Barack Obama addresses the Economic Club of Chicago. Photo by Lisa Zucker
Crains Chicago Business: Invoking the specter of Nazi Germany, Obama warns against complacency
American democracy is fragile, and unless care is taken it could follow the path of Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Mixed in with many softer comments, that was the somewhat jaw-dropping bottom line of Barack Obama last night as, in a Q&A session before the Economic Club of Chicago, the Chicagoan who used to be president dropped a bit of red meat to a hometown crowd that likely is a lot closer to him than the man whose name never was mentioned: President Donald Trump.
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Update #1: Obama invokes Hitler's rise in stark warning to America (The Independent)
Update #2: Obama warns of complacency, notes rise of Hitler (The Hill)
WNU Editor: I grew up in a family that knows to well what Hitler and the ideology of Nazism did. On my fathers side, he and my uncles fought for the Soviet Army from Stalingrad to Berlin and they saw it all .... especially my father .... the enormous destruction, mass graves, two Nazi death camps, and the deaths and maiming of many of his friends and colleagues. And in the family itself .... a number of relatives and family members murdered, disappeared, or crippled. On my mother's side .... it is even worse. She came from the city of Vyazma, a city 75km from Moscow. And when the Nazis were finished, a prewar population of about 50,000 was down to only a few hundred. There is a mass grave not from the city, many of my relatives are buried there. Yup .... growing up I received a first hand education on what Nazism is, where it started, why it started, why it succeeded, what it did, and why this evil had to destroyed. And the sad fact is that the physical scars of Hitler and Nazism are still present in Russia, and they will probably be there for the next few hundred years. In my case .... I will not say that I am an expert on Hitler and the Nazis .... but I know a lot about the man and his movement .... certainly far more than most people in the West. That is why when I first started to live in the West (Canada) .... I was always bemused that this term was bandied around so freely .... that this political person is a Nazi, neo-Nazi, or Hitler. No more now. In fact .... today .... when I hear this type of language used I get angry. These comparisons are not only wrong, but by associating it in the manner that it is being done today (presently this label is being used against President Trump and the current political climate in the U.S.), they are actually diminishing the pure evil of what Hitler was, and what the Nazis actually did. As for President Obama invoking the specter of Nazi Germany in describing the climate of the U.S. today .... even though there is no relation to the Germany of the Weimer Republic and the rise of Hitler in the 1930s .... I am disappointed. This is not only intellectually wrong, but for someone like me with my background .... morally reprehensible.
