Talked with an old friend last night, who grew up under Hitler....

[kentuck]

Her daughter and son-in-law have been good friends of my wife and I for many years. Her brothers were in the Luftwaffe. She married an Hispanic soldier and moved to America after the war. She is amazed that people cannot see the similarities between America and Germany pre-WWII. The use of patriotism, nationalism, and religion to further the right-wing agenda. "It's very scary", she said.

I know that people are encouraged not to make such comparisons because it makes us look like "left-wing kooks" but when it comes from someone like my good friend, I have to take notice.

[0rganism]

1. What does she recommend we do?

If she could go back in time 70 years with the knowledge she has now, what would she have done?

[kentuck]

5. She is as lost as the rest of us...

She simply cannot believe Americans would be so gullible and did not learn anything from that time.

[0rganism]

9. Denial is a human problem

Americans are every bit as gullible as humans ever were. I think, like the people of the Weimar Republic in the wake of WWI, we (speaking for society as a whole) were seeking some kind of national redemption from the embarrassments of our star-crossed "police action" in Vietnam; the 9/11 attacks catalyzed widely-held nationalist and racist sentiments already widespread among the population into a resolve for unilateral action. That this repetition is exactly the opposite of reversing the Vietnam-era failures is ironic evidence of how deeply enshrouded in denial we are.

We cannot see the similarities. Our selective memories are not accidental, they are both natural and actively encouraged by administration propaganda.

[AuntiBush]

74. Vulnerable from Shock after 9/11 gave plenty to Evil Opportunists!

Sadly, the Ultra-Neo-Fascist-Mongrels hit us while our irons were severely hot after 9/11. Some call it PTSS on the most grandest of scales.

I call it abusive beyond belief.

[merh]

2. Don't you remember elf's posts before the election?

I don't know whatever happened to elf.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=1791526

[Pacifist Patriot]

3. I've been reading quite a few books written circa...

1935-1945 and continue to be blown away by the historical and psychological comparisons. I'm not quite sure what to do about it, but I sat there and cheered when I watched my tape of C-SPAN covering the Conyer's Free Press hearing.

[Imagine My Surprise]

36. Check out the kewl documentary...Television Under the Swatzika...

talk about similarities!

[stellanoir]

4. An elderly woman I met last winter

who was formerly from Paris, essentially said the same thing. She had lost her husband several years ago. He had been interned by the Nazi's during WWII. I offerred her my sincerest condolences. She refuted them by saying that it was far better that he was gone. She said he would be mortified and sickened by what has happened in this country over the past several years. She was writing a book about life under Nazi occupation.

Also, when I heard Joseph Wilson speak last summer, he said he would hear the same thing all around the country from those who had formerly lived under totalitarian regimes. They said, "You won't recognize it's happening. . .until it's too late."

[Mythsaje]

6. A lot of people

are recognizing it. Unfortunately, too many of influence are throwing in with the party line.

The rest of us are shouting into the wind, being accused of paranoia.

Funny, I don't FEEL paranoid. Hell, I'd rather be wrong about this than find that I'm right.

[barb162]

11. tyranny of the majority

Personally I think this country is going down. There are too many people for bush and too many other people who just go along and don't care that much.

[FreedomAngel82]

47. Yep

Whenever I've tried telling people about the comparissons of Bush/Hitler
I get called a consperiacy theorists or something. I've also been told if you bring Hitler into the conversation's you're making your argument weak. Ha! Not if it's true! I remember when I first came to the realization of the comparission's it blew my mind. Some people say he'll be gone in 2008. I only wonder.... :\ Call me paranoid but with these people sometimes you have to think outside the box.

[PATRICK]

66. Until it's too late

Just thought though that the "blindness" the sidelong preoccupation with American "paradise" is broad enough to swallow the 'fascism" demon. The same denial between the wars was due to having survived WWI and a surface pacifism blanketing over the grim recovery from the Depression.

We can't get Democrat hard nosed pols and their focused advisers cognizant of simple facts necessary to their survival.

can't get the news to do its GD job on anything.

Can't raise a scintilla of reaction on the march of global extinction and climate change.

Can't move anything an inch as the lemmings keep pouring toward the very visible cliff.

It's bigger than any one disease. It is a vulnerability as bad as the disease itself and this ostrich "innocence" must end forever or we will.

[HockeyMom]

7. I knew two Germans back in the 1970s

who fled Nazi Germany in 1938. Spent many a long hour talking to them about what life was like under Hitler and the Nazis.

Yes, I can see the signs too.

[peacetalksforall]

8. I think making comparisons is fully justified. Critics of making

comparisions immediately jump to the prisons....

We need to remind them that the comparison parallel each other in the days LEADING UP TO the rounding up, transporting, killing, using as slaves and guinea pigs.

There ia an exact parallel in propaganda and build up of being spyed on by the government and the hints that we should spy on each other.

[FreedomAngel82]

48. That's what worries me

It's all the same. Very scary and creepy. We all know Bush's grandfather was a Nazi. I saw a really good film that talks about support in America for the Nazi's but I can't remember the name of it now. I think it was an Alex Jones film on the 2004 election. But it's very scary indeed and makes me wonder if they can go so far to do something like that. :scared: I know about the Japaneses-Americans and them being put in camps. None of them were killed were they? I've never read or seen anything about killings with that. Just overly paranoid.

[eallen]

10. There's not yet an Adolf.

Those of you who mistake Dubya as having that potential seriously overestimate him. He will shuffle off the political stage in three and a half years, having done immeasurable harm to this nation. But then gone.

[dhinojosa]

35. I wonder if the people considered Hitler as the same in the 30's

How many times have you told yourself about Bush, "He won't go that far", only to be surprised by his actions that follow.

[PassingFair]

46. Adolfs are a dime a dozen.

What is similar is a stupid, greedy, flumoxed nation ready, willing and able to take what is not theirs, to kill whatever stands in their way, and to feel superior whilst doing so.

Everytime I feel it cannot get worse, it does.

[uppityperson]

60. Exactly. It's not just the leader, but the nation

Is the nation, are the people, ready to bury its head in the sand, to pretend it does not know all the bad things that are happening and to hope that they are the ones on the superior side?

[eallen]

70. I agree: it's not JUST the leader. But it doesn't happen without one.

[tavalon]

82. Yep, without Cheney at the helm

this never would have been able to happen.

[Horse with no Name]

58. I think you are right and wrong.

Dubya is too stupid.
However, Cheney is the closest thing to evil I have ever seen with my own eyes.
Didn't we hear about Cheney 2008?

[tavalon]

81. Sorry to break it to you

but he's the figurehead. Even we here at DU get it wrong when we revile the moron. The moron is put at the forefront for a reason - so that those who are running this nation into the ground can do it undisturbed and unobserved. Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rove and a number of other neocons are running the show and since they've got the voting system fully rigged now, they will put their next figurehead up (Jeb if he's willing to be willfully stupid) and continue.

Unless people can understand that and find a way to remove the whole cancerous thing, our country is over and done with.

[BigBearJohn]

12. I have seen these parallels for a long time now.

People feel helpless and paralyzed, as if there is nothing they can
do -- leaving people with a feeling of apathy. We are not yet at the
point where we are helpless. We STILL can organize and march on
Washington en masse. We still can buy air time, magazine time,
billboard space, ads on radio and tv. We can send MILLIONS of emails
to our representatives, news outlets and letters to the editors.
If you believe there is nothing you can do, than the game is over.

Please don't let complacency be the death of our freedom.

[RBHam]

13. Reichstag Fire = 9-11

Simple.

[BrklynLiberal]

14. Not saying it does not make it not true. We are about as close to living

under a Fascist government as we can be without actually being there.
We are teetering on the edge. If looks like Fascism, smells like Fascism, and sounds like Fascism just because you don't call it Fascism does that make it NOT Fascism?

Remember this....
"First they came for the Communists, but I was not a Communist so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Socialists and the Trade Unionists, but I was neither, so I did not speak out.
Then they came for the Jews, but I was not a Jew so I did not speak out.
And when they came for me, there was no one left to speak out for me."
Martin Niemoller

EVIL PREVAILS WHEN GOOD MEN DO NOTHING

[Sapphire Blue]

21. Then They Came for Me - an updated version

Then They Came for Me

by Stephen F. Rohde, Esq.


First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.

Then they came to detain immigrants indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.

Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.

Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.

Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.

Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't speak up because I had stopped participating in any groups.

Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up because...... I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me....... and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer and President of the ACLU of Southern California, is indebted to the inspiration of Rev. Martin Niemoller (1937).

http://www.janrainwater.com/htdocs/Rohde.htm

[manic expression]

39. Very true...

It does leave out Gays, a group that is probably the next to be seriously targeted.

[Horse with no Name]

59. I fear that also

The trial run will be on gays.

[megatherium]

69. I don't think that's what's going to happen.

This country passed through a very perilous time in the mid 1980s. It was much tougher for the gay community then. Human rights gains were being overturned, the Supreme Court upheld sodomy laws, and the government was virtually ignoring a terrifying epidemic that struck gay men disproportionately. (Reagan gets blamed for this but his wasn't a real hands-on kind of a leader -- the power structure needs stupid presidents because the president has enough power to do real damage to the corporations if he has enough will. The real blame goes to certain of his aides, such as Gary Bauer. Bauer knew exactly what was going on and approved of it.) While the AIDS epidemic gathered strength exponentially, there were serious calls for quarantines. William F. Buckley Jr. called for tattooing the buttocks of HIV+ gay men to warn their sexual partners. But this country passed a test: The test was whether to subject the entire population to HIV testing. This would have led to quarantines. Death camps. (Cuba actually did this. No HIV problem.) The government, even the despicable Reagan administration, decided not to do that.

Twenty years later, the visibility and acceptance of gay people is far higher. I know any number of people who are conservative, who don't believe homosexuality is moral, but who accept their gay relatives and friends. These people would recoil in horror if there ever were an attempt to round up the gays. If the government were to try that, it would be making a critical mistake.

[tavalon]

83. Next?

It's already well on it's way. Haven't you noticed?

[radar]

15. A timeline at Jewish Virtual Library...

...From 1932-1945 shows stuff that doesn't usually make the public debate; switch the word "Jew" with "Homosexual" in a few entries and the persecution & discrimanation by the gov't looks familiar.

Jews no longer are entitled to health insurance.
Defense Law: “Aryan heritage” as a prerequisite for military duty. During the summer “Jews Not Wanted” posters start to appear
Removal of many Jewish civil service employees
Race theory in German schools.

Chronology of Jewish Persecution
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/chron.html

[indigo]

23. You might be interested in this from the Holocaust Memorial Museum

http://www.holocaust-trc.org/homosx.htm

No word switching needed.

[bvar22]

16. For a good time, read this:

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm

"To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will.

Rather than the government being run by multiple parties in a pluralistic, democratic fashion, one single party sought total control. Emulating a technique also used by Stalin, but as ancient as Rome, the Party used the power of its influence on the government to take over all government functions, hand out government favors, and reward Party contributors with government positions and contracts."

[FreedomAngel82]

49. That's what Rove wants

Rove wants our country to be a one-party nation. The republican party. Why else have they been trying to get rid of democrats at least since Kennedy? Why else would Rove go so far to smear people so bad like Gore and especially Kerry?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

17. And I know someone who lived in Argentina under the junta

who says that the warning signs of dictatorship are here.

I guess more Americans need to read more history or get acquainted with people from other countries, neither of which they are inclined to do, sad to say.

[dddem]

18. Just this morning I saw an HBO documentary called Paragraph 175.

It was about what happened to gay men during Hitler's regime. There were a couple of times when people spoke of what was happening and I said to my husband "did you hear that? It sounds like the Patriot act,". More than once I saw some disturbing similarities.

[bluedonkey]

79. Paragraph 175

Was the article in the law that made homosexuality a crime punishable by jail.It was not taken down until '68 or '69.It was one of the first times I got to cast a vote!I remember it well,cause I had a nasty argument with my father about it.He called me an Anarchist and I told him if getting rid of this fucked up law makes me an anarchist then I'll be proud to be one!I moved in with my gay friends a week later.

[Mairead]

19. "Holocaust survivor abandoning US, returning to Germany"

http://justicefornone.com/article.php?story=20050527204356114&query=survivor

One of our neighbors is moving. I've been in this neighborhood for about six years now, but didn't really know them very well at all - just waves and nods, mostly.

So I heard the moving van pull up this morning. When I got home this evening I happened to spy my neighbor (he's like 85 years old - I don't know exactly, but he's old, talks and moves very slowly) standing on the sidewalk next to the van. I walked over and shook his hand, and we started talking. I asked him where he was moving, and he said, "Back to Germany."

I had been stationed in Germany for two years while in the military, so I lit up, and commented about how beautiful the country was, and inquired if he was going back because he missed it.

"No," he answered me. "I'm going back because I've seen this before." He then commenced to explain that when he was a kid, he watched with his family in fear as Hitler's government committed atrocity after atrocity, and no one was willing to say anything. He said the news refused to question the government, and the ones who did were not in the newspaper business much longer. He said good neighbors, people he had known all his life, turned against his family and other Jews, grabbing on to the hate and superiority "as if they were starved for it" (his words).

[FreedomAngel82]

50. Oh wow

How ironic. Moving back to Germany to escape another Hitler. I hope he's not afraid anymore and can live peacefully.

[sarcasmo]

65. Wow, if that story doesn't wake you up nothing will.

[Cleita]

20. I don't listen to what even some left wingers say about not

comparing our government to Nazis. It's very Nazi of them to say this. Nazis wouldn't let their government and glorious Fuhrer be criticized either.

If it looks like a Nazi and it acts like a Nazi, chances are it's a Nazi.

On edit: The big difference is that the German military were disciplined and had leadership. Our guys, God love them, are flung out there to fend for themselves. The Pentagon under Rumsfeld is in disarray.

[Karenina]

25. We're still trying to get folks to catch up

with the concept that if it LOOKS like a duck, got FEATHERS like a duck,
got FEET like a duck, WADDLES like a duck, SWIMS like a duck and QUACKS like a duck, it's prolly... :shrug:

Meanwhile these *assholes are setting the stage to start droppin' BIG nukes... :SIGH: They've ALREADY set off some "little" ones. How long will it take????

[Cleita]

27. If they start a nuclear war, the world is doomed.

I wish some sovereign nations would wake up to this and maybe tell King George to cut it out. It would be nice if China put an embargo on us. It seems that 90% of what we buy comes from Asia. The economy would grind to a halt. This would get the stupid White House people's attention. IMHO

[Karenina]

33. Well, Mother Earth herself

got along without us
before she met us
gonna get along without us now... :D

You know that old joke:

Planet A: Haven't seen you in eons! How ya be?
Planet B: A little down. Gotta BAD CASE of Homo Sapiens...
Planet A: Don't worry, they go away.

Those folks done took over the White House live in another realm. Only thing anyone needs to know is THEY DON'T GIVE A SHIT. Unimpeded, they WILL go NUKULAR.

It was leather jacket weather today here in Western Yurp...

[kentuck]

29. But the civilian police (soldiers) have tazers...

and they are pretty frightening. We have one of the most organized police states in the world - we just don't recognize it as such.

[Cleita]

30. Mebbe we ought to get them on our side for the revolution

which I have no doubt will happen, if we don't rid ourselves of the vermin first.

[FreedomAngel82]

51. With here

what will worry me even more is when the police becomes the military and the military becomes the police. That's a huge sign of a dictaorship. Anybody have anything with that to report? Only thing I've heard of the police being like a military is at protests like the one not long ago at Halliburton.

[Raksha]

22. One of my cyber-friends is a German WWII veteran.

He tells me the same thing. "Same slogans, different names."

[ElkHunter]

24. I am one of those that thinks it's over the top...

...to compare the Bushies and the GOP to nazis. To do so, in my opinion, is to diminish the unspeakable horror of Hitler and the nazi regime. However, with that said, I do believe that the predominant Republican ideology today is fascist at its' core. But the contemporary fascism in the GOP is more akin to Franco than Hitler. While it may be unfair to compare Bushies to nazis the threat they pose to freedom is real nonetheless.

[kentuck]

31. Hitler and the Nazis were not a horror at first...

Only when they were able to grasp total control, over the military, the press, and the propaganda. That comes first. The horror comes later. If you're saying it is impossible, you are entitled to that opinion. People ar telling America to be cautious. It can happen here.

[radar]

34. They've got a nice start...

...Treating prisoners & suspected terrorists at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Afghanistan, (AND outsourcing!!!) worse than dogs.

The religious right having favored status with the admin. and Congress leaders.

* Personally, I imagine the analogy with Hitler is so popular 'cause his rule is the most famous of those to successfully use propoganda, religion, national pride for control of a whole country. Getting the majority to keep quiet while a minority is abused. Even before the war starts...

Parents let their young sons go & die for Hitler as late as April '45.
http://histclo.hispeed.com/youth/youth/org/nat/hitler/hitlerhwy.htm

[FreedomAngel82]

53. They are so little

Oh wow. How little they are. The Hitler Youth rally's are scary to watch too. Their eyes are all in a glow and they're happy and cheering him on. Hitler's idealistic world for Germany was blonde hair and blue eyes.
Everybody else be damned.

[davekriss]

43. Yes, Franco, or Mussolini, but not Hitler (n/t)

[donheld]

84. Franco, Mussolini, Hitler, Pinochet, Pol Pot, Bush The name doesn't matter

It doesn't matter what the name is, it's their ideals, goals, etc that are what we need to warn against.

[preciousdove]

45. They are over the top...

My cousin who helped coordinate relief efforts for the Kobe earthquake, her husband, a Yemeni geologist was picked up in the sweep post 911. Three separate courts have told the Justice Department they have no evidence, no cause to hold him. He is in a hell-hole of a prison. He was a hands on father, totally nonpolitical. He is being brutalized. They took his children from his wife on bogus charges to make her testify against him and put them in black Baptist family where they were physically punished for not eating pork. She has them back but they lost every penny and live in fear every day. He is still being held. By the grace of God this slender, meek man is alive in the brutal US prison system. It is not as bad?

If you look at Dr Michael Osterholm's book he advocates rationing medicines now and wit holding them in the event of an epidemic along political lines. It is not as bad?

The laws are in place they just have not used them yet. They torture prisoners, lie to the UN and the people, take away our recourse in the press, the courts and the streets. It is not as bad?

So we wait until they murder millions before we speak the ugly truth about who they are an what they are planning. Why?

[bvar22]

62. Comparisons are NOT over the top.

To EQUATE bush* and Hitler IS over the top, but no one here is saying they are equivalent. COMPARISONS are ALWAYS valid...
Something is either like something else or it isn't. HOW MUCH is one thing like another???


Looking at the ways our current government and culture IS LIKE the government and culture in Germany in the 1930's is a useful exercise. You can also examine HOW they are different.

For a good comparison of the conditions in Germany in the 30's to the current situation in the US, go here and read:
When Democracy Failed---Thom Hartmann
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0222-22.htm

[preciousdove]

78. THEY not comparrisons are over the top n/t

1

[FreedomAngel82]

52. Then you haven't looked hard enough

Watch the RNC convention. Watch a Hitler rally. Do you see any differences? Look at their policies. Look at the Patriot Act and then look at the Enabling Act. Look. It's there. You just have to trust your eyes and not so much your head sometimes. I didn't want to believe it either but as I looked more it's there.

[BiggJawn]

73. Can I check back with you after Bush kills HIS 6,000,000?

"... To do so, in my opinion, is to diminish the unspeakable horror of Hitler and the nazi regime."

Would you consider that it does not diminish the "horror of Hitler" so much as it ELEVATES the horror that WILL be Bush?

Of course, neither of us will be here. We'll be amongst the next 6,000,000...

[oxbow]

26. I wish she would speak out more

wouldn't it be great if we could get an ad or airtime for your friend? People might think we're conspiracy nuts, but her they'll have a harder time smearing

[fedsron2us]

28. Here is a link to a list of the 14 characteristics of fascism

You may find it enlightening.

The current US government meets too many of the criteria for my liking.

http://www.secularhumanism.org/library/fi/britt_23_2.htm

[killbotfactory]

32. people forget that the Nazi's were just people

they weren't the devil incarnate. They were misguided ideologues who thought the ends justified the means, and the results were horrifying and disastrous.

[FreedomAngel82]

54. And another thing

is Hitler controlled the media and he went after the courts just like Bush. He wanted people who would rule in his favor, just like Bush. The court system battle Bush is doing now is in the same time line as Hitler. Everything Bush is doing matches up perfectly with Hitler's beginnings. Have you ever seen any of Hitler's pamphlets of his policies? Sure, I can see why someone would eat that up.

[maveric]

37. Mrs. Kalman. My HS History teacher escaped Auschwitz, had the tattoo.

And scared the hell out of us in her class with her actual account of what she experienced.
Her parents and siblings died there. She and her husband-to-be,escaped with the help of Polish resistance. She would show us her tattoo and it was eerie.
My dad's tailor "Glick", survived Dachau due to his expert tailoring skills. He made and altered uniforms for the SS, and did such a good job he wasnt killed. He had a prominent tattoo also.

[smartvoter]

38. It has been said many times, and the response is always outrage.nt

[applegrove]

40. Oh it seemed we had to stop with those comparisons just in time for

the Right to use them.

[myrmenki]

41. An old relative of mine,

almost a hundred years old, has been living in the US since WWII. He was born and grew up in Germany.
In October 2001 he started feeling uncomfortable with American politics; and a few weeks later, he was like: "Just like '33. Just like '33 again."

He says that he saw it all back then, just like today: Crazy nationalist fervour, young people being afraid of losing their jobs if they doubt official lines openly, the creation of a state enemy (be it Jews, be it Muslims), the eradication of citizens' rights when confronted with an act of terror (be it 9/11, be it the Reichstagsbrand).

There are additional points that seem very dangerous to me: You don't have free and fair elections anymore, and your media appear to be completely sanitised from any critical thought. And don't you rely too much on the Internet: It is a very vulnerable medium.

Take care of your country. Things could get much, much worse. Stay active, please.

Think of that old relative of mine - please prove him wrong, so that, when he is one hundred and ten, he might look back and say it wasn't like '33 after all.

[newyawker99]

42. Hi myrmenki!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[FreedomAngel82]

55. Hi myrmenki

:hi: I know how your old relative feels. I've read plenty of Hitler and seen plenty video's and all that. It's really uncomfortable and scary. :scared: I'm glad I woke up to the fact of what's going on. If I hadn't I might be on the other side for all I know. If you haven't try to find the book "Night" from Elie Wiesel. I always recommend this book. Mr. Wiesel was a holocaust survivor and a peace prize winner. In my second writing class in college we had to do a report on a peace prize winner. At first I thought about doing Jimmy Carter but then decided on Mr. Wiesel. His book is really great. I found it at a local bookstore for $2. It was like it was sitting there waiting for me to get it. I'm sure there are a lot of other good books as well.

[myrmenki]

67. Yes, he is scared

and what scares me is the fact that he's scared.

My father probably has the "Night" by Wiesel, I'll try to read it.

You know, Hitler wasn't all about mass-murdering people at first. He was great at intimidating any opposition and had streamlined all media by law. And he had his party-militia, the SA/SS, and police was basically on his side, because police usually do what the government and the law command, of course.

At a certain point there was no way left to influence what was happening. If you tried, you were doomed.

At least that's what old people in my family told me, and I don't doubt them; some of them survived concentration camps, or had to emigrate, or lost family in a concentration camp. And from what they said, it always sounded as if the beginnings had been rather harmless (compared to what was still to come).

[PittLib]

71. Excellent book ...

thanks for the reminder. :)

[kentuck]

44. Her father was in Dachau and was a professor at the University...

of Munich...He refused to let his sons and daughters join the Hitler youth so they came to the house and took him away. She was 17 yrs old when they took him. He died in 1947, right after the war. He never regained his health.

[myrmenki]

68. My grandfather was in Dachau also

but he survived.

I grew up with my grandparents. He was heavily traumatised - one word that reminded him of Dachau, and he would just sit there, fists clenched on his knees, staring straight ahead, not reachable anymore, completely absent. And this state could last hours.

Probably the descendants of people who were persecuted tend to watch political developments more closely. And perhaps we even are a bit paranoid. But I'm glad to hear that it isn't just my family, and older people from my village, who are drawing parallels.

I feel very much for your friend. Her father probably was a very courageous man.

[MissMarple]

75. Welcome to DU, sweetheart.

:-)

[neuvocat]

56. Yeah well there's a big difference.

Hitler could maneuver his military effectively over several fronts. Bush can't tell from his ass to a hole in the ground in Iraq.

[BamaGirl]

57. I have a very good friend who is German.

She's my age (35ish) and is very distressed with what she sees here. She says this is what she was raised as a post- WWII German to beware of.

[Onlooker]

61. Are many Germans saying the same thing?

The media might be interested in hearing what Americans of German descent who grew up under Hitler think about the current times. Ask your friends to post their experience in this forum or to write a letter to the editor. Many of us fear what your friends think and the scary part is they are qualified to know!

[China_cat]

63. My husband is Dutch

His parents grew up under the Nazi occupation. His mother made the same comments to us and in December she died...scared for what we may still have to live through. When people who were there say there's a strong comparison, we should be listening.

And no, nobody thought Uncle Adolf was anything but a joke for a very long time. As we call Bush Dubya and the Chimp, Hitler was known as the 'little corporal', 'the housepainter', and Chaplin's understudy. He was NOT taken seriously at all even by those who supported him in the beginning.

[lala_rawraw]

64. People are in shock because they have not been rounded

Up yet. First they came for...

Give it time and then you will see the real ugly version of the Bush family ties to Nazi Germany, namely, that had it not been for the Wall Street banks, Germany would not have happened. So I wonder, how far does a rotten apple fall from a rotten tree?

[PittLib]

72. Again - I have to recommend a book ...

titled "Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust". It delves into the the social structures and mindset that allowed such atrocities to occur.

[MissMarple]

76. Can you give us a precis? Just a few cogent points?

:-)

[PittLib]

77. I'll try ...

I just picked it up again after years - intent on a reread ... and then promptly left it at work. It is an extensive analysis (600+ pages) of what the mentality was, on multiple levels presumably to dispel the notion that Germans were victims and/or ignorant to what was taking place. I'm somewhat hesitant to go beyond that ... it really has been a while. Another thread along the same lines as this (about a German tour guide at a concentration camp) got me thinking about it.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=3536018#3537686

[tavalon]

80. I quit caring about whether people thought I was a kook for comparing

as you can see by my sig line which is in sore need of an update since it isn't 2004 anymore.