Reflections From a Concentration Camp

It was surreal: I was aboard a train in Germany, heading to a concentration camp. Unlike the tens of thousands who made the same trek over 80 years ago to Sachsenhausen, I was going voluntarily. I was on a quest for knowledge.

The camp, today a museum, elaborates why the Nazis targeted the groups they did. Touring it on October 19, I couldn’t help but notice an eerie parallel between history and today in how fascism and anti-Semitism are normalized.

Between 1936 and 1945, Sachsenhausen interned over 200,000 people, of which tens of thousands died. Sachsenhausen was the headquarters for the concentration camp network. It was also the Nazis’ trial zone for new killing methods, such as Zyklon-B gas suffocation.

The Nazis didn’t build Sachsenhausen with the genocide of the Jews primarily in mind. Those of the “inferior Slavic race” and from a Communist state—Russians, Ukrainians and others—represented to the Nazis part of the Communist global conspiracy to undermine their rule. According to Sachsenhausen’s museum catalog, the invasion of the Soviet Union was part of the same “racial war” and “war of extermination” against the Jews.

Between September and November 1941, the Nazis transferred 13,000 Soviet prisoners of war to Sachsenhausen. Within 10 weeks, they killed over 10,000. “This mass murder,” the catalog reads, “planned well in advance, and racially and politically motivated, was the largest single operation to be carried out in Sachsenhausen Concentration Camp.”

How does this relate to anti-Semitism today?

The Communists and the Jews

Part of the reason the Nazis treated Soviet prisoners of war so harshly is that the Nazis believed their “archenemy,” the Jews, were the secret cabal behind world communism, using it as a weapon against Germany. The Communist Russians were “agents” of the Jews. The displays at Sachsenhausen make that apparent. One image of a poster shows an ugly Jewish figure hiding behind a Soviet flag. Another poster of a skeleton wearing a hat with a red star calls for Germans to “fight until victory” against Bolshevik “slavery, rape, mass murder and annihilation.” This is similar to the language Nazis used in describing the eternal struggle against the Jews.

Communism was a genuine evil. Many Germans in the 1930s voted for Adolf Hitler as protection from a Communist takeover. But in helping bring Hitler to power, they gave birth to a regime that was as bloodthirsty, genocidal and demonic as Joseph Stalin’s.

Today, many people are frightened by the power global elites hold over the world. Progressive billionaires, so the theory goes, are part of a globalist, Communist conspiracy to enslave the masses and wipe out traditional Western culture.

The Trumpet has covered communism’s attack on America for years. But this theory’s most prominent supporters ultimately blame the Jews. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is blamed for everything from Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophilia ring to assassinating Charlie Kirk. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, is smeared as persecuting Christians. The “Israel lobby” is blamed for sucking America into endless Middle East wars.

It doesn’t take much digging to discredit these claims, but for those taking them seriously, it isn’t much of a stretch to engage in historical revisionism. Populist right-wing figures like Tucker Carlson, Darryl Cooper and Candace Owens claim the crimes of the Holocaust were greatly exaggerated and that Winston Churchill was “the chief villain of World War ii.”

If Churchill didn’t defeat Nazi Germany, so the reasoning goes, then Western civilization wouldn’t have been “lost.” If men like Churchill weren’t around to create the postwar order, then “globalist communism” would not have happened. The implication is that Hitler was a greater defender of Western civilization than was Churchill.

This implies that if we want to defend Western civilization today, we need to support people with similar values to Hitler.

Because of this, many people openly support the Nazi Party’s modern successor: the Alternative für Deutschland. As Germany’s largest opposition party, it has been endorsed by Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, the American Conservative and others. Many in the United States believe those in the AfD are Germany’s true freedom fighters, smeared as evil right-wingers by the same globalist forces attacking America.

The Nazis used the very real threat of global leftism to get the public on board with persecuting the Jews. Famous commentators on the right are using the same excuse to go after the Jews today—and millions worldwide believe them. The Bible reveals that this is leading to the same level of bloodshed that took place in Sachsenhausen.

Nazism in Prophecy

The Trumpet expects a Nazi spirit to take hold of Germany and plunge the world once again into world war. God warns that Germany, using its ancient name of Assyria, will “tread [the people of Israel] down like the mire of the streets” (Isaiah 10:5-6). Revelation 13:7 says this German-led empire will have power “over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.” (To learn more, read our free booklet Germany and the Holy Roman Empire.)

Visible signs suggest this is already underway. The AfD’s rise is the biggest of these, but not the only one. The world should be alarmed by this trend. Yet many Americans are applauding it along with their favorite commentators.

Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry wrote in our November-December 2024 issue:

In nations across the world, radicalism is on the march, problems are proliferating, and many, many people are frustrated and fed up. Maybe you are one of them.

There are leaders who offer solutions and give people hope. Let me tell you: You must be careful about where you place your hope. Many of those “solutions” are illusions! …

In some cases, people looking for relief from failed and dysfunctional politics are adopting ideas and supporting leaders or political parties that have serious problems of their own. Some are embracing doubtful, even dangerous political extremes.

Just because communism is a recognizable evil doesn’t mean the solution is to empower the fascists. Following such figures into the fire is dangerous.

God’s Word is the basis of all truth (John 17:17). Much of what the world calls “conservatism” is not based on God’s Word. Often, it is based on the ideas of men, and God’s Word tells us we are cursed if we follow a man (Jeremiah 17:5-6). Sachsenhausen demonstrates the extreme result of following human reasoning, whether to the right or the left.

Revelation 17:8 says that when this resurrected Nazi beast returns in our day, people worldwide “will be astounded to see the beast that once was, now is not, but is to appear” (Complete Jewish Bible). Perhaps the world is caught off guard because the media is portraying its rise as a good thing—the media, after all, doesn’t let the Bible inform their analysis.

Staying close to God is the only way to ensure we are not led astray. God reveals in His Word the true meaning of world events, where they are leading, and how to be protected. For more information, read Mr. Flurry’s article “As Civilization Crumbles, Heed This Lesson.”