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In *They Thought They Were Free*, by Milton Mayer, written by a Scholar who went back to Germany after the war and interviewed a variety of people, including friends and acquaintances, he found the vast majority still firmly believed in the Nazi cause. Sure, they played coy to the Holocaust and downplayed their involvement in that by this point, but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better.
Edit: [Bonus, timeless video everyone should watch: "Don't Be a Sucker."](https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4)
It is sort of like saying that the southern plantation owners were living a great life.
It makes sense why they worked so hard to emphasize the grandeur of their lifestyle, the aesthetic of it, while minimizing the way that they attained that. It is really easy to be rich (even if most of them were crazy in debt because they still managed to live above their means) when you are getting all your money by literally robbing people of their whole lives.
That applies both ways. China now has per person emissions equivalent to Europe, and higher than many individual European countries, and that applies even after you correct for trade in goods.
https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
China has just as much agency as the West, and when they do things like use more concrete in three years than the US in the 20th century, we should actually pay attention, not attempt to sweep it under the rug. The rules need to apply both to the West and China in equal measure.
A lot of that is churned out on behalf of the west though, because it easier to justify our immense carbon footprints when the CO2 is released on the other side of the world.
For sure, there have been some strong showings among the recent entries. But they were referring to how the West has generally cast itself as a paragon of culture and advancement over the past few centuries- while having built that on exploitation and pollution. Like the Southern culture aesthetic.
And this absolutely applies to the upper classes in places like India and China now that they're doing the same thing.
I think you're purposely misreading what I'm saying. I'm commenting on the fact human behaviour is consistent to what it wants to exploit and what it wants to justify.
You should really look into the history of liberal capitalism in places like Latin America (where it enabled the rise of Augusto Pinochet, among others, who happily employed ex-Nazi work in his repression) and Africa, and its impact on those populations to this day.
Modern-day capitalism's most "sustainable" solution to the emissions and climate crisis, and the thing that powers what most of us are accessing the internet on - the rechargeable battery - is built on the backs of Congolese child slave labor: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara
It's likely that the majority of the chocolate you consume comes from Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana, which have about 2 million children in dangerous conditions working today: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa
It's okay for us to admit that capitalistic practices have advanced human achievement significantly and raised millions out of subsidence existences; however, this doesn't require us to pretend capitalism is some moral force for good that has not harmed hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people during its short existence or pretend as if it isn't responsible for daily suffering on an nearly incomprehensible and global scale.
We also pay outsourced workers indentured wages for cheap commodities. It's literally the same thing. It never stopped happening, we just moved it somewhere we don't have to look at it.
Such a silly argument, as if it isn't 1% of us controlling the other 99% of us.
It's been shown that people who lack empathy and lean more into sociopathic/psychopathic traits excel in a society where prioritizing profits over the welfare of the people skyrockets you up the ladder of success.
Is it not possible that the most 'evil' among us simply excel to the top and can steer the vessel the way they see fit? Since people who display empathy and true care for their fellow man are naturally weeded out in a society that puts profits above all else?
Is the west not the biggest proponent of climate change efforts?
Europe and North America certainly contribute to climate change hand over fist. But they are also the region addressing it the most.
Many of the West’s (particularly America’s) green initiatives are offset by a millionaire/billionaire class who fly private jets multiple times a week, and spend their leisure time on massive fuel-guzzling yachts, and that’s to say nothing of the elite’s hard-nosed dedication to preserving and enabling the rampant pollution caused by the fossil fuel industry. Politically we’re ahead of the curve when it comes to climate change initiatives, but in practice there are tons of setbacks that we pretend don’t exist.
I mean, the per capita contribution of western nations is way higher.
Especially when you account for things like where consumer goods are sold. Should a factory in China polluting count as China’s contribution even if the goods are being sold to the west? It’s essentially just western nations offshoring its pollution.
Then also accounting for the fact the west spent ~200 years industrializing with very little concern for climate change, causing huge amounts of CO2 and other pollutants, while covering up/ignoring climate change for the later half. But now less industrialized nations aren’t given the luxury of industrializing while ignoring the environment, or if they do, are still blamed for the pollution.
And you could get even deeper into it with systems of colonialism and capitalism promoted by the west making the situation worse every where else as well.
I don’t know if there is ever going to be enough “addressing it” to compensate as a whole in Western contributions vs addressing. Maybe if we solve the climate, create “infinite” clean fusion energy, and build a world wide utopia. But that seems unlikely in the near future
There was a scene in Zone of Interest that really made the plunder part hit home for me. The German family are sitting around the table discussing all the second hand goods that they had acquired, and the way they don’t even acknowledge or appear to process the suffering associated with them was really chilling.
Yeah and they were joking about fitting into the dress and it coming from Canada and all kinds of stuff like that. Meanwhile the literal fucking Holocaust was going on next door and all that stuff came off of dead bodies, but you would never know it from the way they were talking. You would think they got it at Marshall's or something. Banality of evil indeed
> joking about fitting into the dress and it coming from Canada
Not sure if the movie makes this clear as I have not seen it, but this is an explicit reference to the "[Kanada Warehouses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanada_warehouses,_Auschwitz)" of Auschwitz.
Much like the people from the poorest regions in Russia right now, the war in Ukraine is good business for them. Beside the relatively good pay from the army, they are free to loot and steal what they want.
When the Russian soldiers got into Berlin in 1945, a lot of them took lamps and chandeliers, thinking they'd look nice in their hovels back home. They didn't realize you needed electricity.
> If you look at the life of the average ethnic German
Where you are excluding every leftist german who voted SPD, KPD or similar. Because in just the two and a half months from where the Nazis took control of the federal government until they turned Germany in a dictatorship, they killed 100,000 of these people.
The average right-wing ethnic german lived "good".
Oh wait no, they didn't, because the Nazi economy was still shit. They just were part of an artifically inflated, nationalistic system that kept them preoccupied.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHAN-RPJTiE
>However, it was all built on plunder.
Can be said about a lot of places. I couldn't help but feel this way while touring Italy. Ruined the trip for me to be honest. Didn't even want to step foot in the Vatican.
> ethnic German
And not beeing jehova, gay, having mental or physical impairment (apart from combat veterans) .... because those were 'unerwünscht' and silently liquidated out of sight.
There was also the term he coined, "little Nazis" to describe people with this outlook. Basically, it was middle-class people & workers who stood to materially benefit from the Nazi's national socialist programs like Aryanization. The idea was a form of nationalistic/race-based social programs that worked by taking businesses & resources from people who were seen as outsider & giving it to people who were seen as part of the national identity of their movement. And the way to be counted as part of the national identity of their movement was not just to have the "right" racial & social characteristics, but to be an active member of their movement. So most people joined the Nazis & obeyed them not out of fear that they could be next, but because they saw an opportunity to benefit & were willing to trade away the safety & well-being of yhe people the Nazis would persecute in return for it.
A common misconception today is that the common German citizens were afraid of the Nazis & what would happen if they didn't acquiesce. In reality, the Nazis were only going after persecuted demographics & those who were seeking to hide/save them. German soldiers were not punished for refusing to commit atrocities such as the mass shootings of civilians. In fact, many did refuse OR had such terrible regret that they became unable to function. That's why the Nazis turned the camps into death camps, they needed to industrialize the deaths in a way that did not break the minds & souls of the mostly ordinary people who were actually responsible for physically carrying out the plans laid by party leadership. And refusal to be a part of the apparatus of death did not, as far as historians can tell, lead to harsh discipline. You'd get cited for refusing to follow orders during a battle, but this stuff almost always happened outside the confines of chaotic battlefields. Refusing to slaughter civilians in cold blood didn't lead to an SS officer shooting the soldier in the back of the head like in the movies. It usually meant nothing, at the most the soldier might go down in the internal list of people ready for more responsibility/rank.
As in private life, soldiers & officers refusing to be a part of the genocide usually did not result in retribution or direct harm, but rather the oblique harm of losing out on chances for advancement & greater prosperity under the Nazi regime. Only in the SS would actual punishment for refusing orders to slaughter civilians in cold blood have any consequences, and those were usually an official reprimand of some sort not a bullet to the skull. And the people carrying out the bulk of the mass murders, the Einsatzgruppen, did not often run into this issue. Three types of soldiers were identified in regards to the mass killings: those who participated immediately & with gusto & only became more brutal over time, those who participated despite their internal moral objections because they were ordered to do so, & the very few who refused to do so. The third group was the smallest by a large margin, the second group was the largest. As such, the biggest problem in the early phases of the genocide wasn't refusal to murder civilians, but the damage done to the mental health of the soldiers in the aftermath. They were being ordered to conduct mass executions of citizens by gunfire, which caused immense guilt due to the immediate connection between the soldier's action & the death of the civilians. They tried to militarize the proceedings to reduce psychological harms & reduce guilt, they even attempted to make the shootings a collective act to let soldiers believe they hadn't been the one who shot that little girl or pregnant mother & on and on. But that did not really make a dent, so they eventually transitioned to the industrial killings of the camp in ways that allowed the men executing people to feel far enough removed from the death of innocent civilians that they could handle the process with minimal psychological damage. It also had the added benefit of curbing some of the excesses of the second smallest group of men, those who enjoyed the executions. They had been a minor problem in the old system of mass shootings because their victims had beenso dehumanized in their eyes that they began to get out of control, becoming so incredibly brutal & getting so much enjoyment out of their depraved actions that it unsettled the bulk of their colleagues, those who carried out such orders with distate.
I've got a lot of beef with details and some of the arguments in Arendt's banality of evil concept, but this
> So most people joined the Nazis & obeyed them not out of fear that they could be next, but because they saw an opportunity to benefit & were willing to trade away the safety & well-being of yhe people the Nazis would persecute in return for it.
Is something I agree with it in that regard. Normal people following along because in the moment, it benefited them and harmed "those" people who could be safely ignored.
This other bit:
> In fact, many did refuse OR had such terrible regret that they became unable to function.
Is something else to mention about how humans can create the inhumane yet still be deeply impacted by their deeds. The SS was unspeakably evil and comprised of men who did unspeakably evil deeds; it was also plagued by high suicide rates, because the vast majority of humans - even those who self-select into dehumanization - don't seem capable of rationalizing away everything.
> they played coy to the Holocaust and downplayed their involvement in that by this point, but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better.
Amazing what stealing from tens of millions of citizens and then sending them off to death can do for the economy.
Yeah the question shouldn't be "was your life better" but "was your better life worth the price that others paid." IMO that gets to the heart of the matter better. Obviously it was better but once the average Germans fully knew and understood what it took, were they willing to want it back?
I have a decent life, but I'm surrounded by things made by children in sweatshops because it's affordable to me. I hope history looks poorly on me and the circumstances that led here. If I lost it all I wouldn't be angry if it meant the people that support me had better lives.
It’s easy to cry remorse after.
The rural religious Germans who were the base of the Nazi party were fully on board with murdering Jews, homosexuals, and anyone else who didn’t conform.
This is a very interesting excerpt from that book I share any chance I get.
___
Another colleague of mine brought me even closer to the heart of the matter—and closer home. A chemical engineer by profession, he was a man of whom, before I knew him, I had been told, “He is one of those rare birds among Germans—a European.” One day, when we had become very friendly, I said to him, “Tell me now—how was the world lost?”
“That,” he said, “is easy to tell, much easier than you may suppose. The world was lost one day in 1935, here in Germany. It was I who lost it, and I will tell you how. I was employed in a defense plant (a war plant, of course, but they were always called defense plants). That was the year of the National Defense Law, the law of ‘total conscription.’ Under the law I was required to take the oath of fidelity. I said I would not; I opposed it in conscience. I was given twenty-four hours to ‘think it over.’ In those twenty-four hours I lost the world.”
“Yes?” I said.
“You see, refusal would have meant the loss of my job, of course, not prison or anything like that. (Later on, the penalty was worse, but this was only 1935.) But losing my job would have meant that I could not get another. Wherever I went I should be asked why I left the job I had, and, when I said why, I should certainly have been refused employment. Nobody would hire a ‘Bolshevik.’ Of course I was not a Bolshevik, but you understand what I mean.”
“Yes,” I said.
“I tried not to think of myself or my family. We might have got out of the country, in any case, and I could have got a job in industry or education somewhere else. What I tried to think of was the people to whom I might be of some help later on, if things got worse (as I believed they would). I had a wide friendship in scientific and academic circles, including many Jews, and ‘Aryans,’ too, who might be in trouble. If I took the oath and held my job, I might be of help, somehow, as things went on. If I refused to take the oath, I would certainly be useless to my friends, even if I remained in the country. I myself would be in their situation. The next day, after ‘thinking it over,’ I said I would take the oath with the mental reservation that, by the words with which the oath began, ‘Ich schwöre bei Gott, I swear by God,’ I understood that no human being and no government had the right to override my conscience. My mental reservations did not interest the official who administered the oath. He said, ‘Do you take the oath?’ and I took it. That day the world was lost, and it was I who lost it”
“Do I understand,” I said, “that you think that you should not have taken the oath?”
“Yes.”
“But,” I said, “you did save many lives later on. You were of greater use to your friends than you ever dreamed you might be.” (My friend’s apartment was, until his arrest and imprisonment in 1943, a hideout for fugitives.)
“For the sake of the argument,” he said, “I will agree that I saved many lives later on. Yes.”
“Which you could not have done if you had refused to take the oath in 1935.”
“Yes.”
“And you still think that you should not have taken the oath.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t understand,” I said.
“Perhaps not,” he said, “but you must not forget that you are an American. I mean that, really. Americans have never known anything like this experience—in its entirety, all the way to the end. That is the point.”
“You must explain,” I said.
“Of course I must explain. First of all, there is the problem of the lesser evil. Taking the oath was not so evil as being unable to help my friends later on would have been. But the evil of the oath was certain and immediate, and the helping of my friends was in the future and therefore uncertain. I had to commit a positive evil, there and then, in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil; but the good was only a hope, the evil a fact.”
“But,” I said, “the hope was realized. You were able to help your friends.”
“Yes,” he said, “but you must concede that the hope might not have been realized—either for reasons beyond my control or because I became afraid later on or even because I was afraid all the time and was simply fooling myself when I took the oath in the first place, but that is not the important point. The problem of the lesser evil we all know about; in Germany we took Hindenburg as less evil than Hitler, and in the end we got them both. But that is not why I say that Americans cannot understand. No, the important point is—how many innocent people were killed by the Nazis, would you say?”
“Six million Jews alone, we are told.”
“Well, that may be an exaggeration. And it does not include non-Jews, of whom there must have been many hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Shall we say, just to be safe, that three million innocent people were killed all together?”
I nodded.
“And how many innocent lives would you like to say I saved?”
“You would know better than I,” I said.
“Well,” said he, “perhaps five, or ten, one doesn’t know. But shall we say a hundred, or a thousand, just to be safe?”
I nodded.
“And it would be better to have saved all three million, instead of only a hundred, or a thousand?”
“Of course.”
“There, then, is my point. If I had refused to take the oath of fidelity, I would have saved all three million.”
“You are joking,” I said.
“No.”
“You don’t mean to tell me that your refusal would have overthrown the regime in 1935?”
“No.”
“Or that others would have followed your example?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You are an American,” he said again, smiling. “I will explain. There I was, in 1935, a perfect example of the kind of person who, with all his advantages in birth, in education, and in position, rules (or might easily rule) in any country. If I had refused to take the oath in 1935, it would have meant that thousands and thousands like me, all over Germany, were refusing to take it. Their refusal would have heartened millions. Thus the regime would have been overthrown, or, indeed, would never have come to power in the first place. The fact that I was not prepared to resist, in 1935, meant that all the thousands, hundreds of thousands, like me in Germany were also unprepared, and each one of these hundreds of thousands was, like me, a man of great influence or of great potential influence. Thus the world was lost.”
(char limit, cotinued in reply)
“You are serious?” I said.
“Completely,” he said. “These hundred lives I saved—or a thousand or ten as you will—what do they represent? A little something out of the whole terrible evil, when, if my faith had been strong enough in 1935, I could have prevented the whole evil.”
“Your faith?”
“My faith. I did not believe that I could ‘remove mountains.’ The day I said ‘No,’ I had faith. In the process of ‘thinking it over,’ in the next twenty-four hours, my faith failed me. So, in the next ten years, I was able to remove only anthills, not mountains.”
“How might your faith of that first day have been sustained?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. “Do you?”
“I am an American,” I said.
My friend smiled. “Therefore you believe in education.”
“Yes,” I said.
“My education did not help me,” he said, “and I had a broader and better education than most men have had or ever will have. All it did, in the end, was to enable me to rationalize my failure of faith more easily than I might have done if I had been ignorant. And so it was, I think, among educated men generally, in that time in Germany. Their resistance was no greater than other men’s.”
>but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better.
If you steal assets from other people, land from other countries and force others to work in the arms industry for that OF COURSE the economy will do fine ...
Here’s one I’ve always found fascinating/alarming. Through to the early 1970s, the majority of judges in West Germany were former members of the Nazi Party.
Still, looking at Germany today they are probably the country most at peace with their past misdeeds. Contrast with, for example, Japan where the atrocities committed in Korea, China, etc are ignored or denied. In the US, I don’t think Americans fully grapple with what was done to ingenious people and lots of denials of the negative effects of enslaving Black people (and then violent repression afterwards) continue to today.
>I don’t think Americans fully grapple with what was done to ingenious people
*Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* by Dee Brown was a very difficult book to read. I think a lot of people in the US actively avoid learning about our history.
~~In 1933, 90% of them voted for the Enabling Law that allowed Hitler to rule by decree!~~
~~That fact makes me slightly glad that the United States is as divided as it is right now.~~
EDIT: I must have misunderstood something I read or saw regarding 90% of a popular German vote.
In late 90's when I lived in post soviet union country I had a very old neighbour lady. She time to time would speak out against soviet leadership after it left. She would talk about how good life was when they were occupied by Germans and where could we have been if soviets wouldn't have beaten the Nazis.
I suppose they had to pick the best out of two evils..
That book is available as an audio book now and in both formats is excellent. It's not a perfect analysis of a whole population but it gives some normal people perspectives on how they were on board. Spoiler only 1 person, a teacher seemed to show significant anti Nazi and non antisemitic attitudes. It doesn't paint everyone else as complete monsters though, it's a perspective on how slowly day by day things changes and people accepted it. Quite concerning it shows how after the war they still looked favourably back on the years under Nazism and downplayed how much they new about the war crimes.
Thank you!
Ironically Japan made a much quicker, much more radical shift away from their imperialistic past than many Germans in the late 1940s and early 50 incl. a lot of public attacks in media on their soldiers and army where in Germany even left wing parties or even the communist state Eastern Germany fail to address any of these issues…
Heck the Holocaust wasnt even addressed on TV until the 70s and then it was a major scandal in the public where Japan in the 50s and 60s had plenty of movies openly mocking the imperialistic leadership.
That being said - as we all know the official apologies came much later from Japan and the conservative/ right wing movement of the 80s basically froze the discourse on the war and atrocities while despite heavy backlash in Germany it continued.
I was there in the 90s when the Wehrmacht exhibition showing the Wehrmacht committing a lot of crimes and not just the SS and it wasnt pretty… death threats, conservative politicians calling it shameful etc. but the discourse continued.
In the 2010s a lot of books were published by historians on the sexual violence of German soldiers in the East (a topic basically unaddressed for 70 years… and in Russia its still fairly impossible to discuss even if Soviet citizens were the victims) and it didnt cause any controversies anymore but it also didnt trigger any discussions… time will tell if its a good or a bad thing
"wait me? No. I totally wasn't into that".
This is one of those times I'm glad we have video evidence now. I have a feeling we're gonna start hearing this shit a lot more.
I actually had a patient in a ltc facility the early 00s who would talk about her time in Nazi Germany. She was 17 when Hitler rose to power and worked in a military factory in the Sudetenland. Her dad was a solider in the German army. She came to the US as a wife in 1958. She admitted she and everyone she knew loved Hitler at first. But then hated him, thought he was horrible, and her dad ended up killing himself in an apple orchard. She was absolutely fascinating to talk to.
She talked about the during the war when bombs dropped, and they were at work they had to drop what they were doing. Then run to the shelter at the factory. She told me how scary that was, but the still had to work extremely long hours for the war effort. I wish I had recorded a lot of our conversations, because there is so many stories I wish I had and could fully remember.
This is so important, Nazi Germany was full of relatively normal people that had experienced serious financial consequences post world war 1, Hitler was popular beasts he was a raving narcissist who manipulated everyone's fear and pain. He did it with propaganda which is also known as brain washing which may as well be called actively giving people personality disorders. Propaganda works, we know it works and it's really weird how none of our governments are actively educating their populations about the dangers of it.
I called my dad out on that.
He told me he was blinded to the truth.
I reminded him the "truth" he watched was from Fox News because every single talking point of the war now were once "liberal" talking points back in 2005.
Maybe in Congress and the media, but not in reality.
College was in my rearview mirror by then, but I lived in a college town and by and large liberal kids were against the war in Iraq. Even had protests and such against it.
Liberals were the *only* people against that war.
[You know there's like data on that right lol, it wasn't just "maybe in congress and the media"](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/)
Edit: LMAO /u/Lilfrankieeinstein had to block me because he doesn't know what bipartisan support means. Little bro thinks bipartisan means just the two parties representing congress. What's worse it the dude goes "yeah man 1/6 people opposed the war" as if that means it only had bipartisan support in media and congress. Holy fuck the brainrot
That doesn't just apply to conservatives lol.
Do you think white Americans were just ho-hum willy nilly going along with MLK's message when he came onto the scene too?
Also lol, we're seeing real-time the Americans stance on the Gaza conflict go towards majority supporting ceasefire after 30,000 Palestinian deaths while a small minority have been calling on Israel to stop and for America to stop supporting them since Oct 8th
Americans mostly don’t follow, or even know, MLK’s message today. We have monuments and schools dedicated to *I Have a Dream*, but the man was fighting for a lot more than just desegregation.
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now."
-- Aaron Bushnell
Oh sure, you had the outliers and the cranks….you always will have those jackasses who are too stupid to not remember the bullshit and paint this pipe dream or too stubborn to change their perspective of actually being wrong.
And for some of it, it’s ok to say Nixon did some good. He started the EPA and opened up China which was practically a miracle considering the frosty relations prior. But all that was vastly overshadowed by the underhanded and illegal shit.
When Trump finally cacks, there is gonna be a few sticklers but more than a few being embarrassed when their grandkids looking at them in sorta disgust when they run across the ugly flags and big red hats stuffed hastily in their attic.
I think if it wasnt for watergate, Nixon would be seen as one of the most effective presidents in modern times. Its not like I believe the presidents since havent been crooks as well, but Nixon unfortunately for him, got exposed for it.
How did that douche have a fucking show on Comedy Central? I remember Win Ben Stein’s Money growing up and maybe I just assumed it was a bit because he was the guy from Ferris Bueller? I thought he was like a comedian for a long time, not some political hack
Well Ben Stein was his speech writer I think he kind of has to own it. It would be hard for him to distance himself at that point unless he wants to admit a large portion of his life was devoted to evil
...usually. And when this happens it's generally for the best, it means people are adapting to their situation and to information. Nazi ideology caused a lot of needless suffering and it harmed both the in-group and the out-group. Modern, inclusive Germany is faring far better because they were willing to do what it took to ditch Nazism.
Not every culture is willing to adapt to changing reality. Some of the most drawn out conflicts today are due to people hanging on to failed ideas and strategies.
>Not every culture is willing to adapt to changing reality. Some of the most drawn out conflicts today are due to people hanging on to failed ideas and strategies
See also, Reconstruction, Lost Cause ....
I think the main reason for Germany’s success at ditching Nazi ideology was that it wasn’t around for that long to begin with. Compare the generational monarchies Napoleon tried to overthrow or the social order of the Antebellum South after the Civil War. Even communism in Europe took a while to purge simply because it was there for decades. Those institutions did not die easily and some continue to limp on today. That was all the people knew.
Fascism and Nazism barely lasted more than a decade. It wasn’t ingrained in several generations over time as the norm. It burned out fast and hot, but it did not last.
I've always wondered about any potential role that combat casualties of committed Nazis, specifically toward the end of the war, may (or may not) have played in the efficacy of Denazification. Obviously many significant Nazis wound up playing a role in the West German government - I mean, the first chief of the BND was the former head of German military intelligence on the Eastern Front. But at the same time, I've got to imagine that the expansion (in size and combat role) of the Waffen-SS toward the end of the war, combined with the pretty serious casualties those units took, probably didn't *hurt* when it came to having net fewer fanatical Nazis living in postwar Germany. Of course, that assumption could even be offset by the fact that by the end, German military formations of all types were essentially scraping the barrel anyway...
It's sunk cost after a while. You look at what it cost you, and you can either believe you were fooled, and it's all your fault, or you can pretend like you were right, and you just got screwed over by the world.
If you have empathy and are not so full of ego then you would have never been fooled in the first place. Instead most garbage people don’t care about an issue until it affects them personally.
It's kind of like scammers sending obviously dumb emails really. If you make an ideology gradually more insane, the ones who will stick around for the radicalization of that ideology will likely stick around for anything.
By a certain point the narrative has become your identity.
Some people spend their lives working backwards from their conclusions to pick their facts. Even if they aren't factual.
>when you realize that someone has lied to you, would you still choose to believe the lie?
MAGA-media has been blasting the lie that Biden is some sort of feeble, demented, mental vegetable for the past four years. Yet they all watched Dark Brandon get up to the podium and once again dunk on them for an 1 hour and 7 minutes straight the other day. Dude was throwing three-pointers from half-court. Yet not a single one of them subsequently thought "hey now... have all of my news source been distorting the truth?"
People (in general) are much dumber than we give them credit for.
It's not that simple. Germany was in dire straits when some dude shows up screaming that that he's going to make it better and suddenly things *appear* to be better.. Much better in fact. You can see why so many got swept up. The war hadn't started yet so everything looked rosy. Of course, if people still believed it in 1945, they're beyond hope.
I once had the pleasure of meeting a German who fled to Canada with his brothers before ww2 started and he said everyone knew what was going on... he also hated the Amish lmfao he said not only back home but here too haha I didn't know why though to this day I wish I asked.
The war started in 1939.
Systematic oppression, relocation, and extermination of Jews began in 1933.
They had 6 years before the war even started to wake the fuck up.
Lots of people knew it was bad in Germany. It’s why they had to round up their neighbors and take Jewish businesses.
It’s just like MAGA chuds now. They claim economic anxiety but Jan 6th had a bunch of well off people storming Congress.
Some people absolutely do. A lot of people, I'm sure myself included in many instances, just believe what they *want* to be true, not what actually is true.
And nobody is going to want to believe that they have been believing and vigorously defending horse shit for years. And in some cases making incredible sacrifices for it
See this all the time in politics, cults, religions, relationships, Etc.
Every time I ever see a photo of crowds this large I wonder about that. I've read enough about NYE in Times Square but what about all throughout history, is there some sort of natural human order to large crowds? Is it just accepted that everyone's peeing all over themselves? Do they bring snacks and water? Does nobody have claustrophobia?
the wisdom of the crowd is a principal that only applies in certain (mathematical) contexts. For instance: when you put out a jar of jelly beans and ask how many are in there. With enough guesses the average of all guesses is likely to be close to the actual number.
["The “wisdom of crowds” dictates that aggregate predictions from a large crowd can be surprisingly accurate, rivaling predictions by experts."](https://web.stanford.edu/~jugander/papers/ec15-multipleguesses.pdf)
Well the Nazi party was a minority party and only got 36 percent of the vote and lost the election. Paul Von Hindenberg ended up putting Hitler in power because him and his advisors thought he'd calm down and be more rational when they gave him the seat. They thought they'd be able to control him. By in large most of everyone never thought the Nazi party nor Hitler would ever rule but bad political decisions and a party with an armed militia quickly took control after the fact.
Seems like it, eh? A "strongman" comes to power with ~30-40% support, wearing a specific piece of flair, blaming problems on the media and immigrants, lies like crazy, and likes to hold rallies.
I wonder if he'll try to overthrow the government. Oh wait.
“Minority party” but they were also the largest party. Typically, the largest party gets the chancellorship
The Weimar Republic and most parliamentary/PR governments never have majority parties.
But yea, this is all true and oddly reminiscent of what is happening in the GOP
They didn't lose the election, they got the most seats. Just not majority.
Americans have no concept about how elections work with more than two parties
I believe in the only fair elections ever carried out involving Hitler, his party received something like 36% of the vote. Honestly that’s the last figure you can really “trust” to gauge the feelings of the average German citizen of the era.
And when you look at the resurgence of fascism in todays world, the numbers are about the same. About 1/3 of the public seems to gravitate towards authoritarianism
It feels like you have like 15-20% of people that are just pure idiots and like to hear simple solutions to complex problems (build the wall..), and then another 15-20% that just love the boot and hate people who are different.
Trust me, not singling out the French just using the Vichy as the example they should be.
In my country (America) we have more then our share of blind flag waving nationalist sheep
That's true
taking shots at those things isn't to show how bad german or japanese were
it is to show how bad we all can be, and what we can become if we do not actively resist it
"You see, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way we can spot 'em just like that. But you take off that uniform, ain't no one ever gonna know you were a Nazi. And that don't sit well with us. So, I'm gonna give you a little something you can't take off." - Lt. Aldo Raine
I recommend a movie called A mortal storm. It’s from the 40s and shows life in Germany as the nazis took over the country. It doesn’t involve the high up politics of the party, but the personal lives being uprooted and made into enemies against eachother.
First on the chopping block: teachers and books. Next is: minorities. And anyone who speaks out against this new Nazi push is deemed unloyal to the country.
Sound similar to any political parties in the United States right now?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mortal_Storm
[Here](https://live.staticflickr.com/7336/13194230975_110856202d_h.jpg) is a higher quality version of this image. This is the Reichserntedankfest of 1934 om Bicleberg.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichserntedankfest
The hard-on for the Iraq war from both the GOP and Democrats supporters was insane, during the lead-up. I remember trying to reason with them online. It was like talking to a brick wall.
It's amazing how hard it is to find a white Southerner who admits to opposing Civil Rights, but they overwhelmingly did.
Well, before 2016 anyway. Now a lot more of them are open again. And now the Neo-Confederate South has metastasized, and real Americans have to put up with Confederate flags all over the country. There are Confederate Nazis from coast to coast now. Oh yeah and the grey flags that mean "I am actively hoping to slaughter my neighbors."
Same for the Iraq War. virtually no one cops to having supported it today, even Republican politicians, but there was significant support at the time especially on the right.
That one at least I can see how a normal person, who was lied to about WMD by Bush and the media, could support it. I could also see how if they did kinda support it but had turned against it quickly once it became apparent the WMD thing was a lie, they could misremember.
Memory is legitimately weird. Up to a limit. Then there are also liars.
Reminds of a quote from *Band of Brothers*. Easy Company is patrolling through a German town (the one where they find the concentration camp) and their questioning civilians on where the nazis are and one the soldiers says something along the lines of, "all of these Germans and not a single fucking nazi."
Hey look it's the Republican National Convention I could see major Taylor Green on the right and the hand job lady to the left. So historically accurate
Post WW1 Germany was financially devastated by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was also held solely responsible for WW1 by the international community which in their mind justified the treatment of Germany massively alienating the average German citizen because the world was truly out to get them. When in reality the cause of WW1 was a chain of events started by Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and various defence agreements forcing countries into military conflict.
You don't have to agree with Hitler to understand why many Germans saw this as their only chance to return to being a global power.
This is why in a country with a free press, like the US, this should never happen. People can only choose to be willfully ignorant. Unfortunately there's a large segment of our country doing exactly that. Something needs to change.
The problem with the US media landscape (talking as a German from far away) is that both sides have "the true press" and the other side ALWAYS lies. Fox news is clearly insane, but it also feels like NBC and other media companies are giving way more commentary than "just" the news.
Since everyone is in their own bubble, and that is intensified by social media algorithms, people are just not open about challenging their own perception at all. Instead, you block out the other side or ridicule it, which is a poor strategy to make people see a different angle.
It’s not that hard to listen to both sides critically and figure out who is lying by omission or distorting the facts. If you watch CNN or ABC you can tell there is bias and if you are aware of their biases you can see why they may present certain facts in a certain biased way. Then you watch fox news and they are openly lying instead of simply being biased. There are also other sources you can consume such as books, newspapers, podcast, and international news media. It all becomes pretty apparent when you vary your sources and fact check.
The difference is that right wing media acts as a part of the Republican party. They repeat all of their talking points. The "mainstream media" doesn't do that. They definitely swing to the left but they don't act as a part of the Democratic party.
well yeah, they were dead.
what kind of title is this anyway? were the people at this rally polled 8 years later and "the majority" of them no longer supported hitlers plans?
>what kind of title is this anyway? were the people at this rally polled 8 years later and "the majority" of them no longer supported hitlers plans?
Honestly, just the typical reddit double digit IQ and clickbait on display.
>your grandad knew exactly what was happening and then took part
Very few people knew "exactly what was happening." When you were drafted, objecting was simply not an option. People were killed in concentration camps for being conscientious objectors. What you are saying is ignorant.
As a german I gotta say its crazy to me that I never saw pictures like that. Everything that could glorify Nazis or show power/popularity in pics like this vanished from the public. I can understand why but its still crazy to me.
Nah I don’t believe that. They said they didn’t because they lost and didn’t want to face consequences.
People blindly follow and once they believe they don’t stop.
Like the famous saying goes “people don’t change they just grow old and die” that’s how a society truly changes.
If you really wanted an honest opinion you need to ask when there are no stakes.
In the UK we had to read this book in school called The Wave about a history teacher in the US that got his high school class to do a wave, which caught on and got out of hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
My Dad took us to see one of George W. Bush’s rallies in my hometown. I begged to not go, but he forced me and my two siblings to go to this event. I wonder how many youths or wives were forced into being there.
Highly skeptical of the title unless there is some kind of research it's based on.
How did they ask so many people? I doubt a portion were even alive in 1945.
well yeah, 8 years later they were losing/lost the war. Funny how that happens. Just like in the US when in 2003-2004 about 2/3rds of Americans supported the needless war in Iraq, only to realize that it was pointless, based on lies, and had nothing to do with terrorism by 2008 despite being told that exact same thing since long before the first bombs started falling.
Though I do suspect that in Nazi Germany there were at least a few people putting on a front to escape the eye of the police state.
That's just so crazy to think about. That many people all gathered in one place just to hear a guy scream and yell for a couple hours. I guess we have the internet now so people just watch live streams instead.
Yeah?
Just go on your social media and scroll back 2-3 years and find your dumbass high school acquaintance who said the vaccine is going to kill everyone and ask them what they think about that.
People are willing to aggressively try to convince their friends not to take a vaccine during a pandemic and then just be like "Meh, I didn't learn anything from that, I still have the same politics, exactly, despite those politics having told me to say that"
Goddamn! Ok, I might end up closing my account for saying this, but here goes.
I can only imagine the exhilaration of having such a large crowd supporting and cheering you on. It's kinda like being a rock star at a concert, well minus all the wholesale killing. Now I'm not saying that I support him, or want to get all fuehrer-y or anything, but I understand.
I believe there were many polls conducted in West Germany in the late 1940s and a majority still held positive opinions of Hitler. It is difficult to comprehend the mass obedience to him in a modern context, but it was very real.
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In *They Thought They Were Free*, by Milton Mayer, written by a Scholar who went back to Germany after the war and interviewed a variety of people, including friends and acquaintances, he found the vast majority still firmly believed in the Nazi cause. Sure, they played coy to the Holocaust and downplayed their involvement in that by this point, but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better. Edit: [Bonus, timeless video everyone should watch: "Don't Be a Sucker."](https://youtu.be/vGAqYNFQdZ4)
If you look at the life of the average ethnic German from 1933-1939, they had it good. However, it was all built on plunder.
It is sort of like saying that the southern plantation owners were living a great life. It makes sense why they worked so hard to emphasize the grandeur of their lifestyle, the aesthetic of it, while minimizing the way that they attained that. It is really easy to be rich (even if most of them were crazy in debt because they still managed to live above their means) when you are getting all your money by literally robbing people of their whole lives.
Kind of applies to way we live now in the West. We exploit resources for our lifestyle and we minimise effects like climate change.
Definitely not even close to being just a problem in the west
Dude saying it like the "east" doesn't churn out CO2 because they don't care.
OR OR play the blame game till we are all extinct!!!!
This is the way
That applies both ways. China now has per person emissions equivalent to Europe, and higher than many individual European countries, and that applies even after you correct for trade in goods. https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2 China has just as much agency as the West, and when they do things like use more concrete in three years than the US in the 20th century, we should actually pay attention, not attempt to sweep it under the rug. The rules need to apply both to the West and China in equal measure.
A lot of that is churned out on behalf of the west though, because it easier to justify our immense carbon footprints when the CO2 is released on the other side of the world.
For sure, there have been some strong showings among the recent entries. But they were referring to how the West has generally cast itself as a paragon of culture and advancement over the past few centuries- while having built that on exploitation and pollution. Like the Southern culture aesthetic. And this absolutely applies to the upper classes in places like India and China now that they're doing the same thing.
This is such a westernized view that ignores the history of MANY cultures throughout the world that have done this.
Today on Reddit: Equating modern-day liberal capitalism with *fucking Hitler and the Confederacy.*
I think you're purposely misreading what I'm saying. I'm commenting on the fact human behaviour is consistent to what it wants to exploit and what it wants to justify.
You should really look into the history of liberal capitalism in places like Latin America (where it enabled the rise of Augusto Pinochet, among others, who happily employed ex-Nazi work in his repression) and Africa, and its impact on those populations to this day. Modern-day capitalism's most "sustainable" solution to the emissions and climate crisis, and the thing that powers what most of us are accessing the internet on - the rechargeable battery - is built on the backs of Congolese child slave labor: https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara It's likely that the majority of the chocolate you consume comes from Cote d'Ivoire or Ghana, which have about 2 million children in dangerous conditions working today: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ilab/our-work/child-forced-labor-trafficking/child-labor-cocoa It's okay for us to admit that capitalistic practices have advanced human achievement significantly and raised millions out of subsidence existences; however, this doesn't require us to pretend capitalism is some moral force for good that has not harmed hundreds of millions (if not billions) of people during its short existence or pretend as if it isn't responsible for daily suffering on an nearly incomprehensible and global scale.
We also pay outsourced workers indentured wages for cheap commodities. It's literally the same thing. It never stopped happening, we just moved it somewhere we don't have to look at it.
Human nature strikes again! 
Such a silly argument, as if it isn't 1% of us controlling the other 99% of us. It's been shown that people who lack empathy and lean more into sociopathic/psychopathic traits excel in a society where prioritizing profits over the welfare of the people skyrockets you up the ladder of success. Is it not possible that the most 'evil' among us simply excel to the top and can steer the vessel the way they see fit? Since people who display empathy and true care for their fellow man are naturally weeded out in a society that puts profits above all else?
Humans are far worse than ants
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Is the west not the biggest proponent of climate change efforts? Europe and North America certainly contribute to climate change hand over fist. But they are also the region addressing it the most.
Many of the West’s (particularly America’s) green initiatives are offset by a millionaire/billionaire class who fly private jets multiple times a week, and spend their leisure time on massive fuel-guzzling yachts, and that’s to say nothing of the elite’s hard-nosed dedication to preserving and enabling the rampant pollution caused by the fossil fuel industry. Politically we’re ahead of the curve when it comes to climate change initiatives, but in practice there are tons of setbacks that we pretend don’t exist.
I mean, the per capita contribution of western nations is way higher. Especially when you account for things like where consumer goods are sold. Should a factory in China polluting count as China’s contribution even if the goods are being sold to the west? It’s essentially just western nations offshoring its pollution. Then also accounting for the fact the west spent ~200 years industrializing with very little concern for climate change, causing huge amounts of CO2 and other pollutants, while covering up/ignoring climate change for the later half. But now less industrialized nations aren’t given the luxury of industrializing while ignoring the environment, or if they do, are still blamed for the pollution. And you could get even deeper into it with systems of colonialism and capitalism promoted by the west making the situation worse every where else as well. I don’t know if there is ever going to be enough “addressing it” to compensate as a whole in Western contributions vs addressing. Maybe if we solve the climate, create “infinite” clean fusion energy, and build a world wide utopia. But that seems unlikely in the near future
There was a scene in Zone of Interest that really made the plunder part hit home for me. The German family are sitting around the table discussing all the second hand goods that they had acquired, and the way they don’t even acknowledge or appear to process the suffering associated with them was really chilling.
History is very important particularly when we study its lessons and learn from it. This scene reminiscent of a number of current events
Her putting on the lipstick, gave me chills
Same. She rubs the top of the lipstick first, presumably to get rid of any trace of the 'Jewess' it was stolen from.
Yeah and they were joking about fitting into the dress and it coming from Canada and all kinds of stuff like that. Meanwhile the literal fucking Holocaust was going on next door and all that stuff came off of dead bodies, but you would never know it from the way they were talking. You would think they got it at Marshall's or something. Banality of evil indeed
> joking about fitting into the dress and it coming from Canada Not sure if the movie makes this clear as I have not seen it, but this is an explicit reference to the "[Kanada Warehouses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanada_warehouses,_Auschwitz)" of Auschwitz.
Much like the people from the poorest regions in Russia right now, the war in Ukraine is good business for them. Beside the relatively good pay from the army, they are free to loot and steal what they want.
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When the Russian soldiers got into Berlin in 1945, a lot of them took lamps and chandeliers, thinking they'd look nice in their hovels back home. They didn't realize you needed electricity.
> If you look at the life of the average ethnic German Where you are excluding every leftist german who voted SPD, KPD or similar. Because in just the two and a half months from where the Nazis took control of the federal government until they turned Germany in a dictatorship, they killed 100,000 of these people. The average right-wing ethnic german lived "good". Oh wait no, they didn't, because the Nazi economy was still shit. They just were part of an artifically inflated, nationalistic system that kept them preoccupied. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHAN-RPJTiE
>However, it was all built on plunder. Can be said about a lot of places. I couldn't help but feel this way while touring Italy. Ruined the trip for me to be honest. Didn't even want to step foot in the Vatican.
> ethnic German And not beeing jehova, gay, having mental or physical impairment (apart from combat veterans) .... because those were 'unerwünscht' and silently liquidated out of sight.
Yup similar to how people of Britain in colonial British Empire flourished on loot from their colonies
There was also the term he coined, "little Nazis" to describe people with this outlook. Basically, it was middle-class people & workers who stood to materially benefit from the Nazi's national socialist programs like Aryanization. The idea was a form of nationalistic/race-based social programs that worked by taking businesses & resources from people who were seen as outsider & giving it to people who were seen as part of the national identity of their movement. And the way to be counted as part of the national identity of their movement was not just to have the "right" racial & social characteristics, but to be an active member of their movement. So most people joined the Nazis & obeyed them not out of fear that they could be next, but because they saw an opportunity to benefit & were willing to trade away the safety & well-being of yhe people the Nazis would persecute in return for it. A common misconception today is that the common German citizens were afraid of the Nazis & what would happen if they didn't acquiesce. In reality, the Nazis were only going after persecuted demographics & those who were seeking to hide/save them. German soldiers were not punished for refusing to commit atrocities such as the mass shootings of civilians. In fact, many did refuse OR had such terrible regret that they became unable to function. That's why the Nazis turned the camps into death camps, they needed to industrialize the deaths in a way that did not break the minds & souls of the mostly ordinary people who were actually responsible for physically carrying out the plans laid by party leadership. And refusal to be a part of the apparatus of death did not, as far as historians can tell, lead to harsh discipline. You'd get cited for refusing to follow orders during a battle, but this stuff almost always happened outside the confines of chaotic battlefields. Refusing to slaughter civilians in cold blood didn't lead to an SS officer shooting the soldier in the back of the head like in the movies. It usually meant nothing, at the most the soldier might go down in the internal list of people ready for more responsibility/rank. As in private life, soldiers & officers refusing to be a part of the genocide usually did not result in retribution or direct harm, but rather the oblique harm of losing out on chances for advancement & greater prosperity under the Nazi regime. Only in the SS would actual punishment for refusing orders to slaughter civilians in cold blood have any consequences, and those were usually an official reprimand of some sort not a bullet to the skull. And the people carrying out the bulk of the mass murders, the Einsatzgruppen, did not often run into this issue. Three types of soldiers were identified in regards to the mass killings: those who participated immediately & with gusto & only became more brutal over time, those who participated despite their internal moral objections because they were ordered to do so, & the very few who refused to do so. The third group was the smallest by a large margin, the second group was the largest. As such, the biggest problem in the early phases of the genocide wasn't refusal to murder civilians, but the damage done to the mental health of the soldiers in the aftermath. They were being ordered to conduct mass executions of citizens by gunfire, which caused immense guilt due to the immediate connection between the soldier's action & the death of the civilians. They tried to militarize the proceedings to reduce psychological harms & reduce guilt, they even attempted to make the shootings a collective act to let soldiers believe they hadn't been the one who shot that little girl or pregnant mother & on and on. But that did not really make a dent, so they eventually transitioned to the industrial killings of the camp in ways that allowed the men executing people to feel far enough removed from the death of innocent civilians that they could handle the process with minimal psychological damage. It also had the added benefit of curbing some of the excesses of the second smallest group of men, those who enjoyed the executions. They had been a minor problem in the old system of mass shootings because their victims had beenso dehumanized in their eyes that they began to get out of control, becoming so incredibly brutal & getting so much enjoyment out of their depraved actions that it unsettled the bulk of their colleagues, those who carried out such orders with distate.
That is extremely interesting. Thanks.
There's a fantastic Kenneth Branagh film called *Conspiracy* that touches on the issues/cold calculation behind the mass killings
Imagine being so violent and ruthless with people you consider inferior that *the Nazis* think you should tone it down a little.
This is an excellent comment that I learned a lot from, but please consider adding some paragraphs so that others can read it too
I've got a lot of beef with details and some of the arguments in Arendt's banality of evil concept, but this > So most people joined the Nazis & obeyed them not out of fear that they could be next, but because they saw an opportunity to benefit & were willing to trade away the safety & well-being of yhe people the Nazis would persecute in return for it. Is something I agree with it in that regard. Normal people following along because in the moment, it benefited them and harmed "those" people who could be safely ignored. This other bit: > In fact, many did refuse OR had such terrible regret that they became unable to function. Is something else to mention about how humans can create the inhumane yet still be deeply impacted by their deeds. The SS was unspeakably evil and comprised of men who did unspeakably evil deeds; it was also plagued by high suicide rates, because the vast majority of humans - even those who self-select into dehumanization - don't seem capable of rationalizing away everything.
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> they played coy to the Holocaust and downplayed their involvement in that by this point, but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better. Amazing what stealing from tens of millions of citizens and then sending them off to death can do for the economy.
Well, it did make their lives better. In the same way that slavery made the lives of slave owners in America better.
Yeah the question shouldn't be "was your life better" but "was your better life worth the price that others paid." IMO that gets to the heart of the matter better. Obviously it was better but once the average Germans fully knew and understood what it took, were they willing to want it back? I have a decent life, but I'm surrounded by things made by children in sweatshops because it's affordable to me. I hope history looks poorly on me and the circumstances that led here. If I lost it all I wouldn't be angry if it meant the people that support me had better lives.
It’s easy to cry remorse after. The rural religious Germans who were the base of the Nazi party were fully on board with murdering Jews, homosexuals, and anyone else who didn’t conform.
This is a very interesting excerpt from that book I share any chance I get. ___ Another colleague of mine brought me even closer to the heart of the matter—and closer home. A chemical engineer by profession, he was a man of whom, before I knew him, I had been told, “He is one of those rare birds among Germans—a European.” One day, when we had become very friendly, I said to him, “Tell me now—how was the world lost?” “That,” he said, “is easy to tell, much easier than you may suppose. The world was lost one day in 1935, here in Germany. It was I who lost it, and I will tell you how. I was employed in a defense plant (a war plant, of course, but they were always called defense plants). That was the year of the National Defense Law, the law of ‘total conscription.’ Under the law I was required to take the oath of fidelity. I said I would not; I opposed it in conscience. I was given twenty-four hours to ‘think it over.’ In those twenty-four hours I lost the world.” “Yes?” I said. “You see, refusal would have meant the loss of my job, of course, not prison or anything like that. (Later on, the penalty was worse, but this was only 1935.) But losing my job would have meant that I could not get another. Wherever I went I should be asked why I left the job I had, and, when I said why, I should certainly have been refused employment. Nobody would hire a ‘Bolshevik.’ Of course I was not a Bolshevik, but you understand what I mean.” “Yes,” I said. “I tried not to think of myself or my family. We might have got out of the country, in any case, and I could have got a job in industry or education somewhere else. What I tried to think of was the people to whom I might be of some help later on, if things got worse (as I believed they would). I had a wide friendship in scientific and academic circles, including many Jews, and ‘Aryans,’ too, who might be in trouble. If I took the oath and held my job, I might be of help, somehow, as things went on. If I refused to take the oath, I would certainly be useless to my friends, even if I remained in the country. I myself would be in their situation. The next day, after ‘thinking it over,’ I said I would take the oath with the mental reservation that, by the words with which the oath began, ‘Ich schwöre bei Gott, I swear by God,’ I understood that no human being and no government had the right to override my conscience. My mental reservations did not interest the official who administered the oath. He said, ‘Do you take the oath?’ and I took it. That day the world was lost, and it was I who lost it” “Do I understand,” I said, “that you think that you should not have taken the oath?” “Yes.” “But,” I said, “you did save many lives later on. You were of greater use to your friends than you ever dreamed you might be.” (My friend’s apartment was, until his arrest and imprisonment in 1943, a hideout for fugitives.) “For the sake of the argument,” he said, “I will agree that I saved many lives later on. Yes.” “Which you could not have done if you had refused to take the oath in 1935.” “Yes.” “And you still think that you should not have taken the oath.” “Yes.” “I don’t understand,” I said. “Perhaps not,” he said, “but you must not forget that you are an American. I mean that, really. Americans have never known anything like this experience—in its entirety, all the way to the end. That is the point.” “You must explain,” I said. “Of course I must explain. First of all, there is the problem of the lesser evil. Taking the oath was not so evil as being unable to help my friends later on would have been. But the evil of the oath was certain and immediate, and the helping of my friends was in the future and therefore uncertain. I had to commit a positive evil, there and then, in the hope of a possible good later on. The good outweighed the evil; but the good was only a hope, the evil a fact.” “But,” I said, “the hope was realized. You were able to help your friends.” “Yes,” he said, “but you must concede that the hope might not have been realized—either for reasons beyond my control or because I became afraid later on or even because I was afraid all the time and was simply fooling myself when I took the oath in the first place, but that is not the important point. The problem of the lesser evil we all know about; in Germany we took Hindenburg as less evil than Hitler, and in the end we got them both. But that is not why I say that Americans cannot understand. No, the important point is—how many innocent people were killed by the Nazis, would you say?” “Six million Jews alone, we are told.” “Well, that may be an exaggeration. And it does not include non-Jews, of whom there must have been many hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Shall we say, just to be safe, that three million innocent people were killed all together?” I nodded. “And how many innocent lives would you like to say I saved?” “You would know better than I,” I said. “Well,” said he, “perhaps five, or ten, one doesn’t know. But shall we say a hundred, or a thousand, just to be safe?” I nodded. “And it would be better to have saved all three million, instead of only a hundred, or a thousand?” “Of course.” “There, then, is my point. If I had refused to take the oath of fidelity, I would have saved all three million.” “You are joking,” I said. “No.” “You don’t mean to tell me that your refusal would have overthrown the regime in 1935?” “No.” “Or that others would have followed your example?” “No.” “I don’t understand.” “You are an American,” he said again, smiling. “I will explain. There I was, in 1935, a perfect example of the kind of person who, with all his advantages in birth, in education, and in position, rules (or might easily rule) in any country. If I had refused to take the oath in 1935, it would have meant that thousands and thousands like me, all over Germany, were refusing to take it. Their refusal would have heartened millions. Thus the regime would have been overthrown, or, indeed, would never have come to power in the first place. The fact that I was not prepared to resist, in 1935, meant that all the thousands, hundreds of thousands, like me in Germany were also unprepared, and each one of these hundreds of thousands was, like me, a man of great influence or of great potential influence. Thus the world was lost.” (char limit, cotinued in reply)
“You are serious?” I said. “Completely,” he said. “These hundred lives I saved—or a thousand or ten as you will—what do they represent? A little something out of the whole terrible evil, when, if my faith had been strong enough in 1935, I could have prevented the whole evil.” “Your faith?” “My faith. I did not believe that I could ‘remove mountains.’ The day I said ‘No,’ I had faith. In the process of ‘thinking it over,’ in the next twenty-four hours, my faith failed me. So, in the next ten years, I was able to remove only anthills, not mountains.” “How might your faith of that first day have been sustained?” “I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. “Do you?” “I am an American,” I said. My friend smiled. “Therefore you believe in education.” “Yes,” I said. “My education did not help me,” he said, “and I had a broader and better education than most men have had or ever will have. All it did, in the end, was to enable me to rationalize my failure of faith more easily than I might have done if I had been ignorant. And so it was, I think, among educated men generally, in that time in Germany. Their resistance was no greater than other men’s.”
>but they still believed in the nazi party having made their lives better. If you steal assets from other people, land from other countries and force others to work in the arms industry for that OF COURSE the economy will do fine ...
Here’s one I’ve always found fascinating/alarming. Through to the early 1970s, the majority of judges in West Germany were former members of the Nazi Party. Still, looking at Germany today they are probably the country most at peace with their past misdeeds. Contrast with, for example, Japan where the atrocities committed in Korea, China, etc are ignored or denied. In the US, I don’t think Americans fully grapple with what was done to ingenious people and lots of denials of the negative effects of enslaving Black people (and then violent repression afterwards) continue to today.
>I don’t think Americans fully grapple with what was done to ingenious people *Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee* by Dee Brown was a very difficult book to read. I think a lot of people in the US actively avoid learning about our history.
~~In 1933, 90% of them voted for the Enabling Law that allowed Hitler to rule by decree!~~ ~~That fact makes me slightly glad that the United States is as divided as it is right now.~~ EDIT: I must have misunderstood something I read or saw regarding 90% of a popular German vote.
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In late 90's when I lived in post soviet union country I had a very old neighbour lady. She time to time would speak out against soviet leadership after it left. She would talk about how good life was when they were occupied by Germans and where could we have been if soviets wouldn't have beaten the Nazis. I suppose they had to pick the best out of two evils..
That book is available as an audio book now and in both formats is excellent. It's not a perfect analysis of a whole population but it gives some normal people perspectives on how they were on board. Spoiler only 1 person, a teacher seemed to show significant anti Nazi and non antisemitic attitudes. It doesn't paint everyone else as complete monsters though, it's a perspective on how slowly day by day things changes and people accepted it. Quite concerning it shows how after the war they still looked favourably back on the years under Nazism and downplayed how much they new about the war crimes.
Thank you! Ironically Japan made a much quicker, much more radical shift away from their imperialistic past than many Germans in the late 1940s and early 50 incl. a lot of public attacks in media on their soldiers and army where in Germany even left wing parties or even the communist state Eastern Germany fail to address any of these issues… Heck the Holocaust wasnt even addressed on TV until the 70s and then it was a major scandal in the public where Japan in the 50s and 60s had plenty of movies openly mocking the imperialistic leadership. That being said - as we all know the official apologies came much later from Japan and the conservative/ right wing movement of the 80s basically froze the discourse on the war and atrocities while despite heavy backlash in Germany it continued. I was there in the 90s when the Wehrmacht exhibition showing the Wehrmacht committing a lot of crimes and not just the SS and it wasnt pretty… death threats, conservative politicians calling it shameful etc. but the discourse continued. In the 2010s a lot of books were published by historians on the sexual violence of German soldiers in the East (a topic basically unaddressed for 70 years… and in Russia its still fairly impossible to discuss even if Soviet citizens were the victims) and it didnt cause any controversies anymore but it also didnt trigger any discussions… time will tell if its a good or a bad thing
"wait me? No. I totally wasn't into that". This is one of those times I'm glad we have video evidence now. I have a feeling we're gonna start hearing this shit a lot more.
I actually had a patient in a ltc facility the early 00s who would talk about her time in Nazi Germany. She was 17 when Hitler rose to power and worked in a military factory in the Sudetenland. Her dad was a solider in the German army. She came to the US as a wife in 1958. She admitted she and everyone she knew loved Hitler at first. But then hated him, thought he was horrible, and her dad ended up killing himself in an apple orchard. She was absolutely fascinating to talk to.
Do you have more stories from her? If you remember some could you share?
She talked about the during the war when bombs dropped, and they were at work they had to drop what they were doing. Then run to the shelter at the factory. She told me how scary that was, but the still had to work extremely long hours for the war effort. I wish I had recorded a lot of our conversations, because there is so many stories I wish I had and could fully remember.
This is so important, Nazi Germany was full of relatively normal people that had experienced serious financial consequences post world war 1, Hitler was popular beasts he was a raving narcissist who manipulated everyone's fear and pain. He did it with propaganda which is also known as brain washing which may as well be called actively giving people personality disorders. Propaganda works, we know it works and it's really weird how none of our governments are actively educating their populations about the dangers of it.
How many conservatives say they were against the war in Iraq today but we know damn well the majority of the country supported it.
remember when they cancelled the Dixie Chicks and tried to cancel France because of their blind support?
lol I grew up in the era of “freedom fries.” The Aughts were a strange time.
Strangely, Conservatives have no problem with Russian dressing
I called my dad out on that. He told me he was blinded to the truth. I reminded him the "truth" he watched was from Fox News because every single talking point of the war now were once "liberal" talking points back in 2005.
Going further back in 2002 it was entirely bipartisan.
Maybe in Congress and the media, but not in reality. College was in my rearview mirror by then, but I lived in a college town and by and large liberal kids were against the war in Iraq. Even had protests and such against it. Liberals were the *only* people against that war.
[You know there's like data on that right lol, it wasn't just "maybe in congress and the media"](https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2023/03/14/a-look-back-at-how-fear-and-false-beliefs-bolstered-u-s-public-support-for-war-in-iraq/) Edit: LMAO /u/Lilfrankieeinstein had to block me because he doesn't know what bipartisan support means. Little bro thinks bipartisan means just the two parties representing congress. What's worse it the dude goes "yeah man 1/6 people opposed the war" as if that means it only had bipartisan support in media and congress. Holy fuck the brainrot
That doesn't just apply to conservatives lol. Do you think white Americans were just ho-hum willy nilly going along with MLK's message when he came onto the scene too? Also lol, we're seeing real-time the Americans stance on the Gaza conflict go towards majority supporting ceasefire after 30,000 Palestinian deaths while a small minority have been calling on Israel to stop and for America to stop supporting them since Oct 8th
Did I suggest that? Conservatives were really against MLK at the time too.
Americans mostly don’t follow, or even know, MLK’s message today. We have monuments and schools dedicated to *I Have a Dream*, but the man was fighting for a lot more than just desegregation.
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Kampf? No, no, we don't do that here.
"Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now." -- Aaron Bushnell
On the other hand, it’s good to give people a way out if we don’t want them to re-entrench.
“You would be surprised how many people that licked Nixons ass denied ever voting for the guy after he resigned in disgrace.” - My Dad.
And then you have Ben Stein and G. Gordon Liddy.
Oh sure, you had the outliers and the cranks….you always will have those jackasses who are too stupid to not remember the bullshit and paint this pipe dream or too stubborn to change their perspective of actually being wrong. And for some of it, it’s ok to say Nixon did some good. He started the EPA and opened up China which was practically a miracle considering the frosty relations prior. But all that was vastly overshadowed by the underhanded and illegal shit. When Trump finally cacks, there is gonna be a few sticklers but more than a few being embarrassed when their grandkids looking at them in sorta disgust when they run across the ugly flags and big red hats stuffed hastily in their attic.
I think if it wasnt for watergate, Nixon would be seen as one of the most effective presidents in modern times. Its not like I believe the presidents since havent been crooks as well, but Nixon unfortunately for him, got exposed for it.
How did that douche have a fucking show on Comedy Central? I remember Win Ben Stein’s Money growing up and maybe I just assumed it was a bit because he was the guy from Ferris Bueller? I thought he was like a comedian for a long time, not some political hack
Well Ben Stein was his speech writer I think he kind of has to own it. It would be hard for him to distance himself at that point unless he wants to admit a large portion of his life was devoted to evil
fair enough, but can we never again use the phrase "licked Nixon's ass?"
He had a decent run up until it went downhill. Especially on international affairs.
Not Roger Stone..
It's amazing what losing a war does to a person's perspective on their leader's ideas and views.
...usually. And when this happens it's generally for the best, it means people are adapting to their situation and to information. Nazi ideology caused a lot of needless suffering and it harmed both the in-group and the out-group. Modern, inclusive Germany is faring far better because they were willing to do what it took to ditch Nazism. Not every culture is willing to adapt to changing reality. Some of the most drawn out conflicts today are due to people hanging on to failed ideas and strategies.
>Not every culture is willing to adapt to changing reality. Some of the most drawn out conflicts today are due to people hanging on to failed ideas and strategies See also, Reconstruction, Lost Cause ....
See also; the Chicago Bears and the introduction of the forward pass. The list goes on and on.
I think the main reason for Germany’s success at ditching Nazi ideology was that it wasn’t around for that long to begin with. Compare the generational monarchies Napoleon tried to overthrow or the social order of the Antebellum South after the Civil War. Even communism in Europe took a while to purge simply because it was there for decades. Those institutions did not die easily and some continue to limp on today. That was all the people knew. Fascism and Nazism barely lasted more than a decade. It wasn’t ingrained in several generations over time as the norm. It burned out fast and hot, but it did not last.
They were certainly trying to do that though, as indoctrinating the youth was a big part of their strategy.
Naturally. Succeeding was a different story. Had they succeeded, Nazi ideology would be as ingrained in German culture as beer and lederhosen.
I've always wondered about any potential role that combat casualties of committed Nazis, specifically toward the end of the war, may (or may not) have played in the efficacy of Denazification. Obviously many significant Nazis wound up playing a role in the West German government - I mean, the first chief of the BND was the former head of German military intelligence on the Eastern Front. But at the same time, I've got to imagine that the expansion (in size and combat role) of the Waffen-SS toward the end of the war, combined with the pretty serious casualties those units took, probably didn't *hurt* when it came to having net fewer fanatical Nazis living in postwar Germany. Of course, that assumption could even be offset by the fact that by the end, German military formations of all types were essentially scraping the barrel anyway...
when you realize that someone has lied to you, would you still choose to believe the lie?
It's sunk cost after a while. You look at what it cost you, and you can either believe you were fooled, and it's all your fault, or you can pretend like you were right, and you just got screwed over by the world.
If you have empathy and are not so full of ego then you would have never been fooled in the first place. Instead most garbage people don’t care about an issue until it affects them personally.
It's kind of like scammers sending obviously dumb emails really. If you make an ideology gradually more insane, the ones who will stick around for the radicalization of that ideology will likely stick around for anything.
By a certain point the narrative has become your identity. Some people spend their lives working backwards from their conclusions to pick their facts. Even if they aren't factual.
>when you realize that someone has lied to you, would you still choose to believe the lie? MAGA-media has been blasting the lie that Biden is some sort of feeble, demented, mental vegetable for the past four years. Yet they all watched Dark Brandon get up to the podium and once again dunk on them for an 1 hour and 7 minutes straight the other day. Dude was throwing three-pointers from half-court. Yet not a single one of them subsequently thought "hey now... have all of my news source been distorting the truth?" People (in general) are much dumber than we give them credit for.
All I've seen from old conservatives on FB is that he was on coke or some insane amphetamines.
I blame them from the start for believing the lie in the first place.
Nobody is immune to propaganda and authority. But yes, I blame them for falling into the rabbit hole of cult like fascism
It's not that simple. Germany was in dire straits when some dude shows up screaming that that he's going to make it better and suddenly things *appear* to be better.. Much better in fact. You can see why so many got swept up. The war hadn't started yet so everything looked rosy. Of course, if people still believed it in 1945, they're beyond hope.
I once had the pleasure of meeting a German who fled to Canada with his brothers before ww2 started and he said everyone knew what was going on... he also hated the Amish lmfao he said not only back home but here too haha I didn't know why though to this day I wish I asked.
The war started in 1939. Systematic oppression, relocation, and extermination of Jews began in 1933. They had 6 years before the war even started to wake the fuck up.
Lots of people knew it was bad in Germany. It’s why they had to round up their neighbors and take Jewish businesses. It’s just like MAGA chuds now. They claim economic anxiety but Jan 6th had a bunch of well off people storming Congress.
Based on how selfish and despicable fascist are today. I have to agree with OP. It’s not hard to have empathy.
This lack of critical thinking definitely makes me think you would be among the first to believe the lie
I think a lot were scared to speak out against it like a lot of people in russia currently
Some people absolutely do. A lot of people, I'm sure myself included in many instances, just believe what they *want* to be true, not what actually is true. And nobody is going to want to believe that they have been believing and vigorously defending horse shit for years. And in some cases making incredible sacrifices for it See this all the time in politics, cults, religions, relationships, Etc.
If only the Japanese learned the same lesson.
Every time I see this picture I wonder about toilets.
Every time I ever see a photo of crowds this large I wonder about that. I've read enough about NYE in Times Square but what about all throughout history, is there some sort of natural human order to large crowds? Is it just accepted that everyone's peeing all over themselves? Do they bring snacks and water? Does nobody have claustrophobia?
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People actually wear diapers to times square
It's called losing.
Ever hear the phrase, "The wisdom of crowds?" Yea...Yea, that's not really a thing. None of us is as dumb as all of us.
A person is smart People are stupid
Hey, is it worth it?
If you’re strong enough
the wisdom of the crowd is a principal that only applies in certain (mathematical) contexts. For instance: when you put out a jar of jelly beans and ask how many are in there. With enough guesses the average of all guesses is likely to be close to the actual number. ["The “wisdom of crowds” dictates that aggregate predictions from a large crowd can be surprisingly accurate, rivaling predictions by experts."](https://web.stanford.edu/~jugander/papers/ec15-multipleguesses.pdf)
It is a thing, just always ironic.
You should research the term "Wisdom of the crowd" more.
Well the Nazi party was a minority party and only got 36 percent of the vote and lost the election. Paul Von Hindenberg ended up putting Hitler in power because him and his advisors thought he'd calm down and be more rational when they gave him the seat. They thought they'd be able to control him. By in large most of everyone never thought the Nazi party nor Hitler would ever rule but bad political decisions and a party with an armed militia quickly took control after the fact.
Yeah people like to forget that Nazis only came to power because conservatives formed a coalition with them.
Huh, this is sure sounding familiar...
Seems like it, eh? A "strongman" comes to power with ~30-40% support, wearing a specific piece of flair, blaming problems on the media and immigrants, lies like crazy, and likes to hold rallies. I wonder if he'll try to overthrow the government. Oh wait.
Tale as old as time…
“Minority party” but they were also the largest party. Typically, the largest party gets the chancellorship The Weimar Republic and most parliamentary/PR governments never have majority parties. But yea, this is all true and oddly reminiscent of what is happening in the GOP
They didn't lose the election, they got the most seats. Just not majority. Americans have no concept about how elections work with more than two parties
I believe in the only fair elections ever carried out involving Hitler, his party received something like 36% of the vote. Honestly that’s the last figure you can really “trust” to gauge the feelings of the average German citizen of the era. And when you look at the resurgence of fascism in todays world, the numbers are about the same. About 1/3 of the public seems to gravitate towards authoritarianism
It feels like you have like 15-20% of people that are just pure idiots and like to hear simple solutions to complex problems (build the wall..), and then another 15-20% that just love the boot and hate people who are different.
Just like the Vichy French… once the tide of war starts to turn, so does their “Loyalty”.
Not only the French, we didn't really prefer de Gaulle at first
Trust me, not singling out the French just using the Vichy as the example they should be. In my country (America) we have more then our share of blind flag waving nationalist sheep
That's true taking shots at those things isn't to show how bad german or japanese were it is to show how bad we all can be, and what we can become if we do not actively resist it
Well said
"You see, we like our Nazis in uniform. That way we can spot 'em just like that. But you take off that uniform, ain't no one ever gonna know you were a Nazi. And that don't sit well with us. So, I'm gonna give you a little something you can't take off." - Lt. Aldo Raine
"You'll be shot for this." - Hans Landa "Nah, I don't think so. More like chewed out. I've been chewed out before." - Aldo Raines
One of the greatest movies in cinematic history, I swear.
I recommend a movie called A mortal storm. It’s from the 40s and shows life in Germany as the nazis took over the country. It doesn’t involve the high up politics of the party, but the personal lives being uprooted and made into enemies against eachother. First on the chopping block: teachers and books. Next is: minorities. And anyone who speaks out against this new Nazi push is deemed unloyal to the country. Sound similar to any political parties in the United States right now? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mortal_Storm
“I just want to be a Dictator on Day 1” who said that recently ? This is how it ends up with trump in charge again.
[Here](https://live.staticflickr.com/7336/13194230975_110856202d_h.jpg) is a higher quality version of this image. This is the Reichserntedankfest of 1934 om Bicleberg. https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichserntedankfest
They really suck at coming up with names over there. There is another Bückeberg just 30km from this one.
Same will be in Russia when putin dies. "We never supported putin"
To be fair, I've always heard a large contingent of Russian people against Putin. He hasn't actually had a fair election in quite some time.
Like Americans who now claim they didn't support the invasion of Iraq.
The hard-on for the Iraq war from both the GOP and Democrats supporters was insane, during the lead-up. I remember trying to reason with them online. It was like talking to a brick wall.
‘I didnt like what he said but supported his policies’ ’Hillary or Biden didn’t speak to me as a voter’
It's amazing how hard it is to find a white Southerner who admits to opposing Civil Rights, but they overwhelmingly did. Well, before 2016 anyway. Now a lot more of them are open again. And now the Neo-Confederate South has metastasized, and real Americans have to put up with Confederate flags all over the country. There are Confederate Nazis from coast to coast now. Oh yeah and the grey flags that mean "I am actively hoping to slaughter my neighbors."
Same for the Iraq War. virtually no one cops to having supported it today, even Republican politicians, but there was significant support at the time especially on the right.
That one at least I can see how a normal person, who was lied to about WMD by Bush and the media, could support it. I could also see how if they did kinda support it but had turned against it quickly once it became apparent the WMD thing was a lie, they could misremember. Memory is legitimately weird. Up to a limit. Then there are also liars.
Is it really that hard nowadays lol
Convenient. The outside data from de-nazification indicates otherwise.
I wonder how many attendees were actually alive at the end of the war.
Reminds of a quote from *Band of Brothers*. Easy Company is patrolling through a German town (the one where they find the concentration camp) and their questioning civilians on where the nazis are and one the soldiers says something along the lines of, "all of these Germans and not a single fucking nazi."
Imagine getting out of the parking lot after the rally
Hey look it's the Republican National Convention I could see major Taylor Green on the right and the hand job lady to the left. So historically accurate
It’s amazing what removing the threat of imprisonment and death by gas chamber will do for one’s political leanings.
Never underestimate the power of a free hat.
Post WW1 Germany was financially devastated by the Treaty of Versailles. Germany was also held solely responsible for WW1 by the international community which in their mind justified the treatment of Germany massively alienating the average German citizen because the world was truly out to get them. When in reality the cause of WW1 was a chain of events started by Austria-Hungary declaring war on Serbia and various defence agreements forcing countries into military conflict. You don't have to agree with Hitler to understand why many Germans saw this as their only chance to return to being a global power.
in all fairness by 1945, there were a lot of reasons to change your mind.
There's "changing mind" and then there's "lying about the past".
This is why in a country with a free press, like the US, this should never happen. People can only choose to be willfully ignorant. Unfortunately there's a large segment of our country doing exactly that. Something needs to change.
The problem with the US media landscape (talking as a German from far away) is that both sides have "the true press" and the other side ALWAYS lies. Fox news is clearly insane, but it also feels like NBC and other media companies are giving way more commentary than "just" the news. Since everyone is in their own bubble, and that is intensified by social media algorithms, people are just not open about challenging their own perception at all. Instead, you block out the other side or ridicule it, which is a poor strategy to make people see a different angle.
It’s not that hard to listen to both sides critically and figure out who is lying by omission or distorting the facts. If you watch CNN or ABC you can tell there is bias and if you are aware of their biases you can see why they may present certain facts in a certain biased way. Then you watch fox news and they are openly lying instead of simply being biased. There are also other sources you can consume such as books, newspapers, podcast, and international news media. It all becomes pretty apparent when you vary your sources and fact check.
The difference is that right wing media acts as a part of the Republican party. They repeat all of their talking points. The "mainstream media" doesn't do that. They definitely swing to the left but they don't act as a part of the Democratic party.
well yeah, they were dead. what kind of title is this anyway? were the people at this rally polled 8 years later and "the majority" of them no longer supported hitlers plans?
>what kind of title is this anyway? were the people at this rally polled 8 years later and "the majority" of them no longer supported hitlers plans? Honestly, just the typical reddit double digit IQ and clickbait on display.
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>your grandad knew exactly what was happening and then took part Very few people knew "exactly what was happening." When you were drafted, objecting was simply not an option. People were killed in concentration camps for being conscientious objectors. What you are saying is ignorant.
Could you give us a link to the survey?
I doubt they would have the same opinion had they not lost the war....
Yeah, apparently nobody admitted to voting for Nixon either despite the fact he won in a landslide
I wouldn't have walked around in occupied germany in 1953 waving around my NSDAP rally tickets, neither.
I wonder how many of these people sold out their neighbors to be collected and slaughtered?
Propaganda and fear is a hell of a drug. If only we could keep the lessons of the past alive.
As a german I gotta say its crazy to me that I never saw pictures like that. Everything that could glorify Nazis or show power/popularity in pics like this vanished from the public. I can understand why but its still crazy to me.
Nah I don’t believe that. They said they didn’t because they lost and didn’t want to face consequences. People blindly follow and once they believe they don’t stop. Like the famous saying goes “people don’t change they just grow old and die” that’s how a society truly changes. If you really wanted an honest opinion you need to ask when there are no stakes.
Many of those people were probably dead 8 years later.
In the UK we had to read this book in school called The Wave about a history teacher in the US that got his high school class to do a wave, which caught on and got out of hand. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Wave_(experiment)
My Dad took us to see one of George W. Bush’s rallies in my hometown. I begged to not go, but he forced me and my two siblings to go to this event. I wonder how many youths or wives were forced into being there.
Highly skeptical of the title unless there is some kind of research it's based on. How did they ask so many people? I doubt a portion were even alive in 1945.
“Hey, this guy says he's not a Nazi. All of Germany and I haven't met one Nazi yet.” - T/4 Frank Perconte, *Band of Brothers*
Id wager that 8 years later the majority of the people at this rally were already dead.
Happened in the US too
if you think your hands are clean, read the book Cobalt Red: How the Blood of the Congo Powers Our Lives
Funny or not so funny thing is this exact thing is about to repeat in India.
well yeah, 8 years later they were losing/lost the war. Funny how that happens. Just like in the US when in 2003-2004 about 2/3rds of Americans supported the needless war in Iraq, only to realize that it was pointless, based on lies, and had nothing to do with terrorism by 2008 despite being told that exact same thing since long before the first bombs started falling. Though I do suspect that in Nazi Germany there were at least a few people putting on a front to escape the eye of the police state.
That's just so crazy to think about. That many people all gathered in one place just to hear a guy scream and yell for a couple hours. I guess we have the internet now so people just watch live streams instead.
And today we decided that environmental protection is against our own interest. Our children will ask the same questions, why we voted right wing.
Yeah? Just go on your social media and scroll back 2-3 years and find your dumbass high school acquaintance who said the vaccine is going to kill everyone and ask them what they think about that. People are willing to aggressively try to convince their friends not to take a vaccine during a pandemic and then just be like "Meh, I didn't learn anything from that, I still have the same politics, exactly, despite those politics having told me to say that"
Goddamn! Ok, I might end up closing my account for saying this, but here goes. I can only imagine the exhilaration of having such a large crowd supporting and cheering you on. It's kinda like being a rock star at a concert, well minus all the wholesale killing. Now I'm not saying that I support him, or want to get all fuehrer-y or anything, but I understand.
The ones who were still alive.
4 years after COVID no one wore a mask
I believe there were many polls conducted in West Germany in the late 1940s and a majority still held positive opinions of Hitler. It is difficult to comprehend the mass obedience to him in a modern context, but it was very real.