A demonstrator carries a placard with an image depicting U.S. President Donald Trump dressed in a Nazi uniform during a No Kings protest in New York City on Oct. 18.Eduardo Munoz/Reuters
Timothy Snyder is the inaugural Chair in Modern European History at the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto.
In certain ways, this fall in the United States has recalled the fall of 1938 in Nazi Germany, when mass deportations of undocumented people was one of Adolf Hitler’s most ambitious coercive policies before the start of the Second World War. In the U.S., too, the connection between domestic repression and foreign aggression is coming into focus.
That fall, the German police and SS rounded up 17,000 Jews with Polish citizenship and dumped them across the border. This set off a chain of events that provides a useful perspective on where the U.S. is now. A family was deported; a desperate refugee took revenge; the government organized a pogrom and reorganized its police; war followed.
The family was the Grynszpans. The father and mother had moved to Germany in 1911 from the Russian Empire. Their children were born in Germany and saw themselves as Germans. Their son Herschel had left to stay with relatives in Paris, where he faced a series of disappointments, including the loss of his citizenship.
Denied permanent residence in France in the summer of 1938, Herschel was hiding in an attic to avoid deportation when a postcard from his sister arrived: “Everything is finished for us.” Herschel took revenge. On Nov. 7, 1938, he walked into the German embassy in Paris and shot a diplomat. A policy of mass deportation had led to a reaction that, although unpredictable in its details, was not surprising.
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The Nazis saw an opportunity. Joseph Goebbels conflated the actions of one person with the responsibility of a group, and Hitler allowed Goebbels to organize a nationwide pogrom – Kristallnacht – two days later. The Nazis, joined by many other Germans, destroyed Jewish businesses, burned Jewish books, desecrated Torah scrolls, and invaded Jewish homes. Some 91 Jews were killed, and hundreds died by suicide. Tens of thousands of Jewish men were sent to concentration camps.
No one could foresee exactly what would happen when the Trump administration made deportation of the undocumented its basic policy. But it was predictable that there would be some consequence. It arrived in the form of the recent shooting of two National Guard soldiers in Washington.
The accused is a refugee from Afghanistan who had assisted the U.S. in his homeland. Like Herschel Grynszpan, he is someone who experienced trauma and dehumanization. Having fought and killed for a foreign government in his own country, the assassin had reason to expect some sort of shelter after he and his family were evacuated. It appears he faced only a series of disappointments. His experience, as reported by The New York Times, was eerily similar to Grynszpan’s. While “it was unclear what exactly triggered” the attacker, a volunteer who worked with the family “sensed part of it was his frustrations with the uncertainty of America’s immigration process,” and his family’s fear that they would be deported. This is not an excuse for a horrible act. It is a fact that is necessary to understand the moment.
It was foreseeable that U.S. President Donald Trump would seek to exploit such violence. He announced his intention to target “Third World countries,” and blamed all of America’s problems on migrants. He expressed his desire to deport millions of people and to strip citizenship from Americans whom he deems incompatible with “Western civilization.”
For the Nazis, the mass deportations and pogrom of 1938 were steps toward creating a centralized national police agency. In the U.S., something similar is unfolding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement: initially tasked to carry out deportations, ICE has taken on espionage roles and been reinforced by the National Guard. In these respects, it is becoming something like a national police force, with ideological propaganda and links to the armed forces.
In one way, mass deportations and Kristallnacht advanced the consolidation of the Nazi regime. But this kind of instability was unpopular in Germany – much as ICE raids are unpopular in U.S. cities. The radical next steps were possible only under cover of war. For Mr. Trump, starting a war with Venezuela (or someone) would be the next logical move in advancing regime change at home. It is not hard to see that Mr. Trump understands this, given his escalating provocations since the U.S. began attacking alleged drug smugglers in the Caribbean.
The past never repeats, but it does instruct. The people who want authoritarianism in America know that seizing on the emotions associated with political belonging can lead to turmoil and regime change. And the people who want democracy in America can see the pattern and, by naming it, take the crucial first step toward bringing the process to a halt.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2025. www.project-syndicate.org