For those who understand history and fear the rise of the 1930s style of fascism happening elsewhere in the world, but especially in our own United States, take hope. In Germany this past weekend, thousands of Germans all over the country took to the streets to waiving signs such as Nie Wieder 1933, never again 1933, the year Hitler rose to power. We need to be carrying the same signs like these in the US as former President Donald Trump appears to have taken over the Republican Party and shows strength in polls as he seeks another term. Germany’s far-right AfD face mounting protests over plan to deport migrants | CNN
Whether you call Trump a fascist or not is immaterial. It is what he proposes to do when re-elected. There is an eery resemblance to the rise of fascism in the 1930s: hatred of "others," blame crime on immigrants, a purge of government employees of those not loyal to Trump, for Trump to be immune and not subject to the rule of law, and his acceptance and promotion of political violence. It echoes American Firsters and fascist sympathizers that only Pearl Harbor finally put to rest in 1941. These policies, similar to the right wing of the 1930s, are what Trump is proposing to do if he wins in November 2024. He has even been using the exact words and rhetoric of the 1930 American and German fascists. (immigrants poisoning our blood), and refusing to honor elections, calling them frauds before they are even held.
.Last fall, Poland threw out its right-wing government in favor of a pro-Western style of democratic leadership, and now Germany looks like it is in a populist revolt against the rising power of the neo-Nazi party, AfD. The Germans do not forget history, as Americans tend to do, and they knew what they had spawned with Hitler that led to the near destruction of Germany in World War II and the guilt of the ovens in Auschwitz and Dachau. The spark that lit the flame of the pro-democracy demonstrations of January 20, 2024, was learning of the November upper secret meeting of the neo-Naies in the suburb of Berlim, Potsdam, to plan the deportation of recent immigrants. It was in the same Berlin suburb that Hitler's staff met to plot and plan the extermination of the Jews.
Personal notes of my long-standing and current interests in Germany: My interests are not just academic or an interest in history: Being born in 1938, I have lived, and I am still living the result of history, and it is a frequent theme in my published columns and blog postings since 2007.
Having spent a year abroad in Germany as an exchange student 12 years after the end of World War II, I was keen to try to understand how such a well-educated populace had given rise to Hitler, and I came away puzzled. Only later on reflection did I conclude Germans were very much like many in our own USA and it almost happened here had FDR not been the leader he was, resisting American Nazism.. Now, I, too, see the parallels of Trump, rising mostly on the backs of those fearing demographic changes in America.
My year in Germany left me fluent in German, resulting in marrying a refugee from Yugoslavia I met in Berlin (at that time, Yugoslavia had a Communist dictatorship) and a lifelong interest in fascism and dictatorships. Part and parcel with that came a parallel interest in the contributing currents to anti-democracy of ethnic hatred and hyper-nationalism. I spent my final year at Northwestern in independent study trying to digest this, and my antenna has always been out since then to signs of any repeat of the horrible history of the last century emerging.
My connections to modern Germany via friends and friends of family and extended family have become even more keen since now a close family member is working in Berlin. A peaceful and democratic Europe is central to the well-being of my family ties through blood and marriage in Austria, Croatia, and Bosnia. For all of those reasons, it has kept me current about the mood of ordinary Germans. I had become alarmed by what I was hearing, that many had embraced the far right fueled by anti-immigrant rhetoric and a resemblance to what we have called MAGA here in the US. However, recently, and with the strength of the pushback evidenced in demonstrations against fascism, I am feeling more hopeful that the blessing of being pro-democracy is a message the rank-and-file Germans are getting. The fear that Trump version 2 would abandon NATO in the face of Russian imperialistic land grabs while using petroleum/natural gas pipelines blackmail. to keep the rest of Europe quiet appears to have caused a shift in mood on both the right and the left of the ordinary people and leadership of the German political spectrum as well. The exception has been the rising strength of the neo-Nazi party, AfD. For that reason, the size and extent of the pro-democracy demonstrations of January 20 left me hopeful about Germany. Now, for the US to do the same at the ballot box in November..
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