I grew up hating the Germans from all the war films that were constantly on TV. Servicemen were quite vocal about Germans. Accounts of concentation camp survivors filled the newspapers and TVs. It has diminished so much, Hitler was not Satan. He was a German colonoel during WWI and a mediocre painter. Art schools rejected him.
Americans and the British feel so mug, Never here. I believed that until I was a student at Columbia. Professors in field after field told us what a cultural paradise Germany was. Generations of academics had to study at the prestigious medival universities in Germany, which were considered far better than Oxford or Cambridge. My confirmation sponsor and instructor studied there. It was the center of Western civilization. Many people took no h eed when the Nazis first became prominent. Certainly, such a civilized country would not tolerate the Nazis being a mainstream party. People laughed.
My confirmation sponsor, Canon West, was a good student studying theology in Germany. He told us it was inconceivable to him that Germans would ever support such a buffoon. Out of curiosity, he decided to attend the first Nazi rally at Nuremberg to see for himself. He told us it was the worst night of his life. Evil was palpable. He never sensed evil that way before the rally. Leaving the rally at midpoint, he literally grabbed his passport and was on the next plane back to the US. He found words could not convey the horror of that night. No German degree for him. His main point was to warn young people traveling abroad to always maintain control over our passports. Something I did not do. I left one country in a mad rush. Fortunately, the landlady had it in her hand. I just physically overpowed her and used my heavy duffel bag as a weapon.
Hitler was human. The idea is to learn from what happened. When Santorum knocks education or women's reproductive rights are challenged, I feel a special duty to stop them. If this country believed in what it preaches, my mom would have completed high schoool.
I was always troubled by why the Jews did not resist on a massive scale. It seemed awkward to ask Jews I knew. Finally, I found an expert. She told me that the Nazis did not run a normal society and suddenly grab Jews into concentration camps. Rather, a long process of dehumanization occurred. First, they were restricted in small measures. They were outraged but said it could be worse. A long series of further actions dehumanizing the Jews led the Jews to ultimately walk docilely into the gas chambers.
It can happen here. I see the extreme right, particularly those who hate Obama but can't articulate any reasons, and the extreme left, who often act as fascists. Obama had a fight with leftists fascists.
