Exclusive: Hanne Nabintu Herland spotlights book explaining how totalitarian systems evolve
By Hanne Nabintu HerlandPublished March 27, 2024 at 7:08pm
Today, few seem to recall that it was German elitist nationalism coupled with socialism that became the National Socialism ideology that dominated Germany prior to World War II.
NAZI is the abbreviation for "Nazionalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei," the National Socialist German Workers' Party.
Communism, socialism and National Socialism were all a part of the same root-ideology – Marxism.
The Nazi Party stood for precisely what we struggle with in the West today:
A strong centralization of government power, a rigid culture of consensus, censored individual liberties, repression of free speech and brutal media censorship.
There is a frightening unison in the media narrative that prescribes what people are to think and feel about almost every topic.
Simply by observing the old photographs of the multitudes greeting Adolf Hitler with Nazi salutes, and by listening to his speeches, one gets a glimpse into the immense groupthink social pressure Nazism was able to create.
The only accepted view was that of the ruling Nazi elites.
Back then, monopolistic corporate ruling elites completely controlled the economy while Hitler had total power in government.
This combination made totalitarianism possible in Germany.
The influential German philosopher Hannah Arendt was a Holocaust survivor who spent many years examining how it was possible for a modern, democratic state such as pre-World War II Germany, to turn into a totalitarian state and a brutal regime that killed millions of its own population.
In her groundbreaking book, "The Origins of Totalitarianism," Arendt analyzed 19th-century anti-Semitism, nationalism and racism as tools of imperialism – and its influence on the 20th-century growth of totalitarianism.
She looked at the power structures within the state and how it used fear to silence an entire population.
Arendt viewed National Socialism and Communism in the Soviet Union as two sides of one ideological Marxist coin.
In order for totalitarian systems to evolve, the role of media propaganda is central in converting the population into compliant masses.
Deliberate government threats toward those who opposed the ruling political narrative brought the desired silence from opposition.
This created the necessary isolation and loneliness as preconditions for total political, social and economic dominion in a culture rampant with fear.
When applying such tactics, the intellectual class was silenced under the threat of otherwise losing jobs, income and privileges.
Those who continued to pose critical questions were sent to concentration camps or a gulag.
Likewise, the publishing houses stopped print books that went against the Nazi narrative; journalists did not write any articles that questioned the power elite; teachers only allowed politically correct consensus in the classroom.
Those in government jobs were dependent on the state for their income and therefore would naturally not question any part of the status quo.
Arendt explains the growth of totalitarianism as the product of the disintegration of the traditional nation-state and independent thought.
The pursuit of total political power at the expense of solving the practical problems of society, creates a culture in which the needs of ordinary people are neglected.
In such a system, it becomes socially acceptable for politicians not to care about the population, as their main duty is to carry out the will of the powerful economic elites, overriding the interests of the people.
She also points out that totalitarian ideology had an appeal due to its promise of protection against insecurity.
Socialism nurtures the idea of the state providing for all, in such a manner that personal responsibility is evaded.
The state becomes responsible for the welfare of its citizens and naturally will exert control over the subgroups in society that live on welfare checks or employment provided by the government..
After World War I and its unimaginable sufferings for millions of people, Arendt argued that precisely this suffering made the population believe in the elites' promises to solve the problems.
Both Hitler and Stalin specifically used media propaganda in the pursuit of acquiring power over the population, installing the fictitious idea of total security once personal freedoms and the right to critical thinking were given up.
Total submission to the government was the ideal.
Arendt argued that this tyrannical system is fundamentally characterized by its deliberate replacement of all former values, traditions and institutions in order to create social chaos and then establish a political dominion that silence every opposition.
The double standards defined the totalitarian state as a utopian universe of freedom and happiness, while in reality it imposed a regime where the population suffered in silence, terrorized by their own government.
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