I received a degree in Germanic Languages in 1981, and to obtain it I had to read a lot of what was then current German literature. And I have long been a student of history, with a particular interest in World War 2. Allow me to make some observations.
If you had taken the average German of 1927, and described the Holocaust and the other atrocities that would happen in World War 2, they would have said “That can’t happen here.” Indeed, Germany was the most cultured, educated, technologically and scientifically advanced country in Continental Europe.
In 1955, when the Germans were ready to take a good hard look at their legacy, their literature and culture presented two dominant themes for at least a generation. One was “How could we have let this happen?” Two screenplays really brought this home. One was “Biedermann und die Branstifter,” or “Joe and the Arsonists.” Biedermann, which roughly translates as “everyman,” rented his upper room to a pair of thugs who openly said they would blow up the whole town. Biedermann blew them off, even as they carried out their preparations under Biedermann’s roof. Biedermann remained in denial, even as the thugs got him engaged in cutting fuses for them. In the end, the thugs did in fact blow up the entire town. Biedermann confronted them, and their response was “We told you what we were going to do, why didn’t you believe us.”
The other play was “Der Besuch der Alte Dame,” translated into English as “The Visit.” A jilted lover who has become fabulously wealthy returns to her now-impoverished home town with an offer to give them a billion dollars...if only they kill the man who jilted her years ago. In the end, they do it.
As the Germans wrestled with this theme, it became apparent that in human nature, a people can collectively slide incrementally into a cesspit of barbarism, and it is rare that the individual will speak out. And so it was with the Holocaust.
The year after I received that degree, I enrolled in law school, and in my first semester, my Civil Procedure professor turned one lecture over to a Holocaust survivor, who told us what he had to do to be the only member of his family to walk out of Auschwitz. I knew about the Holocaust, and thought “so what” as it related to the study of law. When the presentation was done, Professor Harvey took the podium, and all he said was “Your duty as lawyers is to make sure this never happens again.” And that hit me in the stomach; as the Holocaust unfolded, where was the Rule of Law? Where were the lawyers who said “You can’t do this?” Because everything the Nazi government did to the Jews was perfectly legal. The Nazis made it legal.
When that presentation was over, I mingled in the student commons with my classmates. Guess what they all said.
“That can’t happen here.”
Well, Professor Harvey, I have to confess I’ve failed in my duty, because it is happening here right now.
Great post! Profoundly historic and insightful.