I've finally gotten around to reading The Millenium Trilogy, which is shockingly not fluff (goes to show what an illiterate I am).
The passage below quotes a character, who visited Germany in 1941 and describes the ethos of that time.
For anyone who's ever asked in a judgy tone (me): "But why didn't the Germans stop Hitler? Couldn't they tell he was a sociopath?", here, Tinker Bell, is a possible response.
And colour me paranoid, but it sounds & feels a lot like what's going on in India right now:
"I won't tire you with the details but when I went there, Hitler and Stalin were still good friends and there wasn't yet an Eastern Front. Everyone still believed Hitler was invincible. There was a feeling of...both optimism and desperation. I think those are the words. More than half a century later, it's still difficult to put words to mood. Don't get me wrong - I was not a Nazi, and in my eyes Hitler seemed like an absurd character in an operatta. But it would have been almost impossible not to be infected by the optimism about the future, which was rife in the ordinary people in Hamburg. Despite the fact that the war was getting closer, and several bombing raids were carried out against Hamburg during the time I was there, the people seemed to think it was mostly a temporary annoyance - that soon there would be peace and Hitler would establish his Neuropa. People wanted to believe that Hitler was God. That's what it sounded like in the propaganda."
(I don't wish to compare any one person to Hitler but I do find it fascinating to read about that precarious moment in history right before Hitler became so obviously and famously 'Evil'...coinciding with the moment of brainwashing/ disastrous lapse in individual judgement/ herd mentality that the public suffered.)
The passage below quotes a character, who visited Germany in 1941 and describes the ethos of that time.
For anyone who's ever asked in a judgy tone (me): "But why didn't the Germans stop Hitler? Couldn't they tell he was a sociopath?", here, Tinker Bell, is a possible response.
And colour me paranoid, but it sounds & feels a lot like what's going on in India right now:
"I won't tire you with the details but when I went there, Hitler and Stalin were still good friends and there wasn't yet an Eastern Front. Everyone still believed Hitler was invincible. There was a feeling of...both optimism and desperation. I think those are the words. More than half a century later, it's still difficult to put words to mood. Don't get me wrong - I was not a Nazi, and in my eyes Hitler seemed like an absurd character in an operatta. But it would have been almost impossible not to be infected by the optimism about the future, which was rife in the ordinary people in Hamburg. Despite the fact that the war was getting closer, and several bombing raids were carried out against Hamburg during the time I was there, the people seemed to think it was mostly a temporary annoyance - that soon there would be peace and Hitler would establish his Neuropa. People wanted to believe that Hitler was God. That's what it sounded like in the propaganda."
(I don't wish to compare any one person to Hitler but I do find it fascinating to read about that precarious moment in history right before Hitler became so obviously and famously 'Evil'...coinciding with the moment of brainwashing/ disastrous lapse in individual judgement/ herd mentality that the public suffered.)
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