By Enrique Tessieri
One of the matters that surprises me about some politicians in Europe and Finland continue to flirt with ideologies that led Europe down a path of near-total destruction in the 1940s. The younger they are, and the further their time perspective of those times, the more they appear to flirt and idolize with fascism. To them I would like to give them a quote by Rudolf Hoess, the notorious commandant of the Aushcwitz concentration camp during 1940-43.
When we speak of fascism we should put it in a 2010s context. It has different enemies but is the same political beast.
In order to understand the horrors of World War 2 and especially those of the Nazi régime, a very good starting point to understand those harrowing times is reading up on the Nuremberg Trials.
Hoess was not tried at Nuremberg but in Poland, where he was tried by a Polish military tribunal and hanged at Auschwitz on April 7, 1947.
One of the matters that strikes you when you read about Hoess, and all those that were tried for genocide and war crimes after the war, is how they played down their roles.
There is one quote by Hoess that, in my opinion, gives us the smoking gun to the madness, racism, hatred and mass murder that roamed Europe freely at the time.
This is how Hoess justified what he did that caused the death of about 2.5 million Jews at Auschwitz.*
Question: “Did you ever protest?”
Hoess: “I couldn’t do that. The reasons Himmler gave me I had to accept.”
Question: “In other words, you think it was justified to kill 2.5 million men, women, and children?”
Hoess: “Not justified – but Himmler told me that if the Jews were not exterminated at that time, then the German people would be exterminated for all time by the Jews.”
The last quote by Hoess is chilling and reveals the smoking gun that justified mass murder by the Nazi régime. What is even scarier today is that it is still used by people to justify their racism and declarations of wars against other groups. Some of these are groups, politicians and individuals are those who claim that Muslims will take over Europe. They make up their stories with the help of high birth rates and a pocket calculator.
If predicting the future were so easy, then we have invented a time machine to the future (sic!).
* Leo Goldensohn: Nuremberg Interviews. Vintage Books. New York 2004. p. 296.
mikepohjola
February 26, 2012
Thanks for linking to my blog, but please note that that particular entry is a parody! Some young populist extreme right wing politicians in Finland had joined a neo nazi organization and then claimed not to have realized it was one, and I’m only taking that idea one step further. (But I’m sure the real Nazis knew the Nazi Party was a nazi party…)
Migrant Tales
February 26, 2012
Hi mikepohjia and welcome to Migrant Tales. Ok, thanks for the information. Probably the difficult thing for the Nazis who were tried at Nuremberg was how they played down their role. There are some pretty dreadful examples. One of these is Joachim von Ribbentrop never mind Rudolf Hess, who appears to have lost his mind.
eyeopener
February 26, 2012
Hi guys.
You probably are familiar with the “band-wagon” effect of success!! The “me-too” attitude to be with success of some “hardies”. von Ribbentrop cs. didnot lost their minds AT the Nurnberg Trials. They lost their minds at the moment they joined the Nazi Party.
People who join specific parties that deny equality, who have no respect for others then themselves loose their minds when joining. That’s a choice!! Whether consciously or “at a hunch”.
Excuses like: “Ich habe es nicht gewusst” or “Befehl is Befehl” does not constitute an argument to reject responsibility for social behavior that expresses respect and dignity for other people.
Such a pity that there still people who believe -against all odds- that there is a racial white superiority especially in Finland.
To my humble opinion many of the “trolls” in this blog aren’t even Finns or Finland-related.
Poking up some racial fire is all what they want. And……………suppose nobody listens??
Migrant Tales
February 26, 2012
–von Ribbentrop cs. didnot lost their minds AT the Nurnberg Trials. They lost their minds at the moment they joined the Nazi Party.
Eyeopener, you are exactly right! At Nuremberg their condition worsened.