Don't Connect Dots to One Particular Group

I noticed off RP-Online (a regional press service) a note or two on commentary by a Catholic Bishop at a conference on refugees with the deputy chancellor (Sigmar Gabriel).

The "crusaders" (my term for the highly enthusiastic group being pro-refugee)....often get in front of the cameras and say some stupid things (in the same course as the "anti-crusaders" who hate dislike the refugee strategy of the German government).

So, the Bishop from the Ruhr region.....Franz-Josef Overbeck....wanted to make an analogy or comparison.....then noted that concept of transit zones for refugees....looked an awful lot like concentration zones.

No one says much about the tone of discussion after that comment or if some quiet moment came to envelope the room....but anytime you just barely hint of Nazis or Hitler....Germans freak out a bit and get a bit disturbed.

Typically....there are three general German reactions that you might see.  First, there's the hyped up intellectural who will bend over backwards to show that he's or the group simply are the opposite of such an accusation.  Second, there's the group automatically note that it's over seventy years since the war and there's just no need to connect any German to this previous past.  Third, there's the smaller group who live in the Kadashian-era and they really don't remember much on Nazi-history or anything before 2005, so they are curious about this history-stuff.

If you wanted to terminate some discussion group or chat-forum....just trying make some Nazi comparison and watch the tone of the episode go dramatically in a negative way.

What happened in this case is that the Bishop got cornered shortly after making the comment.....probably during a break.....and someone spoke to him about this being a pretty stupid comment.   Reality set in and the Bishop woke up from his fantasy vision of refugees.....to agree....it's best not to make some Nazi comparison.

So, the Bishop made another public statement within hours....suggesting that he said some harsh things and meant them in another totally different way.

In some ways, the 'crusaders' are making the entire topic of refugees, asylum seekers and immigration into a five-star discussion.  The enthusiasm has no limits and they can't understand why anyone would have opposition or limits to this thrilling new multi-cultural environment coming soon to the local neighborhood, city and state.

The 'crusaders' will accept the idea that a very small minority might be against their wisdom or brilliant design....figuring that only a mere ten-percent of society ought to be against them.  When some flash of reality occurs and they suddenly start to realize that between a quarter to half the population have some kind of problem with the wisdom or brilliant design....well, that's a harsh blow to the mass movement they were pumping up.

Bottom line....if you are in some focus group or intellectual chat club....don't get all unhinged and try to connect the dots to Nazis.  It'll freak people out one way or another.