Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a political system in which the state holds total authority over the society and seeks to control all aspects of public and private life whenever necessary. Total domination, which strives to organize the infinite plurality and differentiation of human beings as is all of humanity were just one individual [Arendt pg 282]. The concept of totalitarianism was first developed by Italian fascists and became popular during the world war and cold war period. Most prominent regimes of totalitarianism were the Nazis and Soviets. They tried to achieve total domination by the use of concentration camps by promoting absolute terror. Through the use of these camps “the fundamental belief of totalitarianism that everything is possible is being verified [Arendt pg 282]. These camps were use to degrade humans beings to mere things and to exterminate them. When survivors of these camps told their stories to the public before the atrocities of these camps were known no one believed them. People could not process the idea of such things therefore they refused to believe them. According to Hitler if you tell a big enough lie and frequently repeat it, it will be believed. Concentration camps were also a socioeconomic system that grew dependent upon the imprisonment of millions of people. Hitler’s idea of concentration camps was to get rid of the undesirables and at the same time derive economic benefit from them. Before the war Nazi Germany was striving economically by extending the Autobahn system and emphasizing economic self-sufficiency.
During the second World War the proportion of military spending in the German economy began increasing rapidly. Germany was forced to use most of its economic resources towards the war. By Germany invading and conquering more territories, this increased the number of forced laborers “undesirables” thus increasing the amount of concentration camps. Laborers were kept under starving conditions and produced poor quality work

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