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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: Bilow who wrote (32244)	6/13/2002 6:48:28 AM
From: Elsewhere	Read Replies (1) of 281500

Not only did most Germans adore Hitler Not most, "only" a majority of Germans adored Hitler. but I think that most of them approved of his actions against the Jews. Not because of anything different or special about Germans (or Jews), but instead simply because of the natural human tendency to organize together for brutal bloodshed. No, Germans didn't organize for bloodshed. It wasn't like in ancient Rome where spectators were able to watch prisoners being torn apart by lions. Jews and members of other minorities who were sufficiently deviant from the "norm" (communists, homosexuals, gypsies, critical intellectuals, disabled persons) just "disappeared" to "work camps". Remember that the "final solution" for the Jews was decided as late as January 1942 during the Wannsee conference; only then the deliberate mass killings started: ghwk.de In my view the psychological condition allowing to happen what initially looked like detainments and displacements is better described by the famous Milgram experiment. Yale University psychologist Milgram first published the results of a perplexing study in 1974. He had found out that 60% of a set of teachers were prepared to kill a person in a mock experiment which looked real to them. A Wikipedia description of Milgram's work: wikipedia.com A summary of the 1974 book: "The Perils of Obedience" home.swbell.net We agree again when you say there wasn't "anything special" about Germans during the Nazi regime. A similar period could occur in the USA with a dictatorial leadership. Therefore it is crucial to avoid authoritarian or dictatorial regimes. The built-in structural wisdom of democracy is that counterbalancing institutions are supposed to prevent any single madman from rising to power. Additionally leaders rarely serve longer than a decade which limits the error of going in the wrong direction for too long.

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