Keeping One of Hitler’s Promises

Seems insane to be writing that something Hitler said has value. The historic value in the totality of what he said is about how deep the darkness of humanity can actually become and how seductive it can be. The single thing Hitler said that has true value ultimately has nothing to do with what he meant. Delusional rantings often work that way. 

The promise of a Thousand Year Reich (Thousand Year Realm, Kingdom) was uplifting to his followers and chilling to his enemies. It was Hitler’s attempt to usurp the legacy and legitimacy of the Holy Roman Empire (800-1806 AD) which has been called “The First Realm” or First Reich.   Now, mere decades after Hitler's promise of the Thousand Year Reich has been destroyed, we are faced with the sad reality that most of the world has forgotten how close we came to seeing that promise fulfilled. And so the problem – to ultimately defeat Hitler’s Reich and insure its like never returns, we must keep the truth, the reality, the nightmare alive - however long it is necessary.

According to an April article in the New York Times, over 40% of adults in the U.S. could not identify the significance of Auschwitz. In 70 years we have lost major pieces of important, tragic, instructive history.

 For a generation children have learned about Nazis from The Sound of Music. Bad Nazis, not the murderous, genocidal reality; so Nazis become less true to fact. Recently a generation has learned about Nazis form video games, where Nazis are just like any other game enemy; less real.  To the current generation, the historic videos on YouTube have no more gravity than cat videos. They are not seriously taught that Hitler drove the pageantry and adulation they see into horror.

Jews are often criticized for not "getting over" the Holocaust. History is not meant  to be gotten over. It is a learning tool, a way to benefit from our successes and our failures. Andersonville, Guernica, Ottoman genocides against the Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks and the treatment of Native Americans are all defining moments in their own time, but have historic value beyond their era. The difficulty in facing the facts of all those events is testimony to how important they are. The Holocaust stands out, but does not stand alone.

It is not hard to understand how some people cannot get their heads around these things. The rational mind wants to reject the implications of the horror unleashed during World War 2 by the Nazis.  In the age of computer generated images though, they let themselves believe these are just images, somehow other, unreal or manipulated.

My astoundingly unfair obligation is fostering this history into the future in whatever way I can.  If it takes a thousand year reich of teaching and memory, so be it. If it takes a  thousand years of nightmares for future generations, better that than anyone, anywhere actually living through such things again.