Its Feels Like 1933 in Germany

Twenty years ago, we visited the Nuremberg Palace of Justice, where our German guide tried to explain why the German people elected Adolph Hitler. I remember him saying, “the German people at the time must have lost their collective minds.” I also wondered how such a thing could have happened, especially if it were America.

Unfortunately, after Donald Trump, I know now. America has had plenty of warnings about Trump. It’s too bad many Americans choose not to remember or don’t know what happened in Germany in 1930 when Adolph Hitler came to power. What happened in Germany after he came to power has a distinctive echo to what’s happening now in America.

Consider the 1933 Decree of the Reich President for the protection of the people and staff:

• Basic rights are suspended until further notice. In addition, there are restrictions on personal liberty, the right of free expression of opinion, freedom of the press, assembly, and association. Warrantless searches of houses and all postal, telegraph, and telephone communications are permitted.

• Six days after the Reichstag fire, Hitler gutted the Weimar Constitution. Elections were held, and the Nazi Party got only 44% of the votes. Nevertheless, Hitler requested the Reichstag (German parliament) to pass a new law to suspend itself. The Reichstag voted 441 to 84, surpassing the two-thirds needed to pass. Representatives of the German people voted to surrender their rights and the rights of the German people.

• Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda Joseph Goebbels announced that German women have been given many rights under the old Weimer Republic and declared that fundamental change is necessary. He declared that the most suitable place for a woman is in the family and that her duty is to give birth to children. Contraception, which was freely available in the Weimer Republic, is now impossible to find. Across Germany, women lose their jobs. Goebbels criticizes “women’s emancipation” insists that “it’s merely an invention of the Jewish intellect.” Gynecologists may get the death sentence if they are found guilty of terminating a pregnancy, “but only if the woman is Aryan racially pure.”

• On November 9-10, 1938, Nazis rampaged in Jewish neighborhoods, setting fire to synagogues and Jewish-owned stores.

• Martin Niemöller wrote: First, they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak for me.

Compare this to the Trump Presidency and its after-effects: 

• “Knock the crap out of protesters, I’ll pay legal fees.

• “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, okay, and I wouldn’t lose any voters, okay?”

• Referring to the white nationalists in Charlottesville in 2017, he said, “You had some very bad people in that group, but you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides.”

• Trump assured supporters at the 2021 “Save America” rally in Washington, DC, that he would join them on a march to the Capitol. “Show strength” and head to the Capitol, where Congress was certifying President-elect Joe Biden’s victory. He then returned to the White House by car. A Capitol attacker ranted that the Presidential election was stolen and called for elected officials to be killed publicly. And at one point, he yells, “Cut their head off!”

• 147 Republican lawmakers raised objections to the official certification of electoral votes in a joint session of Congress in a futile effort to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, including Arizona Representatives Biggs, Gosar, Lesko, and Schweikert.

• On Feb. 4, 2022, the GOP declared that the Jan. 6 coup attempt was “legitimate political discourse.” The GOP also censured Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger for participating in January 6th Investigation.

• 440 bills with provisions to restrict voting access have been introduced in 49 states in the 2021 legislative sessions. In addition, lawmakers in 29 Republican-led states rushed to pass antiabortion bills.

• In America, two lone Congressional Republicans dare to speak the truth that Trump lost the presidential election. Fortunately for them, this isn’t Germany in the 1930s.

Benjamin Franklin was walking out of Independence Hall after the Constitutional Convention in 1787 when someone shouted out, “Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?” Franklin supposedly responded, “A republic, if you can keep it.” Are we Americans willing “to keep it?”

Thinking back, I was mistaken that Americans could ever lose their collative minds like Germany in the 1930s.