re: #194 The Ghost of a Flea

I’d argue with the last bit. The formal ideologies often give cohesion and direction. Nazi ideology wan’t just a bunch of Germans being assholes. It was ‘inspirational’, it really did change the way people perceived things.

I have a friend of mine who grew up a Nazi Youth. He was 15 when the war ended. He never actually did anything to anyone, but he frankly says he hated Jews with all his heart, believed they wanted to destroy him and his family, and likewise with the Soviets.

He got de-radicalized by contact with Americans during the occupation, and by Jewish teacher at college and university, but he said it took about ten total years to ‘deprogram’ him.

He’s a wonderful, kind, generous man. I really believe that’s the core of him, and that the hate was generated by fear purposefully inculcated by the Nazis.