Not so strange.

For this past week I thought that the most interesting concept was that of the polarization of German politics. Following the First World War, the German people were forced into the most degrading and detrimental forms of punishment that a warring country could imagine. Not only did they witness their own nation being divided up amongst other countries, but they were also told to repay a monetary figure the likes of which was truly impossible. These events were coupled with the humiliation of having lost the war to the very people who the Germans had believed that they were superior to. This of course led to a lot of finger pointing. The army did not believe that they had been the cause for the loss. The citizenry did not understand what had exactly happened. This confusion then began to escalate as the realities of war reparations became more tangible. As money became nearly worthless and many German workers found themselves simply laboring to pay off the debt that their country owed, people became disillusioned. And because of this disillusionment the people of Germany eventually began to see themselves as a people who were in a state of strife and desperation. As the saying goes, desperate times call for desperate measures. Well, in Germany, the times could not have seemed more desperate, and any type of moderation (i.e. Try to pay the war debt, and as rational people others will realize that our country cannot possibly do this) became superfluous. The only logical approach appeared to be extreme action, and the political parties began to pick up on this. The SPD party split into SPD and USPD and the former eventually sent radical right wing militants to battle the “rebels” of the latter. Political assassination became rampant. The Kaiser was even overthrown. Obviously, the entities of politics had become as desperate as the people that they represented. The polarization as a result of the post WWI chaos had driven the country into radicalism and near insanity. There seems to have been an environment of almost unimaginable uncertainty. After all, most people had seen their homeland go from one of the most powerful nations on earth to one of the weakest. This must have been shocking, to say the least. And in hindsight, the rise of the Nazi party does not actually seem to be something that was truly odd. In fact, I believe that if I had been a German during this time in history, I would have supported anyone, including Adolph Hitler, just so that I could have some semblance of a hope in support of a future for my family, self, and nation.