Paul and Sue are off on another big world trip shortly so we had a small get-together at my place to discuss history and politics before they went away. They want to know as much as possible about the many places they will visit worldwide and Paul in particular wanted to fill in his knowledge of the history and politics of the places they will visit.
That is of course a very large order so we mostly talked about current British and Australian politics but also about how the world got Hitler. I gave a broad outline of how Hitler rose to power and what the secret of his success among Germans was.
I pointed out that Hitler had many predecessors as a Leftist nationalist, noting particularly Napoleon, Napoleon III and Mussolini and that the combination of nationalism ("we are great") and socialism ("we will look after you") has powerful appeal.
But I cover that all in great depth here of course
Surprises for Paul were where the word "Nazi" came from and the fact that the Nazi Hakenkreuz was NOT a Swastika. I showed Paul what a real Asian Swastika looked like, and assured him he would see thousands of them in India.
Sue very kindly took on the job of feeding us as well as taking part in the discussions. Her Cuban sandwiches were a great hit and the apple and rhubarb crumble she followed it with was a most pleasant surprise. Maybe she knew I am a great fan of rhubarb. There is a picture if it below:
We washed it all down with a bottle of Seaview champagne. Sue even opened the champagne for us. What a woman!
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