When in 1938 most German synagogues were torched and jews were chasen from their houses, separated from their families, their property being robbed or destroyed, this was nothing else but a first test for the organized liquidation of the jewish race under Nazi rule. Looking back to those days, it should be mentioned that ordinary German citizens did not really react upon the proceedings of that night. Daily life continued as if nothing had happened. New jobs were created for the common people as jews disappeared, and some seemed to get rich overnight.
In the days of my youth, we often heard from the elder generation that "only few" actually knew about the cruelties that happened to the jews. Of course, there were only a few people who got an insight of the concentration camps and were able to tell about it afterwards. Nevertheless, many others must have remarked the new laws that discriminated the jews, laws that had already been created in the years before. They must have seen burning synagogues and prayer rooms and must have heard the shoutings of hatred in their neighbourhood in the night of the progrome. They must have seen lots of people being driven through the streets of Berlin or Munich to the great railway stations from where they were sent to the concentration camps. It wasn't fear alone that held ordinary citizens back from protest but rather mere indifference towards the cruelties they didn't like to see, an indifference most Germans had to pay for during the following years of war.
Therefore, I dare predict that any discrimination within a modern society could lead to the same results again. As people are forgetful when it comes to learn from history, and because it is easy to stir up the animosity of ordinary people against any social group that has been elected as the "jew of the year", even the consequences of a social crisis could easily lead to that devastating mechanism. Unfortunately, there is a global economic crisis comprising Germany as well. Let's therefore remember a social law, called Hartz IV and that is depriving the long-term unemployed from exercising some of their constitutional rights, such making them potential victims of blackmail attempts by potential employers or by their spiteful middle-class neighbours who are trying to disguise a right-wing attitude yet being sensitive about their own reputation. That law alone, feared by the unemployed as well as by those who might loose their jobs, could be a nice pretext to trigger off a nasty hunt for the scapegoat, the so-called "lazy unemployed", while the real problem is situated somewhere else in the structure of society.
Of course, the victimization and annihilation of a social or ethnic group is not a German invention at all, but nowhere else had it been organized better on behalf of its national leadership. Additional laws, created to enforce a tighter grip on each citizen and based on the false pretext of a "fight against terrorism", are already available or being prepared. And we have become used to similar laws on other fields of daily life. Who then would find anything unusual in the private hunt of some self-righteous middle-class type for "terrorists" or other "suspicious elements" in his neighbourhood, in that time where snoopers and informers are easily to be found. A steadily decreasing level of education, already effecting German economy, and the undemocratic attitude of blockheaded remnants from the former East-German state party or state security (*) will then enhance a climate where everything might become possible.
As already indicated above, the middle-class of our society seems to be the decisive source of fascistic thinking, - that part of society, deeming itself superior to the working class and simultaneously knowing that its access to influence and public power is only restricted, due to its medium level of education. Scared by any economic or political change, this group of citizens is tending to counteract such changes and resort to extreme positions. As the left-wing orientated politicians are traditionally related to the despised working class, they prefer to rely on right-wing orientated groups and their leaders. Such, it is easy to understand that about 60% of the fascistic National Democratic Party's voters belong to that middle class.
The first concentration camp, established by Nazi leader Himmler, a typical middle-class type without any special abilities and who had been estimated by his father as a "useless weakling in a bad company". Throughout the years of Nazi rule, Himmler's father, a well-reputed highschool teacher, refused to speak in favour of his son (source: documentation on Himmler's father on a German national TV channel, some years ago).
(*) Annotation:
The activitiy of former East-German security types after the reunification is a specific German aspect when it comes to evaluate fascistic resources in the Federal Republic of Germany. Once the most important extension of a fascistic state and its true base of power, some former state security men and women, together with their uniformed counterparts of the former People's Police, have found ways to resume their used activity under the roof of powerful Western companies like Siemens, Telecom and parts of the armaments branch. Companies that suddenly longed for "professional advice" on works security, at the same time when thousands of employees were going to be dismissed because of a degrading economy. Thus, it became a question of survival again to guard one's words and to watch out who was listening. This new wave of "security enhancement" finally led to cases like that of Munich Airport where former state security men already were on the brink of taking over control. Now, the authorities became alarmed, and it was the former Bavarian prime minister Stoiber who ordered to replace all of the security companies involved. The German media had the facts.
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