“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” – Spanish-American philosopher, George Santayana
Adolf Hitler almost did it. His was a calculated and orchestrated plan to annihilate the entire Jewish race. He cast an evil spell over Germany and made alliances with the worst of people, obliterating good as he prospered in evil.
He had set up some surefire ways to guarantee his success. I will re-examine three of his fundamental strategies and how they proved most effective in perpetrating one of the most evil plans known to mankind.
His plan, or playbook, is an old one. However, I will not only be refreshing your memory of years past, but of recent days and how his playbook is being used once again. Yep, and it’s working just as well as it did from pre-World War II to its end (1933-1945). I hope you see the parallels in what he did then, and what is transpiring right now on the world stage.
The three-part plan was really genius on his part. Horribly wicked and depraved, but genius nonetheless. A madman destroying and taking over the world. I call this plan “The three lethal weapons in Hitler’s war chest.”
Weapon #1: Destroy the existing government, constitution and civil liberties of the citizens in the Weimar Republic of Germany.
Weapon #2: Take over the media in its entirety to promote propaganda. Old thoughts and philosophies had to be replaced with new ones. Moral truth had to be removed, replaced with a lie. Free speech would no longer be allowed in the public setting. During those oppressive days, if anti-governmental speech somehow leaked to the authorities, the outspoken ones were “spirited away” into the night, never to be heard from again. This is according to holocaust survivor, Corrie Ten Boom.
Weapon #3: The lie must be promoted and acted upon to kill and cleanse the nation of the Jewish race.
Exterminating the Jewish race was a national duty set violently in motion – first within Germany, then in the invasion of their neighboring countries. Nazi Germany would be responsible for mass genocide and destruction – six million Jews annihilated; sixty to eighty million dead from this war and its casualties.
The step by step plan as I see it—in its simplest form:
First, he overrode the constitution of the democratic republic known as “The Weimar Republic.” The legislative building was burned down and blamed on the communist Russians. Sound familiar?
The Enabling Act of 1933 was quickly passed, abolishing most civil liberties and transferring state powers to the Reich government. Bye-bye civil liberties—hello Nazi state. It “enabled” the Nazis to kill, steal and destroy.
Your property rights were gone if the Reich was in need of anything at all. They simply took whatever they wanted. You gladly handed it over or you were dead. This was the easy part because brute force was the rule. Thuggery, intimidation, imprisonment, and cold-blooded murder were the guarantees of success.
Secondly, the removal of truth. Everything else hinged on this one thing. Hitler would have to completely and fundamentally change his nation in the next phase.
To succeed, he had to surround himself with dedicated leaders. He did a fantastic job here, well…at least until some of them figured out what a madman he was, and what he was doing to the country. He would live through many assassination attempts—six total. “Operation Valkyrie” was my personal favorite.
Those who served Hitler were of like mind – totally dedicated to him and the Reich in every way. He carefully assigned men in key positions and tested their loyalty religiously.
Once his team was assembled, he set forth to radically transform Germany. He was fully prepared with his leadership behind him to use propaganda to achieve his murderous agenda.
Propaganda…you know…fake news. Everyone had to be on board with a gigantic lie.
The lie was this: Jews were subhuman, inferior in every aspect to the Arian race. Jews must be killed, and Germany ultimately cleansed of them.
Long before Hitler secured the chancellorship of Germany, he already understood the power of propaganda. Here he wrote in 1924:
“…propaganda’s task is not to make an objective study of the truth, in so far as it favors the enemy, and then set it before the masses with academic fairness; its task is to serve our own right, always and unflinchingly.” *Source
Assigned to this enormous task was Joseph Goebbels, Minister of Propaganda. First, he would have to remove the truth by brainwashing. Clear the minds and consciences of the people of anything that was contrary to his new philosophy. Burning books and Bibles and gaining control of schools and universities was key.
Making the Germanic peoples forget their country’s history, democracy and freedoms…would need to be wiped clean. A new world where there was no moral code. The end would clearly justify the means in his eyes.
Hitler and Minister Goebbels were in complete agreement on how to accomplish this. Goebbels penned his devious plan from the very start.
From the diary of Joseph Goebbels, dated 1933:
“Now it will be easy to carry on the fight, for we have all the resources of the state. Radio and press are at our disposal. We shall stage a masterpiece of propaganda. And this time, naturally, there is no lack of money.” **Source below.
Hitler was, of course, fully on board with the evil-crafted plan. And—a masterpiece—it was.
It was crucial to get the printing press, radio broadcasters and all media fully equipped with the “new truth.” Books and Bibles were burned because they contained unwelcome moral codes and ideologies. Schools, even churches, were taken over by the state and shut down if not…compliant with “der Führer’s” wishes and espoused ideologies. If churches were open for business, a Nazi flag emblazoned with a swastika was prominently displayed front and center, usually near the symbolic cross of Christ.
Absolutely nothing but the “new ideology” was tolerated. If you were not compliant, you were arrested, shot on the spot…or worse, sent to a prison and ultimately a concentration camp. This applied to non-Jews, too.
Once the purging of conscious moral thought began to take root, the cleansing of the Jews came swiftly behind and grew exponentially. But, apparently not fast enough for Hitler and Joseph Goebbels.
For example:
“February 5, 1942: The Jewish question is giving us a headache. This time, however, it is not because we have gone too far, but because we are not going far enough. Among large sections of the German people, the idea is gaining headway that the Jewish question cannot be regarded as solved until all Jews have left the Reich.” – Joseph Goebbels. ***Source below.
The murderous and progressive plan of action continued.
A diary entry just a few days later:
“February 14, 1942: The Fuehrer once more expressed his determination to clean up the Jews in Europe pitilessly.” ***Source below.
Without pity is right. Never had the earth seen such descent of humanity, treating other humans with such savage contempt. Even little children and infants were put to death in the extermination camps and subcamps. The ovens burned daily—incinerating humans.
Historical photos of mass graves showed the skeletal remains of babies in the arms of their mothers.
Stories have been recounted and documented of the countless numbers of little ones, some hiding in the toilets and sewers trying to survive deportation and mass murder.
How anyone can deny this ever happened is beyond me. I have books, live interviews and photos galore that tell me otherwise.
In part two, I will continue with more observations and conclude how Hitler’s madness, greedy obsessions and the weather ultimately lost him the war. I will also draw attention to the modern-day version of Hitler, in the form of progressive liberal socialism.
*Source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/nazi-propaganda
**Source: Metaxas, Eric. Bonhoffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy. Nashville, Tennessee, Thomas Nelson, 2010.
***Source: Joseph Goebbels’ Diaries: Excerpts 1942-43, page 69, The Nizkor Project.
Additional Sources: Ten Boom, Corrie. Sherrill, Elizabeth. Sherrill, John. The Hiding Place.