There were refugee and migrant flows, particularly across Germany's eastern border.

So this is really where Hitler comes in, because the message that Hitler and the Nazis

started to develop with great political success in the late 20s is basically we're the party that will stop this.

We're the party of, if I might put it this way,

putting Germany first or making Germany great again.

There are historians who tell us,

Hitler's what happens when you have too much democracy.

And there are historians who tell us,

Hitler's what happens when you don't have enough democracy.

That's Benjamin Hett, and this is alternative radio.

I'm David Barsamian.

This edition of AR features Benjamin Hett

on how Hitler happened.

The post-World War I Weimar Republic in Germany

was the height of European civilization. Its scientists and

scholars led the world. Its Bauhaus architecture was the rage. Its arts featured such luminaries as

Fritz-Lang, Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill, and Thomas Mann. Yet out of this modern democracy,

sprang Nazism, German fascism, and one of the most barbaric regimes ever. How did Hitler

happen? It is one of the most important questions of history. What happened in Germany has disturbing

resonances for our own time. Fascist-like regimes are taking power in many countries. We ignore

disturbing signs at our peril, from torchlight parades in Charlottesville with crowds chanting, Jews will not replace us,

to a synagogue massacre in Pittsburgh, to the murder of African Americans in a church in Charleston.

...