History repeating itself

[Guno צְבִי]

Nazi Germany had admirers among American religious leaders – and white supremacy fueled their support

Each September marks the anniversary of Nazi Germany’s Nuremberg Laws, whose passage in 1935 stripped Jews of their German citizenship and banned “race-mixing” between Jews and other Germans.

Eighty-eight years later, the United States is facing rising antisemitism and white supremacist ideology – including two neo-Nazi demonstrations in Florida in September 2023 alone.

The Nuremberg Laws were a critical juncture on the Third Reich’s path toward bringing about “the full-scale creation of a racist state … on the road to the Holocaust,” according to legal historian James Whitman. Yet across the Atlantic, many Americans were unconcerned, and even admiring – including some religious leaders.

https://news.yahoo.com/nazi-germany-had-admirers-among-123015538.html


An excellent read

 

[Guno צְבִי]

Although 1935 is nearly a century behind us, U.S. politics has been awash in comparisons to the Third Reich for several years now. Former President Donald Trump recently compared his indictments to Nazi Germany, obfuscating the mass atrocities of Hitler’s regime.

But such comparisons do prompt reflection on what drove American support for Nazi Germany in the 1930s, as Trump campaigns with an authoritarian vision for his second term, and as white nationalism remains a major aspect of U.S. politics.

In 1935, Europe was not at war, and concern about mass killings would have seemed alarmist. Yet just a few years later, a global conflagration began. On the anniversary of the Nuremberg Laws, what motivated American support for Hitler’s authoritarianism in the 1930s still resonates today.

 

[martin]

The linked article focuses on issues mainly involving religion then and now. Even more than religion, social unrest was at forefront in the 1930's arising from the Depression and in Germany exacerbated by discontent over terms of the Armistice, and social unrest again is at the forefront, this time owing at least in part (mainly in my opinion) to the disconnects effected by social media. The results are similar to those in the 30's with the very large difference that then the discontents that fueled political radicalism involved a much smaller percentage of the population. People today have driven themselves into corners, opposing and disliking each other. The daily newspaper used to be a common bond. No more. Even television was a common bond. When my parents were growing up there were three channels, everyone watched almost the same shows. There was an American sense of community. It has disappeared. Before us now seems a kind of abyss, different from the one leading to 1939 but still an abyss.