I recently had the opportunity to visit the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam. I walked up several narrow staircases. I slid behind the bookcase. I stood in the sparse attic.  I saw pictures of the 8 people who hid in the cramped quarters for more than two years, and I envisioned the day that the soldiers found the secret entrance and transported them to the concentration camps. [Seven died in the camps.  Only Otto Frank –  – Anne’s father – – survived and was released at the war’s end.]  This walk through the hidden attic was a silent and somber event for me and the other visitors that spent a single hour, imagining Anne’s 761 days in hiding.

Walking in the footsteps of the Frank family through the attic was certainly a solemn and humbling experience, but the ground floor of the museum piqued my interest in a different way.  The ground floor of the museum provided information on the rise of Hitler and the Nazi Party.  While walking the ground floor, a couple questions came to my mind:
1.) “How were regular German citizens convinced that such horrible acts against their neighbors – – against a 15-year-old girl and her family – – were acceptable?” and 2.) Could a U.S. politician today sway the opinion of the average American, and amass support for a morally questionable action?

In my opinion, President Trump has already adopted some of the same strategies that Hitler used to convince the Germans to sit idly and accept the horrific treatment of the Jews.  I think similar tactics are being used to garner public support in America for the administration’s mass immigrant deportation policies.
 

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Disclaimer:  President Trump is not Hitler, the red-capped MAGA are not the Nazi Party, and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agents are not the Gestapo.  It is easy for many reporters and politicians to make these comparisons – just the mention of the words “Hitler” or “Nazi” makes for an entertaining interview or emotionally-charged newspaper article to rally supporters to the cause. These comparisons are an injustice to the Holocaust survivors and the millions of Jews who suffered unspeakable horrors and perished at the hands of the Germans during World War II.  The actions of the Republican Party will not result in the death of 6 million.  I think it is fair; however, to look at instances where current U.S. leaders and German leaders in the 1930s have used similar language and taken similar actions in order to gain acceptance for questionable policy.
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STEP 1: IDENTIFY THE “THEM” WHO HAS LED TO MISFORTUNE

After World War I, life in Germany was hard.  Unemployment was high.  Inflation was high.  it got to a point that it took a wheelbarrow of money to buy a loaf of bread.  In general, it was just pretty difficult to be an average German in the 1920s.  There was uncertainty and anger in the population. Hitler needed to pull the citizens together following the great Depression and focus the anger of the population outward from the government.  Part of that plan was to blame the Jews for the problems that plagued the average German citizen.  In a speech in 1929, Hitler said “We [Germans] are resolved to prevent the settlement in our country of a strange people [Jews] which was capable of snatching for itself all the leading positions in the land, and to oust it… Workers of all classes and of all nations, recognize your common enemy!”

In America in the 2000s, it might not have taken a wheelbarrow of cash to buy bread, but average citizen had their own problems.  There were times when unemployment rates increased.  Crime rates became a concern for many, and the housing market was bad.  Politicians in the U.S. also looked to find a scapegoat for these problems, and it is easy to find videos and press releases where our leaders placed the blame on immigrants.
[Note: Facts don’t matter for this first step.  For example, there is no evidence that the Jews were the cause of problems like inflation in Germany, and there are plenty of studies that indicate that communities with high immigrant populations today have lower crimes rates.  It doesn’t matter if the statement is a lie…..Politicians just need to continue to repeat it, the press and social media need to broadcast it, and many in the public are happy to accept “THEM” as the source of their problems.]     

STEP 2:  REMOVE OPPOSITION

Hitler was aggressive in his acts to silence any political opposition to the Nazi Party.  Laws, like the Malicious Practices Act, were passed in March 1933 that made it illegal to speak out against the Nazi Party or its leaders. The Nazis used the new laws to frighten and intimidate Germans.  Between 1933 and 1939, more than 25,000 Germans were imprisoned – – many without a trial – – for opposing the Nazi Party.  The political prisoners were placed in concentration camps, mistreated, and were used for forced labor. Due to this harsh treatment and fear of imprisonment or death, the number of people within the German population who dared to question the actions of Hitler or his party greatly declined.

Today, U.S. politicians are not using concentration camps, forced labor, and death to quiet their opponents; but there are other methods used to silence opposing views.  President Trump sued CBS when he didn’t like their coverage of his debate with Kamala Harris.  The White House has referred to National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) as “radical propaganda” and “a waste of taxpayer dollars” and hopes to withhold billions in funding.  When the Associated Press (AP) continued to use the term “Gulf of Mexico” vice using the administration’s new nomenclature “Gulf of America”, AP reporters were punished and barred access to an event in the Oval Office.  When State and local governments have established “Sanctuary Cities” which limit cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and are an obstacle to President Trump’s plans for mass deportations, he has threatened legal action or the withholding of Federal funding.  In today’s society, legal action and fines and the withholding of Federal dollars – – not prison nor death – – are used to silence any opposing viewpoints.

STEP 3: DEHUMANIZE (HORRIBLE ACTIONS ARE LESS HORRIBLE IF VICTIMS ARE NOT PEOPLE)

If division and “US versus THEM” is a pillar of your political party, the actions that follow may be horrific.  Hitler had convinced many in the German population that a native “US” was superior to the Jewish “THEM”, and that the Jews were at the center of his country’s problems.  In the beginning, it was just words uttered by Hitler used to focus the people and gain support. At some point, the words became action.  For his brutal and immoral policies to be tolerated by the population, the Jews had to be dehumanized.  Hitler’s supporters may have wavered and taken action if the press was reporting that “The Nazi Party tortured and killed a 15-year-old Jewish girl” or “Hitler sent Grandma to a concentration camp”.  These headlines make “THEM” seem like innocent individuals, and not the collective cause of your problems – – your enemy – – worthy of punishment.  To make his actions acceptable, the Nazi Party did not talk about the Jews as individuals.   They were all part of a race, and that race was not even human.  Hitler said in a speech: “The Jewish race was only created by God for the purpose of being in a certain percentage a parasite living on the body and the productive work of other nations.”  In other cases, Jews were called “rats” or “vermin”.  With this narrative, the actions of German leaders were less horrific since “people” were not being murdered – – it was just cleaning up the German problem by exterminating those pesky rats.

President Trump is not going to exterminate the 15 million immigrants in the U.S. while MAGA cheers.  He is; however, using chapters from the Nazi playbook in order for him to carry out his plan for mass deportations.  The current administration has no plan to look at the immigrants as individuals. Individuals have families, and stories and rights, and that storyline would hinder their plans.  The Republican Party started by saying that the plan was to deport the worst criminals, but that morphed into all immigrants are criminal and all are going to be deported to meet quota.  A quick scan of the newspaper or social media posts, and the terms “non-humans”, “animals”, and “gang members” are the headlines.  Some of the latest ads talk about the “Immigrant Invasion” like we are dealing with an overpopulation of mice or a plague of locust.  I believe it would be hard, even for the die-hard MAGA, to look at themselves in the mirror and show support for a leader or policy that authorized masked men to grab a young student on the way to school.  It is; however, easier for an American to sleep more soundly if we are just clearing our communities of the faceless members of an invasive species that eats pets and rapes and pillages the countryside.     

THE AFTERMATH (THE SHAME THAT FOLLOWS)

There are plenty of cases in history where the “US” have tried to separate and remove themselves from the “THEM”.  American settlers wanted the Native Americans removed from the plains.  It would be difficult to think of yourself as a God-fearing Christian if you dislodged a young Cherokee girl from her home, but easier when your actions are just a way of rounding up the savages.  In an earlier post, I discussed how Americans turned on their own Japanese-American citizens, and they found a way to justify internment camps.  Germany found a way to have a large majority of their population sit idly by as their countrymen systematically killed 6 million Jews. The dehumanizing and justification that allowed these actions to take place; however, was short lived.  As time passed, each of these countries experienced a collective shame.  These events were a blemish on their history, and the ancestors of the perpetrators are left to wonder how their great-great grandparents ever allowed these atrocities to occur.    

As I sit and peer into my crystal ball and attempt to predict the future, I think that today’s mass deportations will be viewed poorly too- – and these deportations will lead to a national shame, vice being viewed as a proud American moment.  If I live long enough, I predict that my great-great grandchildren will likely be asking how anyone in 2025 found it acceptable (and some even celebrated) sending the most vulnerable in our communities to places called Alligator Alcatraz.  Like the post-war Germans, I’m not sure that we will have a good answer to that question.