Here’s a question nobody likes asking about Nazi Germany:
How did countries like Austria, Poland, and France collapse so fast? These were established nations with armies, governments, borders, and millions of people. France alone was considered one of the strongest military powers in Europe.
Traditionally, we are taught that Hitler’s army was simply this unstoppable military machine that steamrolled Europe because it was overwhelmingly powerful. And yes, Germany was militarily strong. But that explanation alone has always felt incomplete, because historically even very strong armies usually do not conquer enormous amounts of territory that quickly unless something inside the targeted societies is already collapsing first.
Austria disappeared almost overnight. Poland fell within weeks. France collapsed in six weeks. History usually does not work that way unless large parts of the population no longer truly believe the fight is about their own survival.
The uncomfortable and dark reality is that many people did not initially think Hitler was coming for them.
Austria is probably the clearest example. The Anschluss was welcomed by huge parts of the population. German troops entered to cheering crowds, flowers, and celebrations. Many Austrians convinced themselves that joining Nazi Germany would mostly affect the Jews while improving life, or at least preserving it, for everyone else.
That mentality existed across Europe in different forms.
The illusion behind Hitler’s message was essentially: you can still be French, Polish, or Austrian. Live your life. Raise your children. The real problem is your Jewish neighbor.
And for millions of people, that was enough to weaken the will to resist.
A society only fights with total determination when people believe defeat means the destruction of their nation, identity, and future. But many Europeans convinced themselves the Jews were the primary target, so they accepted things they never would have accepted otherwise.
Some collaborated. Some stayed silent. Some rationalized. Some simply looked away.
The tragedy is that they were wrong anyway.
Austria lost its independence. France was humiliated and occupied. Poland was devastated. Cities were destroyed, sovereignty disappeared, millions died, and entire societies were dragged into catastrophe.
People often think evil can be managed as long as it is directed at somebody else first.
This is why I’m done trying to convince Americans or Europeans about the dangers of extreme Islamism. In many mosques and Islamist circles, hatred toward America, Christianity, Western civilization, and Jews is preached openly and repeatedly. Yet many people in the West still process it the same way many Europeans processed antisemitism in the 1930s: “Yes, maybe they hate the Jews, but that doesn’t mean they are coming for us.”
That psychological separation is exactly the point.
As long as people believe somebody else is the primary target, they convince themselves they can safely ignore the ideology itself. They assume the hostility will remain contained to Jews, Israel, or some distant “other.”
But ideologies built around civilizational hatred do not stay neatly limited to one target forever.
And the end result, increasingly visible already across parts of Europe, is collapsing social trust, collapsing law and order, ethnic fragmentation, parallel societies, radicalization, and the steady erosion of the very national identities people assumed were untouchable.
At some point, societies make their own choices.
And eventually they live with the consequences of those choices.
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