March 1938, Anschluss
And now, Austria.
We have seen it coming for weeks. Naturally, we sensed what it
all meant, these threats and staged riots ... the whole shabby
performance designed to provide an excuse for intervention. And
now tank and artillery columns are rolling down every street,
under the command of agitated young SS men, and in my village,
exactly as though this were a battle of life and death, the half-
grown louts in the Hitler Youth are playing at being heroes, and
volunteering for the Army as though the enemy was a European
Great Power, and not a tiny nation of seven million inhabitants.
Swarms of Berlin League of German
Maidens girls have been directed here for the moment, and they
wave ecstatically at the tank columns rattling through the old
streets. In the next issue of the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung they
will be pictured as ‘Local Inhabitants, Who Greeted Their German
Liberators with Wild Ovations’.... We know all about the talent for
stagecraft of Goebbels, the limping haberdashery salesman.
The frightening and incredible thing is that
these Prussian officers, bearers of great and famous names, have no
conception of the degraded roles they have been led to play here. It is this erasure of a feeling of honour, this ethical defect, this
godless denial that boundaries exist between right and wrong that
forces me to believe in a final and ignominious depth of the
German spirit.
The bordering countries watched this miserable rape of a little
nation, and shrugged their shoulders. Nobody is moving to stop
this before it is too late. It almost seems that they prefer to stand
back and wait until the cobra breaks out.
But I foresee a day when the nations will regret their cowardly
passivity. The cost is beyond measuring; but they will have to pay,
someday. In this first great breach of the peace, the criminal has
been let go unpunished and is thus made to appear more powerful
than he is. And as he is made more powerful, we, who are his last
opponents inside Germany, are made weaker and more impotent.
If five years ago, at the time of the so-called
Assumption of Power, the European nations had taken action —
everything would have ended with a police raid, with the gang
being hustled off to jail by the collars. But what did everyone do? They stood by and watched, and
thus made impossible any resistance from inside Germany. What
are they doing now? They are standing by and watching, preoccupied with figuring out a way to avoid irritating Herr Hitler - and
so making any resistance even more impossible.
As I write, an immense flight of bombers is droning past over- head. For a whole hour the drone has gone on above, as though these planes were flying against a world power. I know that this land is the living, beating heart of the world. I will go on believing in this heartbeat, despite all the covering layers of blood and dirt. But I know also that the thing up there that rumbles and thunders is the denial of right and justice, of truth and faith and everything that makes life worth living. I believe that this is a caricature of Germany, smeared by a malignant ape escaped from the leash.
You, up there: I hate you waking and sleeping. I will hate and curse you in the hour of my death. I will hate and curse you from my grave, and it will be your children and your children’s children who will have to bear my curse. I have no other weapon against you but this curse, I know that it withers the heart of him who utters it, I do not know if I will survive your downfall.
But this I know, that a man must hate this Germany with all his heart if he really loves it. I would ten times rather die than see you triumph.
Writing this, I shrink inside myself. Soon it will be Easter, and as though in derision the final chorus of the St Matthew Passion rings out from the radio at just this moment - ‘ Wir setzen uns in Tranen nieder ...’
Germany, my Germany ... yes, this chorus, once this spoke for us.
Now, still, overhead, these white savages steer their moronic automatons, flying toward brutality and crime, drowning out the peaceful stillness of this spring day. I am crying. But it is more out of fury and shame than out of sadness.
Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen, Diary of a Man in Despair, 1947
It is almost eerie how the words of Reck-Malleczewen from 1930's Germany resonate with us today.
Have you noticed the ongoing theme of this site, for the past 10 years or so?
History moves in recurrent waves.
Trump and crew are frontrunning their own news-making decisions and opportunities.
This include a Wall Street contingent of Bessent and Kushner cronies.
So the wild swings will continue until political reality, both domestic and international, forces some sort of resolution.
Gold and silver were utterly hammered today, a bit ahead of the Comex futures options expiration on Tuesday the 27th.
Oil was hit hard yesterday, and rallied on the war news today.
Wax on, wax off.
Still time to stock up. Trust nothing that comes from the fog of war.
Have a pleasant evening.
