Quote Originally Posted by Adam Strange View Post
I used to wonder who in the world voted for ****** in Nazi Germany. Turns out it was ordinary citizens who were also racists. Interesting that no society seems to be free of these people.

It's almost as if there is some evolutionary advantage to having a large portion of the population be racist. Just as there is some evolutionary advantage to having some part of the population be gay.
******'s rise to power is rather complex and nuanced. When Germany lost WW1 they lost the colonies they had previously under the German Empire, which mean't losing access to markets and thus falling rates of profit for big business. Capitalism drives nations towards aggressive expansion due to what's know as the "crisis of over-production". In capitalism productivity steadily increases, but wages do not. People end up not having enough money to buy all the extra goods being produced and prices fall. When prices fall, big business freaks out and seek to expand aboard to maintain demand for their goods. This is what drives colonization and most wars in the modern era.

****** was only one cog in the machine that made WW2 and the holocaust happen. He was financially backed by a ring of industrial conglomerates due to his expansionist views and being anti-communist (communism was very prevalent in Germany at that time and posed a real active threat to big business). The racism and anti-semitic conspiracy theories was a means to provide an alternative explanation for the conditions that plagued German workers and turn people against communism.