Jochen Bittner has issued a dire warning to America: outgoing President Donald Trump’s narrative that he and his supporters had their victory “stolen” from them echoes the post-World War I nationalist rage in Germany that ultimately brought about the rise of Nazism.
"Mr. Trump’s baseless accusations about electoral fraud could do serious harm," writes @JochenBittner "A myth of betrayal and injustice is well underway."
“One hundred years ago, amid the implosions of Imperial Germany, powerful conservatives who led the country into war refused to accept that they had lost. Their denial gave birth to arguably the most potent and disastrous political lie of the 20th century — the Dolchstosslegende, or stab-in-the-back myth,” wrote Bittner. “Its core claim was that Imperial Germany never lost World War I. Defeat, its proponents said, was declared but not warranted. It was a conspiracy, a con, a capitulation — a grave betrayal that forever stained the nation. That the claim was palpably false didn’t matter. Among a sizable number of Germans, it stirred resentment, humiliation, and anger. And the one figure who knew best how to exploit their frustration was Adolf Hitler.”
