Creeping Towards Dachau

After reading the recent post on genocide at the Gasser Lounge and the related post on terrorism in Africa here at Patriot's Corner, I decided to re-read some of the literature on Nazi Germany.

The Nazis were evil, and I do not use that word lightly. Any insight into their principles and methods will shed light on how such horrors can be perpetrated by civilised human beings, remind us that human beings can and do give themselves over to evil, and hopefully allow us to act against similar projects if we see them being enacted before us in the world today.

One of the primary features of any totalitarian regime is secrecy. When I started going back through the literature on the Third Reich, I came across the following quote by the acclaimed American journalist William Shirer:

"Except in Mein Kampf, where the sparse biographical material is often misleading and the omissions monumental, Hitler rarely discussed - or permitted discussion of in his presence - his family background and early life." ⁽¹⁾

There are parallels with the current American President, aka Barry Soetoro. Using the name Barack Obama, he wrote a series of autobiographical, pseudo-political books prior to becoming President.

The Fuehrer, who wasn't actually born in Germany, and whose father began life with the surname Schicklgruber, not Hitler, wrote an autobiographical book (described by Churchill as "the new Koran of faith and war") ⁽²⁾ before becoming Chancellor in January 1933.

It's reasonable to assume that Obama, having written several books about himself, would have provided the voters in America with all the information anyone could want regarding his upbringing and qualifications. Unfortunately, the American public know about as much about his backround as the Germans did about Adolf Hitler's.

After Hitler assumed power, every effort was made by him to prevent inconvenient information from coming to light, and to falsify any existing documents in order to enhance the Hitler myth. According to William Shirer, the Gestapo attempted to destroy any records regarding Hitler's military service (or lack of same) in Austria after the Anschluss. ⁽³⁾ Another example is provided by the British historian Laurence Rees, who argues that Hitler altered the number on his German Workers' Party membership card to make it appear as if he had been a founding member of the movement. ⁽⁴⁾

Since taking power, Obama has taken steps to prevent his personal records from being made public. Strange as it may seem in a world where information can be passed around the world in seconds, and iPads are within the financial reach of almost everyone in the civilised world to access it, no one really knows who Barack Hussein Obama is, what his grades were at university, what papers he wrote, what positions he adopted, what his qualifications are, or why he is now President of The United States.

There is no good reason for anyone asking the American public for the job of President of America to conceal information about themselves - information which any employer in America would expect an interviewee to provide. (Are you an American citizen? What's your social security number? Have you served in the military? Where did you go to school? Where did you go to university? What were your grades? Let us see any papers you wrote, etc.)

It's worth noting here that Adolf Hitler considered it absolutely necessary, when running a political party, to inflict "spiritual terror" upon one's opponents. He wrote in Mein Kampf that after making a precise calculation of all human weaknesses, a veritable barrage of lies and slander must be unleashed against one's opponents, and in Nazi Germany that would include anyone at all who questioned the Hitler-as-saviour myth, until the nerves of the attacked persons wear down. Hitler stated that this tactic will lead to political success with almost mathematical certainty. ⁽⁵⁾

Anyone wondering whether such measures could actually be employed in a civilised country need only recall how the mainstream media treated Sarah Palin, who is not running against Obama in 2012. Experience tells us that anyone asking openly about Obama's birth certificate will be treated in like manner by the gentlemen and women of the Fourth Estate. Inconvenient questions are no longer answered by the mainstream media. They no longer inform the public. Instead American citizens (including potential political opponents) are attacked and undermined using the most vicious and demeaning ad hominem strategies imaginable. To use Hitler's terminology, "spiritual terror" is deliberately inflicted upon anyone in America who questions the Obama-as-saviour narrative. And political success for Obama follows, as Hitler predicted, with almost mathematical certainty.

As leader of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, in the summer of 1920 Hitler also organised the Ordnertruppe, gangs whose job it was to keep order at NSDAP meetings. By October 1921, this force had evolved into the Sturmabteilung, also known as the SA, or Brownshirts. They soon began not only to keep order at NSDAP events, but to break up any meetings of Hitler's opponents. ⁽⁶⁾

In America today, we regularly see meetings by speakers like Erick Stacklebeck, David Horowitz and Pamela Geller disrupted by Ordnertruppe whose aim is to silence dissenting voices and enforce a policy of Gleichschaltung throughout the country. To any supporter of free speech, this is a worrying trend.

There are innumerable reasons why America in 2012 is not like Germany after World War I, the Democratic party is not like the NSDAP, and Barack Obama is different from the man Dietrich Eckart described as "the Great One". ⁽⁷⁾ But that's beside the point. We have access to extensive documentation about the rise of the Third Reich. It is therefore possible to identify key aspects of that regime. And if we see the societies we live in becoming similar to that regime in those same key areas, then that is a legitimate cause for concern.

America is obviously not at the late stage of moral degeneration where dissenting voices meet the same fate as the members of The White Rose. And there are no camps in America where opponents of the ruling party are sent for corrective re-education. However Americans need to remember that Hitler announced a 25-point NSDAP plan in February 1920 which made it clear that Jews would no longer be regarded as German citizens under the Nazis. ^(8,9) Trains from the Warsaw ghetto did not start arriving at Treblinka II until July 1942, more than two decades later.

So it's a mistake for anyone in America to look around and think their country remains in good moral standing because they see no concentration camps being built, no young women being guillotined for speaking their mind, and no Jewish families disappearing in the middle of the night. There are other, much earlier signs to look out for, and thanks to the documentation we have about the Nazi regime, the road to the final destination is well signposted. What Americans need to do is look around their country and ask themselves, have we as a nation embarked on that same journey?

Could we really go there?


References

1.  Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Kindle loc. 321
2 . Churchill, The Gathering Storm, Kindle loc. 952
3.  Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Kindle loc. 798
4.  Rees, The Nazis: A Warning From History, p. 23
5.  Hitler, Mein Kampf, pp. 43-44, quoted in Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Kindle loc. 620
6.  Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Kindle loc. 1112
7.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dietrich_Eckart
8.  Shirer, The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich, Kindle loc. 1051-1071
9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Socialist_Program#The_25-point_Program_of_the_NSDAP


Tags: William Shirer, Laurence Rees, Winston Churchill, Barack Obama, Adolf Hitler, The Third Reich, Barry Soetoro To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the Patriot's Corner. Thanks!