How Did Hitler Affect White Germans?

[Rhondazvous]

My fear is that many white Americans may not feel they have anything to fear from a police state. After all, they are white. The police are here to serve and protect them.

Honestly Rhonda, that'a painting all white people with a pretty broad brush. I'm white but while I recognize the need for police, I'm highly distrustful of them. We're hardly a race of police apologists.

I’m not trying to generalize about any group of people. I want to start a discourse—the kind of open discourse that I’ve come to expect and respect at AF.

I talked to a cab driver who loves Trump. Thinks he’s the best thing that could happen to the American economy. I wasn’t sure how to address fascism from the standpoint of what he has to lose. Otherwise, it’s just my problem. Would my neighbors fight for me if the police came to drag me away? Maybe. But it would be better if they saw the danger before they elected somebody who is danger to them as well.

What I’ve written above sounds like another conspiracy theory. But I remember seeing a movie about the rise of Hitler and one phrase I will always remember the Germans were say. “It can’t happen here.”

This is not in any way shape form or fashion a criticism of Germans. As Abaris suggested, Americans still have to learn what Europeans already know. So teach me.

[Wyrd of Gawd]

It has occurred to me that in November we may be asked to choose between Miss WikiLeaks or the Hitlerian reincarnation.  In that case voters may very well choose fascism over compromised national security. This would not be the case if Americans feared fascism as much as they do socialism.  My fear is that many white Americans may not feel they have anything to fear from a police state. After all, they are white. The police are here to serve and protect them.

But I wonder is this true? How did Hitler affect white Germans?  What is the cost of a brown shirt?

If you were the wrong religion, political ethos, sexuality, considered "habitually criminal", had mental or physical problems, too avant garde in art, unwilling to divorce your Jewish spouse or even just simply not able to make all the "voluntary" contributions by the SA and other party organs, it could go very badly for you, up to and including either being gassed or worked to death in a KZ.

Anybody who deviated noticably from party lines was persona non grata in Hitler's reich.

PS: I forgot ethnicity, there were millions of Poles, Russians, Ukrainians and other eastern europeans killed during WW2. I'm reading Richard J Evan's third book on the Third Reich now, "The Third Reich at War" and I'm at the point where he talks about what happened to people the Nazis called "life unworthy of life" during the war, and it turns out at least 80,000 German citizens with physical or mental incapacities were gassed from 1940 onwards, and were the main proving test cases (that sounds really callous, I don't mean it that way sorry) for what later became the holocaust.

If you were going to wage a war like Hitler did why wouldn't you kill off your citizens who had physical or mental incapacities?  By getting rid of those 80,000 or so people he freed up their caretakers for the war effort.  He also made better use of his scarce resources.  Besides, the Allies would have killed them in bombing raids anyway so they had a zero chance of living through the war and after it.  Heck, if he had put them in Dresden the Allies would have roasted them.

[Alex K]

I repeatedly wonder whether I should post something, but I still don't understand the question.

[Jackalope]

I'm sure the telescreen will tell us who we're supposed to hate next.

We've always been at war with Eastasia Eurasia.

[Rhondazvous]

I repeatedly wonder whether I should post something, but I still don't understand the question.

How did Hitler affect Germans who were not Jews, gypsies, disabled, Poles, or any of the other groups who are on record as victims of the holocaust? By “affect” I mean, did Hitler have any adverse repercussions on them economically, mentally, nationally, emotionally or in any substantial way.

[Alex K]

I repeatedly wonder whether I should post something, but I still don't understand the question.

How did Hitler affect Germans who were not Jews, gypsies, disabled, Poles, or any of the other groups who are on record as victims of the holocaust? By “affect” I mean, did Hitler have any adverse repercussions on them economically, mentally, nationally, emotionally or in any substantial way.

Millions were killed in a war that left the country devastated - that's quite the adverse effect. But even before that, they destroyed the scientific and cultural life - Germany was the capital of physics and mathematics well into the 20s and 30s, while Berlin was a true metropolis - and all that went away because of the persecution many suffered. The US inherited all that.

[abaris]

Millions were killed in a war that left the country devastated - that's quite the adverse effect. But even before that, they destroyed the scientific and cultural life - Germany was the capital of physics and mathematics well into the 20s and 30s, while Berlin was a true metropolis - and all that went away because of the persecution many suffered. The US inherited all that.

Not to forget, it was the most diverse cultural metropolis all through the 20ies. There were too many world renowned artists to mention. Architecture was at an all time high, the Bauhaus style only the most famous of many. Theatre, cabaret and film set world standards. Holliwood in the 30ies, 40ies and 50ies was largely influenced by the German style of the time before Hitler, since many of it's leading figures emigrated to the USA and continued their careers there.

Hitler's reign wasn't only the darkest period in German - and Austrian - history. It was also the triumph of the primitives over the cultural elites.

[Rhondazvous]

Millions were killed in a war that left the country devastated - that's quite the adverse effect. But even before that, they destroyed the scientific and cultural life - Germany was the capital of physics and mathematics well into the 20s and 30s, while Berlin was a true metropolis - and all that went away because of the persecution many suffered. The US inherited all that.

You make an interesting point about physics and mathematics. Of course, these will suffer when a megalomaniac uses them for his own purposes to control human behavior.

It took a war to unseat Hitler. Will we let Trump get so powerful that it takes a war to unseat him? Is it possible that because of the way the US economy is so tangled up with world’s economy, especially with our Asian creditors, that this could be a crisis felt far beyond our borders?

[abaris]

Is it possible that because of the way the US economy is so tangled up with world’s economy, especially with our Asian creditors, that this could be a crisis felt far beyond our borders?

It's not only possible, there's precedence. 2008, and way before that, 1929.

[Rhondazvous]

Not to forget, it was the most diverse cultural metropolis all through the 20ies. There were too many world renowned artists to mention. Architecture was at an all time high, the Bauhaus style only the most famous of many. Theatre, cabaret and film set world standards. Holliwood in the 30ies, 40ies and 50ies was largely influenced by the German style of the time before Hitler, since many of it's leading figures emigrated to the USA and continued their careers there.

Hitler's reign wasn't only the darkest period in German - and Austrian - history. It was also the triumph of the primitives over the cultural elites.

It is for posts like this that I have urged Tiberius to put a super kudos on the forum choices.

"The triumph of the primitive..." As a species, humans have survived Earth's fickle climate mainly because of diversity. The problem with purity is it cannot adapt and remain pure. Empathy, the ability to understand one another, has also helped us move away from the primitive tribalism of the past.