Guarding Against Extremism in the 21St Century: A Lesson from the Past. German Public Opinion and Hitler's Policies, 1933-1939

By Anthony R. Wells

"Anthony Wells shows in graphic terms how extremism can develop in a democratic and educated society with strong cultural and religious traditions and values. A wide range of critical factors are examined that show how extremism can take root, grow, recruit all ages, and take total control of society. Dr. Wells reveals how extremism can take root by devious and nefarious means in an era of electronic communications and an Internet that connects the world, and therefore outside influences on those whose intent is to create and pursue extremism.Media controls and influences are shown as means to absolutist ends and demagoguery as the means to evil ends. We are graphically reminded that controlling public opinion by controlling media and all democratic outlets across all aspects of societal domains can deny the freedom of speech that is the sacred right of American society. Extremism can grow like a cancer, suddenly, without warning in some cases, and is there, unchallenged because of the very nature of a free society protected by the First Amendment. This is a must read book to ensure that we are all aware of the present dangers and how we may successfully anticipate and guard against extremism."

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Apr 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9781669870555

Anthony R. Wells

Anthony Wells is unique insofar as he is the only living person to have worked for British intelligence as a British citizen and US intelligence as a US citizen, and to have also served in uniform at sea and ashore with both the Royal Navy and the US Navy. He is a 50-year veteran of the Five Eyes intelligence community. In 2017 he was the Keynote Speaker on board HMS Victory in Portsmouth, England, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the famous Zimmermann Telegram intelligence coup by “Blinker Hall” and his Room 40 team in British Naval Intelligence. The guest of honor was Her Royal Highness Princess Anne, with the Five Eyes community, past and present, represented from the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. Dr. Wells, or Commander Wells, was trained and mentored in the late 1960s by the very best of the World War II intelligence community, including Sir Harry Hinsley, the famous Bletchley Park code breaker, official historian of British Intelligence in the Second World War, Master of St. John’s College, Cambridge, and Vice Chancellor of Cambridge University. Sir Harry Hinsley introduced Dr. Wells to the Enigma data before it became public knowledge. Dr. Wells received his PhD in War Studies from King’s College, University of London, in 1972. He holds Bachelor and Masters Degrees from the University of Durham, and a Masters degree from the London School of Economics. He was trained at Britannia Royal Naval College, Dartmouth and received his advanced training at the School of Maritime Operations. He was called to the Bar by Lincoln’s Inn in November, 1980. Anthony Wells has four children and eight grandchildren, and lives on his farm in Virginia. He is a Member of the Naval Order of the United States and was appointed an Honorary Crew Member of USS Liberty by the USS Liberty Veterans Association. USS Liberty is the most highly decorated warship in the history of the US Navy for a single action, attacked by Israeli air and surface forces on August 8, 1967 in the eastern Mediterranean. Dr Wells is the third Chairman of the USS Liberty Alliance, succeeding the late Admiral Thomas Moorer, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff and Chief of Naval Operations, and the late Rear Admiral Clarence “Mark” Hill, former distinguished US naval aviator and battle group commander. He is a retired US National Ski Patroller and Instructor, and a Life Member and former President of The Plains, Virginia, Volunteer Fire & Rescue Company. Wells is an FAA Commercial pilot with single and multi engine, land and sea, instrument, and flight instructor Ratings. He is a Senior Member of Number 60 Squadron of the Civil Air Patrol. Dr. Wells was the Technical Director of Fleet Battle Experiments ALPHA and BRAVO in the Third Fleet, United States Pacific Fleet. He was the Chief Executive Officer of TKC International LLC, a specialist company supporting the US Intelligence Community and Department of Defense, for twenty-five years. He held Top Secret SCI and Special Access Clearances.

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Copyright © 2023 by Anthony R. Wells.

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Rev. date: 04/04/2023

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CONTENTS

Dedication

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1Extremism Today

Chapter 2Why Germany 1933–1939 Holds Lessons for Today

Chapter 3The First Years of Nazi Power 1933–1935

Chapter 4Watershed – 1936

Chapter 5The Pace Quickens to Extremism 1937–1938

Chapter 6The German People, Extremism, and the Shadow of War – 1939

Chapter 7The German People and Nazi Social Controls

Chapter 8Lessons for the Modern World

Epilogue

References

About the Author

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to Benjamin Ferencz, the last surviving United States prosecutor at the Nuremberg war crimes trials in 1945. He represents all that is good in protecting the United States and its democratic allies against the tyranny of extremism. Benjamin’s life and legal career represent the very best in American values and the preservation of our democracy in an era of global challenges. Benjamin was 103 on March 11, 2023. Thank you, Benjamin, for your life and work.

PREFACE

The events of January 6, 2021, were a critical indicator of how far extremism had grown in the United States. Extremist movements elsewhere in the world had been observed by the government, media, US National Intelligence Community and their Five Eyes allies, and academe before the tragic and devastating events of September 11, 2001. The latter was a turning point in both American and world history. The world has never been the same since the 2001 attack on the United States’s sovereign homeland. Besides the attack by Osama Bin Laden’s small group, consisting of Saudi Arabian and Egyptian nationals, many other terrorist and extremist groups had proliferated in other parts of the world. However, what became very different was the growth internally in the United States of extreme groups that were not associated with these other non-American terrorist or extremist groups. The United States produced its own indigenous extremist groups. The violence displayed on January 6, 2021, was a devastating indictment of how far such groups had grown, unchallenged by the judicial system until violence required a law enforcement and legal response by the United States Department of Justice.

In Brazil, supporters of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro invaded the country’s Supreme Court and its congressional building and surrounded the presidential palace in Brasilia on Sunday, January 8, 2023. Global leaders condemned the assault on democracy and the peaceful transfer of power. The similarities with the attack on the US Capitol were noted by the world’s media, and political analysts universally agreed that what happened in Washington DC may have inspired the Brazilian extremists.

Freedom of speech is one of the hallmarks of the United States’s democratic philosophy and institutions. Within caveats of preserving life, property, and national security, freedom of speech is a given in the United States. Forming groupings that exhibit extreme views is not illegal until various legal boundaries are crossed. On January 6, 2021, many boundaries were crossed, not least the possibility that the vice president of the United States and the speaker of the House of Representatives came close to being murdered by an extremist mob that was armed and intent on undermining the Constitution of the United States by preventing the proper discharge of the 2020 election process.

The trials that have taken place since January 6, 2021, have exemplified the modus operandi of the extremist groups involved in attempting to forestall the 2020 election results and the inauguration of the duly-elected president, Joseph Biden. Extremists came within short distances, literally and metaphorically, on Capitol Hill of creating the worst constitutional crisis in US history since the US Civil War. Moreover, the various sentences handed down in US federal courts reflect not just the actions of those involved but also their organizations and underlying raison d’être that motivated the extreme violence, causing death and destruction at the very heart of the American democracy.

January 6, 2021, was not a remote event. There have been other major indicators and warnings of the growth of extremist movements. While the United States avoided political violence surrounding the 2022 midterm elections, there is still growing concern over the domestic violent extremist landscape, with threats more diverse than at any point in recent memory. Domestic terrorism in the United States has been on the rise over the past several years, including a major spike in violent incidents at demonstrations and protests in cities and urban areas. High-profile attacks in 2022 have spanned the ideological spectrum, demonstrating just how complex and unpredictable the state of domestic violent extremism is in the United States currently.

Looking ahead, US law enforcement and counterterrorism authorities remain concerned about the radicalizing impact of conspiracies and disinformation, particularly in the area of antigovernment and anti-authority violent statements and acts.

The United States is the leading democracy in the world at a time when totalitarian regimes in Russia and China and other lesser nations aligned with these countries challenge the United States’s and its allies’ core values and institutions. Aligned with indigenous American extremist groups and activities are the insidious influences of external disinformation and the sowing of internal discoid by cyber means. Foreign entities recognize the vulnerabilities of an open democratic society and communication systems, with freedom of speech its quintessential First Amendment to its constitution. The latter guarantees freedoms regarding religion, expression, assembly, and the right to petition. The amendment also prohibits the US Congress from promoting one religion over others and restricting any individual’s religious practices. The five guaranteed freedoms make the citizens of the United States the freest in the world.

Extremism challenges these core values. The events of January 6, 2021, were representative of how far extremist thinking, values, organization, and intent to disrupt the greatest democracy in the world had progressed in a country regarded by the rest of the world, and certainly the democracies and the United States’s key allies, as the bulwark against tyranny and dictatorship.

Understanding extremism is essential. To prevent its growth in the United States, it is necessary to go beyond the roles and missions of the law enforcement community and domestic intelligence provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security. Dealing with a catastrophic event such as January 6, 2021, cannot be addressed in hindsight. The fundamental background to and understanding of how extremism forms and grows like cancer inside a perfectly civilized body politic is essential. The signs, symptoms, and real-world actions within extremist groups have not only to be both fully understood and anticipated, but the core indicators have to be defined.

The lesson that follows from Germany 1933–1939 is a very effective way to see how a stable society with post–World War 1 democratic institutions could in the short space of six years become the most virulent and oppressive nation in the world, causing more death and destruction in the history of the world.

This is not to imply in any way that the United States is on a rocky road similar to Germany in the 1930s. This is neither the intent nor the lessons to be learned. The intent of what follows is quintessentially this: The detailed analysis that follows shows how various key elements in a democratic society can be influenced and changed for the worse as a result of an extremist movement or movements. The objective is to create a set of variables that can be used to constantly review where the United States’s society and institutions are at any moment in the future regarding the possible growth and spread of extremism. In military and national security parlance, these are indicators and warnings.

The introduction details the finer approach taken in this book and the sources and methods employed. Chapter 8, Lessons for the Modern World, and the epilogue provide the ways and means by which the United States and its democratic allies can monitor extremist movements within its society and be constantly on the watch for those elements that are not overt and obvious yet bear the indicators and warnings of shifts in society that may not be in the great democratic traditions of the United States and its fine enduring constitution.

INTRODUCTION

It is important to understand the purpose and methodology of this book and the succeeding chapters. This study is not about, in any shape or form, comparing extremism today in the United States with Nazi Germany in the 1930s in the lead-up to World War 2 in September 1939. Germany during the crucial seven-year period, 1933–1939, witnessed a democratic society with an economy recovering from the Great Depression metamorphose from a civilized society to the worst despotic tyranny in history that caused more bloodshed and loss of life and destruction than any previous regime in the history of the world. So to imply any comparison between Germany 1933–1939 and the United States today is clearly neither accurate, relevant, nor appropriate.

The goal and analytical approach is completely different and has very real important value for all Americans and the United States’s allies in the democratic states of the world. The inherent messages in this book are not therefore for the United States alone, but rather for all democratic nations that espouse the same values as the United States and admire and respect the American constitution.

What follows aims to reveal and analyze in detail how a society can go down the slippery slope from democratic institutions that were working well to tyranny and despotism and eventually the most devastating war.

What then is the inherent benefit of the approach adopted? This book breaks down a society into its many multifarious parts and proceeds to examine how each part both individually and collectively interacted with what slowly and methodically moved under Hitler’s control from democracy to despotism and then disaster, with Germany’s defeat and collapse in 1945. Each of these parts or components in German society in the 1930s is no different from democratic societies today. Times have changed from the 1930s to the 2020s, yet the institutional composition of contemporary US society and those of other democratic nations are inherently the same. They all have, for example, established churches and religions; economies that function within the same capitalist structure that has endured since the Industrial Revolution; judicial systems; democratic political institutions and processes; military institutions of armies, air forces, navies, and marine corps; local government institutions; state departments and foreign offices and diplomats that drive each nation’s foreign offices; academic institutions such as universities, schools, and technology and other professional colleges and institutions; charitable institutions and activities; medical programs and healthcare systems; and free and open political parties that are elected by the people, with eligibility to vote typically unrestrained, except perhaps in certain countries for convicted felons. This is a short list of societal components.

In a twenty-first-century democracy, all the above elements or components of contemporary US society and those of the United States’s closest allies can be monitored for change. The latter can be progressive and totally beneficial for citizens, whether it is health care, education, social security for retirees, improved national defense in a threatening world, and so on and so forth. However, if there are negative changes that may reflect a movement toward extremism, then these need to be recognized and addressed in advance of any negative impact on a civilized democratic society such as the United States. Currently, such oversight may tend to be after the worst manifestations of extremism have occurred, resulting in actions by law enforcement and the judicial system, such as what occurred in the United States after the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Congress by a diverse group of extremists, both institutionally organized and motivated, and also by individuals with personal extremist views and attitudes.

Since the government is not organized to analyze the inherent nature and key components of society, such as those listed above, until a crisis occurs and law enforcement and the judicial process is activated, there has to be ways and means to keep a constant watch for negative change within a society driven by extremists and their organizations.

As the book progresses in examining in detail the components of German society and how each individually and collectively reacted to the worst extremist movement in history, questions will be automatically raised in readers’ minds as to how in the future the United States and its democratic allies can safely, accurately, and legally monitor negative changes. The latter has to be achieved without the specter of government intervention and concerns over free speech and, worst case, some form of Orwellian Big Brother oversight and intervention. The latter would be an absolute negative in a free democratic society where free speech is paramount and where government intervention or controls are abhorrent.

The purpose then is to have an effective analysis of negative changes that reflect extremism yet maintain complete freedoms within the great democracy that is the United States with the finest constitution in the world. Readers are requested to both enjoy the detailed analyses that follow and think through answers to the above questions. Suggestions are made in the final chapter, Lessons for the Modern World, and the epilogue provides a finale, with the critical aim of preserving and protecting all that is good in contemporary America and, at its heart, the Constitution of the United States.

CHAPTER 1

Extremism Today

Extremism is rampant throughout the modern world. Women in Iran are being vilified, imprisoned, tortured, and murdered for holding forth fundamental rights. Syria harbors a despotic regime that undermines core human values and rights, and North Korea is home to not just an extremist regime but also one that is employing nuclear weapons as an instrument of extreme nationalism and ideological paranoia. China is a single-party regime with total surveillance and controls over its population, with zero means for the growth of change and democratic institutions. Russia commenced an illegal and brutal war against Ukraine in February 2022 against all the established conventions of the