"The overwhelming majority of German
citizens believed that it was their moral duty to come to the
unconditional support of their government in time of crisis, especially
when the nation went to war. The good citizen didn’t question whether his
government was right or wrong. The good citizen placed his trust in the
judgment and decisions of his government officials, especially during
crisis and war.
"That’s what patriotism meant to the German people during the 1930s
and 1940s. The good citizen -- the one who deferred to authority -- was
considered the patriot.
"What about German citizens who refused to defer to authority, those
who had an independent mindset -- those who would examine government
policies with a critical eye -- those who would question, challenge, and
object to wrongful government policies? They were considered bad citizens
-- traitors."
Who Were the Patriots and
Traitors in Nazi Germany?
by
Jacob G.
Hornberger June 12, 2013
Ever since I was a kid, I have heard Americans ask, “How could the German
people have allowed the Nazi regime to commit its evil acts?”
Well, here’s the answer to that question: The German people had the same
warped and distorted concept of patriotism that American statists have
today.
The overwhelming majority of German citizens believed that it was their
moral duty to come to the unconditional support of their government in
time of crisis, especially when the nation went to war. The good citizen
didn’t question whether his government was right or wrong. The good
citizen placed his trust in the judgment and decisions of his government
officials, especially during crisis and war.
That’s what patriotism meant to the German people during the 1930s and
1940s. The good citizen -- the one who deferred to authority -- was
considered the patriot.
What about German citizens who refused to defer to authority, those who
had an independent mindset -- those who would examine government policies
with a critical eye -- those who would question, challenge, and object to
wrongful government policies? They were considered bad citizens --
traitors.
The best example of this phenomenon involves the story of the White Rose,
an organization composed predominantly of German college students. If you
haven’t seen the movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, I highly
recommend it. Sophie Scholl, along with her brother Hans, were members of
the White Rose.
If you do see the movie, pay particular attention to the trial scene in
which the presiding judge, Roland Freisler, comes down hard on the
defendants Hans and Sophie Scholl. You’ll notice something apropos to
today: Freisler’s mindset is the same as that of American statists today
who are condemning Edward Snowden. In Freisler’s mind, the Scholl
siblings were bad Germans. They were traitors. Their parents had raised
them to be despicable creatures.
What had the Scholl siblings done? What was their “crime”? They had taken
a critical look at their own government in the midst of World War II.
They had concluded that their own government was in the wrong -- that it
was engaged in wrongful conduct. Knowing that they were risking their
lives or liberty, they violated the law by secretly publishing and
distributing a set of pamphlets called “The White Rose,” in which they
exhorted the German people to rise up, stop the wrongdoing, and set
Germany on a correct path.
They were caught, primarily owing to the Nazi regime’s extensive
surveillance system over the German people. A college janitor saw them
tossing White Rose pamphlets into the school courtyard and, being the
good, little citizen he was, locked the doors and called the Gestapo.
Hitler and his cohorts considered him a patriot.
Not surprisingly, Hans and Sophie Scholl were quickly convicted and
executed at the guillotine for treason. After all, the law is the law and
citizens are expected to obey the law, as American statists never cease
to remind us in the case of Edward Snowden.
By the way, I would be remiss if I failed to mention that the Scholl
trial did not take place in the regular German courts. After the
terrorist attack on the Reichstag, and after some of the accused in that
terrorism case had been acquitted, Hitler established a special tribunal
called “The People’s Court” to try terrorism cases and treason cases. Its
purpose? To ensure that no more accused terrorists and traitors got
acquitted.
Another interesting World War II movie is Downfall, which is about
Hitler’s last days in his Berlin bunker. The movie revolves around his
young secretary Traudl Junge. At the end of the movie, the real Traudl
Junge is shown making a statement. She points out that when she accepted
the job as Hitler’s secretary, the last thing on her mind was that she
was doing anything wrong.
After all, Junge embraced the same concept of patriotism that most other
Germans embraced -- the same type that American statists today embrace.
Her job, as a good German citizen, was to come to the support of her
government, especially during crises and war.
But Junge pointed out in Downfall that when she learned about the
Scholl siblings after the war, she realized that she should have been
asking the same types of questions that Hans and Sophie Scholl had asked.
When she learned about Hans and Sophie Scholl, her concept of patriotism
changed.
Today, American statists are condemning Edward Snowden for breaking the
law and violating his oath as a government subcontractor to keep secret
from the American people the massive surveillance scheme that the
national-security state has secretly imposed on Americans and on much of
the rest of the world. Statists are saying that Snowden is a bad citizen
and a bad person. They’re calling him a traitor. They saying that he
needs to be put on trial, perhaps even before the national-security
state’s special tribunal system at Guantanamo Bay.
Where does conscience play into the American statist’s concept of
patriotism and treason? For the statist, conscience must be subordinated
to the needs of the national-security state. All that matters to the
statist is the undying loyalty that national-security state employees,
contractors, and subcontractors (and American citizens) owe to the
national-security state apparatus and to their oath to protect its
secrets.
For the statist, the national-security state is everything. It is god. It
is daddy. It is big brother. Everything else, including conscience, must
be subordinated to “national security” and to the national-security
state’s oaths, laws, rules, and regulations.
The battle lines are forming in the case of Edward Snowden.
On the one side are the statists, for whom patriotism means an
unconditional pledge of allegiance to the national-security state and its
deep and dark nefarious secrets involving grave infringements on liberty
and privacy.
On the other side are the libertarians and a few liberals and
conservatives, for whom conscience and freedom reign supreme.
Time will tell which side wins out. Time will tell which direction
America heads in.
http://fff.org/2013/06/12/who-were-the-patriots-and-traitors-in-nazi-germany/
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- Who Were the Patriots and Traitors in Nazi Germany? MJ
