So I just finished Fall of Berlin 1945 by Anthony Beevor which I started reading because, y'know, reasons.
Man what a great book. It spends some time winding through the buildup to 1945, which I don't particularly care about. But most of the book is focused on how the average Berliner and the Nazi regime dealt with their world crashing down around them. The fucking doom encroaching on the city as the Reich slowly fell and, and how people reacted to that was fascinating as was the medieval state they had to endure after the war ended. These people don't have to imagine Armageddon. They lived through it.
I'm currently reading "The Fall of Berlin 1945" and the parallels between the Stalin and Hitlers and their loyal supporters, their propaganda is poignant comparison to Trump and his supporters. Reading this it's easy to bring many parallels to the present day and Trump.
Like most German citizens really started questioning their leader ability and the party messages when in Sept. 1944 all men between 16-60 were conscripted to form the Volkssturm, aka the "people's storm"a citizens militia--because you know, things were so great in the Eastern Front.
I doubt the previous party hardliners really enjoyed their lack freedom were they were conscripted into an "army" and their lives were treated entirely disposable. I mean just look at how Trump treats his "loyal" personnel once their out of the inner circle, even his most loyal supporters.
I was referring to this quote you yourself initially posted.
> I know a fair bit about ww2 and so does my friend.
Again, as someone that proclaims to to have a passing knowledge of WWII you seem to have little if any. And again, a simple Google search would've rendered the results necessary to make an informed decision.
No offense or anything, but do yourself a fuckin' service and read a few books on the subject matter rather than lumping yourself into the atypical, moronic, uneducated, millennial/post-millennial idiocy associated with our generation.
Recommendations:
> If you truly believe a victory of Wilders will lead to genocide, leave the country, because then we are already lost.
I don't "believe" anything, I merely note what he actually said. Which is the very opposite of "sensationalist nonsense". EDIT: I already left the country some time ago, not least because of the noxious political climate around Wilders. My win, your loss.
> you insist that Wilders is genocidal based on your own emotions about his speech
Again: I don't insist on anything. I can't see into Wilders' dark soul: for all I know he was just tickling the lizard brain of his audience. But I can read exactly what he said.
> Because otherwise Moroccans would mistake your for... a woman, and you would come into contact with their cultural view on women. Which isn't all too nice.
Oh, you know all Moroccans, so you feel qualified to assert that they are all sexist? I'm familiar enough with North African sexism, thank you very much, but I wouldn't generalise my experience with specific people to a whole country on that account, just as I wouldn't generalise my experience with individual racists in the Netherlands to all Dutch people.
You, on the other hand, seem comfortable with sweeping generalisations.
> And this is basically just one big insult, not an argument.
Believe me, if I insulted you, which I'm certainly feeling like doing, you'd know. You're just avoiding a reply.
> If you call people literally "evil" for voting a certain party, that's pretty much synonymous to calling them a "nazi", because no-one who actually uses the word means to invoke political ideology.
Quite frankly, you don't make any fucking sense. I believe that Maoism and Stalinism are evil: does that make them "synonymous" with Nazism?
I believe that PVVers are evil (but not Nazis, never mind "Nazi's"), because I've had a look at that party's platform and I find it is evil. If I'm not allowed to call a party program "evil" because that is "synonymous to calling it Nazi", then we are done discussing politics, thank you very much.
> No, the point is that you can't discuss someone's political views without, in effect, dehumanizing them
Evil, idiocy and misdirection are essentially human. I can hardly "dehumanise" anyone by pointing those out where they occur.
> if you're going to be a grammar Nazi
YOU CALLED ME A NAZI!!!!
> you should know that text between quotation marks is being quoted
Well, where did you quote "Nazi's" from, then?
> You have never heard of the Sack of Berlin?
I've even read Beevor's book, just as I read "The Fire. I even personally know several women who had to flee the advancing Red Army. Again, I don't see your fucking point.
To people who would like to know more I suggest The Fall of Berlin 1945 .