"The Nazis - A Warning From History"

“The Nazis: A Warning from History” by Laurence Rees

This is a short book review, with some comparisons to today’s reality in the USA. We do have some of the tendencies and behaviors that the German population exhibited in the 1930s and 1940s. However, I would say the biggest difference between their population and our population today is that a large majority of Americans are very unhappy with their leadership. In Germany, a large portion of the population idolized Hitler. I won’t go into reasons for that idolization, but the book does cover it somewhat.

One factor that really made Germans ready to accept Hitler and his programs was the after effects of World War One. Germany surrendered, and then the ensuing ‘peace’ did not do anything to help the German people out, leaving them with economic problems for years.

This is what the book had to say about the German response to the surrender at the end of World War One:

“We did wonder,” says German war veteran Herbert Richter, “because we didn’t fell beaten at all. The front line troops didn’t feel themselves beaten, and we were wondering why the armistice was happening so quickly, and why we had to vacate all our positions in such a hurry, because we were still standing on enemy territory and we thought all this was strange.” Herbert Richter’s memory of how he and his friends felt about the surrender is still vivid: “We were angry because we did not fell we had come to the end of our strength.”

And it turns out that a large portion of the population blamed this on the Jews in power at the time. They felt it embarrassed Germany, and was a shame that needed to be overcome.

Rather like the “Vietnam Syndrome” here in America.

Even before the Germans moved on to the invasions of other countries, they started up programs of getting rid of the ‘undesirables’ among them and promoting of the ‘Master Race’. This all sprung from the idea that they were “EXCEPTIONAL” people, superior to others by nature of their genetic background. And the ones among them that did not measure up needed to be eliminated.

Here in America, we have racism, but no organized group in power that thinks they are genetically superior to others. We do have a class of people who feel superior due to their greater wealth. (Oddly, many of the same group follow Christianity – which is based on the teachings of a man who told people to give away whatever they had to the poor. Go figure.)

What we do have, pretty much across America, is the firmly held belief that we are the best country in the world. And this belief does not come from rational study and examination of other cultures and countries, but rather in a conviction that we have a superior government which sprang from a superior stock of people (many of whom no longer seem to realize that they descended from immigrants). Plus, we are the richest country on the planet, even if the wealth is not always shared among us.

So, we have our own brand of “EXCEPTIONALISM” which is not genetically based or racially based, but culturally based. And a great number of Americans who believe this have no real knowledge or appreciation of what other cultures may have to offer. And, we have this in common with other groups in other times and cultures. Lots of examples in history of people setting themselves apart from common humanity, instead of noticing the commonality of our lives on this planet.

I think this idea of “EXCEPTIONALISM” was behind the statements so many Americans have made saying that they felt we should stay in Iraq until we “fix it” or “stabilize the country” for the Iraqi people. (These are not necessarily the same people who wanted the invasion, and they are not the people who planned the invasion and occupation for greed and profit and control of the oil resources.) No, these are people who think that Americans are SO EXCEPTIONAL that we can ‘fix’ other countries by the application of our redemptive violence. They don’t seem to get it that we are not wanted in Iraq and that we are not helping the situation in the least. They don’t seem to be able to understand what this occupation would feel like from the Iraqi’s perspective, since they think everyone in the world wants what we have, no matter what they have to suffer to get it.

But, back to the Nazis, and their euthanasia policy. This was not a policy that was thought out and sent down from a higher level of government, but rather a policy that was suggested and then left to lower level employees to implement as they saw fit. This is how the policy started:

….it originated not just out of Nazi racist ideology, but from the chaotic manner in which decisions were taken in the Third Reich. A chance letter to the Fuhrer on a subject dear to his heart resulted eventually in the deaths of more than five thousand children.

And this is how it was implemented:

In an typical example of how policies could spiral out of control, staff independently selected the children they wanted to kill. The chaotic radicalism inherent in the Nazi system meant that, unlike in the Fascist states of Italy and Spain, German Fascism could never settle to a status quo, however dreadful or repulsive. Any idea, given a leader who spoke in visions and enthusiastic supporters anxious to please, could grow radically to an extreme in almost an instant.

And, a review of how Hitler operated was in the book also:

Even in these few brief lines, one experiences the authentic sense of Hitler’s political character – his distrust of cabinet meetings, his fear of an early death which would cheat him of glory and his own belief in himself as a major figure in world history.

Remind you of anyone?

I guess there is an upside to being incompetent.

So, what was really behind the decision to invade and occupy other countries in the Nazi government? Even if they did not implement a lot of polices on their own, this military action had to come from the commander in chief and needed lots of planning. But, why did they feel the need to do this? The answer is EXPANSIONISM. Hitler felt he needed more land to grow food to feed his superior race. And since they were EXCEPTIONAL and SUPERIOR, he felt they deserved to take it any way they could.

….Hitler went on to outline how he believed it was impossible for Germany to maintain self-sufficiency “in regard both to food and the economy as a whole” within her current borders.

I think the reason behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq is to control the area and the resources – the energy resources. And the planners of this invasion and war felt that they were entitled to grab this resource for fun and profit, since Americans are so EXCEPTIONAL on this little planet of ours. The basic idea behind the invasion and continued occupation is EXPANSIONISM of American power – and, it didn’t hurt that they were going to make a huge profit while they and theirs did not bleed. Hitler was expanding for land, today the expansion is to get control of the Middle East oil.

I think every word ever said about ‘freedom and democracy’ for the Iraqi people from bush was a lie. Same for cheney, rumsfled, and the rest of them. They don’t give a damn about the Iraqi people. The observable reality of what has happened in Iraq proves that over and over again. It is all a whopper of a lie - just like the WMDs crap.

One thing the Nazis did after going into a country was get the locals to help them kill any Jews they could find. It was all routine for them to go out and round up people and then kill them in cold blood. They just did not care, and neither did many of the natives of the countries they invaded, many of whom seemed to be very willing to help out.

Here’s something the book said about that:

Regarding killing of Jews in Lithuania ….. Felix Landau’s diary shows a man to whom remorse is an unknown emotion. He is a selfish and base human being, but not a madman.

And another one:

Another one of the killers was asked: “What does your conscience say?” He said “I do not know. I am not going to answer such questions….. I am not going to explain or tell you any more.”

No evidence of rounding people up just to kill them in our occupation of Iraq. But a total lack of concern for the well-being of the people there is plainly evident. Remorse, however, is plainly unknown to the ones who started this occupation of Iraq. Pictures of the concentration camps for Russian prisoners (page 196 in the book) looks exactly like the prison camps the US military is running in Iraq.

It is speculated that Hitler had such hatred of Jews because he felt they were responsible for betraying Germany during the last great conflict (World War One). He seemed to think that they were responsible for the deaths of two million people that did not result in victory for the Germans. It is also speculated that the starting of this mass murder of Jews was not designed by Hitler, but enthusiastically suggested by him. The Nazis went on to develop more efficient killing methods though, and they put thought and planning into it. Extermination was determined as a policy by the Nazis. And that was implemented.

There is no indication that anyone in power in the USA is following that kind of policy, in spite of the fact that some agents of our government are rounding people up and shipping them to camps (in America) or making neighborhoods into camps (in Iraq).

Why did the Germans fight on until the end? This book claims because it was an ideology that would sooner destroy itself rather than surrender. Furthermore, Hitler had designed a system were there were NO avenues for Germans to come together and question the conduct of the war. Hitler was not only constitutionally protected from being removed from office, but from any serious criticism at all. (And it seems bush/cheney somehow enjoy the same privileges. Go figure. No impeachment started yet.) So, eventually, the Germans came to experience the pain and horror they had inflicted on others.

But the fact that they continued fighting until the end did have one benefit.

Says Han von Herwarth: “The new Dolchstosslegende (stab-in-the back legand) would otherwise have come true…..Many of the women in Germany had lost their sons or their brothers and they couldn’t imagine that all this was in vain, that they were killed for the wrong reason, they couldn’t believe it.” If Hitler had been assassinated in 1944 and peace had immediately followed, in later years it would have been possible to argue that Germany Would not necessarily have lost the war if she fought on. Conterfactual history by definition unprovable and the speculation would have been intense…….. the debate would still be raging, especially in the ultra-right-wing circles. Ironically, the fight to the end may have prevented another Hitler being born from this war.

And that leaves me to wonder about the future of America. Will we only learn not to do war when it comes to our shores and front yards and inflicts the horror on us that we inflicted on others? Is this the only way to stop the military-media-industrial complex from the path it is on?

I don’t know.

And I don’t know if there will be enough tears in America to wash away the shame of this illegal, immoral, and very stupid occupation of Iraq.

I just don’t know.

But I do believe that we have two things in common with the Nazis: Exceptionalism and Expansionism. And no real collective self-reflection that goes beyond the surface.

Finally, I will leave you with a statement by Kurt Vonnegut, 2005:

“In case you haven't noticed, we are now as feared and hated all over the world as Nazis once were. And with good reason.”