Nicholas Colt

Mr. Lundstrom
HELA 10H Period 6
13 January, 2016
The Power of Fear

Many people wonder how dictators, such as the infamous Hitler and Mussolini, get to
power in the first place and maintain that power throughout years. They do this by striking fear
into peoples hearts, and keeping that fear going to create hatred for their enemy. Hitler used fear
to control people in his country. That is why dictators create fear by manufacturing an external
threat, controlling the media, and using military force to condition and drive citizens collective
behavior.
First, dictators such as Hitler create fear to control their citizens behavior by
manufacturing an external threat. Dictators do a good job at this one, by finding a scapegoat to
put all the blame on. Hitler chose the Jews, and blamed them for losing World War I. Hitler said
that if they got rid of the Jews, the country would be powerful again. For example, Hitler and
the Nazis also thought that people could be divided into different races and that there was a
struggle going on between these different races. According to the Nazis the Aryan race was the
best and strongest race. Jews were of another inferior race. In fact so inferior that they were not
considered to be people by the Nazis. (Annefrank.org) Also, She took little note of Adolf
Hitlers spectacular rise to power in Germany, even though he demonized her fellow Jews as
responsible for the economic slump and for virtually every other problem Germany faced. (The
Making of the West) Hitler blamed Jews for everything, and most of the German population
believed him, because having a scapegoat and blaming the problem on them is easier than facing

the problem itself. Hitler also placed himself as the only source of salvation to Germany, saying
that he would be the one to save them from these hard times. He also said that he would make his
country great again. Sound familiar? Thats pretty much Trumps whole campaign. Trump is
almost being like Hitler in the way of how he is trying to force the Muslims out of the United
States, just like how Hitler forced Jews out of Germany because he believed that, The solution
to all these problems was to banish the Jews from society. With this political message and the
promise to make Germany a large and economically powerful country Hitlers party won the
1932 election. In 1933 he and his party came to power. (Annefrank.org) Therefore, Hitler used
an external threat to control his citizens and unite them together against it.
Secondly, dictators control the media to drive their citizens behavior. Dictators will use
propaganda and tell lies to motivate their people to help them. If President Obama says that
North Korea is bombing us, we all would unite even if it is true or not. That is what Kim Jong
Un does, telling his people lies about the western world and how evil we all are. He also controls
the internet and limits what his people can see, so they dont get ideas from the World Wide Web.
Post said that in both Iraq and North Korea, dictators tightly controlled the flow of information.
That control was upended in the past two years during the "Arab spring" revolts that swept away
despots in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and some of the Gulf states, revolts that were encouraged in
large part by information spread by cell phones and social media. (News.Discover.com) This
shows that just social media can cause riots and lead to deaths of many people. Their use of
propaganda may be efficient at the time, but in the future it may lead to people beginning to
question their ruler. A great example of this is when Orson Welles, a filmmaker and actor
broadcasted The War of the Worlds, and it caused widespread panic because people didnt know
it was fictional. This shows how quick people will believe someone if they are a even a little bit

important at all. Now think about how you would react if our president said the same thing. We
as a people trust our president and I believe that others will support their leader if there is a threat
to their country. That is how dictators used propaganda to influence their citizens into uniting and
becoming a stronger country in the end.
Lastly, dictators use fear to control their citizens behavior by using military force. If you
look up any dictator, they always had a secret police, such as the Gestapo and SS in Germany,
and Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA) in Italy. There are
hundreds of these secret police organizations, and they were used to arrest or even kill those who
opposed the government. Its even in OVRAs name, Repression of Anti-Fascism. These dictators
use these secret polices to find rebels and their leaders, and put an end to them. So why don't his
people rebel? There's such total control that four people talking together can be seen as a
conspiracy. (News.Discovery.com) Kim Jong Un has his country so secured that a group of
people cant even talk to each other without being questioned. Another way of military force is
having a military society. Since there was the stock market crash in the 1920s and 30s, many
people were out of a job. They needed a leader that would get them jobs, and would they rather
have a whimpy looking democratic president or a bold looking militaristic president? (Im not
trying to dis on democratic looks, just what my source said) In fact:
Elected leaders in the democracies reacted cautiously to both economic
depression and their dictator's aggression. In an age of mass media, leaders
following democratic principles appeared timid, while dictators dressed in
uniforms looked bold and decisive. Only the german invasion of Poland in
1939 pushed the democracies to strong action, as World War II erupted in
Europe. By 1941, the war had spread across the globe with the United States,

Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and many other nations united in combat
against Germany, Italy, Japan, and their allies. Tens of millions would perish
in this war because both technology and ideology had become more deadly
than they had been just two decades earlier. More than half the dead were
civilians, among them Etty Hillesum, whose only crime was being Jewish.
(The Making of the West)
This shows that people at the time would rather have a militaristic looking dictator rather than a
democratic looking one. This is most likely because of Otto von Bismarck, who unified the
German States and made them a militaristic country that soon led them to be in World War I and
World War II. This was not Bismarcks intentions though, because he had tried everything in his
power to keep peace in the 1870s to the 1880s.
To conclude, many dictators use three things to strike fear in the heart of its citizens, and
unite them as one. These things are manufacturing an external threat such as the Jews, control of
media and propaganda to tell lies, and the use of military force to stop anyone opposing the
government and dictator, because in the end, it only takes a spark to make a fire.

Citations
"Anne Frank House - Teachers' Portal - Pupils' Questions: Why Did Hitler Hate
Jews?" Anne Frank House. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
<http://www.annefrank.org/en/Education/Teachers-portal/Pupilsquestions/Why-did-Hitle
r-hate-Jews/>.

"How Dictators Keep Control : DNews." DNews. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.

<http://news.discovery.com/human/dictators-control-psychology-111221.htm>.
Hunt, Lynn. "The Great Depression and World War II." The Making of the West: Peoples and
Cultures. 4th ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2005. 1018. Print.