Great Lessons From History

How did the German nation become enraptured with Hitler and end up following him to their destruction: millions of Germans dead, two million German women raped, and the literal destruction of their country? Surely we that are living today could never end up making the same mistake. The German people were completely different from us and they were barbarians. It would be comfortable for us living today to believe this, but Hayek noted in The Road To Serfdom that:

Probably it is true that the very magnitude of the outrages committed by the totalitarian governments, instead of increasing the fear that such a system might one day arise in more enlightened countries, has rather strengthened the assurance that it cannot happen here. When we look to Nazi Germany, the gulf which separates us seems s immense that nothing that happens there can posses relevance for any possible development here. And the fact that the difference has steadily become greater seems to refute any suggestion that we may be moving in a similar direction. But let us not forget that fifteen years ago the possibility of such a thing's happening in Germany would have appeared just as fantastic, not only t nine-tenths of the Germans themselves, but also to the most hostile foreign observers (however wise they may now pretend to have been).

The German civilization was advanced as noted in Modern Times:

Wiemar was a 'Western' republic. It stood for civilization rather than culture: civilization was in office, culture in opposition. It is no coincidence, either, that German civilization reached its gaudiest flowering during the 1920s, when Germany, for a brief period, became the word-centre of ideas and art.[...] Germany was by far the best-educated nation in the world--as long ago as the late eighteenth century it had passed the 50 per cent literacy mark.[...]

In the Weltbuhne, the smartest and most telling of the new journals, sexual freedom and pacifism were exalted, the army, the state, the university, the Church and, above all, the comfortable, industrious middle classes, were savaged and ridiculed.

The German people were ravaged by economic depression and were desperate for a savior.

The German people were no different than we were today. So given the same set of circumstance that they found themselves--economic ruin--in what would make one believe that we would react differently? Here two good episodes from the History Channel and the Military Channel about the rise of the Third Reich and Germany's fatal attraction to Hitler. They are about three hours in total, but they are worth watching in bits and pieces when you have time. The rise of Nazis Germany and totalitarianism in general is nothing new throughout human history. The same conditions that gave rise to Nazism will be present in the not-too-distance future here. The same thing will happen again, although in a modified form. So the lessons learned from these videos will be worth learning for all peoples and nations.