@starcluster I have been born in the country which produced that monster 'Hitler' and one of my teenage pursuits was reading everything I could find about that time, as we heard little at school about it - reading a long series in 'Der Spiegel' gave me every historic detail of those terrible times, until I could stand it no more.
Strange though it may seem, my upbringing, including my school years was a lot gentler than many of you have experienced in Anglo countries, - no physical punishment whatsoever, not even for the boys, except the odd knuckle rap across the head (my husband told me this, as we were still brought up in girls-only, boys-only classrooms), or being banished to the corridors, standing around in the corners like statues, which most kids thought was a joke.
After WWI; Nazism was the answer to so many very impoverished people; not only the working class, also the middle class was affected by the cruel restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, causing large-scale unemployment, devaluation of currencies etc. - eventually the financial crisis of the late 1920s affected everyone, middle- and upper classes too. But there were socialist governments in various countries, socialism (not communism) was seen as the response to social crisis.
The first European Nazi, one Benito Mussolini (of Italy) was a socialist journalist in the first place, before he became the leader of an aggressive party he called 'fascist' - Hitler created the word 'Nationalsozialismus' - it was the exact opposite of what socialism intended, except people thought he had their interest at heart because the word 'socialism' was included. Socialists were the first ones to be banished to concentration camps, many built in the early 1930s in the outer West of what is now Germany - in prisons ringed by barbed wire and guarded by soldiers - inmates made to dig the moorlands of the areas close to Holland. Some socialists were tried and shot (Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht in Germany are famous names, still remembered today) - In Vienna there was a regular uprising and siege in one of the large housing estates built by the socialist after WWI, there were fights between conservative and socialist forces in 'Burgenland' - both parties left and right-wing had formed military units.
It was similar in Germany, all Hitler had to do was to stir up further trouble, have his own units of bully-boys (some recruited from prisons) and eventually he managed to sway the Christian-conservative 'middle class' to his side.
No thought of 'socialism' just a clever word play to convince the masses they might get 'social' benefits.
All they got was death and destruction - and so did the world !!!!
To compare the Covid 'lockdown' to 'akin to nazism' is stupid and bizarre - get your history right, please desist those ridiculous word games.
Taurisk
