Harmless Horrors: The Tools of the Third Reich that Paved the Way to Trump's America, Part#3 by Wolf Terry
Misogyny, Molding Minds, and Bottom Lines
Then: The German Woman, Hitler’s Youth, and the NSDAP
Wendy Lower, author of the monograph Hitler’s Furies: German Women in the Nazi Killing Fields, presented the following during a conference for Holocaust Living History at University of California
“Hitler propagated that the woman’s place was in the home as well as in the movement, and at the Nazi rally of 1934, Hitler declares Nazi party was established on a firm basis precisely because millions of women became our most loyal, fanatical, fellow combatants.”
Lower went on to discuss how many Red Cross nurses supported the Third Reich, as well as how many women appearing in photos during Nazi establishment parties and meetings went undocumented, but nonetheless carried out many monstrous tasks in the name of the Nazi party.
What started as fanatical propaganda pushers and idealists in support of traditional homemaking and estate management roles evolved over a decade into high ranking guards in some of the worst concentration camps, spies within Russian, Italian, French, and North African Governments, teachers within dominated territories like Ukraine and Poland, healthcare workers, etc. There was no innocence to be had for the German Women who participated in ethnic cleansing bereft of morality; who systematically acted out the role pushed upon them by happenstance of their generation. German Women who made documented lists released decades after the end of the Nazi regime for their various crimes against humanity, some confessing to slaughtering Jewish children, were only the tip of the iceberg.
The brainwashing of an entire generation of young, Christian men and women into believing in the God-given righteousness of Hitler himself along with the Nazi regime is still being untangled today through extensive research teams and experts in Genocide Studies and Fascism, alike.
As far as young, German men: what started as patriotism swiftly evolved into nationalism after their loss in WWI. Many were born and raised at the tail end of the war, and were fed propaganda surrounding the Weimar Republic’s agreement to pay reparations via the Treaty of Versailles. What was framed first as aggravation at the Weimar Republic swiftly snowballed into small political parties forming from the offshoots of what was once the WR’s opposing party. This is how the Nazi party formed.
Hitler was an angry young, Austrian man who had suffered a mild injury in WWI. During his time convalescing in a public house, he began visiting pubs and listening to speeches that echoed his feelings toward the cowardice of the Weimar Republic. He saw the government itself as weak and damaging to the honor of all Germans. After he recovered from war, he slipped into the role of an army intelligence agent, ironically working for the government that he was not pleased with. He was sent to follow the German Workers Party (DAP) and gather information about their plans and their leadership. The DAP were a small, nationalist, antisemetic group, and Hitler found their mission resonated with his own feelings of frustrations and his longing to make Germany the greatest empire on earth. They would meet up in a beer hall to talk politics and organize. When he attended, he began speaking passionately and impressed the party leader, Anton Drexler. Hitler quickly went from a “nobody,” to an influential leader to what he renamed the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), officially called the Nazi Party.
It was through his speeches that he met Goebbels, who was a proud antisemitic and a talented writer. Together, they built a propaganda machine that enticed engagement from young German men into believing in traditional Christian values, patriarchal leadership, and outwardly hating The Jewish People who were seen as the root of all of Germany’s failures. The Weimar Republic was a democratic government that came about after the failures of the Second Reich. While there were some prominent German Jewish party members, it cycled through many leaders of various backgrounds from 1918-1934, when the government was disbanded and a dictatorship nder Hitler was established.
The propaganda spread through broadsheets depicting Jewish people as ugly and devilish, while highlighting wholesome values and physical qualities of Aryan men, women, and children.
By the time Hitler took up his title of Supreme Leader in 1934, there were already plans in the works via the Nazi party of occupying Poland, putting men in reeducation camps, and separating mothers from their children in order to propel the physical idea of the ideal German child/citizen. They placed these children in large homes where they were cared for by “good German women.” They separated the children who had Aryan qualities (blonde hair, blue eyes, etc.) from other children and treated them with utmost care. Raising an Army of strapping young men who praised Adolf Hitler and the German Empire, and a harem of beautiful blonde women for exceptional breeding purposes.
This generation had been traumatized and then brainwashed propaganda to support a country and a leader who was not their own; all to paint an ideal picture of the future of the German Empire. A perfect, golden, white, Christian race considered superior to all others in the eyes of the Good German People.
Now: “Tradwife” Trends, TikTok, and Technology
In the 20-teens, “hashtag weddings” were trending. Pinterest boards with the ideal wedding decor were made by millions of millennial women, and we were all trying to have the most creative hashtag for our instagram and facebook feeds. I know this because I was one of said millions of women.
The idealization of having the perfect ring, the perfect dress, the perfect color palette, the most unique theme, etc. was extreme, to say the least. This was when social media picked up, and it was fueled by sharing the highlight reel of our romantic lives.
Fast forward, and we all know what has happened.
Social media is our mainline of communication, news, politics, commerce, capitalism, and consumerism.
The women who had the perfect pinterest boards went from blogging to influencing in what felt like a long, drawn out process, but what was actually pretty fast.
And all of the weird incel men with a toxic-masculinity complex, too large necks, and tattoo sleeves with guns, grenades, ammo, and eagles? Well, they all have podcasts. They went from sharing their crossfit journey online in 2015 to storming the US Capitol on January 6, 2020.
Social media is our generation’s propaganda machine and Snapchat filters, lip filler, peroxide and spray tans are our homes of stolen blond children. Technology and cosmetic surgery has replaced the slow process of breeding idealistic imagery for the spread of propaganda.
#tradwife has millions of posts underneath it on every different social platform. Influencers are telling young women that this is the goal we should be reaching for rather than our careers, equal pay, or reproductive freedom. And it is looked upon as a patriotic duty to serve your husband, care for your children, bake the perfect sourdough, achieve the softest hair curl, have plump lips and wear the *right* amount of makeup. The online trends keep women consuming while men are able to talk amongst themselves about how to take our rights away, how to hate Brown people in both private and public, and what new weird way they’ll feature their love for police brutality on the American flag. The Joe Rogans of the world sit around in their podcast booths discussing anti-science and misogyny disguised as nuance, and then pretend that they are just “listening to all sides.”
We didn’t need a war or a beer hall speech. We just needed our phones and a few earth-shattering events to speed up the MAGA agenda.
When the pandemic hit, followed by the cruel, public murder George Floyd, MAGA tripled down on their hateful, bigoted, racist, anti-science, propaganda.
Our only way to connect with others was social media, and it became flooded by wild conspiracy theories, pseudoscience, doxxing, shopping mechanisms, and group chats sustained on the very views and policies held by those of the early Nazi Party, just dressed up and modernized into subgroups of fascism; spiritual cults, fanatical cults, and tech bro worshippers.
When 2024 came along, Donald Trump and his current Administration had mastered the art of propaganda, bending the laws to their own will, and entrancing enough fanatics wealthy tech bros into believing that America needed to be gutted and reformed into an image that was popular 90 years ago on a different continent under a different, but similarly fascist regime.
No we watch as Kristi Noem cosplays as a soldier, a SWAT Agent, a FBI Agent, a Border Control Officer, and more! Her security pushes Senator Padilla to the ground for asking a question while we all stare in shock and awe. Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene continues to be the dumbest person in DC while Nancy Mace dishes out cruelty to her fellow trans Congresswoman and the entire LGBTQ community on a daily basis. These women are carrying water for systematic hate that undoubtedly strips them of their rights alongside millions of other women, all because they hate certain marginalized groups of people. They are the “Good American Women,” the Republican Evangelicals urge every white woman to be, and their presence in this administration is a copy-paste of the Good German Women of Hitler’s Third Reich.