Germany: Don't trust Germany to stay democratic if economy takes a downturn, warns Nazi governor's son

Via The Independent

Hans Frank

"There's still something in the German people which makes me fear them" 

The son of a Nazi governor has spoken of his fears over the possible break-up of the European Union and warned that Germany could return to authoritarianism if its economy hit the skids. 

Niklas Frank, whose father was Hans Frank, the governor of Nazi-occupied Poland during the Second World War, pointed to the recent hardening in attitudes toward refugees in Germany when he warned: “Don’t trust us”. 

“As long as our economy is great and we make money, everything is very democratic, but if we have five to ten years of heavy economic problems, the swamp is a lake, and is a sea, and will swallow again, everything,” he said.  (...)

Mr Frank made his comments in an interview with the BBC, saying he “despises” his father, who he describes as a “coward” for the atrocities he committed as governor-general of Poland from 1939 to 1945. 

He was directly appointed by Hitler and was involved in the murder of millions of people. He was convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials and executed in 1946.  (...) 

He said because of his background, he has always been interested in what turns a society into a dictatorship. And he explained he had “a growing wish” to talk about this because of what he called “the silence in Germany, the families of my friends, everybody was silent and they didn’t talk about the past… “I always wanted to know how a society behaves if it changes to a dictatorship, and always [had] a feeling that Germany is still prepared to do this. “And I found out that still there’s something in the German people which makes me fear them.”

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