Do you think the Germans could have defeated the Nazis w/out outside help?

[helderheid]

Our situation in the USA is looking bleaker and bleaker. I mean, the media isn't even reporting that * has been spying before 9/11 when he said in his SOTU that if he had, we could have prevented 9/11. My husband came home and talked about the Republican wife who had a support the troops shirt and how she had "been asked to leave too". I'M the one who had to explain that Cindy wasn't asked to leave, but forced to, and she was arrested when the other one was not. "But CNN..." "CNN GOT IT WRONG."

So do you think without outside help, the Germans could have defeated the Nazis?

[ladjf]

1. no

[helderheid]

3. I was afraid of that

:scared:

[ladjf]

15. It was a good question that I hadn't thought of before.

The Republican regime will either collapse from it's own rotting processes or they will be taken down by outside forces. The Democrats don't seem to be up to the job of being an effective opposition party. However, we have some great people, just not enough of them.

If by November, the Dems can muster enough of a majority to override the rigged vote machine scams, we could regain the Senate and the House. In that case, thing could begin to shape up rapidly. Otherwise, we might be in for a very long and terrible experience.

[helderheid]

18. my thoughts exactly

[gunsaximbo]

2. No

The Germans (the Kaiser) gave all of their power - both political and militarily to the Nazi's. Not to mention the Germans LOVED Hitler for bringing them out of a terrible depression.

[Yupster]

22. The Kaiser???

I think you're confusing the Kaiser's handover of power to the Nazis to General Custer's attack on Pearl Harbor.

PS - when Hitler took power, the Kaiser was in his 15th year of quiet exile in Holland.

[Charlie Brown]

28. LOL!

Did that happen the same time Andrew Jackson landed at Normandy?

[AngryAmish]

52. With Bugs Bunny!

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[LoneDriver]

41. Actually Germany's gov't at the time was socialist

And the extremist parties Nazi and Communist fought it out in the streets, each trying to gain power. That's why the Nazi party had it's own private army, the SA.

[Kellanved]

44. Wow.

First the Kaiser, then the Socialists.

Amazing what one can learn here - it's like The History of the United States- as deducted by seeing "Gangs of New York".

[Fenris]

46. Lincoln was murdered by the Illuminati!

:eyes:

[asthmaticeog]

48. That was Washington, duh.

The real George Washington was quietly liquidated, and his place taken by Adam Weishaupt. :eyes:

God, that people on this site think they KNOW anything boggles my fucking mind.

[SOS]

51. A poster confused the Kaiser with Hindenburg

Rather than arrogantly insulting someone, why not offer the correct information?
Overall, the people on DU are very well informed. Far better than our reactionary counterparts.

[Yupster]

69. You really are right SOS

I should have corrected and moved on, or just moved on. I really do apologize.

I'm an old high school and college history teacher and history textbook author, and it just gets to me sometimes just how bad a job DU does generally on the subjects of history and economics.

Regardless of that, I shouldn't have criticized what may have been a young person with an interest in politics and history. There aren't enough of them around today. I sure don't want to be the one chasing any away.

[gunsaximbo]

76. I've dealt with Repugs that had more manners than you have

[gunsaximbo]

77. Thank you SOS

For coming to my defense. I didn't know what Hindenburg's title was and I was wrong. Oh well, no one is perfect err except for yupster.

[LoneDriver]

84. Yes, really

Keeping it simple, just for you.
And where do you get your history?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chancellor_of_Germany

Chancellors of the Weimar Republic (1919-1933)
Name Took Office Left Office Party

10 Philipp Scheidemann (Reichsministerpräsident) February 13, 1919 June 20, 1919 Social Democrats
11 Gustav Bauer (Reichskanzler since August 14) June 21, 1919 March 26, 1920 Social Democrats
12 Hermann Müller (1st term) March 27, 1920 June 8, 1920 Social Democrats
13 Konstantin Fehrenbach June 25, 1920 May 4, 1921 Centre
14 Joseph Wirth May 10, 1921 November 14, 1922 Centre
15 Wilhelm Cuno November 22, 1922 August 12, 1923
16 Gustav Stresemann August 13, 1923 November 30, 1923 People's Party
17 Wilhelm Marx (1st term) November 30, 1923 January 15, 1925 Centre
18 Hans Luther January 15, 1925 May 12, 1926
(17) Wilhelm Marx (2nd term) May 17, 1926 June 12, 1928 Centre
(12) Hermann Müller (2nd term) June 28, 1928 March 27, 1930 Social Democrats
19 Heinrich Brüning March 30, 1930 May 30, 1932 Centre
20 Franz von Papen June 1, 1932 November 17, 1932
21 Kurt von Schleicher December 4, 1932 January 28, 1933

Social Democrats, note the "social".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sturmabteilung

In Munich in the fall of 1920, Hitler himself created the Ordnertruppen; a body of muscular Nazis, ex-soldiers, and beer hall brawlers in order to protect his speeches and Nazi Party gatherings from Communist disruptions. It originally functioned as a group of bodyguards to enforce order at Nazi gatherings. It was shortly changed to Sportabteilung, a cover name meaning "Sports section," and came to be known by the initials SA. In late 1921, the name was changed to the final version: Sturmabteilung. Under their popular leader Ernst Röhm, the SA grew in importance within the Nazi power structure, eventually claiming thousands of members. In 1922, the NSDAP created a youth section, the Jugendbund, for young men between the ages of 14 and 18 years. Its successor, the Hitler Youth, remained under SA command until May 1932. The SA carried out numerous acts of violence against socialist groups throughout the 1920s, typically in minor street-fights called zusammenstösse ('collisions'). The SS eventually took over their original role.

[Kellanved]

86. Precisely

Hindenburg was no socialist, I don't know what gave you that idea.

As to the administrations:
Looking at your own post, you will notice that very few Social Democratic governments are on the list. Especially only one past 1921 and none after 1930.

As to the SA: all parties had paramilitary organizations. The SA was especially brutal, but until the 1930s not especially big.

[iamthebandfanman]

82. right

but the nazi's ran on the socialist platform of workers rights
which is why socialism has a bad name.

[MADem]

4. There wasn't sufficient will within the country

Anyone who could, who saw the writing on the wall, got the hell out. And there was a helluva lotta nationalism going on. The people who didn't like the situation from the get-go were in the minority, and when the rest of the bunch finally woke up and smelled the coffee, it was too late--power had already been consolidated, and the infrastructure was in place.

[helderheid]

5. is it too late for us?

[ToolTex]

9. Probably.

n/t

[MADem]

20. No, Hitler wasn't polling at 39 % when people started waking up

He had his equivalent of "terra!terra!terra!" -- outrage about how his country was the best and had been screwed over by bastards who NEEDED an asswhipping, and how they had historical rights to adjoining nations (sorta like Saddam), and a host of other grievances that appealed to the population, who were coming out of very hard times following the Great War --and for a while, if you ignored those pesky civil liberties abrogations and weren't a member of a persecuted minority, life was good. It's not accidental that a lot of bigwigs, like Joe Kennedy, Charles Lindbergh, even Prescott Bush, were quite charmed by the orderly, clean, attractive German cities and well-fed, wholesome looking ladies, and had no compunctions about meeting and greeting the country's leader.

[helderheid]

21. I'm beginning to think our choices are to get the fuck out or shut the

fuck up.

[MADem]

32. There's always the barricades

We did it during Vietnam, we can do it again, if need be. This isn't the first time we've had abuse of WH power, unfortunately...

[SnoopDog]

6. It is obvious the answer is no, however...

we have knowledge as to what happen in Germany - and we can fight it.

We have 300 million people to deal with. I think if anything we will have the USA's 2nd Civil War and more are for our Constitution than not.

[applegrove]

7. Not the same thing. Really. I get that it is culture of personalities and

neocons & GOP operatives are fascinated with propaganda and Hitler. But it isn't the same thing.

Though it is getting there for gays.

[msongs]

8. ummm...the germans WERE the nazis! wholeheartedly with very

much majority support the german people went along for the whole ride. except for those pesky commies and
trades unions and of course, gays and jews. Wanna bet the nazis were against gay marriage and gay civil
unions, just like.....

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[unblock]

11. uh, wrong.

hitler never actually got a majority during his rise to power. once he was a dictator, the people had no choice. historians generally agree that he had support of around 40% of the people. the rest of the people quickly learned that opposing hitler was met with violence, and so kept their mouths shut or even feigned support.

there was more german opposition than just the concentration camp victims, although the opposition couldn't figure out anything to do about it.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

27. Yes, by the time of the invasion of Poland (9/39), 120,000 Germans

were in prison as political opponents.

This is according to a book I read long ago called "German Resistance to Hitler." It also told how Hitler's generals tried to talk him out of invading other countries but were unsuccessful, and when push came to shove, they went along with his plans. None of them resisted actively or even passively (by resigning).

[WinkyDink]

61. Yeah, yeah. Just like now nobody ever voted for Nixon.

Give me a revisionist break.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

64. No, there really were 120,000 Germans in prison for political offenses

That's really not a large number compared to the whole population of 80 million at the time (0.15%), but it's not insignificant, either, considering that there were undoubtedly people who were anti-Nazi but either kept quiet or left the country.

[SOS]

43. Utterly false

Here are the results of the last free election in Germany prior to Hitlers takeover of power in 1933:

RUNOFF PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION
APRIL 1932

Hindenburg 53.0%
Hitler 36.8%
Thaelman 10.2%

The Social Democrats and the Communists got 63% to Hitler's 37%.

[Kellanved]

87. Hindenburg was no Social Democrat

In fact he was neither social, nor a Democrat. Nor a republican, for that matter.

Hindenburg ran without party affiliation, but was a staunch monarchist. He won in 1925 on a non-Democratic RW platform and shifted the balance of power from Parliament to the office of the President.

For his re-election he got the support of most democratic parties as the smaller of two evils. Even after his re-election, he lobbied for the banning of the Democratic Reichsbanner Schwarz-Rot-Gold at least as hard as for that of the Nazi SA and SS (although we all know that the move didn't last long).

[Ladyhawk]

10. After a certain point, no.

But we are not Germans and this is not Germany. BushCo may be Nazi-like but * is no Hitler. I think both were/are nuts, but at least Hitler had some intelligence and was a good public speaker. * is a propped-up puppet. Still, no matter how stupid the puppet looks, his minions continue to support him. :shrug: Without the puppet, the neocon movement will go on and that scares me. If Hitler had been taken out, Nazism may not have survived as long as it did.

This is all just stream-of-consciousness and I'm no political expert, so just take everything I say with a grain of salt.

I think more people "get it" here than did in Nazi Germany. We're also able to speak to one another more easily, at least for now. Things are tightening up by degrees so I'm not sure if we'll ever reach the needed breaking point. The Germans never did. Things got worse bit by bit, but there was never a galvanizing event. I'm afraid the same may happen here. We throw tissy fits over Alito, over the Sheehan incident, but we don't shut the fucker down, which is what needs to happen. We keep waiting for the 2002 election, or the 2004 election, or the 2006 election and we keep getting disappointed.

At least one thing needs to happen before 2006: exposure of (probable) election theft. I myself have gone back and forth as to whether or not I believed it really happened, so convincing others will be difficult. If it doesn't happen on TV in America, it just ain't real. :(

[helderheid]

14. thanks for this. The internet is a wonderful thing. By the way, I LOVE

your avatar!!

[ToolTex]

16. What country are you all in?

If it gets bad? They are listening to our phone calls, reading our e-mail. When it gets bad? Every damn one of us have been chilled in our conversations. We are all careful what we type, and communicate between the lines, because they are recording and reading, and may do who-knows-what to us in the future for our thinking and political positions. We used to call them the "thought police" and knew it was a joke. Now it is no longer a joke. They have thrown out the Constitution with the Bill of Rights, and we will not get them back without a lot of our lives. Probably millions. Hitler only held power from 1933 until 1945 - 12 years. And it didn't get really oppressive until the last six years. Bush is starting his sixth year!

[tigereye]

49. You do realize the massive amounts of data you are talking

about? The govt. really doesn't work that well. People should be worried about all the marketing info they give out to businesses so readily more than worrying about the government. The government can't even find Bin Laden, for god's sake.

[architect359]

57. Good points

Especially about the comment regarding Bin Laden however, in terms of actually data mining it is far more easier to do that at this time due to the advent of computers and apps like canivore. It is quite another thing to physically locate an individual or his entourage in the Afghan region. No one is needed anymore to cull through the vast amounts of data through the internet - that's what the fear is.

[tigereye]

66. I'll ask my husband the software guy

but am I correct in thinking that the govt really doesn't have enough resources, or even the best computers or organization, for that matter, to do this sort of thing? I think folks' paranoia in this department is misplaced.I suspect guys from Yale or MIT or even CMU might, as a side project, but..... But then again, I'm not a tech head, I only live with one. ;)

I would rather see my money spent finding scary folk like Bin Laden, than blowing up people in Iraq, filling Halliburton's coffers, and pushing a perhaps incompatible form of govt in a region where cultural views of govt. are radically different from out Western version, though. :hi:

[MADem]

33. Excellent point, and we are culturally diverse, unlike the Germans nt

[BiggJawn]

12. The Germans defeated the Nazis?

Sorry, but I've read about the so-called German "Resistance".

Coupla kids who lost their heads (literally!)for pamphleteering, a bunch of old men who sat around going "That Hilter is nuts!" "Ja, he is nuts." and a couple of attempts to blow the bastard up.

Danish schoolboys were more effective in their country, IMO.

[helderheid]

13. I didn't say they did - I asked if they could have

[BiggJawn]

35. And the answer is No.

[Swamp Rat]

17. Some of those kids also had kids.

http://www.jlrweb.com/whiterose/christoph.html

[helderheid]

19. fuck that is chilling

[BiggJawn]

36. That's one of them.

Killed for writing pamphlets.

For context, imagine that Gonzales just executed Kos, Bartcop and Will Pitt.

It'll happen some day soon, of that I have no doubt.

When a hill-billy Ditto-Monkey can write a LTTE and state that anyone who opposes Il Douche's illegal wiretaps is a traitor and should be "charged accordingly" (wonder if his wife told him how to spell "accordingly"?) and Ann-Thrax Coulter can call for the poisoning of Congress-Critters, how far from 1930's Germany can we be?

[TreasonousBastard]

23. Ladyhawk has it mostly right...

Germany in the 30's was still devastated after WWI and suffered much worse than we did during the Depression and its governemnt was considered a total failure. It also had a more homogenous population that accepted authority far more than we did. Hitler was the German answer to the possibility of a Communist takeover at a time when the country was at its lowest point, and few had any idea just what a deranged monster he really was until he had assumed total power.

We are not in nearly such a crisis now, nor are we so easily taken in by authority. Sure, things here are pretty bleak in many ways, but we've been through it all before and come out of it not much the worse for wear. From the Alien and Sedition Acts to the House Unamerican Activities Committee we've had assholes and ideologues trying to stick it to us and somehow it never stuck for long.

Talk to someone hassled by COINTELPRO or on one of Hoover's lists or the Hollywood blacklist and see if it's really so much worse now than it was back then.

This too shall pass, and we have to fight it like we always have-- not see defeat before the battle starts.

[helderheid]

25. I'm just trying to find out if our fight is realistic. I have a 3 year old

and a 5 year old. The thought of what could happen to them with this admin scares me shitless.

[TreasonousBastard]

34. A lot of things scare me shitless too, but...

sorryass administrations like this one aren't all that high on the list.

If I had small kids like that I would also be worried about their futures, but I would worry more about the world they will be living in and whether or not their hopes and dreams have the same possibilities mine had.

What worries me most about the future of the young'uns are the possibilities of environmental catastrophe and that the US seems to be on a relative decline compared to much of the rest of the world. It's not so much a question of which administration is in control, but how the entire country reacts to a decline in its living standards and international standing. My worst fear is we will be like a ferocious cornered beast and no administration will willingly let us go into decline. What they might do to avoid it could be terrifying.

PNAC has laid out its plans, and we know how bad they are, but what else could be waiting in the wings? Even from "our own" people?

[helderheid]

38. you make great points

[Yupster]

70. Argree T-Bastard

In three years Bush will be forgotten on his ranch and the new president will probably be either Hillary Clinton or John McCain, and either will be much better than Bush.

People always seem to tend to think they live in the worst of times. History showed there were far worse times than these.

As far as Hitler goes, within three months of Hitler becoming Chancellor he had been granted legal dictatorship through the Enabling Acts, had already opened Dachau (I think - have to check dates) and had arrested or murdered his political opponents.

The comparisons to Hitler really are too much.

If Bush were Hitler one thing's for sure. You wouldn't be able to say it on DU.

[tigereye]

50. thank you

for your use of reason! :)

[izzie]

24. At first yes. Hard to fight a police state and it got there fast.

--

[helderheid]

26. I'm going to bed but wanted to thank all of you for replying.

[Cleita]

29. If Hitler hadn't gotten megalomaniac, Nazi Germany

probably could have gone on for much longer. The Germans weren't bothered by it. They were accustomed to living under monarchies, which were totalitarian and military in nature. The people who were bothered, like the Jews kept disappearing and no one even in the free world gave a damn.

We aren't as homogenized as the Germans. I think our very diversity of race and ethnicities will be what saves us in the end. I mean when Hitler was in power for five years, no one was objecting to his government except some stray Germans in exile like Marlene Dietrich, who spoke up loudly about him but out of his reach.

[Yupster]

71. There have been many "What if" history books

written on the subject of what if Germany won WWII.

In my opinion the best is "Fatherland", but it's the book. The movie with Rutger Hauer was not nearly as good.

[Cleita]

73. The point I was making was that there probably wouldn't

have been WWII, in Europe anyway, if Hitler had stayed happy with Austria and Czechoslavokia. Of course the Russians might have tried to take advantage of the situation and we might have had WWII anyway, but this time we may have been allied with Germany.

:shrug:

[Yupster]

80. I think Germany would have to be assumed

to have taken the Polish Corridor and the Memelland. I don't think that could have been stopped short of war, but let's assume the Corridor could have been settled peacefully. Then it's possible there would have been no war.

What then?

I would agree with you that the Nazi Party's dictatorship would have been firmly entrenched. I guess the next important event would have been Hitler's death. I don't see how anyone else could have kept the same degree of power that Hitler kept.

I could see a de-facto Civil War or Cold War with groups like the Wehrmacht and SS fighting continuous turfwars, kind of like the worst years of the Roman Empires governments (The Year of Four Emperors for instance).

If someone like Goering or Hess took over I could see a Magna Carta type situation occuring where the Gauleiters or maybe even Reichstag would cooperate with the dictator only if he gave up more and more power.

It's an interesting question.

[Cleita]

81. Yes, it is. It could be fun just writing some scenarios

about how it would develop and come to an end. If Hitler was dictator more in the mold of Stalin he might have hung in there. I think though that he was mentally too unstable for the long haul of seeing it to the end. Even his act of suicide attests to that.

His whole economy was based on war, so as all wars must come to an end, and they do, he overreached his ambition and he had to come to an end. Too bad Bush hasn't been taught that lesson.

[Up2Late]

30. Hitler executed at least one person that I know of, for plotting...

...to kill him.

[Yupster]

72. Hundreds

including some of his top generals.

[Charlie Brown]

31. Sadly, most Germans were on some level implicit in Nazism

The only serious political opponents (Communists and SPD) were the first to be sent to concentration camps (then forced labor camps).

The NAZIs swept to victory in 1932 as the party that would bring back order and stability from the chaos of the Weimar years. They responded by banning all political parties and using an army of thugs (the stormtroopers, or SA) to enforce Nazism on all levels of society (workers unions, churches, business organizations). It became impossible to live as a German and not take part in NAZI proliferation on some level.

The Gestapo encouraged everyone to report suspected "anti-socials" and operated from the bottom-up.

The NAZI state WAS Germany by 1939, and it would not have imploded from within for quite a number of years. Had Hitler been a sane man, like Saddam, he could have stayed in power for the rest of his life. His lust for conquest and destruction led to his downfall, and the rest is history. The big lesson is not to let someone of that character into power to begin with, and the US appears to be a very slow learner.

[dryan]

37. What about the .....

Enabling Act....don't try to change history.

[SOS]

45. The Nazi Party was not swept to victory in 1932

They lost the election. It wasn't until 1933 that Hitler seized power, without benefit of any election, with the "Machtubernahme" (power takeover) in the Reichstag.
The Social Democrats trounced Hitler in 1932.

[Charlie Brown]

68. I was referring to the July 1932 Reichstag elections

the NAZIs won the greatest number of seats, which helped "legitimize" them to many Germans.

[Yupster]

75. In a parliamentary system

it's always a fight to say if you won or not.

Yes the NSDAP won the most seats in the Reichstag, but it was not a majority. That's just pretty normal in parliamentary systems.

Hitler's party did have more seats backing his Chancellorship than any of the previous five Chancellors had before him by a pretty wide margin. Still it was not nearly a majority.

I think some people are confusing the vote for President with the parliamentary elections.

While Hitler's Party (NSDAP) ran in each of the Reichstag (parliamentary) elections held every couple of years since the governments were so unstable, Hitler also ran against Hindenburg for President which was a much different post than Chancellor. The Chancellor did have the power to ask the leader of any party to try to form a majority government in the Reichstag, much like the Queen does in England.

Once Hindenburg died, Hitler merged the two offices into one.

[KyuzoGator]

40. Post-WWI Hyperinflation caused the rise of the Nazis.

And when people are given the choice of paying a weeks' wages for a loaf of bread and supporting a totalitarian dictator...sadly, most choose the latter.

[tigereye]

53. from what I have heard

Hitler was very good at "networking" with many of the people he later condemned - Communists, labor, etc. This is what my h was telling me, from a book he was reading. Hitler was a very, very good manipulator of pretty much everyone and that is partially how he consolidated his power.

[Vidar]

42. Not once they were entrenched, as bush is. Perhaps if

Hindenburg and the communists had joined forces early on, it they could have been ousted, but who knows.

[SOS]

47. The lesson

imo, is that liberals, democrats and socialists should never give an inch to right-wing megalomaniacs.
The Social Democrats thought they could "control" Hitler through the legislative branch.
Big mistake!
Potential dictators must be stopped before "1933". Hopefully our representatives in Congress are at least somewhat familiar with this awful history.

[Vidar]

83. Correct, of course.

[mdmc]

54. yes i do and thank you for this thread

I do think that the nazi movement would have eventually failed. In fact, all tyrants fail. Think of it... always. It was just a matter of time.
That being said, I believe the nazis may have still been running the show today without outside intervention.
The nazis would have fallen, as all tyrants fall. It might have taken 20 or 200 years, but their would have met their maker.

Bush, and our current neo-con movement will eventually fall. We cannot allow ourselves to compromise our faith, compassion, and well being in order to quicken their demise.

Be kind. Be compassionate. These tyrants will fall, will fail. Anger is only useful when it manifests in positive action.

Peace!

[RepublicanElephant]

55. i'm more afraid of an ignorant, weak-minded electorate than...

the monsters they vote into office.

[La Lioness Priyanka]

56. yes, initially

but not after hitler had solidified his power. and not with the multiple wars he was waging.

[Yupster]

78. To me the last chance was

the invasion of the USSR.

Once the war in Russia stalled, Germany was locked in a death struggle with the Russians. Even the soldiers and civilians who were anti-Nazi knew what would happen to their country if the Russians came, so at that point you weren't fighting for Hitler anymore if you ever were.

At that point you were fighting for your country's survival. I can understand that and in fact it's considered the largest number of rapes in the history of the world when the Russian army swept into Germany.

I think a similar theme can be seen in the south during the Civil War. There were many people in the south who were very much anti-secessionist, and they spoke forcefully against it. Yet once they were invaded they picked up their guns and fought right along with the secessionists. The south put an amazing 75 % of their adult white men in Confederate uniforms. That doesn't mean that anything like 75 % of the people supported secession.

I guess the best example of this would be Jubal Early who was a Virginia lawyer who was a delegate to the secession convention and spoke forcefully against secession and voted against it. But once the war started he put on his gray uniform and led one of Lee's divisions. His division got all the way to York Pennsylvania a few days before Gettysburg.

[raccoon]

58. I would hope so, but I really am not sure.

One thing that would've been in favor of those trying to overthrow Nazism is that it was such a cult of personality--Hitler's. If he'd died sooner than he did, who knows what would've happened?

We can call Hitler a monster, and I'm not saying he wasn't, but he had plenty of help. Plenty of people to run the concentration camps, and guard them, and they were by no means a bunch of psychos; just "good Germans." And there were lots more that KNEW what was going on but didn't care; it wasn't them in the camps. To be fair, some of them were probably terrified to even let on that they knew, and justifiably so.

I used to think how in the world could such a civilized county descend to such depths, how could they allow such a thing to happen. Now I know. And given certain circumstances, it could happen ANYWHERE. Very few people, I think, in ANY country would be courageous enough to join the resistance, or to hide Jews or help them to emigrate.

[Yupster]

79. Not to try to distract from your point, but

just a small point.

Most of the guards at Concentration Camps were not "good Germans."

The leaders for sure were, but the guards were more likely to be German allies such as Estonians, Latvians, etc. In fact, I don't know if you're old enough to rememeber, but during the seventies and eighties there were some immigration cases where Americans were fingered as having been concentration camp guards and their immigration cases became big news. If you remember any of them, they were never Germans. They were from Germany's allies in the war.

The "good Germans" were needed at the front.

[Silverhair]

59. Compare them to other totalitarian governments.

Totalitarian gov'ts that have been brought down from the inside are rare.

[WinkyDink]

60. When were "the Germans" anti-Nazi?

We didn't help THE GERMANS defeat the Nazis; we defeated GERMANY in toto. Many Europeans greeted our troops with tears of joy and happiness; somehow I don't recall hearing of or seeing photos of Germans in this group (unless you mean the civilians we forced to walk through Dachau et al. to see what they had wrought?).

[helderheid]

62. But many Germans were not supportive of the Nazis. That was my point.

[WinkyDink]

63. They weren't? Yes, they were, says this new book.

"A well-respected German historian has a radical new theory to explain a nagging question: Why did average Germans so heartily support the Nazis and Third Reich? Hitler, says Goetz Aly, was a "feel good dictator," a leader who not only made Germans feel important, but also made sure they were well cared-for by the state."
See: http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,347726,00.html

[Tsiyu]

65. No, but the circumstances are different

The sizes of the two countries as one example.

There was a carefully crafted machine, oiled with violence and bigotry, that propelled Hitler to a position of leadership - as in our own nation - but it is much harder to inspire fear in such a large population as ours. This machine feeds off fear.

Secondly, this administration is comprised of the sons of the wealthy - frat boys of the worst sort - who believe by birth they are ENTITLED to power. They don't actually like working for a living, but they try to dress the part.

The Iraq war is a fine example. Their prejudice and hatred and greed compelled them to construct elaborate plans for getting into Iraq - with lies, manipulation and abuse of power - but the sons of bitches couldn't take five minutes to scribble out a plan to keep order once they were there.

Katrina is another example. Although I have no doubt that the suffering of coastal people was orchestrated - by denying free and immediate assistance to people in favor of letting **'s contractor friends make money off of the tragedy - this is the only part of the post-Katrina plan they handled well. From all reports, nobody in this administration actually wanted to do any meaningful amount of work. But they did manage to eat steak dinners, strum guitars and go shopping for clothes.

So I don't fear a complete crackdown on dissent as others here might, simply because these are lazy, drunk, overprivileged idiots who only want what they want. They won't make any special effort to work at suppressing dissent. All of their successes here will be gimmes.

Look at Columbine. The SWAT team or whoever was sent to handle the shootings remained outside cowering along a wall. They didn't even have the cajones to storm the school. Private contractors - who might be called upon to attack the AMerican people ( the majority in the military will not do this, I promise you) are just people like their leaders - looking for easy money. There are too many Americans with weapons to make their jobs "easy money" jobs.

And woe to any Repuke who tries to take away the people's weapons.

Anyhoo, we have numbers on our side, and GOOD on our side, and let's hope those win in the end.

[Swamp Rat]

85. Oi amor!

:hug:

"And woe to any Repuke who tries to take away the people's weapons." - and THAT day is coming. *Gun owners beware!* Burn your NRA cards and hide your weapons!

[abex]

67. maybe, but the nazis had outside help from americans like

the Bush family, Henry Ford, the head of IBM, the Alcoa company and so on.

[upi402]

74. no chance at all