After taking my class on Nazi German History, I feel compelled to point out that we as Americans, and on a grander scale, all of western civilization, tend to view Nazism and WWII as an aberration in our history, something profoundly different and removed from what our culture and civilization is about. This class has taught me that this notion could not be further from the truth. Nazism, while it certainly was extreme, was simply the most explicit expression of commonly held western ideologies. The Nazis really didnt do anything that was much different from what most industrialized countries, like France, England, and even the United States, were doing at the same time. Nazism only took ideas that most of industrial world already had, and put them into action. This is terrifying. We need to recognize that Nazism is closer to home than we would like to believe. I am not comparing ourselves to the Nazis, please understand, I am only drawing parallels that, if we as a civilization truly wish to move forward and better ourselves, we need to acknowledge them. After learning so much about what the Nazis did and how they did it, and what ordinary Germans were doing and thinking at the same time, I look around today and say wow, thats eerily similar, and Im horrified that I never noticed it before. We need to stop pretending like this was just an uncommon event in history. Its more common than I ever wanted to know.
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 16:34:29 +0000
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