A Fire Bell In The Night

https://time.com/5672506/hitler-art-activism/

Sorry Mary Lane and Time magazine, but you should check your facts a little more carefully before reporting them. It’s a way to avoid embarrassment. I really that recommend you should try it.

In the magazine she reported that  > When Adolf Hitler took charge of Germany 85 years ago this summer, he did not, contrary to popular belief, “seize power.” Rather, Germans elected him their Führer, or leader, in a referendum on Aug. 19, 1934...<

But as I already was aware, Hitler seized power. No doubt about it. I didn’t know all the details, but they are easily found online, as in Wikipedia, for example.

> The referendum was associated with widespread intimidation of voters, and Hitler used the resultant large “yes” vote to claim public support for his activities as the de factohead of stateof Germany. In fact, he had assumed these offices and powers immediately upon von Hindenburg's death and used the referendum to legitimize this move, taking the title Führer und Reichskanzler.<

We all should check our facts before we post.  It’s excusable that those of us simply posting for the interest of ourselves and friends can occasionally make an error. Professional journalists and Time magazine have no such excuse.

This is not to say she doesn’t make an excellent series of points. The United States should take a very close look at what’s happening in America today as religious groups more and more surrender their moral and theological positions to political expediency and power.

>In his 1926 painting “Pillars of Society,” the then-33-year-old artist warned his fellow Germans that, if petty government sniping and extremist Christianity were not nipped in the bud, Hitler’s rise would be the likely consequence. Grosz further warned against radical far-right religious views in 1927’s “Shut Up and Do Your Duty,” a work that shows Jesus Christ nailed to the cross wearing combat boots and a gas mask—a criticism of politicizing Christianity that drew praise from pacifist Quakers in the United States.<

“...petty government sniping and extremist Christianity...” that seems to sound very familiar for some inexplicable reason.