Becoming Hitler

How did one tyrant, in a population of 65 million, get voted to power?

In March 1933, Adolf Hitler came to power in Germany.

How could such a cultured and brilliant people, like that of Germany, have voted a violent anti-Semite to be their leader? And then cheered him hysterically, in squares crammed with thousands, as if he were a living god?

The large-scale mass-killing of the Jews began after the war started going wrong for Hitler – his nation and its grandiose dream were now failing. For one survivor, the worst thing about Auschwitz wasn't the cold, the hunger or the beatings but “the humiliation. Just because you were Jewish, you were treated not like a human being, you were treated like a louse, a bed bug, like a cockroach.”

Nazis publicly cut their hair, shaved their beards, paraded them with their trousers cut off and with signs around their necks, made them drink dangerous quantities of castor oil, ordered them to carry out pointless tasks such as carrying mattresses back and forth, endlessly building and rebuilding walls and squatting heavy logs.

In Vienna, a journalist witnessed: "gangs of Jews, with jeering storm troopers standing over them, on their hands and knees scrubbing the Schuschnigg [an anti-Nazi politician] signs off the pavements.” Many Jews were killing themselves. All sorts of reports of Nazi sadism – and from the Austrians it surprised him. Jewish men and women were made to clean latrines. Hundreds of them just picked at random off the streets to clean the toilets of the Nazi boys.

In occupied Eastern Europe, a singing, laughing, accordion-playing crowd watched a group of Jews being made to clean horse manure off a garage floor, being beaten nearly to death with rifles and crowbars and then having high-pressure hoses forced into their mouths until their stomachs burst; when all were killed, a second group of Jews were instructed to clean away the blood and bodies. In another suburb, a prominent rabbi was discovered, "bent over his blood-soaked books whilst his severed head looked on from the other room."

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There's a message in these nightmares.
They tell us something real about who we really are.
That is what we will explore in my upcoming book…

An Update on ‘Keshav’

What you just read is just some of my notes that are part of one of the most important sections in my upcoming book Keshav: Ancient Wisdom for Focused Living.

In my second book, I have tried to draw on a vast body of work, from a multitude of scientific research, primarily that of psychology, neuroscience and human behaviour. I also bring in lessons from history and ancient wisdom. I truly believe that history always repeats itself, but also that it teaches us the greatest lessons of life.

My arms are aching and my fingers are twitching from all the relentless typing and editing. I’m almost there, and I do apologise for being so quiet here lately.

I’ll still be silent here… for a few more weeks… and then I’ll be back with you with what you’ve been waiting for (I hope and pray).

Thank you for staying connected and showing your love and support.

I truly appreciate each and every one of you.

— Vinay