Using the compulsory education system to spoon-feed state ideology to the masses is one way of controlling them.  But for those who don’t swallow the official line – or simply don’t ‘fit’ - there are other industrial methods for inducing timid conformity… 

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‘Words  build bridges into unexplored regions.’

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Adolf Hitler.  The Nazi leader delivered his Nuremberg speeches from the rostrum, right:

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‘I believe it is ‘peace for our time.’

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British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, speaking on the steps of Number 10 Downing Street, after his arrival home from the Munich Conference, September 30, 1938

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Picture: Oberer Kuhberg, a Napoleonic fortress near Ulm.  When the Nazis took over Germany in 1933 they swiftly pressed such places into being as impromptu prisons, incarcerating their biggest political enemies of the day. 
But their sights soon widened…
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Behind this aerial photograph displayed at KZ Dachau (Dachau concentration camp) are the concrete foundations of the barrack blocks where the prisoners were housed.
 Opened in March 1933, Dachau was the first Nazi concentration camp.
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‘I herewith commission you to carry out all preparations with regard to… a total solution of the Jewish question in those territories of Europe which are under German influence.’.
Marshal Hermann Goering to Chief of the German Security Forces SS Gruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich, July 31, 1941

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.‘First they came for the Communists,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
And I did not speak out,
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me.’.Pastor Martin Niemöller, who was imprisoned here

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‘The depravity of their (Jewish) race is evident in their horrible faces.’

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Nazi newspaper Der Sturmer, issue 22, 1938.  Proprietor: Julius Streicher (1885-1946)

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‘Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed.

  Never shall I forget the little faces of the children, whose bodies I saw turned into wreaths of smoke beneath a silent blue sky.

  Never shall I forget those flames which consumed my faith forever.

  Never shall I forget that nocturnal silence which deprived me, for all eternity, of the desire to live.  Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned my dream to dust.  Never shall I forget these things, even if I am condemned to live as long as God himself.  Never.’

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Elie Wiesel, Night

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‘…So does the mother explain the various mushrooms to her child.

  But then both pick up their baskets and slowly set off for home.

  Underway, the mother says:

  ‘Look, Franz, precisely as it is among the mushrooms in the forest, so is it among people on earth. There are good mushrooms and there are good people. There are poisonous, hence bad, mushrooms, and there are bad people. And one must watch out for these bad people just like one must watch out for poisonous mushrooms. Do you understand that?’

  ‘Yes, mother, I understand that’, says Franz, ‘if one gets involved with bad people, that can result in misfortune, like if one eats a poisonous mushroom. One can perish from it!’

  ‘And do you also know who these bad people, these poisonous mushrooms of mankind, are?’ the mother asks as well.

  Franz proudly beats his chest.

  ‘Yes, mother! I know that. They are the Jews. Our teacher has already often said that in school.’

  Laughing, the mother pats her Franz on the shoulder…’

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Der Giftpilz (The Poison Mushroom), 1938, now translated into English and produced by  US Nazi leader Gary Lauck
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‘Julius Streicher spoke simply and directly in the language of the people. Everyone (at his 1935 Berlin speech) understood him, for he used the simplest, crystal clear language.’

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Der Angriff, August 16, 1935

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‘The Hungarians waited patiently in line, not imagining that ashes might be all that remained of their families and friends.  They thought that they were going for a shower and a medical check.  There were so many of them that the gas chambers could not make room for them all.  The crematoria were overloaded, and the SS had big pits dug, where people stunned by gas were burned.  The giant flames lit up the night sky of Auschwitz, a dreadful smell of burnt flesh filled the air, and suddenly screams of horror, children’s screams, rose from the crowd.’

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An account by Luciana Nissim,

Ricordi della casa dei morti

(Memories from the

House of the Dead)

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‘I find no solution

to the riddle.’
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Primo Levi (1919 - 1987)

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‘Now I know why I am here.’

Major Richard Winters (depicted in

Steven Spielberg’s Band of Brothers), former commanding officer of Easy Company,

506 Parachute Infantry Regiment,

101st Airborne Division, US Army,

 on the discovery of a Dachau sub-camp.

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‘I said the world must be made safe

 for at least fifty years.

If it was only for fifteen to twenty years

then we should have betrayed our soldiers.’

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Former Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill

(1874 - 1965), Closing the Ring 
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‘The United Nations Organisation must immediately begin to be equipped with an international armed force…  If we adhere faithfully to the Charter of the United Nations and walk forward in sedate and sober strength seeking no one’s land or treasure, seeking to lay no arbitrary control on the thoughts of men; if all British moral and material forces and convictions are joined with your own (US) in fraternal association, the highroads of the future will be clear, not only for us but for all, not only for our time but for a century to come.’

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Winston Churchill, from his address Sinews of Peace delivered in Fulton, Missouri on March 5, 1946.  It was during this speech that the phrase Iron Curtain was first used.

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