The Ploetzensee Memorial Centre's booklet recounting Nazi tyranny in Germany provides a statistical synopsis of those victimized in the pre-war period (1933 - 1939). The following is my translation of these data:

Up to the outbreak of war, the ordinary courts condemned on political ground more than 225,000 women and men to a total of more than 600,000 years of revocation of liberty. The year 1939 saw not less than 300,000 Germans in political detention. Up the the end of the war, more than one million Germans were held for longer or shorter duration in concentration camps. Tens of thousands of these perished.

In the 25 years from 1907 to 1932 in Germany, 1400 people were condemned to death and 345 were executed. But as reported in the explicitly labelled "Death Register" of the Reich Justice Ministry, the civil courts alone during the period 1933 to 1944 issued 13,405 capital punishment verdicts, of which 11,881 were carried out (in 1945 another 800 were added to this total).

More than half of the victims were Germans, who were condemned to die for their political convictions. According records of"flying" military courts, from September 1, 1939 to November 30, 1944 a total of 9413 officers and soldiers were executed, many of whom died because of their political convictions. What is not known is how many victims were executed in the last few months of the war, especially in trials by summary courts martial. The number of Germans, executed or murdered for political or religious reasons is at 40,000 - probably estimated too low rather than too high.

Once the war started, the camps were filled with inhabitants from the occupied territories of Europe. As far as can still be determined statistically, resistance forces counted the following as executed or simply murdered:
Belgium 16,800
Denmark 1,100
France 30,000
Greece 30,000
Italy 30,900
Luxembourg 311
The Netherlands 21,500
Norway 6,000
Austria 18,800
Czechoslovakia 70,000

Beyond these victims of political terror, we count the terror of the systematically organized mass murders:
six million European Jews, tens of thousands Roma [Ziguener] people, more than 100,000 sick people from German health care facilities, 3.3 million Soviet prisoners, and many million civilians in occupied Europe. Yugoslavia during the German occupation suffered 1.7 million dead - 10 per cent of its inhabitants; Poland with its 4.5 million suffered even more. [Ed. note: no mention of gay or lesbian and transgender victims in this booklet.]

[Source: p. 10, Gedenkstaette Ploetzensee - Gedenk- und Bildungstaette Stauffenberstrasse visitors booklet. 1974.]

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The dragons of totalitarian tyranny eat their own children and all others who resist their rule. Opponents to the regime are demonized, persecuted, convicted, and silenced in prison or just snuffed out. There are too many contemporary examples of the murderous power of autocratic regimes for anyone to become complacent about democracy.

No citizen can afford to watch democracy slide down the slippery slope toward autocracy, plutocracy, kleptocracy, and the other non-democratic means of controlling nations and people. As the Globe and Mail of Saturday, April 4th only too clearly reveals, when journalists are silenced and media are controlled by armed bully powerful in or out of government, then democracy is well on the way to its demise.

But it is also undermined as average citizens say little or nothing about their socio-political commitment: to truth, to the common good, to equitable relations and fair tax laws among the people, to respect for diversity; when they fail to challenge the dragons and the bullies, or fail to speak up for the institutions that protect democracy - especially an independent judiciary, free press/media, and fair election processes - then count on it: democracy is at risk.

Friends and companions of Jesus and other people of faith know from history that in the absence of good will and truthful witness, sin can break out and abound. And the battle between the children of light and the powers of evil becomes a fierce and costly struggle.

In the end, we have faith in the divine will re-asserting itself. But in the meantime, people, animals, and creation suffer. Crucifixion takes place. And we wait for and work for resurrection - the new life born of love when Shalom - Peace rooted in justice reigns.