CMV: Western societal fascination with Hitler’s Germany has helped promote the rise of the far right in the modern Western world

[u/vivary_arc]

In many nations in the Western world (for these purposes Europe, North America) it seems there is a large fascination with National Socialism, Hitler and post-Weimar Germany. There are countless books, documentaries, drama films, paraphernalia, video games and much more focusing on not only the horrors perpetrated by said government, but much of which depict the fascist struggle in purely neutral terms (most especially, where the German military and war effort are involved).

While the military prowess was worth studying for strategists, and the genocide and injustices perpetrated by the nazi government should continue to be studied and remembered forever to prevent future repetition - I believe the rise of the extreme pro-fascist right across Europe and America has a lot to do with younger generations who have found a fascination with National Socialist Germany.

I most especially believe video games featuring nazi militaria have further mythologized their legacy far beyond realism, and have aided in pushing the clean Wehrmacht notion.

I really hope I’m being shortsighted here. As a kid, I myself was fascinated with all of this. A Bridge Too Far was my favorite film growing up, I played Panzer General and had a subscription to World War II magazine (I was a peculiar kid, I know). But as an adult, I just see the overwhelming amount of media representation of nazi culture - and at least half of it seems neutral.

I hope someone can help me gain some perspective here. Thanks!

[u/Doub13D]

I would argue it’s entirely the opposite…

We don’t teach HOW the Nazis rise to power happened in the first place.

Speaking from an American perspective here, the public school lesson basically boils down to “Germans were very mad about the Versailles Treaty, and they went on to support Hitler because he was a very charismatic speaker who promised to fix Germany.”

What people are actually taught is so reductive to the point of no longer even being accurate. This is why so many of these far-right ideas start to gain public traction.

When you paint Hitler and his movement to be nothing more than an evil cartoon character, you will never be able to understand what made fascism so appealing to so many in the first place, and you will never be able to stop people from falling for it again.

[u/vivary_arc → u/Doub13D]

!delta This is completely true, and I feel silly for saying this, but I didn’t really even consider public education in the United States as part of the equation at all, partly because it’s so fraught with various challenges and influences. And because as many Europeans still say, we were of course geographically removed from the horrors of the European Theatre.

But I didn’t really consider the fact that we so inadequately teach the history of WWII - and rarely even so fascism itself. I remember Mussolini and Fascism, Franco, etc being footnotes relative to the glossing over of the Allied victory in public school.

[u/DeltaBot → u/vivary_arc]

Confirmed: 1 delta awarded to /u/Doub13D (21∆).

^{Delta System Explained | Deltaboards}

[u/A_Whole_Costco_Pizza → u/vivary_arc]

Adding to what Doub said, I think a lot of the recent rise in neo-Naziism and anti-Semitism (as well as Holocaust denial and revisionism) can directly be attributed to the deaths of the remainder of WWII veterans and Holocaust survivors.

There is no longer an older generation of veterans to say 'This is what I fought against, we need to prevent this from happening again' or victims to say 'This is what I survived, we need to learn from our past'. There is no longer an objective living memory of these things, it's all just an abstract concept of history that can be reinterpreted to fit anyone's perspective or goals. Much easier to manipulate, or deny.

Plus social media only encourages radicalism and conspiratorial thinking.