Ben Wilson

Real grinding daily hardship.

Young men with no work, no prospects, and a burning sense that something had been stolen from them.

And this was not the way that things were supposed to work.

And so this is when the movement meets the moment.

You know, all those years of patiently building up infrastructure, building a party, building a message becomes relevant at this moment.

And I think it's helpful to illustrate some individual stories to show why this was resonating with people at this moment.

All right, so here's one person who joins the NSDAP during this time period, during the depths of the Great Depression.

Here's what he writes.

The terrible burden of the breakdown threatened to bring all economic life to a standstill.

Thousands of factories closed their doors.

Hunger was the daily companion of the German working man.

Added to this was the artificial whip of scarcity, which sent working men scurrying from their homes to beg for food from the farmers.

The government carried its measures against the public so far that many an honest working man had to resort to theft to obtain food.

All fellow citizens, with the exception of the communists, yearned for better times.

As for me, like many others, I had lost all I possessed through adverse economic conditions.

And so, early in 1930, I joined the National Socialist Party.

OK, so you hear very clearly this link of like everything was taken away from me.

And so it's in that context that I joined the National Socialist Party.

Here's another one.

Quote, When we consider that on the one hand, the policies of the red government, particularly the inflation and taxes, deprived me of all means of livelihood.