Reply #29: 'nazi sickness' [View All]

[rman]

I'd want to distinguish between on the one hand the sickness of people in positions of power who either truely believed in Nazism or helped to enable it because it suited their goals of ever obtaining more wealth and power, and on the other hand the German population who were along for the ride as much as many Americans today are along for the ride in Bush's America. Their 'sin' if you can call it that, was to be intimidated by the Big Stick and to a lesser degree to be misguided by the Big Lie.
Imo the sickness of the real Nazis was simply that they were sociopaths and criminals.

I wouldn't call it a "social sickness" because i don't think that all of German society was 'infected' in the same way.

I think it is pretty well known that circumstances in post WW-1 Germany were such that it was open to some sort of power grab. Germany was in shambles economically because it had to pay for all damages it had caused during WW1, and the established leadership didn't appear to know very well what to do about it.

Also Germany was not alone in this sickness. It is rather striking that in a relatively short time-span some form of Despotism reared its head in several European nations, besides Germany most notably Italy (Mussolini) and Spain (Franco). Even in the UK there was a Fascist movement but it didn't take hold.