Dialog International

Nazis, Reichsbürger Storm the Reichstag

The monthly demonstrations of the "Caronavirus Truthers" seem to be growing in size.  This past Saturday approx. 35,000 protestors gathered in Berlin to protest any restrictions with respect to the spread of COVID-19.  New York Times guest columnist Anne Sauerbry attempts to explain this phenomenon to American readers:

On Saturday, around 38,000 people marched in Berlin, calling for an end to pandemic restrictions. It was a bizarre mix of people: families and senior citizens were joined by right-wing extremists, some sporting swastika tattoos. Protesters brandished signs reading “Take off the slave masks,” while others held up peace flags. Many shouted “We are the people” and others called on President Trump and President Vladimir Putin of Russia to “liberate” Germany.

In a scene bound to be inscribed in the country’s history, a group carrying the “Reichsflagge,” the black, white and red flag of the German Empire that served as the basis for that used by the Nazi regime, broke through a police barrier and attempted to enter the Reichstag, the Parliament building.

Why the protest?  Germany has managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic with aggressive testing and contact tracing. Germany is the envy of much of the world for its smart management of the health crisis.  Still, the protestors were filled with rage against the "totalitarian" policies of Chancellor Angela Merkel.  The journalist Kolja Reivhert points out that other European countries (or anywhere in the world)  have not seen protests anywhere near the scale of the ones in Berlin:

Auch in anderen Ländern wurde in den vergangenen Wochen demonstriert, aber nirgends bestreiten so viele Menschen öffentlich nicht nur die Verhältnismäßigkeit der Maßnahmen zur Eindämmung des Virus, sondern auch die Existenz des Virus selbst wie in Deutschland und den Vereinigten Staaten. Nicht in Spanien oder Italien, wo fast jede Familie die Seuche als greifbare Realität erfuhr. Nicht in den Niederlanden und Belgien, die lange einen ähnlichen Verlauf wie Deutschland erlebten. Nicht in Ungarn, wo Tausende maskentragend gegen die Einmischung der Regierung in das größte unabhängige Nachrichtenmagazin „Index“ durch Budapest zogen. Nicht in Österreich, nicht in der Schweiz. Schon gar nicht in Asien. Nicht mal in Frankreich, wo sicher Rechtsextreme, Antisemiten und Verschwörungstheoretiker unter den „Gelbwesten“ sind, deren Forderungshorizont sich letztlich aber doch auf soziale Gerechtigkeit reduzieren lässt, also innerhalb dessen liegt, was sich als Realität beschreiben lässt. Selbst in Brasilien tragen viele Anhänger Jair Bolsonaros, seit dieser aufgrund seiner Erkrankung die Gefährlichkeit des Virus nicht mehr leugnen kann, auf Demonstrationen Masken.

Why do educated Germans believe that Bill Gates and George Soros are trying to take over the world with a vaccine? Why are so many attracted to the bizarre pro-Trump QAnon conspiracy theory? Why do tens of thousands follow Ken Jebsen or listen to Xavier Naidoo?  For that matter why do millions of educated Germans believe to this day that the WTC 9/11 attacks were an "inside job" and so many flock to the "lectures" of 9/11 Truther Daniele Ganser?  Why do so many Germans place their trust in Vladimir Putin and hold Angela Merkel in contempt.  I've never heard a convincing explanation.

O Canada! German Conspiracy Theorists Flocking to Cape Breton

Want to spend your evenings drinking beer with your neighbors and chatting about chemtrails, George Soros, and how the 5G network is spreading the corona virus?  Far right German personalities Andreas Popp and Eva Herman have found the ideal location - far from hoards of Muslims streaming into Bavaria - namely, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.  Der Spiegel has the story, which was picked up by other news networks:

Eine Kolonie an Rechtsradikalen und Verschwörungsideologen aus Deutschland – in der kanadischen Provinz Nova Scotia könnte ein solches Szenario wahr geworden sein. Wie der “Spiegel” in seiner aktuellen Ausgabe berichtet, haben sich Hunderte Deutsche auf der Insel Cape Breton angesiedelt, die zu Nova Scotia gehört. Cape Breton ist viermal so groß wie das Saarland, zählt aber nur etwa 130.000 Einwohner.'

Herman and Popp use an aggressive e-mail campaign to lure conspiracy-minded Germans to a "seminar" on Cape Breton where they are presented with ample information that Europe is going to hell thanks to immigration from the Middle-East, Africa, and Asia, and Canada is a secure sanctuary for true Germans.  Evidently the seminars are pretty lucrative for the "Bio-Deutsch" couple:

Etwa viermal im Jahr würde zu einwöchigen Seminaren eingeladen, die Kosten pro Person inklusive Flug und Hotel beriefen sich auf knapp 3000 Euro. Popp nenne die Teilnehmer "Klardenker" und würde ihnen eine "Erarbeitung der Weltlage" in Vorträgen unabhängig von den, wie er sagt, "tendenziösen Mainstream-Medien" anbieten.

They are joined in the scheme by the Holocaust-denier Frank Eckhardt, who arranges for the real estate transactions at prices way above market.  According to the report, already "hundreds of Germans" with pro-Nazi mindsets (Hunderte Deutsche mit "braunem Gedankengut")  have already bought land in the Aryan enclave. 

Unfortunately, the dream of a new Vaterland has turned into a nightmare for some of the true believers: 

A family from Austria has been ordered out of Canada, and must leave this week, after running afoul of immigration rules.They hope to be back, but it'll be at least a year before they can return to Cape Breton, where they've sunk their life savings into a home and farm..Reinhard and Romana Fugger have invested nearly $500,000 after buying and improving a rural property in Grand River, Richmond County, in 2015. They say a local man, Frank Eckhardt and his company F.E. Property Sales, facilitated the property purchase and promised easy immigration to Canada. The Fuggers say that help with the immigration process never came."We find this property and we think we can do this in an easy way, because we have the information before that it is not hard, maybe easy, to immigrate here," said Reinhard Fugger. Eckhardt's company website, hosted in Germany and aimed at Europeans, advertises property sales and "new settler consultation." The Fuggers say they found out after they got here that they paid more than the property was worth.They paid $160,000 for 4.5 hectares of land with a small summer cottage to a lawyer recommended by Eckhardt who handled the real estate transaction. The property value was assessed at $82,000 at the time.

Now the coronavirus pandemic has put the brakes on the seminar and land-sale business for the time being.  Sabotaged by yet another conspiracy?

Rescued from Hell: The White Buses Convoy

Der Spiegel recently published an article commemorating the 75th anniversary of the "White Buses" sent by the Swedish Red Cross to rescue survivors of Nazi death camps during the last days of World War II:

"Mit weiβen Bussen in die Freiheit : Kurz vor Kriegsende gelang eine der größten Rettungen von Gefangenen aus Konzentrationslagern: Rund 20.000 Menschen kamen frei. In einem der Weißen Busse Richtung Schweden saß der dänische Widerstandskämpfer Knud Christensen, heute 95"

Beginning in March 1945, the Swedish Red Cross (and eventually the Danes) sent dozens of buses- painted white in attempt to avoid strafing by Allied fighter aircraft - to pick up and transport Swedish and Norwegian inmates from several concentration camps back to Sweden.  In the final days of the war, Hitler had ordered the murder all surviving inmates in the Nazi death camps.  The White Bus rescue mission was negotiated between Count Folke Bernadotte, a Swedish diplomat, and Heinrich Himmler, Hitler's second in command.  Himmler,  knowing that defeat was near, thought this humanitarian gesture might save him:

"In early 1945, Himmler met with Count Bernadotte at the Swedish Red Cross headquarters located on the grounds of Friedrichsruh Castle in Germany (the castle was owned by Bernadotte’s friend, Otto von Bismarck and his Swedish wife). During the meetings, he tried to convince Bernadotte to carry an offer to surrender to the British and Americans with the caveat of allowing Germany to continue its fight against the Soviet Union. In return, he would allow Bernadotte to organize efforts aimed at transporting Scandinavian concentration camp inmates to Sweden. Himmler thought this gesture would ensure he was viewed in a positive manner."

The first convoys recused camp prisoners from Sweden and Norway.  Subsequent rescue missions transported Polish, Russian, and Jewish prisoners.  One of the last buses in May 1945 rescued a seriously ill German teenager from the Auschwitz death camp.  How 15-year old Cordelia Hoffmann, raised as a strict Catholic by her mother - the famous writer Elisabeth  Langgässer  - ended up in Auschwitz is one of the more egregious examples of the Nazis' perverted Rassengesetze  (For background see my blog post Elisabeth Langgässer's 'Sophie's Choice'). The bus brought her safely to Sweden, where she was nursed back to life by a guest family.  After she recovered, she was encouraged to leave the horrors of Auschwitz behind - to "move on."  But Cordelia couldn't move on.

"Ihr wollt mir meine Angst wegnehmen, sie verleugnen und ausstreichen und euch vor meiner Wut schützen, aber dann streicht ihr auch mich aus, 'ausradieren' nannten es die Deutschen, dann verleugnet ihr auch mich, denn all dies bin ich."¹⁶

^{("You want to take away my fears, to deny them, to cross them out and spare you from my rage - but then you would cross me out - "erase me", as the Germans say - and then you would be denying me, for I am all of that.")}

^{Cordelia went on to become a famous journalist and writer  under her married name of Cordelia Edvardson in Sweden and Israel.  In 1985 she wrote a short, searing memoir of her time in Auschwitz - Bränt barn söker sig till elden, translated into English as Burned Chile Seeks the Fire (see my review).  Her time in hell informed her journalistic pursuit of justice.}

^{"Dies ist mein Aufruhr und meine Revolte [...]. Auschwitz ist und bleibt der Grund in mir, doch was aus dem von den Knochen und der Asche der Toten gedüngten Humus wächst, das bestimme ich - zumindest bei Tag. Über die Alpträume der Nächte, über die Grundschicht der Vergangenheit haben wir keine Macht."}

^{Just one of the voices rescued by the White Buses. Today the house in  Berlin-Westend where Cordelia was arrested by the Gestapo is marked by a Stolperstein.}

Fascist Leader Björn Höcke Incites Crowd Against Merkel, Merz, Blackrock - Calls For Overthrow of Government

Yesterday in Dresden, to celebrate 5 years of the racist Pegida demonstrations, Björn Höcke spoke for 30 minutes before an adoring crowd of several thousand.  I listened to the entire speech on YouTube. The crowd roared in approval as the fascist leader accused Angela Merkel of engaging in a "Putsch" in the recent Thuringia election and that he had filed "criminal charges" against the chancellor. He accused Friedrich Merz, who aspires to higher political office in Germany, of being a "traitor" for his former employment with the American asset management group Blackrock.  It's fascinating how Blackrock has suddenly become the focus of conspiracy theories in both Germany and France. 

The Berliner Zeitung has a good report on Björn Höcke's speech:

"Im weiteren Verlauf seiner gut 30-minütigen Rede rief der AfD-Politiker praktisch unverhohlen zum Umsturz in der Bundesrepublik auf. Die Bundesrepublik sei ein Irrenhaus, sagte er. Kritiker seiner Partei bezeichnete er unter dem begeisterten Beifall der Pegida-Anhänger als hemmungslos irre, völlig verrückt und geistig gestört. „Die Herrschaft der verbrauchten Parteien und Eliten muss abgelöst werden, und wir werden sie ablösen. Das Land steht Kopf. Wir müssen es wieder auf die Füße stellen, wir müssen das Unterste wieder nach unten stellen. Wir werden diesen Kampf gemeinsam führen und gemeinsam gewinnen.“

Okay, I am not a constitutional lawyer, but it seems to me that calling for an "overthrow" (Umsturz) of the German Federal Republic in a public speech would violate key provisions of the German constitution (Grundgesetz) - namely Article 5 and Article 8. 

The profoundly anti-democratic essence of Björn Höcke's party - the AfD - was succinctly summarized by Christian Stöcker in Der Spiegel: 

"Die AfD ist eine die Demokratie verhöhnende Partei, und zu den Zielen ihrer führenden Vertreter gehört – erklärtermaßen! - die Verwandlung Deutschlands in ein rassistisch fundiertes Unterdrückungsregime, in dem sowohl ethnische als auch ideologische Säuberungen durchgeführt werden. Höcke nennt das "Remigrationsprojekt". Und zwar richtige Säuberungen, mit "wohltemperierter Grausamkeit" (Höcke)"

("The AfD has nothing but ridicule for Democracy; the goal of the party as expressly stated by it leaders to transform Germany into a dictatorial regime founded on racial principles - a regime that would carry out massive "purges" on both ethnic and ideological grounds. Höcke calls this a "re-migration project".  And he is serious about genuine purges, with "well-tempered brutality" (Höcke)" )

What is needed is a "Purge" of Höcke and his fascist party.  That will be up to the leaders of the democratic parties (CDU/CSU, SPD, FDP) to convince the voters.

 

 

Thomas Mann's American Democracy Lecture Tour

I've been reading Thomas Mann's War by Tobias Boes, most of which deals with Mann's 16 years in America.  Mann was an instant celebrity when he arrived in New York on the Queen Mary in February 1938, thanks in part to the brilliant marketing of his American publisher Alfred Knopf.  But there was also tremendous curiosity in America about the developments in Hitler's Germany and Mann presented himself to Americans as Hitler's nemesis. He quickly was able to capitalize on his celebrity by engaging in a cross-country lecture tour of more than 30 cities, including Lewiston, Maine.  At each stop he delivered his lecture "The Coming Victory of Democracy" (originally  his 1937 essay "Vom kommenden Sieg der Demokratie" most likely translated for American audiences by his daughter  Erika). Thousands of Americans flocked to these lectures, and Mann received an honorarium of $1,000 per speech ( a considerable sum in 1938, surpassed on by speeches of H.G.Wells).  As Tobias Boes points out, Americans attended the events not so much to be lectured on the virtues of Democracy, but "by the promise of celebrity and by Mann's biography as an antifascist émigré, which lent his pronouncements a kind of authenticity that was clearly an attraction in its own right."

It is impossible to overestimate the popularity of Thomas Mann in America in the years leading up to America's entry into the war.  Thirteen year-old Susan Sontag decided she would devote her life to literature and intellectual pursuits after becoming enthralled with The Magic Mountain - an unlikely bestselling novel in the US that would be found on many "middlebrow" bookshelves.  Sontag wrote:

"Of course, Mann, unlike the other exiles, was also a public presence. To have been as officially honored in America as Thomas Mann was in the late nineteen-thirties and early nineteen-forties was probably more improbable than to have been the most famous writer in the world. A guest at the White House, introduced by the Vice-President when he gave a speech at the Library of Congress, for years indefatigable on the lecture circuit, Mann had the stature of an oracle in Roosevelt’s bien-pensant America, proclaiming the absolute evil of Hitler’s Germany and the coming victory of the democracies. Emigration had not dampened his taste, or his talent, for being a representative figure. If there was such a thing as a good Germany, it was now to be found in this country (proof of America’s goodness), embodied in his person; if there was a Great Writer, not at all an American notion of what a writer is, it was he."

`I downloaded the text of The Coming Victory of Democracy to get a sense for what Americans were experiencing and also to compare it to Mann's last gasp attempt to preserve democracy in Germany - his 1930 Appell an die Vernuft speech which was disrupted by Hitler's goon squad. Appeal to Reason could have been subtitled:  "The Coming Victory of Fascism in Germany."

What I admire about The Coming Victory of Democracy is that Mann doesn't presume to lecture to Americans about the virtues of democracy; after all, America is one of the oldest and most successful democracies.  Rather, speaking from experience, Mann emphasizes the fragility of democracy, that it must continually be nourished not only intellectually -with Vernunft - but with passion.

"America needs no instruction in the things that concern democracy. But instruction is one thing — and another is memory, reflection, re-examination, the recall to consciousness of a spiritual and moral possession of which it would be dangerous to feel too secure and too confident. No worth-while possession can be neglected. Even physical things die off, disappear, are lost, if they are not cared for, if they do not feel the eye and hand of the owner and are lost to sight because their possession is taken for granted. Throughout the world it has become precarious to take democracy for granted — even in America… Even America feels today that democracy is not an assured possession, that it has enemies, that it is threatened from within and from without, that it has once more become a problem. America is aware that the time has come for democracy to take stock of itself, for recollection and restatement and conscious consideration, in a word, for its renewal in thought and feeling."

It is a lesson we are in dire need of today as we watch democracy slip away in Trump's America.  We need another Democracy lecture tour, but who would deliver the lecture?  Who  today has the stature of a Thomas Mann?  And would any Americans bother to attend?

Did Sex Bring Down the Weimar Republic?

I recently learned that the well-known Berlin nightclub KitKat is closing:

"The KitKat, where guests often wear revealing outfits, is known for pushing boundaries with its debauched fetish parties.Launched in 1994, the KitKat's name is inspired by the Berliner nightclub featured in the musical Cabaret. It was set in Berlin in the early 1930s, against the backdrop of the uprising of the Nazis, at a burlesque venue called the "Kit Kat Club"."

Bob Fosse's 1972 film Cabaret dealt with the collapse of the Weimar Republic.  The centerpiece of the movie is the Kit Kat Club - emblematic of the free-ranging sexuality of Berlin in final years of the Republic.  Laurie Marhoefer, a professor at the University of Washington, has studied sexuality in the Weimar Republic.  In the Bulletin of the German Historical Institute she writes: 

"The cabaret in the film, the Kit Kat Club, is home to gender-bending and sexual transgression — heterosexual transgression, often. Joel Grey’s character, the Master of Ceremonies, presides over the Kit Kat Club. He cross-dresses and sings about the pleasures of three-way relationships. To American critics in 1972 the Master of Ceremonies was, as Terri Gordon writes, an embodiment of “the decadence and decline of an increasingly corrupt society” or, perhaps, a Hitler-figure, “luring the audience into blind complacency.” That is, critics linked his sexual and gender rule-breaking to fascism, which makes sense — the film’s plot makes the same link."

This is the "Kit Kat Club theory" of the Weimar Republic's collapse:  the "moral nihilism" of the liberal democracy led inexorably to immoral fascism.  In the final scene of Cabaret the Kit Kat Club clientele is comprised of swastika-bearing SA men.  This theory was advanced by several postwar historians, including Gerhard Ritter:

"Ritter’s idea was that the Weimar Republic’s relative toleration of sexual diversity amounted to moral nihilism, a revolt against moral authority that opened the door for even more immorality, namely, fas-cism. In his view, fascism represented a rejection of Christian moral values, such as the condemnation of murder. Moreover, fascism’s rejection of the Christian injunction against taking human life and its rejection of Christian sexual morals were of a piece."

In Erich Kästner's Weimar Zeitroman - Fabian (1931) - the moralist protagonist Fabian complains about the immorality that surrounds him:

"Dort drüben, an dem Platz, ist ein Cafe, in dem Chinesen mit Berliner Huren zusammensitzen, nur Chinesen.  Da vorn ist ein Lokal, wo parfümierte homosexuelle Burschen mit eleganten Schauspielern und smarten Engländern tanzen und ihre Fertigkeiten und den Preis bekannt geben, und zum Schluss bezahlt das Ganze eine Blondgefärbte Greisin, die dafür mitkommen darf. [...] Im Osten residiert das Verbrechen, im Zentrum die Gaunerei, im Norden das Elend, im Westen die Unzucht, und in allen Himmelsrichtungen wohnt der Untergang."

The moralist Fabian cannot survive long in this sea of depravity. 

Of course Erich Kästner was no Nazi; Goebbels had Fabian tossed into the bonfire as "smut".  And there were many factors other than sex that brought down the Weimar Republic.  Still, the backlash against the "loose morals" of the young democracy undoubtedly played a role, and deserves more historical analysis.

German Far-Right AfD Party: History Repeating Itself?

The Frankfurter Allegmeine (FAZ) just reprinted a front-page article from November 1, 1929.  The upstart Nazi Party had just achieved a milestone election victory by gaining seats in the state assembly for the first time.  The editors of the paper caution against reading too much into the election results since the democratic institutions of the Weimar Republic were robust enough to withstand the threat of this fringe, anti-democratic extremist party:

"Man muß zunächst übertriebene Auffassungen zurückweisen: der Kern der Wählerschaft hat an der guten demokratischen Tradition des Landes festgehalten;

The editors go on to speculate about just who these disaffected voters were who checked the box for the Nazis:

"Es sind die Leute der nationalen Romantik, die die Götzendämmerung des Nationalismus noch nicht erkennen und die sich noch immer nicht zu der Erkenntnis durchgerungen haben, die Alfred Weber kürzlich etwa so formulierte: daß wir, weil wir uns unsere Stellung in der Welt nicht mit „heroischen“ Mitteln schaffen können, darauf angewiesen sind, klug zu sein."

Still, the election results were disturbing enough that the editors call for a surge in support for and an expansion of democracy in Germany:

"Freilich darf man, wenn man dies alles so eintaxiert, wie es eintaxiert zu werden verdient, das eine nicht übersehen, daß sich in der Tatsache des relativ großen Anhangs, den der Nationalsozialismus findet, doch auch in irgendwelcher Hinsicht ein Versagen des neuen Staates dokumentieren muß. Die Empfänglichkeit weiter Volkskreise für die nationalsozialistische Agitation könnte nicht so groß sein, wenn die Republik die volle Ueberzeugungs- und Anziehungskraft entfaltet hätte, die gerade einer auf dem demokratischen und sozialen Prinzip aufgebauten Institution innewohnen muß. Deshalb muß der Nationalsozialismus der Republik ein Stachel zur Selbstkritik sein; die Republik ist robust genug, um solche unablässige Selbstkritik ertragen zu können."

Somehow all this sounds quite familiar.  Haven't I read similar editorials in the FAZ, Spiegel, and the mainstream media about the rise of the AfD?  Of course, the Federal Republic can look back on more than 70 years of democratic success compared to just 10 year of Weimar.  Still, as we've seen, democracy is fragile, and a sizeable number of Germans seem once again to subscribe to "die nationale Romantic." The fact that the extremist "Wing" (Flügel) of the AfD has essentially taken over the party should be of great concern.  Now the party leader Björn Höcke preaches an idiotic völkisch ideology, lifted virtually verbatim from Josef Goebbels, in his campaign stump speeches shows that a threshold has been crossed.  Now the voters in entire states of eastern Germany reject democracy at the ballot box.  Leading politicians receive credible death threats - sometimes carried out - while entire communities in the east are Nazi-controlled no-go zones for people of color or "foreigners."

Unfortunately, the mass support for the "auf dem demokratischen und sozialen Prinzip aufgebauten Institution" called for by the newspaper editors back in 1929 never materialized.  The Republic was sabotaged by parties on the left and the right.  Those few who stood up for democracy and the Republic - such as Thomas Mann - were ridiculed and forced to flee their homeland a few years later. 

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.")

 

 

 

Return of the Fememord

At 10:45 a.m. on June 24, 1922, Walther Rathenau, the Foreign Minister of the Weimar Republicd departed his home in Berlin in his open car heading for his office. His car turned at the corner of the Wallotstrasse onto the Königsallee. As the driver finished the turn, a six-seated dark gray automobile pulled up alongside of Rathenau's car and then cut him off. Three men were in the large vehicle. One of the gentlemen lifted a submachine gun, pointed it at Rathenau, and fired five times. A second gentleman threw a hand grenade into Rathenau's car. The six-seated vehicle sped away; Rathenau was dead.

Leading up to the assassination, armies of right-wing extremists marched through the streets of the capital chanting:

Knallt ab den Walther Rathenau!
Der Gott-verfluchte Juden-sau!
[Shoot down Walther Rathenau/ The God-forsaken Jewish sow!]

The Nazi seizure of power didn't happen for another 11 years, but some viewed the assassination of Walther Rathenau as the beginning of the demise of the Weimar Republic. The historian Sebastian Haffner was an admirer of the charismatic Rathenau.  In his memoir Geschichte eines Deutschen (see my review) Haffner recalls his devastation upon learning of Rathernau's assissnation:

"Rathenau und Hitler sind die beiden Erscheinungen, die die Phantasie der deutschen Masse aufs äußerste gereizt haben: der eine durch seine unfaßliche Kultur, der andere durch seine unfaßliche Gemeinheit".

Rathenau's murder was the most spectacular of the many political murders by right-wing extremists in the Weimar Republic.  These were known as Fememorde.  Between 1918 and the mid 1920s, Germany was rocked by murder after murder. The victims all had a connection: they were killed for political reasons. And their deaths were made possible by right-wing extremist groups that played on racism, nationalism, and economic anxiety to stoke fear and hatred. By 1922, at least 354 government members and politicians had been murdered, setting the stage for the rise of the Nazis.

On the evening of June 2, 2019, Walter Lübcke, a regional politician of the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), walked out onto the veranda of his residence in Kassel and was shot through the head by a sniper.  For years, Lübcke had been receiving death threats by Nazis and other right-wing groups because of his pro-immigrant stance.  His private address was shared on extremist social-media platforms.  The far-right politician, Erika Steinbach, called for his "removal" from Germany.  It came as no surprise, then, that the prime suspect arrested in Lübcke's assassination turned out to be a Nazi:

"The man who was arrested at the weekend in connection with the shooting of Walter Lübcke on 2 June is believed to have an association with the militant neo-Nazi group Combat 18 among others. [...] Investigators say they consider Stephan E to be close to the Hesse branch of the far-right National Democratic party (NPD) as well as having contact with Combat 18. The 18 in the group’s name refers to the first and eighth letters of the alphabet – A and H – far-right code for Adolf Hitler."

The assassination of Walter Lübcke and the knife attack on Cologne's mayor Henriette Reker could be just the beginning of a new wave of Fememorde.  Mayors of both large and small cities across Germany are now routinely subjected to death threats from right-wing groups. 

"Mehr als 1000 Bürgermeister hat „Kommunal“ in den vergangenen Tagen dazu befragt, ob sie oder Mitarbeiter der Verwaltung schon einmal Hass-E-Mails bekommen haben, oder gar körperlich bedroht wurden. Die Ergebnisse sind bemerkenswert: Jeder fünfte Bürgermeister berichtet von Hass-E-Mails, genauso von Einschüchterungsversuchen. In jeder zwölften Kommune wurde mindestens ein Mitarbeiter oder Gemeinderat körperlich angegriffen. 2016 hatte „Kommunal“ schon einmal Bürgermeister befragt. Damals waren es sechs Prozent, die von Übergriffen berichteten. Nun sind es acht. Jeder vierte Bürgermeister konnte von Schmierereien am Rathaus oder anderen Beschädigungen berichten."

Nazis in Madison Square Garden and Two Who Resisted

On the night of February 20, 1939 20,000 members of the Amerikadeutscher Bund (German American Bund) gathered at Madison Square Garden in New York City, ostensibly to honor George Washington on his birthday. Actually, the rally was an opportunity to display Nazi regalia and deliver a harangue on the "Jewish Conspiracy" to take over the United States.  The wild evening was captured in the brilliant Oscar-nominated short documentary film A Night at the Garden.

While outside the Garden the New York Police struggled to contain groups of angry protesters, at least two brave souls made it inside the event.  New York Times columnist Roger Cohen paid tribute to one these - Isidore Greenbaum, a young Jew from Brooklyn -  in his recent column:

His name is Isadore Greenbaum. He’s a Jew, a plumber’s helper from Brooklyn. He rushes onto the stage, beneath a portrait of George Washington flanked by swastikas. He tries to accost the Nazi who is denouncing the “Jewish-controlled press” and calling for a “white gentile-ruled” United States. Uniformed storm troopers beat him. Police officers drag him from the stage, pants ripped, arms raised in desperate entreaty. The mob howls in delight.

It’s Feb. 20, 1939. More than 20,000 Nazi sympathizers are packed into Madison Square Garden as Greenbaum attempts to silence Fritz Kuhn, Bundesführer (so-called) of the German American Bund. Greenbaum has been enraged by Kuhn’s demand that the country be delivered from Jewish clutches and “returned to the American people who founded it.”

But there was another, much more prominent, protestor who made her way to a seat in the Garden whom Roger Cohen failed to mention.  Dorothy Thompson was a well-known conservative commentator in newspapers and on the radio.  She spent years as a correspondent in Germany, and was the only American reporter granted an interview with Der Führer.  She was not impressed.  She published her impressions - and warning to the United States - in her 1932 book I Saw Hitler:

He is formless, almost faceless, a man whose countenance is a caricature, a man whose framework seems cartilaginous, without bones. He is inconsequent and voluble, ill poised and insecure. He is the very prototype of the Little Man. … His movements are awkward. There is in his face no trace of any inner conflict or self-discipline.

For her blasphemy Goebbels had Dorothy Thompson expelled from the Vaterland. Inside the Garden on the night of 1939, Thompson found the whole Nazi pageantry ridiculous, and as she listened to the speech of Bund-Leader Fritz Kuhn she burst into hysterical laughter.  Kuhn had his Nazi goons remove her from the event.  Fortunately, Thompson wasn't roughed up like Isaodore Greenbaum:

Thompson was married to the writer Sinclair Lewis, whose 1935 satirical novel It Can't Happen Here warned of a fascist takeover of the United States.  Dorothy Thompson herself issued this warning which is just a applicable to today in the age of Donald Trump:

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument — the Incorporated National Will. … When our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American. And nobody will ever say "Heil" to him, nor will they call him "Führer" or "Duce." But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of "O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!"

See also my posts:

Dorothy Thompson: Fearless Friend of Free Germany

Two Americans Who Rescued German Literature