Lesson of history: No division!
In his book "Täter: Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenmörder werden", social psychologist Prof. Harald Welzer explains the
mechanism that led to exclusion and genocide in the Third Reich.
This programme is not intended to be scaremongering or to relativize past crimes.
It should serve as a wake-up call to recognize the signs of the times and act accordingly so that history does not repeat itself.
(1.) First, generally accepted values and social norms lose their validity in small steps.
(2.) From an ideological and political point of view, these individual steps appear harmless or even necessary.
In this way, a small group of people are increasingly excluded from social life.
(3.) A majority increasingly sees itself as exclusive and perceives the minority group or any of its members as a
threat to the well-being and existence of the majority society.
(4.) Because then it seems logical to render this minority, which is perceived as threatening, harmless.
(5.) According to Prof. Welzer, all historically known extermination processes were
preceded by the definition of a threatening group.
(6.) Morally legitimized, normal people become perpetrators.
What follows is an accelerating social, psychological, material and legal devaluation and discrimination of the minority.
Loss of valid values
During the coronavirus crisis, previously valid norms have rapidly given way to a "new normal":
Man, a profoundly social being, is forced into isolation by politically ordered measures.
Left to his own devices, he loses touch with his social environment.
His thoughts and actions inevitably become more and more self-centered.
Sociologists speak here of "atomization", i.e. the isolation of individuals.
However, a society made up of such isolated individuals is severely weakened and forms the ideal breeding
ground for intolerance, blame, division and manipulation.
Some people feel too helpless and too powerless to take action against these abuses.
This affects billions of people worldwide who are not in a position to expose these
undesirable developments and oppose them.
Fear as a tool of manipulation
Scientists such as neurobiologist Gerald Hüther attribute a key role to fear in current events:
Where a threat is constantly presented, people can be manipulated most easily.
The psychiatrist Dr. Raphael Bonelli also refers to fear as an instrument of control in
totalitarian regimes, as we already know from history.
The problem of followers out of fear is a huge one, he emphasizes.
Crimes in the past could not have taken place if there had not been so many hangers-on.
In his lectures, historian and peace researcher Dr. Daniele Ganser explains how people are repeatedly frightened,
manipulated and divided according to the same pattern.
One group is declared inferior and another is incited against it.
Then the step to persecution, arrest and even extermination is not far away.
Fear makes you ill. Fear makes us evil. Fear destroys truth and distorts reality.
Fear prevents rational action and violates human dignity. Fear makes lies credible.
And fear is above all the most effective way of making people dependent.
If we now recognize the signs of the times so clearly, it is surely urgent that we no longer allow ourselves to be
isolated and divided, but instead see ourselves as a human family again, as Daniele Ganser repeatedly emphasizes:
"We all belong to the human family! Do not allow division!"