WEBVTT 00:00.394 --> 00:04.288 Lesson of history: No division! 00:04.288 --> 00:13.506 In his book "Täter: Wie aus ganz normalen Menschen Massenmörder werden", social psychologist Prof. Harald Welzer explains the 00:13.506 --> 00:18.870 mechanism that led to exclusion and genocide in the Third Reich. 00:18.870 --> 00:23.952 This programme is not intended to be scaremongering or to relativize past crimes. 00:23.952 --> 00:32.256 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. 00:32.256 --> 00:39.316 (1.) First, generally accepted values and social norms lose their validity in small steps. 00:39.316 --> 00:45.970 (2.) From an ideological and political point of view, these individual steps appear harmless or even necessary. 00:45.970 --> 00:52.022 In this way, a small group of people are increasingly excluded from social life. 00:52.022 --> 00:59.195 (3.) A majority increasingly sees itself as exclusive and perceives the minority group or any of its members as a 00:59.195 --> 01:03.616 threat to the well-being and existence of the majority society. 01:03.616 --> 01:09.881 (4.) Because then it seems logical to render this minority, which is perceived as threatening, harmless. 01:09.881 --> 01:14.532 (5.) According to Prof. Welzer, all historically known extermination processes were 01:14.532 --> 01:18.720 preceded by the definition of a threatening group. 01:18.720 --> 01:22.643 (6.) Morally legitimized, normal people become perpetrators. 01:22.643 --> 01:32.756 What follows is an accelerating social, psychological, material and legal devaluation and discrimination of the minority. 01:32.756 --> 01:36.192 Loss of valid values 01:36.192 --> 01:43.303 During the coronavirus crisis, previously valid norms have rapidly given way to a "new normal": 01:43.303 --> 01:50.810 Man, a profoundly social being, is forced into isolation by politically ordered measures. 01:50.810 --> 01:55.649 Left to his own devices, he loses touch with his social environment. 01:55.649 --> 02:00.263 His thoughts and actions inevitably become more and more self-centered. 02:00.263 --> 02:06.190 Sociologists speak here of "atomization", i.e. the isolation of individuals. 02:06.190 --> 02:13.027 However, a society made up of such isolated individuals is severely weakened and forms the ideal breeding 02:13.027 --> 02:17.856 ground for intolerance, blame, division and manipulation. 02:17.856 --> 02:24.390 Some people feel too helpless and too powerless to take action against these abuses. 02:24.390 --> 02:29.958 This affects billions of people worldwide who are not in a position to expose these 02:29.958 --> 02:33.787 undesirable developments and oppose them. 02:33.787 --> 02:36.454 Fear as a tool of manipulation 02:36.454 --> 02:43.656 Scientists such as neurobiologist Gerald Hüther attribute a key role to fear in current events: 02:43.656 --> 02:48.990 Where a threat is constantly presented, people can be manipulated most easily. 02:48.990 --> 02:54.851 The psychiatrist Dr. Raphael Bonelli also refers to fear as an instrument of control in 02:54.851 --> 02:59.536 totalitarian regimes, as we already know from history. 02:59.536 --> 03:04.976 The problem of followers out of fear is a huge one, he emphasizes. 03:04.976 --> 03:11.355 Crimes in the past could not have taken place if there had not been so many hangers-on. 03:11.355 --> 03:18.475 In his lectures, historian and peace researcher Dr. Daniele Ganser explains how people are repeatedly frightened, 03:18.475 --> 03:22.970 manipulated and divided according to the same pattern. 03:22.970 --> 03:28.523 One group is declared inferior and another is incited against it. 03:28.523 --> 03:34.176 Then the step to persecution, arrest and even extermination is not far away. 03:34.176 --> 03:43.676 Fear makes you ill. Fear makes us evil. Fear destroys truth and distorts reality. 03:43.676 --> 03:52.163 Fear prevents rational action and violates human dignity. Fear makes lies credible. 03:52.163 --> 03:59.843 And fear is above all the most effective way of making people dependent. 03:59.843 --> 04:07.058 If we now recognize the signs of the times so clearly, it is surely urgent that we no longer allow ourselves to be 04:07.058 --> 04:15.142 isolated and divided, but instead see ourselves as a human family again, as Daniele Ganser repeatedly emphasizes: 04:15.142 --> 04:19.664 "We all belong to the human family! Do not allow division!"