The Courtyard at Bendlerstraße Where Von Stauffenberg and others Were Executed
Friends of Padre Steve’s World,
July 20th holds many meanings and provides for inspiration for anyone who is human, with the exception of conspiracy theorists and deniers of history. Today we remember the 50th anniversary of the landing of the Landing Module Eagle of Apollo XI on the Moon. The success of the mission can be described as miraculous, a triumph of human achievement in an era of deep division. But twenty-five years to the day before the landing a few imperfect, yet courageous men and women dared to attempt the overthrow of Adolf Hitler and his genocidal Nazi regime.
Stauffenberg with Colonel Mertz von Quirnheim, another key Conspirator who was murdered with Stauffenberg when the Plot Failed
The participants knew that if they failed they would be labeled as traitors, and they were right. Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, who planted a bomb at Hitler’s East Prussian Headquarters was quite correct when he noted:
“I know that he who will act will go down in German history as a traitor; but he who can and does not, will be a traitor to his own conscience.”
Another conspirator, Major General Henning Von Tresckow was even more blunt about their prospects.
“It is almost certain that we will fail. But how will future history judge the German people, if not even a handful of men had the courage to put an end to that criminal?”
The plot failed, Hitler lived. Stauffenberg, Tresckow, many of their immediate associates died. Eventually, thousands of people, many of whom only were guilty of association. The purge and executions of those connected with the plot would continue to Hitler’s death.
In the days we live we are witnessing our President using the same words and terminology to describe anyone who opposes him. He disrespects the Constitution, and the instructions that were designed by our founders to prevent the rise of a tyrant. His words, actions, and policies tend toward both racism and fascism; and they foster violence. The steady rise in White Nationalist and neo-Nazi groups, that the President has not condemned, as well as the number of open White Nationalist and neo-Nazi men running for office at the local and state level as Republicans show that Trump is not a casual anomaly in the GOP. The President, like it or not, has become the voice of White Nationalism, and the far right. Republican moderates for the most part have acquiesced to the new order. Even long time supporters like former Attorney General Jeff Sessions, hardly a man considered liberal, were ruthlessly jettisoned by the President.
There are times that resistance seems almost hopeless. I was talking with one of my friends who is very discouraged about the situation. He is an idealist. I spent much of the evening trying to buck him up.
British Historian Laurence Rees wrote:
“human behavior is fragile and unpredictable and often at the mercy of the situation. Every individual still, of course, has a choice as to how to behave, it’s just that for many people the situation is the key determinate in that choice.”
We have to put an end to the Trump regime at the ballot box, or should Congress fulfill its Constitutional duties and begin impeachment hearings, regardless of whether a conviction is attained, he and his supporters have made statements that he may not give up power without a physical fight, that of course would bring about a Constitutional crisis and maybe civil war.
His former attorney, Michael Cohen has said exactly that. Trump is destroying the hard work of Americans and our allies to build a better would, and in almost every country, Trump is destroying the image and moral leadership of the United States. Patriotism requires that those committed to the ideals, institutions, and the laws of the country must resist when those are threatened, from inside or outside the country, and if they resist an elected President who shows no regard for those ideals, institutions, and laws, they will be labeled traitors. Tresckow said in his time:
“We have to show the world that not all of us are like him. Otherwise, this will always be Hitler’s Germany.”
Henning von Tresckow
Those are import words, but just substitute the name Trump for Hitler. Tresckow was no socialist or liberal, but he believed in freedom. In fact he wrote regarding the Prussian political tradition and how it could be subverted to support evil:
“The idea of freedom can never be disassociated from real Prussia. The real Prussian spirit means a synthesis between restraint and freedom, between voluntary subordination and conscientious leadership, between pride in oneself and consideration for others, between rigor and compassion. Unless a balance is kept between these qualities, the Prussian spirit is in danger of degenerating into soulless routine and narrow-minded dogmatism.”
Truthfully that is a spirit much like the United States that which is engulfing the United States today, soulless routine and narrow minded dogmatism. The tension that exists in the key ideal of the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, and the words of Trump and his supporters men who desire to rule by fiat and by extra-Constitutional means, cannot be more marked than it is today.
In the movie adaptation of the plot to kill Hitler Valkyrie: Tresckow is quoted:
“God promised Abraham that he would not destroy Sodom if he could find ten righteous men… I have a feeling that for Germany it may come down to one.”
To be sure, Trump is no Hitler, though his words sound more and more Hitlerian every day. I will not call the President a Nazi, though he has give tacit support to Neo-Nazi and White Supremacist groups and frequently engages in racist diatribes. He is certainly acting as any authoritarian leader would, and we have to heed the warning of Russian dissident Gary Kasparov:
“dictators & would be autocrats do not ask “Why?” when it comes to using power for their advantage. They ask “why not?”
To go back to the words of Tresckow in Valkyrie, in noting it may come down to the actions of one man or woman, my friends, that “one” may come down to you or me. We cannot sit silently by as more and more actions that would have been considered as criminal in any other era of United States are perpetrated by the President and his followers.
It was not until the late 1960s that most Germans considered the men who attempted to kill Hitler heroes and not traitors. Those who criticize, and work through legal and constitutional means to oppose Trump are already being labeled by him, his supporters, and the right wing media machine based at Fox News as enemies of the state, traitors, and mislabeled as Socialists and Communists; an old tactic of the American Right since the Russian Revolution. The truth doesn’t matter, it’s simply a way to stake rage against fellow citizens.
At this time we still have recourse to the law, elections, and our institutions. How long that remains is another matter. Once Hitler took absolute power, most Germans found ways to make their peace with his regime and turn a blind eye even to its crimes.
I don’t know if Trump will ever attain such absolute power, but it is possible. In which case the equation will change. If that happens risk of risk of resistance will be so high that many will go silent and just try to get along. Even without that kind of threat most Republicans have already done that.
Sophie Scholl and Members of the White Rose in Munich Near the Ost Bahnhof in 1942
That is the real danger, when people who know better acquiesce for their own safety. Sophie Scholl, a 22 year old student at the University of Munich was part of a resistance movement called The White Rose. She and her friends, students and professors embarked on writing pamphlets to distribute throughout Germany to tell the truth about the evils of the Nazi regime. She wrote about this danger:
“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”
I have more to write on this but will close for the night.
So until tomorrow,
Peace,
Padre Steve+
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