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Comparisons between the  are once again being made after the .

Even in the eyes of German history scholars like myself, , Trump鈥檚 strategy to remain in power has undeniably proved that he has fascist traits. , which includes hypernationalism, the glorification of violence, and a fealty to anti-democratic leaders that is cultlike, Trump launched a conspiracy theory that the recent election was rigged and incited violence against democratically elected representatives of the American people.

This is not to say that Trump has suddenly emerged as a new Hitler. The German dictator鈥檚 lust for power was inextricably linked to his , which unleashed a global, genocidal war. For Trump, the need to  seems to be the major motivation of his politics.

But that doesn鈥檛 change the fact that Trump is just as much of a mortal danger to American democracy as Hitler was to the Weimar Republic. The first democracy on German soil .

If America is to survive the attacks of Trump and his supporters, its citizens would do well to look to the fate of Germany and the lessons it offers Americans looking to save, heal, and unite their republic.

From Nazi Ideology to Democracy

The , was short-lived. Founded in 1918, it managed to survive the political turmoil of the early 1920s, but succumbed to the crisis brought about by the Great Depression. It is therefore not the history of the failed Weimar Republic but rather that of the , that provides important clues.

Just like Weimar, the West German Federal Republic was founded in the aftermath of a devastating war, World War II. And, just like Weimar, the new German state found itself confronted with large numbers of citizens who were deeply anti-democratic. Even worse, many of them had been involved in the Holocaust and other heinous crimes against humanity.

During the first postwar decade, most Germans still believed that Nazism . This was a sobering starting point, but Germany鈥檚 second democracy managed not just to survive but even to flourish, and it ultimately developed into one of the most stable democracies worldwide.

How?

Denazification: 鈥淧ainful and Amoral Process鈥�

For one, there was a legal reckoning with the past, beginning with the trial and prosecution of some Nazi elites and war criminals. That happened first at , organized by the Allies in 1945 and 1946, in which leading Nazis were tried for genocide and crimes against humanity. A further significant reckoning happened during the  of the mid-1960s, in which 22 officials of the SS, the elite paramilitary organization of the Nazi Party, were tried for the roles they played at the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp.

To protect the new German democracy from the political divisions that had plagued parliamentary government during the Weimar period, an electoral law was introduced that aimed to prevent the proliferation of small extremist parties. This was , which stipulated that a party must win a minimum of 5% of the national vote to receive any representation in parliament.

In a similar vein,  made 鈥渋ncitement of the masses鈥� a criminal offense to stop the spread of extremist thought, hate speech, and calls for political violence.

Yet as important and admirable as these efforts were in exorcising Germany鈥檚 Nazi demons, they alone are not what kept Germans on a democratic footing after 1945. So, too, did the successful integration of anti-democratic forces into the new state.

This was a painful and amoral process. In January 1945, the Nazi Party had 鈥攖hat is, significantly more than 10% of the entire population. After the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany, many of them claimed that they .

Such attempts to get off scot-free did not work for the Nazi luminaries tried at Nuremberg, but it certainly did work for many lower-level Nazis involved in countless crimes. And with the advent of the Cold War, .

, as well as the press, economy and judiciary, of Nazism, petered out quickly and was officially abandoned in 1951. As a result, many Nazis were absorbed into an emerging new society that officially committed itself to democracy and human rights.

Konrad Adenauer, the first West German chancellor, said in 1952 that it was time  He did not say this lightheartedly; after all, he had been an opponent of the Nazis. To him, this  of the Nazi past鈥攁 term coined by the German philosopher Hermann L眉bbe鈥攚as necessary during these early years to integrate former Nazis into the democratic state.

Where one was going, advocates of this approach argued, was more important than where one had been.

A Dignified Life

For many, this failure to achieve justice was too heavy of a price to pay for democratic stability. But the strategy ultimately bore fruit. Despite the recent , Germany has remained democratic and has not yet become a threat to world peace.

At the same time, there were increasing efforts to confront the Nazi past, especially after the upheaval of 1968, when a new generation of young Germans challenged the older generation .

Another crucial factor helped Germany鈥檚 democratic transition succeed: . Most ordinary Germans benefited from this prosperity, and the new state even created  to cushion them against the harsh forces of the free market.

In short, more and more Germans embraced democracy because it offered them a dignified life. As a result, philosopher , that citizens鈥� political attachment to their country 鈥渙ught to center on the norms, the values and, more indirectly, the procedures of a liberal democratic constitution鈥濃�攅ventually came to replace older, more rabid forms of nationalism.

In the coming weeks and months, Americans will debate the most effective ways to punish those who instigated the recent political violence. They will also consider how to restore the trust in democracy of the many millions who have given their support to .

Defenders of American democracy would do well to study carefully the painful but ultimately successful approach of the Federal Republic of Germany to move beyond fascism.

The United States finds itself in a different place and time from postwar Germany, but the challenge is similar: how to reject, punish, and delegitimize the powerful enemies of democracy, pursue an honest reckoning with the violent racism of the past, and enact political and socioeconomic policies that will allow all to lead a dignified life.

This article was originally published by . It has been published here with permission.