catapult magazine

GOERRING “Of course, the people don’t want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece.
Naturally, the common people don’t want war — neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America; nor, for that matter, in Germany. That is understood. After all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a Fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.”

GILBERT: "There’s one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives. And in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

GOERRING: “Oh, that is all well and good. But voice or no voice the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”

—From an interview during the Nuremburg trials (Goerring with psychologist Dr. Gustave Gilbert)

Quote from grant :
If Goerring was really being honest, he would have had to admit that the people brought Hitler to power.

It is fascinating to me how & why someone could dupe an educated, sophisticated nation like Germany.

Maybe the lessons we can learn from the “duping” process can help us to train the next generation …
…how to think,
…how to decide if someone is talking truth
…or nonsense.
…and how to evaluate that charismatic leader for truth or falseness…

Democracies are harder to “keep” than dictatorships. Dictatorships are simple. Someone else decides. You do.

The lessons you want people to learn from post-Nazi Germany are very much in keeping with what Hannah Arendt was talking about after the war. In her classic book, “Eichmann in Jerusalem”, she comes to the horrifying discovery that Eichmann was just like you and me, not overtly or extraordinarily evil. Eichmann, like many other people of all times and places, was an opportunist who saw a way to fit into the machine and profit from it. Arendt also stresses the need for people to “think” in order to avoid such evil dictatorships or democracies, but I believe it’s really more a matter of HOW a nation thinks. What “Spirit” does their thinking get caught up in? We all know that Germany was and is a nation of “thinkers”. It takes a certain religious conviction (and confession) to “think” in a certain way.

I wanted to say that I agree with much of what jo said in her last comment. I’m not sure what she means about rich people. Could you explain that a bit more?

Also, I agree with dan about all those historical references. All wars have similarities because they’re all wars. My own personal reason for comparing the Iraq situation to Germany is because, well, this topic is sort of about that, and also because Bush and Thatcher both decided to defend Kuwait because they did not want to allow Hussein to do in the mid-East what Hitler did in Europe. The specter of WWII still looms large. This is especially obvious to me in my philosophical studies and it shows up in foreign policies all across the world. The “War on Terror”, not just the War in Iraq, is a WORLD conflict, which perhaps is why the World War analogies are used more readily than the Vietnam, Grenada, Cambodia analogies.

I agree that WWII looms large in political discourse. But I get the sense that most of us would agree that care needs to be taken in using this analogy.

On of the reasons (among others already mentioned) I don’t think Goerring’s quote is useful in explaining our current situation is that there is a profound contrast between the lives of Americans today and the lives of Germans pre-WWII. When vanlee mentioned the Weimar Republic, it reminded me of this dissimilarity. In post-WWI Germany the economy underwent profound inflation, so that at times it was literally cheaper to wall paper with money than to buy wallpaper. A wheelburrow full of money bought a loaf of bread. It’s hard for me to imagine an entire nation faced with such a reality. It’s hard for me to imagine a father looking his child in the eyes knowing he can do little to stop the hunger.

What this situation highlights, and I think what we cannot miss, is that the German people were profoundly desperate. They were desperately searching for an answer, a solution. Hitler’s genius was in grasping this situation, and perceiving power behind the starvation. He started blameshifting. It was the wealthy Jews! It was your former generals that sold Germany down the river! He had charisma and gave the people confidence. He restored pride to a forlourn people, and they were greatly motivated to follow him to something different.

The American people are not desperate. They were shocked and appalled after September 11, but they have a luxury that the Germans of WWII did not.

Perhaps the Nazi/Iraq comparison is more suitable. Does anyone know the motivation of the people of Iraq for following Hussein? I admit this may be a bad question. There may be better descriptions of the relationship between Saddam and his people. Perhaps they are tired of him?

Can someone help?

Vietnam, Cambodia, Grenada, etc all occurred in the context of the cold war, a conflict no less global than the war on terror. Just as the fight against communism became an excuse for all sorts of dubious unilateral interferance by the American government, so the war on terror is becoming the same.

I still don’t think the war on terror is a ‘war’, nor does it have much in common with WWI or WWII. Terrorism is a threat, but it can’t be neutralized by conventional war. 9-11 made Americans feel unsafe—invading Iraq was supposed to make them feel safer. This is not unlike October 23, 1983 when a Muslim suicide bomber killed 240 American marines in Beirut, and two days later Regan ordered the invasion of puny pro-Cuba Grenada.

I agree that the 1991 invasion and liberation of Kuwait has some parallels with Hitler’s anexation of Austria in 1938. That’s why the world agreed to cooperate in kicking the Iraqis out and imposing sanctions. But Iraq had since been contained, weakened, and hadn’t invaded anybody.

Grant—-Rich people? Well, part of the comment was more general— rich (and therefore powerful) people have been taking advantage of poor people forever, and keeping the general populace in fear makes it easier for rich people to exploit it.

More specifically, I was referring to the fact that countries usually don’t attack other countries purely for moral or political reasons. There are always economic factors involoved, and to put it bluntly, Bush seems to want to cash in on this war on terror in more ways than one. I just cannot bring myself to ignore the OIL.

Dan: Yes, the “War on Terror” is closest to “The Cold War”. It’s that kind of conflict. It’s a war of ideologies, of national religious movements. And Iraq is part of that broader war. Yes yes yes.

The money issue is very interesting when trying to compare and contrast Germany’s situation and the situation of the U.S. I believe Germany really felt threatened by the rest of Europe, that this perceived threat was not manufactured by its leaders. France was very hard on Germany after WWI and limited the nation’s ability to thrive economically. Hitler, therefore, expressed the fears of a nation that felt threatened by its European neighbors whose reparations were damaging. The people who were thriving economically in Germany, the Jews, were a natural scapegoat for Hitler because the German people were afraid of those making money off the German people (that’s something of a reduction of the complexity of Jewish-German history, but there is a connection). Interestingly, the U.S. felt like its freedom was threatened when the planes hit the World Trade Towers and responded by telling people to buy more, fly more, support the U.S. economy, which is the very symbol of American freedom. As Jo suggests, it is helpful to keep in mind the connection of American capitalism and American foreign policy. The fear that motivates people is not just linked to people’s fleshly existence, but also to their way of life as economic creatures.

In our talk of the admittedly important factors of fear and economics, I think it would be a mistake to reduce the factors to those. Fear and economics fail to explain adequately why we’re in Iraq. As to economics, even if it were granted that it was the deciding factor, it is certainly not the only factor, and it is questionable whether it is a primary cause. Perhaps it makes more sense as the deciding second cause. The first cause could well be the terrorist attacks of 9-11, coupled with the rise in percent of terrorist activities against the US. This seem to make more sense as a first cause, because it is unlikely that the US would be in Iraq without 9-11.

THis does not necessarily undermine the importance of American capitalism as a deciding factor, for it might have been the primary consideration in our invasion of Iraq. Yet, even this factor doesn’t make sense without Saddam’s qualification as a supporter of terrorism.

Fear is also a factor, but not the only emotional factor, perhaps not the primary emotional factor. What about anger at injustice? Post-9-11 this term was thrown around quite a bit. People were outraged at the injustice of attacking and killing so many innocent people. Americans were less tolerant of regimes that fostered terrorism (e.g. Iraq). Also, even if (irrational or rational) fear was a leading emotional factor, Saddam seems to ahve helped create this fear along with the present administration. He made bin Laden man of the year and his TV station celebrated how “Saddam made it (9-11) happen.” Not a wise move when Americans were still sore about 9-11. It would have gone better for Saddam if he had renounced support both of terrorism in general and of bin Laden’s 9-11 in particular. At the very least he could have been reverent at the passing of so many innocent people.

The “War on Terror” is not a war on fear. Before that it is a war on terrorism and its activities, which involve unpredictable, horrific ways of achieving certain ends, often intentionally and contientiously involving the death of innocent civilians in order to get attention. Saddam might have denounced terrorism, but instead he celebrated it.

Grant: I’ll agree that the war in Iraq is a religious war, a kind of crusade on both sides. Saying that, however, is an admission about the unwinnable nature of such a war. You can’t win hearts and minds with military force.

I’m still struck by how the Bush Iraq policy demonstrates American optimism about human beings, and over-estimation of pro-American feelings in the world. It might be fair to make the comparison with Benjamin Franklin who assumed that French Canadians, given the choice between ‘tyranical’ British rule and the freedom of joining the American colonies, would of course choose ‘freedom.’ Turns out people don’t always want freedom if it comes at the expense of other things, like security. And it turns out not everybody wants their country to be more like the United States. Surprise surprise.

Here’s an article which might be of interest"

Statement on the Interim Progress Report on the Activiteis of the Iraq Survey Group (Go to cia.gov then to the report by this name.)

And yes, I see the tired old Bush equals Nazi connection.

Note: One may disagree with his specific policy, in Iraq or elsewhere, but that does not make PRes. Bush a nazi.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE read Mein Kampf, watch testimony of actual old Nazis, do research (Nazis and the Occult by Dusty Sklar, William Shirer’s books of WW!! —from a reporter who was there,

(& other sources which have been around for a while and are not shaped by the political correctness of the last few years.)

And don’t forget Winston Churchill’s WWII series, notably the first book. Then, some of you who wonder why some refer to the Nazis in certain pre war situations do so. And you will see how wonderfully the League of Nations stood up to a real, blatant, evil dictator. And you will see why it is important to know why the Weimar Republic is referred to as a big failure of the Allies. (If we mess up in Iraq, we could sset up something as short lived & worthless as the Weimar Republic.)

But please, remember that a Nazi (now defined as right wing extremist) is not truly that. Maybe right wing onluy in that they despised the other evil dictatorship of Communism. But that is all. Find older books & persons who lived thru WWII to tell you what a Nazi really was.

And you will never use the word loosely on anyone you disagree with again (unless the description actually fits).