Hitler and Putin

I just finished reading "Adolph Hilter" by John Toland. Its hefty - 1,229 pages. I decided to read it for two reasons. I watched a couple Nazi/WWII documentaries on netflix, so that got me interested. Also there was not a lot to do on my Amtrak trip to North Dakota and I needed something I wouldn't finish mid-trip.

Let me state that I'm not a fan of Hitler. But I do think it's interesting how one person could mesmerize a country then take over a good chunck of the world. And if it happened before, it could happen again. How did he pull that off? Well, he and his buddy Goebbels made sure they controlled the media. Doing so, he was able to convince the majority of Germans that the Jews were bad for the country and were fair game to mistreat and hate. However, he knew he couldn't convince the German people that the concentration camps, torture, and genocide were okay. That was done far away and kept secret. 

How could he concvince his people that it was fine to take over Austria, Poland, etc? Because there were Germans in those countries and they were being mistreated and the were asking for Germany to liberate them. Those kinds of untruths are still being told today. Vladimir Putin is in control of the Russian media and the Russian people ae in suppport of the invasion because they believed him when he said they went into Ukraine because the Ukrainians wanted him to free them, ironically, from Nazi influence there. That isn't true, but the Russian people didn't know any better.

And the rest of the world isn't sure how to respond. They don't want to be appeasers, but also don't want to risk another world war. Its the same circumstance Chamberlain faced eighty years ago.

Hopefully, history won't repeat itself the way it did with Adoph Hitler.