Author Archives: padresteve

padresteve's avatar

About padresteve

I'm a Navy Chaplain and Old Catholic Priest
October 3, 2018 · 20:12

The Price of Resistance: Remembering the Men of Operation Valkyrie

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Three days ago in Berlin I visits the memorial to the men of the German resistance movement who attempted to remove Hitler from power a number of times, and then resorted to attempted assassination. Their final attempt occurred on July 20th 1944. The building from which they attempted to seize power was the headquarters of the German Army, the Oberkommando des Heeres, located on Bendlerstraße.

I am not going to retell the story of those men. I have written about the event and some of the men a number of times. Among them at the headquarters were Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who had planted the bomb, General Ludwig Beck, General Friedrich Olbricht, Lieutenant Colonel Merz von Quirnheim, and Stauffenberg’s aide, Lieutenant Werner Von Haeften. All were captured by Wehrmacht Guard forces commanded by Major Remer when it was clear that Hitler was still alive.

Beck was given the opportunity to kill himself but failed and was shot where he lay while Stauffenberg, Olbricht, Quirnheim, and Haeften were tried by a drumhead Court convened by General Friedrich Fromm and executed in the square in the middle of the complex. Fromm had known about the plot but had refused to commit himself to it. When it was clear that Hitler was alive he overcompensated and had them executed to cover up his involvement. This did not save him, he was arrested soon after, tried by the Volksgericht headed by Roland Freisler, and executed in 1945.

I stood in that square where they were executed and I was moved. They paid paid the ultimate price for their act of resistance and I wonder if Americans who claim to be resisters would be willing to pay that price if that was the only remaining option.

Other plotters not in Berlin or at the Bendlerstrasse complex were either arrested and later executed, or committed suicide. One of those men, General Henning von Tresckow said the following shortly before his death:

The whole world will vilify us now, but I am still totally convinced that we did the right thing. Hitler is the archenemy not only of Germany but of the world. When, in few hours’ time, I go before God to account for what I have done and left undone, I know I will be able to justify what I did in the struggle against Hitler. God promised Abraham that He would not destroy Sodom if just ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope that for our sake God will not destroy Germany. None of us can bewail his own death; those who consented to join our circle put on the robe of Nessus. A human being’s moral integrity begins when he is prepared to sacrifice his life for his convictions.

In the United States we still have the option of elections and for the moment most of our institutions are still holding out against a lawless administration. How long that will remain I do not know. Every day that I wake up without discovering that the United States has not experienced its Reichstag Fire moment I am relieved and say a prayer of thanks; but I worry, especially after a chapel member and strong supporter of President Trump tried to get me tried by Court Martial for a sermon in my chapel. I had to hire a lawyer to fight the charges during the preliminary investigation.

Thankfully, I was exonerated and did not have to face a trial because what the man had said was a bold faced lie. Despite that, the comments of some people who said I did not do what I was accused of doing were still quite harrowing in how they portrayed me and my beliefs. It was as if I was a caricature of a raving leftist. The fact is that I do not blindly follow any political party line. I have been a military officer and chaplain for almost all of my adult life, I have served under six Presidents and there are none who I agreed with on every issue, but my oath is to the Constitution, not any President or party despite my current party affiliation.

On some issues I am very liberal or progressive, and others quite conservative, but in each case I try my best to base those positions with my Christian faith, as well as my belief in the great proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal…” and my belief that Abraham Lincoln was correct when he said in the Gettysburg Address “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

However, history shows that when authoritarian leaders seize power that most people, even opponents find a way to make peace with the regime. This is a fair question to ask of anyone.

A hashtag, tweet, or Facebook like or dislike does not define integrity or strength of character, it is what they do in the crisis when the personal costs are factored in. I have already experienced that to a degree, and I know what I will do because I have already had to do it. Yet most people have not hit that point, and honestly I pray that they never do.

Many of the men who acted on July 20th 1944 did so knowing that if they failed in their attempt that they would die and that their families too would be condemned. Of course they no longer had the opportunity that Americans today have to vote or to speak out publicly. They and their country had sacrificed that when sat silently when Hitler dismantled the Republic and the opposition parties, with the exception of the Social Democrats, voted themselves out of existence and allowed Hitler to rule as a dictator. Likewise, many Social Democrats and Communists converted to the NDSAP or minded their own business and looked the other way after the Nazis seized power. The same was true of most German Conservatives.

The German pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who was a part of the plot, but who had been arrested earlier through his association with leaders of the resistance in the German military intelligence service, wrote:

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can’t, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

The men of the German resistance tried and failed more than once to stop Hitler. They were not perfect men, but in the end they made a stand that they knew would cost them, their family members, and their friends dearly.

I wonder if we would have the courage to do it should the institutions of the Republic fail and Trump or any other would be authoritarian leader of any party gain absolute power. By and large the leaders of the GOP, even those who fought his nomination and warned about the danger he posed, have already surrendered to Trump. The most notable is Senator Lindsey Graham.

Stauffenberg was right about men like Graham and the GOP leadership when he made this observation about most German military leaders and government officials:

“You cannot expect people who have broken their spine once or twice to stand up straight when a new decision has to be made.”

Likewise I wonder about the many people that claim to be resisters when the cost is still relatively low. Will they stand when their social or economic status, career, family, or lives are in danger? As I said earlier it is a fair question. People are people no matter what and history too often shows that even resisters often find ways to adjust to authoritarian governments.

Tresckow said:

It is almost certain that we will fail. But how will future history judge the German people, if not even a handful of men had the courage to put an end to that criminal?

There are many lessons to be learned in this. Will we learn them?

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under christian life, ethics, faith, History, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany, Political Commentary, world war two in europe

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

October 3, 2018 · 16:20

“Open the Gates…” Berlin’s Neue Synagogue on Oranienburg Straße

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are spending our last night in Berlin after a rather quiet day which included a visit with Dr. Rink, the Bishop of the German Evangelische military chaplain service. We spent an our and a half with his and his chief spokesman at his office. I should have gotten some pictures of us and the offices but forgot because it was such an interesting visit. We will be leaving in the morning which is a holiday, the Tag der Deutschen Einheit, or day of German Unity which celebrates the official reunification of Germany in 1990. The preparations here are quite extensive with much of the area around the Brandenburger Tor and Reichstag blocked off for events and an already large police presence.

This afternoon I took a walk around the district that our hotel, the Hotel Dietrich Bonhoeffer Haus is located. Not far from it is Berlin’s Neue Synagogue, the restored frontal portion of a building dedicated in 1866 by Berlin’s Jewish community. Among those present at the dedication was Otto Von Bismarck, the the Minister President of Prussia prior to the Unification of Germany in 1870.

It was a massive structure that could hold over 3000 worshippers and its Moorish architecture and resemblance to the Alhambra in the Spanish city of Grenada. It was one of the first large buildings to be of iron construction. It is a beautiful structure with its great golden dome topped by a Star of David flanked by two smaller domes.

In addition to its place as a center of worship it was a center of Berlin’s largely assimilated and liberal Jewish community. Berlin was the center of the Jewish Enlightenment, or Haskalah in Germany, and Prussian Jews enjoyed full citizenship and civil rights going back to 1850. The movement emphasized secularism and equality. Prominent Jewish citizens included Albert Einstein, as well as theater and film director Max Reinhardt; composer, music theorist, writer, and painter Arnold Schoenberg, composer Kurt Weill, who is famous for his song Mac the Knife which was popularized in the United States first by Louis Armstrong and then Bobby Darin; and painter Max Liebermann, who was President of the Prussian Academy of Arts until the Nazi takeover in 1933. Additionally, Louis (Lazarus) Lewendowski the highly acclaimed liturgical composer and musician who put his imprint on much Jewish liturgical music used around the world today.

It was used for public concerts and it hand an organ and a mixed choir thanks to Lewendowski, making it a part of a distinctly western and liberal strain of Judaism. In 1929, Einstein performed a renowned violin concert in it.

When the Nazis seized power in 1933 the repression of Berlin’s Jewish community began. Jews lost their citizenship, their employment in the Civil Service and military, membership in professional organizations, and suffered many other humiliations and persecution. As a result many Jews left Germany. Einstein, Schoenberg, Reinhardt, and Weill all fled to the United States. Liebermann died of a heart attack in 1935. He lived near the Brandenburger Tor and reported said as Nazi Stormtroopers marched through it celebrating their takeover of the government: “Ich kann gar nicht soviel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte.” (“I could not possibly eat as much as I would like to throw up.”)

Despite Nazi repression the Synagogue continued to operate and became a center for Jewish relief efforts. It was one of the few synagogues spared destruction during the Kristallnacht terror organized by Joseph Goebbels on November 9th 1938. A group of Nazis broke into the synagogue, vandalized the Torah scrolls, and attempted to set fire to the building. A Berlin Police Lieutenant named Wilhelm Krützfeld took action and ordered the mob to disperse because the building was a protected historical building. To make his point he drew his pistol and threatened the vandals. His actions allowed the Feuerwehr to arrive and ensured that the building was not burned. Krützfeld reported his actions and only received a verbal reprimand from the Nazi Police President Graf Helldorf who had played a major role in the organization of Kristallnacht. Krützfeld and members of his precinct also helped Jews with identity papers and warned them of Gestapo raids. He was transferred in 1940 and because he could no longer serve the Nazi state requested retirement due to health reasons in 1943. Following the war in 1945 he returned to active police service and died in 1953. his superior, Helldorf, became a part of the anti-Hitler conspiracy and was condemned to death by Roland Freisler and the Volksgericht in 1944.

The synagogue remained active until 1940 when it was ordered closed and taken over by the Wehrmacht which desecrated it and turned it into a warehouse for uniform supplies. It was badly damaged by allied air raids during the war and the main sanctuary was burned out and heavily damaged. The Ruins of the main sanctuary and the main dome were demolished in 1955 with the Jewish community meeting next door to the ruin.

In 1988 on the 50th year anniversary of Kristallnacht the process to restore it as a Jewish cultural center began and it reopened in 1993. The restoration only comprised the front section of the building, but in 1995 the Reformed Jewish community of Berlin was reestablished in it. Today it functions as a synagogue, a cultural center, and a museum.

If you come to Berlin you need to see it.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under culture, faith, historic preservation, History, holocaust, nazi germany, Religion, world war two in europe

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

October 1, 2018 · 17:38

On the East Side: Berlin, 32 Years Later

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

The last time we were in Berlin was in November 1986. At the time it was a divided city. When we last we here we had to have special permission and special paperwork to go to the city. Back then we drove the autobahn from Helmstedt to Berlin. At the inter-German border we had to first get our paperwork checked and stamped at the NATO border crossing center, Checkpoint Alpha.

We then drove a few hundred yards to the Soviet checkpoint where Soviet troops checked our paperwork. That part was interesting because the Soviets frequently rejected NATO troops for minor mistakes in the paperwork and would make them spend extra time waiting outside the guard shack. Fortunately for us the wait was minimal and with the necessary military courtesies exchanged, we were on our way.

It was 110 miles from Helmstedt to the Allied Military Checkpoint. On reaching Berlin we had to repeat the drill with the Soviets that we did at Helmstedt and the check in at the NATO checkpoint, Checkpoint Bravo which we passed again on Sunday when driving into Berlin.

Once in Berlin we found our hotel on the West side and the next day drove to Checkpoint Charlie before going into East Berlin. We made a second trip into the city on Sunday morning. East Berlin was the pearl of the Warsaw Pact but compared to West Berlin it was dingy, impoverished, and still showed the deep scars of the Second World War where pulverized buildings, still not repaired or restored covered blocks away from the Unter den Linden and Alexanderplatz. As Americans we were shadowed by Stasi agents everywhere we went. The beer was bad, and like anyone else we waited in long lines to purchase what little we could in the stores we shopped.

Conversely, West Berlin was an island of opportunity and opulence though surrounded by the DDR and its Soviet allies.

The closest we could come back then to the Brandenburger Tor was about 200 Meters as it sat in the middle of the Zone of Death, an appropriate term based on the number of East Germans who were killed or wounded trying to escape to the West.

The contrast today is amazing. The hotel we are staying in was then in the East. Almost everywhere we have been in the past two days once was in East Berlin and the change is remarkable. Much of the Unter den Linden is recognizable simply because the buildings were part of the government and diplomatic center of the city, monuments still stand where they were 32 years ago, but now it is hard to find what was the wall around the Brandenburger Tor and the Reichstag. We walked under the Brandenburger Tor and past the Reichstag where the Wall once stood. Not far away the Mall of Berlin practically sits in the former Zone of Death and was built where Berlin’s largest pre-World War Two Department Store, Wertheim once stood. It is now the heart of a reborn central shopping district which had been ravaged by Nazi rule, war, and Soviet rule. It really is hard to believe the difference now.

Now there are still signs of the War. We have seen a number of buildings, especially brick or stone structures that still have the pick marks and holes caused by bullets, or shell fragments. Some of these buildings are across from our hotel at Humbolt University’s old medical school and clinic complex. The Rumanian Embassy has similar damage.

Anyway, we remain on the former East Side tonight and should visit some more museums tomorrow including the DDR Museum and possibly the Berlin Wall Museum near Checkpoint Charle. We will be meeting our friend, Dr. Bishop Rink, the head of the German Military Lutheran or Evangelische Chaplain Service who we hosted in Virginia Beach during the summer tomorrow afternoon.

So anyway, until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under History, Loose thoughts and musings, Travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 30, 2018 · 19:24

A Visit to Wannsee

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We arrived in Berlin this afternoon after spending last night and this morning with our friends Gottfried and Hannelore in Eisenach. It was a wonderful time, we just spent time together catching up and enjoying our company. When we left the we set course for Berlin where will will remain until Wednesday morning.

We are staying at the Hotel Dietrich Bonhoeffer which is owned by the Evangelische Kirche, the Lutheran Church. It is very nice, the room is spacious and comfortable. We were able to stay here due to our friendship with the Bishop for the Lutheran Church’s military chaplains in Germany who we will meet again on Tuesday.

But on the way to the hotel today we went to the Wannsee House where Reinhard Heydrich chaired a meeting of 15 officials from various German government and Nazi Party agencies regarding the Final Solution of the Jewish Problem. The house is now a museum that deals with the history of anti-semitism in Germany, that of the Nazi Regime, and the policies of the Nazi State before and after Wannsee. To read the documents in German, to see the handwriting, personal notes, and the stamps of of the regime which marked the documents as official and their security classification in the very room that these officials met was sobering. To be where Heydrich, Adolf Eichmann, “Gestapo” Müller and a dozen lesser known functionaries debated and then followed Heydrich’s direction, that which he received from Herman Goering and Heinrich Himmler, directions that came from Hitler himself in December of 1941.

As I walked around the building and around the table on which the documents sat, which was where the table that these man gathered once was, I felt like I had been there before. Of course I had been there in my mind. I have read the accounts of the meeting, the documents preserved by the State Secretary for the Foreign Service, Martin Luther and found by the Allies after the war. I have read a number of biographies about Heydrich, Eichmann, and Müller, and from closer to 40 years of study I felt like I knew these men. They were all functionaries. Many had served in the military, a food number were police or law enforcement officials, and others lawyers, academics, or career bureaucrats who whether they were true believers in the Nazi cause and policies, nonetheless gave their willing support to them.

The meeting lasted only about 90 minutes and it really wasn’t a decision making meeting, it was intended by Heydrich to subordinate every other department of the Nazi State to the SS in regard to the Jewish Question. The fact was that the mass extermination of Jews by the SS Einsatzgruppen had been going on since June 1941 when Hitler’s armies invaded the Soviet Union. Likewise, massive extermination camps were already being constructed in Poland to eliminate every living Jew in Europe. These camps, Belzec, Soribor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz would become the main locations for the extermination of Jews. Estimates running from 2.3 to 2.7 million people, close to 90% Jews, were killed in these four camps between May of 1942 their closure as the SS Death’s Head, Totenkopfverbande tried to clean up and cover up its actions as the Red Army closed in on their empire of death. Of course that does not include the approximately 2 million people, including 1.3 million Jews murdered up close and personal by the Einsatzgruppen, or the numbers killed in the Concentration Camps in Germany and Western Europe, those killed in various pogroms orchestrated by the Nazi State and all of its government, police, military, and party organizations.

At Wannsee, Heydrich and his deputy Eichmann, turned the organization of mass murder into an administrative, logistical, and transportation exercise given a veneer of legality by them.

So it is late and I need to get some rest. Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under History, holocaust, laws and legislation

Tagged as , , , , , , , , ,

September 29, 2018 · 19:12

Meeting Old Friends in Eisenach

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

It has been a long day so tonight’s post is basically to check in. We left Wittenberg this morning after a nice visit to meet our friends Gottfried and Hannelore in the town of Eisenach for Judy’s birthday which is tomorrow.

On the way we stopped at the Buchenwald Concentration Camp outside of Weimar. It was another sobering visit to a site where man’s inhumanity to man remains fully on display. I will write more about that later and may combine what I write with my observations at Flossenbürg which I visited Thursday.

We arrived at the hotel shortly before they did about 3:45 and we spent the afternoon and evening conversing and reminiscing over dinner and drinks. Our friendship with them is special, we have known them since early 1985 when I was a young Army First Lieutenant stationed in Wiesbaden Germany. We got to know each other through the partnership program between the 68th Medical Group and Sanitäts Regiment 74. Gottfried, who had worked himself up through the enlisted ranks to become an officer was also a First Lieutenant and the Officer in Charge of a Medical Clinic in Mainz.

Over the years we have managed to stay in touch. We have seen their children grow up and have kids of their own. We know Hannelore’s brother and many of their friends. They are like family to us. Tomorrow we will have breakfast with them and then go over to see the Wartburg Castle where Martin Luther was hidden by his supporters after his defense at the Diet of Worms, an where he translated the New Testament from Greek into German. After that we will each head our separate ways, they to their home where they are dealing with repairs to their own home as well as the disposition of the home and business Hannelore’s aunt who died in April. We will drive to Berlin where we will remain until Tuesday.

We will get some pictures posted of the visit sometime soon as I keep getting backlogged on the articles that I plan on writing due to the travel schedule of the past few days. So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under life, Loose thoughts and musings, Travel

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

September 27, 2018 · 16:14

Christmas Angel Mecca: The Blank Kunsthandwerk Shop in the Erzgebirge

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are overnighting in the City of Chemnitz in the Erzgebirge Region of the southeast German State of Saxony. We are here because I had to make sure that Judy got to the workshop and store of the Blank Kunsthandwerk in Grünhainichen which is about fifteen miles from here. Tomorrow we will travel to Lutherstadt Wittenberg to our northwest. On the way there we will stop by the town of Torgau where on April 25th 1945, United States Army and Soviet Red Army troops met to cut Hitler’s Third Reich in two.

The Blank Workshop is a family run business that dates back to the aftermath of the Second World War. The founders, George Beyers and Kurt Lehnert founded it in 1955 but lost it when it nationalized in the early 1972 and the dozen or so employees made their iconic short skirt wooden Christmas Angels for export outside the DDR. Beyers, whose technical expertise led to the creation of the angels and many other wooden craft items was employed only to glue felt to the bases the creations he had invented. It was not until the reunification of the country that the company return to private ownership.

We discovered these hand crafted and delicate wooden angels in late 1984 while visiting Koblenz not long after Judy and I moved to Wiesbaden. Since we didn’t have the cash with us we were send the set of about 25 angels and a tiered stand for 300 Deutsch Marks, which were worth about $100 back then. Since then her collection has grown to over 100 standing figures and 100 hanging figures, the latter that adorn our Christmas tree. Of course the prices have gone up, gone are the days of virtual slave labor which is a good thing. When we first started collecting them they cost us about 5 to 7 Marks each. After the Wall fell and we began to collect them again they cost about 15-20 Marks each, while today, depending on the complexity a piece will cost any from € 20 to € 30, but Judy is always looking for deals on eBay and quite often scores. She also knows how to tell an original from a fake, which helps.

We got into town this afternoon and Judy was able to get a bunch of pieces that she didn’t have as well as 20 pair of replacement wings; as I said these are delicate. We were also able to talk with the girl at the shop about other items the Blank is coming out with and that other local craftsmen produce.

I was glad the Judy finally got to see this place. The fascinating thing is back in the 1980s we never could have visited the Erzgebirge Region or the Blank Shop. We were able to go to Berlin with special authorization and that was unforgettable, we will be in Berlin for the first time since November 1986 on Sunday.

The area is beautiful, in places it reminds me a bit of sections of the Shenandoah Valley, albeit with castles and ancient towns.

On the we here we stopped at the Flossenbürg Concentration Camp which I will write about another time.

So anyway, until the next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under History, labor, Loose thoughts and musings, Travel

Tagged as , , , ,

September 26, 2018 · 18:49

Flugzeug, Fußball, and International Friendship in Trump’s Amerika First World

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Sorry for the delay in posting, but the past couple of days have been quite full. Yesterday we had to exchange our rental car and afterwards went to the Deutsches Museum’s aircraft yard Flugwerft in Schleissheim just outside of Munich. After that we went to our favorite local restaurant, Zum Brunnstein, had a long and relaxing lunch and then did some shopping in the local area near our hotel, which despite being a very expensive 4 1/2 star hotel, is located in your typical working class neighborhood. This is because of its location near the city’s Ostbahnhof which makes it a travel hub for business people and tourists.

After that we went back to the hotel where I prepared for my epic trip to a Bayern München game at Allianz Arena. But before I do that I have to go back in time…

Back in 1979 I was traveling with an American Christian singing group in Europe when President Jimmy Carter gave his American Malaise speech. Back then I was young, and still idealistic about the hope and promise of the United States that was given life in the proposition of the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” as well as the ability of Americans to rise to the occasion in the midst of a real economic crisis triggered by massive inflation that had begun during the Nixon administration and the massive rise in oil prices after the 1973 Yom Kippur War.

There was also a crisis of confidence in the ability of the nation to do better in the future, a crisis of confidence in the American system of government, and deep divisions over the Vietnam War, and the Civil Rights movement which had expanded to women and homosexuals. Carter, whose deep Christian faith was always in evidence was castigated by prominent political activist preachers in the nascent Christian Right.

His speech was actually masterful, but he chose to use a harsh term to describe the truth about the United States in 1979, he talked of an American Malaise. That word was enough to cause his otherwise masterful diagnosis of the health of the nation to be mocked on both sides of the Atlantic. I will write about that speech soon because it is

At the time his words were mocked in many parts of Europe and as a nineteen year old college student traveling abroad I was embarrassed to be an American as I read in British newspapers the reaction to his speech. Of course I hadn’t actually heard or read the speech, only the reaction in the British tabloids which used it to slam the American President who they considered to be a non-Presidential commoner. Likewise, at the time I didn’t understand the nature of the Tabloids, or even the flagship British newspapers, and assumed that what I read was accurate. Based on those articles in the British tabloids, I wanted to hide the fact that I was an American, but if I had actually read or heard the speech I would have admired his honesty and candor.

Yesterday was different yet similar, however, instead of simply reading the reaction to the President’s speech at the United Nations, I was able to watch it and read its text, almost in real time. I watched in horror as Trump claimed to have done more than any American President during his first year and a half in office than any previous American President, only to be met with derisive laughter. One has to hand it to the miracles of modern technology sometimes, even when it exposes the American President, using his own speech as a complete idiot and buffoon.

So yesterday, instead of being a young and idealistic college student with little access to news in real time, I am almost forty years older and while still idealistic, I am much more world wise, with a lot more access to news as it happens than I was back then. Frankly, in 1979 I really didn’t know shit from Shinola about anything, even though I thought that I knew it all. Almost forty years later words of the late Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts” have become more than a nice quote. They are truth.

Thirty-nine years after President Carter’s Malaise speech I was again in Europe when the American President again, not only embarrassed the country, but did so on full display while speaking at the United Nations. As I read his words at Munich’s Hofbrauhaus before going up to the Bayern Munich match against Augsburg I wanted to hide, but I was at a table with a couple of Germans, a Pole, and a Dane, all Bayern fans. It is interesting how the a team like Bayern can bring together so many people from around the world.

I could have easily hid the fact that I am American, in fact my German is good enough and my accent a blend of Bayerische, Hessische, and Rheinländische Deutsch to pass myself off as a German. But I am an American and like it or not, for now, Trump is the American President and he has no shame. One of the men that I was sitting with asked where I was from, assuming that I was German. I surprised him by telling him that I was an American and as happens often here I was told by the man just how he loved the United States and Americans but how fearful he was of President Trump. Like other German friends he told me that I should flee to Germany to escape what is coming. The specter of the unthinkable still haunts many Germans, even as the struggle with their own nativist, nationalist, racist, and anti-democratic elements.

Sadly, neither the President nor his Cult followers have any capacity for ethical or moral reflection. While I was embarrassed at President Carter’s speech in 1979, I never wanted to hide my head in shame as as much as I did yesterday when I read and watched President Trump’s speech to the United Nations. I was ashamed, because unlike Carter’s speech which had much basis in the reality of the times, and maybe more so today, Trump’s message of an America First foreign policy upends the promise of of the Atlantic Charter and everything good that came after it. He praises dictators and compliments regimes that have more in common with Stalin, Mao, or Hitler than Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, or Roosevelt and routinely savages our actual friends and allies.

But anyway, it is now after midnight here and we will be getting up to travel north, first to the Erzgebirge Region of Saxony before going to Wittenberg where Martin Luther began the Protestant Reformation, then to Eisenach to meet our friends Gottfried and Hannelore before traveling to Berlin on Sunday.

So until the next time,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

2 Comments

Filed under History, Loose thoughts and musings, national security, News and current events, Political Commentary, Travel

Tagged as , , , , , , , ,

September 24, 2018 · 19:05

A Walk in Munich, a Police Headquarters, and a Voice that will not be Silenced: the Witness of Sophie Scholl

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight another thought from Munich.

Today was relatively uneventful from a historian’s point of view in our current trip to Germany. Today was a day that Judy and I spent time together walking around the city center and Marienplatz. We did some shopping and more window shopping before getting a late lunch at our favorite local restaurant, Zum Brunstein before working our way back to our hotel. After she got a bit of rest and I went and picked up a few things that we needed and then did some reading, we went back out to get a few drawing supplies and the have a late supper.

Since Judy needs two knee replacement surgeries after we return to the United States and is dragging herself around on crutches I was proud that she got about five miles of walking in today. I got in eight miles and since we are not eating like we do in the United States I assume that we are both losing some weight, which is not a bad thing. My injuries from the fall that I took a month and a half ago seem to be doing better and though I still am in some pain I am no longer walking with such a noticeable limp, and when not escorting Judy like a destroyer escorting a cargo ship I am able to walk at a much faster clip than I have since the fall. I haven’t tried running yet but that may yet happen, but I digress…

The fact is that I continued muse upon the lives of Sophie Scholl and her companions in the White Rose resistance movement. It is something that as I think about what is happening in the United States regarding the Trump Administration’s lack of respect or concern for the rule of law which is reaching a fever pitch.

One site that we walked past today was the Police Headquarters, or the Polizei Präsidentin. The building was the headquarters of the Munich Police, before, during and after the Nazi State. It was the initial headquarters and workplace of Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich before they moved to Berlin not long after the Nazi takeover.

In 1943 it housed the offices of the Gestapo and other police agencies. It was here that following their arrest that Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans, were first taken for interrogation before being imprisoned at Städelheim and tried before the Volksgericht headed by Roland Freisler.

This place that we see here, even those that few think about are still important. Sophie said: I am, now as before, of the opinion that I did the best that I could do for my nation. I therefore do not regret my conduct and will bear the consequences that result from my conduct

Since we have an early morning tomorrow I will wish you a good night,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Leave a comment

Filed under History, life, Loose thoughts and musings, nazi germany

Tagged as , ,

September 23, 2018 · 18:48

“Safe?! From What?” A Visit to the Grave of Sophie Scholl

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Our visit to Munich today was relatively quiet. We went to breakfast and then since Judy’s knees were not up to a lot of long walks or standing took our rental car out to see a couple of places that we haven’t been. We went to the grave of the anti-Nazi martyr Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and friend Christoph Probst who were executed in February 1943 for publishing anti-Hitler, Nazi, and war pamphlets. Following that we went to the BMW Museum and BMW World.

I will write about the latter later, but tonight I will write about a visit to the Friedhof at Perlacher Forst in Munich where Sophie Scholl is buried.

The cemetery is adjacent to the Stadelheim Prison where she was held before her trial and executed on February 22nd 1943. I have written about her and the White Rose resistance movement before. Last year I visited the White Rose Museum and study center at the Ludwig Maximillians University of Munich but last year I didn’t get the chance to make a pilgrimage to her gravesite. I made it a priority this year.

We parked on the street outside Stadelheim, which is still an active prison surrounded by tall walls and guard towers. While Judy waited with the car I walked to the cemetery and then to the gravesite which is on the opposite side of the cemetery from the main entrance. It is a very peaceful place, with many trees and the sections cordoned off by carefully trimmed grapevines.

When I reached the gravesite I paused, and remained for about ten minutes contemplating the cost of real resistance to tyranny. She and her companions had no political, military, or economic power. They were students, and a number had served as medics on the Eastern Front before resuming their studies.

Unlike the men who launched Operation Valkyrie 17 months later they had no connections to any kind of power: they were not part of the movement of German conservatives and militarists who initially supported Hitler and then had second thoughts. When Hitler came to power they were children. They resisted because they found what was happening to go beyond any sense of ethics, morality, or in some cases, like Sophie, their Christian faith.

At her trial she told the notorious President of the Nazi People’s Court, Roland Freisler:

Somebody, after all, had to make a start. What we wrote and said is also believed by many others. They just don’t dare express themselves as we did.

While I was their I tried to imagine her courage as she testified to the truth and went to her death. The woman who shared Sophie’s cell wrote of her final words before going to her execution:

How can we expect righteousness to prevail when there is hardly anyone willing to give himself up individually to a righteous cause? Such a fine, sunny day, and I have to go, but what does my death matter, if through us, thousands of people are awakened and stirred to action?

Many people today are being faced with the same questions that Sophie Scholl, her brother Hans, and friends, including Christoph Probst who was executed the same day had to make. Thankfully, for the most part the future imitators of Hitler have not yet seized full power in Europe or the United States, but it wouldn’t take much for that to happen. Too many people, and not just conservatives, would be willing to sacrifice freedom in the name of security if a major war, terrorist attack, or natural disaster that threatened their well being and/or their economic or social status occurred.

In such a situation, how many people would allow their government to oppress and terrorize people that they distrusted due to their race, ethnicity, or religion? I think that the numbers are a lot higher than we would want to admit. The preservation or self and wealth is often more of a motivation than faith, or the rights and liberties of others.

During the Nazi era many non-Nazis supported the Nazi programs because they thought that they benefited them. The same is true in any authoritarian State regardless of the ideology that it subscribes and its people hold dear.

Sophie said:

The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.

So until tomorrow from Munich,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

7 Comments

Filed under christian life, civil rights, ethics, faith, History, holocaust, Political Commentary

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,

September 22, 2018 · 19:23

Der Münchner Wiesn 2018: a Parade, Bier, and Gemütlichkeit

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Today was the beginning of Munich’s Oktoberfest, commonly known here as der Wiesn. This is actually a term from the Bavarian dialect which means the green which is a term used for the Theresienwiese, the lawn of the Nymphenburg palace grounds in Munich which hosted the first Oktoberfest on which King Ludwig I of Bavaria celebrated his wedding to Princess Theresa and a horse race.

The King invited the people of the city and thereafter it became a regular event and soon a national and worldwide event celebrating Munich’s heritage of community and beer, which helped bridge the otherwise insurmountable of German and other European cultural divide. Munich, with its beer hall culture is one of those rare places in Europe that a mayor, governor, senior civil service official, or military officer might sit next to a lowly peasant, worker, farmer, or even a beggar might sit together drinking beer, class differences cast aside. A number of historians have noted this fact.

Today, Munich is still home to a tradition that has grown far from the Theresianwiese to other locations throughout Germany and around the world.

We have visited Munich and gone to der Wiesn for the last five years, but today was the first time that we were here for the opening parade and the ceremonial tapping of the Festbier by the Mayor of Munich in the Hofbrauhaus tent.

After the parade we took seats in the beer garden area of the Hofbrauhaus tent where we had a delightful time with three German retirees, Dora, Ludwig, and Christa, and a mixed group of younger Germans and internationals. We stayed a lot longer than we expected. After we got back to our hotel I went down to the hotel bar watch the Schalke vs. Bayern Munich match. While there I spent the match chatting with two pilots from Qatar Airlines. Bayern won 2-0 and I look forward to Tuesday night when I see them play Augsburg at Allianz Arena.

These are some of the sights of this event.

Tomorrow we will take our rental car and visit historical sites around town which are normally out of the way.

I hope that you enjoy, I know that we are.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

1 Comment

Filed under life, Loose thoughts and musings, Travel

Tagged as , , , , , , ,