Cmparing And contrasting the storty "The WAve" to real German in 1945 time period

Essay by sleepsleepJunior High, 9th gradeA+, October 2004

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In the novel, The Wave, Todd Strasser demonstrates the power and influence of group pressure on individuals. Members of a History class learning about World War II, question the teacher, Mr. Ross, why didn't any countries stand up against the Nazis. He cannot find the perfect answer. He decides to do a "harmless" experiment. In the following paragraphs, I will compare and contrast the "experiment" in The Wave to the historic movement in Nazi Germany.

The classroom and the political agenda of the Nazi party were similar concerning the fact that the purpose was to control the students and the people. The Wave started in a single class but it quickly spread throughout the entire school besides two students Laurie Saunders and David Collins. The Nazi party also spread throughout Germany without any counties standing up against it.

Adolf Hitler intended to bring all of Germany under Nazi power and Nazi power under his own personal authority.

Mr. Ross's purpose was to only teach his history class a lesson of why people did not stand up to Adolf Hitler. The Political agenda of the Nazi party was a higher level of seriousness because people were dying from it and it wasn't an experiment. The classroom experiment was not as serious as the Holocaust but showed how people give away their individualism to follow the leader.

Mr. Ross and Adolf Hitler were both leaders and creators of large groups of people. Due to their strict characteristic in power, they were successful leaders. People felt obligated to follow their directions. They were both active organizers and were able to expand their classroom experiment to the school and Nazi party throughout Germany. Some of Mr. Ross's rules were to sit up straight in the entire class, when asking or answering a question the...