Who is responsible for authoritarian takeover in Florida?
Germans who believed in democracy waited until it was too late
As a Purple Heart combat infantry veteran of World War II and currently a resident of Florida, I paid special attention to this year’s Memorial Day commemorations in our Sunshine State. After the war in Europe was over on May 8, 1945, I remained in Germany for almost a year as part of the U.S. Army occupation forces.
Like many other GIs, I rarely met any Germans who said they were or had been Nazis. Who, then, was responsible for the authoritarian policies and practices of the Third Reich that led to a war in which more than 400,00 Americans died? Let’s look at some of these policies and practices.
Early in the Nazi regime the government, under Adolf Hitler, marginalized people of color, including Roma, by banning books and school discussions of how they had been maltreated. Homosexuals were another target of the Nazis, discussions of gay people and other minority genders banned in the schools, and key medical services denied them. Jews became the principal target, at first through banning books about them at specified education levels and then, in the inevitable slippery slope, burning books by and about them and ultimately, as 19th Century German poet Heinrich Heine predicted, burning the people themselves.
The Nazis changed voting procedures and used opportunities to strengthen the power of their party in the national congress, the Reichstag. Journalists were vilified and their legal protections attacked to try to prevent the public from knowing the anti-democratic excesses of the regime. Businesses and industry not willing to be controlled by Germany’s leaders were threatened. Elected officials who did not support Hitler were surreptitiously fired. Colleges, historically bastions of free inquiry and discussion, were pressured into changing and deleting curricula and classroom discussion. Protests and public meetings were restricted. Immigrants were considered inferior to the proclaimed master race and were banned and evicted.
This and its subsequent metamorphosis is what America and its men and women who we honor on Memorial Day fought against. But how have our heroes' sacrifices been honored in Florida? A week before this Memorial Day, on May 23, 2023, The News–Press published an article about our state’s governor entitled “The DeSantis effect.” With permission from The News-Press, here are some of the sub-headings from that story citing the actions of our governor, a Republican, and our Republican-dominated Legislature: “Restricting Lessons On Sexuality In School,” “Banning Transition Care For Transgender Floridians,” “Targeting First Amendment Protections For Journalists,“ “Reforming (Or Suppressing) Voting Laws,” “Yanking Books Off The Shelves Of Libraries,” “Redrawing District Maps To Help The GOP,” “Evicting Undocumented Immigrants,” “Battling The Magic Kingdom And Disney,” “Ousting An Elected Official,” “Staging A Hostile Takeover At New College,” and “Quelling Protests.” It should be noted that Florida recently banned two high school books on the Holocaust.
This is NOT a comparison of the Hitler and Germany of World War II with the governor and policies of Florida today, but a warning of the dangers of authoritarianism. The fascist takeover of Germany was not done in a vacuum. It was with the support of the majority of German voters. The authoritarian takeover of Florida — the parallels are manifest — was not done in a vacuum. Who is responsible? It was with the support of the majority of Florida voters. The Germans who believed in democracy waited until it was too late to stop their authoritarian state.
On this Memorial Day are we remembering the sacrifices of our war heroes to save democracy and will we before it is too late to stop the authoritarian assault on democracy in our state?
Robert Hilliard is a World War II veteran, former federal government official and college dean who lives on Sanibel.