博客來History is replete with examples of tyranny and its resultant brutality, however, the quintessence of tyranny - brutality perfected - is exemplified in Nazi Germany, whose infamy garners particular distinction. For the first time in history, a sophisticated modern industrialized nation energized its full resources for the express purpose of the destruction of human beings. This goal was paramount, even to the point of neglecting the effective prosecution of the World War II German war effort in order to prevent or exact retribution for civilian resistance, a mandate achieved through brutal counter-resistance and reprisal operations. The Nazi regime hijacked a modern industrialized nation and callously bled its entire national resource in order to accomplish this overall aim of killing. Particularly in the East was wanton destruction visited upon innocents, where the quest for ＂lebensraum＂ (expanded living space for the German populace) and the belief that Germany’s future security depended upon the extermination of its ＂enemies＂ justified its actions. It was, in essence, murder for freedom. The key to the prosecution of a war of extermination lay in the control of the minds of men. Nazi ideology in Germany had to become universally believed, and this belief had to then be transformed into action - emotionally driven action grounded upon a bedrock of absolute faith in its necessity, all the while simultaneously deriding and suppressing reasoned, critical thought. Therein lay the seeds of the holocaust as well as the self-destruction of the Third Reich.
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