Dear Editor,

The Bible is the first place that tells us history repeats and generations commit the mistakes of their ancestors. (Ecclesiastes 1:9-11)

So it is no surprise when I saw “certain groups” restrain from condemning the riots until they were absolutely forced to condemn them for political purposes.

I read a article about the early years of the Nazi movement and it is frighteningly similar. In 1933, Hermann Goering was appointed Minister of the Interior (i.e., Police Commissioner) of Prussia.

One of Goering’s first innovations was a radical change in the priorities of police, including specific restrictions of police activities.

Goering departed from the socialist tradition of demanding the abolition of the police, which was first proposed by Vladimir Lenin in his article “April Theses” of 1917.

Minister Goering’s first step was staging a grand purge of the police and then hiring National Socialist Party activists with no policing experience to replace those thousands of dismissed policemen.

Goering left citizens to their fate without police protection. Actually, the Nazis had already created alternative police, which was subordinate only to the party — the SA (Sturmabteilung).

These police wore light brown uniforms. The task of the Brownshirts was not to protect law and order but to organize riots, pogroms, arson, and intimidation of opponents of the National Socialist ideology to strengthen their political power.

Gun confiscation occurred for everyone except those loyal to the Nazis.

The main task of the German state police was not to protect citizens but to protect the rioters.

Are you seeing any similarities yet?

Let’s review.

They took the guns of law abiding citizens.

They removed the regular police and replaced them with activists loyal to their party.

They encouraged riots, intimidation, and destruction of property against those that stood against them.

Young people made up the majority of the Brownshirts.

This was Germany in the 1930s.

If you cannot see the resemblance to today’s America you are either blind or deny the truth of our modern reality.

History may not completely repeat but it certainly rhymes.

Randy Marple

Shadyside