Thoughts and Reflections on Chapter 19

      Society (in the developed world at least) likes to think of itself as having long since abandoned such horrific and backward practices as genocide, which is why the willingness to accept Hitler's regime is so shocking. Yet at the time of Hitler's rise to power, Germany's situation was so disordered that it could hardly be considered a developed nation by today's standards. The circumstances leading to the systematic elimination of Jews and other groups neatly parallels the concatenation of events present in Soviet Russia under Stalin's leadership. Both countries were in a state of economic crisis, and both leaders found scapegoats suitable to their respective purposes. While a very few spoke out against the obvious brutality of the massacres of Hitler and Stalin, the consequences for doing so coupled with the propaganda issued by the two leaders ensured the silence of the majority. Again, the developed world likes to think that such horrific events as the holocaust and the purges of Stalin could never happen in our enlightened modern society. Yet this pattern suggests that the moment the stakes are down, the majority are more the capable of being hoodwinked by a charismatic leader with a semi-plausible scapegoat.