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So... Magas?
Yes, but I think the point is that all Germans were tarred with that brush for years, for their tacit support of the regime. It’s the same in America at the moment. MAGA has corrupted politics and while many don’t agree, they don’t stop it. We’re all the builders of alligator aushwitz maga, or just workers that took money to make a concentration camp? That’s just a recent example.
48 year old German here. My grandparents were born in the 1920s. Here's what they told me about Hitler's regime.
In the 1920s, life in Germany was pleasant, so the Nazis didn't get all the support they needed because their fearmongering didn't work very well.
Then, the Black Friday crisis hit Germany hard. Harder than any other European nation. Huge unemployment, a lot of discontent and desperate people. The Nazis used that to their full advantage - many people fell for them, but still not the majority of Germans.
So my grandparents still didn't take them that seriously. Even those Germans who knew what the Nazis had planned couldn't believe they would really do it. Try imagining living in 1932. If someone told you about WWII and 6 million dead in concentration camps, would you really have been able to take that seriously?
Then, suddenly, Hitler came to power. Still, not the majority of people supported him - but it took mere weeks to take away all their civic rights, their right to protest, their right not to be detained without due process, their right not to be surveilled, their right to live in a home the police can't raid without reason. It all happened too quickly.
So they all became afraid - VERY afraid. And too many of them minded their own business, after all, if they were law abiding citizens, what did they have to fear, they thought.
The famous quote by Martin Niemöller illustrates it:
The bottom line is this - at no time during the entire Nazi regime were there enough people in Germany who could and would put up the resistance necessary to stop the Nazis. But there were always lots of people opposed to them, but intimidated into being silent.
We’re at the point where people who are white and wealthy are not being intimidated. They are not resisting. There will come a time where resistance is dangerous. Then it’s too late.
The white Democrat is how we got here... It was always a snake
They're not resisting because they profit from the regime. Same happened in Germany back then - industrialists were in favor of Hitler all the time because it meant no trade unions and a shitload of business from the state.
How do you expect us to stop it?
By not voting in Nazis. The people here are politically motivated and likely already voted for not-trunp, but did they volunteer, door knock, fund drive etc. We've all seen this coming for years. It's exhausting to constantly fight it. We need to, globally.
Unfortunately, many are disengaged and are not prioritising politics. People are avoiding difficult conversations with racist family members. People are not forcing their non Nazi representatives to close the loopholes that caused this.
Would I do different? I don't know. I hope so, but I can see how it's hard. I have a family member who is quite liberal and started expressing some racist views. I was quite taken aback and have only pushed a little. It was enough that they don't express then any more. But, could it be they just don't express then to me?