In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator.

“Ultimately the responsibility for the rise of Hitler lies with the German people, who allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content.

“They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims: Germany will rule the world; our enemies will be our slaves….

“If he answered their suppressed desires, it was not because he shared them, but because he could make use of them. He despised the German people, for they were merely the instruments of his will.”

So much for the truth of Nazi Germany–from 1933 to 1945.

On November 8, 2016, Americans proved they could embrace Fascism, too.  

That was when millions of ignorant, greedy, hate-filled, Right-wing Americans turned their backs on democracy and fervently embraced Fascism. 

They elected Donald Trump—a man reflecting their own hate, greed and ignorance—to the Presidency.

But Americans had far fewer excuses for turning to a Fascistic style of government than the Germans did. 

The conditions existing in pre-Hitler Germany and pre-Trump America could not have been more different.

Adolf Hitler joined the National Socialist German Workers (Nazi) Party in 1919—the year after World War 1 ended.

Adolf Hitler

In 1923, he staged a coup attempt in Bavaria—which was quickly and brutally put down by police. He was arrested and sentenced to less than a year in prison.

After that, Hitler decided that winning power through violence was no longer an option. He must win it through election—or appointment.

He repeatedly ran for the highest office in Germany—President—but never got a clear majority in a free election.

When the 1929 Depression struck Germany, the fortunes of Hitler’s Nazi party rose as the life savings of ordinary Germans fell. Streets echoed with bloody clashes between members of Hitler’s Nazi Stormtroopers and those of the German Communist Party.

Germany seemed on the verge of collapsing.Germans desperately looked for a leader—a Fuhrer—who could somehow deliver them from the threat of financial ruin and Communist takeover.

In early 1933, members of his own cabinet persuaded aging German president, Paul von Hindenburg, that only Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor (the equivalent of Attorney General) could do this.

Paul von Hindenburg

Hindenburg was reluctant to do so. He considered Hitler a dangerous radical. But he allowed himself to be convinced that, by putting Hitler in the Cabinet, he could be “boxed in” and thus controlled.

So, on January 30, 1933, he appointed Adolf Hitler Chancellor of Germany.

On August 2, 1934, Hindenberg died, and Hitler immediately assumed the titles–and duties—of the offices of Chancellor and President. His rise to total power was now complete.

It had taken him 14 years to do so.

In 2015, when Donald Trump declared his candidacy for President.

• The United States was technically at war in the Middle East—but its fate was not truly threatened, as it had been during the Civil War.
• There was no draft; if you didn’t know someone in the military, you didn’t care about the mounting casualty list.
• Nor were these conflicts—in Iraq and Afghanistan–imposing domestic shortages on Americans, as World War II had.
• Thanks to government loans from President Barack Obama, American capitalism had been saved from its own excesses during the George W. Bush administration.
• Employment was up. CEOs’ profits were at record levels.
• In contrast to the corruption that had plagued the administration of Ronald Reagan, whom Republicans idolize, no such scandals had rocked the Obama Presidency.
• There had not been any large-scale terrorist attacks on American soil—such as on 9/11 under President George W. Bush.

Yet—not 17 months after announcing his candidacy for President—enough Americans fervently embraced Donald Trump to give him the most powerful position in the country and the world.

Donald Trump

The message of Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign had been one of hope: “Yes, We Can!” 

For everyone who was not an avid Trump supporter, the message of Trump’s campaign was: “No, You Can’t!”

Whites comprised the overwhelming majority of the audiences at Trump rallies. Not all were racists, but many who were advertised it on T-shirts: “MAKE AMERICA WHITE AGAIN.”

They knew that demographics were steadily working against them. Birthrates among non-whites were rising. By 2045, whites would make up less than 50 percent of the American population.

The 2008 re-election of the first black President had shocked many whites. His 2012 re-election had deprived them of the hope that 2008 had been an accident.

Then came 2016—and the possibility that a black President might actually be followed by a woman: Hillary Clinton. And the idea of a woman dictating to men was strictly too much to bear.

Since Trump’s election, educators have reported a surge in bullying among students of all ages, from elementary- to high-school. Those doing the bullying are mostly whites, and the victims are mostly blacks, Muslims, Jews, Hispanics, Asians.

It even has a name: “The Trump Effect.”

All of this should be remembered the next time an American blames Germans for their embrace of Adolf Hitler