How to Grow a Tyrant

By Contributing Writer, Jeannette Paulson

WWII is a fascinating period of history.  How could civilized Germany vote in a tyrant who would systematically kill off the handicapped, blacks and Jews?  In this terse, first-hand account, The Day Nazi Germany Died, Beate Wilder-Smith gives some thoughtful answers. One of the more alarming conclusions she reaches is that what happened in Germany under Hitler could happen here in America.

 

BEFORE HITLER

Beate’s father, Wilhelm Gottwaldt, was a pastor in the state Protestant church in Germany.   As he went about visiting the sick and the handicapped, he saw Germany’s desperate state following WWI:

Thousands, even millions of people were without jobs, poverty-stricken, suffering from hunger and cold, and living in places unfit for human habitation, such as cellars, ruins, and backyards. Many died — others were stricken with diseases….Crime flourished.

Suffering was immense.  People became bitter and desperate for deliverance.

THE KNIGHT IN SHINING ARMOR

Hitler promised that everything would improve when he came to power. He rapidly created millions of jobs building armaments and freeways.  Now people had jobs and could buy food and homes.  Germans began to hope again.

This sounds like a rags-to-riches story until you understand that Hitler’s book, Mein Kampf  was a best seller at the time. In it, Hitler was perfectly clear about his intention to set up a tyranny, to annihilate the Jews, and to subjugate all other non-Arian races.   So why did people vote for him?  Beate explains:

The trouble is that the common people are too bent on the ‘dolce vita’ [the good life, full of pleasure and indulgence] to bother to read and pay attention. ….They stuck their heads in the sand  and hoped for the best.  As long as they had enough to eat at the moment and good prospects for the future, they asked no questions.

Germans were able to ignore moral issues because they had adopted a worldview of  materialism — the belief that what we see, touch and measure is all that is real.  There is nothing  above the ceiling. God is ignored.  This materialism, says Beate, “will never give the people the strength of character necessary to prevent…totalitarianism.”

How was this materialism evident?  In science it looks like evolution.

In politics, it looks like socialism.

AMERICA LOVES EVOLUTION LIKE NAZI GERMANY LOVED EVOLUTION

Nazis based their theory of a natural selection on an evolutionary worldview and purposed to aid in the process by killing off the weak and sick.  Beate tells of one teacher mocking a child who went to Sunday School:

“‘How ridiculous!….A true German boy or girl has nothing to do with Jewish fables.  We Germans are proud, hard, and strong and despise the weak, the sick, and inferior races.  The Bible teaches you to love the poor, the sick, and the weak and to be sympathetic –which is the opposite of  our “Fuhrer’s” teaching.’”

Similarly, in our day, the movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed by Ben Stein, chronicles the persecution of professors and scientists today who reject Darwin’s macro-evolution.  They have been fired and denied tenure. 

America is echoing Nazi Germany’s disdain of the weak.  America has set up the Independent Payment Advisory Board to judge whether a newborn baby that is seriously ill should receive treatment. Ninety percent of Downs babies are being aborted.  We have killed five times the number of unborn babies as Hitler killed Jews.

 

AMERICA LOVES SOCIALISM THE WAY NAZI GERMANY LOVED SOCIALISM

Germany controlled business and gave generous perks, like fabulous vacations, to obedient workers.  People became dependent on the state. With no God but the state to answer to, neither was there anyone else to take care of them.   America is suffering from creeping socialism (communism without force) with an expanded food-stamp program, ‘free’ education, and now socialized healthcare.    As men grow in dependence, the state begins to claim the absolute power of God.  However, because the state does not have the goodness of God, it becomes tyrannical.  This births unbelievable hardship and misuse of power.

 

Germany’s spiritual vacuum made them vulnerable to tyranny. America suffers from a spiritual vacuum too.

 I am made in the image of God.  This should make me fear to lift my hand against my neighbor or close my eyes when someone else does it. Only the fear of God can give me the backbone to suffer rather than sin,  looking for the ‘dolce vita’ – the sweet life - of the New Jerusalem.  May God send revival – repentance and faith in Christ – the King who supplants every tyrant.

 

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