Tens of millions alive today don't know about Hitler, "Who Was Sure He Could Get Away With it."

[Stuart G]

He started World War 2, and as a result that war killed are estimated at 50–56 million, with an additional estimated 19–28 million deaths from war-related disease and famine....Yes, at least 75 million people were killed because ,Adolph Hitler was sure that,
...................."He Could Get Away With It."

Yes, I know about Hitler, and you know about Hitler, but how is this possible that..........
Tens of millions of people alive today, DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING AT ALL ABOUT "ADOLPH HITLER"
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
...MAYBE IT IS THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS IN THE WORLD, OR MAYBE IT IS CURRENT POLITICS, OR MAYBE IT IS JUST
STUPIDITY, BUT HERE WE ARE 78 YEARS AFTER A MAJOR HISTORICAL EVENT IN THE WORLD,

........... AND MILLIONS OF PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT ADOLPH HITLER............

.................. How is this possible & Why has this happened? ..........

[PortTack]

1. Poor educational system!

German citizens and most of the EU know about. Nazism is a jail-able offense. Poland is arming to the teeth because they will not be put thru what they went thru in WWII again ever.

I know you’re probably referring to ppl here in this country….besides poor education, we are lazy, shallow, take way too much for granted. I could go on, but I won’t

[Stuart G]

2. I am referring to people everywhere, not just the U.S.A.

[malaise]

8. There are many countries on this planet with lousy education systems

Rec

[AZLD4Candidate]

6. Why blame the education system? That's attacking the teachers. As a social studies teacher,

I go out of my way to teach nazi Germany. Being Jewish, I make sure people know I lost family in the Holocaust.

Less people know about the Rape of Nanking, Bataan Death March, Unit 731, and the use of "comfort women" by the Japanese.

[DFW]

9. It is often ignored for the sake of convenience

When the scorecards are totaled up, the “winners” of the mass murder derby of the 20th century, at least among most historians I have discussed the subject with in the USA and Europe, are Mao, Stalin and Hitler, in that order.

Germany came to terms with its immediate past (with a LOT of nudging from us and the countries surrounding it) to a far greater degree than China or Russia ever did, so his crimes were far better documented, and far more of the criminal accomplices caught, tried and punished.

[AZLD4Candidate]

13. The US didn't mass murder people. . .we just supported people that did and our policies enabled it

Ngo Dinh Diem, Francisco Franco, Papa Doc Duvalier, Apartheid South Africa, Suharto, Sukarno, Rhee Syngnam, Shah of Iran, Saddam Hussein, Manuel Norega, Augusto Pinochet, etc.

But if you count what we did to Native Americans and Black people part of it, we're up there too.

[2naSalit]

16. No "buts" about it...

We keep our dirty little secrets close to the vest.

[AZLD4Candidate]

18. And blame low level functionaries, like William Calley and Ollie North

While the bit fish get away with murder.

Look at my sig line: Carlin was 100% right.

[ancianita]

10. Absolutely agree! Teaching professionals are scapegoats BECAUSE they are so good at presenting

"inconvenient truths."

I'm so against the relentless abuses of public education as a democratic institution.

First, PWB try to defund it;
next, their non-classroom lackey professionals try to deform it by imposing bullshit treadmills of "innovation;
third, PWB use their media to stigmatize education field professionals;
finally, the PWB get it privatized by stealth legislation and court rulings.

More power to the field professionals like you, AZ!

[AZLD4Candidate]

14. And it works. . .according to RW rubes, I get full time pay for part time work.

And I need to just teach facts as a social studies teacher.

[ancianita]

20. Not really... if any social teacher does a lesson on "just facts," watch how students are armed by

that. Give two teams "just facts." Let a third team watch and discuss each side's "trial presentations."
Have the whole class present the best "just facts" belief system they can.
Do a wrap-up "think tank" class session with them.

They can go home and influence how their "just facts" parents think. And others.

ANY teacher can try such a lesson. I have tried a "just facts" lesson many times. It works.

Why not give it a try?

[AZLD4Candidate]

22. I didn't say I just teach facts. . .it's what parents and administrators tell me

As I tell people all the time, please don't tell me what to do in my classroom. I don't go to other places of work and tell people what to do at their jobs.

[ancianita]

23. Oh, I'm sure! I wasn't implying that you do. I hear ya about parent/admins.

The laws say that parents/admins can tell a teacher what to teach (and parents usually have to go through admins first to change what's taught in the classroom), but it also says they absolutely cannot tell them HOW to teach it. So yeah, there's the loophole. But that doesn't hold for other places of work, where how you work counts, and can be measured and paid for.

In both cases it's results that matter (usually only the 'measurable' ones, though).

[BabiLon]

15. Spare the educational system.

Teachers are professionals who will teach the absolute truth. If politicians are allowed to dictate what is taught they will distort everything.
You will be surprised that in almost the entire world especially Germany, children will narrate the battles off head. It is rather in free America where politicians are distorting even the enslavement trade and are actually succeeding.
Don't blame professionals the US system must not allow history to be tampered by politicians like wRong de Satán.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Sadly, I know of one case.

A 44 year old man, the son of my friend. My friend is the son of two German immigrants who came to the US before Hitler. His parents were so ashamed of Hitler and Nazi Germany that they never spoke of it when they raised my friend.

Now my friend's son was also told nothing about Hitler. So when he was approached by two co-workers who were recruiting for the Proud Boys, he was interested. Interested in how Hitler did wonderful things for Germans.

This 44 year old who never heard of Hitler was so excited about this man who shared his German heritage decided to send a photo of Hitler to his elderly uncle. And the uncle freaked out.

This 44 year old also never heard of WWII, the concentration camps, the 11+ million killed in the camps, etc.

He really didn't have a clue.

[tanyev]

19. Wow, that is sad.

Hope he got set straight and didn't join the Proud Boys.

[no_hypocrisy]

21. More pathetically,

this guy gravitates towards authoritarians and narcissists. He has no moral compass IMO.

[tanyev]

26. Oh dear.

I have concluded that some people's personalities incline them towards authoritarianism--no matter how much history they've studied. There are a lot of well-educated Republican leaders who continue to support Trump and have no problem with the party's coziness with fascism and white supremacy. The only thing they've tried to learn from history is how previous authoritarian regimes failed so they can maybe avoid that this time around.

[BlackSkimmer]

24. He must have gotten a very poor education to have never heard of WWII, etc.

And he somehow got a picture of Hitler to send to his uncle, but no information about the man?

You say he's the son of a friend. Somehow this man has lived a long enough life to have a 44 year old son, but he knows nothing of European history? How in hell does someone somehow miss all the movies, books, plays, art, commemorations, etc?

That is a very strange story.

[no_hypocrisy]

28. I also find it bizarre that his father/my friend never once spoke about Hitler as

it qualifies their German heritage.

And what about public school? Four years of history and nada? No movies, no videos, no textbooks? Really????

[BlackSkimmer]

33. Yeah, that's a head-scratcher.

Look at all the movie star celebrity types who have made their name in war movies...

How about every year on June 6 somehow you miss the coverage of the anniversary? Never heard of Patton, Montgomery, Rommel, Churchill?

And if he has a German surname, surely he'd have curiosity about that?

I don't get it lol. Guess he's not much of a reader, traveler, movie watcher, and apparently doesn't use the internet much because Hitler is mentioned every damn day on the internet!

[Silent3]

32. Even if his parents shielded him, it's still awfully damned hard to escape...

...all of the references to Hitler and WWII in popular culture. Did he also never read, watch television, or go to the movies?

[msongs]

4. fades into history. tho some live on like historical romans nt

[AZLD4Candidate]

7. Phil Ochs said it best: Through the safety of sterlity, the thrill has been refined.

[Kaleva]

5. Mao and Stalin got away with it. Pol Pot got house arrest.

Idi Amin lived out his life in comfort while in exile.

[DFW]

11. Those are important facts to take into consideration

None of them were forced to cower in an underground bunker with a whole army eager for revenge about 300 meters away. Hitler knew he had hours to live, no matter what. At that same moment in 1945, Stalin had 8 more years to go, and Mao was just getting started.

[2naSalit]

17. +1

It's true that history/education, not only written by victors, but like the arts is often early on the list of important features of a culture that are jettisoned in transition to authoritarian style ruler-ship.

[Alexander Of Assyria]

12. Same 10s of millions conned into the fake Iraqi war and believing a giant white balloon was a danger

Jesus said the gullible will always live among us, right?

[Kid Berwyn]

25. The Continuing NAZI Presence and Influence Get Little Mention

Among the facts about Americans curiously missing from near-all American history books and from any mention of the Warren Commission — charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy: Two of the men charged with investigating the assassination of President Kennedy helped bring NAZIs into the USA mainstream.



Allen Dulles, as a top official of the OSS and CIA, incorporated NAZI war criminals into the CIA from its founding. John McCloy, as High Commissioner for Germany, allowed Klaus Barbie, Alfred Krupp, eight members of his board, and who-knows-who-else to escape justice. Of course,
in addition to their responsibilities in the rise of post-war fascism, Dulles and McCloy also were barons of Wall Street and Beltway Insiders, at the heart of the military industrial complex. We all can see what that means for the United States today.

Background:

The American who let the Nazis rebuild Germany

https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/the-american-who-let-the-nazis-rebuild-germany/

CIA and NAZI War Criminals

https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB146/index.htm

[lostnfound]

27. Billions don't know about 1930s fascism rising in Japan with brainwashing of the masses

I see a lot of lessons in what happened there that are relevant to today’s GOP. While the European holocaust was worse, an estimated 4 million Chinese were murdered in the war years 1937-1944, and it included slave labor camps and rapes.
Lessons? Here’s a partial list:
1. Fascism took over functioning government, for the enrichment of a few
2. Young people were taught to be willing to sacrifice themselves ‘for the emperor’
3. Education was reshaped by fascists and ideologues
4. Censorship was systematized and pervasive
5. Thought police enforced a prevailing, nationalistic world view

In school we were taught extensively about Hitler, the death camps, and anti-Semitism, and we were exposed to tragic and horrible details of individuals. Be warned, this is what happens when a dictator is not stopped. We must speak out.

We were taught very little about the lessons of 1940s Japan - where creeping fascism, militarism, and groups of well-connected powerful men used cult techniques, censorship and nationalism to extract more wealth and power from the masses, both foreign and domestic.

[treestar]

29. there's no link and nothing to prove this is so

where, who, "tens of millions" is not precise enough.

[BlackSkimmer]

34. I agree.

Unless someone has talked to "tens of millions" personally, this sounds a bit hyperbolic.

[usonian]

30. The fascist playbook gets implemented every so often through history. People need to know it.

Fascism is a cult phenomenon that works on human weaknesses. Like other cults, it "legitimizes" vile behavior, contrary to good citizenship, but is ultimately self-destructive. I've made comparisons to mafia behavior patterns, which are more familiar to us, and probably more presentable than the history of fascism.

For some background on this, I've expanded here:
https://democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=18061963

The most telling quote of all, from Goodfellas, about the lure of the cult:
“As far back as I can remember, I always wanted to be a gangster. To me, being a gangster was better than being President of the United States.”

Trump wanted both at the same time.

In the end, Hitler did only one good thing: He killed Hitler. WAY too late.

And by the way: there was rampant drug use in the staff.
https://www.history.com/news/inside-the-drug-use-that-fueled-nazi-germany

In his bestselling book, “Der Totale Rausch” (The Total Rush)—recently published in English as “Blitzed”—Ohler found that many in the Nazi regime used drugs regularly, from the soldiers of the Wehrmacht (German armed forces) all the way up to Hitler himself. The use of methamphetamine, better known as crystal meth, was particularly prevalent: A pill form of the drug, Pervitin, was distributed by the millions to Wehrmacht troops before the successful invasion of France in 1940.

...

Ohler, an award-winning novelist and screenwriter, had initially planned to write a novel about the Nazis’ long-rumored drug use. But his plans changed when he found the detailed records left by Dr. Theodor Morell, Hitler’s personal physician. He ended up spending years studying Morell’s records in the Federal Archive in Koblenz, the Institute for Contemporary History in Munich and the National Archives in Washington, D.C., and deciding to focus on fact instead of fiction.

Yes, THOSE National Archives.

[FakeNoose]

31. Hitler was also a mental case - how many people know THAT?

There were so many things wrong with him mentally that some history books had posthumous diagnoses. After World War II when the German people had to face their crimes and acknowledge their mistakes, even they couldn't talk about how crazy Hitler was. Well some did, the ones who knew privately, and a few Germans wrote books. But most Germans who knew from experience the worst truths about Hitler, well, they were mostly dead or imprisoned.

Immediately after WWII laws were passed that no Germans could talk about Hitler, wear Nazi insignia, display the Nazi flag, do the Nazi salute. Anything that glorified Hitler and the Nazis was strictly "Verboten" (forbidden). Of course other countries had no such laws and therefore books and movies about Hitler proliferated outside of Germany. I'm referring to the US and parts of Europe, and perhaps parts of South America.

I grew up in the Midwest, and I went to Catholic and public schools during the 1960s. I don't remember anything mentioned about Hitler or the Nazis in any classroom by a teacher. But there were TV shows, movies, books and other ways to learn about WWII. I believe the Baby-Boomers were given the basic facts about Hitler and the Nazis, including how crazy he was, but Americans born after us were probably not given much information. By then we were worrying more about Vietnam and the USSR.

[Stuart G]

35. What is important is NOT THAT HITLER WAS A MENTAL CASE, BUT HOW HE CAME TO POWER IN

A MODERN, CIVILIZED COUNTRY IN THE 1920s and 30s....

I taught "Social Studies" for close to 30 years. If you taught the ..."RISE OF HITLER", you had to teach a whole lot more!

Clearly the most effective ....'TRICK" in teaching the ..."RISE AND FALL OF HITLER" .....was a 30 minute movie called......

.......................".NIGHT AND FOG"........................................(in a few moments, I will post a site that shows the entire film)

Warning:..............If you ever watch this film, you will never ever forget it..........This film is horrific beyond.... imagination....&
........................this film is .........."TOTAL TRUTH"..................watch this film for ..."FREE"....at link below...this film is
in ..."FRENCH"..........You have to read the subtitles......but watch it all if you can. The subtitles are not that important.....

WARNING AGAIN,..........MOST HORRIFIC DOCUMENTARY EVER MADE.........(the whole film is 30 minutes long)
Yes, You can watch this movie right here at Democratic Underground....NOW...PLEASE READ THE WARNING AGAIN....

https://vimeo.com/189672641