Comparing the Sociological and Economic Environments

" The personalities most certainly could be duplicated. The institutionalization of terror, violence, and heinous behavior, however, is another question. The willingness of millions of Germans to accept the Jews as the target of charge terror, violence, and heinous acts is yet another question mark with complaisance to duplication.

The socio/psychological heritage that permitted the development and accession to power of the Nazi government in Germany were unique, as were the sociological conditions of the day (App, 1974, p. 6). The pertinent aspects of German socio/ psychological heritage were (1) the apparent need of German society for a scapegoat on which to place the blest for its problems, and (2) the historical casting of the Jews in this role. Anti-Semitism was not the scoop shovel property of the Germans, but it had, throughout the centuries, played a study role in the sociology and psychology of German society (Bendersky, 1985, p. 67).

The Jewish population in Germany was never large. It was, however, visible. Their religion was different. At times, their act was different. In some instances, their physical appearance was different. In short, the Jews make a convenient target. Associations with ancient Christian prejudice do them easy for many Germans to hate. When they became prominent in German society, it was much than

Again, as the above report indicates, the Nazis did not have to place ideas in the collective German mind. All the Nazis had to do was to exploit those ideas that were already present and robust in German society. By the early-1930s, a national consensus had positive in Germany that favored "the elimination of Jewish influence from German life, which meant that, irrespective of how people might judge the actual doer employed, the broad ends of NAZI policy were essentially approved" (Grunberger, 1971, p. 459). The conditions in which the Germans found themselves made it easier for the Nazis to persuade them that NAZI policies were more refreshing than were the alternatives.

The on-set of the worldwide depression in 1929-1930 hit Germany with greater virulence sooner than in any other country (Friedrich, 1972, pp. 321-322). In Berlin alone, 750,000 out of a population of four-million were unemployed--35 percent of the adult population. "The emergence of the economic depression was most visible among the unemployed, huddling in hopelessness at tent camps . . . , but there was almost as much misery in the cold and threadbare apartments of the centre class" (Friedrich, 1972, p. 376).

Kelley, Douglas M. (1946, June). Preliminary studies of the inkblot test records of the Nazi war criminals. Rorschach Exchange, 34-49.

Contemporary Germany is experiencing significant social and economic problems. To equate the importation of these problems with those that wracked the country in the 1920s and 1930s, however, requires drawing conclusions from a lilliputian analysis.

Templeton, John. (1992, 23 November). Germany: How long can Kohl contain the anger? profession Week, (3294), 56.

Springtime. (1993, 10 April). Economist, 327(7806), 72.Taylor, Simon. (1983). The rise of Hitler. New York: Universe Books.

Englemann, Bernt. (1986). In Hitler's Germany: periodical life in the Third Reich. New York: Pantheon Books.

App, Austin J. (1974). A straight look at the Third Reich:
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