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Andrew Sullivan has pointed out an intriguing quote from Jon Wiener's interview with historian Saul Friedländer regarding Nazi Germany:
I think one really has to look to the appeal of white/racial supremacy to explain the powerful support that Hitler commanded. It is a primal call to family. Although it seems unlikely that such a call can be so effective in the West today, I suspect that there remains a latent source of spiritual power in such a perspective.
As a non-Western example, I think it is this kind of call that helps to explain the draw of Islamism for many Muslims. Considering Nazi Germany and contemporary Islamism, it can look like being down and out as a people and a culture is an enabler of these more primal instincts.
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Andrew Sullivan has pointed out an intriguing quote from Jon Wiener's interview with historian Saul Friedländer regarding Nazi Germany:
JW: You do think we need to understand the German people and why they continued to follow Hitler to the bitter end.Sullivan offers, "It is the psychology of political theology, fused with unrestrained nationalism and hero-worship."
SF: Yes, a great majority of Germans remained faithful to their fuehrer, many of them to the end, and, it has to be admitted, quite a few even after the end. That, for a historian, is a puzzling situation. Stalin was feared by the Russians—admired by only a section of the population. Roosevelt was hated by many people in America. Churchill was hated by many people in England. But in Germany, you find adoration of Hitler—even after Stalingrad, even towards the end when everything was in ruins. The psychology of this I do not understand very well.
I think one really has to look to the appeal of white/racial supremacy to explain the powerful support that Hitler commanded. It is a primal call to family. Although it seems unlikely that such a call can be so effective in the West today, I suspect that there remains a latent source of spiritual power in such a perspective.
As a non-Western example, I think it is this kind of call that helps to explain the draw of Islamism for many Muslims. Considering Nazi Germany and contemporary Islamism, it can look like being down and out as a people and a culture is an enabler of these more primal instincts.
