President Obama will return to Europe this summer to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the landing of Allied troops in Normandy.
It is expected that he will visit the deadly Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany during this journey.
But, Obama being Obama, The President will have to balance his Buchenwald visit against new sensitivity to the "suffering" of the Germans during World War II.
The Times of London reports:
[Obama] will be aware of the sensibilities of his German hosts before the D-Day commemoration and by travelling to Dresden — a city destroyed by ferocious Allied bombing in February 1945 — Mr Obama will also acknowledge how Germany suffered during the Second World War.
How Germany suffered?
And what was it exactly that brought on the German suffering? Where and how did all that suffering begin?
And what about those ferocious allied attacks?l
Jeez, I wonder why the allies had to attack so ferociously?
Those poor, poor, Germans of that era. I suppose they were all victims.
Please, don't tell me we're opening the door to some new moral equivalency theory here.
Don't tell me that the "suffering" of the Germans or the destruction of Dresden by "ferocious" allied attacks now negates the evil of the Third Reich.
Don't even begin to suggest it.
Don't go there. Please.
2 comments:
I think you may be making something out of nothing. Did Germany suffer in WWII? Absolutely. Who was to blame? The German people and their Nazi leadership. But, taking the example Primo Levi sets out for us, it is more important to ask those questions in order to learn form history so that we can better our present.
By acknowledging that Germany did suffer, we come to realize that ordinary men can be driven to do extraordinarily awful things. A sacred and desperate people, guided by dubious moral standards set by their leaders are the recipe for bringing about tragedies like the Holocaust.
That said, I think Obama will metion this in passing.
Still, the Reagan parallels keep coming. At least this seems to be a bit more well received than the visit to Bitburg. The article also says that Eli Wiesel may join Obama.
Yes, yes and yes.
And I was disappointed with the Reagan Bitburg fiasco and said so at the time.
And it would be good if O had Eli with him.
But I'm also trying to awaken people to history here - not just awaken but educate as well; for those to young or ill-informed to understand what happened.
There WERE courageous Germans at the time who saw what was happening and who tried to speak out and/or resist. One of them was the great Marlene Dietrich.
In his bio of Dietrich Steven Bach notes that "as early as 1933" it was clear that the Nazi regime would be brutal and unforgiving and that those who disagreed with it would be "forced out or murdered." And Bach adds that "this was a signal hard to miss (though tragically, many did)". The truth is that many Germans willingly missed the signal and conveniently averted their eyes. The truth is that they were complicit in the Nazi terror; in the annihilation.
Dietrich was not.
She denounced her homeland.
She became a hero to millions of GIs. She went behind enemy lines to help the Allied cause. And she was eventually decorated by the Allies for her bravery.
How sad that there were not more like her.
Adulation (of a single person, personality, charismatic figure or cause) is dangerous and yes, can lead to incredible evil.
And those who were complicit remain complicit. The blood is on their hands.
Nothing can erase that.
Nothing.
And what I'm saying is that we can't be fuzzy when it comes to evil. We've gotta be firm, clear, steadfast.
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