Sunday, July 10, 2016

The Faux Generosity of Nazi Triumphalism


Imagine that Germany had won the second World War. The Nazis have assumed power not only throughout Europe but, effectively, throughout the entire world, because no viable superpower remains with the motive or the means to oppose the ascendant and, by now, somewhat satiated ideology.

All youth are Hitler Youth; all hospitals are Nationally Socialized. No class in any university contains content except what the Party wants taught, and no civil servant can issue a marriage license that would not survive its scrutiny. Judges ignore statutory law and impose the will of the tyrants unchecked, as Roland Freisler and his confreres were doing well before the war’s end in any case. The Aryan Ideal is the universal ideal, and every avenue is cut off for those who wish effectively to oppose it.

What would be the fate of the concentration camps, in that case? They would be promptly emptied out, of course, not because the evil they harbored had been abolished, but because it had been established. Repression would have been rendered useless, in other words, obsolete.

Why isolate Jews, who would no longer be afforded any opportunity to either thrive or survive? They could be released into society without any—to the Nazis—“fear.” The incarcerated intelligentsia would likewise be emancipated, for why take the trouble to minimally feed and house them when their objectionable convictions could find no effective expression in any case? Political resisters would have no resistance in which to participate; gypsies, homosexuals, and others whose lifestyles depend on the kindness of a population predominantly Christian would die off of their own accord, as well. There would be no more Auschwitz, in other words, not because it and all it represents had been overcome, but because the whole society would have become one big Auschwitz in and of itself.  (more...)


Just imagination, or reality?

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