DBQ22-99

DOCUMENT #1

We riddled them with bullets, They fell to the ground in a bunch. (The chemical arms where used as part of Japan's "sanko" policy) -kill all, rob all and burn all. I was told to kill everyone left, including women and children, because women give birth and their boys would grow up to fight us in the future. China's generous treatment gradually melted our hardened minds. We started thinking how the victims felt, and realized we have to repay their generosity. I killed more than 100 people myself. Such a thing should never be repeated.

Source:
Yasuji Kaneko, a Japanese soldier stationed in Shandong Province recalls an attack in China

DOCUMENT #2

Why do we oppose the Jews? We are enemies of the Jews because we are fighters for the freedom of the German people. The Jew is the cause and the beneficiary of our misery...He has made two halves of Germany. He is the real cause for our loss of the Great War. The Jew is responsible for our misery and he lives on it. That is the reason why we, as Nationalists and Socialists, oppose the Jew. He has corrupted our race, fouled our morals, undermined our customs, and broken our power. The Jew is the plastic demon of the decline of mankind. We are enemies of the Jews because we belong to the German people. The Jew is our greatest misfortune.

Source:
Joseph Goebbels, chief of Nazi propaganda,1930

DOCUMENT #3

There probably is no crime that has not been committed in this city today. Thirty girls were taken from language school last night, and today I have heard scores of heartbreaking stories of girls who were taken from their homes last night--one of the girls was but 12 years old. Food, bedding and money have been taken from people. ... I suspect every house in the city has been opened, again and yet again, and robbed. Tonight a truck passed in which there were eight or ten girls, and as it passed they called out "Ging ming! Ging ming!"--save our lives. The occasional shots that we hear out on the hills, or on the street, make us realize the sad fate of some man--very probably not a soldier. ... Djang Szi-fu's son, science hall janitor, was taken this morning, and Wei has not returned. We would like to do something but do not know what we can do--for there is no order in the city, and I cannot leave the campus.

Mr. John Rabe [Nazi party member and head of the Safety Zone] told the Japanese commander that he could help them get lights, water and telephone service, but he would do nothing until order was restored in the city. Nanking is a pitiful broken shell tonight--the streets are deserted in darkness and fear.

I wonder how many innocent, hard-working farmers and coolies have been shot today. We have urged all women over 40 to go to their homes to be with their husbands and to leave only their daughters and daughters-in-law with us. We are responsible for about 4,000 women and children tonight. We wonder how much longer we can stand this strain. It is terrible beyond words.

Source:
-- Minnie Vautrin, Head of Studies at Jinling Girls College Dec. 16, 1937 (Three
days after the fall of the city to the Japanese)

DOCUMENT #4

The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and thence to the heart of the broad masses. The fact that our bright boys do not understand this merely shows how mentally lazy and conceited they are...But the most brilliant propagandist techniques will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is born in mind constantly and with unflagging attention. It must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over. Here, as son often in this world, persistence is the first and most important requirement for success.

Source:
Hitler on the Nature and Purpose of Propaganda
(excerpt from Mein Kampf)

DOCUMENT #5

The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but above all for others-those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after...Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. (Fascism) affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage. Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional untruth of political equality dressed out in the e garb of collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and indefinite progress...If every age has its own characteristic doctrine, there are a thousand signs which point to Fascism as the characteristic doctrine of our time.

Source:
Excerpt from "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism" by Benito Mussolini, 1932

DOCUMENT #6

Hitler stood unmoved...The audience was breathless under his spell. This man expressed their thoughts, their feelings, their hopes; a new prophet had arisen- many saw him in him already an other Christ, who predicted the end of their sufferings and had the power to lead them into the promised land of they were only prepared to follow him. Every word he said was true. They had won the war-yes. Been deprived of the reward for their heroism by a number of traitors-yes. Had suffered incessantly ever since-yes. Been enslaved, suppressed, exploited-yes, yes, yes. But the day had arrived when they would free and revenge themselves.

Source:
Excerpt from Restless Days: A German Girl's Autobiography (1935)
Lilo Linke describes a Nazi rally during the Depression

DOCUMENT #7

We are advancing full steam ahead along the path of industrialization -- to socialism, leaving behind the age-old "Russian" backwardness. We are becoming a country of metal, a country of automobiles, a country of tractors. And when we have put the U.S.S. R. on an automobile, and the muzhik on a tractor, let the worthy capitalists, who boast so much of their "civilization," try to overtake us! We shall yet see which countries may then be "classified" as backward and which as advanced.

Source:
Stalin -- November 3, 1929

DOCUMENT #8

Ousting the capitalist elements in the countryside is an inevitable result and component part of the policy of restricting the capitalist elements, the policy of restricting the kulaks' exploiting tendencies. Ousting the capitalist elements in the countryside must not be regarded as equivalent to ousting the kulaks as a class. Ousting the capitalist elements in the countryside means ousting and overcoming individual sections of the kulaks, those se unable to bear the burden of taxation and the Soviet government's system of restrictive measures. Naturally, the policy of restricting the kulaks' exploiting tendencies, the policy of restricting the capitalist elements in the countryside, cannot but l lead to the ousting of individual sections of the kulaks. Consequently, ousting individual sections of the kulaks cannot be regarded otherwise than as an inevitable result and a component part of the policy of restricting the capitalist elements in the countryside...In our practical activity we preserve in the countryside the law on hiring labor, the law on renting land, and the ban on dekulakization.

Source:
speech given by Joseph Stalin in 1930

DOCUMENT #9

Hitler made each insignificant, poverty-stricken, jobless youth of the slums feel himself one of the great of the earth, since the youth was a German. Hitler told the young men that the fate of Germany was in their hands...He put them into uniforms, he taught them to march and sing together, he aroused that sense of comradeship and esprit de corps so precious to the young, and gave them what is even more precious- an object for hero worship. The most important subject in the new curriculum is history, with the emphasis laid on German heroes, German inventors, German rulers, poets, artists. The German child must be taught that his nation is superior to every other in every field...It is this violent, fanatical, youthful despot, backed by some millions of like- minded youths, who now rules Germany. Truly it is a new thing in the world- a great modern country submitting itself to the will of its young men

Source:
Nazism and Youth (1933) by Dr. Alice Hamilton
written after her second post-World War I trip to Germany