What were they thinking?

When we study leaders in the past who had gained massive followings and had absolute power we usually question how the people living under the regime really fell for the tactics of the leader and how they were brainwashed into following them blindly. It is a valid question, but rarely do we really stop and think what we would do if in the situation. Would we stop and question the strategies and arguments put forth by the leader? Would we try to evaluate why they were gaining so much power and popularity hypothesize about what their goals long term goals are. Would we even be able to hypothesize these goals? Before English class yesterday I had never really considered this concept. When discussing the Holocaust in many years of Hebrew School, I was always in shock that so many Jewish people stayed, and so many Jewish people did not escape when they had a chance. Now, after watching Triumph of the Will, produced by Leni Riefenstahl in 1934 under the funding/guidance of Adolf Hitler, I realize that they probably just didn't realize what was happening. Hitler based his party off the ideas of unifying Germany, taking care of Germans by providing them with food and jobs after post World War I depression, and reestablishing German traditional roots. These goals seem desirable to the people and the Jews did consider themselves German, so why would these claims sound bad to them? How would they have any idea that Hitler's definition of purifying the race meant that German Jews were not German. They couldn't. Because of how Hitlers slowly implemented is killing regimes by the time people began to figure out what was going on it was really difficult to leave.

The movie uses visual and verbal arguments in an attempt to persuade both German people and people around the world that Hitler and his National Party should be respected and listened to. The movie portrays Hitler's wide love and support and how wonderful Germany was under his National Party, with happiness, plenty of food, people supporting each other, advanced technology, and jobs for everyone. Obviously these things look extremely appealing, especially to a post war world where food was scarce and jobs were hard to find. Everything was filmed from the perspective that Hitler made Germany a wonderful place to be and everyone loved him for it. Of course it would though, he guided the producer, which probably means that she was coerced into making it look exactly as he wanted, perhaps with the alternative of death, considering the true Hitler that appears slightly later in history. It would be hard to see through this and see the terrors and horrifying things that Hitler would do 5 years later in 1939. He did not just fool countless German citizens but he fooled great politicians all over the world. Of course we see right through this propaganda now, now with the knowledge of what did happen we can pick up on hints leading to the occurrences. However, living in that time, I feel it would have been almost impossible to see through his lives and trickery. If I lived in Germany at the time and my family members had jobs and food, I would have been grateful and it would have been hard to leave. Even if one family member may have seen right through his political lies it would have been so hard to convince an entire family to leave their homeland at start over somewhere completely new and foreign, while at the same time it would have been hard to just leave by oneself and leave ones family behind. Overall, looking back you question how people could be so ignorant but if you place yourself in the economic situation of the time it is a lot easier to see how these people were thinking. The best ways to really avoid this from happening again are with education and knowledge of argument. If one understands argument, one knows not to blindly follow the masses but to critically explore the discussion and facts and then choose a side. However, when an argument is filled with pathos it is hard to see the argument clearly. It is hard to say what I would have done in the situation. How about you?