We should indeed stay vigilant. And I say this not only from a German perspective, but this should should still be a global issue, working to further eliminate racism, anti-semitism and all other forms of hate throughout the world.
The fact that openly national socialist parties, say, in Greece or Hungary are making a return to parliament, is certainly a great cause for concern.
I was talking about this with some work colleagues yesterday. Hitler is in danger of becoming less of a man and more of a ‘myth’ as those who were in power alongside or opposing him are long gone and those who fought him are dying. Hitler was without hesitation the epitome of evil in power (and I get annoyed at ideological points scoring with ‘what about Stalin?’ usually coming from the right of the political spectrum as if it’s about getting one over on fascism) but he’s been sanitised. He’s ‘bad’ but people don’t really want to invest the energy to discuss exactly why he was and why he rose to power. It’s not necessarily a new thing either; the worst of Hitler we only found out after the war and at that point people were tired of the war and wanting to move on. Yet the attitudes he embodies inhabits every society; the anti-Semitism expressed by some Arab governments, right wing fringe parties and Trots is taken almost verbatim from the 20’s and 30’s. Every time some loon talks about the ‘homosexual agenda’ as if there’s a cabal of people who influence the government it’s exactly the same.
For me, as history is still my field, I feel that Fascism as a political force is only discussed or taught as the preface to war. Which of course it was, but it suggests that it ended as an ideology in 1945 (which it didn’t) or was only relevant to Germany or Italy. So in schools, Fascism becomes embodied by Germany and essentially becomes a history lesson rather than a political one.
