This Classroom Experiment Explains How Hitler Rose to Power & No One Protested
A social experiment to answer ‘why fascism works?’
“Why did the Nazis rise to power in Germany and why were the Germans ignorant about the Holocaust and concentration camps? Why didn’t anyone protest the fascism?”, a student asked his history teacher.
“I’m not very sure”, the teacher replied.
Ron Jones, a history teacher in Cubberley high school in Palo Alto, pondered over the logical question that his student asked. A Stanford graduate and famous for his unconventional pedagogical experiments, Jones came up with a game that actually turned out to be a 5-day social experiment known as “The Third Wave.”
To demonstrate the totalitarian rule in Germany and how the Nazi party brainwashed and manipulated German civilians, he came up with a set of principles for his experiment—
• Strength through discipline
• Strength through community
• Strength through action
• Strength through pride
• Strength through understanding
