• PrimeMinisterKeyes@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    And maybe also familiarize themselves with the story of Ossietzky. For 6 years, he, Tucholsky and other authors tore the - then slowly rising - Nazi party a new one every week in their magazine. They found them part threatening, part hilarious, certainly completely unable to govern.
    Well, the Nazis did eventually rise to power; Tucholsky had seen the writing on the wall and had gotten out of Germany, urging Ossietzky to do the same. He refused, was soon taken into custody and tortured. Arguably, at this point in time, this sort of blatant Nazi terror was still considered despicable. To lend him visibility and get him out of internment, an unprecedented campaign to award him the Nobel Peace Prize was started - and succeeded in 1936, the year of the Summer Olympics in Berlin. Alas, it was too late; he died after receiving it, still in custody.
    (EDIT: in hindsight) Hitler’s reaction was entirely predictable: He barred any German from accepting a Nobel Prize ever again.