Who Goes Nazi by Dorothy Thompson, from Harpers, August 1941

[mountain grammy]

I'm sure this has been posted before, but in case you missed it.. this is after Hitler threw Thompson out of Germany. The link is for the entire article. So very timely today.

https://harpers.org/archive/1941/08/who-goes-nazi/?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email

It’s fun—a macabre sort of fun—this parlor game of “Who Goes Nazi?” And it simplifies things—asking the question in regard to specific personalities.

Kind, good, happy, gentlemanly, secure people never go Nazi. They may be the gentle philosopher whose name is in the Blue Book, or Bill from City College to whom democracy gave a chance to design airplanes—you’ll never make Nazis out of them. But the frustrated and humiliated intellectual, the rich and scared speculator, the spoiled son, the labor tyrant, the fellow who has achieved success by smelling out the wind of success—they would all go Nazi in a crisis.

Believe me, nice people don’t go Nazi. Their race, color, creed, or social condition is not the criterion. It is something in them.

Those who haven’t anything in them to tell them what they like and what they don’t—whether it is breeding, or happiness, or wisdom, or a code, however old-fashioned or however modern, go Nazi. It’s an amusing game. Try it at the next big party you go to.

[Hotler]

1. Thank you. nt

[Ocelot II]

2. This is *so* right on!

[alittlelark]

3. Very enlightening - sent the link to a few ppl

[Midnight Writer]

4. Why do we have to learn these lessons over again every few generations?

[dchill]

5. There have always been people who know things.

[allegorical oracle]

6. Great that you posted this. Enlightening and thought-provoking good read. nt

[cksmithy]

7. Thank you for posting this,

It could be written today. The article describes so many of today's public people to the smallest detail.

[Pachamama]

8. Dorothy Thompson Knew...

She was married to Sinclair Lewis (Author of “It Can’t Happen Here” on Fascism coming to America) and she was the first journalist banned from Germany by Hitler himself.

She was spot on in her description of the personality types that were born Nazis, likely to become Nazis and people who would never become Nazis. Those things haven’t changed ever and 80 years later are accurate.

We are now being led by a Nazi who falls under her category of “The Spoiled Son”….

[taxi]

9. Kick