Category Archives: holocaust

September 2, 2018 · 12:45

Mass Murder and Genocide up Close and Personal: The Einsatzgrüppen and Ordungs Polizei in Poland 1939-1940

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I am a bit late posting today as we have a niece, nephew and their children visiting for the Labor Day holiday. Since I posted a new article about Hitler’s attack on Poland yesterday I am following it up with an older article dealing with Hitler’s use of the Einzastzg

Another section of the article dealing with the campaign of mass murder and genocide conducted by Hitler’s legions in Eastern Europe. This section deals with the actions of the Einsatzgrüppen in during the Polish campaign and occupation in 1939 and 1940. In it you will see that the while most of the killing was done by the SS that the German military high command was not guiltless. Some commanders attempted to stop SS actions, but they were the minority. Most simply turned a blind eye to what was going on and a few would lend their assistance to the Einsatzgrüppen.

Please note, that all of this took place before the first extermination camps began operations. This killing was done up close and personal by the men of the Einsatzgruppen and the Police battalions, sometimes with the direct support and approval of the Wehrmacht. In all just a few thousand troops massacred hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews as well as the Polish gentile elites.

It is terribly uncomfortable, for as I always say, these men were little different than most of us, they were terribly ordinary.

Peace

Padre Steve+

Heinrich Himmler

The Polish campaign was a precursor to the Russian campaign and was not totally race driven. It contained elements of Germany’s perception of the injustice of Versailles which gave Poland the Danzig corridor and Germany’s desire to reconnect East Prussia to the Reich, as well as the perceived necessity to remove a potential enemy from its rear as it faced France, yet it was a campaign steeped in Nazi racial ideology. Poland resisted German efforts to ally itself with Germany in 1939, thus Hitler determined it “would be crushed first.” 80

Meeting with military leaders on 23 May 1939 Hitler “made it plain that the real issue was not Danzig, but securing of Germany’s Lebensraum….” 81 On 22 August Hitler enjoined the generals to “Close your hearts to pity! Act brutally! Eighty million people must obtain what is their right.” 82

Even so, most military leaders failed to appreciate what Hitler was calling on them to do; Erich von Manstein would later note that “what Hitler had to say about an eventual war with Poland, could not, in my opinion, be interpreted as a policy of annihilation.” 83

General Johannes Blaskowitz

Others such as Abwehr director Wilhelm Canaris was “utterly horrified.” As he read his notes to his closest colleagues “His voice trembled as he read, Canaris was acutely aware that he had witnessed something monstrous.” 84 General Johannes Blaskowitz, the controversial commander of the German 8th Army who would become the military commander in Poland did not leave any notes about the meeting. However, his biographer noted that Blaskowitz “may have naively attached a military meaning to these terms since he was busy with military matters and soon to begin operations.” 85 As was noted before this was also the interpretation of Erich Manstein gave Hitler’s words, but one has to wonder as to the veracity of his statements. 86 Field Marshal Keitel noted that the speech was “delivered in the finest sense of psychological timing and application,” with Hitler molding “his words and phrases to suit his audience.” 87

In light of the mixed interpretations by military leaders, it is possible that many misinterpreted Hitler’s intent and did not fully appreciated his ideology as they went into Poland, carefully secluding themselves in the narrow confines of their military world. While such an explanation is plausible for some, it is also true that many others in light of subsequent actions were in full agreement with Hitler. One author notes that “no man who participated in the FührerConferences….and there were present the highest ranking officers of the three services, could thereafter plead ignorance of the fact that Hitler had laid bare his every depth of infamy before them, and they had raised no voice in protest either then or later.” 88 In July, General Wagner, the Quartermaster General issued orders that “authorized German soldiers to take and execute hostages in the event of attacks by snipers or irregulars.” 89

Regardless of the meaning ascribed to Hitler’s speech by his generals, Hitler had already laid plans to destroy the Jews in Poland and decimate the Polish intelligentsia and leadership. Hitler gave Himmler the task of forming “Einsatzgrüppen to follow the German troops as they advanced into Poland and liquidate Poland’s upper class wherever it was to be found.” 90 While senior party leaders remained at Hitler’s side following the conference, Himmler worked to coordinate his troops, including the reinforced Totenkopf battalions and Einsatzgrüppen with the Army. 91

Himmler began planning in early May and the Army, working in close collaboration with the SS decided to “use SS and police units to augment their own forces for security tasks.” 92 Himmler established “five Einsatzgrüppen to accompany each of the numbered German armies at the start of the campaign.” 93 Placed under the aegis of Reinhard Heydrich the groups were broken down into smaller units of 100-150 men and allotted to army corps. All senior posts were occupied by officers of the SD, the Sicherhietsdienst. 94

Two additional Einsatzgrüppen were formed shortly after the invasion. 95Additionally three regiments of the SS Totenkopfverbande, under the direction of SS General Theodore Eicke were deployed in the rear areas of the advancing armies. These regiments were formed from the Concentration Camp guard units and eventually became the nucleus of the 3rd SS Panzer Division Totenkopf. 96 The SS carefully shielded the real purpose of these units from the Army in the planning stages, while the Army might countenance anti-guerrilla operations and cooperate in arresting people who might lead resistance in Poland, the SS was not yet sure that the Army would support or countenance mass murder. 97 That being said, Heydrich worked with the Army to develop lists of up to 30,000 Poles to be arrested following the invasion including intellectuals, political leaders and clergy. 98

To eliminate the Polish elites without disturbing the Army, Himmler and Heydrich gave the Army “only the bare minimum of information” as to their ultimate intent99 The deception was initially successful and many Wehrmacht commanders welcomed the assistance of the SS units for rear area security missions. Blaskowitz’s 8th Army defined the mission of the Einsatzgrüppen in the traditional doctrinal terms of the Ettapen, noting their mission as “the suppression of all anti-Reich and anti- German elements in the rear of the “fighting troops, in particular, counter espionage arrests of politically unreliable persons, confiscation of weapons, safeguarding of important counter- espionage materials etc…” 100 General Wagner, the Quartermaster General issued orders in July 1939 that “authorized German soldiers to take and execute hostages in the event of attacks by snipers or irregulars.” Despite the deception, there was no way to disguise the murder of Polish intelligentsia and Jews once it began, and had the Army had the political acumen and moral courage it could have considerably restricted or even halted the terror campaign. 101

The ensuing campaign in Poland demonstrated Hitler’s true intent. Heydrich openly discussed “murdering the Polish ruling class” of the aristocracy, Catholic clergy, communists and Jews at a meeting on September 7^th, barely a week after the beginning of the invasion. 102 As the German armies advanced into Poland slicing through the badly deployed and inadequately equipped Polish Army the Einsatzgruppen and the Totenkopf Verbande followed in their wake, conducting mass arrests and executions of those Poles deemed to be a threat.

Many army leaders were worried about Polish soldiers left behind in rear areas as the armies advanced. In some cases that concern became a paranoid mindset and some generals believed that a “brutal guerrilla campaign has broken out everywhere and we are ruthlessly stamping it out.” 103

Ordungspolizei Battalion preparing for Mass Murder

Yet some of the actions by Einsatzgruppen and Totenkopf Verbandeagainst the Polish elites and the Jews drew Army reactions. The unit commanded by SS General Woyrsch “behaved with such unparalleled bestiality that it was thrown out of the operational area” by General List of 14th Army.” 104 Another unit, the Totenkopfverbande Brandenburg came to Army attention when its commander remarked that the “SSVT would not obey Army orders.” The conclusion drawn by the Army General was that “the SSVT commander was following orders from some non-military authority to terrorize the local Jews.” 105

These atrocities as well as those of other Waffen-SS units were hard to hide and brought reactions out of army commanders who sought to punish the offenders. Blaskowitz and a few other commanders attempted to put a halt to SS actions against Poles and Jews, 106 but most officers turned a blind eye to the atrocities or outright condoned them. It is believed that General Walter Model and many other senior officers “not only knew what was occurring in Poland but actually took part in what Colonel General Franz Halder himself described in October as “this devilish plan.”” 107

It appears that many of the officers who objected were not motivated so much by humanitarian, moral or legal considerations, but rather by the effect on good order and discipline of their soldiers. 108 Likewise it is clear that many officers, even if they did not participate in the actions probably approved of them. Many of the early biographies and histories of this period were written by authors who were influenced by surviving German officers. Many of these men were being rehabilitated and helping the Americans and British meet the threat of the Soviet Union, made no or little mention of the Army’s part in these actions.

Both Himmler and Heydrich were sensitive to the perception of the Army and resented the fact that the Army believed them to be responsible for actions that they were carrying out under the direction and orders of Hitler himself, They also resented that their troops were characterized as “undisciplined gangs of murderers” by many Army officers. 109

After crushing the Polish armies and dividing Poland with the help of the Red Army, the Germans established what became known as the Government General, which was headed by Hans Frank. The new civilian administration came into conflict with the military governor, General Blaskowitz. Appalled by the actions of the SS, Police and the Nazi administration. Blaskowitz made an “elaborate report on the atrocities of the SS,” 110 expressing concern about his “extreme alarm about illegal executions, his worries about maintaining troop discipline under those circumstances, the failure of discussions with the SD and Gestapo and their assertions that they were only following SS Orders.” 111

While it is unclear if the memorandum made it to Hitler, it is clear that Hitler did know about the protest and Blaskowitz fell into disfavor and was reassigned after a period of continued conflict with the Nazi administration. Hitler was not impressed by the less than ruthless attitudes of Blaskowitz and other commanders. His reaction to Army objections regarding the methods of the SS and police units was characteristically acidic. Hitler’s military adjutant recalled that Hitler accused the Army’s leaders of using “Salvation Army” methods, and called their ideas regarding the occupation as “childish.” 112

Following the reassignment of Blaskowitz, other officers that objected were also relieved of their commands or reassigned. General Georg von Külcher was relieved of command for protesting SS and police atrocities. 113

At the beginning of the campaign the SS units and their commanders fell under military justice, and a number of SS officers and their troops were convicted by Army courts-martial for their actions. But soon, SS Officers convicted by Army courts-martial were given amnesty by Hitler and Hitler “removed SS units from the jurisdiction of military courts,” on October 4^th 1939. 114 While the army remained, it was no longer in charge and would actively assist the SS and Police in combat and further atrocities against civilians. In November 1939, One German officer, who later was a conspirator in the July 20th plot, remarked, “was ashamed to be German! The minority are dragging our good through the mud by murdering, looting and torching houses will bring disaster on the whole German people if we do not stop it soon…” 115

The Army was soon relieved of responsibility for policing Poland which fell on the Ordungspolizei battalions and Gendarmerie. Many officers were pleased as they could now turn their backs on the situation there and begin to prepare for the campaign in the West.

The Ordungspolizei battalions and the Gendarmerie units were composed of mobilized city police and rural constabulary police. These men would soon wreak their own devastation on Poland in the coming months and years. 116Poland was also be the first use of mass evacuations of civilian populations to make room for German settlers, in the newly acquired Lebensraum. Poles were driven into the newly formed Government General and ethnic Germans moved into previously Polish occupied territories. By 1941 over 1,200,000 Poles and 300,000 Jews had been expelled and 497,000 ethnic Germans brought into provinces German had lost in 1919. 117

Prior to the war about 3.3 million Jews lived in Poland. The actions of the Einsatzgruppen and the Police brought a reign of terror to Poland’s Jews. The Jews were rounded up and sent to Ghettos from which they would be dispatched to the death camps following the decision to implement the “Final Solution.”After the war only some 50-70,000 Jews were found to have survived in Poland, the Polish Army and camps in Germany. A further 180,000 were repatriated from the Soviet Union. 118

To be continued….

Notes

80 Ibid. Weinberg. Visions of Victory p.8
81 Ibid. Goerlitz, History of the German General Staff p.346
82 Höhne, Heinze. The Order of the Death’s Head: The Story of Hitler’s SS. Translated by Richard Barry. PenguinBooks, New York and London, 2000. First English edition published by Martin Secker and Warburg Ltd. London 1969. Originally published as Der Orden unter dem Totenkopf, Verlag Der Spiegel, Hamburg 1966 p.259

83 Manstein, Erich von. Forward by B.H. Liddle Hart, Introduction by Martin Blumenson. Lost victories: The War Memoirs of Hitler’s Most Brilliant General. Zenith Press, St Paul MN 2004. First Published 1955 as Verlorene Siege, English Translation 1958 by Methuen Company p.29

84 Ibid. Hohne. Canaris p.347

85 Giziowski, Richard. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz. Hppocrene Books, New York 1997 p.119

86 Ibid. Manstein. Lost Victories p.29

87 Ibid. Goerlitz. The Memoirs of Field Marshal Keitel p.87

88 Wheeler-Bennett, John. The Nemesis of Power: The German Army in Politics 1918-1945. St. Martin’s Press Inc. New York, NY 1954 p.448

89 Ibid. Megargee. War of Annihilation p.13

90 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.297

91 Padfield, Peter. Himmler. MJF Books, New York 1990 p.264

92 Ibid. Megargee. War of Annihilation p.13

93 Ibid. Westermann. Hitler’s Police Battalions p.127

94 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.297 95 Ibid. Westermann. Hitler’s Police Battalions p.127 96 Ibid. Sydnor Soldiers of Destruction p.37

97 Ibid. Giziowski Blaskowitz p.120

98 Ibid. Witte. The Wehrmacht p.100

99 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head pp. 297-298

100 Ibid. Giziowski Blaskowitz p.120

101 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.298

102 Ibid. Witte. The Wehrmacht p.100

103 Newton, Steven H. Hitler’s Commander: Field Marshal Walter Model-Hitler’s Favorite General Da Capo Press a division of Perseus Books Group, Cambridge MA 2005. p.74

104 Ibid. Giziowski. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz pp.165-166

105 Ibid. Sydnor, Soldiers of Destruction pp. 42-43 Note SSVT is the common abbreviation for Verfügungstruppe which was the early designation of the SS Totenkopf Verbande and some other Waffen SS Units.

106 Ibid. Goerlitz. History of the German General Staff p.359

107 Ibid. Newton. Hitler’s Commander p.78

108 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102

109 Ibid. Höhne The Order of the Death’s Head p.298

110 Ibid. Goerlitz. History of the German General Staff .p.359 111 Ibid. Giziowski. The Enigma of General Blaskowitz p.173 112 Ibid. Giziowski. TheEnigma of General Blaskowitz p.173

113 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102

114 Burleigh, Michael and Wippermann, Wolfgang. The Racial State: Germany 1933-1945 Cambridge University Press, New York NY and Cambridge UK 1991. p.100

115 Ibid. Witte The Wehrmacht p.102

116 For a good account of one of the Police Battalions see Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland by Christopher Browning Harper Perennial Publishers, San Francisco CA 1992

117 Reitlinger, Gerald. The SS: Alibi of a Nation. The Viking Press, New York, 1957. Republished by Da Capo Press, New York, NY p.131

118 Ibid. Davidowicz The War Against the Jews pp.395-397

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Filed under crime, ethics, History, holocaust, Military, nazi germany, Political Commentary, world war two in europe

Tagged as adolf hitler, einsatzgruppen, erich von manstein, franz halder, general johannes blaskowitz, German war in Poland, heinrich himmler, ordungspolizei, Reinhard Heydrich, totenkopf battlaions, werner von brauchitsch, wilhelm canaris

July 24, 2018 · 23:49

Principiis obsta, Finem respice—Resist the beginnings, Consider the end: A Name Change at Padre Steve’s World

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I have been so busy working in the house the last couple of day, Monday in fact until about 10 PM that I didn’t get much in the way of writing done. Our contractor came today and began work in the house and I have about done almost everything to complete work in the most heavily damaged section of our home. I still have a bit more to do in that room as we get it in shape to be Judy’s art work room and a secondary library and overflow guest room.

I am happy with my work. Tomorrow we should be able to start moving her art supplies, materials, and equipment into it. I will also finally be able to take a crack at our personal belongings that were damaged when our air conditioning condensation pan drains got plugged while we were on leave back in May. We finally got the money from the insurance to begin the repairs and because I am doing much of the work myself have been able to use the much of what I saved to be able to do some badly needed renovations. It has been stressful but in the end it our home will gain a lot in value, but I digress…

Late last night I decided to change the title of this website. I actually did it twice and finally settled on this tonight:

Padre Steve’s World: Resist the beginnings, Consider the end.

I think it is more appropriate than what I first came up with which was “The Best Little Blog You Never Heard of ” I decided that was a little too pompous despite the fact that I actually do put a lot of research and reflection into almost everything that I post here. The fact is that the twin phrases Principiis obsta and Finem respice, the first from the Roman philosopher Ovid, and the latter most likely from the Book of Ecclesiastes and the writings of the early Christian apologist Tertullian. The were quoted to American Jewish Professor Milton Mayer by a German colleague after the Second World War as a warning of what happens when otherwise good people say nothing and fail to resist evil.

So anyway. I am very tired and need to get some decent sleep since I got so little last night.

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

“Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure.” My Favorite Resistors, Part One: the Anti-Nazis

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

They are know and unknown but all resisted tyrants and all have become inspirational figures in my life. They are men and women, and many are soldiers or clergy, while others were civil rights leaders. Most were advocates of non-violence, but some due to the incredibly evil nature of the regime under which they lived and served resorted to violence. But all show me and I hope will show you that the path of resistance is not futile.

The problem is that far too many people become discouraged the longer the struggle lasts and end up accommodating themselves to the evil regimes under which they lived. That will probably be the experience of those who struggle against tyranny around the world today as authoritarianism under many guises becomes more entrenched. It is a world wide phenomena but if the classic understanding of democratic liberalism advocated by so many including the founders of the United States is to survive, authoritarians and their tyrannical worldview must be resisted.

Sophie Scholl, a young student at the University of Munich wrote:

“I’ve been thinking of a story from the Old Testament: Moses stood all day and all night with outstretched arms, praying to God for victory. And whenever he let down his arms, the enemy prevailed over the children of Israel. Are there still people today who never weary of directing all their thinking and all their energy, single-heartedly, to one cause?”

That my friends is important.

Yesterday, July 20th was the 74th anniversary of Operation Valkyrie, the attempt of conservative German military officers, diplomats, and others to kill Hitler and end the tyrannical and genocidal Nazi regime. Among the men who died in that attempt were Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, General Henning von Trescow, General Ludwig Beck, Lieutenant Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim, and General Friedrich Olbricht. Others were implicated and were murdered after kangaroo court proceedings at the hand of the Volksgericht, the “People’s Court” headed by Roland Freisler. Among them was Field Marshal Erich von Witzleben. While Freisler hounded and tried to humiliate him Witzleben remained calm and announced to the court:

“You may hand us over to the executioner, but in three months’ time, the disgusted and harried people will bring you to book and drag you alive through the dirt in the streets!”

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General Henning von Tresckow

“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.” When the attempt failed von Trescow was serving on the Russian front far away from Berlin. To avoid arrest and the possibility that under torture he could implicate others or cause harm to his wife and children von Trescow killed himself. Another participant wrote that before his death von Trescow said:

“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 only ten righteous men could be found in the city, and so I hope for our sake God will not destroy Germany. No one among us can complain about dying, for whoever joined our ranks put on the shirt of Nessus. A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give his life in defense of his convictions.”

Ludwig Beck

General Ludwig Beck

Beck, who had resigned his post as commander of the German Army in protest of the planned invasion of Czechoslovakia wrote something that has become a key part of my military and personal ethic: “It is a lack of character and insight, when a soldier in high command sees his duty and mission only in the context of his military orders without realizing that the highest responsibility is to the people of his country.”

Tresckow, a committed Christian also noted of Hitler’s supposedly Christian supporters: “I cannot understand how people can still call themselves Christians and not be furious adversaries of Hitler’s regime.”

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Admiral Wilhelm Canaris

There were other Christian resisters of the Hitler regime. Hans Oster was the son of a pastor and one of the senior officers in the Abwehr, the German military intelligence. His boss, Admiral Wihelm Canaris was also a resister. Both would be executed on the personal order of Hitler in April 1945 along with Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, all had been arrested for their involvement in anti-Hitler activities. For his part Canaris would note something that military, intelligence, or police officials who might be tempted to excuse the actions of modern day tyrants or would be authoritarians:

“One day the world will hold the Wehrmacht responsible for these methods since these things are taking place under its nose.”

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Pastor Bonhoeffer who died with Oster and Canaris at Flossenburg wrote:

“Christianity stands or falls with its revolutionary protest against violence, arbitrariness and pride of power and with its plea for the weak. Christians are doing too little to make these points clear rather than too much. Christendom adjusts itself far too easily to the worship of power. Christians should give more offense, shock the world far more, than they are doing now. Christian should take a stronger stand in favor of the weak rather than considering first the possible right of the strong.”

hermann maas

Hermann Maas

Hermann Maas, another Lutheran pastor made his mark by speaking out in defense of Jews and Socialists. He angered the German political right including the Nazis by doing so. He aided Jews and other non-Aryans to escape Germany, and cared for the elderly Jews who could not. He was removed from his pastorate and imprisoned. He survived the war and would be the first German recognized by Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Maas discussed the responsibility of all Germans for the crimes of Hitler and the Nazis, something that Christians and others in nations like the United States, Europe, Asia, Africa, and South America that are threatened by authoritarian leaders and racist regimes:

“Every German bears responsibility for Germany no matter who he is or where he stands, in the homeland or abroad, in public and at home. No one can absolve him of this responsibility. He can transfer it to no one.”

Sophie Scholl

But these men were not the only opponents of the Nazi regime. A young woman, a student at the University of Munich named Sophie Scholl and her brother Hans were at the center of an anti-Nazi resistance called the White Rose. They published and distributed a number of anti-Nazi leaflets and were caught doing so in early 1943.

One of those pamphlets noted:

“Nothing is so unworthy of a civilized nation as allowing itself to be “governed” without opposition by an irresponsible clique that has yielded to base instinct. It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of shame that will befall us and our children when one day the veil has fallen from our eyes and the most horrible of crimes – crimes that infinitely outdistance every human measure – reach the light of day?

If the German people are already so corrupted and spiritually crushed that they do not raise a hand, frivolously trusting in a questionable faith in lawful order in history; if they surrender man’s highest principle, that which raises him above all other God’s creatures, his free will; if they abandon the will to take decisive action and turn the wheel of history and thus subject it to their own rational decision; if they are so devoid of all individuality, have already gone so far along the road toward turning into a spiritless and cowardly mass – then, yes, they deserve their downfall.

Goethe speaks of the Germans as a tragic people, like the Jews and the Greeks, but today it would appear rather that they are a spineless, will-less herd of hangers-on, who now – the marrow sucked out of their bones, robbed of their center of stability – are waiting to be hounded to their destruction. So it seems – but it is not so. Rather, by means of a gradual, treacherous, systematic abuse, the system has put every man into a spiritual prison. Only now, finding himself lying in fetters, has he become aware of his fate.

Only a few recognized the threat of ruin, and the reward for their heroic warning was death. We will have more to say about the fate of these persons. If everyone waits until the other man makes a start, the messengers of avenging Nemesis will come steadily closer; then even the last victim will have been cast senselessly into the maw of the insatiable demon.

Therefore every individual, conscious of his responsibility as a member of Christian and Western civilization, must defend himself against the scourges of mankind, against fascism and any similar system of totalitarianism. Offer passive resistance – resistance – wherever you may be, forestall the spread of this atheistic war machine before it is too late, before the last cities, like Cologne, have been reduced to rubble, and before the nation’s last young man has given his blood on some battlefield for the hubris of a sub-human. Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure.”

She wrote:

“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.”

I think of all of these people that I admire young Sophie Scholl the most. She had no power. She was not an officer, a government official, a businessman, or a pastor. She was simply a young woman who was informed by her faith and her concern for basic human morality and ethics.

While the Nazi State was consumed by the flames of Hitler’s Götterdämmerung, the lives and message of those few who resisted still redounds to us today. And yes, in comparison to the majority of Germans of the Hitler era, they were a tiny minority, Of over 2000 German General and Flag officers a mere 22 were involved in anti-Nazi activities and the same is true for most professions in the Third Reich.

Milton Mayer wrote the words of a German University Professor and colleague after the war was over. The professor was reflecting on how people ended up going along with the Nazi regime. Mayer wrote his friends words:

“And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

“You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

“Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

“What then? You must then shoot yourself. A few did. Or ‘adjust’ your principles. Many tried, and some, I suppose, succeeded; not I, however. Or learn to live the rest of your life with your shame. This last is the nearest there is, under the circumstances, to heroism: shame. Many Germans became this poor kind of hero, many more, I think, than the world knows or cares to know.”

I think that I shall close with that tonight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under christian life, civil rights, ethics, faith, History, holocaust, laws and legislation, leadership, Military, nazi germany, News and current events, Political Commentary

Tagged as adolf hitler, anti-semitism, authoritarianism, Claus Von Stauffenberg, dictatorship, dietrich bonhoeffer, donald trump supporters, erich von witzleben, friedrich olbricht, hans oster, henning von treschcow, henning von tresckow, hermann maas, ludwig beck, mertz von quirnheim, milton mayer, nazi germany, operation valkyrie, president donald trump, roland freisler, sophie scholl, white rose, wilhelm canaris, yad vashim

July 18, 2018 · 23:59

Accused and Threatened by a Christian Trump Cultist

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Saul Steinberg wrote:

“Baseball is an allegorical play about America, a poetic, complex, and subtle play of courage, fear, good luck, mistakes, patience about fate, and sober self-esteem.”

Last night I watched what turned out to be an magnificent MLB All Star Game. I had a very good day going into it and anticipated it with the same glorious expectations that I have done since the 1970 All Star Game. For me the MLB All Star Game is an event with nearly religious significance. Baseball is a game that helps me connect spiritually with God as well as exhibits some of the best traits of what until now has defined the United States, as reflected in the words of Steinberg.

For me that was comforting and until last night Saul Steinberg’s words comforted me and allowed me to believe a myth about the inherent goodness of America. Despite our flaws, our mistakes, and yes, even many malevolent policies I still believed that we are basically good people. I don’t think that I believe that anymore, even as I still believe that most Americans want to be good people. We like to think that we are the good guys.

As the game went on I developed a terrible headache and I began to become incredibly depressed. I could feel myself slipping down like I haven’t for a few years. I got up this morning doing better but after a good Staff meeting at our base headquarters began to walk to my car and during that time I began to sink into the pit again. I pulled into my parking spot at the chapel and I was terrified until one of my Catholic parishioners came in to talk to me for a few minutes. She’s a sweet English lady and her kindness is always a blessing and today it made a big difference. My Chief came in to me with a laundry list of things that I needed to help with and then I found out that three young Chaplain Candidate Officers were coming to see me. That put me back in my element because over the past couple of years I have come to realize that the most important thing that I do is to mentor young men and women, especially Chaplains or those aspiring to be Chaplains. I didn’t tell them anything of what I am writing tonight, but I was able to give the, good advice and invite them to contact me any time even if I was no longer on active duty.

The game was a fantastic game but I didn’t enjoy it because I was too caught up in something that happened to me two weeks ago when I received the news that I was being investigated for the allegations of violating the Uniform Code of Military Justice made by a member of my Chapel, a retired Navy Officer.

The man accused me of the violation of Article 88 Contempt for an Official in this case the President of the United States, and of Article 133, Conduct Unbecoming an Officer for the content of my sermon. He accused me of “comparing the President to Adolf Hitler” and “the actions of those enforcing the laws of the nation as Nazis or Nazi Sympathizers.” He accused me of “engaging in political activism on the job.”

Because of his allegations to the command my Commanding Officer had to launch a preliminary investigation. If the allegations were found to be true I could have been charged and tried by Court Martial. My career of 37 years of Army and Navy service including two combat tours and multiple deployments and family separations could have been ended had I been charged or convicted of such an offense.

I wrote about that sermon last month and the allegations were scurrilous, unsubstantiated and purely of his own making. If there was any political motivation it was this retired officer’s allegations which were an attempt to silence legitimate Christian preaching on social justice issues. I found the complaint ironic because one of my predecessors preached against the end of the Defense of Marriage Act and the end of the Don’t Ask Don’t Tell policy. That Chaplain attacked the character of President Obama and pledged to disobey any orders to support marriage equality. But not one person in the congregation complained.

Yet when I criticized President Trump’s words in which he described immigrants and refugees as “animals”, called them an “infestation” and linked all of them to being violent murderers, rapists, and associated with the MS-13 criminal gang as being dehumanizing, against the teachings of the church and similar to the words that Hitler used to demonize and dehumanize the Jews, that was wrong. When I criticized the Attorney General for his misuse of Scripture to defend those polices in front of the Catholic Bishops and the complicity of the White House Press Secretary and Pastor Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church Dallas in defending those remarks I was a criminal in the mind of my accuser.

The fact that I was preaching within a prophetic Christian social justice tradition as Dietrich Bonhoeffer or Martin Luther King Jr. was irrelevant to my accuser. The fact that I could make legitimate historical comparisons, not only with Nazi Germany but American slavery, the Black Codes, Jim Crow, the extermination of Native American tribes, and the internment of Japanese Americans was irrelevant. It was the fact that I deviated from the Christian Trump Religious cult claims that brought about these scurrilous charges.

When I was called in for an interview by the investigating officer, who I know is a very fair, honest, and decent man I sensed that he was uncomfortable in having to question me as we have worked together over the past year. I told him that I could not submit to an interview and without an attorney present.

I left and immediately called Mikey Weinstein of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, or MRFF. Mikey took my call immediately and connected me with one of his exceptional attorneys. That was on July 3rd and I spent Independence Day wondering if my military career was about to end. On July 5th I was asked by the Investigating Officer for names of other parishioners who had heard the sermon. I was able to give him a few names, all retired African American Chief Petty Officers or Army and Marine Corps Senior NCOs. He interviewed them and my attorney contacted him. The next morning I was called by the Investigating Officer and the Base Executive Officer to let me know that I had been exonerated and the investigation was over. Both seemed happy for me.

I was supported during the ordeal by the regional Chaplain who is much more conservative than me, and this was not a witch hunt by my command. They as well as my commanding officer are all men of integrity who respect and appreciate my work. If they had not been such men my life could have much more difficult. I was fortunate, but I know other officers who have not been so fortunate or had as solid and feared legal counsel as I received from MRFF. Some of them were convicted of crimes that they did not commit or as in the case of one officer was the victim of a witch hunt by his service chief after his command and civilian police officials had determined that there was no evidence that he had committed any crime. His service overruled them and had him tried by a jury and judge of their choice. I know this because I was called as a character witness. I was flown overseas and within two hours of landing I was thrust onto the witness stand without rest or so much time as to shower or shave. He was convicted anyway. However, during my testimony during the sentencing phase the next day which was not impeached or overruled I told the truth, that the only reason that the officer was on trial and been convicted was because he was gay and not because of the evidence. It was a travesty of justice and I am glad that it didn’t happen to me.

That being said I was fortunate that I have a command that has integrity and seeks the truth. The investigation proved that the charges of the retired officer we’re false and more related to his political allegiance than to any Christian teaching or tradition.

However the most disturbing part of this experience was how that it continues to effect me. The fact is that this retired officer couldn’t even follow the clear commands of Jesus or the Apostle Paul to deal with disagreements between brothers privately or within the Church. Never did any New Testament writer or any of the Ante-Nicene Fathers instruct Christians to turn in other Christians that disagrees with them to the State. What happened to me reminded me of the accounts of German Protestant and Catholic Priests who were turned in to the Gestapo by informants in the Church.

I think that is why I went into such a deep depression last night. The situation in our country has even taken away my ability to enjoy a baseball game and made me incredibly suspicious of the members of my chapel congregation.

Sadly, based on other comments on my Facebook page by some other officers I realize that one cannot reason with members of the Christian Trump Cult even using Scripture and the Christian tradition. Like the German Christians who followed Hitler to his Götterdämmerung they will follow Trump even as he shoots someone on 5th Avenue.

Maybe I will write about the All Star Game tomorrow, but if I don’t it will be first time in nine years on this blog that I haven’t. I think that is one of the worst things about my experience, living on such an edge and under such a real threat that I can no longer enjoy things that used give me such joy and peace.

If this is what it means to Make America Great Again I want nothing to do with it or those who pledge their allegiance to Trump over the Constitution or Christ.

I have more to say but will live it at this for the night.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as christian life, faith, false accusations, Mikey Weinstein, MRFF, trump cult, ucmj

June 23, 2018 · 01:03

Reflections on Life as an Authoritarian State Arises

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We are visiting friends in the Washington DC area as we get ready to celebrate our wedding anniversary Monday. It is nice to be relaxing with each other, another friend who is down from Pennsylvania and combined flock of 12 Papillon dogs, three of which are ours. Everyone but me has now gone to their bedrooms while I sip a glass of McClelland’s Highland Single Malt Scotch Whiskey with my little boy Pierre at my side, all 4.8 pounds of him. That’s a good thing.

Since tomorrow’s weather forecast is for continued rain I will probably watch World Cup games, read and spend time with Judy, our friends and the Papillons. If the weather is good Sunday Monday hope to take Judy to the Smithsonian Museum of American History. Monday night we will celebrate our 35th wedding anniversary with our friends. Depending on the weather I hope to get some decent runs and walks in along the Potomac River.

Likewise, despite all that is going on try to take a break from the incessant pounding of crises manufactured by the President and the chaos that he uses to increase his personal power over his administration, the Congress, the media, and yes all of us. Sadly, none of this is going away anytime soon and it will likely become much worse before it gets better; such is the nature of fledgling dictatorships. Even today he demonized all immigrants as criminals and their supporters as being against the rule of law and his supporters applaud as the leaders of his political party cower before him. Eric Hoffer wrote:

Should Americans begin to hate foreigners wholeheartedly, it will be an indication that they have lost confidence in their own way of life.

The words and actions of the President and his supporters bear this out, they claim to be making America great again but they are destroying the very fabric of the ideals on which the nation was founded.

He did this as his administration and immigration agencies imprisons thousands of children, refuses to reunite them with their families, makes plans for camps on military bases to house nearly 150,000 immigrants, sets up checkpoints on American highways demanding that travelers have proof of citizenship, details military JAG officers with no experience in immigration law to serve as Acting US Attorneys to prosecute immigrants.

At a publicity stunt Friday the President compared all immigrants from south of the border to criminals by parading the survivors of people killed by illegals and spouting absolute lies about the number of crimes committed by immigrants, legal and illegal alike. He then took the time to sign his name on the pictures of the victims of those crimes.

Don’t get me wrong, I have a tremendous amount of compassion for the victims of any violent crime. I have stood over the bodies of men, women, and children killed by the bullets of criminals and tried to console their survivors. I did that so many times that I have lost count of the number.

Likewise I have been the victim of violent crime. I was held up at gunpoint with my wife and her family when we were dating and had a pistol pointed at my head as I sat in the back seat of a car unable to go after the gunman without risking the lives of Judy and her parents. I have also had my liefe threatened by White Supremacist for things that I have written, one that was so specific that I reported it to both the local police and the FBI. But in all cases the people who attacked or threatened me were native born Americans.

In the President’s view if you are killed by a dark skinned immigrant your families are called “Angel Families” but if you are killed by an American you and your family do not exist because you serve no political purpose. That my friends is a fact and the statistics show that far more violent crimes are committed by Americans than all immigrants and most actual cases of domestic terrorism in the United States are committed by White Supremacists, and mass murders including those at schools, businesses, entertainment venues, churches or other places of worship are committed by White people, not immigrants. But those go largely unheralded by the President, except for incidental tweets that express thoughts and prayers and praise of law enforcement.

But that is how incipient dictatorships behave. Certain groups are targets, demonized and compared to the worst examples. In the parlance of Trump they are all murderers, rapists, terrorists, gang members, and drug dealers. This behavior runs rampant in dictatorships and authoritarian states. The President has persistently and insidiously invoked that immigrants are evil. Hoffer wrote:

“Hatred is the most accessible and comprehensive of all the unifying agents. Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a god, but never without a belief in a devil.”

That has been happening since the day that President Trump announced his candidacy for President and it is no secret. Mexicans were the first devil of his campaign, and he called them criminals, murderers and rapists on the day that he announced his candidacy. The videos of his speeches, his manifold number of Tweets, and the actions of his administration are all too widely available not to be found by anyone seeking the truth about him, but for his most fervent supporters all of those facts are fake, even if he said them in front of millions of people.

Now, events in the United States and at our borders have shown that the President was absolutely correct about his followers when he said that they would continue “to follow him even if he shot somebody on 5th Avenue.”

My friends, it is not going to get any better and we better be ready for what comes next or we will be swept away in the flood of lies and evil to come. Despite his buffoonery, one cannot underestimate the potential evil of the President and his followers. Likewise do not assume that a Blue Wave will happen in November because there may be events that occur which will allow the President to use executive orders enacted by his predecessors during the height of the Cold War and the potential of nuclear war to postpone elections or rule by decree. I refer to this as a Reichstag Fire moment.

Historian Timothy Snyder wrote in his book On Tyranny:

“Modern tyranny is terror management. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that authoritarians exploit such events in order to consolidate power. The sudden disaster that requires the end of checks and balances, the dissolution of opposition parties, the suspension of freedom of expression, the right to a fair trial, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Do not fall for it.”

We live in a very perilous time where the vision of our founders could be overturned in the blink of an eye and our Republic, as flawed as it is, but always has embraced the ideal of building a more perfect union will perish from the face of the earth. The nation and people may remain, but the ideal will be gone and with it the Republic.

So until tomorrow or the next post, have a good day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as crime, donald trump supporters, eric hoffer, evil, hannah arendt, History, Holocaust, immigrants, Immigration, nazi germany, president donald trump, propaganda, reichstag fire, republican party, timothy snyder

June 22, 2018 · 02:07

Resist the Dystopian Law and Order of Trump or be Condemned by History

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I love the virtues of the law. When I was in seminary I had friends who asked me why I wasn’t in law school and they didn’t mean it as a compliment. In high school and college debate classes I could be assigned to debate for positions that I abhorred and destroy my opponents by using precedent, history, and even appealing to emotion. Honestly had I not felt a real call to the ministry and later the priesthood I would have become a lawyer, which is something that I occasionally think about doing but at my age I find little motivation to follow, I think that as a priest, historian, and stand-up philosopher and ethicist I can do more with the time required to become a lawyer at my age, but I digress…

The problem is that I see far too many people, especially those in power to be all in favor of being for “law and order” and harsh actions against those alleged lawbreakers while not only excusing, but wholeheartedly supporting the most lawless of Presidents and his policies, almost all of which are based on the most unconstitutional, undemocratic, and inhuman ideas seen in a Western nation since the time of Hitler. To be a “law and order” supporter of President Trump one must subscribe to racism, sexism, homophobia, paranoia, nationalism, and scorn for humanity and even the law itself. If you do not subscribe to that, if you dissent in any way you are an enemy of the President and since the President equates personal loyalty with patriotism an enemy of the state.

Let’s revisit a little bit of history.

The founding fathers of the United States were considered lawbreakers, traitors, and rebels by King George III and his government. One of my distant ancestors. Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville, then serving as Lord Advocate and a member of the House of Lords called them traitors to the Crown. He actually coined the word starvation because he recommended that the rebellious colonies be starved into submission, earning him the nickname of Starvation Dundas. But he was a law and order kind of guy.

In the years after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 people living in Free States could be prosecuted for harboring escaped slaves in the name of the law, even if they were in complete obedience to the laws of their home state. The fact is that at that time States rights only mattered if you were supporting the rights of Slave owners and Slave states. The Dred Scott decision showed this to be fact. To be law and order at that time one had to support white supremacy and the institution of slavery, even if you lived in a Free State. Please don’t get me started on the post-Reconstruction and Jim Crow eras, you can read all of that in my book Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory’s: Race, Religion, Ideology, and Politics in the Civil War Era when it eventually gets published.

Let’s go now to an even more uncomfortable subject, Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. To be law and order in the Nazi State was to support its racist laws. If you defended or harbored Jews, or for that matter even criticized the policies of the Nazi State you were a criminal. That was the case in Germany as well as the counties that it conquered or occupied. If you harbored or protected Jews you were a criminal. Conversely if you turned in a Jew or informed on their protectors you were obeying the law, thus those who hid and protected people like Anne Frank were criminals while those who turned her and her family in were obeying the law.

In our day President Trump, his administration, and his supporters have turned U.S. law, international law, and basic humanity and I dare say Christian morality on their head in regards to immigrants, legal and illegal alike; racial and ethnic minorities, women, LGBTQ citizens, the free press, and political opponents. Most egregiously this is happening on the Southwestern border of the United States where thousands of children have been separated from their parents who are being prosecuted simply because they are seeking asylum and freedom in a country that they believe stands higher than the countries that they are fleeing.

The policies of the Trump administration are even worse than those of previous administrations, Republican and Democrat, none of which can be called truly humanitarian or in accordance with the principles of the Declaration of Independence. Instead our government and most Republicans have adopted the ideology of King George III and Starvation Dundas; that of the Know Nothings, that of the slaveholder, that of the Jim Crow segregationists, and worst of all that of the Nazi State.

To obey the law is to stand against the principles of the Sermon on the Mount, the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, the Four Freedoms, as well as the principles laid down by the United States and its allies at Nuremberg where Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson stated before the trials ever started:

“If certain acts of violation of treaties are crimes, they are crimes whether the United States does them or whether Germany does them, and we are not prepared to lay down a rule of criminal conduct against others which we would not be willing to have invoked against us.”

Jackson’s words do not matter to this President or his loyal followers, nor of the words of the Declaration or the Constitution.

I do not recognize my country anymore and I hope almost beyond hope that something will stop our slide into the abyss that Trump and his supporters are bringing upon us. I have to agree with Major General Henning Von Tresckow, a Plotter against Hitler who died in the aftermath of Operation Valkyrie:

“I cannot understand how people can call themselves Christian and not be furious opponents of the Hitler regime.”

He also wrote:

“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.”

Today we simply have to change one word in either of Von Tresckow’s quotes, Trump for Hitler and we also must seriously consider the words of Von Tresckow:

“A man’s moral worth is established only at the point where he is ready to give up his life in defense of his convictions.”

All of us have to show the world that we are not Trump’s America. If we do not we will most deserving of the condemnation of God and history on the United States.

So until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as declaration of independence, donald trump supporters, faith, History, Holocaust, jim crow laws, nazi germany, Political Commentary, president donald trump, racism

June 17, 2018 · 23:03

Preach the Truth: Silence in the Face of Evil is Itself Evil, Not to Speak is to Speak, Not to Act is to Act

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

We live in an unsettled world where almost everything that we had grown to accept as normal is being upended including basic understandings of societal responsibility and decency. Edward R. Murrow said in the days of the Red Scare and McCarthy hearings “that we are living in an age of confusion – a lot of us have traded in our beliefs for bitterness and cynicism or for a heavy package of despair, or even a quivering portion of hysteria.”

What is morally abhorrent is now promoted by many Evangelical and Catholic Christians as being obedient to God by being obedient to the state which is the same as being obedient to President Trump. To them the State is Trump and Trump is the State, therefore the ease in which they invoke scriptures out of context in the manner of the Nazis and others who oppressed people who were deemed to be inferior according to race, ethnicity, religion, or political belief.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.” Yes, this does matter. It is a stain upon our nation, but even more for the Christian it is a profound witness against Jesus Christ, and a stain upon his Church. If those who profess the name of Christ cannot stand in the face of evil then what use are we? Dietrich Bonhoeffer noted: Bonhoeffer wrote: “Silence in the face of evil is itself evil: God will not hold us guiltless. Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.”

Over the course of my life I have learned the terrible cost to one’s soul of remaining silent in the face of injustice. At this stage of my life I cannot do anything but tell the truth and be faithful to my baptismal, confirmation, and ordination vows. Likewise I cannot betray my oath to the Constitution. One place I can do this is in the pulpit and as I recall the First Amendment still applies to the pulpit even when one serves in the military.

So I today I preached in my chapel to give my Protestant pastor the day off. The text was the epistle lesson from the lectionary, 2nd Corinthians 5:6-17, which I extended to verse 20. The message was that the call to be ambassadors of Christ and his love for humanity is contrary to the support of the actions of the Trump Administration; especially and most notoriously the imprisonment of tens of thousands of would be immigrants seeking asylum in our country and the forced separation of thousands of children from their families.

The sermon became very political as I tied the words of scripture to the responsibilities of Christians as it applies to what is going on in this country. I condemned the complicity of Christians in the gross injustices being inflicted to immigrants and racial and religious minorities. I quoted Bonhoeffer, Gandhi, Dr. King, Niemoller and Sophie Scholl to condemn the actions of the Trump administration. I then quoted the President’s words of last month where he called immigrants animals and Stephen Miller’s words how the policy to forcibly separate children from their families being a simple decision. I mentioned that once you determined that any group of people were less than human such decisions were indeed simple.

I quoted pastor Robert Jeffress and his support for Trump and opposition to any candidate who would base his Presidency on the principles of the Sermon on the Mount. I compared his words to the words of Reichsbischof Muller who I think is a comparable figure about the Jews before Hitler came to power.

I also said “you cannot claim to be a pro-life Christian if you support ripping children from their parents and locking them in cages 22 hours a day to use them as a “bargaining chip” as President Trump did this week and I did not let up. I told the congregation that this Priest and Chaplain would pray for the victims of this administration’s policies and speak out against them.

During the sermon something happened that has never happened when I preached, about half a dozen people walked out. When you are preaching something After the service a number of other people, previously friendly were cold to me. But a number number of men, all African American Marine Corps or Navy retirees thanked me and wanted more of the history that I preached about.

Later I got a text from one of my Chaplains who told me: “Word on the street is that you brought it this morning, I quote “He raised his voice and it was if God was speaking” and they were squirming in their seats (in that good uncomfortable way).”

Anyway, pray for me, you never know when one of the disgruntled parishioners complains to commanding officers or even the media. But all that being said I will speak the truth. Bonhoeffer wrote:

“For the tyrannical despiser of humanity, popularity is a sign of the greatest love for humanity. He hides his profound distrust of all people behind the stolen words of true community. While he declares himself before the masses to be one of them, he praises himself with repulse vanity and despises the rights of every individual. He considers the people stupid, and they become stupid; he considers them weak, and they become weak; he considers them criminal, and they become criminal. His most holy seriousness is frivolous play; his conventional protestations of solicitude for people are bare-faced cynicism. In his deep contempt for humanity, the more he seeks the favor of those he despises, the more certainty he arouses the masses to declare him a god…”

Those words were written by Bonhoeffer about Hitler, but they can easily be applied to our President today and the actions of his administration and the acquiescence of his supporters.

Dr. King said “On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, “Is it safe?” Expediency asks the question, “Is it politic?” And Vanity comes along and asks the question, “Is it popular?” But Conscience asks the question “Is it right?” And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular, but he must do it because Conscience tells him it is right.”

Conscience demands that the truth be told. It is now more important than every to tell the truth from every promontory, from every pedestal, from every pulpit until it is heard throughout the entire land.

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as adolf hitler, dietrich bonhoeffer, donald trump supporters, Edward R Murrow, History, martin luther king jr, martin niemoller, nazi germany, Political Commentary, president donald trump, truth

June 16, 2018 · 23:44

A Thousand Years Will Pass and This Guilt Will Not Be Erased: How Genocide Begins

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I am posting late today because last night I was too tired to write and over the past few days I have been doing a lot of reading. Let me say up front that the title of this post will be condemned by some people as being hyperbolic, but I do not do hyperbole. I simply analyze current events in the light of history, sometimes unpleasant history.

I have been reading Neil Sheehan’s classic on the Vietnam War A Bright and Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and the United States in Vietnam, Joachim Fest’s Inside Hitler’s Bunker: The Last Days of the Third Reich, Guenter Lewy’s Perpetrators: The world of the Holocaust Killers, and Carry O’Connor’s book The Butcher of Poland: Hitler’s Lawyer Hans Frank, while skimming through the dairies of Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

Now admittedly that is a lot of reading and it is important because it gives me a much wider historical view of the present crimes of President Trump and his administration.

What gets me is the vast amount of lies that were told by the leaders of Nazi Germany and the United States in Vietnam to justify murderous polices were in the case of Germany labeled and judged as war crimes, but never admitted by the United States in its misadventure in Vietnam, or for that matter the criminal war against Iraq, a war that I began with by supporting and came away from in 2008 realizing was illegal, immoral, and criminal by any sense of the indictments made by the United States against the leaders of Nazi Germany at Nuremberg.

Now I look at the policies being employed by the Trump administration on the border with Mexico I see the United States using tactics which are so similar to the early actions of the Third Reich that they stir up feelings of dread, especially when those responsible are not held to account by, but actually cheered by his party. The are frightening when officials in high office who allegedly disagree with them still carry them out. They are frightening when the President himself uses them as “bargaining chips” in order to get his agenda passed. They are terrifying when religious people including the Attorney General of the United States misapply Bible verses to support those polices just like was done by the religious leaders of the Third Reich.

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson who served as the organizer and Chief prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trials wrote:

One day our nation will find itself at the dock of justice. No nation no-matter how powerful or how exceptional it believes itself to be ever escapes it. We ignore Justice Jackson’s words at our own peril. Frank declared at his trial:

“A thousand years will pass and this guilt of Germany will still not be erased.”

Sadly the Trump administration is just getting started and our collective guilt will only multiply as he and his deputies become more aggressive and resort to far more brutal means than they are using today. It won’t be hard for them to do so. While he protests that he hates his administration’s policies but instead of invoking his authority to act against them he blames Democrats for them and says that he is simply obeying the law, but it is not a law. Since the beginning of his campaign in 2015 the President has used the language of dehumanization to describe Mexicans, Central Americans, Blacks, Africans, Arabs, and others. He “jokes” to the Japanese Prime Minister during a moment at the G7 Summit that he will ship 25 million of them to Japan.

Hans Frank

It is not too far of leap to understand that Trump staff member Stephen Miller said today said “It was a simple decision by the administration to have a zero tolerance policy for illegal entry, period. The message is that no one is exempt from immigration law.”

Of course this is a lie. There is no law dictating the separation of families and imprisonment of people who are not criminals, only people who hope for a better life, as most of our immigrant ancestors did. The fact is that Miller is carrying out Trump’s decrees just as Frank did in the 1930s and 1940s. Frank told his fellow jurists in 1936:

“The National Socialist ideology is the foundation of all basic laws, especially as explained in the party program and in the speeches of the Führer … There is no independence of law against National Socialism. Say to yourselves at every decision which you make: ‘How would the Führer decide in my place?’ In every decision ask yourselves: ‘Is this decision compatible with the National Socialist conscience of the German people?’ Then you will have a firm iron foundation which, allied with the unity of the National Socialist People’s State and with your recognition of the eternal nature of the will of Adolf Hitler, will endow your own sphere of decision with the authority of the Third Reich, and this for all time… ‘The law is the will of the Führer.’”

Under Trump and his supporters this is our future and we will all be condemned because we allowed it to happen. When it is all said and done I am sure than many, if not most of us will echo the words of Martin Niemoller “first they came for… and I said nothing.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace,

Padre Steve+

Eichmann, and the Ever Present Reality of Endlösung

Eichmann1

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

On June 1st 1962 Adolf Eichmann was hanged in Israel for his crimes of mass murder and genocide. His appearance in the court where he portrayed himself as a functionary and bureaucrat who was repulsed by bloodshed and only following orders. So convincing was his act that Hannah Arendt wrote of him:

“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, for it implied — as had been said at Nuremberg over and over again by the defendants and their counsels — that this new type of criminal, who is in actual fact hostis generis humani, commits his crimes under circumstances that make it well-nigh impossible for him to know or to feel that he is doing wrong.”

Unfortunately there are people such as Arendt described, but Eichmann was not one of them. She wrote her commentary having only attended parts of the trial, but what she saw convinced her that Eichmann was ordinary and normal. She was convinced by his appearance and presentation at the trial that he was not the man who ran roughshod over Jews as well as German officials in order to execute the Final Solution. That phrase, “the banality of evil” has often been used to provide an alibi for men and women who wholeheartedly participated in the extermination of the Jews and others deemed to be less than human regardless of whether they were desk bound bureaucrats in Berlin, managers of the extermination camps, or the members of the Einsatzgruppen, the Ordungspolizei, or the Wehrmacht who systematically exterminated millions of people up close and personal.

Eichamnn was a true believer in the Nazi system and its desire to exterminate the Jews from the earth and he enjoyed what he did. He not only acted on orders but he anticipated them, as he told William Sassen in an interview while living undercover in Argentina in the 1950s:

“If we would have killed 10.3 million Jews, then I would be satisfied and would say, good, we annihilated an enemy. … I wasn’t only issued orders, in this case I’d have been a moron, but I rather anticipated, I was an idealist.”

Eichmann began his career by persecuting the Jews of Vienna but following the Wansee Conference he was entrusted by Reinhard Heydrich with overseeing the mechanics of implementing the Final Solution. He was only an SS Lieutenant Colonel but he wielded his power with such effect that he could ensure that Nazi functionaries senior to him did his bidding in regard to the Jews, He told Sassen:

“They knew me wherever I went. Through the press, the name Eichmann had emerged as a symbol…. In any case, the word Jew … was irreversibly linked with the word Eichmann. Much more power … was attributed to me than I actually had.”

Eichmann summed up the attitude of many when he said regarding his work to deport hundreds of thousands of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz in in just a few weeks during the fall of 1944, “Whether they were bank directors or mental cases, the people who were loaded on those trains meant nothing to me.” Speaking to Willem Sassen in 1957 Eichmann reveled in that accomplishment, “It was an achievement that was never matched before or since.” Eichmann also enjoyed leading his victims on, pretending that he might listen, and they might change his mind. Eichmann was proud of what he did. He told his staff, “I will leap into my grave laughing because the feeling that I have five million human beings on my conscience is for me a source of extraordinary satisfaction.”

His greatest accomplishment of genocide was in Hungary between March and May of 1944 when he orchestrated the “evacuation” of 437,000 Jews to Auschwitz, of which nearly 400,000 were exterminated in that camps massive gas chambers. His greatest regret was that Himmler and others, realizing that the war was lost were now trying to find ways to deal with the Allies using the Jews as bargaining chips. They put an end to his campaign leaving half of Hungary’s Jews alive, something that he detested to the end of his life for his superiors had taken away his reason for being.

Eichmann twisted language in a perverse manner to both glorify and justify his inhumanity. Bettina Stangneth, wrote in her book Eichmann Before Jerusalem:

“The language becomes entirely perverted where Eichmann turns metaphors on their heads, talking about expulsion and murder using gentle images of life. An institution for forced emigration was his “first child,” where he was able to “be creative in my work.” All the individual acts of robbery and expulsion that took place in Austria were committed to “provide [the country] with injections of Jewish solutions.” Even exterminations and deportations were “born”. This was why he felt so superfluous in Budapest, when he was forced to stop deporting people to Auschwitz: “As far as I know, I couldn’t have done anything fruitful anymore” … In Eichmann’s language, he didn’t send people to the death camps; the camps were “fed with material”.

Adolf Eichmann went to his death unrepentant and there is nothing to be mourned on this anniversary of his death, other than the fact that there are people who are much like him today. That is the terrifying reality. Some may be those faceless bureaucrats, but too many others would easily become killers. As Timothy Snyder noted:

“The European history of the twentieth century shows us that societies can break, democracies can fall, ethics can collapse, and ordinary men can find themselves standing over death pits with guns in their hands. It would serve us well today to understand why.”

Christopher Browning wrote in his book Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Holocaust in Poland:

“I fear that we live in a world in which war and racism are ubiquitous, in which the powers of government mobilization and legitimization are powerful and increasing, in which a sense of personal responsibility is increasingly attenuated by specialization and bureaucratization, and in which the peer group exerts tremendous pressures on behavior and sets moral norms. In such a world, I fear, modern governments that wish to commit mass murder will seldom fail in their efforts for being unable to induce “ordinary men” to become their “willing executioners.”

In such a world it is all too important that we never forget, especially now when we could be watching it begin all over again. Eichmann may be dead but he lives on and we must always remain vigilant, or the specter of the Holocaust will rise again, quite possibly in countries that are considered civilized and freedom loving, like the United States.

Never forget,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under ethics, History, holocaust, News and current events, Political Commentary, war crimes, world war two in europe

Tagged as adolf eichmann, auschwitz, banality of evil, bettina stangneth, christopher browning, eichmann trial, einsatzgruppen, GESTAPO, hannah arendt, heinrich himmler, Holocaust, ordungspolizei, Reinhard Heydrich, timothy snyder, wehrmacht, william sessen

May 14, 2018 · 00:05

Trump and Kelly: Leaders of the New Know Nothings

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Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I was not surprised when I read the words of President Trump’s Chief of Staff, John Kelly in an interview with NPR this week. Instead, I was reminded that the retired Marine Corps General has often expressed the views of the people that opposed the immigration and citizenship desires of his Irish and Italian ancestors. His Irish ancestors fled famine and British political persecution, while his Italian ancestors fled poverty and political instability.

For that matter we can say the same about his boss the President, whose German ancestors were discriminated against and persecuted from the time that the first major wave hit following the 1848 Revolution in Germany. The President’s Great Grandfather immigrated to the United States in 1885 fleeing poverty and obligatory military service to the Kingdom of Bavaria. He went to work as a barber in New York for a number of years and moved to Seattle when he opened a restaurant which also served as a hotel and base for prostitutes, something that he repeated during the Yukon Gold Rush. He became a U.S. citizen in 1892. He attempted to return to Bavaria in 1904 but was returned to the United States because the Bavarian government considered that he had immigrated to avoid military service. When the First World War came along he claimed to be Swedish and not German simply because of the stigma associated with being from a country that we were at war.

The fact is that the current policies and attitudes of the President, his Chief of Staff, and many of his followers in the Republican Party including White Supremacists, Klansmen, Neo-Nazis advocate for are not new and can be traced to the Know Nothing movement that began in the 1830s and reached its peak in the 1850s. While I do not believe that most of Trump’s Republicans are Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists, it does seem that almost all of the Neo-Nazis or White Supremacists are Trump supporters or Republicans, including the former head of the Illinois Nazis who is the GOP nominee for a House seat in Illinois, and the leading GOP candidate for Senate in California publicly proclaims his adoration of Adolf Hitler and support for a “Jew Free” United States. At least he was not endorsed by the California GOP who had the decency to expel him from their convention while he dragged the flag of Israel on the ground and spit on it. There are plenty of others, either current or past candidates or those who support identical policies to them without claiming their mantle, but I won’t for now. There are too many.

Conservative columnist and Trump opponent George Will discussed current and past immigration policies in the Washington Post. That article is well worth the read. Will quoted Peter H. Schuck, professor emeritus at Yale Law School who discussed how Congress in 1939 voted down a bill “to rescue 20,000 children from Nazi Germany despite American families’ eagerness to sponsor them — on the ground that the children would exceed Germany’s quota!”

The ancestors of both men fled poverty, famine, political persecution, and war to come to the United States. They made a life for themselves, and Kelly’s Italian ancestors did not speak English for decades after they arrived in the country. Italian immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th centuries were considered racially inferior by many Americans and were treated with distain and revulsion by many American “Anglo-Saxon” Protestant Christians. You would think that appreciating what their ancestors went through that the President and chief of Staff might have a little bit of sympathy for current immigrants, those who came here legally and those who did not for the same reasons that motivated their ancestors: freedom, safety, and opportunity. But they don’t.

When I see what they are doing to make immigration more white and to return people who came here legally, or were brought here as children and raised as Americans to countries that they either do not know or would be in danger if they returned I am reminded of, and echo of words of Abraham Lincoln who said:

“I am not a Know-Nothing. That is certain. How could I be? How can any one who abhors the oppression of negroes, be in favor or degrading classes of white people? Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that “all men are created equal.” We now practically read it “all men are created equal, except negroes” When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.” When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty — to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy [sic].”

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

Category Archives: holocaust

Mass Murder and Genocide up Close and Personal: The Einsatzgrüppen and Ordungs Polizei in Poland 1939-1940

Principiis obsta, Finem respice—Resist the beginnings, Consider the end: A Name Change at Padre Steve’s World

“Do not forget that every people deserves the regime it is willing to endure.” My Favorite Resistors, Part One: the Anti-Nazis

Accused and Threatened by a Christian Trump Cultist

Reflections on Life as an Authoritarian State Arises

Resist the Dystopian Law and Order of Trump or be Condemned by History

Preach the Truth: Silence in the Face of Evil is Itself Evil, Not to Speak is to Speak, Not to Act is to Act

A Thousand Years Will Pass and This Guilt Will Not Be Erased: How Genocide Begins

Eichmann, and the Ever Present Reality of Endlösung

Trump and Kelly: Leaders of the New Know Nothings

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