"In fiction, the principles are given, to find the facts: in history, the facts are given, to find the principles; and the writer who does not explain the phenomena as well as state them performs only one half of his office."
Thomas Babington Macaulay, "History," Edinburgh Review, 1828
Showing posts with label Shoah/Holocaust. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Shoah/Holocaust. Show all posts
Realizing that the terror might be having the opposite of the intended effect, the more shrewd among the authorities made a final offer, guaranteeing immunity for anyone who came forward by a final deadline of 18 June. A flood of statements came in, including one that identified the assassins by name. The anonymous author was one of the paratroopers, Karel Čurda. Still the Nazis could not find the killers. On 16 June, Čurda went in person to Gestapo headquarters and turned himself in. Although he did not know the hiding place of the assassins, he did reveal the existence of safe houses that had aided the paratroopers. Under torture, the confessions of one of the adolescent residents mentioned the Orthodox cathedral of Saints Cyril and Methodius in downtown Prague. Early on the morning of the 18th, the Nazis surrounded the church. In the course of a lengthy battle, all seven paratroopers there fell in combat or committed suicide. (details in an archived post here)
Since the fall of communism, the cathedral has officially and publicly commemorated the terrible events. In 2002, the Memorial to the Victims of the Heydrich Terror became "A National Memorial to the Heroes of the Heydrich Terror--a Place of Reconciliation." Each year, on the anniversary of the battle, a national commemoration takes place on the street in front of a memorial plaque on the bullet-pocked wall.
To the accompaniment of martial music and the Czech and Slovak national anthems, soldiers lay wreaths dedicated by a succession of persons, from major political figures and dignitaries to veterans and their families or ordinary citizens.
Here, Czech soldiers practice wreath-laying gestures before the ceremony, 2011.
Here, an honor guard of Czech soldiers lines up in preparation for the ceremony, 2011.
By the end of the ceremony, the sidewalk is covered with flowers and inscribed ribbons.
The event concludes with a brief mass in the church, after which the exhibit hall and the memorial in the crypt, are opened to the public, free of charge. Despite the awkward location, in a narrow and busy urban space, it is
one of the simplest but most moving memorial ceremonies that it has been
my privilege to attend.
I've been posting a lot lately about the anniversary of the assassination of Nazi Security Office head and Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia Reinhard Heydrich by Czechoslovak paratroopers. But I haven't mentioned how they got from England to their homeland. They were dropped by a Handley Page Halifax (1 , 2) of the Special Operations Executive (SOE)--the British clandestine warfare group equivalent to the American OSS--piloted by Flight Lieutenant Ron Hockey.
The same issue of the Illustrated London News that reported briefly on the assassination contained a three-page feature on the manufacturing of the Halifax, one of the RAF's two heavy bombers at the time, which entered service in late 1940. It explains with pride, "This notable aircraft carries a heavier bomb-load over a greater distance than any other aeroplane in the world on active service to-day."
The emphasis, though, is on the innovative design and production technique. That the machine was constructed of 24 major components simplified manufacture ("more people on each stage of the job") as well as "transport and repair ." The latter point was a crucial one.
in the field, as well. Hockey called the Halifax "a sturdy aircraft with enough redundant structure to keep it flying if damaged in action . . . also good for servicing repair, with the structure subdivided for component replacement." He contrasted this with the American Liberator (the most widely produced bomber of the war), which it resembled, but which was made in a single unit and therefore had to be disassembled rivet by rivet.
The robustness of the Halifax proved crucial to the SOE missions carried out by Special Duties Squadron 138. At first, the RAF was understandably focused on its strategic role of heavy bombing and thus reluctant to give the unit top-of-the-line aircraft. Initial runs over Poland and Czechoslovakia involved two-engine Whitleys, with limited range and payload; airmen denounced them as "flying coffins." Hockey called Czechoslovakia "Undoubtedly the most difficult country in which we operated . . . a long flight, all over enemy territory, much high ground . . . flights only in the winter to benefit from the long nights, so terrain was often snowbound, and no reception facilities." In October 1941, the RAF finally gave Special Duties Squadrom 138 three Mark I and II Halifaxes, though they had to be modified for paratroop use through the addition of a hatch in the floor. They first saw use at the end of December when Hockey's plane, the NF-V L9613, delivered three Czechoslovak jump teams to Bohemia. The flight was plagued by problems, and because heavy snow made it impossible to spot the intended landmarks, the two assassins were simply dropped east of Plzeň, after which they were on their own.
Ron C. Hockey was the only member of the aircraft's crew to survive the war. He was one of a number of distinguished RAF veterans to sign this commemorative large-format bookplate for copies of Keith A. Merrick's 1990 book on the Halifax at the Royal Air Force Museum.
On June 6,1942, the Illustrated London News ran a little feature on "British and German Personalities in the Public Eye To-Day."
The two "German personalities" were General Erwin Rommel and Reinhard Heydrich, Reichsprotektor of Bohemia and Moravia, and the emerging stories would become among the most important of the war.
Rommel was "again in the news" because he had "launched his long-awaited offensive against the Allies in Libya." Already a week earlier, the New York Times headline announced, "Nazi Tanks Push Toward Tobruk." Rommel's forces captured the crucial port on 20 June, taking over 33,000 Allied prisoners. The victory earned him promotion to Field Marshal.
The Heydrich story was more dramatic news: an assassination attempt, which, the magazine observed with satisfaction, meant that he had "reaped his just deserts." Like most reports on the attack, this one was based on speculation or fragmentary and often inaccurate information. The magazine explains that Heydrich was wounded on 27 May but describes the incident as a shooting by a Czech patriot, implying a local resistance fighter. In fact, he was the victim of a bomb attack by Czechoslovak paratroopers. Because so little was known, the report hedges its bets by adding, "some say by Nazis." Although the assertion had no basis in fact, it was not quite as far-fetched as it sounds. The ruthless Heydrich had many enemies, and given the failure of the authorities to make any progress in tracking down the assailants, some Germans began to murmur that they must have come from within the Nazi hierarchy.
The report correctly notes Heydrich's role as Himmler's protégé and his reputation for brutality. Indeed, in February, his portrait was featured on the cover of Time magazine, surrounded by hangman's nooses.
However, the report incorrectly ascribes to him the creation of Dachau concentration camp. In fact, Heydrich's role in the Nazi terror apparatus was far greater. As head of the Reich Main Security Organization, not only was he responsible for the operations of the Security Service and Security Police: he also played a crucial role in the emerging Holocaust, a story that was not yet known and as yet had no name. In January, Heydrich had secretly convened a conference of top German officials, which decreed the extermination of the European Jews.
By the time the report appeared, Heydrich was in fact already dead, having succumbed to his wounds on 4 June. The vicious reprisals that followed would be a bigger news story than the assassination itself.
Two days after the assassination of the acting Nazi "Reichsprotektor" of Bohemia and Moravia, Reinhard Heydrich, the New York Times reported that reprisals were taking place, and added more details to what was known of the incident.
The emphasis was on the initial executions but information about both the crime and the reprisals was still sketchy.
6 IN CZECH FAMILY
EXECUTED BY NAZIS
Seventh Person Put to death in Attack on Heydrich, Who Is Reported Dying
By DANIEL T. BRIGHAM
By Telephone to THE NEW YORK TIMES.
BERNE, Switzerland, Friday, May 29—
Vengeance executions for the attempt on the life of Reinhard Heydrich
began in Bohemia early yesterday morning with the execution of six
members of one family, including two women and another person declared
implicated for failing to denounce to the authorities the two men who
late Wednesday afternoon attacked the car in which the deputy Gestapo
chief was traveling.
(The report then discusses the attack itself, returning to that topic later in the article.)
More Killings Threatened
The German "vigilance committee," headed by Heinrich Himmler, Gestapo Chief, rapidly completed arrangements for what appears to be the beginning of one of the worst bloodbaths in Czech history. A decree ''issued by local authorities'' in the Province of Prague ordered all civilians over the age of 15 to report to the police before midnight tonight and obtain a certificate of registration. Past that hour, any one failing to possess such a card or found harboring a person without such a card will be
shot, "with his entire family."
Throughout the protectorate groups of military patrols accompanying police and Gestapo men are stated to be arresting people by the hundreds as house-to-house
searches are being made in a wide area around which a cordon has been
thrown.
(The report goes on to provide details on the curfew and martial law decree.)
The coverage here is reasonably accurate, under the circumstances. In his anger at the assassination, Hitler had initially ordered the arrest of 10,000 Czechs and execution of political prisoners already in custody, but shrewder heads prevailed, arguing for the continuation of Heydrich's policy of targeted terror combined with coopting of the general population. Still the reaction was harsh: Fearing that the assassination was the beginning general insurrection, the authorities took no chances.
21,000 German and Czech police, Waffen SS, and German soldiers carried out the manhunt. Callum MacDonald describes the Germans as "vengeful and trigger-happy," citing an escaped British POW's description . Even German detectives described "random shooting at open or lighted windows," saying the troops (a direct quote) "are completely mad." MacDonald speaks of a wave of executions, including "those convicted of marital law offences or who had merely expressed approval of the act," but dates the first family execution from only May 31.
Regarding the attack itself, the report includes an initial background summary and an update:
From indications received here this morning it now develops that the attack occurred about eighteen miles east of Pilsen on the Prague-Munich road at a town called
Rotkitzen, which was the place of residence of all of the seven
executed.
Meanwhile, from a German radio broadcast to the German people it was
learned this morning that Herr Heydrich had been so badly injured that
it was deemed necessary to
issue a bulletin on his condition, which was stated to be "stationary."
Another bulletin announced that he was under the care of Adolf Hitler's
personal physician. Herr Heydrich was believed to be hovering between
life and death. A report on a Balkan radio early this morning stated that his condition had taken a turn for the worse.
[Three bullets that had injured Herr Heydrich's spine and spinal cord were removed by a specialist, The Associated Press reported today, quoting Exchange Telegraph, British news agency.]
This
section is more problematic. The only really accurate statement is that Heydrich's life hung in the balance. The asserted location is completely wrong, for the attack took place as Heydrich's car, traveling from his outlying estate, was entering the northern Prague district of Libeň. Heydrich was not hit by bullets, for the first assassin's Sten gun had jammed, and none were fired. The injuries came from a grenade and injured a rib and internal organs, but not the spine. The physician sent from the Reich was Himmler's not Hitler's.
The update is generally more accurate.
Preliminary reports from usually well-informed German quarters as to exactly how the attack on Herr Heydrich was made indicates that at least two men were involved. One is stated to have thrown a bomb at Herr Heydrich's moving automobile, which swerved to avoid being hit. A second man is then reported to have stepped out from concealment with a submachine gun or automatic pistol and to have fired several shots into the automobile as it rolled into the ditch.
The assassins are then reported to have escaped by bicycle. Another bicycle, a briefcase and a raincoat were found near the scene. These articles are now being shown to persons suspected of knowing who the criminals might be. An official announcement warns that anyone recognizing the articles and not giving information will be shot. News of the attempt to assassinate Herr Heydrich was published in Germany in a brief communique
only, and the press so far has not ventured any comment of an authoritative sort.
Two paratroopers did indeed carry out the attack, but in the reverse of the order described here. Jozef Gabčík made the first, failed attempt with the Sten gun, and when Heydrich ordered the car to stop, Jan Kubiš threw the bomb (a modified anti-tank grenade). Because the attack took place in the city, the car did not roll into a ditch, and instead, came to a stop in the gutter near the curb. By contrast, the description of the paratroopers' belongings and the threats of reprisal are reasonably accurate. The two men arrived on bicycles, but only Kubiš managed to escape on his, whereas Gabčík had to flee on foot. accurate. Although the weather was temperate, Gabčík had brought along a raincoat to hide his motions as he assembled the Sten gun carried in his briefcase. The Germans, noticing the British origin among the items found at the scene, quickly deduced that the attackers were paratroopers. They placed the objects on display in a downtown store window and distributed photographs throughout the Protectorate in an attempt to solicit or coerce information from the public.
On May 27, 1942, Czechoslovak paratroopers Jan Kubiš and Jozef
Gabčík, trained by the British Special Operations Executive (SOE),
assassinated Reinhard Heydrich, Nazi "Reichsprotektor" of Bohemia and Moravia, on his way into Prague. Heydrich died of his
wounds on June 4. The paratroopers were betrayed and killed two weeks
later.
The vicious reprisals took some 5000 lives, most
notoriously, the murder of the villagers of Lidice and razing of the
entire town, which aroused international outage.
Czechoslovak postage stamp (part of a series commemorating World War II), issued on the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination:
In Czechoslovakia, the memory of the crime became a regular part of national rituals and identity. Over on the Tumblr, I posted a few of the numismatic and philatelic commemorations.
This medal, depicting some of the victims--echoing a monument to the murdered children at the site--is the first installment. Just click on to the subsequent posts (or look for Lidice using the search bar at the upper left of the page) for the rest.
Today, in a world in which the West knows only limited wars, and in
which many journalists and commentators lack both military experience
and historical perspective, it is common to see terms such as "war
crimes" and "atrocities" and "massacres" tossed around with abandon. It
can therefore be salutary to be reminded of what real crimes against
humanity were like: specifically, the sort that inspired the laws and
conventions so often and and casually invoked today.
One example, whose anniversary I mark every year, may suffice.
"this most savage single act of repression in the history of German occupation of continental Europe"
The most notorious reprisal occurred on the night of 9-10 June 1942, when
German forces wiped out the Czech village of Lidice, near Prague,
which, they wrongly charged, had sheltered the parachutists. Of the
503 inhabitants, 173 adult males and several women were shot, and
some 200 women were deported to concentration camps (143 survived).
A handful of the nearly 100 children were given to “Aryan” families
to be Germanized, and the rest were deported and later gassed at
Chełmno (17 adoptees could be located by 1947). The entire town was
then burned and obliterated, a process estimated to have consumed
some 20,000 man-hours of labor by 100 workers, and lasting until
July 3. (read
the rest)
The Nazis were determined to erase Lidice from memory as well as the earth, but plazas, districts, and towns around the world were renamed Lidice in order to deny Hitler that victory. Shortly after the end of the war, in June
1945, the Czechoslovak government decided to rebuild
the village. The cornerstone was laid in 1947.
Among the things that were so striking about
Lidice was not just the brutality, but the fact that the Nazis openly
proclaimed their actions (in contrast, for example, to the murder of the
Jews, which was to be kept secret). The news was therefore almost
instantly public knowledge.
Here, for example, is how the Washington Post
covered the story only a day after the assault. Note that it received
prominent billing second only to emerging reports of the epochal Battle
of Midway:
Czech Town of 1200 Wiped Out to Avenge Death of Heydrich
Community Razed, Men Slaughtered
Women and Children Sent to Other Areas; Population Accused of Harboring Killers
By the Associated Press
London.
June 10.--German vengeance squads utterly wiped out Lidice, a Czech
village of 1200 persons today, killing all the men and deporting the
women and children on the ground that the population harbored the two
assassins of Reinhard Heydrich, the late German ruler of
Bohemia-Moravia.
Completing this most savage single
act of repression in the history of the German occupation of continental
Europe, Gestapo and German soldiery razed the village, leaving nothing
but rubble: the German-controlled radio announced from Prague. Then the Nazis removed the name of the village from their records.
Lidice is--or was--a village of coal miners and woodworkers a few miles
west of the Czech capital and not far from where Heydrich "the hangman"
was fatally wounded by two patriots while driving along a winding road
two weeks ago. Assassins Still at Large
The assassins, who leaped upon Heydrich's car with automatic pistol and bomb, have not been caught.
Shortly after Prague and Berlin radios had announced the fate of Lidice
"as the hiding place of the Heydrich murderers," German authorities in
Prague disclosed that 25 more Czechs had been executed today in the
capital and 6 in Brunn for a total of 306--exclusive of the Lidice
dead--to be slain since the attack on Heydrich.
In London,
authorities of the Allied and exiled governments estimated that nearly
300,000 persons had been shot or hanged in all Europe since the
beginning of the German conquest.
Only yesterday, during
Heydrich's elaborate funeral rites in Berlin, Gestapo Chief Heinrich
Himmler vowed complete revenge on his killers. The slaughter of Lidice
was his macabre sequel.
The Prague broadcasts did not give the
number of men of the village who were shot. It said the women had been
sent to a concentration camp and the children to "educational centers." "Other Hostile Acts" Charged
Besides being accused of hiding Heydrich's slayers, the population of
the village was accused in the broadcast of having "committed other
hostile acts, such as keeping an illegal dump of ammunition and arms and
maintaining an illegal transmitter."
Meanwhile, it was apparent from German advices received today in Switzerland that a new wave of
[p. 2]
punitive measures was on the way, not only in Czecho-Slovakia but in other occupied countries.
Prague, Paris, Amsterdam, all Poland and Yugoslavia probably will be
the first to feel the chill of this new terror campaign, it was
indicated.
Of the approximately half-million Europeans already
believed dead by the hand of the Nazi executioner, approximately 5 per
cent were wiped out in mass "reprisal" killings of hostages. The
remainder, including many women, were executed on various charges, such
as sabotage, plotting, and aiding the enemy.
Increased Resistance Seen
The Norwegian, Belgian and Netherlands governments and the Free French
Committee here said the increased tempo of executions in the last few
weeks indicated resistance to the Germans was increasing in direct ratio
to the shootings.
The governments, in estimating the number
killed, did not consider "the countless thousands who have died in
concentration camps or from ill treatment and hunger as a result of the
'New Order.'"
The Yugoslav government estimated 350,000 killed
in Yugoslavia, alone, and the Polish government said 90,000 Poles had
been executed. They attributed the stupendous totals to German massacres
of "entire villages in their attempts to wipe out guerilla [sic]
activity."
Incomplete totals picked up from German
broadcasts tell a grim story of their own, with the best compilations
showing nearly 7000 shootings and hangings reported by the Germans
themselves.
A majority of the executions were never broadcast.
Some were published in local papers which never reached London. One
Czecho-Slovak official said:
Germans Don't Tell All
"A vast number of those killed was never made public at all, but we
hear of them eventually via underground routes. For example, last
November the Germans said nine students were executed as a result of
riots in Prague, but we know of 120 who were killed."
In Norway,
Belgium, the Netherlands, and Czecho-Slovakia, and lately in France,
the list of those shot reveals the Gestapo is following a definite
pattern of wiping out "intellectual" leaders. Teachers are frequent
victims in Norway, while professors, students and "liberal" officials
have fallen in other countries.
[There follows a brief tabulation of executions announced by the Germans vs. estimated real figures established by the Allies.]
It is a truism--and a typical piece of philistine thinking--to say that it is "impossible" for words, or art, to capture the reality of the Holocaust. On some level, words and art--the only tools at our disposal--are "incapable" of capturing many realities and experiences, and yet we use them to try to approximate that goal. Still, most of us would nonetheless agree that addressing the Holocaust through the arts does pose steep challenges. Just avoiding the maudlin, the hackneyed, and the banal is challenge enough--never mind actually capturing the essence of the tragedy or making an original aesthetic statement.
And what of music commemorating the Holocaust?
At first, it seems hard even to think of pieces that might serve such a debate. Commemoration and depiction have been much more the domain of literature. Still, there are examples.
When I was a kid, I was present in New York at the world premiere of Darius Milhaud's cantata, "Ani M'amin" ("I Believe") to text by Elie Wiesel. In the words of a recent review: "a meditation on the possibility of faith in the presence of unbridled and seemingly unpunished evil." In all honesty, mostly what sticks in my mind is one rather cynical adult saying he had enjoyed the Holocaust more. He was, I suspect, no fan of modern and contemporary music. I am. Still . . .
I hadn't listened to the piece in years. I enjoy much of Milhaud's music, but somehow, this one, and this particular style of choral singing never did much for me. In any case, you can judge for yourself from this excerpt.
Here, for what it's worth, are some of the compositions that I find most accomplished or most regularly play:
Lukas Foss, Elegy for Anne Frank
I've always been partial to the music of Lukas Foss, the German-born American composer who succeeded Arnold Schoenberg as professor of music at UCLA.
His "Elegy for Anne Frank" is a modest but moving piece. The elegiacal mood, crudely interrupted by variations on the Nazi hymn, the "Horst Wessel Song" (not as the Milken Archive describes it: the "German national anthem"), before returning to the original register, somehow captures both the innocence of the insightful girl and the anxiety of life in the Secret Annex. (It exists in two versions, one with spoken text, and one without, critics generally preferring the latter.)
Speaking of Schoenberg, this treatment of the Holocaust stands out by virtue of its relatively early date (1947) and its power. Although Schoenberg had converted to Catholicism, the rise of Nazism prompted him to return to Judaism. The text is Schoenberg's own, based on the account of a survivor of the Ghetto Uprising and liquidation. In the liner notes, fellow composer Nancy Van de Vate, noting that "many" regard the composition as "Schoenberg's most dramatic and moving work," describes it as follows:
The narration is in Sprechstimme, a kind of speech-singing which Schoenberg developed, precisely notated for rhythms, more approximately for pitches, Olbrychski's moving narration is uniquely authentic, yet faithful to Schoenberg's notation. The cantata builds to a powerful, dramatic climax when, at "the grandiose moment," the male chorus begins spontaneously to sing the Shema Yisroel ("Hear, O Israel") in Hebrew, the third language of Schoenberg's life. It is "the old prayer" central to Judaism, that its martyrs have sung throughout history in defiance and resignation in their hour of death. It is the dramatic climax of the piece, for which Schoenberg has skillfully prepared the listener from the narrator's first lines when a French horn softly played the opening of the Shema Yisroel melody.
The music vividly accentuates textual details throughout. A trumpet fanfare first awakens the Jews for transport to death camps. There are suggestions of military drum, unusual string effects from taps or scratches of string with bow sticks, high woodwind trills, muted brass fluttertonguing, snarls of muted horns and trumpets. The music builds to the terrifying counting off, louder and faster to prepare for the choral entry. "They began again, first slowly: One two, three, four, became faster and faster, so fast that it sounded like a stampede of wild horses, and all of a sudden, in the middle of it, they began to sing the Shema Yisroel." The sung Hebrew dramatically contrasts with the spoken English and brutal Nazi commands, and gives the work a powerful, moving climax in its only extended melody.
Here is a version narrated by the great Maximilian Schell:
I have a couple of recordings of this piece, but the following version, by Polish performers, conveniently combines it with other works commemorating the atrocities of the Second World War.
No list of Holocaust music would be complete without
Krzysztof Penderecki's "Dies Irae," or Auschwitz Oratorio.
Back in the day when I was a high school student, first learning properly about classical music, this piece was issued on a vinyl LP with a bleak black-and-white image of a crematorium chimney. Popular, too, was his "Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima," and these became obligatory items on the record shelves of all right-thinking progressives who prattled on about "man's inhumanity to man" even if they didn't really know any history and could not fully appreciate the jarring, and indeed, terrifying music. They may have bought it, but I really doubt they often listened to it.
Penderecki's piece, composed for the dedication of the international memorial at the Birkenau (Auschwitz II) death camp in 1967, differs from the others here in that it does not focus on the Jewish victims. Although Jews made up the largest number of victims at Auschwitz, the camp served first for the internment of Polish political prisoners, and subversives and resisters from many countries. It is also a site of specifically Polish national mourning. Penderecki is also Catholic (literally and figuratively) in his textual choices. Although he does not use the text of the requiem mass, he draws upon the Psalms, Apocalypse, Revelation, and Corinthians, as well as Greek tragedy and modern poetry.
The piece also reminds us of a very exciting time in the history of avant-garde music and other arts, not least, when artistic experimentation flourished in the countries of the East Bloc between the tyranny of Stalinism and the prosaic repression and philistinism of the post-1967 "normalization" and the following "era of stagnation."
As Nancy Van de Vate says in her liner notes,
Dies Irae
is an atonal, extremely dissonant work employing precise notated
pitches, quater-tones, and sounds of indeterminate pitch. As in other
works from the composer's early period . . . combinations of many
unusual timbres, used both simultaneously and in succession, create
unusual textures, neither homophonic nor conventionally polyphonic.
Extreme dynamic contrast, from the softest to the loudest imaginable
musical sounds, adds further to the music's drama and intensity. The
sound of an air raid siren at the end of the second movement intensifies
a section of the music which depicts beasts and men being burned alive.
The rattling of a chain and shaking of a thunder-sheet (lastra) further
evoke feelings of fear and horror appropriate to the subject.
The chorus
sing, speak and chant with an unusual variety of vocal sounds. The
imagery of their text is dramatic and terrible, ranging from references
to the shorn hair of a little girl's pigtail once tugged by cheeky boys
at school to the triumphant "Death is swallowed up by victory" (Absorpta est mors in victoria) of the final movement. Yet the work closes tragically with the phrase Corpora parvulorum (Bodies of the little ones) which has been heard many times earlier.
Part I:
I am a great fan of mid-century modernism in all fields, from architecture to avant-garde music, but more recently, the minimalists have made their contribution, too.
Among more contemporary compositions, one that I find the most compelling is
Steve Reich, Different Trains
Trains, along with chimneys and barbed wire, are among the most common and evocative images of the Holocaust as the epitome of modern industrialized death. (Not coincidentally, a train also figures on the cover art of the final CD that I will mention.)
Using the symbol of the train, Reich's piece offers a brilliant and troubling mediation on the vagaries of chance:
The concept for the piece comes from my childhood. When I was one year old, my parents separated. My mother moved to Los Angeles and my father stayed in New York. Since the arranged divided custody, I traveled back and forth by train frequently between New York and Los Angeles from 1939 to 1942 accompanied by my governess. While these trips were exciting and romantic at the time, I now look back and think that, if I had been in Europe during this period, as a Jew I would have had to ride very different trains.
He says that the work, commissioned for the Kronos Quartet, "begins a new
way of composing," "the basic idea" being "that speech recordings
generate the musical material for musical instruments." It features recordings of his governess, an African-American Pullman porter, three Holocaust survivors, and historical train sounds from the era of his childhood journeys. It is divided into three parts:
America--Before the war
Europe--During the war
After the war
Popular music has not often ventured into the territory of the Holocaust, and that's probably a good thing. Still, there are notable exceptions. One of the truly great albums is Yehuda Poliker, Efer ve Avak (Ash[es] and Dust)
Poliker is one of the most multi-talented and influential Israeli musicians, a compelling vocalist and a stunning soloist on a wide range of intstruments. His parents were Greek Holocaust survivors, deported from Thessaloniki to Auschwitz, and at the same time as Reich was writing "Different Trains," Poliker teamed up with son of Polish Auschwitz survivors Yaacov Gilad, who wrote most of the lyrics for "Ashes and Dust." Eight of the twelve songs deal with the Holocaust, and the album became not only a bestseller and reflection of Israeli Holocaust culture, but also a shaper of it: specifically, in the shift from collective to individual commemoration, and in its emphases on the new role of children of survivors in shaping the reception of the events as the focus moved from history to memory.
Like much of the best Holocaust literature (I always think of the works of Aharon Appelfeld), this music succeeds because it is subtle and often indirect, moving around the margins of the topic, confronting it by implication rather than declaration. The result is an overwhelming mood, a persistent sense of loss.
The title song:
When You Grow Up (a subtle meditation on the children of survivors)
Haaretz today ran an article, "A dozen reasons why Israel should do away with Holocaust Remembrance Day." It was no doubt supposed to be provocative, but even if some of the individual points were valid or worth discussing, the whole was less than the sum of its parts. Above all, in condemning the holiday "because it has become a tool in the hands of ultranationalist ideologues," the piece simply substitutes one political agenda for another. It's one of those ideas that, as the saying goes (not in fact Orwell's, but close to his thinking) is so absurd that only an intellectual could believe it.
One might as well say that we should end Fourth of July celebrations because American patriotism sometimes degenerates into triumphalist jingoism. The solution is not to do away with the holiday, and rather, to infuse it with new and deeper meaning. The founding of a revolutionary democracy or the commission of genocide are worth commemorating, and far too important to discard on the whims of a self-important op-ed writer.
At the very least, the simple and non-political rituals of commemoration should seem unobjectionable. The traditional ritual of mourning on the anniversary of death involves lighting a candle that burns for a full day.
I have taken to placing mine on top of this immense old candlestick, of hammered iron in the Arts & Crafts or Werkbund style, circa the beginning of the twentieth century.
The dealer I bought it from acquired it from a scrap metal dealer in Dortmund, so it's precise origin is unknown, Clearly, though, given its striking size (77 cm. tall, or just over 30 inches), it came from institutional setting rather than a private home. In fact, it is identical in appearance to a brass one sold at auction over a decade ago. That one came from the destroyed Leipzig synagogue in the Gottschedstraße, destroyed in Kristallnacht. It seems more than likely, then, that what I have here is another relic from the pogrom that began the Holocaust, and as such it seems especially fitting to call it into service for this use.
Many have remarked on the challenge of representing the genocide through conventional monuments. Some do, however, succeed in being both original and powerful.
Still, to me, the most powerful "monument" is actually a ritual used in Israel: On the morning of Holocaust Memorial day, an air raid siren sounds, and the entire country literally comes to a halt for two minutes. People stop where they stand on the sidewalk, cars and buses pull over to the side of the road, and drivers and passengers get out and stand respectfully in silence. Then life resumes. It is the most eerie and moving ritual I have ever seen.
It is evanescent, yet eternal: lasting only two minutes yet repeated every year. It is a monument in time, of time. As Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said, "Judaism is a religion of time aiming at the sanctification of time. . . . Jewish ritual may be characterized as the art of significant forms in time, as architecture of time.”
And because this ritual so abruptly interrupts daily time itself, it conveys almost better than anything the tear in the fabric of the world and civilization that the Holocaust represented.
Footnote:
I have often thought that the United States should adopt something similar for Memorial Day. I still recall how, as children, we stood and observed a moment of silence at 11:11 a.m. on November 11, in tribute to Veterans' Day's origins as Armistice Day. We have lost that sense of an entire nation united in mourning the tragic costs of war.
In April-May 1940, the security services of Stalin’s Soviet Union, which had concluded a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany in August 1939 and then occupied the eastern part of Poland after the Germans invaded from the west in September, murdered some 22,000 Poles--soldiers, intelligentsia, and other suspect classes--at Katyń forest near Smolensk and other locations.
On April 13, 1943, the Nazis, acting on rumors from locals, announced the discovery of one mass grave at Katyń forest near Smolensk. The Soviets emphatically denied the charges. The incident led to a break in relations between the London Polish Government-in-Exile and the Soviet regime.
The incident long remained controversial, as the Soviets insisted that these were the victims of German occupiers. In fact, I recall my father saying that, while he was serving with the US occupation forces in Germany (OMGUS), he found Germans testifying to "terrible crimes" they had committed in that area, which no one was willing to address.
This illustrated magazine, produced by the Nazi regime, conveyed the news to the occupied Polish population in May, 1943. The cover is a harmless depiction of the lobster harvest in Martinique (which was then under the control of the Vichy French regime).
Without warning, the next page reveals the horror of the Katyń massacre--conveyed through a Nazi propaganda lens.
Today of course marks the 25th anniversary of the opening/fall of the Berlin Wall.
It was a striking event for those of us who watched the scenes play out across our television screens, the more so for those of us with personal or professional connections to Germany and German history.
However, because every major news organization will be covering the anniversary in full--indeed, ad nauseam, I've decided to limit my own posting here and just follow the conversation. Be prepared: most of the commentary will not be from the most sophisticated perspective
(expect lots of triumphalism, sweeping generalization, and banalities
that pass for profundity, but amidst all the empty chatter, there will be a few morsels of insight.
I will post a few smaller items, some serious, others--not so much.
Meanwhile, keep an eye on the tumblr for images associated with the event (#fall of the wall; #Mauerfall)
Predictably but regrettably, the recent fighting over the "Gaza Freedom Flotilla" brought forth a tidal wave of criticism of Israel. It's not the criticism that is to be regretted, but its tone and thrust. One can argue that the IDF acted illegally, immorally, unwisely, or just incompetently. For that matter, one can argue that it acted justifiably and with restraint considering the circumstances. Those are all positions on a legitimate spectrum of opinion, which can be defended or refuted on their merits.
What was dismaying was the animus, which led critics to assume the worst, maintain that stance even as countervailing evidence accumulated, and cast the criticism in terms that in many cases either went Godwin or echoed classic antisemitic tropes.
There was so much to keep track of that I didn't even attempt to survey it all. In any case, analyzing everything in detail would be redundant because what we find are primarily clumsy and minimal variations on a crude theme (not exactly the political equivalent of "The Musical Offering.") One can most easily track the degeneration of the discourse via sites that monitor hate speech on such prominent forums as the Guardian's "Comment is Free" (1, 2) and Huffington Post. And we already have some preliminary analyses of general coverage of the crisis and its aftermath (1, 2).
That Fidel Castro even crawled out of retirement to issue a special denunciation was a sign of either how big the issue was or how deranged the discourse had become:
"The hatred felt by the state of Israel against the Palestinians is such that they would not hesitate to send the one and a half million men, women and children of that country to the crematoria where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis," the ex-Cuban leader said.
"It would seem that the Fuehrer's [Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's] swastika is today Israel's banner" . . . .
"With these outrageous comments, Fidel Castro shames his old-time companions and the ideals he always pretended to serve. Che Guevara must be spinning in his grave," Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said in Jerusalem.
(Almost more striking than Castro's hateful harangue are the Foreign Ministry spokesman's words of praise for Che and the ideals of the Cuban Revolution. Impossible to imagine them coming from the mouth of a high US official.)
Caricatures in the Arab press were predictably harsh and often crossed the line into bigotry. The only novelties were those details occasioned by the maritime setting—images of pirates, sharks, octopi or sea monsters—which crowded out otherwise common Nazi motifs but could easily be adapted to fit other antisemitic stereotypes. An Egyptian cartoon managed to touch all the bases:
As I sifted through and reflected on the coverage in the western media, what struck me was the disturbing extent to which the Nazi analogy, even when it is not openly part of the discourse, nonetheless now implicitly defines and shapes it. (I am of course aware of and impatient with the cruder versions of the postmodern argument to the effect that "the absence of" topic x "really proves" its implicit presence. That is not what I am talking about here.)
The pattern involves several elements:
(1) Easy recourse to a stereotype of wanton brutality. What unites the more moderate and most vicious versions of the criticism is the apparently unshakable conviction that Israel and the IDF have no regard for the lives of others. This once marginal but now distressingly widespread view received the imprimatur of the Goldstone Commission report, which asserted that, in Operation Cast Lead, the IDF "carried out direct intentional strikes against civilians" and "that disproportionate destruction and violence against civilians were part of a deliberate policy"—accusations that Moshe Halbertal determined to be "false and slanderous." Obviously, the Nazis epitomized brutality toward soldier and civilian alike, but did not invent and have no monopoly on it, so what distinguishes the charge here is the assumed historical context.
(2) The corollary (and this is arguably the most important element) is that Israel has "failed to learn the lessons" of the Holocaust, a charge repeated ad infinitum, whether in sorrow or in anger, in opinion pieces and talkbacks. Insofar as the implication is that the oppressed have become oppressors, this is really just the "soft" version of the Nazi analogy, here made salonfähig—fit for respectable company.
This conclusion is reinforced by the fact that it is not the sort of charge leveled at other nations. Did the French carry out a war of savage repression in colonial Algiers because they had so quickly forgotten the depredations of Klaus Barbie's Gestapo in Lyon? When the Soviets, who lost nearly 27 million citizens in World War II, applied their brute force in Afghanistan, did anyone charge that this was because they had “failed to learn the lessons” of the even more brutal Nazi occupation?
The rationale is central to the criticism of Israel because Nazism is seen as central not only to the national experience, but also to the origins of the state itself. The “failed lessons” argument is thus one of the linchpins of what I earlier termed "the new discourse of regret.” If support for the creation of Israel was in essence only the result of excessive and misplaced European guilt, then Israel's new crimes have the paradoxical effect of partially absolving Europeans of the original sin of genocide (the victims were not pure, after all), while simultaneously saddling them with an even greater moral debt—more burdensome and more infuriating because it was incurred under false pretenses—for all the injustices done to the Palestinians from 1947 to the present. The only way to break this chain of interest slavery is to repudiate the original debt and make restitution by channeling the bulk of the remaining capital of sympathy to the real or more deserving victims of the Middle East conflict.
(3) What is most insidious is that the aforementioned charges have deep roots traceable to the classic soil of antisemitism.
One staple of that thinking posits a Jewish sense of superiority to the non-Jew—whether arising from the arrogance of “chosenness” or more nefarious causes—whose manifestations range from passive “clannishness” to active hatred, represented at its extreme by fantasies of medieval “ritual murder” or modern “world conspiracy.” This prejudice draws sustenance from a Christian theology whose invidious canon of binary oppositions asserts the moral inferiority of the “old covenant” to the “new”: a religion of particularism vs. universalism; external rituals vs. inner faith; letter vs. spirit of the law; retribution vs. love. The anti-Judaic polemics in the New Testament moreover present the Jews as blind to the truth of their own Scripture, as a result of which they reject and persecute their prophets and ultimately commit the supreme sin of deicide. The punishment, one cannot fail to mention, is exile from their land until they collectively see the error of their ways and acknowledge the New Dispensation, which is to say: cease to exist as Jews.
To this extent, then, the charge of willful brutality uncomfortably echoes traditional theological prejudices against a Jewish religion of “vengeance.” (One need but consider the frequency with which the biblical doctrine of “an eye for an eye" is misinterpreted in commentaries on the Middle East conflict.) And the new political discourse of “failed lessons” of the Holocaust—in which Palestinians supplant the Jews as the embodiment of innocent victimhood—is in turn just a secular recapitulation of the old theological discourse of “supersessionism” or “replacement theory,” according to which, after the Jews fail to understand the message of salvation through Christ, the Church becomes the new or “true” Israel (“verus Israel”) in the eyes of God. Not coincidentally, this pernicious doctrine, which mainstream western churches had begun to repudiate in the final decades of the last century, has now reappeared in a number of church documents specifically addressing their relationship to Israel, Jewish interpretation of the Bible, and the role of the land of Israel in Jewish religion and history. (See, for example, these critiques of the "Kairos" document and recent deliberations by UK Methodists and US Presbyterians.)
Two recent cartoons from the Guardian further illustrate my point.
In the first, an Israel Navy patrol boat flies a flag in which the Star of David is made of human bones and the stripes of barbed wire, signifying that Gaza is a “concentration camp" and the IDF are its guards. Inhumanity and murder thus literally become the emblems of the state itself:
The second is, frankly, ill-conceived and inane, but revealing for all that.
One need not go so far as to see here an echo of deicide (the dove traditionally representing one of the three persons of the Trinity), or even to point out that the IDF here attacks literally the entire endangered population of the planet. No doubt, the inept artist didn't really think things through this thoroughly (if the earth is flooded and all human and animal life is on the ark, why is there still an Israel with an army and what in the world are they blockading?). He was simply groping for some readily comprehensible way to depict absolute violence versus absolute innocence—and instinctively found those opposites in Israel and the symbol of salvation. It suffices to point out that the wanton murder of the dove of peace, long a topos in anti-Israel caricatures (other recent examples: 1, 2), is given an implicitly religious as well as political dimension.
In these two cartoons, then, the pattern is complete: Israel acts cruelly and immorally because it has failed to learn the lessons of both its own religion ("Bible stories retold") and its own recent history (from the inmates to the keepers of the camps)—and thus, the principles of universal humanity, as well.
It’s just hard to have any sympathy for people like that.
Like fascism in its day, this deceptive new discourse of demonization did not arise in a vacuum or find an audience only on the margins of society. Both were able to establish themselves because they drew upon deep-rooted elements of “respectable” mainstream culture—and the support and prestige of intellectuals and other elites.
As chance would have it, one of the more culpable of these enablers recently passed away. Most obituaries of Jose Saramago understandably focused on his literary achievements and status as a Nobel Prize laureate. However, it was worthwhile to be reminded that the man who was so sensitive to the nuances of ideas and language in his creative life displayed no comparable discernment in the political.
Here, all the pieces fall into place. Not only did he equate Israel’s actions during the Second Intifada with the death camps. He knew the reason:
• The Israelis are like Nazis
• because they have failed to learn the lessons of the Holocaust, which is in turn
• because their religion itself teaches them arrogance, hatred, and exploitation.
“[I]n Palestine, there is a crime which we can stop. We may compare it with what happened at Auschwitz.” (April 2002)
“Living under the shadows of the Holocaust and expecting to be forgiven for anything they do on behalf of what they have suffered seems abusive to me. They didn’t learn anything from the suffering of their parents and grandparents.” (October 2003)
“[C]ontaminated by the monstrous and rooted ‘certitude’ that in this catastrophic and absurd world there exists a people chosen by God … the Jews endlessly scratch their own wound to keep it bleeding, to make it incurable, and they show it to the world as if it were a banner. Israel seizes hold of the terrible words of God in Deuteronomy: ‘Vengeance is mine, and I will be repaid.’” (April 2002)
There you have it.
Saramago is gone, but all too clearly, his legacy lives on.
Fortunately, as memory of the recent fighting faded, the World Cup got underway. There's still sports to bring people together:
The political world is atwitter with rumors that the US is secretly negotiating with Hamas, fueled by a growing stream of articles citing experts and others who urge that the government do just that. The advice fuels the rumors, and the rumors confirm the advice (1, 2, 3, 4 ). It’s a perfect feedback loop. The latest accelerant, in the June 30 Foreign Policy, was Mark Perry’s article on a report by the “Red Team” of CENTCOM planners, advocating engagement with both Hamas and Hizbullah as the key to Middle East peace.
Some highlights:
• support for integration of Hamas into the security forces of the Palestinian Authority and of Hizballah into the Lebanese armed forces, respectively, which currently “represent only a part of the . . . populace.”
• “while Hizballah and Hamas ‘embrace staunch anti-Israel rejectionist policies,’ the two groups are ‘pragmatic and opportunistic.’”
• "Putting Hizballah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and al Qaeda in the same sentence, as if they are all the same, is just stupid," [a senior officer] said. "I don't know any intelligence officer at CENTCOM who buys that."
It’s an appealing idea to a desperate world and it might be compelling—if it rested on valid assumptions. The assumptions are that all groups and states are driven by the same motivations and calculus and susceptible to the same stimuli of reward and punishment. The point is not that states occasionally have to engage with unsavory interlocutors for tactical and pragmatic reasons; few political realists would disagree with that. Rather, the question involves strategies and long-term expectations. The ultimate assumption, put bluntly, is that the radicals are not serious about what they say, and that their stated goals are not real goals. It’s therefore about gambling on their willingness to compromise on their fundamentals as well as incidentals. Not everyone is willing to take that gamble. This is where history comes in.
This is the same mistake that most politicians, unable to see that they were confronted with something qualitatively new, made in dealing with Nazism (disclaimer: no further parallel implied). Western liberals assumed that the Nazis were basically dissatisfied rational actors who could be appeased, co-opted, or controlled. The dogmatic left assumed that Nazism was a stalking horse for traditional reaction and material interests—the last gasp of monopoly capitalism—rather than what it said it was: namely, a revolutionary movement, based on a mystical notion of national death and resurrection, ideologically anti-capitalist, anti-liberal, and anti-Marxist at once.
This is not to say that these movements are “irrational” if the implication is that they have no internal consistency. It’s just that their “rationality” rests on an utterly different foundation. Peter Drucker captured the problem in a nutshell in his End of Economic Man, neglected when it appeared in 1939 and not fully appreciated even after it was reprinted more than a generation ago. He recalls how he suddenly understood the fascist mentality when he heard a Nazi at a rally declare: "We don't want lower bread prices, we don't want higher bread prices, we don't want unchanged bread prices — we want National-Socialist prices." In other words, it was about a comprehensive worldview, a symbolic rather than practical politics, total ideological saturation rather than material gain.
I can just imagine the scenarios that would have transpired, had “experts” and statesmen in earlier ages applied the "Red Team" logic to problems in their own world.
a cozy coffee with a "pragmatic and opportunistic" rejectionist:
Sudeten German leader Konrad Henlein in London, 1938
* * *
The Court, at Rome, February 1519 To His Holiness, Pope Leo X
We humbly submit that Your Holiness was premature in dismissing the affair of the 95 Theses as nothing but another monks’ quarrel. Clearly, the problem is real and will not go away. However, persecuting Dr. Luther would risk making a martyr of him and radicalizing more people, especially the young, thus increasing the number of his potential recruits.
To be sure, many of his statements are extreme, but he uses them mainly in order to stir up his German followers, who are motivated by resentment of Rome. True, he refuses to recant, but in our estimation, this is just a negotiating stance, intended to wring from us further concessions. We therefore cannot believe that he will continue to cling to his maximalist position. To challenge the supreme pontifical authority would be to destroy the Church itself, which even he must realize is folly. Many of his other demands are legitimate and should be addressed.
He is crude, but above all, pragmatic and opportunistic, more interested in power and the pleasures of this earth than spiritual rebellion. We suggest: First, take action against the more visible forms of corruption: Deprive him of the most popular grounds for complaint, and his movement will collapse like a soap bubble. Second, rather than condemning him, bring him into the ecclesiastical hierarchy: grant him a bishopric, perhaps. That should satisfy his ego, fill his belly, and stop his mouth.
You should rather have him inside the church passing water outward, than outside, making water upon its holy precincts (if you will pardon the earthy expression). Place your faith in this counsel, for we are convinced that it will secure for you success.
May God grant a favorable issue; and now farewell in the Lord.
Hieronymus Rothgespann, Doctor, by the grace of God, Apostolic Prothonotary
* * *
Washington, D.C. October 20, 1859
Dear Mr. President,
We hate to say, “we told you so,” and yet, indubitably, undeniably, such we did.
Had you followed our advice and arranged to put Mr. Brown in charge of the Harpers Ferry (or even Springfield) Armory, this tragedy could have been averted. To be sure, he would no doubt have clung to some of his more fevered views. However, losing his outlaw status would have deprived him of a platform for them.
Once placed in charge, Mr. Brown would quickly have had to learn responsibility or face the prospect of losing both his position and his access to firearms. It is easy to clamor for guns when you have none. It is far harder to manage an armory, clean and inspect the weapons, arrange for the emptying of the ash cans, procure victuals, and meet payroll. One is simply too busy for “activism.” Over time, Mr. Brown would have come to appreciate the limitations within which the federal government must operate and learned patience and self-control in both politics and personal life.
Unfortunately, you did not permit yourself to put our expert advice to the test. We say this with malice toward none and charity for all. Trusting that you will have more faith in our recommendations next time, we remain, with deepest respect, and in anticipation of many years of remaining mutually serviceable,
Yours very truly, etc., etc.
Elihu Redding & Co.
* * *
Washington, D.C.
[n.d.; presumably, April 1861]
Dear Mr. President,
Just as we opposed the violent tactics of Mr. John Brown some two years ago, so, too, we now condemn the recent attack by southern rebels on Fort Sumter. The excesses of one side do not justify those of the other, for they just perpetuate the cycle of violence.
Although it would no doubt be tempting to retaliate against the rebels with the full weight of the Federal Army, we urge you to ponder carefully the consequences of any action. To use force would be to fall into the trap that the radicals have set: their aim is to disrupt the tenuous peace and goad you into responding disproportionately, thereby radicalizing southerners, and especially slaveholders, who already feel themselves to be without hope.
Slavery is an idea, and you cannot destroy an idea by force of arms. The path of wisdom is instead to encourage the moderate elements among the Secessionists . . .
[rest of document missing]
* * *
Washington, January 1933
Dear Mr. President,
In our opinion, the only solution to the political and economic crisis in Germany is for President Hindenburg to bring Adolf Hitler and the NSDAP into the government.
Though this may at first sight seem controversial, it is based on incontrovertible logic. To be sure, Herr Hitler and his Brownshirts say some pretty frightening things, but their views and behavior are a response, albeit, an extreme one, to the frustrations that they feel. Truth be told, they have many legitimate grievances: the Versailles Treaty, the lack of self-determination for Germans in other lands, economic hardship, and the threat of the vastly more dangerous communists.
As disgruntled spoilers, they are a force for instability, but one cannot destroy them and one cannot ignore them. The current situation is simply not sustainable. Once forced to assume responsibility—to wear a suit instead of a uniform, to conduct the affairs of state and make reparations payments—rather than merely protest and speechify, Herr Hitler will perforce moderate his words and ways. He will be too busy dealing with the economic crisis to rant about the Jews or threaten his neighbors.
Of course, we cannot bring stability to the state without bringing stability to the military. It makes no sense for the national armed forces to represent only a part of the German populace. We thus further recommend integration of the Storm Troopers (SA) and SS into the Reichswehr. True, this would require a revision of the Versailles Treaty, but the small costs would be repaid many times over: We would be righting a moral wrong by softening its unjust provisions and we would thereby deprive extremists of one of their main arguments. The SA and SS, for their part, would learn proper military discipline and loyalty to the state rather than the party. In fact, they could become the best guarantee for long-term stability and moderation of the regime.
In our assessment, there are only two possible scenarios: either Hitler will grow more moderate and become a responsible and successful leader, or he will fail and promptly be forced from power, ending his political career. It’s a win-win situation.
We are confident of the correctness of this view, and as always, thank you for your confidence in our services and us.
Very sincerely yours,
Red Team Associates, Inc.
* * *
Berlin November 1933
Dear Mr. President,
Herewith, the promised update, based on our latest analysis of the situation in Germany.
On the surface, to be sure, Herr Hitler seems to be consolidating his power without moderating his tone or policies, but this in no wise invalidates our earlier prediction. Indeed, it merely proves the correctness of our assumptions. To those who are still concerned over the seemingly bellicose Nazi rhetoric regarding the European peace, the racial question, and the like, we cite the assessment of our expert on the scene:
Are these statements really complete evidence of National Socialist aggressiveness in foreign affairs or do they merely strike an attitude which is designed to attract patriotic Germans to the movement and give it a popular hold on conservative opinion, which might otherwise be alienated by the radical character of the movement? I think there is some justification for believing that a great deal of the Nazis’ war talk, superman talk and posing is simply designed to impress their own followers and should be heavily discounted.
Trusting that this reassures you, we remain at your constant disposal.
Very sincerely yours, Red Team Associates, Inc.
* * *
London, April 1,1938
Dear Mr. Prime Minister
It is true that the Nazi regime has now been in power for some five years, during which time it has eliminated all other political parties and persecuted political dissenters, passed discriminatory racial laws, abrogated the Versailles Treaty, rearmed, withdrawn from the League of Nations, and found itself at the center of various international crises. However, this in no wise invalidates our earlier assessment. Indeed, it merely proves the correctness of our assumptions. We have repeatedly put Hitler to the test and made him accountable for his actions by forcing him to acquire his territorial gains without violence.
There remains but one obstacle to a just and lasting peace. The current situation in Czechoslovakia is unsustainable and destabilizing Europe as a whole. Czechoslovakia cannot lay full claim to the title of the only democracy in the region as long as it rejects the Sudeten German demands for self-determination, and we for our part cannot credibly preach democracy to others as long as we are seen as supporters of the Czechoslovaks; this is rapidly becoming a foreign-policy liability for us.
The leader of the Sudetendeutschen, as you know, is Herr Henlein. He seems rather a good chap, and a man we can do business with: quiet, well mannered, a former bank clerk. Some are hesitant because Hitler has adopted the Sudeten cause as his own. To be sure, both Herr Henlein and Herr Hitler speak the language of aggrieved minorities and the right to self-determination, but this is the extent of the connection. There is no evidence whatsoever that Henlein and his Blueshirts are a proxy for Nazi Germany. This is just the tired refrain of the alarmist Czech nationalists, who seek to entangle us in their conflict. As one of our experts explains, “Putting Henlein and Hitler in the same sentence, as if they are all the same, is just stupid. We don’t know any intelligence officer who buys that.”
Some say that yielding to Henlein’s demands would be to give in to coercion and set a dangerous precedent. On the contrary, refusing to engage Herr Henlein may have the reverse effect of tightening his bonds with Nazi Germany, precisely the result we wish to avoid. Hitler is able to exploit the issue as long as it is unresolved. We may not approve of dictatorships, but there they are. You cannot remove them. We have to live with them. We should take any and every opportunity to remove any genuine and legitimate grievances that may exist.
We therefore need to encourage and mainstream the moderate elements among the Sudeten German separatists. If you don’t deal with Henlein now, you will have to deal with Hitler later. It’s that simple.
Herr Hitler has said that, after this, he will have no more territorial claims on his neighbors. If, as scarcely seems conceivable, he breaks his word, then he will have fallen into our trap and it will be plain for all to see that we hold the moral high ground.
Yours very truly, etc., etc. Red Team Associates (UK), Ltd.
* * *
Note:
• The analysis from November 1933 is taken from an actual dispatch by the US commercial attaché in Berlin: Douglas Miller, “Hitler and the Stability of Eastern Europe,” in his Via Diplomatic Pouch, (New York, 1944), 81.
• The 1938 comments about living with dictatorships and satisfying their legitimate demands come from a speech by Neville Chamberlain at Birmingham on April 8.
• Henlein, it was definitively proven after the war, had been in the pay of the Nazis since 1937, but had been under strict orders to deny the association in his dealings with the western powers.
