Welcome to Breakpoint, a daily look at an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth. For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street. Nuremberg, a new movie about the trial to hold Nazi war criminals accountable for their actions during the Second World War, ends with this prescient quote. The only clue to what man can do is what man has done. While accusations of fascism and Nazis are tossed around far too often these days, it is essential that we know the conditions that made the Nazi rise to power possible.
The Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I, placed all the blame for the war on Germany. It demanded that the country pay reparations. The treaty was demoralizing and in many ways unjust, designed to turn Germany into a second-rate power that could never again wage war. Clearly that was a miscalculation. The reparations were so extreme that it became impossible for Germany to ever pay them.
Instead, the German government attempted to inflate the nation out of debt by increasing the money supply. People began burning paper money for heat because it was cheaper than buying wood. Women would bring wheelbarrows full of Deutschmarks to the store but could not even buy a newspaper with it. In fact, the exchange rate between the mark and the US dollar at the time was 1 trillion to 1, so cigarettes were a more reliable currency. In 1923, a loaf of bread in Germany cost 428 billion marks.
Postage stamps cost millions of marks. Savings were destroyed. Workers were destitute. University graduates and doctors drove taxis. The only Germans who prospered were those with real assets, such as landowners, financiers, and industrialists.
So Germany became quite polarized. Moderate political parties became increasingly irrelevant. Many industrial workers, trade unionists, and intellectuals turned to communism. In this context, Hitler was able to rise to power by spotlighting the hardships of the people and telling them it was not their fault. He blamed instead the Treaty of Versailles and the German government which had stabbed every day Germans in the back.
And behind it all, of course, Hitler claimed, were the Jews. The National Socialism of Hitler strongly opposed the international socialism of the Communist.
So, violent street battles between the two sides led many to conclude that the only hope for stability was dictatorship. And that's how Hitler came to power. Even those who believed his ideas were crazy went along with it because they thought that they would be able to control him.
Now, America is not Weimar Germany. Trump's not Hitler. Calling political opponents fascist and Nazis does not make them so. Even so, however, it would be foolish to ignore the lessons that we can learn from Germany's political history. For example, we've not yet reached the point of hyperinflation, but inflation has been steadily building.
ever since the Biden administration's so-called quantitative easing as a response to COVID. Though the scale's not the same, expanding the money supply without corresponding increase in economic production, that's what caused hyperinflation in Weimar Germany. And in our context, President Biden's open border immigration policy has also contributed to inflation. Rising generations today also face a prospect of lower living standards than their parents had. College graduates, even from elite universities, experience a downward mobility caused by the overproduction of elites.
Many have been radicalized in college by a critical theory narrative of oppression. That's led them to believe that the nation of Israel are colonial oppressors and behind the various evils in the world. and, like their counterparts in Weimar, Germany, many have moved toward Marxism.
Meanwhile, the woke right, as many call it, is filled with young men who see little prospect of finding a good job, owning a home or getting married. They're tired of the educational system and media blaming them for all the world's problems. They're tired of missing out on opportunities because of DEI programs. They now distrust most institutions and question what's called the post-war consensus. Many of them buy into, or at least flirt with, things like white nationalism, racism, and conspiracy theories about the Jews as the source of evil in the world.
Some are even seeking to rehabilitate Hitler. In short, there's been an increased radicalism among this generation called Zoomers within both parties. As Charlie Kirk noted about the rise of Zoran Mamdani as an extreme leftist socialist, and I quote, this is yet another distress signal by the young people that, hey, if you're not going to fix our life economically, we're going to get very radical politically. These are the realities. And it's yet another reason that the church has to, quote unquote, get political with this younger generation.
To be clear, we have to move upstream from politics on the ground and demonstrate how a biblical view of human dignity, of nations, of the world. rule of law, of marriage, of work, of productivity, offer a better way forward. We must not avoid these issues. We must directly engage with them. What Paul instructed the Colossians applies just as much to the young people who are returning to our churches and to the churches to which they are returning.
Quote, see to it that no one takes you captive by a philosophy, an empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ. And that will require, as Paul wrote elsewhere to the church at Corinth, that we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ. End quote. In other words, the church has to engage in the intellectual life. The church has to engage in the real world of ideas and worldview.
The question is when all these young people are returning to church, what kind of faith will they find there? For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street with Breakpoint. Today's Breakpoint was co-authored by Dr. Glenn Sunshine. If you're a fan of Breakpoint, leave us a review wherever you download your podcast.
And for more resources to live like a Christian today, go to breakpoint.org.
