Germany, 1933
"Even some of those who became Nazis at this time did not fully realize what they were doing. They might think that they stood for nationalism and socialism, were against the Jews and for the pre-1914-18 status quo, and many of them secretly looked forward to a new public adventure, a repeat of 1923. Still, they expected all that to take the humane forms usual in a civilized nation. Most of them would have been deeply shocked if one had suggested that what they really stood for were torture chambers and officially decreed pogroms (to name but two of the most obvious things, and these are certainly not yet the final horrific culmination). Even today there are Nazis who are shocked and alarmed if this is pointed out to them."
Sebastian Haffner, Defying Hitler
New York: Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux, 2002
Germany, March 1933
"These elections, the last that were ever held in prewar Germany, brought the Nazis only 44 percent of the votes (in the previous elections they had achieved 37 percent). The majority was still against the Nazis. If you consider that terror was in full swing, that the parties of the left had been prohibited from all public activity in the decisive final week before the elections, you have to admit that the German people as a whole had behaved quite decently. However, it made no difference at all. The defeat was celebrated like a victory, the terror intensified, the celebrations multiplied. Flags never left the windows for a whole fortnight."
I'm thinking about trading my Impeach Bush button for one that reads simply Torture. Anybody know where I can get one?
Further notes from Defying Hitler at
http://www.dailykos.com/...
I arranged some of these notes in another diary called "The First Day of Tyranny" at
http://www.dailykos.com/...
and did another "The First Day of Tyranny" diary using The Handmaid's Tale at http://www.dailykos.com/...