A lot of us like to believe America is the land of the free and the home of the brave. We puff up with pride remembering how we stepped in to fight the Nazis during World War II. We tell ourselves we were on the right side of history.

But most of us never learn about America’s ugly side the parts of our own history that inspired the Nazis. How laws in the U.S., especially in the Jim Crow South, showed the Nazis how to write rules that excluded, controlled, and dehumanized people.

That same deep hate for anyone who’s “different” is still around today. And it’s getting louder and stronger.

If you think something like the rise of Nazi Germany couldn’t happen here, you need to look again.

In this post, I want to break down how what we’re seeing now looks a lot like what happened back then and how hate mixed with extremist religion is making everything more dangerous. If we don’t stand up now, history shows just how bad it can get.

How America’s Racist Laws Inspired Nazis and Still Shape Today

Most people don’t realize how dehumanizing Jim Crow really was. It wasn’t just separate drinking fountains it was a system built to crush Black people’s dignity and keep them afraid.

It meant white men could lynch Black men in the street, hang them from trees, and take photos like trophies while police, judges, and politicians looked away. The very people who were supposed to protect everyone only protected white people. This is still happening today.

And then there were sundown towns: places where Black people risked beatings or death if they were caught after dark. Many think these are just ugly memories of the past, but there are still sundown towns today places where Black and brown people know they aren’t welcome, even if no sign says it outright.

The hate wasn’t just in back alleys or burning crosses it was in the church pews. Back then, preachers preached “God’s will” on Sunday morning and held KKK meetings Sunday night. Today, many of those same churches haven’t changed much. Some big-name pastors and traveling evangelists are using pulpits to push Christian nationalism and extremist plans like Project 2025, policies designed to strip away rights from women, LGBTQ+ people, immigrants, and anyone who doesn’t fit their idea of “God’s chosen.”

We like to pretend these things are behind us. But the same fear and hate that inspired Nazi Germany never went away it just found new microphones, new churches, and new laws, new communities to hide and ferment its hate for someone as spineless as Donald Trump to become the leader of everything Christ is not.

The Receipts: Proof Nazis Used American Laws

This isn’t just a theory or a “maybe they were inspired” guess. Nazis literally studied American laws as they planned how to strip Jews of rights and citizenship.

A Nazi lawyer wrote a paper in 1934 comparing American Jim Crow laws to what Germany wanted to do. He shared it with Hitler’s officials to show how the U.S. had already created a legal system of race-based oppression.

One Nazi legal scholar, Heinrich Krieger, actually studied in America. He went back to Germany and wrote a book breaking down every U.S. race law he could find. His work became a guide for Nazi lawmakers crafting the Nuremberg Laws.

They didn’t just admire American racism they treated it like a step-by-step manual. Hitler himself even praised America’s immigration system in Mein Kampf, saying it proved a powerful country could use laws to keep “undesirable” races out.

That’s the uncomfortable truth: our country’s laws didn’t just exist alongside Nazi Germany they helped shape it.

Why This Matters — and How We Fight Back

It matters because the same patterns that led to some of history’s worst atrocities don’t start with mass violence they start with words, laws, and silence. They start when everyday people look away or think “that could never happen here.”

It matters because our kids are watching. They’ll either inherit a country where we stood up and broke the cycle of hate or a place where we let it take root again.

It matters because when hate is normalized, it always grows. And once it’s big enough, it doesn’t just stay in hateful words it turns into policies, violence, and lives destroyed. It matters because hate doesn’t discriminate, no one is safe when hate grows.

What You Can Do

Speak up — even when it’s uncomfortable.
Call out racism, antisemitism, and hate speech in your conversations, your workplace, your community. Silence is how hate wins.

Learn your history.
Understand how these patterns repeat and teach others. When people know the past, they’re less likely to repeat it. READ, READ, READ. The current administration is doing everything it can to erase history. Want to know who else did just that? Nazi Germany.

Support organizations fighting hate.
Groups like the Southern Poverty Law Center, NAACP, and ADL track extremist movements, fight unjust laws, and support affected communities.

Vote and help others vote.
Local elections matter as much as national ones. Authoritarians rise when people stay home on Election Day.

Build community.
Isolation makes us weaker; solidarity makes us strong. Reach out, connect, and stand with those most at risk.

Because if we don’t act now, we could wake up one day wondering how we became exactly what we swore we’d never let happen again.

Resources:

• Hitler’s American Model James Q. Whitman

• Sundown Towns James Loewen