Category Archives: History

November 19, 2013 · 22:54

Nuremberg: Marking the 67th Year of the Trials of Men Who Should Have Known Better

“The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be good or evil.” ― Hannah Arendt

The 20th of November is an important day. It is not one that most people think about but it is important. It was the day that the major war criminals of the Nazi Regime were put on trial at Nuremberg. That was the most dramatic of the trials, but later trials were held on those that ran parts of the Nazi regime, the senior and mid-level executioners of Nazi policy. Those men included civil servants, jurists, physicians, military and police officials especially leaders of the Einsatzgruppen.

I studied Weimar and Nazi Germany as well as the Holocaust under Dr. Helmut Heussler at California State University at Northridge as an undergraduate and in a year of graduate studies. I also continued that study while in Seminary as well as in my Masters Degree in Military History. I was stationed in Germany several times, done an exchange tour with the German Army and my German friends say that I am fluent in German. I have been to Nuremberg, Dachau and Bergen-Belsen. I have stood on the reviewing stand where Adolf Hitler preached to the multitudes of assembled party faithful on the Zepplinfeld in Nuremberg.

As such I am a realist about the unique horror of the Holocaust. I am a realist about people and how and the circumstances of the times brought ordinary people, men and women to either commit, support or simply turn their backs on the greatest atrocities ever committed by a “civilized” Western nation. A nation steeped in the traditions of Christendom and the Enlightenment.

As a Priest, Historian, Military Officer and Ethicist I often find that I return to my old books used in my various degree programs as well as as the resources of museums and universities now available on the internet. I also watch films about the era. Not war films, films about the ordinary men that carried out these crimes either by pulling the trigger, pushing a button, signing an order or simply turning their backs and remaining silent. I think that is what makes them so compelling.

Three of those films I watch at lest once a year, sometimes multiple times. One is Conspiracy starring Kenneth Branagh which is about the Wansee Conference where mid-level officials and bureaucrats met to has out details of the Final Solution. The second is Nuremberg starring Alec Baldwin and Christopher Plummer which is about the major war crimes trials. The last is the classic Judgement at Nuremberg starring Spencer Tracy and Burt Lancaster. It is that film that I have concentrated on today because it deals with men who executed the laws enacted by the Nazi regime, many of whom who before the Nazi seizure of power were perfectly respectable in their dealings with Jews and others that the Nazis would persecute.

That is the chilling thing about this period of history and these films. The show ordinary men who for a variety of reasons chose to violate their own conscience as well as the norms of what they knew was right. They did so often out of fear, fear of change, fear of others and even fear of themselves. The fact that otherwise decent people not only followed Hitler but willingly executed Nazi policies against their former neighbors, colleagues and friends is the most chilling aspect of all. I say this because the people are so ordinary yet perpetrated such evil.

In Judgement at Nuremberg Burt Lancaster plays a jurist who served the Nazi regime, a jurist who before the Nazis was considered to be one of the best legal minds not only in Germany but in Europe. In the film the character played by Lancaster, Ernst Janning discussed who he and others like him ended up doing what they did. It is a penetrating look at how people justified their actions.

“There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that – can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: ‘Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.’. It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded… sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now…”

Hannah Arendt talked about the Banality of Evil in her treatment of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, one of the mid-level officers who sent millions of people to their deaths. In describing Eichmann and other ordinary people Arendt said: “The trouble with Eichmann was precisely that so many were like him, and that the many were neither perverted nor sadistic, that they were, and still are, terribly and terrifyingly normal. From the viewpoint of our legal institutions and of our moral standards of judgment, this normality was much more terrifying than all the atrocities put together.”

At the end of the movie Judgement at Nuremberg Spencer Tracy as Presiding Judge Dan Haywood concluded his sentencing remarks with this statement. It is perhaps one of the most powerful statement and something to remember as the Unholy Trinity of Politicians, Pundits and Preachers urge us to hate one another and those different than us. It is something that is especially needed in times of great societal stress as well as real and perceived dangers from without and within.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3BwK51YFgQ

“Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and the death of millions by the Government of which he was a part. Janning’s record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial: If he and all of the other defendants had been degraded perverts, if all of the leaders of the Third Reich had been sadistic monsters and maniacs, then these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake, or any other natural catastrophe.

But this trial has shown that under a national crisis, ordinary – even able and extraordinary – men can delude themselves into the commission of crimes so vast and heinous that they beggar the imagination. No one who has sat through the trial can ever forget them: men sterilized because of political belief; a mockery made of friendship and faith; the murder of children. How easily it can happen. There are those in our own country too who today speak of the “protection of country” – of ‘survival’. A decision must be made in the life of every nation at the very moment when the grasp of the enemy is at its throat. Then, it seems that the only way to survive is to use the means of the enemy, to rest survival upon what is expedient – to look the other way. Well, the answer to that is ‘survival as what’? A country isn’t a rock. It’s not an extension of one’s self. It’s what it stands for. It’s what it stands for when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world, let it now be noted that here, in our decision, this is what we stand for: justice, truth, and the value of a single human being.”

This is an unsettling subject and people on the political right and left in this country are apt to compare their opponents to those that were tried at Nuremberg and those that led them. This has been an increasingly disturbing trend in the case of hyper-partisan Right Wing so called “Evangelical Christians” who blatantly demonize those who they hate and urge the use of the police powers of the state to enforce their political-religious agenda.

However it is possible that any party in society when divided by fear, hate and the desire for power can behave just as the industrialists, financiers, doctors, soldiers, jurists, civil servants, pastors and educators who oversaw those heinous crimes.

Those tried at Nuremberg were all people that should have known better, as should we.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as adolf eichmann, alec baldwin, burt lancaster, christopher plummer, conspiracy movie 2001, hannah arendt, judge ernst janning, judgement at nuremberg, kenneth branagh, nazi germany, nuremberg movie, nuremberg trials, spencer tracy, the banality of evil

November 18, 2013 · 23:21

A New Birth of Freedom: The Gettysburg Address at 150

I am always humbled when I travel to Gettysburg as I did just two weeks ago. It is hard to believe in that now peaceful pastoral setting that over 157,000 Americans, almost 82,000 Union and 75,000 Confederate met in a three day battle. In those three days over 28,000 Confederates and 23,000 Union soldiers were killed, wounded, missing or captured. It was the greatest number of casualties inflicted in one battle on American soil in history.

The places that the battle was fought have become legendary, for they are “hallowed ground” as President Abraham Lincoln so eloquently put it. The places, McPherson’s and Herr’s Ridge, Seminary Ridge, the Railroad Cut, Barlow’s Knoll, Cemetery Hill, Culp’s Hill, The Wheat Field, Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, Little Round Top, Cemetery Ridge, the Apse of Trees, the Angle and the High Water Mark are in a sense holy, or hallowed, consecrated by those who struggled there, those who lived and those who gave the last full measure of devotion to their country.

I think about those men of both sides, fully convinced of the rightness of their cause who fought valiantly in the struggle. That being said when I go there though my family predominantly fought for the Confederacy my heart is drawn to those men who remained loyal to the Union and those who answered the call of Abraham Lincoln to serve in a cause greater than their own interests, the great and the small alike.

Lincoln was a masterful orator who managed to rally the Union and bring hundreds of thousands of men volunteer before Gettysburg. They came for an ideal an ideal which Lincoln’s oratory was probably the most effective at articulating in a way that men would volunteer to suffer hardship, fight and die to bring about. It was well put in the movie Gettysburg where Colonel Joshua Chamberlain said:

“This is a different kind of army. If you look at history you’ll see men fight for pay, or women, or some other kind of loot. They fight for land, or because a king makes them, or just because they like killing. But we’re here for something new. This has not happened much, in the history of the world: We are an army out to set other men free. America should be free ground, all of it, from here to the Pacific Ocean. No man has to bow, no man born to royalty. Here we judge you by what you do, not by who your father was. Here you can be something. Here is the place to build a home. But it’s not the land. There’s always more land. It’s the idea that we all have value, you and me. What we’re fighting for, in the end… we’re fighting for each other…”

On November 19th 1863 Lincoln delivered a “few words” at Gettysburg which were in all practical aspects a benediction at the dedication of the battlefield cemetery. Lincoln was the second speaker at the ceremony following former Pennsylvania Congressman Edward Everett who spoke for more than two hours, a typical speech from the period. The 270 words of Lincoln’s address are perhaps the most important of any speech or document in American history save the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States.

The speech was so powerful that Everett wrote Lincoln the next day:

“Permit me also to express my great admiration of the thoughts expressed by you, with such eloquent simplicity & appropriateness, at the consecration of the Cemetery. I should be glad, if I could flatter myself that I came as near to the central idea of the occasion, in two hours, as you did in two minutes.”

The speech is short, but it’s eloquence is unmatched. Lincoln wrapped ideas, concepts and ideals that men have written volumes about into a speech so powerful that many have memorized it.

But few realize the context that it must be placed. Though the Union had defeated Lee’s Army at Gettysburg and Grant had taken Vicksburg to cut the Confederacy in half the North was groining war weary. There were those in the North, the Copperheads who were willing even after Gettysburg and Vicksburg to end the war on terms favorable to the Confederacy, even granting Confederate independence and the continuation of slavery. Likewise Lincoln was sick when he delivered the address having what was mostly likely a mild form of Smallpox when he gave the address. Thus the tenor, simplicity and depth are even more remarkable. It is a speech given in the manner of Winston Churchill’s “Blood sweat toil and tears” address to Parliament upon being appoint Prime Minister in 1940.

In a time where many are wearied by the foibles and follies of our politicians, even wondering about our form of government can survive Lincoln’s words matter. Dr Allen Guelzo, Professor of Civil War Studies at Gettysburg College wrote in the New York Times today:

“The genius of the address thus lay not in its language or in its brevity (virtues though these were), but in the new birth it gave to those who had become discouraged and wearied by democracy’s follies, and in the reminder that democracy’s survival rested ultimately in the hands of citizens who saw something in democracy worth dying for. We could use that reminder again today.”

Dr Guelzo is quite correct. Many people in this country and around the world are having grave doubts about our democracy. I wonder myself, but I am an optimist. I do believe that we will recover because for the life of me I see no nation anywhere else with our resiliency and ability to overcome the stupidity of politicians, pundits and preachers.

The amazing thing was that in spite of everything the Union survived. Lincoln was a big part of that but it was the men who left lives of comfort and security like Joshua Chamberlain and so many others who brought about that victory. Throughout the war, even to the end Southern political leaders failed to understand that Union men would fight and die for an ideal, something greater than themselves, the preservation of the Union and the freedom of an enslaved race. For those that volunteered it was not about personal gain, loot or land,it was about something greater. It was about freedom.

Now I for one do not think that we are currently living up to the ideals enunciated by Lincoln that day at Gettysburg. I can understand the cynicism disillusionment of Americans as well as those who have for over 200 years looked to us and our system as a “city set on a hill.” That being said, when I read these words and walk that hallowed ground I am again a believer that we can realize the ideal.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — 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.

In the hope that we again realize those ideals and help bring about “a new birth of freedom,” I wish you a good night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as abraham lincoln, Barlow’s Knoll, battle of gettysburg, Cemetery Hill, cemetery ridge, copperheads, Culp’s Hill, Devil’s Den, dr allen guelzo, edward everett, High Water Mark, joshua chamberlain, little round top, McPherson’s and Herr’s Ridge, seminary ridge, the angle, the Apse of Trees, the gettysburg address, the Peach Orchard, the Railroad Cut, The Wheat Field, winston churchill

November 17, 2013 · 18:48

Humble Harbinger: The USS Langley CV-1

Last week the US Navy’s newest Aircraft Carrier the USS Gerald R Ford was launched and christened. Looking at the behemoth it is hard to believe that nine decades ago the US Navy was experiment with its first aircraft carrier the USS Langley.

Now Langley was not the first aircraft carrier. That honor went to the Royal Navy’s HMS Furious. The HMS Argus, a converted passenger liner was more comparable to Langley and served many of the same purposes for the Royal Navy.

Langley was not much to look at, her nickname in the fleet was the “Covered Wagon.” She was not built as a carrier. Instead, like most of the early aircraft carriers in the US Navy, Royal Navy, French Navy and Japanese Navy she was converted from a ship built for a different purpose. Langley initially took to the water as the USS Jupiter, AC-3 a Collier, or coal ship in the days before oil replaced coal as the fuel for warships. Her more infamous sister ship, the ill-fated USS Cyclops disappeared with all hands in what is called the Bermuda Triangle in March 1918.

She was converted into a carrier in 1920 and joined the fleet again as Langley on March 22nd 1922. At 542 feet long and 65 feet in beam she would fit several times over on the flight deck of any current US Navy carrier. Her slow speed of 15 knots meant that she would be relegated to training aviators, participating in fleet exercises and testing new aircraft.

Lieutenant Commander Godfrey DeCourcelles Chevalier

The first takeoff from Langley was on 17 October 1922 when Lieutenant Virgil Griffin flew a Vought VE-7 off her bow. It was the beginning of carrier based aviation in the US Navy. Nice days later Lieutenant Commander Godfrey DeCourcelles Chevalier made the first landing on Langley landing a Aeromarine 39B trainer on a deck equipped with experimental arresting gear. Chevalier died less than a month later when his Vought VE-7 crashed on a flight from Norfolk to Yorktown Virginia. Langley was the first carrier of any navy equipped with a catapult and on 18 November 1922 her Commanding Officer, Commander Kenneth Whiting was the first aviator to be catapulted from a ship.

Commander Kenneth Whiting

Whiting is considered by some to be the “father of the aircraft carrier” and had been instrumental in the selection of Jupiter for conversion, the conversion process and the continued development of carrier aviation following his command of Langley.

Langley’s Hangar Deck

Langley remained the primary training carrier for the Navy until 1936 when she was converted into a Seaplane Tender. In the decade and a half that she served in this role she was used to test various catapult and arresting systems the knowledge gained being useful in the development of new carriers. Likewise the aviators trained aboard her would go on to help develop US Navy Carrier aviation before and during the Second World War.

Langley served in the Southwest Pacific during the opening months of the war and was sunk on 27 February 1942 after being attacked by Japanese bombers near Tjilatjap Java.

When the Gerald R Ford enters service in 2016 she will continue a tradition that began with the humble USS Langley, the illustrious Covered Wagon.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as Aeromarine 39B, aircraft carriers, bermuda triangle, carrier aviation, commander kenneth whiting, hms argus, hms furious, Lieutenant Commander Godfrey DeCourcelles Chevalier, uss cyclops, uss gerald r ford cvn-78, uss jupiter, uss langley, vought ve-7

November 16, 2013 · 21:44

Christian Culture Warriors Versus Pope Francis and Boarding the Wrong Train

“If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It has been amazing for me to watch and listen to influential leaders of the Christian Right vilify Pope Francis for “being liberal” and “surrendering in the culture war.” I find it amazing because for the past 30 years I have been watching the culture warriors fight this war.

It was in 1992 when Pat Buchanan announced at the Republican National Convention that “There is a religious war going on in our country for the soul of America. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we will one day be as was the Cold War itself.”

I had deep ambivalence that speech back then and I was a conservative Republican and moderately conservative Christian. I had already seen how vicious the politically driven Christian conservatism was when I attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary during the early part of the Fundamentalist takeover of that school.

When I was ordained as a Priest in a more conservative Episcopal denomination back in 1996 I became part of a denomination at the time that had fully embraced the ideas of the culture war. When we went to clergy conferences our textbooks were those of Buchanan, Robert Bork, and Thomas Sowell as well as many others which espoused the necessity and rightness of the religious and culture war. Leadership indoctrinated us in this.

However as a military chaplain I had deep qualms about what was going on in this because I was already seeing the practical effects this was having on those who I served. I remember talking to some of the other chaplains in the denomination, a number who had similar concerns.

So for many years I operated in the nether world of representing a denomination which by the day was growing more deeply aligned with the culture warriors. It began to come to a head in 2006 when Gordon Klingenschmitt, a Navy Chaplain on active duty began a campaign which ended caused a great uproar among religious conservatives and caused chaplains from many conservative denominations great grief as people in our churches looked to Klingenschmitt as a some kind of hero. In fact he was not. He was and is a pathological liar who has been on a Jihad since even before he entered the Navy as a Chaplain in 2003. I saw the unbridled vicious and unethical behavior exhibited by Klingenschmitt and his allies in the extreme Christian right and the right wing political hacks and pundits who use the Christian faith and unwitting but sincere Christians to advance an agenda which is neither Christian nor faithful to the vision of our founding fathers.

It was after that that I deployed to Iraq where what I saw and experienced changed me in profound ways. Suffering from chronic and severe PTSD I suffered a collapse of faith and for two years was for all intents and purposes an agnostic just hoping that God existed. Only my strong sense of vocation and the grace and mercy of God kept me going. But when faith returned it was different and as I began to write about it I realized who much I had changed. In September 2010 I was told by my Bishop that I needed to leave the church because I was “too liberal.”

So now when I see the same right wing political hacks, pundits, preachers and politicians who have been stoking this Christian version of Jihad against a plethora of enemies, Moslems, Gays, women, Liberals, progressives in fact anyone that they want to label as different then them or “enemies” of God or “America” I get my hackles up.

When I heard Pat Buchanan and Sarah Palin condemning Pope Francis for his alleged liberalism I realized that no Christian leader was safe from their foolish and shortsighted agenda. Pope Francis has chosen the way of Jesus, he is embracing people that conservative Christians have not only marginalized, but have persecuted for years and are still attempting to do so in the United States and elsewhere. There are times that I fear for the life of Pope Francis because there are people who believe so strongly that they would kill him if they believed that God wanted them to, and when people like Buchanan accuse Francis of surrendering in the culture war they help justify people wo will kill in the name of God.

What seems to me that most of these people lack is a real sense of historical context, not only of the importance that the founders of the United States placed on the freedom of religion and freedom from religion as well as the history of other countries.

One of my special areas of study is the Weimar Republic and the Nazi period of German history. Religious conservatives were often willing partners with Hitler and the Nazi movement because of their opposition to socialism and what they saw as an atheistic movement in Germany, which many lamed on the Jews. Martin Niemöller was a prominent pastor in that era. His writings reflected the feelings of many. He wrote:

“I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

Niemöller was a war hero. He had served on U-Boats during the First World War and commanded a U-Boat in 1918 sinking a number of ships. After the war he resigned his commission in the Navy in opposition to the Weimar Republic and briefly was a commander in a local Freikorps unit. His book Vom U-Boot zur Kanzel (From U-boat to Pulpit) traced his journey from the Navy to the pastorate. He became a Pastor and as a Christian opposed what he believed to be the evils of Godless Communism and Socialism. This placed him in the very conservative camp in the years of the Weimar Republic and he rose in the ranks of the United Evangelical Church of the Old Prussian Union. Active in conservative politics, Niemöller initially support the appointment of Adolf Hitler as Chancellor.

However, he quickly soured on Hitler due to his insistence on the state taking precedence over the Church. Niemöller was typical of many Germans of his era and harbored ant-Semitic sentiments that he only completely abandoned his anti-Semitic views until after he was imprisoned. He would spend 8 years as a prisoner of the Nazis a period hat he said changed him including his views about Jews, Communists and Socialists. Niemöller was one of the founding members of the Pfarrernotbund (Pastor’s Emergency Federation) and later the Confessing Church. He was tried and imprisoned in concentration camps due to his now outspoken criticism of the Hitler regime.

Herman Maas was another Evangelical Pastor. Unlike Niemöller, Maas was a active participant in the ecumenical movement, built bridges to the Jewish community and defended the rights of Jews as German citizens. He received a fair amount of criticism for his attendance of Reichspräsident Friedrich Ebert’s funeral. Ebert was both a Socialist and avowed atheist. Maas too was active in the Pfarrernotbund and the Confessing church, and unlike Niemöller maintained his opposition to anti-Semitism and the Nazi policies against the Jews. He would help draft the Barmen declaration. He too would be imprisoned and survive the war. Maas was the first non-Jewish German to be officially invited to the newly formed state of Israel in 1950. In July 1964 Yad Vashem recognized the Maas as one of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer a young Pastor and theologian would also step up to oppose the Nazis and offer support for the Jews. He helped draft the Bethel Confession which among other things rejected “every attempt to establish a visible theocracy on earth by the church as a infraction in the order of secular authority. This makes the gospel into a law. The church cannot protect or sustain life on earth. This remains the office of secular authority.” He also helped draft the Barmen declaration which opposed and condemned Nazi Christianity. Bonhoeffer would eventually along with members of his family take an active role in the anti-Nazi resistance as a double agent for Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr. For this he would be executed after his final sermon in the concentration camp at Flossenburg just a month prior to the end of the war.

Another opponent of the Nazis in the Confessing Church was Swiss-German theologian Karl Barth. Barth went into exile as a Swiss citizen but remained active in the criticism of the Nazi regime.

Bishop Galen of Münster and others including Father Rupert Meyer in Munich who opposed Hitler in the early 1920s would also oppose the Nazi policies toward the Church and the Jews. They would also end up in concentrations camps with some dying at the hands of the Nazis.

All these men took risks to defend the Jews who were religious minority group that had been traditionally discriminated against inGermany. They opposed the Nazi policies which were widely supported by much of the German populace making them unpopular in their own churches as among the traditionally conservative supporters of the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. The Jews were not simply discriminated against as a racial or religious group but also identified with the political left, especially the Social Democrats, Independent Socialists, Communists and the Spartacists. Since the Independent Socialists, Communists and Spartacists were all involved in attempts to create a Soviet state during the early tumultuous years of Weimar and been involved in many acts of violence against traditional German institutions and the state, they were viewed by Hitler and others as part of the Bolshevik-Jewish threat toGermany. Karl Liebnicht and Rosa Luxembourg were among the high profile leaders of this movement in Germany and both were Jewish. The fact that many in the leadership of the Bolshevik movement in theSoviet Union were Jewish added fuel to the fire that the Nazis stoked inGermany. Hitler and the Nazis played on the historic, but muted prejudice against German Jews who in many cases were more secular and German than religious and had assimilated well inGermany. Hitler’s rhetoric as well as that of other Nazis and Nazi publications helped identify the Jews as part of the “Stab in the back” myth that was commonly used by the German right to explain the defeat in the First World War. Thus they were painted as a political and social threat to Germany.

When Hitler took power persecution of the Jews began in earnest. Jews were along with Communists, Trade Unions and Socialists enemies of the state. They were banned from the military, civil service and other government employment, professional associations and forced to wear a gold Star of David on their clothing. Their property was seized, many were abused by SA men acting as deputized auxiliary police and many times their businesses, Synagogues and homes were vandalized, burned or seized by the state. Many would be forced to flee in order not to be sent to ghettos and concentration camps. Even those leaving only escaped with the minimum of their possessions as the Nazi regime extorted anything of value from them as they leftGermany. This was all done because Hitler and those like him portrayed the Jews as not only an inferior race, but enemies of the state and the German people.

Today we face a similar movement in conservative circles in the United States. This time it is not the Jews but Moslems, Homosexuals, and “Liberals” who are the targets of the xenophobic and ideological rage vocalized by many influential members of the “conservative” media including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and numerous others.

Their support for “Christian morale values” such as being against abortion has ingratiated them with conservative Christians. It is so bad that that many “conservative” Christians cannot differentiate between their vitriolic and un-Christian rage against Moslems, Gays and Lesbians, trade unionists, Democrats or anyone else portrayed by the big media talkers and the Gospel.

It is if they have become an appendage to Republican or “conservative” politicians rather than a Christian church. It is not uncommon to see Christians on the web or on the call in talk radio programs identify lock stock and barrel with Limbaugh and others identifying the crass materialism and social Darwinism of “pure” Capitalism and the anti-Christian policy of pre-emptive war. That may seem harsh, but many of these people in the “Conservative Bible Project” seek to re-translate the Bible into their own political, social and economic policies even seeking to change or minimize any Scripture that might be equated with the “Social Gospel.” Unfortunately many Christians and others have jumped in on the anti-Moslem and anti-immigrant crusades launched by those on the far right.

There are those on the far right that advocate eliminating all Moslems from the military, government, security intelligence and police forces and even universities as did Timothy Rollins of “The American Partisan.”

“this can best be done by enacting the Great Muslim Purge from our military and other national security apparatuses. These people need to be removed from every security post, even to be completely removed from all levels of government employment, be it federal, state, county, city or other municipality. This applies especially to universities….”

Glenn Beck made this comment about a people reacting against Moslems:

“When things—when people become hungry, when people see that their way of life is on the edge of being over, they will put razor wire up and just based on the way you look or just based on your religion, they will round you up. Is that wrong? Oh my gosh, it is Nazi, World War II wrong, but society has proved it time and time again: It will happen.”

Doug Giles a seminary educated columnist for Townhall.com a leading conservative opinion site made this comment

“Please note: If Christ wasn’t cool with irrigating irate Islamicists for facts, I must admit, I would still have to green light our boys getting data from enemy combatants 007 style. Stick a fire hose up their tailpipe and turn it on full blast. I don’t care. I’m not as holy as most of you super saints or as evolved as some of you progressive atheists purport to be. Security beats spirituality in this scenario, as far as I’m concerned.”

Similar threats are made against non-European immigrants especially those from Mexico or Latin America. I have a friend; a Navy Officer who served a year in Iraq that was confronted by a member of the “Minutemen” in Texas to show his Green Card and threatened simply because he is Mexican. Others especially conservative Christians suggest criminalizing homosexuality, jailing homosexuals and even deporting them. Some Christian political action groups are going overseas to Russia and Africa to help enact laws against homosexuals and recently the same people have been hosted by members of Congress to promote their ideology.

These actions and proposed laws are so similar to the Nuremberg Laws and the Aryan Paragraph issued by the Nazis that it is scary. Likewise the threats to American Moslems of placing them “behind razor wire” as we did to American Japanese citizens in World War II are chilling. I wonder how Christians would react if an atheist or someone on the political left suggested all conservative Christians or members of pro-Life groups be imprisoned for the actions of Christians or pro-Life movement members like Scott Roeder or Eric Rudolph who killed to stop abortion or Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church?

This new found militancy has swept up the “Christian right” and others since 9-11 and has reached proportions that I could never have imagined. After my tour in Iraq I realized that much of what these people were saying was not Christian at all and when taken to their logical conclusion would be a police state in which anyone who opposed them would be persecuted. I question the motivations of the leaders of the movement but believe that most of the Christian conservatives have been caught up in the anger and the emotion of the times versus being true believers in what these men say. That being said, you don’t have to be a true believer to be a willing accomplice in actions that first are not Christian and second trample on the Constitutional rights of American citizens.

I could keep citing examples but if someone can show me where this is condoned in the Gospels I would like to know. The fact is that Christians are to place God first and defend the rights of others, even non-believers. This is found not only in Scripture but runs through the Christian tradition across the denominational spectrum.

What the good people who suggesting these “collective guilt” actions against American Moslems do is dangerous, not just for Moslems and other minorities but ultimately for them. American and English law is based on legal precedence. Once something has been determined to be legal, or constitutional it is considered by the law to be settled law. This is a point made by Chief Justice Roberts regarding Roe v. Wade at his confirmation hearings. If Christians want to use the law against Moslems or for that matter any other minority be it religious or political they tread on very dangerous ground. Not only do they make a mockery of the Gospel command to love our neighbors, care for the foreigners among us and to be a witness to non-Christians support policies or laws that if enacted could and very well would be used against them by their opponents.

Law is all about precedent and if such laws were enacted and upheld by the courts they would be settled law that could be used against anyone. What these dear brothers and sisters fail to realize is that such laws can be turned against them if the state should ever decided based on the statements of actions of some that the Christian community is a threat to state security of the public welfare. With the actions of some radical Christians who have committed murder and violence against political, social and religious opponents it would not be hard for the government to label whole churches as enemies of the state. The law is a two edged sword and those who want to use it to have the state enforce their religious, social, ideological or political beliefs on others need to remember what comes around goes around.

The Confessing church understood this and many were imprisoned, exiled or killed for this belief. The founding fathers of this country understood this too, that is why there is the Constitution protection of Religion in the First Amendment. This was put in because Virginia Baptists who had been persecuted by Anglicans lobbied James Madison for the amendment in the Bill of Rights threatening to withdraw their support for his candidacy if he did not. Niemöller would discover the depths of his earlier folly in prison telling one interviewer after the war:

“I find myself wondering about that too. I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true that Hitler betrayed me. I had an audience with him, as a representative of the Protestant Church, shortly before he became Chancellor, in 1932. Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the Church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews, assuring me as follows: ‘There will be restrictions against the Jews, but there will be no ghettos, no pogroms, in Germany. I really believed given the widespread anti-Semitism in Germany, at that time—that Jews should avoid aspiring to Government positions or seats in the Reichstag. There were many Jews, especially among the Zionists, who took a similar stand. Hitler’s assurance satisfied me at the time. On the other hand, I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

It is easy for well meaning people Niemöller to be bought with promises of support by politicians and media types who speak the words they want to hear in difficult times.

So today I suggest the formation of an ecumenical Pastor’s Emergency League which will not be bought by the empty and godless promises of hate mongers on the right or the left. Such a group of men and women spanning the breadth of the Christian tradition and others that see the danger of extremism of all types is becoming necessary. Such a step is becoming necessary due to the militancy of the Christian right as well as the militancy of atheist groups who lobby against all public religious expression by any religion. Such a League would respect the various creeds and statements of faith of each member’s denomination. The movement of the right has set a dangerous course fraught with perils that they do not comprehend. Just allow those that they believe are oppressing or persecuting them now to be empowered with the precedent of laws discriminating against specific religious groups against the Christians that supported them in the first place. It will be a bitter poison indeed when that happens to them later if American Moslems were to be targets by such laws.

We have entered a dangerous phase of American history. These movements have the potential not only to oppress law-abiding and patriotic American Moslems, Gays, Secularists and others and to crush the religious freedoms of all in this county. Suggesting that American citizens, including those who serve the county in the military or government of entire religious, ethnic, political or religious affiliation, sexual preference be jailed, banned from office or fired is totalitarian and dare I say Nazi like.

Christian culture warriors have become so enamored with political power and using the state to enforce their beliefs. They have forgotten that the people are not converted by religious laws enforced by the police power of the state but on the love shown by God’s people to others. They have forgotten that the sword that they desire to use against those that they despise can easily be turned against them. Many German Christians found this out far too late.

Niemöller would say it well in this poem:

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If Christians would only learn that lesson.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 13, 2013 · 23:36

103 Years of Naval Aviation: Celebrating Eugene Ely and the First Flight on and Off a Ship

On a blustery November 14th in the year 1910 a young civilian pilot hailing from Williamsport Iowa became the first man to fly an aircraft off the deck of a ship. At the age of 24 and having taught himself to fly barely 7 months before Eugene Ely readied himself and his Curtis biplane aboard the Cruiser USS Birmingham anchored just south of Fort Monroe in Hampton Roads.

Eugene Ely (above) Captain Washington Irving Chambers (below)

Ely was there because he was discovered by Navy Captain Washington Irving Chambers. Chambers had been tasked with exploring how aircraft might become part of Naval Operations. Chambers had no budget or authority for his seemingly thankless task nor any trained Navy aviators. But when he heard that a German steamship might launch and aircraft from a ship Chambers hustled to find a way to stake a claim for the U.S. Navy to be the first in flight.

Weather was bad that day as is so typical for Hampton Roads in November. Between rain squalls Ely decided to launch even though Birmingham did not have steam up to get underway to assist the launch. Ely gunned the engine and his biplane rumbled down the 57 foot ramp and as he left the deck the aircraft nosed down and actually make contact with the water splintering the propeller. The damage to his aircraft forced Ely to cut the flight short and land on Willoughby Spit about 2 ½ miles away. This is not far from the southern entrance to the modern Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel.

Chambers would talk Ely into making the first landing on a Navy ship the Armored Cruiser USS Pennsylvania in San Francisco Bay on January 18th 1911. In this flight his aircraft was modified and equipped with an arrestor hook, a standard feature on carrier aircraft since the early days of US Navy aviation.

Ely landing on USS Pennsylvania (note the “arrestor cables” on the deck)

Ely desired employment in the Navy but the Navy Air Arm had not yet been established so he continued his exhibition flying around the country. Ely died in a crash while performing at the Georgia State Fairgrounds on October 11th 1911 less than a year after his historic flight off the deck of the Birmingham.

Ely would not be forgotten. Though he was a civilian he was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross by Congress in 1933. The citation read in part: “for extraordinary achievement as a pioneer civilian aviator and for his significant contribution to the development of aviation in the United States Navy.”

It is hard to believe that Naval Aviation traces its heritage back to this humble beginning. However the next time you see whether in person or on television aircraft taking off and landing from a modern super carrier remember the brave soul named Eugene Ely who 103 years ago gunned his frail aircraft down that short ramp aboard the Birmingham. To Ely and all the men and women who would follow him as Naval Aviators.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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November 12, 2013 · 22:56

The Sinking of the USS Juneau and the Loss of the Sullivan Brothers

Seldom in military history are five brothers killed in action on the same ship or same unit in the same action on the same day. Many families have lost multiple children in military conflicts but they usually are spread out over time. In fact in all of my study I only know if one family that lost five sons in the same action on the same day. That family was the Sullivan family of Waterloo Iowa who lost their sons George, Francis “Frank”, Joseph, Madison “Matt” and Albert aboard the USS Juneau CLAA-52 when that ship was torpedoed and sunk on the morning of November 13th 1942 after being badly damaged at the Naval Battle of Guadalcanal.

The fact that all were lost aboard Juneau was in large part because the brothers refused to serve unless they served together, The two oldest brothers George and Frank had served in the Navy before the war and both had been discharged in May of 1941. When war broke out the older brothers with their three younger siblings Joe, Matt and Al volunteered to serve in the Navy but only if they could serve together. Though the Navy had a policy of separating siblings it was not always followed and the five brothers enlisted to serve together and were assigned to the new Anti-Aircraft Light Cruiser USS Juneau.

Juneau was an Atlanta Class Light Cruiser, actually designed as an anti-aircraft escort of the fast carrier task forces. Armed with 16 5” 38 caliber dual purpose guns and a large number of smaller anti-aircraft guns as well as 8 21” torpedo tubes as well as depth charge racks and projectors the class was an excellent escort ship, but woefully equipped to fight heavy fleet units in close surface actions.

Juneau and her sister Atlanta were part of Rear Admiral Daniel Callaghan’s Task Force 67.4 when it encountered a Japanese bombardment force comprised of the battleships Hiei and Kirishima Light Cruiser Nagara and 14 destroyers. Callahan’s Task Group was composed of the heavy cruisers USS San Francisco and USS Portland the light cruiser USS Helena the two Atlanta Class ships and 8 destroyers. In a confused and merciless night action the Japanese lost Hiei and two destroyers while the US Navy lost Atlanta and four destroyers. All the surviving US ships except the destroyer USS Fletcher incurred moderate to heavy damage. Among the ships suffering heavy damage was Juneau which suffered a torpedo hit which crippled her. The following day while returning to base Juneau suffered a torpedo hit from the Japanese submarine. I-26 which struck her her in the same spot as the hit from the night engagement. The Juneau exploded and sank in 20 seconds taking with her 600 of her crew of 700 men. Among those killed in the explosion were Frank, Matt and Joe Sullivan.

About 100 men survived the explosion including Al and George Sullivan. Unfortunately because the senior surviving US commander believed there to be no survivors and that his remaining ships could also be sunk by submarines these men were left at the surviving ships steamed away. Reports of possible survivors from a B-17 Bomber crew went unheeded for several days and it was not until 8 days after Juneau was sunk that 10 survivors were rescued by a PBY Catalina flying boat. By then the two remaining brothers had perished.

It was not until January 12th 1943 that the Sullivan family was notified of the loss of all of their sons. The Fletcher Class destroyer The Sullivans DD-537 was named after the brothers, she is now a museum ship in Buffalo New York.

USS The Sullivans DD-537 (above) and DDG-68 (below)

Her successor USS The Sullivans DDG-68 is a Arliegh Burke Class Aegis guided missile destroyer based out of Mayport Naval Station Florida. For many years they were the only ships named after more than one person in the US Navy, something that they now share with the USS Roosevelt DDG-80 named after President Franklin Roosevelt and Brigadier General Theodore Roosevelt Jr, a Medal of Honor winner on D-Day and son of President Theodore Roosevelt.

The loss of the five brothers prompted the War Department to end the assignment of siblings in the same unit and adopt the Sole Survivor Policy which became law in 1948.

Juneau was a good ship with a fine crew but unsuited for the type of battle that out of military necessity she was thrown into. Heavily damaged she had the unfortunate luck to be part of a battered task force which had no ships capable of anti-submarine protection because of damage incurred the previous night. Her sinking at the hands of the I-26 and the subsequent loss of her survivors through was a tragedy of the highest order.

Tonight I remember Juneau her gallant crew and the Sullivan brothers.

May they all rest in peace.

Padre Steve+

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November 10, 2013 · 17:48

The End of an Empire: The Abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II

Imperial Germany in 1918 was a nation in a state of collapse. Four years of war had cost it the flower of its manhood had bled the nation dry. Over 2 million men had died and another 5.6 million wounded and nearly a million more take prisoner. “One German soldier had died nearly every minute, 55 every hour, and 1331 every day of the war.” (1)

Revolution was in the air. The effects of the war and shortages of nearly every commodity including basic foodstuffs caused by the Allied blockade of German ports had taken their toll. Communists and members of the radical Independent Socialist Party agitated for revolution in key industries and in the military. Units of the Army and the High Seas Fleet whose ranks had been filled with conscripts who were “undisciplined youths, already indoctrinated with the defeatist propaganda of the extreme Leftist parties, to which they adhered more from the fear of combat than from political conviction.” (2)

Even in the spring of 1918 when German troops were winning spectacular victories on the Western Front revolts were occurring at home.

As Germany’s allies collapsed around her, the Ottoman Empire, Bulgaria and finally the Astro-Hungarian Empire it was apparent to the High Command that an Armistice with the Allies was imperative. On October 29th the Kaiser left Berlin for the last time and arrived at the headquarters of the Army High Command in Spa, Belgium. In the next few days plans devoid of reality were suggested that the Kaiser should either lead the Army back to Germany to crush the revolts or die at the head of a regiment in battle.

Revolting Troops in Berlin

Then in early November the red flags of revolution were raised aboard the battleships of the High Seas Fleet in its bases of Kiel and Wilhemshaven. Soon workers, sailors and soldiers councils were “springing up everywhere to take over power.” (3) The authority of Naval Officers on their ships was gone, many were prisoners of their crews. “From the ports the torch of revolution was carried to western and southern Germany.” (4) Soon the royal dynasties that made up Imperial Germany were toppled one by one. In spite of this Wilhelm who had lived in a dream world throughout most of the war, shielded from the truth by advisors, military and civilian believed that the German people would rally to his cause.

Groener

General Wilhelm Groener who had replaced General Erich Luddendorff as the First Quartermaster of the Army was now showing himself to be the “most clear headed and determined of the army’s leaders.” (5) After a brief visit to Berlin in the first week of November Groener became convinced that the Kaiser must abdicate if there was any hope of preserving the monarchy and transitioning to a constitutional monarchy an idea supported by the Majority Socialists and their leader Friedrich Ebert.

Facing the unrealistic ideas of the Kaiser Groener called an emergency meeting of 50 senior commanders of which 39 arrived in time to take part in the council. In answer to Groener’s questions as to whether the Army would stand beside the Kaiser only one commander “guaranteed that the soldiers stood squarely behind the Kaiser.” (6)

That morning Admiral von Hintze an emissary of Prince Max of Baden, the Chancellor and the Army headquarters in Berlin brought new messages warning “that unless the Emperor abdicated at once, a revolution would sweep him and the monarchy away.” (7)

With that news and the results of his poll of the army leadership at Spa Groener took action. Hintze and Groener convinced Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg that the Kaiser must be informed. Hindenburg wanted to offer his his resignation and remained silent in the background as Groener told Wilhelm “The Army will march home in peace and under orders from its leaders and commanding generals, but not under the command of Your Majesty for it no longer stands behind Your Majesty!” (8)

Wilhelm II Arriving in Holland

The Kaiser was stunned and by the morning of the 10th he departed by his royal train to Holland where he went into exile. Several years later in recounting the day the former monarch still lived in a dream world writing in his memoirs:

“The decision as to my going or staying, as to my renunciation of the Imperial Crown and retention of the Royal Crown of Prussia, was summarily snatched from me. The army was shaken to the core by the erroneous belief that its King had abandoned it at the most critical moment of all.” (9)

Of course he was wrong. He had helped lead his nation and the world into a war that swept his monarchy and other great monarchies away. It was a war that ultimately led to another war of even greater destruction. It changed the world order which had existed from the time of Metternich and the Congress of Vienna.

Groener was instrumental in preserving the unity of Germany and helped establish the Weimar Republic working with the leaders of the Majority Socialists. Unfortunately their efforts to establish a working republic were frustrated by the actions of the vengeful Allied powers, the terrible political polarization of the country and the effects of several economic crisis which doomed the Republic.

The abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II was to many in Germany, especially the Officer class and nobility “the end of the world.” That being said had more leaders had the foresight and leadership of Groener and Ebert the republic might have survived. Had Ebert not died unexpectedly it is possible that the center might have held. But it was not to be.

Peace

Padre Steve+

¹ Herwig, Holger The First World War, Arnold a Member of the Hodder Headline Group, London 1997 p.446

² Gordon, Harold J, The Reichswehr and the German Republic 1919-1926, Princeton University Press, Princeton New Jersey 1956 p. 4

³ Ibid. Gordon. p.6

⁴ Carsten, F. L. The Reichswehr and Politics 1918-1933, Oxford University Press, London 1966 p.7

⁵ Craig, Gordon A. The Politics of the Prussian Army, Oxford University Press, London 1955 p.345

⁶ Ibid, Herwig p. 445

⁷ Dorpallen, Andreas, Hindenburg and the Weimar Republic Princeton University Press, Princeton NJ 1964 p.17

⁸ Ibid. Herwig p.445

⁹ Wilhelm II, The Kaiser’s Memoirs Translated by Thomas R. Ybarra, Harper and Brothers Publishers, New York and London 1922, pp.287-288

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November 9, 2013 · 20:28

Kristallnacht 75 Years Later

“One of the men grabbed my father by the shoulder and spit in his face. They tore his World War I medals from his shirt and stomped them into the ground. They started beating my father. Furniture started flying through the windows. My mother was screaming: ‘Let’s get out of here. They are killing us.’ We slipped out a back street, hoping the men would be finished soon and we could go back home.” Alex Liebenstein Kristallnacht survivor. (Jewish Weekly.com 12 November 2004)

It is still hard for me to believe that a civilized people can be incited into mob violence against a minority, even one that is already being persecuted. Unfortunately has happened all too often. The atrocities committed by the Nazi regime 75 years ago on the 9th and 10th of November 1938 reverberate to today as we see a resurgence of a anti-Semitism around the world.

The catalyst for the event was the assassination of a German diplomat in Paris by the teenage son of a Polish Jewish immigrant who had recently been expelled from his home. However the death of the diplomat was a mere pretext for actions that the more radical National Socialists desired and had been building up to the previous five years.

Josef Goebbels

Preparations for the action were already underway when death of the diplomat Ernst was delivered at a meeting commemorating the Beer Hall Putsch. Ironically Von Rath was an anti-Nazi under suspicion and being watched by the Gestapo.

After the message was delivered, Goebbels who was in disgrace with Hitler after the discovery of an affair between him and an actress took the opportunity to regain favor with Hitler. He stirred up the assembled Nazis and reported that there were reports of anti-Jewish demonstrations and the burning of synagogues and that Hitler `has decided that such demonstrations are not to be prepared or organized by the party, but so far as they originate spontaneously, they are not to be discouraged either.’ Taking his exhortation as an order many Gauleiters ran to phones to begin the action in their districts.

But the fact was the pogrom was already planned. SS Gruppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich sent the following order out the day before.

Reinhard Heydrich

TO ALL REGIONAL AND SUB-REGIONAL GESTAPO OFFICES 1:20AM, November 8, 1938

SUBJECT: MEASURES AGAINST THE JEWS THIS NIGHT
That only such measures were to be taken that would not endanger German lives or property Businesses and residences of Jews may be damaged but not looted. Particular care is to be paid in business sections and surrounding streets. Non-Jewish businesses are to be protected from damage under all circumstances. Police are to seize all archives from synagogues and offices of community organizations, this refers to material of historical significance. Archives are to be handed over to the SS. As soon as possible, officials are to arrest as many Jews especially wealthy ones – in all districts as can be accommodated in existing cells. For the time being, only healthy male Jews of not too advanced age are to be arrested.
Reinhard Heydrich, SS Gruppenführer

Heydrich’s Order

By two to three in the morning mobs were roaming the streets of German and Austrian cities. British Journalist Hugh Carlton Greene of the Daily Telegraph wrote:

“Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction. I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years, but never anything as nauseating as this. Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class mothers held up their babies to see the “fun”.”

The banned Social Democratic Party reported:

“When the Jewish Synagogue was burning…a large number of women could be heard saying, That’s the right way to do it—it’s a pity there aren’t any more Jews inside, that would be the best way to smoke out the whole lousy lot of them. No one dared to take a stand against these sentiments….”

Though horrified by the reports coming out of Germany the world did nothing to help the Jews. No country stepped up to allow increased immigration including the United States where anti-semitism was at its historic peak. Public condemnations of the Nazis by world leaders were at best muted. Likewise the passivity of many Germans to Kristallnacht encouraged the most radical parts of the party to enact even more restrictive and punishing laws and regulations on the Jews.

Goebbels was ecstatic and wrote in his diary: 10 November 1938 I reported to the Fuehrer and he decides: the demonstrations should be allowed to continue. The police should retreat. Let the Jews get a taste of popular anger. He is right. I immediately instructed the party and police accordingly. Then I gave a short speech along these lines to the Party leadership. Loud applause. Everybody goes to the telephones. Now the people is going to act…. I wish to return to my hotel, and see a glow as red as blood. The synagogue is burning.… We only put out the fires when they endanger adjacent buildings. If not, they should be burned to the ground.… Reports come from all over the Reich. 50 synagogues, then 70 are on fire. The Fuehrer ordered 20-30 thousand Jews to be arrested.… Public anger is running wild.… They have to be given the possibility to vent their rage.… Driving to the hotel, windows are being smashed. Bravo, bravo. The synagogues burn like big old huts. There is no danger to German property. For the time being there is nothing more to be done.… (Der Spiegel 1992)

Heydrich’s preliminary report stated:

“The extent of the destruction of Jewish shops and houses cannot yet be verified by figures … 815 shops destroyed, 171 dwelling houses set on fire or destroyed only indicate a fraction of the actual damage so far as arson is concerned … 119 synagogues were set on fire, and another 76 completely destroyed … 20,000 Jews were arrested. 36 deaths were reported and those seriously injured were also numbered at 36. Those killed and injured are Jews.”

The Nazis even found a way to make money off of their persecution of the Jews. Hermann Goering convened a meeting of leaders on the 12th and discussed the economic implications of the action. The minutes of the meeting recorded his thoughts.

Hermann Goering

“Since the problem is mainly an economic one, it is from the economic angle it shall have to be tackled. Because, gentlemen, I have had enough of these demonstrations! They don’t harm the Jew but me, who is the final authority for coordinating the German economy. `If today a Jewish shop is destroyed, if goods are thrown into the street, the insurance companies will pay for the damages; and, furthermore, consumer goods belonging to the people are destroyed. If in the future, demonstrations which are necessary occur, then, I pray, that they be directed so as not to hurt us.”

Accordingly those at the meeting decided that the Jews were to blame for the action and determined that the Jews be fined 1 Billion Reichsmarks for the slaying of Von Rath and 6 million for the damage to property. The money was taken from the insurance payments that Jewish business and property owners would have received. The banality of Goering was typical of many Nazi leaders. He stated “We must agree on a clear action that shall be profitable to the Reich. … Anyway, the Jew must be evicted pretty fast from the German economy.”

Goebbels made the announcement of the official party line that the riots and destruction were “a spontaneous wave of righteous indignation throughout Germany as a result of the cowardly Jewish murder of Third Secretary vom Rath.” Goebbels lied to foreign reporters saying “Not a Jew has had a hair disturbed.”

But the truth was different. 91 Jews died as a direct result of the action while it is estimated several hundred more committed suicide during or just after Kristallnacht. Another two to three thousand of those arrested and sent to concentration camps died in those camps before the majority were released on the promise that they would leave Germany.

Jewish Prisoners after Kristallnacht

The events of Kristallnacht and the decisions afterwards marked a distinct watershed in the annals of the Holocaust. They had already been stripped of citizenship and most rights but from this point they became the target of any petty bureaucrat or party official. Kristallnacht foreshadowed the future for the Jews of Germany and Nazi occupied Europe.

In the next year over 100,000 Jews would immigrate from Germany mainly to other European countries where many would again face the horrors of Nazi persecution as the Nazis implemented the Final Solution.

In hope of peace,

Padre Steve+

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November 9, 2013 · 11:21

Remembering Armistice Day: A Day of Conscience

“Tomorrow is our day of conscience. For although it is a monument to victory, it is also a symbol of failure. Just as it honors the dead, so must it humble the living. Armistice Day is a constant reminder that we won a war and lost a peace…” General Omar Bradley November 10th 1948, Boston Massachusetts.

It was the “War to End All War” or so thought President Woodrow Wilson and other American idealists. However that war to end all wars birthed a series of wars which made the losses of the First World War fade into insignificance as wars of ideology replaced wars for the preservation of the state.

In the First World War there were over 22 million casualties including over 5 million dead of which over 116,000 were Americans. President Woodrow Wilson established what we know now as Veteran’s Day as Armistice Day in November 1919, a year after the guns went silent.

Wilson wrote: “To us in America, the reflections of Armistice Day will be filled with solemn pride in the heroism of those who died in the country’s service and with gratitude for the victory, both because of the thing from which it has freed us and because of the opportunity it has given America to show her sympathy with peace and justice in the councils of the nations…”

That initial proclamation was followed nearly 40 years later by one of President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Eisenhower signed into law what we now know as Veteran’s Day in 1954. In a sense I wish we had two holidays, one for Veterans from all wars in general and this one which we should never forget. It seems that in combining them we have lost some of the sacredness of the original. As Kurt Vonnegut wrote: “I don’t want to throw away any sacred things.” I will remember all who served this weekend but I will not forget why we do so.

All that being said for many in the United States and Western Europe the experience of or even the thoughts of such a bloodletting is unimaginable. Yet to those of us who have gone to war and studied past wars the end result is not so distant. It is a part of our lives even today.

This weekend marks the 95th anniversary of the end in World War One. For the United States the cost in the short time that its forces went into action and the armistice it was costly, though not nearly as costly as it was for the nations of Europe. From the time United States forces went into action in 1917 116,516 Americans were killed, 204,002 wounded, and 4,500 missing; 7.1% of the force of 4,355,000 the nation mobilized for war. (PBS the Great War UNC TV http://www.pbs.org/greatwar/resources/casdeath_pop.html)

However our costs pale in comparison with the European nations who had for over four years bled themselves dry. If one wonders why Europeans seem to have so little desire for involvement in war one only needs to see how the concentrated killing of the First World War decimated the best and brightest of that generation. Out of nearly 8.5 million Frenchmen mobilized lost 1,357,000 killed, 4,266,000 wounded and 537,000 missing, 6,160,000 casualties or 73.3% of its forces. Other nations has similar casualty figures.

The human costs were horrifying. In all over over 65 million men served under arms in the war. Over 8.5 million were killed, over 21 million wounded, 7.75 million missing or prisoners or almost 37.5 million casualties. That total would be roughly equivalent to every citizen of the 30 largest American cities being killed, wounded or missing.

Much of Europe was devastated, mass numbers of refugees the dissolution of previously stable empires, civil wars, border conflicts between new states with deep seated ethnic hatreds, economic disasters and the rise of totalitarian regimes which spawned another even more costly world war and a 40 year cold war. The bitter results of the First World War are still felt today as conflicts in the Middle East in part fueled by the decisions of Britain and France at the end of the war rage on.

The epic war poem In Flanders Fields written by Canadian Lieutenant Colonel John McCrea symbolizes the cost of that war and the feelings of the warriors who endured its hell.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

Yes there are always consequences to actions. This weekend as we remember what we now call Veteran’s Day, or Remembrance Day in Britain let us not forget that the genus of these holidays was the blood shed by so many in places like Verdun, Gallipoli, Caporetto, Passchendaele, the Marne, the Argonne, Tannenberg, Galicia and on Flanders Fields.

President John F Kennedy said: “As we express our gratitude, we must never forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.”

In the hope of peace and an end to war.

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as armistice day, armistice day poppy, Caporetto, Galicia, gallipoli, in flanders fields, john f kennedy, ltcol john mccrea, omar bradley, passchendaele, remembrance day, Tannenberg, the Argonne, the marne, verdun, veteran's day, woodrow wilson, world war i casualties, world war one

November 3, 2013 · 23:59

Images of Gettysburg

“In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear, but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field to ponder and dream; And lo! the shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls.” Joshua Chamberlain speaking at the dedication of the Monument to the 20th Maine October 3, 1889, Gettysburg, PA

I took a class trip this weekend to Gettysburg. The trip was what we in the military term as a Staff Ride which is an event that takes the participants to a battle site to see first hand, discuss and analyze the battle. The value of such events is that it takes them from simple book learning to getting a chance to walk the same ground, put “eyes on target” and actually get a feel for what it was like for those that fought the battle.

Gettysburg is one of the more remarkable battles in American history if for nothing else its size and what was at stake. In June of 1863 the Army of Northern Virginia commanded by General Robert E. Lee invaded the North. Lee’s Army crossed the Potomac River into Maryland and then deep into Pennsylvania pursued by the Federal Army of the Potomac initially commanded by Major General Joe Hooker and then by Major General George Meade.

The armies met in what can be best described in a meeting engagement at the town of Gettysburg. Neither army had planned to fight there but through a series of events both armies entered into a fight that in combination with the defeat of the Confederate Army at Vicksburg Mississippi doomed the Confederacy and ensured that the Union would survive.

Gettysburg is marked by many monuments to units that fought at the battle as well as individuals. The National Park Service does a wonderful job there and is constantly working within the constraints of space, time and the encroachment of more people in the area to restore the battlefield to conditions of the time.

As for the monuments themselves most were placed by States, towns and Veteran’s groups over the last 150 years. Placed with love and admiration by the soldiers of both sides and those who knew them.

Here are some photos that I took of the battlefield this weekend.

Monuments to General’s Burford and Reynolds on McPherson’s Ridge

Confederate canon on Seminary Ridge racing Federal lines

Monument to Colonel Ellis and 124th New York at Devil’s Den

Monument to 148th Pennsylvania at the Wheat Field

Gouverneur Warren Monument Little Round Top

Brigadier General George Greene Monument Culp’s Hill

Pennsylvania Independent Artillery Battery E Monument at Culp’s Hill

Monument to 1st Minnesota at Cemetery Ridge

Pennsylvania Monument Cemetery Ridge

Two views of Monument to General George Meade

My Class and group at General Meade’s Headquarters east of Cemetery Ridge

Monument to Pennsylvania Cavalry Cemetery Ridge

Virginia Monument on Seminary Ridge near start point for Pickett’s Charge

The Copse of Trees, target of Pickett’s Charge

Monument to a Federal Infantry Regiment near the Copse of Trees on Cemetery Ridge

Monument to General Lewis Armistead CSA at the High Water Mark of the Confederacy

Monuments at the Angle on Cemetery Ridge

In a few short weeks our nation will commemorate the 150th anniversary of President Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address. His words, brief yet eloquent sum up the meaning and symbolism in the monuments that mark this hallowed ground.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

That is why these reminders of the past matter so much today.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under civil war, History

Tagged as battle of gettysburg, cemetery ridge, george meade, joshua chamberlain, mcpherson's ridge, monuments at gettysburg, seminary ridge, the angle, the gettysburg address

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Images of Gettysburg

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