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December 6, 2016 · 06:30

“Our World in Stupor Lies…” December 6th 1941 at 75

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Walter Lord wrote this perceptive and prophetic comment about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, “A nation brought up on peace was going to war and didn’t know how.” His words still resonate as most people have no idea about the reality of war. Despite terrorist attacks on major cites and unending war in the Middle East, Afghanistan, and parts of Africa, for most Americans and Western Europeans this is time of peace. Well, at least the illusion of peace.

Today tens of thousands of American, NATO and European Union troops operating in a number of mandates are in harm’s way. In some places like Afghanistan they are at war, in others attempting to keep the peace amidst a resurgence of the Taliban. Around the world regional conflicts, civil wars, insurgencies and revolutions threaten not only regional peace but the world peace and economy. Traditional national rivalries and ethnic and religious tensions especially in Asia and the broader Middle East have great potential to escalate into wars that should they actually break will involve the US, NATO and the EU, if not militarily economically and diplomatically.

But, we live in a dream world an illusory world of peace, that entraps political leaders across the political spectrum. It is as W.H. Auden wrote in his poem September 1st 1939:

Defenseless under the night
Our world in stupor lies…

On December 6th 1941 the world was already at war and the United States was edging into the war. The blood of Americans has already been shed but for the vast majority of Americans the events in Europe and Asia were far away and not our problem. Though President Roosevelt had began the expansion of the military there were those in Congress seeking to demobilize troops and who fought all attempts at to intervene.

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Most people went about their business that last furtive day of peace. People went about doing their Christmas shopping, going to movies like The Maltese Falcon staring Humphrey Bogart or the new short Tom and Jerry cartoon, The Night Before Christmas.

Tom And Jerry

Others went to football games. UCLA and USC had played their annual rivalry game to a 7-7 tie, Texas crushed Oregon in Austin by a score of 71-7 while Texas A&M defeated Washington State in the Evergreen Bowl in Tacoma by a score of 7-0.

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In Europe a Soviet counter-offensive was hammering a freezing and exhausted German Wehrmacht at the gates of Moscow. U-Boats were taking a distressing toll of ships bound for Britain including neutral US merchant ships and warships, including the USS Reuben James. American Airmen were flying as the volunteer Flying Tigers for the Nationalist Chinese against the Japanese invaders.

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War was everywhere but there was still the illusion of peace. When the messages came out of Pearl Harbor the next morning it was already early afternoon on the East Coast. The Japanese Ambassador had been delayed in delivering the declaration of war, people across the country going about their Sunday business, going to church, relaxing or listening to the radio. Thus when war came, despite all the precursors and warnings war came. When it happened it took the nation by surprise. Walter Lord wrote in his classic account of the Pearl Harbor attack Day of Infamy: “A nation brought up on peace was going to war and didn’t know how.”

By the end of the day over 2400 Americans were dead and over 1200 more wounded. The battleships of the Pacific Fleet were shattered. 4 sunk, one grounded and 3 more damaged. 10 other ships were sunk or damaged in the attack. 188 aircraft were destroyed and 159 damaged.

The next day President Franklin D. Roosevelt called the nation to action requesting that Congress declare war on Japan.

Mr. Vice President, and Mr. Speaker, and Members of the Senate and House of Representatives:

Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that Nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with its Government and its Emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific. Indeed, one hour after Japanese air squadrons had commenced bombing in the American Island of Oahu, the Japanese Ambassador to the United States and his colleague delivered to our Secretary of State a formal reply to a recent American message. And while this reply stated that it seemed useless to continue the existing diplomatic negotiations, it contained no threat or hint of war or of armed attack.

It will be recorded that the distance of Hawaii from Japan makes it obvious that the attack was deliberately planned many days or even weeks ago. During the intervening time the Japanese Government has deliberately sought to deceive the United States by false statements and expressions of hope for continued peace.

The attack yesterday on the Hawaiian Islands has caused severe damage to American naval and military forces. I regret to tell you that very many American lives have been lost. In addition American ships have been reported torpedoed on the high seas between San Francisco and Honolulu.

Yesterday the Japanese Government also launched an attack against Malaya.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Hong Kong.
Last night Japanese forces attacked Guam.
Last night Japanese forces attacked the Philippine Islands.
Last night the Japanese attacked Wake Island. And this morning the Japanese attacked Midway Island.

Japan has, therefore, undertaken a surprise offensive extending throughout the Pacific area. The facts of yesterday and today speak for themselves. The people of the United States have already formed their opinions and well understand the implications to the very life and safety of our Nation.

As Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy I have directed that all measures be taken for our defense.

But always will our whole Nation remember the character of the onslaught against us.

No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory. I believe that I interpret the will of the Congress and of the people when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never again endanger us.

Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our people, our territory, and our interests are in grave danger.

With confidence in our armed forces- with the unbounding determination of our people- we will gain the inevitable triumph- so help us God.

I ask that the Congress declare that since the unprovoked and dastardly attack by Japan on Sunday, December 7, 1941, a state of war has existed between the United States and the Japanese Empire.

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Today thousands of US and NATO troops are deployed in Afghanistan, while others are advising Iraqi forces and Syrian rebels in the fight against the so called Islamic State. Some of them are dying in places that most of us do not care about in the least, so that others might have a chance at peace and a better life. Eleanor Roosevelt reflected:

“Lest I keep my complacent way I must remember somewhere out there a person died for me today. As long as there must be war, I ask and I must answer was I worth dying for?”

Wars, revolutions and other tensions in other parts of the world threaten on every side, but most Americans and Europeans live in the illusion of peace. A very few professionals are given the task of preparing for and fighting wars that our politicians, business leaders, Armageddon seeking preachers and the talking heads of the media sow the seeds. As such many have no idea of the human, material and spiritual cost of war and when it comes again in all of its awful splendor few will be prepared.

We do not know what tomorrow will bring and unfortunately for the vast bulk of Americans and Western Europeans the comments of Walter Lord and W.H. Auden are as applicable today as they were on December 7th 1941 for our world in stupor lies…

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under Foreign Policy, History, Military, national security, world war two in the pacific

Tagged as franklin roosevelt, franklin roosevelt day of infamy speech, imperial japan, imperial japanese navy, nazi germany, pearl harbor attack, the maltese falcon, tom and jerry cartoons, w.h. auden, walter lord

September 26, 2016 · 23:13

From Dachau to Nuremberg

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

Tonight, or rather early this morning I am in Munich Germany for the Oktoberfest, but over the past two days Judy and I have been to the Dachau Concentration Camp and the Palace of Justive in Nuremberg.

I have been to Dachau before, nearly twenty years ago, but Judy has never been there. It is a sobering site. Dachau was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz, but rather a place to imprison polical, religious, and other opponents and undesirables, but also to humiliate them and take away any shred of their humanity before killing them through torture, starvation, medical experiments, or other repressive measures. The exhibits even detailed things that ordinary Germans, and Nazi Party members bragged about “taking people to Dachau” on floats during festival times at their version of Carnival.

Dachau was not an extermination camp like Auschwitz, it was a camp designed to crush political, religious, and racial,opposition to the Nazi state, that the Nazis were proud of it. I was the pioneer, it was the “model camp” on which all subsequent camps in the Nazi system used in dealing with the enemies of the Nazi state. When you go to Dachau the documentary evidence is overwhelming and the physical images, the preservation of the devices of torture, and killing all to real to deny. What happened there was beyond the imagination.

The people initially rounded up by the Nazis and sent to Dachau were political, social, and religious leaders who had stood against them before the takeover. Any accusation was good enough for the Nazis to arrest, imprision, persecute, torture, and kill these men and women, and many of those decisions came in Saal 600, the main courtroom in Nuremberg’s Palace of Justice, the very courtroom that within 13 years would be the site of the Nuremberg trials, both the trials of the major war criminals, but also the leaders of the military, the SS, the mass murder units of the Einsatzgruppen, the doctors who committed inhuman medical experiments on innocent people, and who exterminated the disabled, the judges who adapted themselves to serve the Nazi regime, the corporations like Krupp and I G Farben, as well as the leaders of Nazi organizations.

The two locations are two sides of the same coin. The Nazi defeat allowed Dachau to be seen and exposed as a place of horror that the Nazi we’re proud of and of which many German citizens approved. The trials at Nuremberg demonstrated to the world that a modern, civilized, cultured, and dare I say “Christian” nation in a very short time can become a criminal state, committing genocide as just one of many crimes against humanity. In that time many otherwise moral, upstanding people, either signed on and became participants in those crimes or said nothing against those crimes.

These places also remind all of us that the what the Nazis did could be repeated in otherwise civilized Western nations, including the United States. When one hears some of the policy statements of Donald Trump, and the actions of his supporters one cannot help to be reminded of the last few years before the Nazi takeover and what happened in its aftermath. One cannot with an open mind and listening ear interpret his words and some of his supporters actions in any other way. That my friends is frieghtening.

For me these trips amidst a visit to the Oktoberfest in Munich were important. While I have been to Dachau some twenty years ago, that site has been improved with the work that has been done in the museum. Likewise, the museum for the Nuremberg trials let me imagine being in that courtroom that I teach about in my ethics class at the Staff College, a class when I try to implant in the minds of the men and women who will be the future Generals, and Admirlas of not only own nation, but of our allied nation partners, that what they do in positive ways, as well as negative ways matters from more than a military viewpoint.

Well it is very late, it has been a long day and when we get up we have some plans. So have a great day.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under holocaust, Political Commentary, war crimes

Tagged as dachau concentration camp, hitler. donald trump, Holocaust, nazi germany, nuremberg trials, palace of justice, saal 600

March 16, 2016 · 07:00

Be Careful What You Vote Against

Friends of Padre Steve’s Worl

Since the Illinois and Missouri primary results will not be settled before I pass out tonight I will save my article about the results of what happened last night until tomorrow. As such I see no reason to do much commentary other than to note that Missouri is going to be close in both the Republican and Democratic races.

Because of that I am republishing an article that I wrote almost four years ago. Truthfully, no matter what your political leanings are I think that is important and well worth the read. I find that too many people don’t take the time to examine the second, third, and fourth order consequences of their actions, and that includes the action of casting a vote. Far to many votes are cast out of emotions, especially those of fear and anger, and without thought of the long term consequences. That was the case in less than a century ago in Germany.

I was reminded oft his article when a friend of mine remembered it and posted a link to it on Facebook a couple of days ago. In his note about it he noted that I was well ahead of the media. I hate it when that happens, but such is the danger of being a historian who has the capacity of self-reflection. The article is here in its entirety. I have not updated it with any references to Donald Trump or the violence that is occurring with startling regularity on the campaign trail. Even so it is decidedly uncomfortable reading, especially when I see quite a few Evangelical leaders, including pastors, and media pundits endorsing Trump.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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

Martin Niemöller

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

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

Herman Maas

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

Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Dietrich Bonhoeffer a young Pastor and theologian would also step up to oppose the Nazis and offer support for the Jews. He helped draft the Bethel Confession which among other things rejected “every attempt to establish a visible theocracy on earth by the church as a infraction in the order of secular authority. This makes the gospel into a law. The church cannot protect or sustain life on earth. This remains the office of secular authority.” He also helped draft the Barmen declaration which opposed and condemned Nazi Christianity. Bonhoeffer would eventually along with members of his family take an active role in the anti-Nazi resistance as a double agent for Admiral Canaris’ Abwehr. For this he would be executed after his final sermon in the concentration camp at Flossenburg just a month prior to the end of the war. Bonhoeffer wrote “If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction.”

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

Bernard Lichtenberg

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

Rupert Meyer

All these men took risks to defend the Jews who were religious minority group that had been traditionally discriminated against in Germany. They opposed the Nazi policies which were widely supported by much of the German populace making them unpopular in their own churches as among the traditionally conservative supporters of the Evangelical and Catholic Churches. The Jews were not simply discriminated against as a racial or religious group but also identified with the political left, especially the Social Democrats, Independent Socialists, Communists and the Spartacists.

Since the Independent Socialists, Communists and Spartacists were all involved in attempts to create a Soviet state during the early tumultuous years of Weimar and been involved in many acts of violence against traditional German institutions and the state, they were viewed by Hitler and others as part of the Bolshevik-Jewish threat to Germany. A sentiment harbored by many non-Nazi conservatives and Christians.

Karl Liebnicht and Rosa Luxembourg were among the high profile leaders of this movement in Germany and both were Jewish. The fact that many in the leadership of the Bolshevik movement in theSoviet Union were Jewish added fuel to the fire that the Nazis stoked in Germany. Hitler and the Nazis played on the historic, but muted prejudice against German Jews who in many cases were more secular and German than religious and had assimilated well in Germany. Hitler’s rhetoric as well as that of other Nazis and Nazi publications helped identify the Jews as part of the “Stab in the back” myth that was commonly used by the German right to explain the defeat in the First World War. Thus they were painted as a political and social threat to Germany.

Nazi Political and Religious Opponents in Concentration Camps

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

Hitler portrayed himself and his movement as defenders of Christianity. He was not the first or last to do so but his speech of February 1st 1933, the day after he was appointed Chancellor by President Hindenburg made it abundantly clear that he was bent on securing the support of Christians to solidify his grip on power: “The National Government will regard it as its first and foremost duty to revive in the nation the spirit of unity and co-operation. It will preserve and defend those basic principles on which our nation has been built. It regards Christianity as the foundation of our national morality, and the family as the basis of national life. . . .”

The Sturmabteilung (SA) at Church

Churches became sponsors of Nazi meetings, the Swastika banner hung in the sanctuaries of churches throughout the Reich and Bishops, Priests and Pastors joined Nazi organizations and gave the Nazi salute. They had sold their soul to Hitler and the Nazis out of fear of the Communists, Socialists, Jews and Slavs.

Eric Hoffer noted that “It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable.” Hitler and his enablers spread fear and took advantage of it to bring those fearful of the left to his support.

Hitler leaving a Church

Today we face a similar phenomena in conservative circles in the United States. This time it is not the Jews but Moslems, Gays, immigrants and racial minorities who are the targets of the xenophobic rage by many influential members of the “conservative” media including Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity and numerous others. Their popularity in voicing support for “Christian morale values” such as being against abortion has ingratiated them with conservative Christians. It is so bad that that many “conservative” Christians cannot differentiate between their vitriolic and un-Christian rage against Moslems, Gays and Lesbians, trade unionists, Democrats or anyone else portrayed by the big media talkers and the Gospel.

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

There are those on the far right that advocate eliminating all Moslems from the military, government, security intelligence and police forces and even universities. Similar threats are made against non-European immigrants, legal and illegal alike especially those from Mexico or Latin America. I have a friend; a Navy Officer who served a year in Iraq that was confronted by a member of the “Minutemen” in Texas to show his Green Card and threatened simply because he is Mexican. Others especially conservative Christians suggest criminalizing homosexuality, jailing homosexuals or putting them in concentration camps, deporting them or even punishing gays with the death penalty.

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

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

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

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

During the Republican Presidential primaries major leaders of the Evangelical movement and churches did all that they could to paint Mitt Romney as a religious cultist because he is Mormon. When Romney secured the nomination those same people started backtracking and committing their support to him because they believe that President Obama is an enemy of the country. They don’t like Romney, they are just against Obama. Romney will remember what they called him and their tepid support. If he becomes President he will not be beholden to them and will govern as he desires. Laws and Executive orders that give expanded power to the Executive Branch will not be overturned and if Evangelicals decide that they don’t like what he is doing and act toward him as they have President Obama they could find themselves on the outside and abandoned by the man that they supported.

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

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

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

It is easy for well meaning people Niemöller to be bought with promises of support by politicians and media types who speak the words they want to hear in difficult times. So today I suggest the formation of an ecumenical Pastor’s Emergency League which will not be bought by the empty and godless promises of hate mongers on the right or the left. Such a group of men and women spanning the breadth of the Christian tradition and others that see the danger of extremism of all types is becoming necessary. Such a step is becoming necessary due to the militancy of the Christian right as well as the militancy of atheist groups who lobby against all public religious expression by any religion. Such a League would respect the various creeds and statements of faith of each member’s denomination. The movement of the right has set a dangerous course fraught with perils that they do not comprehend.

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

Niemöller would say it well in this poem:

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

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Tagged as abwehr, adolf hitler, Aryan paragraph, barmen declaration, bernard lichtenberg, bethel confession, bill of rights, bishop galen, chief justice john roberts, christian moral values, christian right, concentration camps, confessing church, conservative bible project, democratic party, democrats, dietrich bonhoeffer, donald trump, english common law, eric hoffer, eric rudolph, father rupert meyer, fear, first amendment, first they came for the communists, fred phelps, friedrich ebert, gays, herman maas, independent socialists, james madison, jews, karl barth, karl liebnicht, legal precedence, martin niemoller, mormons, moslems, national socialists, nazi germany, nazi persecution of jews, nuremberg laws, pfarrernotbund, Political Commentary, politics of fear, republican party, republicans, roe v. wade, rosa luxembourg, rush limbaugh, scott roeder, sean hannity, social democrat party, social gospel, socialists, spartacist league, stab in the back myth, sturmabteilung sa, texas minutemen, the constitution, the holocaust, the holocuast, vom u-boot zur Kanzel, weimar germany, weimar republic, westboro baptist church, wilhelm canaris, yad vashem righteous among the nations

January 1, 2016 · 07:00

Pursuing the Truth: New Year 2016

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

Marcus Aurelius wrote, “If someone is able to show me that what I think or do is not right, I will happily change, for I seek the truth, by which no one was ever truly harmed. It is the person who continues in his self-deception and ignorance who is harmed.”

Before I say anything else I just want to thank you for taking the time out of your schedule to read, comment and even share what I write. That matters to me and a good number of you have followed my writings for years. So I truly thank you from the bottom of my heart, and if you like what you see please comment and share with others.

As I get older I realize how valuable time is. There are few commodities that truly cannot be replaced or conserved, time is one that is always fleeting. As Dr. Suess said:

“How did it get so late so soon? It’s night before it’s afternoon. December is here before it’s June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?”

That being said I am not a fan of New Year’s resolutions, in fact I generally don’t make any because frankly I think that most are a waste of time. However, I do not think that the pursuit of truth is a waste, and as Benjamin Disraeli noted so wisely; “Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time.”

To that end, as I did last year I am going to endeavor this year to commit myself to continue to seek truth and to speak truth, wherever that takes me. Truth matters to me. In my life I have seen so many lies, especially by political and religious leaders that I trusted that I now devote myself to the pursuit of truth. As Captain Jean Luc Picard told the young Cadet Wesley Crusher in Star Trek the Next Generation episode The First Duty: “the first duty of every Starfleet officer is to the truth, whether it’s scientific truth, historical truth or personnel truth…”

So, I will continue to write, especially about historical subjects that have an impact today: civil rights and social justice, faith, military issues, PTSD and military health issues, the Middle East conflicts and a number of other topics. Of course I will write about baseball, which is often my refuge when things are too much for me and music. I may do more regarding music as I was asked to do an article for a journal about liturgical music, stress and resiliency.

I will continue to be as transparent as I can about my own struggles with PTSD and faith in the hopes that my journey will help others who struggle like me. In fact this was a major reason that I started this site back in February of 2009.

Expect more writing about the Battle of Gettysburg and the Civil War. I have a feeling that that is going to become a life work, even after I retire from the Navy. The American Civil War is so pertinent to who and what we are as a nation and the more I study it, the people, the issues and the ideologies involved I see many parallels with today; some of which are positively frightening. So expect a lot more about these subjects. In fact the Civil War is one in which debunked myths still hold sway over many, especially among the defenders of the Lost Cause who predominate the Christian Right.

In addition to that I expect to be going back to some of my older research and writing about the social, religious, political, and ideological dynamics of Weimar and Nazi Germany and how similar that are to some things going on now in our own country.

While lies are dangerous the myths can be more so, and the proliferation of lies, half-truths and myth have shriveled the brain cells of those who enjoy the comfort of opinion without the benefit of thought. President John F. Kennedy spoke of this in 1962, and his words are timely, especially when hordes of preachers, pundits and politicians, the Trinity of Evil, do this with abandon:

“The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie–deliberate, contrived and dishonest–but the myth–persistent, persuasive and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.”

To do this I have to constantly challenge my own thoughts, beliefs, and opinions. So with that resolution I wish you a good day and a Happy New Year. Thank you for reading, sharing, commenting, and encouraging me. Until tomorrow.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as american civil war, american politics, battle of gettysburg, captain jean luc picard, faith, Marcus Aurelius, nazi germany, new years resolutions, PTSD, pursuit of truth, the first duty, weimar and nazi era

December 9, 2015 · 07:00

It Fitted In: A Personal Reflection on Propaganda

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

A number of days ago I wrote an article about the dehumanization of people and genocide. Since I am a historian and much of my undergraduate and graduate work focused on German history, particularly that of Imperial Germany after the unification, the Weimar Republic, and the Nazi Reich, I draw a lot of lessons from the period. I also understand how people in this country can fall for the same kind of vitriolic propaganda that the Germans of that era did. I can understand because for years I fell for the lies and propaganda being put out by the politicians, pundits and preachers of the American political right.

One of those lessons is that in times of crisis, that people, no matter what their race, culture, religious belief system, educational, or economic background are still human. Humanity is the one constant in all of history, our prejudices are often ingrained in us during childhood and reinforced by the words of politicians, pundits, and preachers. In times of stress, crisis, and societal change or upheaval even good people, moral people, people of great intellectual, scientific abilities can fall prey to demagogues who preach hate and blame others, usually racial, ethnic, or religious minorities, as well as civil libertarians who champion the rights of those minorities for the problems of the nation.

Shrewd politicians, preachers, and pundits do this well. They demonize the target group or population and then let the hatred of their disaffected followers flow. The leaders need that disaffected and angry base in order to rise to power; such was how Hitler, Stalin, and so many other despots gained power. They took advantage of a climate of fear, and found others to blame. For Hitler it was the Jews; while for Stalin it was various groups like the Ukrainians, or the Poles who were the devil to be feared and destroyed. Timothy Snyder in his book Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin wrote:

“Dead human beings provided retrospective arguments for the rectitude of policy. Hitler and Stalin thus shared a certain politics of tyranny: they brought about catastrophes, blamed the enemy of their choice, and then used the death of millions to make the case that their policies were necessary or desirable. Each of them had a transformative utopia, a group to be blamed when its realization proved impossible, and then a policy of mass murder that could be proclaimed as a kind of ersatz victory.”

But that being said, there are a lot of people who from childhood believe the lies about others without question. In good times such people continue on with life as normal, but in crisis those hatreds and prejudices come to the fore. Rudolf Höss, the notorious sociopath who commanded Auschwitz told American Army psychologist Gustave Gilbert about his reaction when ordered to turn the camp into an extermination center. He said that the order “fitted in with all that had been preached to me for years,” and “at the time I didn’t think of it as propaganda, but as something one just had to believe.”

Eugene Davidson in his book on the Nuremberg Trials wrote:

“Every society has in it at all times negative, criminal, sadistic, asocial forces. What holds them in check more than law and police is the consensus of the society – a general belief that despite everything wrong and stupid and muddleheaded in politics, the state is a going concern that will somehow make its way into the future.” (Davidson, The Trial of the Germans p.581)

But when things do not go well, when people do not feel that things will be okay, that the future will be better, and that they have a purpose they look for answers. However, they tend to find their answers in the rantings of demagogues, race baiters, conspiracy theorists, and others who they would tend to dismiss out of hand in good times. In Germany it was the loss of the First World War, the humiliation of Versailles and the economic chaos and social change of the Weimar period which allowed Hitler to gain an audience, then a following, then political power. The demagogues played to what was already in the hearts and minds of the disaffected masses, without that fertile soil, the rantings of Hitler and his propagandists would have never succeeded. Albert Speer wrote:

“As I see it today, Hitler and Goebbels were in fact molded by the mob itself, guided by its yearnings and its daydreams. Of course, Goebbels and Hitler knew how to penetrate through to the instincts of their audiences; but in the deeper sense they derived their whole existence from these audiences. Certainly the masses roared to the beat set by Hitler’s and Goebbels’ baton; yet they were not the true conductors. The mob determined the theme. To compensate for misery, insecurity, unemployment, and hopelessness, this anonymous assemblage wallowed for hours at a time in obsessions, savagery and license. The personal unhappiness caused by the breakdown of the economy was replaced by a frenzy that demanded victims. By lashing out at their opponents and vilifying the Jews, they gave expression and direction to fierce primal passions.”

In a sense a similar thing has happened in the United States which has experienced a series of wars beginning with Vietnam, the shock of the 9-11-2001 attacks, the economic crash of 2007 and 2008 which devastated the savings, home ownership, and investments of many Americans while at the same time benefiting the banking and brokerage houses whose government assisted policies brought about the crash. Of course there are other issues, many religious conservatives hate the progress made by the Women’s and Gay Rights movements, and their leaders play to their fears in apocalyptic terms. I could go on, but I am sure that my readers can identify other issues which demagogues and others use to spread fear and hate to further their goals. The fact is that without the the fertile soil that lays in the hearts of their most fervent followers they would never have a following.

In Weimar Germany hate mongers like Julius Streicher and propagandist Josef Goebbels stuck a chord with disenchanted people who felt that they had lost their country. They were fearful, angry, and desired a leader who would “make Germany great again.” Hitler and his Nazi media sycophants played to that fear, and took advantage of their anger at the existing order. Davidson wrote such people “exist everywhere and in a sick society they can flourish.”

For decades the way has been prepared for true extremists to take advantage of the fears and doubts of people as modern American versions of Streicher and Goebbels have been at work for years. Rush Limbaugh was a modern pioneer of this in the United States, and he has been joined by so many who are even more extreme in their rantings that it is hard to name them all. Likewise, whole media corporations, websites, and political networks spread such fear every minute of the day, claiming that they, and they alone are real Americans. They actively support politicians who condemn, and sometimes even threaten people who oppose them, and all the while claim that “they will make America great again.”

When I was younger I devoured that propaganda, despite all of my learning I followed the rantings of men who I realize today are propagandists who promote the basest of lies, and hatred, often in the name of God. I was changed when I was at war, and when I returned home from Iraq in 2008 I realized through hard experience that I had been lied to, and that as a result that thousands of my brothers and sisters were dead, and tens of thousands shattered in body, mind, and spirit. Likewise I saw the massive destruction levied on Iraq and realized how terrible war really is. That was my epiphany, that is what it took to see how much I had been lied to, and it called me to question everything else that I had so willingly believed, things which had been fed to me by years of indoctrination in church, through the media, and by politicians who I believed were truly Christian. I can understand now how Martin Niemoller felt after the Nazi seizure of power when he said, “I hated the growing atheistic movement, which was fostered and promoted by the Social Democrats and the Communists. Their hostility toward the Church made me pin my hopes on Hitler for a while. I am paying for that mistake now; and not me alone, but thousands of other persons like me.”

There was a time that I hated people who espouse the views that I hold today, the views that I write about so often here on this site. I can remember how angry I would get as I listened to the propaganda being put out by Limbaugh, Hannity, the Fox News Channel and all of the others that I listened to every time that I had the chance. But when I changed after Iraq, I felt the sting of that hatred in very real ways. I remember the day I was called by my bishop in my former church, who told me that I had to leave because my views on women, gays, and Moslems were to use his words were now “too liberal.” After that, many men who I considered to be the best of friends turned their backs on me, some in the most bitter and vindictive of ways.

But I realize now that what they did was because I had in a sense left the cult, and had to be ostracized. I can understand that now, because when I was under the spell I too turned my back on people who had fallen out of favor, or people who had rejected the tenants of the church or the political movement, and those are things that I can never undo. But at the time it made sense, it fitted in with all I had been taught for decades, as Albert Speer wrote of Hitler, “One seldom recognizes the devil when he is putting his hand on your shoulder.”

Until tomorrow,

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as adolf hitler, Albert Speer, eugene davidson, fox news channel, gustave gilbert, josef goebbels, josef stalin, julius streicher, martin niemoller, nazi germany, political preachers, politicians, propaganda, pundits, rudolf hoss, rush limbaugh, sean hannity, weimar republic

October 16, 2015 · 07:00

Lebensraum & the Foundation of Genocide

Introduction

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

This is the second part of an article that deals with war crimes, genocide and how seemingly normal human beings can become complicit in such crimes. To understands this we must look at some of the intellectual and ideological foundations.

Peace

Padre Steve+

The German war against the Soviet Union was the first truly race-based ideological war in history with the campaign against Poland its precursor. Adolf Hitler’s racial theories and beliefs played a dominant role in Germany’s conduct of the war in the East in both the military campaign and occupation. This has become clearer in recent years as historians have had the opportunity to examine Hitler’s writings, those of senior Nazi officials and military officers and documents which had been unavailable until the end of the Cold War. Understanding the Nazi ideological basis and the underlying cultural prejudice against the Jews and eastern Europeans in general is foundational to understanding Hitler’s conduct of the war and why the destruction of the Jews figured so highly in his calculations. One must also understand the military and police cultures and doctrines that enabled them to cooperate so closely in the conduct of the war.

The German war in the east would differ from any previous war. Its underlying basis was ideological. Economic and geopolitical considerations were given importance in relationship to the understanding of the German “Master Race.” Race and Lebensraum was the goal of the State that “concentrates all of its strength on marking out a way of life for our people through the allocation of Lebensraum for the next one hundred years…the goal corresponds equally to the highest national and ethnic requirements.” 1

Hitler believed that Germany was “entitled to more land…because it was the “mother of life” not just some “little nigger nation or another.”” 2 The Germans planned to “clear” the vast majority of the Slavic population and the “settlement of millions of hectares of eastern Lebensraum with German colonists” complimented by a short term exploitation of the land to “secure the food balance of the German Grossraum.” 3 Joachim Fest notes that Hitler called it a “crime” to wage war only for the acquisition of raw materials. Only the issue of living space permitted resort to arms. 4

Following the Peace of Westphalia wars in Europe typically emphasized conquest of territory and natural resources either to expand empires or promote some kind of self-sufficiency. The Thirty Years War, which was ended by the Treaty of Westphalia had a heavy religious component which added to its brutality. However the root of much of this conflict was about increasing the power of emerging nation states led by men not necessarily loyal to their religious brethren. 5

The American and Russian Civil wars had some ideological basis and helped usher in the brutality of total war. Both had major effect in these nations’ development and both were bitterly contested with the winners imposing to various degrees political changes on their vanquished brothers they were civil wars. 6

Adam Tooze sees the Holocaust as the first step of the “last great land grab in the long and bloody history of European colonialism…” 7 This does have merit, Hitler’s desire for Lebensraum or living space was a type of colonialism. However, Tooze’s argument does not take away from the basic premise that Germany’s war in the east was at its heart motivated by ideological factors.

Lebensraum

German Anti-Semitism and Adolf Hitler

The root of this war was in the mind of Adolf Hitler himself. Hitler was born in Linz Austria during a time when various Pan-German and Ant-Semitic groups, publications and propaganda were widespread. As a young man Hitler moved to Vienna hoping to become an artist, something that he found little commercial success. While struggling to make a living in Vienna he was exposed to a culture far different from the provincial city of his youth, a city that had much culture but was also a meeting ground for the various peoples that populated the Austro- Hungarian Empire, including Slavs and many Jews. While many of the Germanic or Austrian Jews were outwardly little different from their Christian neighbors the Jews from Eastern Europe repulsed Hitler.

This attitude was not unique to German but found its roots in the various anthropologies written by other Europeans as well as Germans regarding the lack of rights of “inferior cultures” as related to their colonial expansion as well as the westward expansion of Americans. Friedrich Ratzel a German anthropologist and a founder of the Pan-German League paired the Jews with “the stunted hunting people of the African interior” into “the class of scattered people with no

land.” 8 Ratzel’s work where he also studied the conquest of the Native American tribes by whites helped form the basis of Hitler’s Understanding of Lebensraum, a concept that he borrowed from Ratzel. Ratzel was originally a zoologist. In his concept of Lebensraum Ratzel “linked the biological theory of life with the geographical theory of space.” Ratzel believed that to “conquer and hold sufficient Lebensraum, others have to be displaced.” Ratzel noted how European settles had taken over land from the Native Americans to take it for themselves. He noted that “the result was an annihilating struggle, the prize for which was the land, the space.” 9

Another German academic and lecturer at the University of Glasgow Alexander Tille, wrote in 1893 that it is “the right of the stronger race to annihilate the lower…when that race does not maintain its ability to resist then it has no right to exist, for anyone who cannot maintain himself must be content to go under.” Tille’s “laws” were easily applied to both primitive peoples as well as to “the economically less successful peoples of Europe.” 10

Hitler’s lack of success, struggle with poverty and resentment of others led him to the writings of the Pan-Germanic and Anti-Semitic movements. His years in Vienna were foundational as he as he absorbed the ideas of these Pan-German, anti-Semitic groups through newspapers like the Deutsches Volksblatt. 11 In Vienna Hitler began to connect the Jews with Marxism.12 Joachim Fest notes that in Vienna Hitler became obsessed by the fear of the Slavs and Jews, hated the House of Hapsburg, the Social Democratic Party, and “envisioned the end of Germanism.” 13

Hitler’s racial views were amplified after the war in turbulent Weimar Germany where he became a member of the NDSAP, rising rapidly within it, eventually taking over party leadership, reorganizing it so that it “became the instrument of Hitler’s policies.” 14 Following the unsuccessful Beer Hall Putsch of 1923 Hitler wrote Mein Kampf while imprisoned in the Landsberg prison in which he enunciated his views about the Jews, Slavs and Lebensraum. Hitler believed that Imperial Germany had been “hopelessly negligent” in regard to the Jews 15 and that the Jews in conjunction with the Catholic Center Party and Socialists worked together for “maximum damage to Germany.” 16

Likewise he saw the Jews as heading the “main ideological scourges of the nineteenth and twentieth century’s.” 17 It was the ideology of Hitler’s “obsessive anti-Semitism” 18 that drove Nazi Germany’s policy in regard to the Jews and against Jewish-Bolshevism. By the 1920s Hitler had “combined his hatred of the Jews and of the supposedly Jewish dominated Soviet state with existing calls to conquer additional Lebensraum, or living space, in the east.” 19 Hitler wrote: “The fight against Jewish world Bolshevism requires a clear attitude toward Soviet Russia. You cannot drive out the Devil with Beelzebub.” 20 Richard Evans notes that Mein Kampf clearly enunciated that “Hitler considered racial conflict…the essence of history, and the Jews to be the sworn enemy of the German race ….” And that the “Jews were now linked indissolubly in Hitler’s mind with “Bolshevism” and “Marxism.” 21

When Hitler became the dictator of Germany “his ideology and strategy became the ends and means of German foreign policy.” 22 His aims were clear, Hitler remarked to Czech Foreign Minister Chvalkovsky on 21 January 1939: “We are going to destroy the Jews.” 23It was clear that Hitler understood his own role in this effort noting to General Heinrici that “he was the first man since Charlemagne to hold unlimited power in his own hand. He did not hold this power in vain, he said, but would know how to use it in the struggle for Germany…” 24

To be continued…

Notes

1 Weinberg, Gerhard L. Ed. Hitler’s Second Book: The Unpublished Sequel to Mein Kampf by Adolph Hitler. Translated by Krista Smith, Enigma Books, New York, NY 2006. Originally published as Hitlers zweites Buch, Gerhard Weinberg editor, 1961 p. 159

2 Davidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews 1933-1945 Bantam Books, New York, NY 1986. p.91

3 Tooze, Adam. The Wages of Destruction Penguin Books, New York, NY, 2008. First Published by Allen Lane Books, Penguin Group, London UK, 2006. p.463

4 Fest, Joachim, Hitler. Translated by Richard and Clara Winston. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, San Diego,

New York, London, 1974. German Edition by Verlag Ullstein 1973 pp. 607-608

5 Note the actions of Cardinal Richelieu in France who worked to expand French power at the expense of other Catholic nations and the Vatican itself.

6 In the United States the Reconstruction policies produced great resentment in the south with decidedly negative

results for the newly freed slaves which lasted another 100 years, while in the Soviet Union great numbers of “opponents of Socialism” were killed, imprisoned or driven out of the county

7 Ibid. Tooze. The Wages of Destruction p.462

8 Lindqvist, Sven Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Oddessy into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide Translated from the Swedish by Joan Tate, The New Press , New York and London 1992 p.145

9 Ibid. Lindqvist p.154 It is interesting to note that the current American “historian” of the American Religious right

David Barton made the same arguments recently about the American Indians. Barton said: “You have to deal, a lot of it, with how the enemy responds. It’s got to be based on what the enemy responds [to,] you cannot reason with certain types of terrorists; and see that’s why we could not get the Indians to the table to negotiate with us on treaties until after we had thoroughly whipped so many tribes …” “People complain about the fact that the American military and buffalo hunters went out and wiped out all the buffalo in the western plains. Doing that was what brought the Indians to their knees because the Indians lived on those wide western plains where there were very few towns; Indians didn’t go into town to buy supplies, they went to the buffalo herds, that’s where they got their meat, that’s where they got their coats, the hides provided coats, they provided covering for their teepees.

If you don’t have the buffalos, those Indians cannot live on the open western plains without those buffalo and so what happened was the military wiped out the supply line by wiping out the buffalo. That’s what brought those wars to an end, that’s what brought the Indians to their knees and ended all the western conflict.” Retrieved from Barton’s Wallbuilders Live broadcast http://www.wallbuilderslive.com/Historic.asp?cdate=77515 9 May 2014 and text from http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/david-barton-explains-just-war-theory-we-had-destroy-indian- tribes-until-they-became-civiliz

10 Ibid. Lindqvist p.148

11 Ibid. Davidowicz, The War Against the Jews pp.8-9 12 Ibid. Davidowicz. The War Against the Jews p.12 13 Ibid. Fest Hitler. p.47

14 Bracher, Karl Dietrich. The German Dictatorship: The Origins, Structure, and Effects of National Socialism.

Translated by Jean Steinberg, Holt Rinehart and Winston, New York, NY 1979. Originally Published under the title Die Deutsche Diktatur: Entstehung, Struktur,Folgen des Nationalsocialismus. Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch. Koln and Berlin, 1969 p.93

15 Weinberg, Gerhard L. Germany Hitler and World War II . Cambridge University Press, New York, NY 1995 p.61

16 Ibid. Weinberg, Hitler’s Second Book p.60

17 Friedlander, Saul Nazi Germany and the Jews 1939-1945: The Years of Extermination. Harper Perennial, New York, NY 2007 p.xviii

18 Ibid. Friedlander, The Years of Extermination p.xvii Friedlander called this anti-Semitism “Redemptive anti- Semitism” in which “Hitler perceived his mission as a kind of crusade to redeem the world by eliminating the Jews.

19 Megargee, Geoffrey P. War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front 1941.Bowman and

Littlefield Publishers Inc. Lanham, Boulder, New York. 2007 p.4

20 Hitler, Adolf Mein Kampf translated by Ralph Manheim. Mariner Books, Houghton Mifflin Company, New York, NY 1999. Houghton Mifflin Company 1943, copyright renewed 1971. Originally published in Germany by Verlag Frz.

Eher Nachf. GmbH 1925. p.662.

21 Evans, Richard J. The Coming of the Third Reich Penguin Books, New York 2004. First published by Allen Lane 2003 p.197

22 Ibid. Davidowicz The War Against the Jews pp. 88-89

23 Rhodes, Richard. Masters of Death: The SS Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust. Vintage Books a division of Random House, New York, NY 2002 p.37

24 Speer, Albert. Inside the Third Reich. Collier Books, a Division of MacMillan Publishers, Inc. New York, NY 1970 p.166

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Tagged as Adam Tooze, adolf hitler, alexander tille, anti-semitism, friedrich ratzel, german anti-semitism, lebensraum, mein kampf, nazi germany, nazi ideology, pan-germanism

June 1, 2015 · 20:07

Coming this Week: Midway, D-Day and the Greatest Generation

Friends of Padre Steve’s World

I hope that your week is starting out well. This week promises to be interesting on Padre Steve’s World as I will be doing some writing about the Battle of Midway and the Normandy landings. I have done a lot on both subjects before but will try to be doing something different with them. The reason why I do this is because both battles are important. Each in their own way was a watershed that helped to change the course of the war.

Now those who know me and probably many who regularly follow my writings know that I don’t readily fit into anyone’s mold. I am a career military officer, chaplain and military historian and I am certainly a liberal-progressive in most of my politics, at least as defined in the current American political-ideological climate. I am a curious blend of idealist and realist, I like to think the best about my country, but know that we don’t always live up to the ideals enunciated in the Declaration of Independence. This makes me true minority group. But I digress…

The Battle of Midway, which was fought on June 4-6 1942 turned back the previously undefeated Japanese Imperial Navy by all that the U.S. Navy had left, three aircraft carriers and a handful of surface ships in a classic David versus Goliath encounter. The battle is referred sometimes referred to, with good reason, as the Miracle at Midway or the Incredible Victory. Had the U.S. Navy lost at Midway, the Japanese would have held a dominant position in the Pacific, and though the United States would probably still won the war, it may have taken at least an extra year, maybe more for that to happen.

The Allied invasion of France on in Normandy was another watershed moment. In June 1944 Nazi Germany still had a stranglehold on much of Europe. Finally, the Allied Expeditionary Force under Dwight D. Eisenhower was ready to attack. It was the greatest amphibious operation ever conducted. Six Allied Infantry divisions and three Airborne Divisions supported by an invasion fleet of 5,000 ships and landing craft and thousands of warplanes were sent against the Germans. Had the invasion failed, the result would have been disastrous. The Germans would have been able to shift troops to the Eastern Front where Josef Stalin’s Soviet Red Army was about to launch its offensive on the German Army Group Center, an event that might have led to stalemate in the East.

Political pressure was already going against Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt as the war continued and a defeat could have brought to power politicians in Britain and the United States willing to make a deal for peace with the Nazis. Such an occurrence would have led to even more genocide in Nazi occupied territories and the possibility of a Nazi atomic bomb, and please remember the Germans were far beyond the United States in building delivery systems, including ballistic missiles for such weapons. The thought of either instance is too horrifying to imagine. Likewise the thought of Imperial Japan continuing to rape China and Indochina, the East Indies and to possibly even to threaten Australia and India is equally horrifying.

These are things that more than seventy years later that we forget, to our detriment, but they were the reality that our grandparents and great-grandparents who were part of that Greatest Generation faced.

Now, these seventy years later most of the men and women of that generation who defeated the mortal enemies of freedom, and I do not use that term flippantly are passing away. The young ones are in their late eighties, soon most will be gone, and the question has to be asked: Would we find the wherewithal to stand against mortal enemies of freedom, and then when the war was over, help them rebuild their shattered nations and turn former enemies into friends, even while ensuring that war criminals were brought to justice?

I would hope so, but I don’t know. I guess that is why I am a realist.

So until tomorrow I wish you a good night.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Tagged as battle of midway, D-Day, Dwight D Eisenhower, franklin roosevelt, imperial japan, josef stalin, nazi germany, normandy invasion, the greatest generation, winston churchill

May 8, 2015 · 15:35

V.E. Day at 70: Remember Sacrifice

Seventy years ago World War Two in Europe officially ended. It is hard to believe that it has been that long. The men and women who fought in the war, known as the Greatest Generation now had endured the collapse of one world order after the First World War, the Great Depression and finally fought the Second World War which on May 8th 1945 was ending in Europe even as it raged on in Asia and the Pacific.

For most Americans the 1920s and 1930s were decades of isolationism, where idealists believed that the United States could stay out of the wars and rumors of wars. In 1939 Hitler’s legions stormed across Europe after bamboozling the British, French and even the Soviet Union about their intentions. Even so in 1939 many Americans believed that we could remain neutral in any conflict, but by mid-1941, with France and most of Europe under Nazi rule, with Hitler’s armies advancing on Moscow and Great Britian standing alone the writing on the wall was growing increasing legible. As such the reluctant nation began to mobilize large numbers of soldiers and to build up its Navy and Air Force, and on December 7th 1941 Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and other U.S. Installations thoughout the Western Pacific and a day later Nazi Germany declared war on the United States. The latter was really a huge mistake by Hitler who had he been thinking should have done everything in his power to keep the United States out of Europe. It would be a fatal mistake.

The United States and Britian determined that Germany was a greater threat than Japan decided that the defeat of Germany took precedence and devoted their efforts to that. Even so U.S. Forces in the Pacific, primarily built around the Navy took the offensive against Japan in August 1942 at Guadalcanal. But in Europe the U.S. And Britian invaded North Africa to drive the Germans and their Italian allies out, moved in to Sicily and Itslly, knocking the Itslians out of the war in 1943. At sea allied naval forces won the Battle of the Atlantic against Hitler’s U-Boats which had sunk thousands of ships totaling millions of tons of cargo and lost lives. American war materials and supplies provided massive assistance to the British and to the Soviet Union, the latter whose Red Army had broken the back of the vaunted Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and who by 1944 were on the offensive. In the air the United States Army Air Corps and the British Royal Air Force waged a non-stop air campaign to defeat Hitler’s Luftwaffe and bomb German industrial targets and population centers.

Then on June 6th 1944 came D-Day, the Allied invasion of Europe, Hitler meddled in the affairs of his commanders ordering a no-retreat policy in Normandy. After a brutal campaign the Allies broke out of Normandy liberating France, much of Belgium and about half of the Netherlands by the end of September. The Germans launched a last ditch offensive against the Americans in December 1994, that battle, nicknamed the Battle of the Bulge hastened the end of the war. By the early Spring of 1945 the American, British, French and Soviet forces, aided by military forces of liberated nations were closing in on the heart of Germany. With the American Army on the Elbe River and the Soviets battling street by street in Berlin and just blocks away, Hitler committed suicide in his Fuhrer Bunker on April 30th 1945. Within days his successor, Admiral Karl Donitz was seeking an end to the war. Forced to surrender unconditionally Donitz ordered German forces to surrender on May 8th 1945.

General Dwight Eisenhower issued his announcement of the endo of the war:

Men and women of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

The crusade on which we embarked in the early summer of 1944 has reached its glorious conclusion . . .

“Your accomplishments at sea, in the air, on the ground and in the field of supply, have astonished the world. Even before the final week of the conflict, you had put 5,000,000 of the enemy permanently out of the war. You have taken in stride military tasks so difficult as to be classed by many doubters as impossible. You have confused, defeated and destroyed your savagely fighting foe. On the road to victory you have endured every discomfort and privation and have surmounted every obstacle ingenuity and desperation could throw in your path. You did not pause until our front was firmly joined up with the great Red Army coming from the East, and other Allied Forces, coming from the South.

Full victory in Europe has been attained.

Eisenhower’s announcement of the end of the war is shown in the link below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wR99iTgKedc

Now the men and women of the Greatest Generation are passing away, most of those that I personally knew have died. The young ones who are still with us are in their late 80s and early 90s, most if not all will be gone in the next 10-15 years.

So as you think about today, remember those men and women. Remember the evil that they fought to defeat and hope that if Americans, and by the way I don’t just mean the professional military which has been fighting our wars for the past 14 years, but all Americans have to make such sacrifices again, that we will be up to it. Sadly, I don’t know if we would be.

That may sound harsh but that generation sacrificed to win the war. Their political leaders did not cut taxes and then telli people to go shopping while the less than one percent that constituted the military went and fought the wars. No they gave up things, and millions served in the military or in war related industries. When I came home from Iraq I was stunned at just how distant the country was from the war. Unlike World War II only a few Americans even have skin in the game that we call war. That is so different than World War II. But that my friends is just my opinion.

So please don’t forget that true greatness requires both sacrifice and magnanimity.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under History, world war two in europe

Tagged as D-Day, eisenhower, greatest generation, hitler, nazi germany, pearl harbor, v.e.day, world war ii

April 28, 2015 · 15:39

Why I Fight for Gay Rights

Friends of Padre Steve’s World,

I think that the question “why?” is important, and it is important for my readers to know just why I would be spending so much time to defending the rights of Gays and the LGBTQ community. Those who have been reading for this site the past few days know that I have been very passionately speaking out on the behalf of Gays and Lesbians.

“Why?” is an important question my friends, one that far too many people fail to ask of those who set or influence policy. I would love to see the media ask any supposedly Conservative politician “why” they are against gay rights. I mean seriously ask why, and then ask hard follow-up questions.

I am sure that there are some Christians that marvel that another Christian, and a Navy Chaplain with a strong conservative pedigree to boot would defend the rights of Gays, Lesbians and others that they disapprove. However, at this point in my life I can do no other.

I am a historian who also happens to be a priest and senior Navy Chaplain. I know too much, and if I do not speak up I would be culpable of the same crimes that German Christians, clergy and military officers did when they said nothing when the Jews, Gays and others were persecuted, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazi regime.

In the early 1900s the Jews of Germany were making progress, gaining entrance into government, the military and the political process. Germany in those days was a haven for Jews, especially Eastern European Jews who had to live with open persecution and pogroms sanctioned by Czarist Russia and other eastern European states. German Jews in that era were preeminent scientists, physicians and had entered the government and military. The Germany Armaments Minister Walther Rathenau who helped keep the German military in the war through his immense talents was Jewish, as was the commanding officer who recommended the young Corporal Adolf Hitler for the award of the Iron Cross First Class in 1918. However, when Germany was defeated in the First World War, Jews took much of the blame, and conservative German Christians were at the forefront well before anyone knew the name of Adolf Hitler.

Of course, they were a minority, and many were Socialists and in the search for villains after the defeat and the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm II, the Jews were high on the hit list, especially for conservative Christians of both the Protestant and Catholic faiths who saw their dreams die at the end of the war.

Much is the same for the LGBT community in the United States. Conservative Christians blame Gays for all the social ills and maladies that German Christians did the Jews, Socialists and yes, German homosexuals did in the 1920s. If you actually bother to read the writing of the German right wing and conservatives of that era you will find language that is startlingly similar to the language used by conservative American Christians use today against Gays, liberal Jews, progressives and yes Moslems as well. It is an amazing study if you have the integrity and interest to bother to read it instead of listening to the pundits, politicians and especially the political preachers of the American right. However, if you don’t it matters not, because after all “God hates the gays” so why shouldn’t you?

But then wasn’t that what the German Christians who allied themselves to Hitler did concerning the Jews? After all the Jews were “Christ killers.” Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and all the leading Nazis said so. But today if there is a natural disaster in the United States who is to blame? The Gays of course, and almost every conservative political preacher in America agrees. Pat Robertson, Franklin Graham, Robert Jeffress, James Robison, John Hagee and even soon to be repeat presidential candidate Mike Huckabee all agree that it is all the Gays fault. Just like Hitler, Goering, Goebbels and others said of the Jews in Germany. Get rid of the Gays and voila, problem solved.

Since most of these preachers, pundits and politicians believe that Gays are destined for Hell and are the enemies of God, it is only a matter of time before they not only endorse legal restrictions and persecution, but endorse genocide. If fact some have, Scott Lively and others have actually went to Africa and campaigned for “Kill the Gays” bills in Uganda. They actually promote legislation in other countries that would make it legal not just to ensure that Gays have second or third rate citizenship, but to imprison and execute them. Given the chance they would do so here.

You see, every mass movement of religious and nationalist hate needs a scapegoat. For the German right it was the Jews, for the modern American right it is the Gays. As Eric 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.” To the German Right in the 1920s and 1930s the Jews were the Devil, to many conservative American Christians the Gays are the Devil.

You see it is just a short jump from thoughts, to words to actions. Those who embrace the hatred of Gays, just as those who embraced the hatred of the Jews are just a little ways from thoughts, to words to actions. Believe me, with a Congress that now has a sizable number of people who honestly believe that the Gays are the enemy, not just of them but of God that actions may well follow. One only has to look at the anti-gay measures in Russia, some parts of Eastern Europe, the Middle East and in particular Africa, where aided by anti-Gay American Christians nations like Uganda are criminalizing homosexuality and even speaking up for gays as a heterosexual.

That being said I think that the tide of history is going the other direction, but that does not mean that such people are not dangerous should they ever be in a place to enforce their religious and ideological beliefs on others.

Mahatma Gandhi wrote:

“Your beliefs become your thoughts, Your thoughts become your words, Your words become your actions, Your actions become your habits, Your habits become your values, Your values become your destiny.”

That is why as a white, male, Christian, Navy Chaplain and priest I must speak out against such hatred and support the rights of the LGBT community. I have to speak out, as do other Christians. As Martin Niemoller, a naval hero of the First World War and conservative German pastor who initially supported Hitler noted:

In Germany they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me – and by that time no one was left to speak up.

Sadly, today, most conservative American Christians don’t understand this profound political philosophy. Likewise, they, like Martin Niemoller and others throughout history, will find that some of the people that they support will turn on them once they no longer need their votes or political support.

That my friends is a fact and why anyone should beware of any religious leader or politician who turns any minority group into a Devil should be feared, because they do mean business, and their ruthlessness is only concealed by the veneer of religion and law.

That my friends is why I write, why I speak, and why I fight.

Peace

Padre Steve+

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Filed under civil rights, ethics, faith, History, laws and legislation, LGBT issues

Tagged as anti-gay christians, anti-gay laws, anti-gay russian policies, gay rights, lgbt rights, martin niemoller, nazi germany, uganda death to gays, weimar germany

February 13, 2015 · 10:55

A Time to Stand Against Hate

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

Martin Niemöller

There comes a time in every nation where people of faith need to stand up for the rights of others who do not share their faith. There are times at all decent citizens no matter what their religion, or lack of religion need to stand up for those deemed less than full citizens, less than loyal, and in some cases less than human. This is one of those times.

On Wednesday three young America students at the University of North Carolina; Deah Barakat, his wife Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, were gunned down, execution style, in their home. They were each shot multiple times in the head. They were Moslems, and from all account not only good law abiding people who hated intolerance of any kind, even to Jews and Israelis, who were active in helping the poor and homeless in their local community, and just basically good, idealistic, humanitarians.

Their assailant Craig Stephen Hicks, was a man who doesn’t fit a typical right wing, at least from the terms of the Religious Right, or Left Wing stereotype.

All that we really know about him was that neighbors described him as angry and confrontational, that some feared him, that he was anti-government, unemployed, and hated the major religions; especially Christianity, Islam, and Judaism. He was also evidently a pretty big fan of expanded gun rights, which for a man in his state of mind isn’t unusual. His current wife, who is in the process of divorcing him described him as supporting marriage equity, abortion rights and other socially progressive causes.

It is quite fascinating to me that Craig Stephen Hicks, was a follower of Richard Dawkins and what is called “the New Atheism” which more appropriately should be called anti-theism. This makes his case somewhat unusual, because he would be one of first of this breed in the United States to kill others in such a manner. Of course this is not to say that such people haven’t committed such acts on a mind-numbingly large scale in the former Soviet Union, Red China and other repressive atheist regimes. Likewise there are nations where state religions working hand in hand with the state do that as well.

But most of the time, recently in this country and Western Europe, those who kill others because of those peoples religious beliefs, are religious themselves and defending their idea of God and righteousness. That my friends is what makes the act of barbarous hatred committed by Hicks so interesting from a sociological and historical point of view.

It is also why I don’t believe the claims by the soon to be ex-wife of Hicks, the police or the prosecutor that this was an isolated incident dealing with a dispute of guest parking in the condominium complex where the victims and the killer lived. That’ why the story just doesn’t wash, and the fact that it doesn’t wash causes it to stink.

Really, let’s face it, if Hicks was a Moslem and the victims were atheists would anyone believe that story? The hell no. But there are people who will not only believe it but as usual say this is a “isolated incident” because after all, white people in America don’t kill others for their religion, but that Moslems do and so a Moslem is automatically guilty of crimes simply by being a Moslem.

Evidently the killer’s ex-wife described him Hicks as a man without empathy, who incessantly watched the movie Falling Down while laughing his way through it. If you don’t know the movie it is about an unemployed engineer, angry for many reason, who goes mad and ends up in a killing spree. It is a tragic film, and I wonder if Hicks if Hicks saw himself as similar to the lead character played by Michael Douglas.

I don’t know what the final tipping point was for Hicks. From what I read he seemed like a mountain of hatred and anger just waiting to erupt.

While I don’t know his entire motivations, I do know that somewhere in his perverted psyche, he was motivated by hate, and that is all too common. Eric Hoffer said: “Passionate hatreds can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. These people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance.”

Hicks found some measure of purpose in his hatred of religion. It is said that he was quite angry at the Christians and Jews who participated together with Moslems and others in the ecumenical memorial services after the attacks of September 11th 2001. Evidently, that anger toward religions and religious people grew until it reached the point of murder.

Sadly, there are many people like this man who are consumed by some kind of hatred. In this case it appears to me, and I could be wrong, that it was Hicks’s hatred of Moslems and other religious people. I cannot think of any other reason why the man would execute unarmed people for a parking space, unless they represented something more to him.

The hatred something that the actions of the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, the Taliban, Boko Haram and other terrorist groups that claim the mantle of Islam have helped to inspire. That hatred is also fed by much of the media, as well as supposedly Christian political pundits and preachers who lump all Moslems into the same camp as the terrorists and ignores the Moslems who condemn such actions and who put their lives on the line to fight those groups. This “reporting” feeds the fear, it feeds the anger of some, and it leads to people, especially people who are already angry, disturbed and possibly even mentally ill, to commit crimes in name of their religion or their ideology. In Hicks case it appears to be his militant atheism.

But let’s step back from that right now, and sometimes it is good to look at things in with a broader lens.

It seems to me that among the worst of the types of people promoting such hatred of Moslems are supposedly conservative “Christian” preachers. So I feel that I need to speak up. I say this because such hatred against a religion, any religion is not new. Militant Hindus in India kill Moslems and Christians, of course we know of the crimes of the terrorists who kill in the name of Islam, but there are places in Africa where Christians do the killing, and sometimes not even for religious reasons. Does anyone remember the Rwanda Genocide? But that is not an isolated instance, in Central and South America there were the American funded dictators and terrorist groups who had death squads all over the place, many killing to defend their “conservative Christian regimes.”

This kind of thing happens all the time and sometimes it takes place under godless regimes who co-opt religious people to bolster their evil. Chief among the times this happened was in Nazi Germany. My examples from that era include Protestant pastors Martin Niemöller, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Herman Maas, and Catholic Biship Galen and Jesuit Priest Father Rupert Meyer of Munich. All were imprisoned or placed in Concentration Camps by the Nazis, and Bonhoeffer was be killed. Maas was the first non-Jewish German to be officially invited to the newly formed state of Israel in 1950. In July 1964 Yad Vashem recognized the Maas as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. Of course there were others who died for attempting to help the Jews, including some European Moslems.

When Hitler took power the Jews, along with Communists, Trade Unions, Socialists were enemies of the state. They were banned from the military, civil service and other government employment, professional associations and forced to wear a gold Star of David on their clothing. Their property was seized, they were abused by SA men acting as deputized auxiliary police, times their businesses, Synagogues and homes vandalized, burned or seized by the state. Eventually those who remained were condemned and sent to concentration camps, where most with nearly 6 million other Jews they would be exterminated.

Today we face a similar situation in United States and Western Europe. This time it is not the Jews, but Moslems who are the targets of xenophobic rage by many influential members of the “conservative” media.

The ideological inspiration for the killings at Chapel Hill seems to be from English Atheist Richard Dawkins. Dawkins wrote something that the killer repeated almost verbatim in his social media posts: “All three of the Abrahamic religions are deeply evil if they take their teachings seriously. Islam is the only one that does.” Of course Dawkins statement is overblown because there are some Christians and Jews who kill in the name of religion. In fact as far as Christianity goes we have a host of them who litter our history justifying killing in the name of the Lord. To his credit Dawkins condemned the killings soon after they happened, however, his hyperbole and lumping together all religion as evil has the same effect on some people as the teachings of the radical religious preachers of hate whose ranks seem to grow daily.

Others, especially in parts of the Christian Right who have great sway in conservative politics and the Republican party advocate policies similar to the Nazi Nurnberg Laws and the Aryan Paragraph. Threats to deny loyal American Moslems the right to serve in the military, security organizations, government positions and academia are common today. More extreme are threats to put all-Moslems “behind razor wire” as we did to American Japanese citizens in World War II, or to deport them as the Nazis did to the Jews before the “Final Solution” are even more chilling.

Wade Page

Of course there was the mass killing by neo-Nazi Wade Page in Oak Park Illinois in October 2012, like Hicks he was filled with hate toward religion, and took his out on the members of the Sikh Temple.

Scott Roeder

I wonder how Christians would react if an atheist or someone on the political left suggested that all conservative Christians or members of pro-Life groups be imprisoned for the actions of Christians or pro-Life movement members like Scott Roeder or Eric Rudolph who killed to stop abortion or the late Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church? Likewise I wonder what atheists would do if someone suggested putting everyone who followed Richard Dawkins, Bill Maher, or Sam Harris in camps or depriving them of citizenship for the actions of someone like Hicks?

Thankfully, there are a few on the Religious Right who have taken a stand. Reverend Rob Schenck, President of the National Clergy Council, commented in regard to the Moslem prayer vigil in Washington D.C. in 2009: “With over 1.5 billion Muslims in the world, it is important that Christians have an open dialogue with the Islamic community. The church must never be timid in reaching out to peoples and groups with differing beliefs and traditions. Too much is at stake for future generations not to begin this historic conversation. This is an opportunity that we cannot afford to miss.”

What the people who advocate punitive actions against American Moslems do is dangerous, not just for Moslems and other minorities but for them. American and English law is based on legal precedence. Once something has been determined to be legal, or constitutional it is considered by the law to be settled law. The law is a two edged sword and those who want to use it to have the state enforce their religious, social, ideological or political beliefs on others need to remember what comes around goes around.

Niemöller would discover this the hard way prison telling one interviewer after the war:

It is easy for well meaning to be bought with promises of support by politicians and media types who speak the words they want to hear in difficult times. We have entered a dangerous phase of American, and for that matter world history.

The killing of these three young American by this hate filled man should be a wake up call to all of us. It is time to start giving a damn and standing up to those who inspire and promote such hatred, no matter what their race, creed, or ideology. We have to stand up against hate. If we do not we are no better than all of those who throughout history turned their backs as others committed the most horrible crimes against humanity.

Peace,

Padres Steve+

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

Tagged as anti-semitism, bill maher, bishop galen, civil rights, Deah Barakat, dietrich bonhoeffer, eric hoffer, eric randolph rudolph, falling down, father rupert meyer, final solution, herman maas, martin niemoller, nazi germany, new atheism, nuremberg laws, religious persecution, rights of moslems, sam harris, scott roeder, wade page, Yusor Mohammad Abu-Salha

Tag Archives: nazi germany

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Lebensraum & the Foundation of Genocide

Coming this Week: Midway, D-Day and the Greatest Generation

V.E. Day at 70: Remember Sacrifice

Why I Fight for Gay Rights

A Time to Stand Against Hate

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