I hope many people have read Bob Burns’ Speakout in the March 18 edition: “Trump’s turning away from democracy troubling.”

Burns’ sums up, in his usual articulate way, the serious concerns that many of us have had for some time about the rise and authoritarian nature of Donald Trump. It is not an exaggeration to say that a second presidential term for Trump could mean the end of true democracy. There has been a great deal recently written about the organizing presently being done to identify and place people in government around Trump who will not say “no” to illegal orders. Fortunately, during Trump’s previous term in office, enough people did say “no.”

It appears that many people do not really understand how Hitler and the Nazis rose to power in Germany. There, like is happening now with Trump, key people in the establishment thought that Hitler could be controlled as Chancellor, until they realized too late that, once in power, he could not be controlled. I would urge people to read some of that history. A classic is William Shirer’s 1960 book “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany.” Also, South Dakota Public Broakcasting’s television streaming channel has an excellent series on “Rise of the Nazis.” Rick Steves also has an episode on “Germany’s Fascist Story” on that channel.

Extremely helpful to me several years ago was Eric Metaxas 2010 book “Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy” (subtitled “A Righteous Gentile vs. The Third Reich”).

I had been hearing about Bonhoeffer for several years from Lutheran friends who admired his courage and example as a Lutheran pastor in Germany during the Nazi period. So I picked up and read this book. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was from a prominent German family, some of whom provided courageous resistance to Hitler and the Nazis —and paid a heavy price!

Burns’ Speakout mentions the support Trump is receiving from many in the “White Christian Nationalism” movement.

The life of Dietrich Bonhoeffer provides a great example of how true Christianity is incompatible with fascism, under the Nazi or any other label.