The Power Of The Wave By Todd Strasser

“If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed.” This is a quote by Adolf Hitler, ruler and dictator of Nazi Germany. The students at a high school were studying this person and were wondering how the people of Germany could blindly follow a leader. Their history teacher, Ben Ross, took it upon himself to show his students how it could happen by recreating Nazi Germany through a movement called The Wave. In the novel The Wave by Todd Strasser, Ben Ross’s experiment was an effective one at illustrating the brainwashing the took place during Hitler’s time in power.

First of all, the change in the student’s behavior and the fact that the students spread The Wave to other parts of the school shows the success of the experiment. In the text, Ross’s students were careless and lackadaisical about their work, but after The Wave was in place they were prepared and productive. Also, David and other students spread The Wave to the

For example, the students in The Wave did not segregate non-Wave members or send them to concentration camps, but the Nazis did that to the Jews. However, if The Wave had not been stopped, it would have escalated to something greatly more severe. For example, Wave members had already vandalized Laurie’s locker and beaten up a student. This leads to the third reason why Ross’s experiment was effective at mimicking the brainwashing of the Nazis - both brainwashed people using fear. During Hitler’s time, it was fear of torture and death. In The Wave, it was fear of being isolated at school and beaten up. The environment at the high school was very similar to that of Nazi Germany - students reporting each other and excluding anyone who was not part of them. Therefore, ruling through fear was the main way of brainwashing in Nazi Germany, and Mr. Ross was very effective in illustrating