My quest as a writer, with an enduring fascination for history, has led me to read widely about the rise of Nazism in Germany. Yet one question remains unanswered, gnawing at me with every turn of the page, with every recollection of the past—why? What drives a person to persecute, dehumanise, and ultimately kill another? How does an ordinary citizen transform into the willing executioner of a brutal regime?
After ten years as a combatant, I have seen the face of violence. I have lived with its ghosts. The scars of war are not merely those carved into flesh, but those imprinted upon the mind, lingering in the shadows long after the battlefield has been left behind. Complex PTSD is my companion, but it has granted me clarity on one truth: I abhor violence in every sense.
And so, I stand here, watching from the sidelines as America inches towards something extraordinarily terrifying. I know my history. I have lived in Germany, where even now, the shame and guilt of the past remain palpable, tangible, inescapable. It is a weight the German people still carry, an acknowledgment of their failure to resist, a mourning for what their nation became. And yet, as a civilisation, we have ignored the warnings of history time and time again.
As Winston Churchill once thundered, "A nation that forgets its past has no future."
But let us dispense with polite formalities. Let us get to the meat and potatoes of what is happening, right under our noses.
The past is not a relic, nor is it a shadow cast by long-forgotten spectres. It is an omniscient force, waiting—patiently, mercilessly—for complacency to call it forth once more. It does not slumber in the pages of history books or rest in the sanctuaries of remembrance. It lingers, watching, testing whether men and women will remember the lessons paid for in blood.
Again and again, history has shown us the road to tyranny.
And yet, we forget.
There is an enduring belief that the horrors of the twentieth century—of Hitler, of the concentration camps, of the smouldering book pyres, of the crushing boot upon the throat of democracy—were an aberration, a singular sickness of a bygone age. We comfort ourselves with the illusion that such darkness could never return. Yet the road to tyranny is not paved with great pronouncements or heralded by banners. It does not march through the streets with open declaration. It arrives wrapped in the familiar rhetoric of grievance, cloaked in the flag of nationalism, whispering to the disaffected that they alone have been wronged. It speaks the language of the "common man," railing against the “elites,” warning that an enemy within is responsible for the nation's decline. It calls for the restoration of a golden past, one that never truly existed. It promises greatness, but delivers ruin.
We have seen this story before. And if we do not act, we will see it again.
In the years before Adolf Hitler seized power, he spoke in the language of the aggrieved. He raged against the intellectuals, the press, the educators, and the judges. He told the people that their nation had been sabotaged from within, that their schools were indoctrinating children against their own country. He vowed to restore Germany to its former glory, promising that he alone could bring order. The Weimar Republic, weakened and divided, was an easy target for his lies. The villains were hand-picked: Jews, Marxists, socialists, intellectuals, homosexuals, feminists—anyone who could serve as a scapegoat to unite the mob.
The people listened. The people followed.
First, there were book burnings. The works of philosophers, writers, scientists, and poets were set alight in the public square, their ideas deemed a threat to the purity of the nation. Berlin, once the intellectual and cultural epicentre of Europe, saw its great institutions ransacked. The first transgender clinic in the world was reduced to ashes. Academics who had spent their lives in pursuit of truth were imprisoned. The press, once the watchdog of democracy, was brought to heel under the steel grip of Joseph Goebbels. Those who dared to question the regime were branded “enemies of the people.” The German judiciary, once independent, became a mechanism of oppression. The opposition, which had assumed they could contain Hitler, was silenced, arrested, executed. By the time the people of Germany understood what had happened, it was too late.
The United States now stands at its own precipice. The forces of authoritarianism are not gathering at the gates; they are already inside. The ground has been laid. The machinery is in place. Donald Trump, a man twice impeached, four times indicted, found guilty of insurrection, has been rewarded with another chance at power. The system that was supposed to safeguard democracy has instead emboldened its greatest threat.
And already, the darkness advances.
Trump has announced the expansion of Guantanamo Bay into a 30,000-bedded detention camp—a move that represents the next, inevitable step towards dehumanisation. Guantanamo Bay was never a beacon of justice; its very name is synonymous with indefinite detention, with the stripping away of human rights under the justification of national security. Now, it is being repurposed. The official reason? To hold “criminal illegal aliens.” The language is deliberate, chillingly reminiscent of how Jews were branded as "foreign invaders" in Nazi Germany. It is not about border security. It is about erasing humanity.
To understand the full weight of this shift, it is necessary to examine the origins of Guantanamo’s use for migrant detention. The facility has historically been used to house migrants intercepted at sea, particularly during the 1990s when Haitian and Cuban refugees were detained there. Under the Biden administration, this practice continued, with a $163.4 million contract awarded in August 2024 to a private prison contractor for the operation of the Migrant Operations Center. At that time, the center typically held fewer than 100 individuals, functioning as a containment site for maritime asylum seekers rather than a mass detention facility.
But what Trump has now enacted is entirely different. He has expanded Guantanamo’s role beyond historical precedent, ordering that it be transformed into a facility capable of housing tens of thousands of individuals. These are not just migrants intercepted at sea—they include anyone deemed an "illegal alien," including those detained within the U.S. This shift is profound. It is no longer a question of border enforcement but of mass incarceration, a vast operation designed to systematically remove individuals who do not fit the ideological, racial, or political image of Trump’s America.
Trump has signed a presidential memorandum directing the Department of Homeland Security to maximise the facility’s capacity, stating that it will be used to detain "high-priority criminal aliens unlawfully present in the United States." Yet, this language obscures the true intent. It is not merely about removing violent offenders; it is about creating a legal black hole where individuals can be indefinitely held, with no due process, outside the purview of U.S. law.
The cost of this operation is staggering. According to the Department of Homeland Security, detaining an individual at Guantanamo costs $165 per day. For 30,000 detainees, that is an expenditure of $4.9 million per day—nearly $1.8 billion annually. At some point, these financial realities will force a question upon the U.S. Senate: What comes next?
Will there be a "Wannsee Meeting" of Washington bureaucrats, where lawmakers gather behind closed doors to discuss the "final solution" to the Guantanamo problem? When the fiscal burden becomes too great, will the debate shift from mass internment to mass deportation? And beyond that—to something far more sinister?
History does not repeat itself exactly. But it rhymes.
By repurposing Guantanamo Bay in this way, Trump is doing more than enacting draconian immigration policy. He is testing the limits of what the American people will accept. If he can justify the mass incarceration of one group, how difficult will it be to extend it to others? The legal precedent is being set. The machinery is being built. All that remains is who will be deemed "the next problem." The echoes of the past are deafening. This is how it begins.
Timothy Ryback, writing in The Atlantic, detailed how Hitler dismantled German democracy in just fifty-three days. That is all it took. Less than two months. The Reichstag Fire was seized upon as an excuse to declare a national emergency. The Enabling Act was passed, dissolving Parliament. The judiciary was politicised. The press was gagged. Opposition leaders were imprisoned or executed. Germany, once the most sophisticated democracy in Europe, became a dictatorship almost overnight.
Trump and his allies have already laid the groundwork. January 6th was a Reichstag moment, a violent coup attempt designed to delegitimise the electoral process. He has vowed to purge the Justice Department, to prosecute those who investigated him, to dismantle the FBI. He has openly threatened the press, declaring that in his second term, the media will "pay a price." The rule of law, already weakened, will not withstand his return.
Bernie Sanders once warned: "We are living in a nation owned and controlled by a small number of multi-billionaires who have enormous power over our economic and political life. This is not democracy. This is a kleptocracy."
And so it is.
The United States is not merely sliding towards authoritarianism; it is succumbing to the grip of kleptocracy, where government exists not for the people, but for the billionaire class. The rich do not want democracy. They want an obedient workforce, a divided nation, a police force strong enough to crush dissent but weak enough to ignore corporate plunder. Autocracy is not the goal. It is the means to an end. The true goal is theft on an unimaginable scale. Hitler built an economic empire for himself and his backers. So did Putin. So does every dictator. Trump is no different. He is not a patriot. He is not a champion of the people. He is a thief.
And when the billionaire class has taken everything, they will discard those who put them in power. Trump did not win in a landslide. His victory was by the smallest of margins. He is not invincible. The fight is not lost. But time is running out. The Reichstag burned, and the German people did nothing. The question is—will you? Or will we finally, at long last, remember the lesson of history before it is too late?
Germany's Descent into Dictatorship: A Timeline
1. January 30, 1933: Adolf Hitler is appointed Chancellor of Germany. Despite the Nazi Party not holding a majority, Hitler seeks to consolidate power.
2. February 4, 1933: The Decree for the Protection of the German People is issued, restricting press freedom and allowing the government to ban political meetings, thereby suppressing opposition voices.
3. February 27, 1933: The Reichstag Fire occurs, which the Nazis exploit to claim that communists are plotting against the German government.
4. February 28, 1933: President Hindenburg signs the Reichstag Fire Decree, suspending civil liberties, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, and the right to public assembly. This decree enables mass arrests of political opponents, particularly communists.
5. March 5, 1933: Reichstag elections are held. Despite aggressive tactics, the Nazis fail to secure an absolute majority.
6. March 23, 1933: The Enabling Act is passed, granting Hitler the authority to enact laws without Reichstag consent, effectively nullifying the constitution and establishing his dictatorship.
7. April 7, 1933: The Law for the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service is enacted, leading to the purge of Jews and political opponents from civil service positions.
8. July 14, 1933: The Law Against the Formation of New Parties is implemented, making the Nazi Party the only legal political party in Germany.
9. August 2, 1934: Upon President Hindenburg's death, Hitler merges the positions of Chancellor and President, declaring himself Führer, thereby centralising all state power under his control.
Trump Administration's Initial Actions: A Comparative Overview
In the first three weeks of President Trump's 2025 term, several actions have raised concerns regarding the erosion of democratic norms:
1. January 20, 2025: President Trump is inaugurated for his second term.
2. January 21, 2025: The administration issues executive orders aimed at overhauling U.S. immigration law and policy, including enhancing enforcement priorities relating to undocumented immigrants currently in the United States.
3. January 22, 2025: A series of executive orders are signed, affecting various sectors, including immigration, climate change, and oil.
4. January 23, 2025: The administration begins reviewing the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, with an eye to a renegotiation in 2026 or sooner.
5. January 24, 2025: The Department of Homeland Security rescinds guidelines that prevented immigration officers from entering "sensitive" areas, including schools, healthcare facilities, and places of worship.
6. January 25, 2025: The administration issues executive orders relating to the vetting and screening of immigrant and nonimmigrant visa holders.
7. January 26, 2025: The administration begins the establishment of an "External Revenue Service to collect tariffs, duties and other foreign trade-related revenues."
8. January 27, 2025: The administration issues executive orders aimed at reshaping government, including controversial decisions such as pardoning Capitol riot participants and withdrawing from the Paris climate accord.
9. January 28, 2025: The administration proposes taking control of Gaza for redevelopment, an idea widely criticised. As of 9th February, US private security firm UG Solutions have arrived at the Gaza border, comprising of retired special forces operatives. There to ‘monitor’ the flow of weapons across the border.
Comparative Analysis
While the contexts of 1930s Germany and contemporary America differ significantly, certain parallels can be observed:
- Rapid Policy Implementation: Both administrations enacted sweeping changes shortly after assuming power, utilising executive orders to bypass traditional legislative processes.
- Suppression of Opposition: The early actions of both regimes included measures that curtailed dissent. The Nazis used decrees to arrest political opponents and suppress free speech, while the Trump administration's actions, such as pardoning individuals involved in the Capitol riots, have been perceived as undermining accountability and encouraging political violence.
- Centralisation of Power: Both administrations took steps to consolidate authority. Hitler's Enabling Act allowed him to legislate without parliamentary consent, while President Trump's executive actions have been viewed as attempts to expand executive power, often at the expense of other branches of government.
Read Timothy Ryback’s article here:
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