“Historians have a word for Germans who joined the Nazi party, not because they hated Jews, but out of a hope for restored patriotism, or a sense of economic anxiety, or a hope to preserve their religious values, or dislike of their opponents, or raw political opportunism, or convenience, or ignorance, or greed. That word is "Nazi." Nobody cares about their motives anymore." - AR Moxon
@brucelawson But most of historians are also forgetting about how easily are to manipulate people who are extremely poor, very hungry, totally disappointed and left alone by those who should be helping them in such particular heavy time. That's why nsdap was so successful and get so popular back in the days. Due to the american stock market crash, great depression and all the effects of them that happened later to the entire world. Nothing much, than simple crowd psychology, as we call it today.
@brucelawson 2/n Their motives were most important one things in the whole story. The power of force of people who are literally pushed to the edges is unimaginable. And that's exactly what idiots like Goebbels, Göring and the rest exploited. Hitler was just their puppet, a pawn in this whole filthy political power game. A pawn that was also, by design and from the very beginning, doomed to failure. That's why they achieved their goal so easily and quickly. Due the poverty and anger of people.
@MartinaNeumayer @brucelawson
The poverty and anger of people may be used as an excuse, but I don't get it.
There were radical socialist and communist parties that offered a solution to that.
But they chose not to attack the rich, the establishment but to join in fighting their own, even lesser off people.
They chose nazi
@amro It isn't any excuse and there wasn't solution for something that happened far away on the other continent. People living back in those years in Germany doesn't cared about where food comes from, coal for heating their homes and what they are manufacturing in the factories they worked in. Same was everywhere else, especially in Europe. People wanted to have food, warmth for the winter, some clothes, and a place to work. No one had any clue that factories were making things for another war.
@amro 3/n To all this add the already very unstable situation which continued from the first world war. Circa twenty years only is definitely too little time to stabilize enough the overall tragic situation in the affected with it countries and societies. And on top of all that came the idiots who came up with the idea of creating the nsdap. Everything later was just a continuity of events that no one could stop. Like a running train without any breaks. It's only a matter of time to disaster.
@MartinaNeumayer
I don't want to deny your family's history, but I strongly disagree.
I can't find the energy to dive into the period between the American depression and the takeover by the ndsap of the parliament, but the main reason of their success seems to be the inability of center right and center left political parties to support the opposition by anti-fascist resistance which were largely labor- and street movements.
My neighbors don't vote right-winged fascists hate-mongors because they actually are hungry or downtrodden. They vote for them because they want to blame someone, anyone for the fact they will never get the big payday hyper- capitalism has promised. But if they blame the people actually responsible, the oligarchists, the share holders, they have to admit they will never will become them.
And the cops? The cops chose to support the fascists rights of assembly like they always will. Even today.
@MartinaNeumayer @brucelawson The bulk of the NSDAP came from the middle class, Kleinbürgertum. People who weren't poor but weren't rich, either, who hated the Jews because they had always hated the Jews, who were disgusted by all the "perverts" living their lives out in the open all of a sudden in big cities, especially Berlin, and who were worried they could lose what little wealth they had and join the ranks of the poor like so many others.
@LordCaramac @MartinaNeumayer @brucelawson nodds in agreement
Whereas #workers were well entrenched in #SPD & #KPD instead.
as it was then and is now in every country where facism is on the rise again (be they called republican, afd, fratelli d'itallia) it is always easier and more convient to blame others for ones one problems than working constructively on solutions.
@Kzad_Bhat yup; it breaks my heart that we're seeing it rising again in UK (my country) @MartinaNeumayer
@brucelawson @Kzad_Bhat @MartinaNeumayer
I have been quite disturbed by the rise of #Trumpism around the globe, where angry corporate dictators fomenting violence around the world are rising to power.
I was praying a massive rejection of Trumpism in this country would spur a reawakening around the globe.
Now, I fear what we've been witnessing will only get worse as the rest of the world follows our lead.
@MugsysRapSheet @brucelawson @Kzad_Bhat Well.. Sadly this man isn't even an real true businessmen. As many years ago told him Mr. Reagan directly in the face in an interview they had together with Ms. Tatcher, Mr. Gorbatschow and few other politicians (Ukrainian and similar as well) back in the 80's. He told him something like this "Dear friend, don't be an idiot and please keep your fingers away from politics, because you don't belongs here and you have no idea how it works.". He didn't listen.
@MartinaNeumayer @MugsysRapSheet @brucelawson @Kzad_Bhat
If this is how it actually happened, then it must have been an initial boost for Trump's pathological ambition to show everyone exactly that. That he is the best and most capable politician of all time.
Perhaps he should have been told that he will never be able to drive a steam locomotive.
No.
Historians hold people to account for their actions and inactions.
Stop whitewashing fascists who voted for and/or joined fascists.
Besides: Not just in the US in 2024 but all over the world across the last 100+ years millions of well-situated and also filthy rich people voted for fascists.
Stop turning perpetrators who inflict(ed) harm and death on others into victims.
@brucelawson They decided to be Nazi and support all what this Adolphe has written in his book and told in his speeches. So many decided to put on a uniform and murder others.
But when you have to grow up with those old nazis (granparents, uncles, aunts) and you are "different" because of #disability and #LGBTQI+ the you live in a hell.
You know, in nazi era you would have been murdered
#AktionT4
⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aktion_T4
Sorry for my emotional post and that i wrote "you" but writing "me" made me more anxious and deeply depressed.
Yes, i had some such murderer in my relatives group.
Sorry, but with age around 60 i feel as unsafe as with 12.
Looking at EU with authoritarians and putin-appeasers.
Today is our 9-11, we remember the beginning.
@DoctorG_1 Yup. I hear you. I had a chat with a disabled German colleague a few years ago who spoke about how it felt growing up in that society and it really struck me; growing up in the UK, it had never occurred to me.
@brucelawson Thanks for your kind words.
@brucelawson
"Nobody cares about their motives anymore."
That is precisely why we will have to live it again and again.
I think there is truth to both points. As Bruce points out, there should be no harbor for those complicit in an atrocity.
But if one fails to understand the motives of the masses that allowed it and helped proliferate, by conflating them with the few that initiated and actively committed atrocities, as 3bomc points out, we are bound to repeat it.
This difference in motives may be a critical consideration in the path to averting it next time.
@gerb_sam @3bomc @brucelawson Welp, the USA has no plan to avert it: the deed is done, and the Nazis take power in January.
The election was the ideal place to avert a leader with aspirations to implement Unitary Executive Theory. However, citizens, legislators, and courts have not been rendered powerless in resisting efforts of any leader to gain autocratic power. Most Trump supporters deny that Is Trump's objectives. If undeniable signs emerge that they're wrong, I hope allegiance to party will not override allegiance to the constitution.
@gerb_sam @3bomc @brucelawson Well, I hope that too, but nothing since 2015 makes me sanguine about the chances.
My observation in Germany during the Kennedy Administration was "It can happen again" but I never dreamed, even a week ago, that it would be in my own country. For the past few days, tiniest things have been setting off uncontrollable sobs and tears. I'm profoundly fearful.
@brucelawson
There are a disturbing number of parallels between modern T**** voters and Germany during the Rise of the 3rd Reich.
After the Stock Market Crash of 1929 triggered a Global Depression, the world followed two paths: #FDR's socialism & #Hitler's #Fascism.
The difference from today is that the economic hardship of the 1930's to bring about the rise of #Fascism was REAL.
In 2024, the #economic hardship was manufactured and hyped by the man who caused it, blaming his successor.
@MugsysRapSheet
calling FDr's policy "socialism" is quite a stretch.
Apparently, everything that is not close to pure capitalism is socialism.
What FDR did, was much more social than what happened before and after.
But it's certainly not socialism.
@brucelawson
@thoralf @brucelawson
1) If you are take issue with the word "Socialism", you don't know what the word means.
2) I said "*FDR's* socialism", which wasn't to turn the United States into an European Socialist country.
3) You didn't take issue with my use of "#Fascism" to describe Hitler's gov't... which *also* wasn't "pure fascism". You can't pick & choose which description you choose to nitpick.
@MugsysRapSheet
Well, the "FDR socialism" is nothing but a slightly less cruel version of capitalism. It's still a longshot from being socialism.
Even what we have in northern europe right now is much more social then what FDR did - and even that is still far away from what qualifies as socialism,
And if what Hitler did is not as close to pure fascism as it can get in reality, then I don't know what else could be.
@thoralf @brucelawson
FDR created DOZENS of new gov't agencies to provide services no private organization could.
Hitler didn't hand every gov't program over to private industry. His gov't directed private industry, not the other way around (which would be pure #fascism.)
@brucelawson Sadly, there is another German word more broadly used by them and all those who felt they had to justify their behavior: Mitläufer. Those who ran along. Expect this word to be used in the US as well some years from now.
@goesselgold @brucelawson We have English words for that too that carry many of the same connotations: collaborator, quisling, etc.
I can’t believe I am surrounded by quislings.
@bhawthorne Quisling – that word I did not know yet.
@goesselgold In case this is new to anyone else, here’s the wiktionary entry:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/quisling
“Etymology
Named after Norwegian military officer Vidkun Quisling (1887–1945), who ruled the Nazi collaborationist government of Norway during World War Two. From Quislinus, Latinization of Quislin, based on the Danish place name Kvislemark. This term first appeared in 1940.”
@bhawthorne @goesselgold @brucelawson "collaborator" is more indicting. "Mitläufer" is very excusing and justifying.
A collaborator is guilty and knows they're doing wrong. A "Mitläufer" is innocent and was misled or just didn't know better.
There is a distinct difference between the two, and I expect when the time comes to judge the Trump regime retroactively, a lot of billionnaire media will be very invested in the "this was unavoidable, we didn't know better, none of us thought this could happen" narrative.
@amberage @bhawthorne @goesselgold @brucelawson
yes, full ack.
The special german word for "Mitläufer" which is not excusing and which iwould be used in this case is „Scherge“ which is emphasising the active, enforcing part.
E.g. Bernd ist ein Nazi-Scherge …
Anyway, I guess, this discussion is cause of US, please note that we currently don't have a gov. in Germany and use these words more and more often too.
Please HOPE! with us, like we do for the US.
@bhawthorne @goesselgold @brucelawson
See, also, “fellow-travelers.”
@brucelawson Nazi is a short for National Socialism, or auf Deutsch Nationalsozialismus. But I do take your point. My late father helped with the relief of Bergen Belsen, and it was the general consensus by the Allies that the local populace hadn’t got a clue as to what was happening so near to their town.
Socialism in German context refers to Bismarck's policies of keeping the people away from communism ("socialism" in marxist sense came later).
@brucelawson Nice quote but the actual word is "Mitläufer".
Today they also have other names: Trump voters, Milei voters, Bolsonaro voters, Boris Johnson voters, Le Pen voters, etc.
@juliavithoria @brucelawson Netanyahu voters.
@juliavithoria @brucelawson Modi, Erdogan, Orban, all these folks have in common what? Cambridge Analytica is what.