Aunt Eef
Bruce Lawson ✅ ♫ ♿ ✌️♂️✊“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
Martina Neumayer@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.
Amro has been@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
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 2/n I remember exactly what my parents and grandparents have been told us at home about those scary times. They lived there in those times. There was no choice. Back then was only: "you're with us or against us. Nothing else. Nobody cared what political parties were, what they said, what they planned, etc. People were only interested in whether they would survive another day, week, month. Whether they would somehow survive this nightmare they already had due the depression from America.
@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.
Lord Caramac the Clueless, KSC@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.
Kevin Karhan 
@LordCaramac @MartinaNeumayer @brucelawson nodds in agreement
Whereas #workers were well entrenched in #SPD & #KPD instead.
ProScience 🇪🇺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.
DoctorG ♀️🏳️🌈@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.
3bomc@brucelawson
"Nobody cares about their motives anymore."
That is precisely why we will have to live it again and again.
"Nobody cares about their motives anymore."
That is precisely why we will have to live it again and again.
Sam T GerbI 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.
slotrak@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.
New to Mastadon, so not sure what causes a thread to split.
Below is relevant if you missed:
@gerb_sam I agree with all of that. Nevertheless, his cult will not suddenly come to their senses. The evidence available now is unassailable, clear and direct proof of law breaking, but they simply deny it exists. He could,, as he foretold, shoot someone on 5th Avenue in NYC, and the MAGA world would not lose a single adherent.
The cult may never change their mind. However, given the popular vote, I find it hard to believe all voting for him are really part of the "cult".
I think many simply disagreed with "identity politics" and are not informed about his stated intent and its implications, or who benefits.
Many also don't know meeting all his campaign promises is infeasible w/o sparking more inflation (or worse economically).
If term 2 is as bad as we think, we'll need those same people on our side.
Icono ClastMy 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.
Meercat ✅
@brucelawson well said
Trump & Epstein: Biz partners.@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. 😒
Thoralf Will 🇺🇦🇮🇱🇹🇼@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.)
goesselgold@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.
John Caveney woke is me🛠️@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.
Juho MäntysaloSocialism in German context refers to Bismarck's policies of keeping the people away from communism ("socialism" in marxist sense came later).
Ratsnake Games 🔞@brucelawson Nice quote but the actual word is "Mitläufer".
BakersRelay
Aquarius
@brucelawson You really meant Americans who joined MAGA.
I usually see this joke attributed to Germans, which makes a bit more sense, as research into reasons why people joined nazi party led to Great Man Theory being replaced by social history.
@iju @brucelawson Joke? It isn't a joke. It's an observation.
Well, that's worse, as the person quoted must have been observing a group of non-historians. Doing so and somehow concluding them to be professionals is...an achievement, shall we say.
Mikalai@brucelawson
Of course, this is a rhethorical corner. If you use it, please explain what happened with Sanders compaign in 2016. Bruce, you imply they are nazis?
#sanders2016
Of course, this is a rhethorical corner. If you use it, please explain what happened with Sanders compaign in 2016. Bruce, you imply they are nazis?
#sanders2016
octoturt
xs4me2