♫ Oh, we're off to see der Führer, ♫ the wonderful Führer of OZ ♪

I've been reading a lot about the Third Reich lately. And I am especially interested in the Schutzstaffel (SS) and why they were created. Heinrich Himmler believed that he was the reincarnation of the 10th century king Heinrich (we know as Henry the Fowler) and he was assembling a Teutonic knighthood in the SS. Himmler financed expeditions to Tibet to search for the source of the so-called Aryan race. He also had SS officer Otto Rahn looking for the holy grail. So I've read about the alleged occult connections the Nazis had and the various screwball theories about Hitler being in league with evil. What I am looking for is a reason why this all happened to see if it couldn't happen here in the U.S. on some level. (Notice I didn't use the word Republican.) My search has led me to a book called "The Nazi Conscience" by Claudia Koonz. Koonze believes, as I do, that morality is not from God and is situational. Don't believe that? Take slavery. Obviously immoral and evil. Not prohibited by God in the bible, but rather received tacit approval as evidenced by the fact that God (according to the O.T.) set up rules about owning slaves. Koonz speaks of the knowledge of the Nazi mindset of what was right and what was wrong and how this knowing affected what people thought. Here is an example from that book:

The recollections of a former Hitler Youth member, Alfons Heck, illustrate how such knowledge formed moral thinking. In 1940, when Alfons watched the Gestapo take away his best friend, Heinz, and all Jews in his village, he did not say to himself, "How terrible they are arresting Jews." Having absorbed knowledge about the "Jewish menace," he said, "What a misfortune Heinz is Jewish."

Now you are probably saying to yourself, "oh come on, that could never happen here. We would never view people as impediments to progress and just discard them." Well I got news for you Sparky, here is another quote from the book about a journalist from South Dakota talking about the Native Americans:

The nobility of the Redskin is extinguished, and what few are left are a pack of whining curs who lick the hand that smites them... The Whites, by law of conquest, by justice of civilization, are master of the American continent and the best safety of the frontier settlements will be secured by the total annihilation of the few remaining Indians. Why not annihilation? Their glory has fled, their spirit broken, their manhood effaced; better that they should die than live like the miserable wretches that they are.

This journalist is better known as a writer of the series of Children's books about the Wizard of Oz. His name is L. Frank Baum.

Still think it can't happen here?