Talk about confronting stuff........

[Sixpack]

From http://www.thirdreich.net/Thought_They_Were_Free.html

How and why "decent men" became Nazis. Written by an American journalist of German\Jewish descent. Mr. Mayer provides a fascinating window into the lives, thoughts and emotions of a people caught up in the rush of the Nazi movement.

They thought they were free.

'What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter'

[Abraham]

Kind of scary quote...

[Skybird]

I assume you don't have parallels to the present on your mind, not even by chance, of course?

[Sir Big Jugs]

Beware that Gizzmoe has been angry over posting links to this website before, removing posts and locking threads.

[Gizzmoe]

Originally Posted by ChokerSandwich

Beware that Gizzmoe has been angry over posting links to this website before, removing posts and locking threads.

No, that wasn´t this website. Besides that, I don´t moderate this forum.

[Abraham]

I am moderating this forum and I have said that posters can be responsable for linked articles, if their content should require taking some distance according to forum rules. But I find nothing in the linked article offending. A journalist writes about the question how decent men became Nazi's. This is part of the dialogue that could be a lesson to all, especially ourselves, because if you always point to others, you deny yourself of any responsability:

"Your "little men," your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemoller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing: and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something - but then it was too late."

[bradclark1]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I assume you don't have parallels to the present on your mind, not even by chance, of course?

I knew before I finished reading that paragraph that you would have a comment like this. :hmm:
Pity you also happen to be right.