Totalitarianism from Inside and Out

Two books, German Post-War History in Selected Articles by Rainer Hildebrandt 1949-1993 edited by Alexandra Hildebrandt and My Report to the World Story of A Secret State by Jan Karski are about events forgotten by all but those who lived through them. And they are a diminishing number. This reviewer believes these books have meaning for our time.

Rainer Hildebrandt was a West Berlin journalist who was determined that the world would not forget the heroism of East Germans who opposed the Soviets and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Some escaped and others either died trying or in Soviet/East German concentration camps. It is not altogether accurate to say Hildebrandt didn’t want the world to forget because what the world never knew it cannot forget.

While the Wall was the prominent symbol of the post-WWII division of Germany and Europe, for the people of East Germany it was more than a symbol. It was a daily reminder of political and personal freedom denied.

Between 1949 and 1993 Hildebrandt’s articles in the Berlin Tagesspiegel newspaper apprised West Germans of events in East Germany. The Haus am Checkpoint Charlie Museum, now situated at the former crossing point between the American and Soviet sectors, contains three floors of exhibits of escape paraphernalia chronicling East Germans’ dangerous, ingenious and sometimes fatal attempts to reach freedom.

According to the book’s Foreword by Karl-Heinz Brinkman, editor of Hildebrandt’s newspaper articles at the time, “Rainer had especially reliable sources of information” that included escaped GDR citizens, released political prisoners and others in  positions to share first-hand knowledge.

On Sunday, August 13, 1961 armed GDR troops sealed off West Berlin. Hildebrandt opened his first exhibition “It Happened on the Wall” on October 19, 1962 in a small apartment located across from the Wall. From there visitors, outfitted with binoculars, could look into the Soviet sector. Hildebrandt became GDR public enemy Number 1. Three attempts were made on his life.

This post will not further detail Hildebrandt’s story although it is a fascinating one. Fellow blogger Erich visited the Museum in Berlin and will provide the rest. A few facts will do for now. Before the Wall 3.5 million East Germans circumvented GDR emigration restrictions and defected. Many did so by crossing the East Berlin/West Berlin border. They were mostly young and well educated. According to Wikipedia, although the GDR claimed economic reasons for the exodus, interviews with refuges indicated that the reasons were more political than economic. Beyond the obvious political embarrassment, the defectors constituted a brain drain feared by both Soviet and GDR officials. For them, a physical barrier was an economic and political necessity.

Between 1961-1989 about 5000 people attempted escape. Alexandra Hildebrandt, widow of the museum founder, estimates the death toll from those attempts at well over 200. East German border guards had orders to shot to kill.

The rule of law was non-existent. The State Security Service was allowed to arrest without legal grounds and to remove any evidence that would exonerate the accused. Political prisoners, including children as young as 14,  were subjected to constant indoctrination. Much of what happened in the GDR was little known then and would not be known now but for Hildebrandt’s efforts. The East German uprising of 1953, violently suppressed by Soviet troops, is not part of any history Americans are likely to read. Nor is the fact that until 1950 the Soviets operated concentration camps in East Germany, including at Buchenwald, which were then handed over to the East German Ministry of Internal Affairs.

Silence is tyranny’s friend. The path to power is strewn with promises for a better life, and loss of liberty is almost always accompanied by justifications of the greater good. Whether uttered by a dictator, a president, or a compliant media, words that mask truth are just noise. The GDR was no more democratic than the USSR was a union of republics.

* * *Karski’s Story of A Secret State is another tale of heroism and betrayal. But it is more than that. Karski was an officer in the Polish artillery when WWII began. He was captured by the Soviets and escaped, making his way back to Poland. In Poland he joined the underground, which was connected to the Polish government in exile. He was captured by the Gestapo and tortured. When he reached the end of endurance he attempted suicide rather than risk betraying the underground. Some readers may recall that Admiral James Stockdale made the same decision in a Viet Nam prison camp some 23 years later.

With the help of the underground Karski escaped from the hospital to which he was taken and, when recovered, continued to serve in the underground. He became a courier to the exiled Polish government in London. Before leaving Poland he was twice smuggled into the death camp at Belzec and promised to convey the horrors he witnessed to London and Washington and advocate for help for the dying Jews. “He was also among the first to alert the West to the secret, Soviet-controlled campaign to pave the way for a Communist takeover once the Nazi occupiers were driven out. To Western leaders, dependent on their alliance with Stalin, Karski was just rocking the boat. He soon grasped the bitter truth that the great democracies, which, after having indolently abetted the growing menace of Hitlerism, had felt compelled to go to war over Poland’s independence, were prepared at war’s end to deliver a bound and mutilated Poland to Moscow.” Joshua Murachik in “Mosaic” http://mosaicmagazine.com/observation/2014/09/a-tree-grows-in-lublin/

 

For those interested in Karski’s account of his meetings in Washington videos are available at ^{http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2014/09/jan-karskis-message-2.php .}

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Hildebrandt’s book is relevant to today because it is an account of the lengths to which a captive people will go to be free. Karski’s book is pertinent because the Polish people understood that their history and values had to be preserved for Poland to have a future as a free nation. Unlike other underground movements that focused on military matters, the Polish underground conducted secret schools, printed and distributed newspapers that not only provided credible war news but published classic Polish authors and traditional prayers tailored to the situation of a captive people.

The young in America, and many not so young, are ignorant of their own history, let alone what is in these books. They know very little about the seminal documents that fashioned American government and preserved freedom for over 200 years.

The laws that govern us, the freedoms we enjoy, the institutions that we often unfortunately take for granted, represent the hard work of others stretching back far into the past. Acting indifferent to this fact does not just smack of ignorance, but rudeness. How can we claim indifference to learning about those people who made it possible for us to become citizens of the world’s greatest country? The freedoms we enjoy are not just a birthright, but something for which millions have struggled, suffered, and died. David McCullough, American Heritage, Vol. 58, No. 3, Winter 2008

Sending them to college will not enlighten them. According to a recent publication of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, at America’s “flagship” colleges:

…only five out of 29 schools receive credit for course requirements in literature, only three require a survey course in either U.S. government or history, and only two schools require that undergraduate students take a college-level course in economics.

Instead there are courses in LGBTQI studies (for the uninitiated that means Lesbian, Gay, Bi-Sexual Trans Gender, Queer and Intersex), emphasis on trans nationalism, global citizenship and, although not designated as such, resentment of the West. Courses in Western Civilization are, of course, unworthy being comprised of the writings of dead white men. The order of the day is emphasis on oppression, on class, gender, race, and income inequality, on everything that divides us as a people. It is not coincidence that in the age of multiculturalism, when learning to speak standard English is considered cultural imperialism (remember Ebonics), “almost one in 10 adults of working age in the U.S. has limited English, more than 2.5 times as many as in 1980.” Workers’ English Skills Wane, WSJ 9/24/14

Extra curricular life on the campus is structured to keep politically incorrect views from circulating. Free speech zones are now de rigor on many campuses. See Unlearning Liberty Campus Censorship and the End of American Debate by Greg Lukianoff reviewed on this blog.

According to civil liberties attorney Harvey A. Silvergate (9/9/14 WSJ) the California State University System “de-organized” 23 campus chapters of the InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. Although IVCF meetings and activities are open to all who wish to attend, IVCF asks its leaders to affirm their adherence to evangelical Christian doctrine – a “belief “ requirement” deemed by administrators to be discriminatory. Therefore, IVCF chapters will be barred from certain facilities available to other groups. The real problem, as Silvergate points out, is that religious students hold politically incorrect views regarding marriage and abortion rights. First Amendment, what’s that?

While writing these words this reviewer happened across an interview with Charles W. Colson who says it all and says it well:

I believe, in fact, that we have crossed a major cultural divide–the barbarians are not just coming over the wall, they are inside running things. We can no longer say that America is a Christian nation in the sense that we enjoy widespread acceptance of historic Judeo-Christian values. We have instead become a post-Christian culture.

That doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to church–they are; nor does it mean that people no longer believe in God–the vast majority do. What it does mean is that society’s underlying shared assumptions, the values we hold in common, the intellectual and philosophical building blocks of our society, are no longer Christian. The truth is that most of the cultural elite in America today is decidedly hostile to Christianity.

But the gravest danger is that most people don’t realize it… We sit before the tube mindlessly watching freak shows, unable or unwilling to even contemplate the great questions of life. We do not seem to care. One of the best definitions I’ve heard of decadence is “the hollowing out of meaning.” And that is precisely what has happened in America. Religion & Liberty, “Challenges Facing the Future,” Volume 3, No. 4.

There is more and it is all worth reading.

An enormous amount of money is spent sending children to colleges where, what ever else is or is not taught, “the hollowing out of meaning” more often than not dominates curriculum.

Sentient people are aware that this nation is in deep trouble beyond a stagnant economy and an out-of-control government. To restore what is being lost we need not fear the Gestapo at our door (IRS agents maybe). We need not climb any walls or swim any rivers. What is needed is a different sort of will and courage: to take time from busy lives to examine textbooks and deprogram children as necessary; to be undaunted by political correctness and refute threats to liberty; to be self-appointed ambassadors to those able to be persuaded: to reaffirm and reclaim while we can.