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I've been reading about the Holocaust a fair bit of late, and it's interesting to see the debate around the functionalist/intentionalist view of how it happened. OP's story seems to lend credence to the former version, in that the Nazi state was a patchwork of warring factions that were each trying to take power for themselves and in an effort to do so, tried a little too hard to do what they imagined Hitler wanted of them, namely more and more murder and ruthlessness and general mayhem, eventually culminating in plans for wholesale extermination. This is the functionalist view, where things happened almost in a bottom-up fashion, whereas the intentionalist idea is one where Hitler planned the Holocaust from day one in a top-down approach. I personally think it's more likely to be the former though, at least from what I've read about it anyway.
Growing up in the '80s and '90s, I never really learned much about the Holocaust aspect of WWII. I knew the broad strokes, of course, but the finer details of the Nazi state's operations are where the true horror lies. Even without WWII or the Holocaust, it was one of the purest examples of a nightmarish dystopia run by corrupt, amoral, incompetent, petty, narcissistic lunatics and sociopaths. The parallels with certain modern governments is terrifying...
Very few people understand what fascism is in the concrete day to day sense. Fascist politics are very normalized in the modern world. They obfuscate everything they do. The more they can confuse and entangle antifascists the better. While we try and deconstruct their empty statements and lies they spend the whole time making confusing and conflicting statements, trying to garner as much support from bigoted people as possible. Its a union of bigotry, greed, and manipulation.
Fascists are themselves parasitic to democracy. Their existence within democracy whatsoever steadily nurtures them. The more tolerable their ideas are the faster they will grow. Tolerating Nazis at all is the same thing as promoting them. Their ideology spreads like a virus, it doesnt try to convince you merely overwhelms you. It harkens out to the priviledged masses fear of the other, and then surrounds them in a fog of conflicting information and symbolism. It says "believe in me and I will keep you safe" before outputting a barrage of rage, hatred, disgust, fear and dread. It uses language like symbolism itself. It preoccupies itself with definitions, centralizing itself as authority over reality itself. Once someone has become a fascist it is statistically impossible to change their views. Once someone has become a fascist they are overwhelmingly likely to never change. There is no scientifically proven way to deradicalize them. That's how powerful a hold it creates. True believers in fascism exist in this perpetual state of anger and confusion. The rest see utility in fascism, to advance their bigotry or to profit off of corruption.
I was watching the PBS American Experience episode on Nazi City, USA.
Hearing literally the same words that came out of the American Nazi party in 1930s that have been spewed by Republicans in the last 10 years was frankly TERRIFYING.
One of the gravest mistake we can make is to believe it can't happen here / it can't happen again.
What is wild is that MOST people had no idea about the Holocaust as it was happening. That when we learn of WWII and all that was around it and you hear about the camps you think "no shit we went to help with that." But then find out that wasn't really a motivation for the masses is crazy.
Governments knew, for sure the Brits.
There was a letter explaining everything.
I suspect they allowed since it served their purpose of creating israel which they were heavily involved in.
Same as the zionists who made deals with the nazis who could be taken to the camps: those that didn't want to move to israel later.
What are you talking about? Brits may have known but they were losing until the US came to help. They had no power to stop anything at the time. And governments aren't a populace. My original statement was that the masses were not motivated by their existence. The media was newspapers and they may have small articles here and there. But it was not common knowledge that these camps even existed.
You can't even read a statement and understand what was said. You must run stop signs and blame other cars for not paying attention.
bye, not wasting time on you
BTW If you're american it isn't yours either.
Since americans generally possess the vocabulary of an infant
I mean you would know right? Since you like reading one word and acting outraged. Maybe pick up a book that doesn't have coloring and take a class from someone that isn't a relative.
I don't need to value an evaluation from someone who I can't actually trust to understand a doorbell without instructions.
I think it starts with the person up top seeing more and more what they are able to get sway with and how little accountability there is and things just snowball from there. At any point, the dictator up top could stop things, but instead their true evil nature gets revealed.
... isn't the functionalist (?) version more what the west/victors wrote about WWII? Not even as propaganda per se, just bcs it can be summed up in one line & afterwards easier to append propaganda for various purposes.
Clearly if Hitler planned everything that happened he would have needed to hold power for a lot longer to solidify his sole influence or have overwhelming public support (and then do all the rest).
It was a difference between Western powers versus the Soviet Union. Western powers tried to make sure that Germans understood their complicity to genocide even if they didn't operate concentration camps. In contrast, the Soviet Union generally portrayed the problem being Hitler leading the people astray.
That's USA vs USSR in both Germanies, right?
Yes
I was in school in the 90s (in the US) and we read Night by Elie Wiesel, The Diary of Anne Frank, I remember seeing pictures of the bodies and watching a movie that showed people killed in the gas chambers and mass graves too. And we were taught in depth about the Holocaust and WWII, too. It was a pretty massive subject in history classes. What country did you go to school in?
What? It is by far the most propagandised piece of WW2.
This horrible event (let's make that clear) was hijacked by zionists solely for the purpose of hiding behind it when they commit horrible acts.
I too grew up in the 80's and '90s.
Everyone in school had to go to the cinema to watch Shindler's List.
And on another occasion we had to endure a 2 hour propaganda speech by israeli Ken and Barbie they sent over to tell us how cool and democratic their apartheid state was for some reason.
Later when I had to fill in 2 extra hours/week of history, the subjects were 1 Easter Island, 2 Israel.
They sure have their hand in many things, including influencing curriculums in other countries.
I suspect it's even worse in the US.
Nah, the Israeli government would rather rehabilitate the Nazis and forget the holocaust so they can replace them with the Palestinian as the biggest enemy of Jews.
They have always had good relations with nazis.
Zionism and fascism are very similar.