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It's Challenging to Explain the Danger and Appeal of Fascism – This Short 1980’s Movie Might Help [1]
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Date: 2025-04-18
The Wave is only a 45-minute low budget production, but it has some nuance as it shows how high school students are drawn into a fascist worldview as part of an experimental school history lesson.
Based on a true story, their history teacher wanted to teach them about the dangers of fascism and wound up disrupting the entire high school as a large number of students joined a fascist cult.
The experiment begins when an important question is posed by a student in class: How did the German people accept fascism so easily and, in the process, support a Nazi regime that eventually led to the deaths of an estimated 15 to 20 million Europeans in World War II?
The film is especially adept at showing the students’ need to be special, to be superior to others, and to “belong” which makes them vulnerable to manipulation by a fascist leader. Their specialness and feelings of increased personal power depend on their submerging themselves in a group identity that promises to return them to a collective state of unity, discipline, and greatness – a term used by both Hitler and our President that has been effective in drawing in supporters.
It is well worth the time to watch and understand the process of recruitment even if you have seen the film once long ago. Here is The Wave (on YouTube).
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