u/c00b_Bit_Jerry

Every now and again, a question about the larger origins of World War Two and the Holocaust returns to my mind: How exactly the non-Nazi half of German society acceded so quickly to the NSDAP’s seizure of power and the Gleichschleichtung they imposed on the country. I understand in principle that with historic German antisemitism, 1/3 of seats in the Reichstag, Goering’s control of the Prussian police forces, and Hindenburg and Papen’s support, it was extremely difficult to create effective resistance to the Nazi system after January 1933. But even after learning all that knowledge to the point of it being second nature, I am still fundamentally puzzled that the non-Nazi voters submitted as quietly as they did to the Nazification of even the non-political parts of their lives; especially the replacement of the universally-known commandment “Thou shall not kill” with the Nazi doctrine of “Thou shall kill” (in the words of Hannah Arendt).

So I feel like I’ve been banging my head into some impenetrable wall for months and months trying to find the answer to the big “Why” question of World War II. I stay up until midnight reading essay after essay and book after book on the events of 1933; And yet, I feel no closer to a truly satisfying resolution. I just still can’t understand why those Germans who knew better than the Nazi voters let it unfold; How the “moral collapse” identified by Arendt happened within that part of German society which remained normal until 1933.

Is there even a conclusive answer to how Nazi Germany was allowed to happen? Or am I keeping myself up at night with an impossible question?

(ignoring the obvious budgetary limit for life-size sets)

And I’m not really talking about the steam engines specifically… I mean all those other charming little aspects of railway life in the books and show, like branch line trains picking up a milk van to take to the next town, or a busy main line having quiet stations like Wellsworth with their own little shunting yards, or fish being brought to my hometown in the night by a fast freight train, or just a quiet harbour with beautiful surroundings. A world where trains really are taken seriously as a reliable form of transport for all things, and ordinary people appreciate railways.

It‘s like I have this quasi-nostalgia for a world I never experienced as a kid outside of Thomas DVDs. And I sometimes worry that one day, the last traces of that idyllic railway world could be snatched away forever by a future that might not care for wholesome things. I hope it won’t, but I wish the world wouldn’t seem so hostile to steam railways recently…

Does anyone else relate to this feeling?