March the Thirty-first

This day in history:

March 31st, 1933 - German Republic gives power to Adolph Hitler

Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf:

The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, because the vast masses of a nation are, in the depths of their hearts, more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad.

The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them more easy victims of a big lie than a small one, because they themselves often tell little lies but would be ashamed to tell big ones. Such a form of lying would never enter their heads. They would never credit others with the possibility of such great impudence as the complete reversal of facts.

Even explanations would long leave them in doubt and hesitation, and any trifling reason would dispose them to accept a thing as true. Something therefore always remains and sticks from the most imprudent of lies, a fact which all bodies and individuals concerned in the art of lying in this world know only too well, and therefore they stop at nothing to achieve this end.

And he applied that “logic” to Germany. In the end the willingness of the German people to turn a blind eye to the truth caused the torture and murder of millions upon millions of people.

We have only to look as far as Pinellas Park, Florida to see the words of George Santayana proved oh so horribly true, when he said:

“Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Posted by Danny Carlton at March 31, 2005 10:50 AM