# "Germany was the most cultured and educated country in Europe and they still let the Nazis take over" **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 11, 2022, 7:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292 "2022-02-11T07:30:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/61 "2022-02-12T16:21:04Z")
The people of wealth and education fall to thinking _they_ can ride the wave to be the ones who rule and profit in the end. They will be the ones pointing out whose face to punch. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 4:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/62 "2022-02-12T16:30:12Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > The people of wealth and education fall to thinking _they_ can ride the wave to be the ones who rule and profit in the end. Yup. And so they feed it; despite all the historical evidence that it’s bound to eat them too. And a lot of them, I think, are just highly susceptible to – I think I’ll quote Pratchett: > It seemed to be a chronic disease. It was as if even the most intelligent person had this little blank spot in their heads where someone had written: “Kings. What a good idea.” We don’t usually call them kings, these days. We call them Strong Leaders, or something of the sort. But it’s the same impulse, and while not every human has it, it’s got its roots very hard in the backs of the heads of those who do; and it comes from a place that’s got nothing to do with education. ---
**Author:** ![ASL\_v2.0](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/asl_v2.0/32/3525_2.png) [@ASL\_v2.0](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ASL_v2.0)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/63 "2022-02-12T16:44:34Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > For what it’s worth, France was a cradle of culture at least on a par with Germany. > > \*the behavior of Vichy officials after surrender to Germany in 1940 not withstanding. Notwithstanding, or a case in point? “Culture” will not save you from those with a will to rule according to an authoritarian bent. At best it will be ignored. At worst—and all too effectively—it will be co-opted and contorted to serve the authoritarian regime. I hear “culture and heritage” and a chill goes down my spine. ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/64 "2022-02-12T16:54:38Z")
the book could have also added the anti-Asian limits on immigration, land ownership, voting, etc. And remember the great anti-Semite, Martin Luther ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/65 "2022-02-12T17:05:54Z")
I detect some condescension in your last remarks. Part of problem with liberal elites is that they’re elites, with no empathy or understanding for those “beneath them”, just burden of telling them how to live their lives (what, you can’t afford organic produce imported from Brazil? Ride a bike instead of driving, but of course I do go first class when flying, it’s my right as educated at Ivy league) ---
**Author:** ![fedman1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e495f1/32.png) [@fedman1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fedman1)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/66 "2022-02-12T17:07:33Z")
did the Greek philosophers stop tyranny? ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/67 "2022-02-12T17:10:03Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > > [@JRDelirious](#): > > > > we see that the general working masses are altogether eager to embrace simple populistic answers that boil down to, as was mentioned earlier: > > It’s common and easy to blame such things on the supposedly dull-witted “working masses”, and to ignore the great deal of cooperation from people of both wealth and education. > > Neither wealth nor education appears to confer resistance to demagogues; or resistance to enslaving or killing those who ought to be fellow citizens. There were “working masses” _as well as_ people with wealth and power out there in the 1920s fighting Nazis on the streets. Not everybody was a fucking Nazi. On the other hand, Hitler enjoyed support and protection, so there were clearly enough of them around from the very beginning and not only among the “working masses”. I would venture to say that if you want to start or support a popular movement, either Nazi or anti-Nazi, it can only help to be wealthy, educated, and connected. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/68 "2022-02-12T17:20:59Z")
@fedman1 and @DPRK: I think you’re both agreeing with me? > [@DPRK](#): > > There were “working masses” _as well as_ people with wealth and power out there in the 1920s fighting Nazis on the streets. Not everybody was a fucking Nazi. Oh, agreed. And some who weren’t fighting in the streets weren’t either; some of them were just terrified. ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/69 "2022-02-12T17:31:12Z")
Yes, that happens everywhere and always, I believe. Wealthy and educated or: what a waste! Like in Boris Johnson, Peter Thiel, Steve Bannon, to name just three from three different countries (one of them German, to stay in OP - but all the names in this post are just examples and could be changed for many other, also well known names). And the mega-wealthy? I believe I know which side Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg would gladly fall to if push came to shove, what the Koch brothers and Robert Leroy Mercer financed and I believe I know too what kind of person financed the Brexit campaign. I know what kind of person you have to be to become an oligarch when opportunity arises, like in Russia in the 90s and in South America in the 19th and 20th Centuries, and again now with Bolsonaro. So no, the Krupps were no exception. Rich people tend to be conservative and there is a conservatism that leans towards totalitarism, because totalitarism seems like a good and effective way to cement the past (although there is also a liberalism that leans towards totalitarism too, for the greater good of Humanity and a bright future for all™ and accepts violence as a legitimate means to hasten the advent of a Paradise of Enlightment on Earth - but that is another subject). The question in the end, at least for me, is: why were the Nazis more murderous than the other totalitarians (Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s Great Leap Forward permitting) and why did they have this particular obsession with systematically and ruthlessly murdering what they called “sub-humans” (Untermenschen), specially Jews? ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/70 "2022-02-12T17:35:54Z")
> [@fedman1](#): > > I detect some condescension in your last remarks. Part of problem with liberal elites is that they’re elites, with no empathy or understanding for those “beneath them”, just burden of telling them how to live their lives (what, you can’t afford organic produce imported from Brazil? Ride a bike instead of driving, but of course I do go first class when flying, it’s my right as educated at Ivy league) You know how much Brazilian rainforest had to be torn down for that organic produce?!! You monster! ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/71 "2022-02-12T18:58:46Z")
> [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > The question in the end, at least for me, is: why were the Nazis more murderous than the other totalitarians (Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s Great Leap Forward permitting)… That’s a matter for debate. See the Wikipedia article: > **[Mass killings under communist regimes](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes)** > > Mass killings under communist regimes occurred through a variety of means during the 20th century, including executions, famine, deaths through forced labour, deportation, starvation, and imprisonment. Some of these events have been classified as genocides or crimes against humanity. Other terms have been used to describe these events, including classicide, democide, red holocaust, and politicide. The mass killings have been studied by authors and academics and several of them have postulate... ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/72 "2022-02-12T19:13:10Z")
Here’s a list of many of the genocides around the world: > **[List of genocides by death toll](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_genocides_by_death_toll)** > > Pages for logged out editors learn more > > > > > This list of genocides by death toll includes estimates of all deaths which were directly or indirectly caused by genocide, as it is defined by the UN Convention on Genocide. It excludes mass killings which may be referred to as genocide by some scholars and are variously also called mass murder, crimes against humanity, politicide, classicide, or war crimes, such as the Thirty Years' War (7.5 million deaths), Japanese war crimes (3 to 14 mi... ---
**Author:** ![gnarator](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gnarator/32/8266_2.png) [@gnarator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gnarator)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/73 "2022-02-12T20:38:15Z")
I’ve heard the statement in the OP a variety of ways, and the responses seem to be breaking down along those lines as well. It’s an easy statement to make, but it collapses under scrutiny. Certainly, though, Germany (and Austria) were cultured, well-educated countries, with modern economies and advanced technology. So if your point is to issue a warning that it can happen here, point taken. But the explanation doesn’t account for the autocratic militarism of the German state and the general weakness of the democratic institutions. I’ve also heard that the Jews of Germany were the freest, most-assimilated in all of Europe before World War I, in contrast to the Russia of pogroms and the France of the Dreyfus affair, taking their place in cultured and educated society, and explaining why many seemed to be taken off-guard by Hitler and not fleeing when they had the chance. But that explanation doesn’t account for the _Judenzählung_ or the exclusion of Jews from government, military leadership, and many Universities or teaching posts-- Jews were excluded from experimental physics, so Albert Einstein ended up in the “sandbox” of theoretical physics, as Neil deGrasse Tyson describes it. (“But oh what a sandbox!”) Instead, the Dreyfus affair should be a [cautionary tale,](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/09/28/trial-of-the-century) “the first indication that a new epoch of progress and cosmopolitan optimism would be met by a countervailing wave of hatred that deformed the next half century of European history.” ---
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [February 12, 2022, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/74 "2022-02-12T21:29:30Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > That’s a matter for debate. I know. That is why I used the brackets. But if we are debating the OP’s statement that Germany showed some kind of exceptionalism it seemed not right to just deny that statement, debatable as it may be (and it is hard to question that exceptionalism without falling into the relativism trap which can lead to an explanation of the deeds and circumstances that sounds suspitiously like a justification of anti-semitism). And the rabid anti-semitism of Nazi-Germany sure is something exceptional: you can stop being a communist, or go into hiding and stop your activities, but you cannot stop being a Jew. The Nazi’s antisemitism even went so far that they ~~persecuted~~ tried to systematically exterminate Jews who did not even know they were Jews. Same applies _mutatis mutandis_ to Gypsies and homosexuals, I hope the general direction of my argument is clear: if it could happen here, it could happen everywhere, but why it went so off the rails here is something I still do not understand. Disclaimer: I am half-German and live in Germany. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/75 "2022-02-13T01:27:51Z")
> [@Jackmannii](#): > > And yet France did not become fascist, target millions of its own citizens for murder\* and gear up for aggressive war in postwar years. That seems to indicate a particular sickness in Germany. > > [World War I Reparations Weren’t As Unfair As You Think](https://thefederalist.com/2014/07/29/world-war-i-reparations-werent-as-unfair-as-you-think/) > > For what it’s worth, France was a cradle of culture at least on a par with Germany. > > \*the behavior of Vichy officials after surrender to Germany in 1940 not withstanding. You are familiar with the Reign of Terror and Napoleon a century or so earlier? Clearly all countries are susceptible to their people losing their shit. Although I suppose Nazi Germany is unique in how it turned the entire industrial might and precision of their nation to building weapons of war and exterminating Jews and other peoples. There is something particularly sinister in that the Holocaust wasn’t simply perpetuated by rabble and angry mobs. And operation like that requires accountants, engineers, clerks, secretaries, all sorts of mundane bureaucrats and middle managers tirelessly working as cogs in a big genocidal machine. Much in the same way General Motors or Proctor & Gamble would manufacture and ship products globally. Are we to believe that thousands of people worked keeping books, collating records, and setting timetables without any thought or understanding what those numbers represented? ---
**Author:** ![EinsteinsHund](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/einsteinshund/32/8400_2.png) [@EinsteinsHund](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EinsteinsHund)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/76 "2022-02-13T01:50:04Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > Are we to believe that thousands of people worked keeping books, collating records, and setting timetables without any thought or understanding what those numbers represented? All those accountants of the Holocaust knew exactly what they were doing, but according to Prussian tradition (whose overblown militaristic fixation was already mentioned in this thread), had what we Germans ourselves coined a word for, “Kadavergehorsam”, the blind and unwavering obedience of a cadaver. And that’s the most devastating aspect, that “I just followed orders” was the most used excuse by those people, the best example being Adolf Eichmann. ---
**Author:** ![Jay\_Z](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Jay\_Z](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jay_Z)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/77 "2022-02-13T02:01:19Z")
What I’m hearing here is that it’s impossible to disentangle the Nazi history from WWI, and what I believe is that as an American, it’s hard for me to understand the context that led to WWI. WWI was really never the USA’s baby, yeah, we eventually took a side, but only to resolve it. As an American I can understand the US Civil War, what led to that, but the European context that led to WWI isn’t part of our history. So whatever about all that culture, WWI still happened, Germany had its considerable hand in that with all of those universities and everything. So that part of the genesis was baked in the cake already. So I can’t really uncouple the “weapons of war” for WWII from WWI. Yeah, the winners of WWI didn’t want another bite at the apple, but Germany did. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/78 "2022-02-13T02:13:24Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > > [@Pardel-Lux](#): > > > > The question in the end, at least for me, is: why were the Nazis more murderous than the other totalitarians (Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s Great Leap Forward permitting)… > > That’s a matter for debate. See the Wikipedia article: IMO that leads us down a different rabbit hole of moral abhorrence: Is it worse to have the deaths of tens of millions be the means by which you achieve power… or to have the death of tens of millions be the _end_ for which you seek power. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 2:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/79 "2022-02-13T02:16:01Z")
> [@Jay\_Z](#): > > What I’m hearing here is that it’s impossible to disentangle the Nazi history from WWI, and what I believe is that as an American, it’s hard for me to understand the context that led to WWI. > > WWI was really never the USA’s baby, yeah, we eventually took a side, but only to resolve it. As an American I can understand the US Civil War, what led to that, but the European context that led to WWI isn’t part of our history. So whatever about all that culture, WWI still happened, Germany had its considerable hand in that with all of those universities and everything. So that part of the genesis was baked in the cake already. > > So I can’t really uncouple the “weapons of war” for WWII from WWI. Yeah, the winners of WWI didn’t want another bite at the apple, but Germany did. Unlike WWII, the participants in WWI (the empires of Germany, Austria-Hungary, Ottoman Empire, Britain, Russia, France, etc) all largely contributed to the war through their highly competitive and paranoid culture of nationalism, imperialism, and militarism and the complex web of alliances linking them together. As the losers, Germany bore much of the brunt while Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire ceased to exist as political entities. ---
**Author:** ![bob\_2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bob_2/32/3341_2.png) [@bob\_2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bob_2)\ **Post date:** [February 13, 2022, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292/80 "2022-02-13T09:27:53Z")
> [@thorny\_locust](#): > > We don’t usually call them kings, these days. We call them Strong Leaders, or something of the sort. Benevolent dictators? > **[Benevolent dictatorship](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benevolent_dictatorship)** > > A benevolent dictatorship is a government in which an authoritarian leader exercises absolute political power over the state, but is perceived to do so with regard for benefit of the population as a whole, standing in contrast to the decidedly malevolent stereotype of a dictator who focuses on their supporters and their own self-interests. A benevolent dictator may allow for some civil liberties or democratic decision-making to exist, such as through public referendums or elected representatives... [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/germany-was-the-most-cultured-and-educated-country-in-europe-and-they-still-let-the-nazis-take-over/959292.md?page=5)