Have we Germans learned from our past?
Recently, there was a survey of German adolescents and
young adults regarding their knowledge and attitudes toward
National Socialism. Fifty percent of all participants failed to
accurately date the period of the Nazi regime and to mention
more than three of its victim groups. The media concluded
that there should be more education regarding the topic, but
from my perspective, they and German society as a whole are
completely missing the point. While accurate knowledge of
historical facts may be helpful to put the topic in an
appropriate context, from my perspective, it is not nearly the
most important part if we aim to prevent such horrible
madness from ever happening again. The events and
developments during the last years and also at the moment let
me come to the conclusion that we as a society have never
really worked up the time of National Socialism. So if I have
to answer the title question, I clearly say no, we haven’t
learned much from our past and I will explain the reasons
why.
Let’s look back to the last few years of the corona policy.
Without any sense of proportionality, the government of
Germany decided on unprecedented restrictions on
fundamental rights. With systematic propaganda of fear, as an
internal leaked government paper has proven, the Covid-19
Virus was portrayed as a killer virus to justify the restrictions,
and modeling of questionable value has been used to pretend a
scientific foundation. The restrictions had been unnecessarily
kept on without any scientific evaluation of benefits and costs
as well as appropriateness.
The mass media failed completely in their role as control
instance, saw their primary role in accompanying political
decisions instead of critically reflecting on them and there
have been secret consultations between media and policy. The
public discussions were completely one-sided since policy and
media spared no efforts to transfer the position regarding the
corona restrictions from a content-related question to a moralrelated one and thereby completely poisoned the debate. To
put it simply, positions pro restrictions were labelled as
morally good, and positions criticizing restrictions as morally
bad. People were called out to denounce their neighbours, e.g.
if they got a visit from more than four persons (meetings with
five persons at maximum were allowed at some times). Some
people inhaled the feeling of moral high ground by abusing
others who, from their perception, wear their masks wrongly
and even people with medical attestation against wearing
masks. Old people were imprisoned in their nursing homes,
suffering and dying from loneliness with the cynical
explanation that it is for their own benefit. Children were
indoctrinated that they put their grandparents in danger if they
do not wear face masks.
But the greatest low point by a far extent was the
unprecedented aggressiveness and ruthlessness people were
blackmailed to take the vaccine and dealing with unvaccinated
people. The unvaccinated were excluded from public life and
labelled as scapegoats for a failed policy. Politicians,
journalists, and celebrities spread out their hate for the
unvaccinated in the media, followed by demands for
humiliation and discrimination. There were even discussions
regarding common occupation bans, higher payments for
health insurance, refusals of treatment in intensive care units,
or vaccinations by force, and a common vaccine mandate was
only averted due to the spreading of the milder omicron
variant. It was absolutely terrifying how much fundamental
characteristics of a civilized society broke away in front of
fear and hate propaganda and what’s the worst of it, even
afterward the majority of society has not nearly realized the
outrageousness that happened here. While, from my
perception, most people did not actively join the witch hunt
for the unvaccinated, they did not protest or do anything
against either.
Another example is the social climate since the beginning of
the Ukraine war in 2022. I am completely shocked and
disgusted by how quickly policy and media achieved to
condition parts of the population of Germany into lust for war
and military escalation. A country mainly responsible for two
devastating world wars should know it better, one could think,
but no.
War propaganda of heroic battles of the white knights of
Ukraine for our democratic values against the barbaric
Russians is spreading all out from our media. There are
explanations about weapons that kill humans like marketing
spots for cars, describing their functions in detail. War appears
to be some kind of sports event where you can cheer for every
success of your sight, completely ignoring that you cheer
about dead people. Russians are dehumanized as orcs,
everything Russian, e.g. products, has to be banned. Racism
against Russians living in Germany is spreading as well and
some of them lost their job, not because of supporting
Russia’s war but because of condemning it not loudly enough.
Naturally, in such an atmosphere, there is no place for
differentiated perspectives and opinions, since the benchmarks
for good and evil have been clearly set. Anyone who does not
see Russia and Putin as the devil himself is clearly suspicious
of being a “Kremlin friend”. Don’t even start with a reflected
position condemning the Russian invasion as well as the
inglorious role of the western countries in the past that
provided the field for the seed of war, because you have fallen
under Russian propaganda since there can only be one guilty
side. In addition, if you are a pacifist or plead for negotiations
to end the war, you are the worst, a conscienceless and
spineless bastard who wants to surrender. In short, if you
don’t swallow the official narrative completely, you are
considered some kind of enemy of the supposed free and
democratic society. Like it was with corona, a majority
apparently does not share these extreme positions advocated
by an elite of policy and media and inherited by a loud
minority of common people feeling legitimated through the
permanent public propaganda.
What do these two examples have to do with Germany’s
reconditioning of the Nazi era? Quite much, I would say. Of
course, a direct comparison is inappropriate since it was much
worse back then. But some fundamental mechanisms from my
perspective are comparable: Completely one-sided
propaganda of good and evil throughout the public debate,
characterized by emotionalization and moralization instead of
civilized argumentation. A scapegoat mentality leading to the
dehumanization and discrimination of people or groups not
following the mainstream narrative. The belief in aggression
and escalation as appropriate measures to deal with problems
and human brutalization as a consequence thereof. And mass
media actively support these devastating developments
instead of acting as a critical corrective. All these are clear
mechanisms of totalitarian systems becoming more and more
present in the supposed democratic western societies.
And here is the misconception of us Germans regarding
reconditioning our dark past: We think it is enough to
condemn swastikas, nationalism, and racism, briefly speaking
the Nazi ideology, and something like that will never happen
again. But I think the ideology is completely secondary since
it is replaceable. The more important factors are totalitarian
mechanisms and their effects on the human psyche. This is the
aspect reconditioning should focus on since despite technical
and philosophical proceed, the core of the thinking and acting
of humans and thereby their susceptibility to totalitarian
mechanisms has not changed. While a majority are goodnatured and do not advocate extreme positions, most people
are also adapted, passive, and comfortable. Therefore they are
stepping aside from the extremists in policy and media as well
as from their willing vicarious agents in their community. This
is the foundation for the success of totalitarianism which can
end like the second world war in the worst case. To really
recondition our Nazi past, the majority of Germany’s
population has to:
1) Develop awareness regarding totalitarian mechanisms
independently of the ideology behind them. Awareness
includes self-reflection of the own thinking and acting to
avoid falling under totalitarian tendencies as well as a mutual
reflection of each other since self-perception can be biased
sometimes. It has to be noted totalitarian mechanisms can not
only occur through the suppression of a majority by minorities
but also by the suppression of minorities by a majority.
2) Rigorously and collectively act against any, even the
smallest totalitarian attempts. Immediate and rigorous acting
prevents totalitarian mechanisms to be established (in
structures as well as in minds) and further expanded.
Collective acting is especially important since totalitarian
attempts tend to punish individuals to frighten the majority –
but they cannot do anything against the masses if they
recognize the power they have by working democratically
together. Rigorous and collective acting includes also building
up structures and mechanisms to establish and control
democracy. From my perspective, building up a radicaldemocratic society and its respective structures is the best way
to prevent totalitarian mechanisms.
If I think carefully about it, these approaches should be
inherited not only by the Germans but by all societies.
By Peter Mueller
[2nd edition/23, page ]