Nov. 3, 2025 Editor, The News-Gazette: In his letter “Truly Evil to compare Trump’s ICE to Hitler’s SS,” Danny Hoehne makes the point that it is immoral to compare Trump’s “rounding up illegal aliens” to “the murder of five to six million innocent Jews.”
I agree with this argument. What Hitler did was infinitely more horrendous than anything we have seen from the current administration. That said, I contend that he is comparing apples to oranges. If we make a like comparison of the first year of Trump’s and Hitler’s administrations, we can see frightening similarities.
In Hitler’s first year in office, he consolidated power by ensuring that the military was loyal to him, not to the Weimar Constitution. He appointed his own loyal judges to guarantee that all future courts would rule in his favor. Already in 1933, he began rounding up “undesirables,” using the Gestapo, which he placed under the command of Heinrich Himmler. He gave the Gestapo complete authority to imprison people without judicial review. Concentration camps opened to contain all the Communists, Social Democrats, gay people and anyone else he labeled a political dissident, whom his henchmen rounded up. Soon the camps were overfilled and many more opened. All this after one year in office.
Now we have ICE indiscriminately arresting undocumented immigrants along with innocent legal immigrants and sometimes also American citizens in broad sweeps with often brutal methods. They are taken to facilities like Fort Bliss, Guantanamo and “Alligator Alcatraz” in the Everglades and held for deportation without legal representation. Uses of the military and National Guard for unconstitutional occupation of cities is increasing. His Supreme Court has been unable or unwilling to stop him.
I contend that while we cannot compare the end of Hitler’s murderous regime with the current state of rights in America, a number of alarming signs exist that we should not ignore. ROGER CROCKETT Glasgow
