Where Old Germany Rules
A 1924 New York Times Magazine article warned that teenagers who were just starting indoctrination in Hitler's Germany would be national leaders in a decade's time. The article proved accurate.
Hitler's first mention in the Times occurred in November 1922, as SundayMagazine.org chronicled exactly 100 years later in November 2022:
https://sundaymagazine.org/2022/11/27/hitlers-first-nyt-mention-was-100-years-ago-this-week
By one year and three months after that initial mention, Hitler's influence was such that journalist Joseph Gollomb filed this dispatch from Berlin:
It is in Germany's high schools, too, that is found the main following of such movements as Hitler's Fascisti, the League of Bismarck Youth, the German Nationalist League of Youth, the Steel Helmets and other organizations — all military in character, secretly drilling with effective arms, all consecrated to the restoration of monarchy in Germany, and all officially outlawed by the authorities.
Gollomb asked whether this development could be the harbinger of things to come:
Are these unrelated happenings or are they the ripe fruit of what is being inculcated today in the minds and hearts of three-quarters of a million children and adolescents, the generation which in ten years will be Germany's teachers, lawyers, doctors, engineers, civil servants, public officials, and political leaders?
That's exactly what happened. By 1939, more than 90% of German children were members of the organization Hitler Youth.
Hitler Youth was later disbanded by the Allies in October 1945, a few months after the end of World War II.
History demonstrates the importance of stopping such movements in their nascent stages, like 1924 for Hitler. What's the modern analogue?
Just this week, Vladimir Putin may have reached his lowest level yet, with the (likely) murder of his primary dissident Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison. As former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL16) described in a November 2023 appearance on Real Time with Bill Maher, a sizable number of U.S. political leaders excuse or even cheer on Putin... but there was a chance to stop that movement in the 2010s.
There was a guy, he was a Californian, Dana Rohrabacher, that was like the only pro-Russian Republican for a while. I'd take him on in the Foreign Affairs Committee and people would say, 'He's just one person, he's probably being paid by the F.S.B., right? Whatever.' Well, that crazy ends up overtaking the party. Nobody imagined Donald Trump in 2014. You've got to kill extremism in the cradle or it takes over.
Because if you look at your coalition and say, 'We need this extreme, we need the pro-Hamas faction' [in the Democratic Party] or 'We need the pro-Russia faction' [in the Republican Party], they end up calling the shots. Because if everybody in this room has a grenade, we're all equally powerful. If somebody's willing to pull the pin, they're the most powerful person in the room. And extremists are willing to pull the pin. You have got to be willing to pull the pin with them. You've got to be willing to fight back.
Where Old Germany Rules
Published: Sunday, February 17, 1924