Is our shared understanding of “good” and “evil” ultimately derived from the fight against Nazism? Alec Ryrie argues that it is, and eighty years on from the Second World War, it has influenced everything, from politics to popular culture.
A historian of Christianity at Durham University, Ryrie’s new book, The Age of Hitler and How We Will Survive It examines the influence of this “anti-Nazi moral consensus” on modern society.
The age of Hitler is not referring to the period when Hitler was alive, but rather the post-1945 era where:
A negative moral compass emerged, where “anti-Nazism” became the primary consensus for what the West was against.
Human rights and democracy were championed in explicit response to the atrocities committed by the Nazi regime.
Pop culture, fiction, and politics consistently use Hitler as the ultimate embodiment of evil, and reimagines him as Lord Voldemort or Darth Vader
Ryrie argues that this “age” is now coming to an end as the living memory of the war fades, r…
