Dictatorships are often unexpected. They have arisen among prosperous, educated and cultured people who seemed safe from a dictatorship – in Europe, Asia and South America.
Consider Germany, one of the most paradoxical and dramatic cases.
During the late 19th century, it was widely considered to have the best educational system in the world. If any educational system could inoculate people from barbarism, surely Germany would have led the way. It had early childhood education — kindergarten. Secondary schools emphasized cultural training. Germans developed modern research universities. Germans were especially distinguished for their achievements in science – just think of Karl Benz who invented the gasoline-powered automobile, Rudolf Diesel who invented the compression-ignition engine, Heinrich Hertz who proved the existence of electromagnetic waves, Wilhelm Conrad Rőntgen who invented x-rays, Friedrich August Kekulé who developed the theory of chemical structure, Paul Ehrlich who produced the first medicinal treatment for syphilis and, of course, theoretical physicist Albert Einstein. It’s no wonder so many American scholars went to German universities for their degrees during the 19th century.
View the complete February 5, 2013, article by Jim Powell on the Forbes website here.