In Germany, the Nazis first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, but I didn't speak up because I was a protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time there was no one left to speak for me.
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Martin NiemÖeller (1892-1984), prisoner of Dachau .
Introduction.
A great deal in the world has changed since the collapse of the Nazi regime in 1945. The world was taught a very harsh and brutal, but valuable lesson in terms of how important things we take for granted are. Things such as free speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of thought, are rights and freedoms, although guaranteed' by constitutions, can easily be taking away from us by the government, such as was witnessed in post-September 11 United States, with the passing of the Patriot's Act. However, the amount of controversy that surrounded this bill was great, unlike the seemingly open complacency in which the majority of the German population showed during the Nazification, in which almost all rights German citizens had enjoyed where taken away. .
One of the Nazi regime's most powerful tools at destroying it's domestic opposition was by taking away civil rights and freedoms, through laws passed through the Reichstag, and the severe, brutal, and strict enforcement of these laws by the SA, SS, and Gestapo. It was with every new law that was legislated by the Nazi party that the rights and freedoms of the people of Germany where being stripped away, piece by piece. At first, they took away the rights of minority groups, such as the Communist and the Jews, then they took away the rights of trade unionist, and other groups until eventually the German citizens had no rights left in which to stop the government from further impinging on their freedom.
