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A Nation of Cowards?The reality was that the German people, as individuals, had lost their courage. The German government preferred it that way as a fearful people are easier to rule than a courageous one. ...WRH It is not clear that the German People had any real options. Once Hitler had been voted dictator he had all the power of the state to root out and murder opponents, a power he ruthlessly and energetically employed. Of course the German people did not arise in opposition as one. No people ever does. There must be leaders and there must be an opportunity for leaders to instruct and direct the people. It is precisely such a development that dictatorship is designed to prevent. Nevertheless, there were many who opposed Hitler and died as a consequence. Although many Lutherans ministers supported the Nazis, thousands opposed them. Dietrich Bonhoeffer was hanged at Flossberg. Bonhoeffer's opposition to National Socialism made him a leader, along with Martin Niemueller and Karl Barth, in the Confessing Church (bekennende Kirche), and an advocate on behalf of the Jews. His efforts to help a group of Jews escape to Switzerland were what first led to his arrest and imprisonment in the spring 1943. Among those who died with Bonhoeffer were fellow participants in the Resistance Movement: Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, Major General Hans Oster, Judge Advocate General Carl Sack, Captain Ludwig Gehre, and a man named Strunk. Also executed on the same day was Bonhoeffer's brother-in-law, Hans von Dohnanyi at Sachsenhausen. U-Boat Captain turned Lutheran pastor Martin Niemueller, too popular to hang, was interned at Flossberg. Thousands of other Lutherans, Catholics and, in eastern Europe, Orthodox ministers who opposed the Nazis were sent to the camps and died there. It is true that of those prominent individuals who might have led an underground rebellion many simply left. Many scientists, for example, both Jewish and non-Jewish abandoned the fight: Einstein and Schoedinger, to name but two. But Max Planck, whose work laid the foundation for quantum physics, remained in Germany and expressed his defiance of the Nazis by refusing to participate in any war-related work. In 1937, Planck resigned his position as president of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute in protest against the decision by Bernard Rust, the minister of education, to sack Jewish teachers from Germany's universities. His son, Erwin was was arrested and charged with involvement in the July Plot against Adolf Hitler. He was killed while being tortured by the Gestapo in 1945. Will America suffer the fate of pre-war Germany? History never repeats. But forms of government and processes of social change recur. The fortunes of nations depend largely on the leadership that chance throws up. Sometimes, perhaps, the people glimpse the reality, and have a chance to change the course of events. In America, after Bush- Clinton- Clinton- Bush- Bush-, with Clinton the favorite in '08, the likelihood of such a democratic revolutions looks slim. But let's work for it. Canadian Spectator |