Since first learning the history of Hitler’s rise to power, I often wondered how could the German people let such a monster take over their country?
In only a few years, the Nazis rose by enflaming people with lies and hatred. They intimidated their opposition to trample the fledgling democratic norms of the Weimar Republic on their goose-stepping march to rule, with Hitler as the legally appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933.
Der Führer promptly eviscerated the legislature, cowed or ignored the judges, and replaced the government apparatus with his own henchmen. On March 22, only 51 days later, the first transports loaded with his political rivals, now prisoners of the Reich, rolled through the gates of Dachau.
Over the years, I asked myself what would I have done to stop this decline from democracy into history’s most catastrophic dictatorship and all the horrors that followed? No matter the peril, I hoped I and enough others would have had the courage to stand in front of the gates of that first concentration camp to say, “This shall not pass. I resist.”
Given the events of the past few years and especially since this January 20, can there be any doubt we face the same moral and political challenge?
What are we, what am I, willing to do to prevent this current assault on our democracy, this descent into fascism mirroring those critical days of the early 1930s? We don’t have to be passive. Maybe speak out, text, write about, what is so plainly happening. Maybe join an organization like ACLU or Build the Resistance/50501, standing up to the would-be dictator. Maybe march in protest or just stand silent vigil saying “…not on my watch.”
But, let it be something. We must ensure when future generations look back on these trying times, they see how we, people committed to democracy and the rule of law, stood before the gates of looming autocratic fascism and said, “This shall not pass. I RESIST.”
And that in this moment in history, different from 1930 German, we, the people, won.
Keith Bradley, MD, lives in Fairfield.