“Clever and persistent use of propaganda can make a nation believe that heaven is hell and, conversely, that the most miserable life is paradise.”

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– Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (1925)

“The European mind is capitulating. It is capitulating out of weakness, out of sloth, out of apathy, out of lack of imagination. It will be the task of some future generation to establish the reasons for this disgraceful capitulation.”

– Joseph Roth (1894-1939)

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In 1930, the Communist stronghold of Friedrichshain in eastern Berlin was a run-down slum district of red-light areas, cheap bars and tenement blocks; casual violence was endemic. On the night of January 14, after some drinking, two young men started brawling and the incident turned bloody—an average Tuesday evening in this part of the city at this time.…