Do
you realize how fast a democracy can be brought down?
"Power tends to corrupt
and absolute power corrupts absolutely."
– Lord Acton
"Those who
do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it."
– George
Santayana
History supports the
two well-known quotes above. Two points need to be clearly included in
discussions about them, however.
1. Power means “the ability to cause people to do or not do”
what the one exerting power wants. Humans only have two options for exerting power over other humans – mental persuasion or physical force.
2. Before anyone can remember
something they must first experience or
learn it.
Hitler’s
rise to power destroyed German democracy. In order to understand how “absolute power
corrupted absolutely” in the process, it is essential be aware of “the past”
that caused Germany to fall.
When
Hitler came to power, the Germany population was 94% Christian – 40% Roman Catholic and 54% Protestant – Nazi
Germany had a larger Christian population than the United States of America. Germany was a democratic nation with a 94%
Christian population! Keep in mind that neither democracy nor Christianity
prevented the events that combined to bring down the German nation. Notice how
quickly things changed in Germany, realizing that social media did not exist
then. Thing that took weeks, months and years back then to happen, take place
in hours, days, weeks and months today.
● February 1932 -- German President
Hindenburg (85 years-old) reluctantly agreed to run again and announced his
candidacy for re-election. Hitler decided to oppose him and run for the
presidency himself. "Freedom and Bread," was the slogan used by Hitler
● April 10,
1932 – In a runoff election Hitler received
13,418,547 votes (36%) and Hindenburg received 19,359,983 (53%) and was elected
by an absolute majority.
● January 30, 1933 – President Hindenburg
appointed Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.
● February 27, 1933 at 9:00 pm -- The building
housing the German parliament, the Reichstag, began to burn.
Who set the fire that night in Berlin? We don’t
know, and it doesn’t really matter. What matters is that “this spectacular act of terror” initiated “the politics of emergency.”
Gazing with pleasure at the flames that night,
Hitler said: “This fire is just the
beginning.” Whether or not the Nazis set the fire, Hitler saw the political
opportunity: “There will be no mercy now.
Anyone standing in our way will be cut down.”
● February 28, 1933 -- A decree was issued that suspended
the basic rights of all German citizens, allowing them to be “preventively detained” by the police.
● March 5, 1933 -- On the strength of
Hitler’s claim, that the fire was the work of Germany’s enemies, the Nazi Party
won a decisive victory in parliamentary elections.Police and the Nazi
paramilitaries began to round up members of left-wing political parties and
place them in improvised concentration camps.
● March 16, 1933 -- The new parliament passed
an “enabling act,” which “allowed Hitler to rule by decree.”
● August 2, 1934 -- Hitler replaces the
offices of chancellor and president with a single dictatorial position by
declaring himself Führer ("Leader") of a new German Reich – the Third
Reich.
● May 8, 1945 -- The signing of the German
Instrument of Surrender that ended World War; “The German Government and German High
Command, recognizing and acknowledging the complete defeat of the German armed
forces on land, at sea and in the air, hereby announce Germany's unconditional
surrender."
Germany then remained in a state of emergency
for the next twelve years, until the end of the Second World War. Hitler had
used an act of terror, an event of limited inherent significance, to institute
a regime of terror that killed millions of people and changed the world. Estimated
total German population losses (in 1937 German borders) directly related to the
war range between 5.5 to 6.9 million persons.
Anthony
J. Sciolino,
a retired New York State Family Court judge and a graduate of Columbia
University and Cornell Law School, wrote the book The
Holocaust, The Church, and the Law of Unintended Consequences. He also holds a master’s
degree in theology from St. Bernard’s School of Theology and Ministry and is an
ordained Roman Catholic permanent deacon. The following are his very important
and researched words:
Nazi terrorism alone did not induce
ordinary people to become complicit in mass murder. It was Christianity’s long
history of Jew hatred. It was anti-Judaism that enabled Christians to assent
willingly to Nazi eliminationist anti-Semitism. Among the causes of the
Holocaust are:
● An
evil, amoral, and charismatic leader.
● Chaotic
post-WWI conditions.
● Popular
discontent.
● Masterful
use of propaganda.
● A
brutal totalitarian regime (intolerant central government).
● State
sponsored terrorism.
● The
fog of war - diminishes cultural taboos (theft, torture, rape, murder).
●
Sadism (enjoyment in being cruel).
●
Careerism (values success in career above all
else).
●
Anti-Judaism (religion) / anti-Semitism (race).
●
Fear of Judeo-Bolshevism (Jews are driving force behind Communism).
●
Extreme nationalism / patriotism.
●
Paralysis of will.
●
Unquestioning obedience to authority.
●
Lack of moral guidance.
●
Failure of conscience.
● Widespread
culpability, complicity, and indifference.
Sciolino
uses the quotes below from Edmund Burke as reminders for readers.
When bad men combine, the good must associate;
else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.
Nothing is so fatal to religion as
indifference.
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