nazis but a moral difference between the German people during the Nazi era and the Palestinian people today — and for nearly the last hundred years.”
https://heartlanddailynews.com/2024/06/dennis-prager-germans-hitler-better-people-palestinians/
I’ve lost several friends due to TDS – some of over 40 years standing. Our political differences were no big deal until DJT – never even really came up. But something about him causes Ds (and many Rs) to lose all rational thought. When I try to ask why – hey, maybe I’m the one not seeing something – I get meaningless answers (“He’s a Nazi”); when I ask for examples – “How is he a Nazi?”, I get silence or anger. I miss the friendship but not the anger and sometimes outright hatred.
I had the same but opposite experience when H was a candidate. No one could tell me why she was a good candidate, no one could come up with any rational reason to convince me to favor her (“She’s a woman” is not a good justification; of itself, it’s not even pertinent). I had one “friend” call me on a long distance rampage about how evil I was to not support H. I was flabbergasted at the vitriol from someone I had known for over 20 years
For that matter, it’s the same phenomena with “climate change”; irrational arguments with no hint of thought – just bumper-sticker excuses and no tolerance for a differing point of view.
Must be something in the air or water I happen to be immune to – but it’s not fringe groups; the polarity is so extreme and the division is near-on half the country; why is that?
I know I keep saying it, but we humans are wired to fit in with our tribe in order to survive.
We are wired to survive, not to seek truth. Sometimes the two intersect, but not always, maybe not even often.
Much of history is about heroes who did fight for truth at terrible personal costs — Socrates, Jesus, Joan of Arc.
huxley: add Dietrich Bonhoeffer to your list.
Thanks for the unexpected front page, Neo.
On the subject of the post, please everybody consider reading Douglas Murray’s book. It’s agonizing and important. We have to step up, we have to respond, we have to fight back.
Cicero:
Apologies for not adding an et al. at the end of my comment. I assumed it was obvious.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions!
“Must be something in the air or water I happen to be immune to –”
No, it’s simply that you didn’t go through the present day education system.
It’s not that no one is “taught to think”, although I hear that excuse bandied about. You can be taught facts and methods, but I don’t think (!) that what we call thinking can be taught, centuries of philosophical theory to the contrary.
” Thinking” (that is, not lazy acceptance, but digging deeper and analyzing of observations and reports) can be discouraged, and after long enough, this self-reinforcing attitude becomes a habit.
I believe that this repression is a function of a sort of intellectual jealousy. The Education School is the redheaded stepchild of the University, populated by the C+/B- products of the secondary schools. Intellectual rigor is neither respected nor encouraged (see: “Doctor” Jill’s dissertation). These graduates don’t expect effort by their students (they expended none) and we have the present race to the bottom, with even A student graduates unable to read, much less write, cursive.
TDS is a result of this intellectual laziness. Propaganda works on this population. If I let my tinfoil hat theories run free, I’d say that TPTB are making no attempt to improve our education system because it make the sheep easier to control.
I have many family members and old schoolfellows and former colleagues who are neither foolish nor ignorant, but who are passionately liberal. Some relationships have cooled; others bump along OK as long as we discuss politics very gingerly or not at all. I can’t account for it. To some extent they are responding to caricatures of Trump peddled on the left. They dislike his style intensely. They aren’t exactly socialists, but they are far more trusting of state intervention than I. They want to see far more land held by the government, for instance, so that “greedy developers” can’t build housing on it. Their own housing is OK; they have no notion of what was there before it was built.
One very, very bright former colleague seems to be channeling her young-adult daughter. She asked me quite gently if I didn’t agree that there was a great deal of injustice. I suspect that my ideas of injustice don’t line up well with hers, and in any case if the complaint is that poor people lead unreasonably difficult lives, I can’t see that wrecking the economy will help them. As the meme goes, granted that true socialism has never been tried, true capitalism has never been tried either, but “almost socialism” killed more than 100 million people over the last century or so while “almost capitalism” lifted half the human race out of abject poverty.
Why should it be so hard to see these things? Why do so many intelligent and fairly well-meaning people outsource their charitable obligations if they object to poverty? Where do all these crackpot economic theories come from? How can people think prosperity comes from the money supply instead of production and free trade?
Don’t underestimate the power of the Marxists/ Democrats Propaganda Ministry and Cultural Marxism Seminaries in the last 50 years. They didn’t look into any scandal from Barky on, often as well part of the cover-up.
huxley-
I don’t think “et al.” will do because I believe most Americans cannot name even one candidate for the list of heroes fighting for truth at terrible personal cost. Most Americans have resigned their critical thinking or never ever had that skill. Then something hits them upside the head and shifts their gears, but it is a small number, and most just drone on.
We talk a lot about why more of the “good Germans” didn’t stand up to Hitler, and the answer is pretty clear in the references Neo and others have cited: it could get them killed.
The lesser consequences of pushing back against the Nazis were bad enough, and worse than anything people have faced in America, or even Europe so far, but that has been enough to keep a lot of people silent in the face of leftist tyranny which isn’t even enforced by the government.
Maybe we need to talk about the “good Americans” —
This post is a great entry in both the “changers” column and the “sane observers” column.
I’ve only excerpted the “silent objectors” (aka “good Germans”) portion; the whole thing is worth reading.(h/t Red State)
https://freebeacon.com/policy/im-a-young-meteorologist-who-questioned-the-idea-of-man-made-climate-change-the-climate-zealots-wanted-me-punished-silenced-and-expelled/
There are a few prominent voices protesting against the climate change enviro-nazis, but too many people believe that the “someone” doesn’t include them.
That includes people like me and a lot of other conservatives, who may not have careers to lose by speaking out, but do have friends and family who are willing to cut ties over the subject.
It’s not on par with Nazi death squads, but it’s enough to keep a lot of us quiet, possibly because (like me) we couldn’t make much difference by speaking out anyway.
It’s a difficult needle to thread.
Rod Dreher had recommended Svetlana Alexievich’s 2013 book Secondhand Time. I’m only 3 hours into a 22 hour recording.The author interviewed people following the dissolution of the USSR, interviews taken 1991-2001, and 2002-2012. It is shocking how many people revered Stalin in the aftermath, hoping for his successor! There are personal accounts of terrible evil suffered but the person still adhering to the “ideal”.
You cannot underestimate the power of propaganda and the results of people raised in it. The March through our own institutions is bearing much fruit.
Aesop-
Check out Levi Cowan at his site, tropicaltidbits.com, if you haven’t already.
In my 20s I drew a blank once when an interviewer asked me to name one of my heroes. Today I would find it easier. My heroes tend to be people who can keep hold of the truth under duress. Richard Feynman once spoke about the difficulty of being honest with oneself about pet theories and experimental results. He said if you could get that part right, then all you had to worry about was being conventionally honest, i.e., not lying deliberately to other people.
AesopFan on July 13, 2025 at 5:23 am:
Yeah, I’ve been through the whole climate change/global warming thing. I’m even a bit of a “changer” in that regard. In the 90s, due to not really paying much attention, I went along with the whole CO2 scenario and justified it by citing Venus as an example of a runaway greenhouse. Then about 2009 I was assigned to teach a course on energy and the environment. So I did my homework and was shocked to find all the data totally disputed the accepted climate orthodoxy. I ended up writing a monograph which summarized my findings.
Jump ahead to this last year where I had two encounters with true believers. One, a 30 something guy who actually wanted to read my paper, so I sent it to him. He questioned my conclusions so I asked him to counter with published data contrary to the published data I had used. Of course, he couldn’t, so then the name calling and insults began. The second fellow of my own age, got mad at me for showing sea level rise data. An article came out about how the Okracoke ferry was in danger due to climate change sea level rise. I showed published data from the Univ. of Colorado Sea Lab which gives a net linear rise of 3.5mm/year. 50 years= about 7 inches…not exactly threatening to ferry operation. The guy blew a gasket and again started with the insults and name calling. The first guy joined in and said that I couldn’t be trusted as I didn’t “believe” in climate change and that what he read from me was filled with nonsensical science jargon and “irrelevant data”.
Neither of them have any science/engineering background. Maybe that doesn’t even matter as they are true believers and nothing will shake that belief. I no longer engage such people anymore; it’s a waste of my time and energy.
I do worry about debanking and the restriction of credit card processing. Nowadays of the government can’t do it, they seem ready to outsource the oppression to private entities.
Since the subject here is about Hitler, Nazis and the “good” Germans, it is important not to overlook Hitler’s early years (1933-35) in ruling Germeny. He pulled Germany out of its economic slump while the rest of the world was in the Great Depression, and Germany had full employment. He came up with the Autobahn and with the VW, literally the People’s Wagon.
So the “good” Germans responded positively. The Napoleonic nuttiness to rule Europe, the anti-semitism and “purification” of Europe came later. His alliance with Imperial Japan made no geographic sense. After Pearl Harbor, Hitler declared war on America (Yes ! ) and thus sealed his and Nazidom’s demise.
“Eventually no independent social groups were to exist. Ultimately all society, in terms of human relationships, would cease to exist, or rather would exist in a new framework whereby each individual related not to his fellow men but only to the state and to the Nazi leader [Hitler] who became the personal embodiment of the state. …”
One of the things that drove Hans Scholl (of the student resistance group called the White Rose) to oppose Naziism was the forced dissolution of his folk-singing group in favor of a government-controlled music organization.
1930s Germany, post-1979 Iran, post-2005 Gaza, post-1917 Russia/USSR/Russia, post-1945 China.
So many similar societies.
@Cicero:He pulled Germany out of its economic slump
I’m afraid that’s mythology. He basically did what Biden did after COVID: sprayed government money out of a firehose. Hourly wages stayed at Depression levels. They were never able to plunder enough to make up for what they spent. He imposed price, wage, and rent controls, which worked there as well as they work anywhere, by creating shortages. The German people were not free to complain or say anything but “thank you Fuehrer may we have another”.
the VW, literally the People’s Wagon.
As for the VW, he fleeced the workers of Germany. They signed up to own one through the KfD program, and their wages were deducted for it, but not one VW was delivered–except to Hitler personally who was presented with what was intended to be the first one. Only after the war did VW produce any cars for civilians.
physicsguy, I never sent your paper to my brilliant retired astrophysicist friend. You hadn’t retired yet, and I didn’t want to “out” you. But it wouldn’t have mattered. She has a scientific background, in spades, but simply refuses to look at evidence. Like the young man in that Free Beacon op-ed, my husband (physics undergraduate/MSEE) asked our friend, “But what about the scientific method?” Her answer: The experts have models and that’s all there is to it. Brilliant mind completely closed.
Kate,
Go ahead and send it if you want…your copy is a bit out of date on the UAH satellite temps, but doesn’t affect the conclusion. I’d be curious as to her response.
In this comment, or in anything else-
[I am in no way supporting anything that the Nazis, + Nazi Germany, have done.]
But from what I have read, + I may be wrong in some of these ideas- but I think that two of the strong lies or ideas that the Nazis used on Germany, and on [past]…German people are:
“We are doing these acts for our survival”, and “we MUST to these acts to be morally good”.
The Nazis + Hitler, before obtaining the German government , pushed the false ideas of [paraphrased]:
“we are starving, everyone is against us…only WE can protect our group from everyone in the world, and [if we do not do these acts, and the acts to “protect” the German nation, then:
Germany will be destroyed by enemy nations, all of us German people will be killed, and the German government will be destroyed…taking the German nation with it.”
“If we [do not] do these acts, and the acts to protect or nation, and [any] actions that are needed, then- our nation, and us…the German people, will not survive.”
Two of the big, political lies that the Nazis and Hitler used, were:
we NEED to do all of these acts to survive…no matter how questionable they are, and to be [morally good], we MUST carry out these acts.
These two ideas are sort of a tactic of: “we must do all of these things. We have no other choice.”
I believe, if you want to support a political group, or any group of people, or any person, then you must, or it is a very good idea, to keep yourself from following those two, big lies.
Once again-
[I am in no way supporting anything that the Nazis, + Nazi Germany, have done.]
Cheers.
Not that it matters really, but if one enjoys irony and/or is a fan of paradox, the VW Beetle was designed by a Jewish fella.
(To be sure, he was airbrushed out of the picture pretty quick.)
Niketas and I must read different histories and reach different conclusions. My point remains the “good” Germans were not anti-Hitler in the early days of his rule for economic reasons. Germany was not defeated in WW 1. The Armistice was a cessation of hostilities. The Treaty of Versailles economically put Germany on the ropes, with loss of her colonies in East Africa, loss of the Saar to France, monetary reparations (sic) to US, England, France.
Hitler was big on the German Volk, the German people, as if they were a singular tribe. Of which he was the Chief.
Ferdy Porsche designed the VW Beetle in the 1930s.
From howstuffworks:
“Hitler stole many elements of his 1935 design from an earlier vehicle that was designed and driven by an inventor and journalist named Josef Ganz. Hitler spotted Ganz’s car at a show in 1933, and the key elements of its design ended up in the Volkswagen. Ganz even called his car the May Bug. Shortly after Hitler and Porsche hashed out their plan, Ganz, who was Jewish, closed his business and fled to Switzerland.”
Ganz’ ideas were used for the VW, but in no sense did he design it.
I’m afraid that’s mythology.
==
It isn’t. The growth rate in per capita product from 1932 to 1939 in Germany was the most rapid in Europe and exceeded that in every affluent non-European country bar Chile. Per capita product had by 1935 returned to 1928 levels. The United States from 1933-39 did not do badly on this metric, but had an anemic labor market recovery with elevated unemployment rates until the war. Germany’s labor market had recovered by 1938. The author of Germany’s economic recovery was Hjalmar Schact, who had been appointed by v. Papen in 1932 and retained by v. Schleicher and Hitler.
Good germans were probably social democrats they were the third largest party after the nazis and the communists
The Treaty of Versailles economically put Germany on the ropes, with loss of her colonies in East Africa, loss of the Saar to France, monetary reparations (sic) to US, England, France.
==
I’ll wager you that an audit would demonstrate you could not have made a business case for Germany’s overseas dependencies bar the concession in China. Not sure, of course. Germany did not begin to put boots on the ground in the interior until about 1892 and they lost the last of their dependencies in 1917. The Hapsburgs had a concession in China but otherwise no overseas outposts.
==
It was Clemenceau’s opinion that France’s overseas dependencies were a waste for the most part and a distraction from the object of competing with Germany.
==
The Allies weren’t that successful in screwing reparations out of Germany. Germany shot its insteps during the post-war period, exacerbating any issues it faced from the reparations bill and the loss of the Saar.
Good germans were probably social democrats they were the third largest party after the nazis and the communists
==
Largest party from about 1890 to 1929, 2d largest from 1929-33.
Recall William L. Shirer’s observations of the mood in Germany as he saw it in September 1939. He saw no enthusiasm for the coming war.
About 18% of Germany’s adult population held Nazi Party membership cards in 1945. You saw similar shares during the terminal phases of the Communist regimes in eastern Europe.
I suspect much of the fervor of the seniors is that they are close enough to THE END of their personal story, that they feel compelled to draw the line, contemplate drastic, even criminal moves, and otherwise help them to feel their life was worth it.
Many of the increasingly desperate women either did not have children, or their children failed to provide them with the normal distractors available to seniors. And by that, I mean grandchildren.
Now, grandkids aren’t everything. I have 3 kids and 6 grandchildren. I don’t make them my main preoccupation – I have interests and hobbies, after all. But they, and my husband of 51 years have given me strong connections to others, and a vested interest in what happens to the following generations, as well.
My friends without children are connected to others of their age, mostly. They see a decreasing social circle, and it frightens them. Many fear dying alone, with only the beep of machines and a mildly interested series of caretakers to spend the last precious hours of their lives.
@Cicero:Germany was not defeated in WW 1
The Dolchstoss legend, like that of Hitler’s “economic miracle”, just won’t go away…
Germany sought an armistice before the Allies could invade them, but they had definitely already lost. In June of 1918 the Germans lost numerical front-line superiority on the Western Front. Two million American soldiers had arrived in France and 10,000 more every day. German armies had been retreating since August. On September 29, 1918, Ludendorff and Hindenburg told the Kaiser that they could not guarantee the integrity of the front for two hours. Germany’s allies were no longer capable of effective resistance and were also suing for peace. The Germans had lost 15% of their military-aged males. They’d reached the limit of their ability to adjust to the naval blockade. The writing was on the wall.
The time to try to make a deal is before you’re completely subjugated…
AesopFan on July 12, 2025 at 2:42 pm said:
. . .
Perhaps the big difference between the Nazi/1984 eras and ours is that the atomization is occurring mostly due to uncoordinated but similar actions of many people, rather than being directed from the top down, although there are probably examples of that as well.
There is clear top down activities, but the level of basically spontaneous or uncoordinated acts by leftists doing what they think needs to be done is quit significant. It also shows the level of malice among normal rank and file Democrats.
physicsguy on July 13, 2025 at 10:01 am said:
. . . Then about 2009 I was assigned to teach a course on energy and the environment. So I did my homework and was shocked to find all the data totally disputed the accepted climate orthodoxy. I ended up writing a monograph which summarized my findings.
Any way to obtain this work of yours?
The social crisis that germany went through after the war was profound it wasnt merely political there was a great vaccuum in almost all the institutions michael burleighs sacred spaces covers this in depth for the more sophisticated set weimar stood for culture for the average german it descended into debauchery cabaret based on isherwoods diaries dwells on that point
With that dark ending
The actual name of the city in “Nazi Seizure….” is Northeim. It is in Neidersachen about 50 miles south of Hannover.
One part of the book describes a letter sent in, I think, Apr 1933 by the SPD to it’s elected officials in town and county government. It suggested ways to deal with the new government and suggested socialists should insist parliamentary rules be followed. Allen comments that the letter kind of missed what was happening on the ground. I thought of that part when Jonah Goldberg was upset by one of Michelle Malkin’s tweets at a time the NYTimes was all but openly calling for government censorship.
The book’s description of Nat Socialist activity up to 1933 is fascinating also.
More complicated than I thought…
From the “VW Beetle” entry in Wikipedia:
Based on Mrs. Whatsits 7/12 comment, I bought and have now read Douglas Murray’s book “On Democracies and Death Cults”, with the subtitle “Israel and the Future of Civilization” that sub is very misleading. There is nothing there on civilization’s future. Nada, Zip, Nothing
I personally find the future outlook bleak. Antisemitism bestrides the planet. Islam and non-whites are good; Christianity, the West’s most durable force for good and for civilization, is sneered at. Whiteness of skin is a bad thing, and reason is hard to find as a value.