Die Schweigende Mehrheit / The Silent Majority

Hans Frank was one of the most notorious Nazi war criminals. As head of the General Government in Poland during the Second World War he presided over the murder of millions. This week Der Spiegel published a devastating essay by Hans Frank's 80-year-old son Niklas Frank.  His father's hateful words are seared into his memory, and he now hears echos of the these words in the rhetoric of the far-right  Alternative for German (Afd), now the second largest political force in eastern Germany.  But what is equally disturbing is Niklas Frank's pessimistic prognosis for the survival of democracy:

Hitler baute eine furchtbare Diktatur auf. Das deutsche Volk wehrte sich nicht. Für mich ist klar, warum: Unter den 80 Millionen Deutschen damals und heute waren und sind allenfalls 20 Millionen echte Demokraten, von denen sich höchstens Hunderttausend aktiv für die Demokratie einsetzen. Die übrigen Demokraten grummeln abgeschlafft daheim vor sich hin. Folge: Die schweigende Mehrheit von rund 60 Millionen Deutschen würde sich gegen eine AfD-Diktatur nicht wehren.

Obwohl ich in Archiven nur wahllos herausgegriffene 5000 Entnazifizierungsakten der mehr als drei Millionen durchgearbeitet habe, weiß ich: Die beste Demokratie, die wir je erlebten – unsere jetzige also –, wurde auf Lug und Trug und Meineid aufgebaut. Warum das klappte? Erst gehorchten die Deutschen der Nazidiktatur. Als Hitler und seine Verbrecherclique ausgemordet hatten, wurde uns von unseren Befreiern diese Staatsform befohlen. Wieder gehorchten wir. Doch nie von Herzen: Vergiftet waren die nachfolgenden Generationen von ihren Eltern und Großeltern, die Hitlers Diktatur mit aufgebaut und bis zum Ende unterstützt hatten.

("Hitler established a terrible dictatorship. The German people did not fight it. For me, the reason for this is clear: among the 80 million Germans back then and today at best 20 million were and are true democrats, from which at best one hundred thousand actively engaged on behalf of democracy. The rest of the democrats were exhausted and threw up their hands. The result: the silent majority of approximately 60 million Germans would not act to prevent an AfD dictatorship. 

Although I only reviewed 5000 de-nazification files from the archives, randomly picked from more than 3 million, I can say this: the best democracy that we ever experienced - namely the one we have now - was built on lies, deception and perjury.  Why did it work? First the Germans obeyed the Nazi dictatorship. Once Hitler and his clique of criminals had finished murdering, our liberators imposed this form of government.  Once again we obeyed. But our heart was never in it.  The generations that came after were poisoned by their parents and grandparents who established Hitler's dictatorship and supported it to the end.")

What about the "silent majority" of Americans?  How susceptible are they to supporting an authoritarian dictatorship.  The social philosopher Erich Fromm in his seminal work on the authoritarian personality - Escape from Freedom - estimated that approximately a quarter of the population in the world's oldest democracy was attracted to authoritarian or fascist leadership, although that could increase in times of stress and social upheaval.  Today I would put the number at 35%.  How do I arrive at that percentage?  Because that is baseline approval rating for Donald Trump from every poll conducted since he won the 2016 election. 

Hans Frank was found guilty of genocide at the Nuremberg Trials and was executed (by hanging) in 1946.  Niklas Frank writes:

Obwohl ich gegen die Todesstrafe bin, habe ich sie meinem Vater immer gegönnt. Es ist gut, dass er wohl wenigstens für ein paar Sekunden jene Todesangst spüren musste, die er selbst millionenfach über unschuldige Menschen gebracht hat.

("Even though I'm against the Death Penalty, I approve of it in the case of my father.  It is good that - for at least a few seconds - he had to experience the mortal fear that he himself had forced millions of time upon innocent people.")

 

 

 

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[Koogleschreiber]

Octobre 11, 2019 Niklas Frank on German TV: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lmc7A9bsdv0
Not the shit-storm in the comment section as one might expect these days.