Tod oder Reich: what the Nazi mass suicides can teach us about Hamas

There are eerie parallels between the two deadly autocratic extremes

It’s 1945, late winter. The cold winds blow in from the north and the east and rattle the bare branches over the lakes and woodlands. People are starving, medical supplies long drawn up for the failing front. Far away, there is the rattle of the Red Army approaching, the bodies of those trying to desert the Nazi cause strung up in the street. Little boys sing as they traipse around with machine guns, tripping over their oversized uniforms. And on the radio and on the streets, Nazi officials who once bayed for the blood of all others are now begging the German people to kill themselves. And they do.

When death is preferable to compromise, an ideology becomes a suicide cult

Some take their families for a final picnic in the woods, only to shoot their children in the heads, then their wives, then themselves. Others walk into the lake holding hands with stones in their…