reply to discussion from another classmate
Min 150 words
Both the videos and the sources suggest that a desire for land and resources both prompted various actions by several nations leading up to and during the second world war, and also that this motivated the rise of totalitarianism. Totalitarianism gives the people in power absolute control over their nation, and this control allows them to decide how resources and people will be used. For example, the Crash Course video on the subject notes that Germany both reduced the resources available to Jewish citizens (along with legally revoking their citizenship) and took resources from other countries. As a totalitarian government, Germany was able to quickly strip Jewish citizens of their rights, enforce restrictions on their resources, and rally the rest of the population against them; likewise, they were also able to order invasions into other nations. I think the issue of resources also made the people in the nations that became totalitarian less likely to resist the establishment of totalitarianism and more likely to passively go along with those changes, or even agree that they are the best course of action. When people are low on resources and in danger, they can become desperate for quick solutions and willing to displace blame onto innocent parties (like Jewish German citizens), so many wouldn’t have found the actions of the totalitarian government objectionable.
