Backstory:Â Population Control and Information Control Are Part of the Same PackageÂ
A fortnightly column from The Wire s ombudsperson.
Illustration: The Wire
gleichschaltung, or the complete ideological packaging of political, social and lived experience.
So while, on the one hand, mores of social behaviour, including sterilisation, were forcibly prescribed â by the end of Third Reich in 1945 an estimated 360,000 had been sterilised, among whom were those deemed genetically inferior or regarded as âpolitical enemies of the stateâ â on the other, there was a concerted purging of unwanted ideas, as reflected in censorship protocols and even the mass book burnings that took place shortly after the Nazis came to power in May 1933, and which was reported by the newspapers of the day as âaction against the un-German spiritâ.Â