The Truth About Nazis
On my 21st birthday, I woke up in the morning and drove to Dairy Queen. I got soft serve vanilla ice cream with strawberry topping and I ate it for breakfast. Why? When I was a child I asked once if I could have ice cream for breakfast, and my mother said, "You can have ice cream for breakfast when you're 21." And so I did.
My father spent his 21st birthday in a prisoner of war camp. Deaf in one ear, and completely flat-footed, he could have easily been a "4-F" and escaped service for medical reasons. He was a peaceful man but he, like so many of his generation, felt the need to serve his country, and to fight against the fascism that was threatening to engulf the democratic nations of Western Europe, and had even attacked the United States.
When he was 20 years old, he'd been taken prisoner by the Germans at the Battle of the Bulge, was marched for miles, imprisoned, and starved. Like many men of his generation, veterans of World War II, he didn't talk about it much. He held his memories close to his chest. If he talked to anyone about them, I didn't know. It was only many years after his service and just before his death that he shared some of those memories with me.
Starvation does strange things to people. He told me that after a while in the camp, he had the same recurring dream, every night -- a stack of pancakes topped with two fried eggs, sunny-side up. He'd dream that dream over and over, a still frame, a picture of a breakfast that never came. He told me that his fellow prisoners got so hungry that once they had killed and eaten a cat that had strayed into the camp. You don't forget a story like that.
Or the story of the man in the camp who snapped. In peace time, we'd have called him a boy. Suddenly and without warning in the middle of the day, out in the yard, his mind went. He ran for the fence in a desperate effort to escape. There was nowhere to go, and in broad daylight with armed guards everywhere, he didn't stand a chance. My father, who was quick to pick up languages, had learned some German. "Don't shoot! He's crazy! He's lost his mind! He doesn't know what he's doing!" my father called out to the guards as he ran out in the yard waving his arms. The man kept running for the fence, and he climbed, and the guards didn't shoot. They waited until he reached the top. And then they shot him. They left him there for three days as a warning to anyone else who might have been thinking about escape.
Any survivor of World War II has stories. Millions were never able to tell them. Their lives ended on battlefields, and in gas chambers, at the hands of the Nazis. My dad was able to tell me some of his experiences, but most of those memories died with him, like they died with many vets and victims of the war. I didn't even know he'd received a Purple Heart until after his death. But he survived. He survived to marry the girl he left at home, to buy a house, to get a college degree, to start his own company, and to raise a family of five children.
I asked my dad if he ever got his stack of pancakes with the fried eggs on top. I imagined it being his first meal after the Russians had liberated the camp. The Germans had heard that the Russians were coming, and they left quickly in the night. The prisoners hadn't known what was happening until two days later when the Russian army came and let them out, confused and near death. No, he told me, he never did have the pancakes and eggs. It took months in the hospital to build his system back up to where he could eat normally. He began at 5'11" weighing less than 100 pounds, and started with an IV, then a liquid diet, then cream of wheat, and finally solids. A fellow prisoner, he said, on his way from the camp to the hospital in France had managed to get a hold of a box of donuts and had gorged himself. He died a free man, but still a victim. By the time my dad was able to eat that stack of pancakes and eggs, the desire had passed.
I remember as a child I was not allowed to watch Hogan's Heroes. It wasn't a joke in my house. There was nothing funny about prisoner of war camps. There were no handsome well-fed prisoners with secret tunnels under their bunks, and pirate radio equipment who always managed to play their captors for the fool. There were frightened, emaciated young men whose minds and bodies were broken an ocean away from home, who were shot on fences , and who ate cats, and watched their friends die. There was nothing to laugh about. Those were Nazis.
I am tired of people comparing Obama to Hitler. I am tired of seeing signs with swastikas and Nazi symbols at health care rallies. I am tired of people saying that a health care plan intended to uplift millions of Americans to give them dignity, and choice and the ability to care for their families, is like Naziism. I am tired of Rush Limbaugh.
As time passes, and as the greatest generation becomes a memory, passing into history one soul at a time, it is up to the generations that follow them to keep "Hitler" and "Nazi" out of the clutches of those who would make them political buzzwords for people they don't like, or policies they don't understand. Those words remind us of the worst that people can be. There is nothing horrible about Germans in particular that caused them to do these things. This is humanity's dark potential, and something that we all need to remember, whether we were there or not, or whether our family was affected or not, because this is what people can do to each other. To strip those words of their power and meaning in order to create political fear for self-gain is inexcusable and needs to be confronted and refuted whenever it arises, by all of us, whether we support the current health care bill and the current president or not.
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Thanks for the excellent piece. My father served in WWII as a sailor aboard LST's. He was a deeply scarred man, very abusive, and very troubled. He died in 1986, when I was 26.
Recently my 83 year old mother handed me his discharge paper. I knew very little about dad except that he had in the navy, and the part about the LST's. The discharge papers said it all in the three ship numbers. A quick search on the internet revealed he was probably at the invasion of Anzio Beach, then Normandy, and finally ended up in the Iwo Jima landings.
Dad never said a word. Mom said he screamed with nightmares for over a decade after the war. Much was revealed in that little scrap of aging paper with three simple ship numbers. RIP.
This article moved me. Thank you.
My father was a WWII combat veteran who never talked about his experience. I learned from his college roommate that he was the only uninjured member of his platoon after they were caught on a exposed mountain road in Italy in 1944 by German artillery. He never spoke of it.
When we talk about Nazis and Hitler, we tend to personalize the enemy -- Hitler, Goebels, Himmler, etc. They were clearly evil men. But fascism was actually a systematic response by corporate capitalism to the rise of the Soviet Union in 1919 and the threat of worldwide revolution posed by the Comintern. Mussolini, Hitler, Franco and others were funded by corporate interests seeking to protect their hegemony over the World economy.
The situation is the same today in the health care debate. Corporate interests encourage these distortions of the record and the proposals through individuals like Palin and Limbaugh. This corporate governance is a form of evil as well. If we don't stand up to it, we will lose more than our democracy.
Excellent commentary, I too am weary of the constant comparisons to Nazis and Hitler, makes one wonder if these people have ever bothered to study history or have the faintest inkling of what they are saying.
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Great article.
I was unaware that the Obama-Hitler thing had become so serious. Do people realise that most other western countries have a public health care system?? Does that mean that we are all Nazis too?
I'm glad to see there are still Americans out there who know what they are talking about!
"Do people realise that most other western countries have a public health care system?"
correction, ALL other industrialized nations have some form of public health care.
If you say so. Good stuff. I just couldn't be bothered researching every country to make sure :)
Great post! Portrayals of politicians as Nazis is overdone.
You should consider reading Kurt Vonnegut's 'Armageddon In Retrospect'. One of the characters in this series of short stories happens to be a prisoner of war who talks to his fellow prisoners about his plan after leaving to eat a big stack of pancakes with fried eggs on top.
Connection?
thank you for this.
Really, I just want to say thank you for writing the Nazis post. I often read your blog, but this one...well, just thank you!
Wonderful, truly enlightened.
This is a wonderful article, but was the writer as offended by the Bush comparisons to Hitler and Fascism?
I don't recall Rush calling Bush Hitler. I don't recall there being an organized effort on the part of the democratic party to vilify Bush by calling him a nazi or fascist. There will always be protesters who will use the images of Hitler. But when those images are brought out and supported and promoted by members of congress, and high profile party representatives, then that is when it goes to far.
In contrast, Bush was probably called Hitler due to a his questionable invasion of Iraq and subsequent occupation which has seen the death of many, and solved nothing as far as the threat of terrorism (from the middle east). Obama, on the other hand just want all Americans to to be able to have health care. No one has died (yet) in the battle for health care reform.
I would challenge anyone who believes what the right is doing is American, and correct, to actually read something about the Brown Shirts and the beer hall speeches and the intimidation and fear tactics, propaganda employed by the Nazis prior to Hitler becoming the leader of Germany. It is truly the right that is acting the the Nazis. It is disgusting.
This is the most important article on huffington post. It is a must read.....thank you again.
This is such a great article. I've read some of the comments here and am saddened that some are trying to make this a "left" vs "right" issue. No matter who engages in the hate and lying, it is wrong. Everyone needs to take a deep breath, step back and think about what the author is saying. It is never too late to drop your politics and just be civil, no matter what your views are.
I did not agree with most of what President Bush did, but I NEVER called him a Nazi. I suspect many others are like me. It is always the fringe and the loud minority that gets all the attention, and it it unfortunate that the press focuses on these people.
A good article and one that I agree with. How can anyone not agree with this author. I must say, however, that both sides have been using allusions to Nazis for political gain. Pelosi did so even before the GOP began attacking the healthcare initiative. Democrats often used it against the Bush administration. No one complained much then. Hey, I am a liberal democrat but I do not appreciate such hyperbolic inflamatory language. There is no room on this earth for comparisons to Hitler and to his SS troops. They were humans who did evil things.
Kudos Folkwolf101. I've seen that to most liberals, allusions to Bush being a Nazi was just making fun and joking and I heard "it's a joke, get over it" til I was blue in the face. The tune seems to change though when it's redirected to the left from the right.
I'd go so far to say the evil perpetrated by the SS and Hitler was nothing less than demons incarnate. Maybe even the devil himself.
Great article and well said.
That was a very heart felt and well written piece. I applaud you on your eloquence.
Let me start by saying I agree with you wholeheartedly. The ones that were in charge of the Nazi party and the Third Reich were nothing less than demons in flesh. Chills run through my bones to think about the atrocities committed by those maniacal heathen.
I must say I am in loyal opposition to the President's policies. I make no bones about it. I'm a staunch conservative with extreme libertarian leaning tendencies. Call me loyal opposition. I respect the office of the Presidency if nothing else no matter who sits at the desk.
What I must call into question, and let me say I'm not attempting to draw down the gravity of the piece, but, how come nobody on the left showed no outrage when it was done to W first? Again, not taking away from the article. Completely valid and it needed to be said.
Got no beef against anything you said. Just wish I'd have read this same condemnation when the left was putting up all the pictures and protest signs of our former president.
Please accept my sincerest gratitude on behalf of your father for his humble sacrifice. Scripture says "Greater love has no man than he who would lay down his life for his brother". God bless you and your family and may God continue to protect this Republic.
Goggle Bush, Nazi and click images.
There is actually a legitimate reason why there is a big deal being made about it now. When the left did it to Bush, it wasn't celebrated, much less even provoked by a major media outlet. Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh reach a HUGE number of people. They are comparing Obama to Hitler. Those few liberals with signs comparing Bush to Hitler reached what? The few people at the actual protest? If the comparisons now were only done by a handful of crazy people(like Bush-Hitler comparisons) there wouldn't be widespread outrage.
EXCELLENT POINT.
It is true they reach a huge number of people in the talk radio listening audience. That is in large part however due to the position that the talk radio listening population take. However if you compare the number of people who listen to right based talk radio to those who get their news and political commentary from other major television outlets which with the exception of FOX is very polarized left, more people are influenced to the left than the right.
Also, the left made a lot of fun of the right with jabs and even some low blows. Then, when the right spoke up about it they were made fun of even more and told "learn to take a joke". Also, usually it's the 10% most extreme are louder than the more moderate 90%. That 10% is the only ones that get on left media for the most part.
Don't have much to say about Rush, don't listen to him. Beck on the other hand is trying to add a little comic relief to a very polarizing period in our country. Though he may believe it himself he presents it tongue in cheek to those that watch. He's making fun. Now the left can learn to take a joke. lol I heard a BUNCH when Bush was president. I didn't get offended. :D
Nobody should be comparing Bush to Hitler or Obama to Hitler.
Two wrongs will never make a right.
here's why:
Bush's regime:
started illegal war with Iraq based on lies to the public
rewrote laws to strip Americans of their rights
aligned with corporate interests in oil, weapons,and banking to manipulate our economy and enrichen themselves
made policy based on their religious zealotry
created illegal war prisons and tortured detainees
basically everything but gassing people, and now we're reading about mass graves in Afghanistan, so maybe that will come out too.
SEE THE DIFFERENCE NOW?
Umm, well, kinda, but not really. Is Bush like Hitler though? No, Just as I don't believe Obama is like Hitler.
-Bush didn't start and "illegal" war at all. The United States Constitution allows the president of the United States the LEGAL right to declare war on behalf of the state (us). He can deploy troops for up to 3 months if I'm not mistaken. After that, the US Congress must ratify the decision to continue. So, to call a war "illegal" is actually a misnomer due to the fact there is no law preventing a president from declaring war for even no reason.
Now to question the ethics of the war is a different conversation all together. The decision to go to war with Iraq was multifaceted. Some reasons were honorable, others were not so honorable. But I agree there was some wrong doing in the war. Then again, it's war and there is wrong doing in any war.
-Patriot Act, wrongful. But the American people could have spoke out and stopped it if they had willed just as in this healthcare plan and the amnesty bill. I disagree with it myself. Trading freedom for "security".
-Though I don't believe direct connections have been discovered linking him to any under the table dealings with corporate America, the constant saving of these corps (admittedly started by Bush) w/ govt money will most def at the very least ingratiate them to Obama.
-It is true that it's possible that Bush was a religious zealot. Though I've seen no particular evidence of it, I've heard rumors of decisions made by him that could possibly fall in that category. I can't speak to this anymore than that due to the fact I just don't know.
-As for the "illegal" war prisons I simply refer you to my original answer to your first point. Also, Congress which took control of the House and Senate mid term had every opportunity to shut those prisons down. They CHOSE not to. So that's your democratic reps and our republican reps. You'll have to take that up with your respective senators and congressmen/women.
The fact is in war, all countries have P.O.W. camps. Most just have it on their own soil. It's true that the radical Islamic fundamentalists pose more of a risk than most of our highest security prisons could effectively contain. Therefore it has to be a military controlled prison for the safety of the guards/workers and the containment of the prisoners themselves.
Was there torture that went on there? I'm sure there was. There is no country that doesn't take part in torture of people who they feel pose a threat to their people, soldiers or gov't installations. Will the countries ever admit to it? Of course not. Will it stop. No.
Lastly "everything" is a pretty big, all encompassing word that is by it's very nature grossly inaccurate....
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