Interesting site I found

[strandinthewind]

Originally Posted by macfanken

I could never understand how the Nazis gained power in Germany... now I see how it could happen. We're living in scary times.

The Nazi Party's advance to power in Germany under Socialism has little significant correlation to the present US political system. In a nutshell, the Nazis came into power because the treaty which ended WWI in June 1919, was devasting to Germany and is what brought the Nazis to power. Here is an excerpt:

The Versailles Treaty was an agreement at the end of WWI where the “Big Four” as they were called, America's Woodrow Wilson, Vittorio Orlando of Italy, Georges Clemenceau of France, and David Lloyd George of Great Britain, met to decide Germany’s consequences for WWI. The Germans believed that the treaty would be based on President Wilson’s Fourteen Points, which offered a framework for a just peace, and the hopes that any future international tension would be prevented. The Germans believed the Fourteen Points would have resulted in drastically less devastation to Germany if used in the treaty. But, the Big Four were determined to punish Germany for the war, and so they did.

This treaty held Germany solemnly responsible for WWI. They were forced to pay reparations totaling 132,000,000,000 in gold marks, they lost 1/8 of all its land, all of its colonies, all overseas financial assets, a new map of Europe was carved out of Germany, and the German military was basically non-existent. To the German people they were being ruthlessly punished for a war not only they were responsible for and fought.

The treaty devastated Germany politically and economically. As a result of the treaty many Germans were desperate to find a new leader to get them out of the Great Depression, which they blamed on the extravagant reparations they had to pay to the Allies. They found this leader in Adolf Hitler. Hitler believed Germany had given up to easily to the allies and still had a chance to win the war because there had been no fighting on German soil. He encouraged many German’s feelings of being betrayed by their own government and therefore thought they had no obligation to follow the treaty; this group became the Nazi’s. They still felt like they had more fighting to do and the Versailles Treaty fueled their anger. It created aggressive resentment and nationalism in Germany. There was a lot of increasing hostility towards the allied nations. Leaders like Hitler saw this treaty as something that weakened the great empire he was striving for. He didn’t sign it and he wasn’t about to follow it. But because of this treaty he was able to conquer and manipulate people by justifying his actions on the unfairness of the Versailles Treaty, and making stronger nations pity him.

Was Germany’s reaction to the Versailles Treaty really a shock or was it asking for disaster? The Versailles Treaty was the final straw that gave Germany and Hitler the excuse to take revenge on the nations that had previously hurt Germany.

http://www.pomperaug.com/socstud/stu...mrcidea6vt.htm

This site has a pretty good timeline with an explanation

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/GERnazi.htm

That factual scenario is not present in today's world

I get that Bush is a jerk and has been abominable to human rights as we acknowledge such today. We are not putting people in concentration camps solely because they are Jewish or gay. I get that we have the detainees Gitmo and are denying probably less than 100 other people,citizens rights to a lawyer, etc., but that is a far cry from putting people in a death camp for no reason and for the specific purpose of killing them. At least we do it under the guise of they are a threat to us, which many have turned out to be Before everyone jumps on me, let me emphasize that I am not in any way defending the use of these two things, I am just noting that while they are horrid and think we should not have them, they are far from what Hitler and he Nazi's did, which was to the tune of human skin lampshades, ovens to burn the thousands of corpses of the Jews and gays in the camps, vats of acid to do the same, biological testing on live humans which I will no go into detail about, etc. So, in the end, Bush and his cronies (which interestingly include most Democrats in the end - see the voting to the war in Iraq, DOMA, prior Iraq invasions, Oil for Food, etc. ) are really, really bad, but not letting gay people have the same rights automatically given to traditionally married people (which is a bad thing) - is hardly putting them in a camp and gassing them Thus, while it is somewhat darkly funny to call W "Hitler" sort of like one might refer to their severe teacher in college, the reasoning behind any tue comparison is specious and unsupported by the facts.

Again and in an effort to stave off any misconception, I think W is perhaps the worst President in the history of this country, and that is saying a lot. I cannot stand him or his policies. I think he is an abomination to human rights and, despite his hiding behind The Bible, the most anti-Christian, as that term was defined by Jesus, President we have ever had because of his lack of compassion for the poor and meek - these are the least of us that Chirst so loved. I am just noting that Hitler was far, far worse.