on tyranny twenty lessons from the twentieth century summary

Individuals must maintain their own personal and professional ethics, especially when the state sets a poor example. On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons From the Twentieth Century - Chapter 5-Chapter 8 Summary & Analysis Timothy Snyder This Study Guide consists of approximately 31 pages of chapter summaries, quotes, character analysis, themes, and more - everything you need to sharpen your knowledge of On Tyranny. Broadly, Snyder argues that “there is no such thing as ‘just following orders’” (40). Frank justified his actions by stating that the law’s purpose was to serve the German race and thus actions that appeared to serve the race were, by default, lawful.

In particular, he notes that Hitler’s personal lawyer, Hans Frank, became the governor-general of occupied Poland, overseeing the murder of millions of Jews. People in these positions, therefore, must refuse to cooperate with tyrants and their policies. Namely, he worries about the unprecedented election of Donald Trump, a businessman and television star with an authoritarian populist style and no previous political experience, as the president of the United States in. The author again uses the example of Germany and notes that the Holocaust and other atrocities committed by the Nazis could not have occurred without the cooperation of lawyers, doctors, businessmen, and bureaucrats. In On Tyranny, Snyder covers a wide swath of 20th-century European history in order to help make sense of 21st-century America.

Chapter 5 addresses professional ethics and the role civil servants play in tyranny.

On tyranny twenty lessons from the twentieth century summary