The Danger of Mythologizing the Nazis

The term 'Nazi' has 4 definitions in the dictionary, one of them being "derogatory term for a person who is fanatically dedicated to, or seeks to control, some activity, practice, etc." This word is probably the most emotionally and politically loaded terms in the history of the English language.

And this is a bad thing. Because the immense and inextricable emotional and political connotations had mythologized the term Nazi, Hitler and Communist.

The world had never seen anything like the Nazi movement and it is the popular mindset that we will never see anything like it again. As we move farther and farther away from that time and all that is left of the Nazis are movies and falsified history books and stories of medical experiments, concentration camps and Nazi occultism, we are concomitantly moving deeper into a cultural consensus that views Nazis and Nazisms as a myth. Let me be clear that I am NOT talking about Holocaust Denial. What I am talking about is the elevation of Hitler, Communists, and the Nazis to the status of ancient monsters who will never rear their ugly heads again. Because of the sensationalizing of all things 'Nazi', we are creating a world in which the horrors brought on by that movement could never happen again simply because they were so severe, so outlandish, so outdated, so beyond the reach and comprehension of modern society.

This is not true. Communism is alive, well and thriving all around us. People forget that Stalin wasn't always Stalin, Hitler wasn't always Hitler and Communist or Nazi were not always terms haphazardly applied to unfavorable politicians or demanding school teachers. The danger in mythologizing the Nazis is that this results in people rolling their eyes at the truth. The only reason why Democrats are not self-identifying as Socialists is because the word is 'too extreme.' It is not. It is a categorical description of what they espouse.

There is always a time before a tragedy, always a period prior to a movement and always a catalyst that irrevocably changes the future. We have to remember that Nazis are not myths. Simply trading ostentatious garb for a tailored suit does not imply a change of ideology.

Remember, the fact that the oppressor oppresses with a smile instead of a sneer does not change the fact the he is the oppressor.