Around 9PM on February 27, 1933 the parliament building of Germany, known as the Reichstag, was set ablaze. Fire engines rushed to the scene and fire fighters battled for hours to quell the flames. The fire was eventually extinguished but the damage was severe and what followed far worse.
Chancellor Adolf Hitler looked upon the smoldering ruins of the debate chamber that night and remarked wishfully to his Vice Chancellor, Franz von Papen, that “This is a God-given signal. If this fire, as I believe, is the work of the Communists, then we must crush out this murderous pest with an iron fist.” Hitler’s wish came true. Police promptly arrested a 24 year old supposed Communist sympathizer named Marinus van der Lubbe, who confessed to the crime. Before the sun could rise on February 28th, Hitler already planned to exploit the attack on the Reichstag to crush the Communist Party and clear the way for a Nazi takeover of Germany.
A few months prior, on November 6, 1932 the Communist Party had won 17% of the popular vote, nearly doubling their representation in the Reichstag from just a few years before. While the Nazi Party had won 33% of the vote, they had also lost 34 seats. The loss was a disappointment to the Nazi Party, but the 11 seats gained by the Communist Party gave them pause. Both the Nazi and Communist Parties were competing for the same working class voter.
It had become clear to the Nazis that the Communists represented the greatest threat and obstacle to their achievement of a majority in the Reichstag. More importantly, the Nazis knew they could never achieve their desired majority so long as the Communist Party remained a viable and popular political opponent. The attack on the Reichstag presented the Nazi Party with the perfect opportunity and justification to silence and destroy their political adversaries and, at last, transform Germany from a democracy to a dictatorship.
On February 28, only hours after the fire, Adolf Hitler persuaded German President von Hindenburg to issue the “Decree of the Reich President for the protection of the People and state.” Under the guise of combatting treason and protecting the republic from supposed further Communist attacks, the Nazi Party suspended most of the basic rights in the Weimar constitution, including the right to assembly, freedom of speech, and freedom of the press.
Tout de suite, the Nazi Party suppressed and destroyed Germany’s robust free press. They used their new weaponized Nazi controlled press to viciously malign and vilify the Communist Party and engaged in a relentless and effective propaganda campaign to foment fear, hatred, and outrage amongst the German population. The Nazis unequivocally blamed the Reichstag fire on the Communist Party leaders and their supporters and falsely accused the Communists of plotting a violent uprising against the state.
Sound familiar?
A wave of violence and persecution swept across Germany in the days leading up to the March 5th elections, which would be neither free nor fair. Thousands of Communists were arrested, including Ernst Thälmann, the leader of the Communist Party. Anyone deemed dangerous by the Nazis could be accused, detained, and destroyed. Communism itself became synonymous with treason and insurrection. In just a week the Nazi Party and their propagandists carried out the successful dismantling and destruction of one of the most popular political parties in Germany.
On March 5th, in the last multi party election held until after World War 2, the Nazi Party won 43.9% of the vote, adding 92 seats to their numbers. It was a dramatic improvement over the results of the previous election held just months prior, in which they lost 34 seats. The Nazi propaganda campaign combined with the efforts of the Nazi Stormtroopers to intimidate voters proved an effective campaign strategy.
However, while successful in silencing their critics and crushing their Communist adversaries, even with 43.9% of the vote the Nazi Party had fallen short of a de facto ruling majority. So, on March 23, 1933, Hitler proposed the “Enabling Act” to the Reichstag. Also known as the "Law to Remedy the Distress of People and the Reich,” the act would grant the Nazi Party and Hitler the absolute authority they sought. What the Nazis could not achieve through elections, they would seize through intimidation. Only a simple 2/3 majority vote stood between the Nazi Party and the fulfillment of their dark ambition of absolute power.
On the day of the vote, the noticeable absence of all Communist Party members in the chamber served as a not so subtle warning to the rest of the Reichstag to vote in favor of the Nazi request. But for those whose courage remained intact, or failed to understand the full extent of the Nazis’ depravity, Hitler addressed the Reichstag, suggesting they vote to “sanction that which [the Nazis] could have taken anyway.” Only Otto Wels, the leader of the Social Democrat Party, had the courage to publicly condemn the Nazi Party. He said, “one can take away our freedom and livelihoods, but not our honor…We salute the persecuted and oppressed.” Amen.
Ultimately the act was passed and Germany was fundamentally transformed into a a dictatorship ruled by Hitler and the Nazi Party. 441 members gave up their honor, succumbing instead to their fear of Nazi retaliation. Like the growing and countless numbers of Republicans abandoning Trump, the Constitution, and more than 75 million Americans, most of the cowardly German Reichstag chose to bend the knee to Hitler rather than fight for God and country. They were unwilling to weather the evil and ungodly attacks from the Nazis and their propagandists that would inevitably follow public opposition. Consequently, on March 23, 1933 the Reichstag delivered Germany into the hands of Hitler and Nazi Germany was born.
In one week the Nazis were able to banish their political opposition. In one day they seized control of Germany. The Constitutional Rights that were suspended for the protection of the German Republic were never returned. Nor were free and fair elections held again. Communists were silenced and persecuted out of political existence, and in many cases actual existence. Ernst Thälmann, the Communist Party leader and twice presidential candidate, remained imprisoned for more than a decade until his execution at Buchenwald concentration camp. What was his crime? The Nazis abolished democracy by claiming to protect it.
More than 400,000 Americans gave their lives to defeat the Nazis and abolish their evil and deranged ideology. But, as I warned in my book, the disease of tyranny can never be wholly eradicated. Without constant attention and caution, the evil grows back like a weed.
Today, nearly 76 years after America claimed victory over Nazism, the scourge of mankind has returned. Only this time we need not look across the Atlantic or Pacific to a foreign land to stare with bewilderment and apprehension at the existence of evil. No, today evil rears its ugly head right here at home, in America. It has made its home in the Democrat Party. This truth is shocking. It is a disgrace. And it is an abhorrent assault on and insult to the memory of every American who has sacrificed their life for the cause of freedom over the course of our 245 year history.
While I acknowledged and warned of this threat in December, I am shocked by the brazenness, immediacy, and ease with which the Democrats have executed their appalling persecution of their political opponents. What is happening in America at this very moment is not similar to Nazi Germany in 1933, it is identical. To pretend the words and deeds of the Democrat Party today represent anything less than those of wicked, dishonorable, and anti-American men and women is to deny reality.
Just as the Nazi Party exploited the attack on the Reichstag to accuse and destroy Ernst Thälmann, the Democrat Party uses the attack on our Capitol to accuse and destroy President Trump. Democrat propagandists and politicians openly call for his imprisonment. They accuse him of inciting insurrection. Both the speech itself and the timing of the mob attack dismiss such a baseless claim. The charges and punishment sought by the Democrat Party for the attack on the Capitol prove their own rabid insanity and depravity. Only the wicked seek the silence and destruction of their fellow man, and cheer when they are ruined or harmed.
As soon as the attack on our Capitol began, the illegitimate President-elect Joe Biden, in coordination with the rest of the Democrat Party and their Democrat controlled press, breathlessly exploited the event to foment fear, hatred, and outrage amongst the American population — against Trump and those who support him. They unequivocally blamed the riot on President Trump, his supporters, and continued their propaganda campaign to vilify Trump voters. Without hesitation, as if already planned, the Democrats immediately used the attack as an opportunity and as justification to silence and destroy their political adversaries.
Through their coordinated propaganda campaign, the Democrats made Trump, conservative Republicans, and rational Americans synonymous with treason and insurrection. They falsely accused Republicans and Trump supporters of plotting future violent attacks to overthrow the state. Under the guise of combatting treason and protecting our democracy, the Democrat Party suspended our Constitutional Rights to free speech and our right to assemble in the modern electronic public square. They actively suppress what remains of the free press and openly call for the cancellation and criminalization of all voices of opposition.
I offer the reader no obnoxious or false words of comfort. We must acknowledge the uncomfortable and previously inconceivable reality that such evil witnessed elsewhere has now taken root in the hearts and minds of our own people and Government. To deny the gravity of our present circumstance or ignore the undeniable evidence of evil is to inadvertently ensure its triumph.
At present the Democrats and their evil axis around the world collude to deprive us of our God given Rights to life, liberty, and the Pursuit of happiness. The Deutsche Bank cut ties with Trump. The PGA disgraced themselves by canceling their contract with the Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster to host the PGA Championship in 2022. The corporate monopolies of Amazon, Apple, and Google colluded to wipe the Twitter competitor Parler from the face of the earth. This is only the beginning.
But comfort and hope, while often bedfellows, are not one and the same. So I do offer the reader hope. While there is little comfort in the acceptance of our dire circumstance and very real War against our most fundamental Rights, there is hope because we are Americans.
This is neither the first time America has come under attack, nor will it be the last. This truth offers no comfort. But there is hope in the knowledge that time and time again our brave American ancestors defended America against such attacks, and prevailed.
There is likewise hope in the perceivable resilience, conviction, and virtue of tens of millions of Americans who will never abandon America, nor deliver her into the hands of evil men.
I draw both strength and hope from our Constitution and the immutable Rights defined therein. While at present the Democrats appear to control the levers of power, our political institutions, and seem intent on using the force of Government and Corporate alliances to persecute us and force us to bend the knee, it is they who act in violation of the supreme law of the land — our Constitution.
Our Rights do not come from any politician or billionaire. They come from God. This is the true source of America’s greatness and power. “We the people” draw our strength and resolution from the words written by our Founding Fathers. This document, like the Bible, withstands the test of time. We wear it like armor. The Democrat Party and their axis of evil cannot take away from us what is not theirs to grant or take away. When they violate our Constitutional Rights, it is they who commit a crime. The law of the land does not exist to protect the politician, but the people. There is hope in the knowledge that our Constitution protects the citizen who acts in self defense. There is strength to be found in the truth that we are virtuous and the oppressor is wicked.
These are dark times for our country. But I leave the reader with the suitable words of Abraham Lincoln, who wrote them for himself as a private reflection amidst the Civil War. I daresay I find them comforting.
September, 1862
The will of God prevails. In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of God. Both may be, and one must be, wrong. God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time. In the present civil war it is quite possible that God's purpose is something different from the purpose of either party -- and yet the human instrumentalities, working just as they do, are of the best adaptation to effect His purpose. I am almost ready to say that this is probably true -- that God wills this contest, and wills that it shall not end yet. By his mere great power, on the minds of the now contestants, He could have either saved or destroyed the Union without a human contest. Yet the contest began. And, having begun He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet the contest proceeds.
Our contest proceeds.
Heil the Democrat Party
Very well written Drew. I totally agree with everything you wrote. I am an avid reader of history and it is frightening. I wish I were young so I could take up arms.
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