But Then It Was Too Late

Guest Author Uncategorized

This is from the always worth reading Kaye Lee at The Australian Independent Media – I hope she will forgive me for reblogging without her express permission (and I note that several Pubkateers have commented already).

(Image Credit: Daily Fumes)

An excerpt from They Thought They Were Free – The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer:

What no one seemed to notice was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late.

You see, one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

Note: Thanks to mars08 for this chilling reminder

958 thoughts on “But Then It Was Too Late”

  1. The first in line to receive whatever money is left after all the farmer’s assets have been sold are the various people involved in the liquidation. The people who should be on the first spacecraft off earth (thanks, Douglas Adams).

  2. This little black duck

    As a rugger bugger thoccer is a total Meh. BUT indoctrination by a Liverpool Irish workmate a few years back means such Man-U news earns a big Booyah ! That and supporting Liverpool because of what the dirty digger and tories did to them after Hillsborough. Oh and discovering great granny was a Wallsender means Newcastle United is also looked upon favourably )

  4. SBS and Karen Muddleton totally didn’t show what Wild Bill did to Your Government.

  5. Aguirre

    Thank you for that link, now if Bill and Labor continue in this vein I could start getting interested again. One thing I won’t be doing though is watching QT.

    TLBD

    We have been watching SBS news lately and they seem to be the only one reporting moderately fairly…..can’t expect much more of them, they have more guts than the abc although haven’t watched them for maybe a year now. Just going by what people are saying.

  6. Today, Your Government put a motion purely to embarrass the Opposition. Wild Bill king-hit them.

    I can’t remember that happening to JGPM. Might be my rose-coloured glasses.

  8. “The people who should be on the first spacecraft off earth” – as long as that spaceship is going straight into the sun. I don’t want any of those bastards surviving to stuff up another world.

  9. A few more king hits from Labor and the government might give up trying stupid motions designed only to embarass. They might even decide to think up a policy or two, althought they will struggle as that will be a completely new experience for them.

    Yesterday’s Craig Thomson thing was designed to embarass Labor but it didn’t go the way the government expected. Who among the government ranks thought Labor would support that apology and condemn Thomson?

    Today’s lousy motion got them a well deserved kicking. It’s the government who is being embarasssed by all this plotting. Will they try again? What a shame the Press Gallery fools can’t see what’s going on right there in front of their eyes.

  10. Their ABC did a bit better with Wild Bill. Mark Simpleton did his best for His Government.

  11. This little black duck

    Another one of them Mackems eh ? 🙂 You should like this le Francais: Ecouter et Parler for sophisticated Geordies.

    French for Geordies

  12. Leone,

    Don’t you realize, Bill Shorten was censured! A big win for The Government!

  14. kk,

    Geordies include Sunderland.

    I only kept watching because of the rather cute Shazza.

    I speak French dreadfully but it’s a tad better than theirs.

    Thanks anyway.

  15. What is it about Kate Ellis that makes Julie Bishop so jealous? Ellis is younger? More – much more – attractive? Happily married to a man with influence? Intelligent? Talented? All of the above? Mesma’s bitchiness towards Ms Ellis goes back quite some way. It’s not a good look for a government minister, she should get over it and herself.

  17. Being in the front row, six feet from the stage (front row centre) did exercise my peripheral vision.

  18. I just finished watching Shorten’s speech. It was excellent. He certainly has presence and it shut Abbott’s goons up.

    (It starts at 1hr 13min on the youtube video above).

  20. TLBD

    [Geordies include Sunderland.]
    According to Geordies I’ve met anyone outside of Wallsend are suss 🙂

  21. Whatever the militry prowess of Angus Cambell, he still is being played in the role of patsy by the LNP. …THEY have no qualms about disgracing the military..they dump them in any amount of servile wars…the only reward for the dead and maimed in futile operations being faux platitudes and facile comments (“Sh#t Happens!”)…The loyalty of the military arm of society does not belong to the LNP. to use and abuse…it is not the Govt’s military, it is the nation’s.
    And then we have the new court jester ; Turnbull, finding his capacity for eloquence of speech and knowledge of history in short demand from a dunce of a govt’, tries his hand at “Commediene”… his “try-hard” effort finding but weak laughter from a coached audience(“who’s Joseph Conrad?…is he the swimmer?”)….but then, he is not alltogether silly..he has knowledge of what and who suffered on “the night of the long knives”.!

  22. What is it about Kate Ellis that makes Julie Bishop so jealous?
    ________________________________________________
    Is there a female equivalent of penis envy?

  26. Greg Hunt’s cred is dropping away.
    Greg Hunt’s whaling patrol ‘not up to task’ says Air Force Chief Geoff Brown

    Air Force Chief Geoff Brown has thrown doubt on the effectiveness of Environment Minister Greg Hunt’s switch to using aircraft to monitor Antarctic whaling.

    “The [Airbus] A319 is not suitable for that task,” Air Marshall Brown told a Senate estimates hearing on Wednesday.

    “The word surveillance can mean many things,” he said. “Surveillance out of a passenger aeroplane is a pretty limited operation.”

    He said the Air Force considered all options for the whaling surveillance task, including its P3 Orion and C-17 Globemasters, but found them unsuitable because they lacked the range to operate off the Antarctic coast.

    Air Marshall Brown indicated that the Boeing P8s, which Defence announced last Friday would be arriving in Australia in 2017, would be suitable for the task.

    http://m.canberratimes.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greg-hunts-whaling-patrol-not-up-to-task-says-air-force-chief-geoff-brown-20140226-33icj.html

  29. “Air Marshall Brown indicated that the Boeing P8s, which Defence announced last Friday would be arriving in Australia in 2017, would be suitable for the task.”

    2017. Love it!

  36. Bananabt doesn’t seem to have heard of the Income Equalization Deposit Scheme which has been going for yonks. I know, I audited it back in the nineties.

    The farmers deposit gains in the good years, get a hefty interest and withdraw in the poor years. Hard?

  37. AJ Canberra

    😆 Up there with other great ‘Mercan declarations of war . The War on Drugs , The War on Poverty and The War on Cancer.

  38. kk,

    I got it right. Alan Joyce will be told he is pregnant with a huge load of cash.

  39. This little black duck

    [ Income Equalization Deposit Scheme ]
    When did that scheme start ? I have a vague memory of the scheme being at some stage ( 80’s , 90’s ?) quite a high profile issue.

  42. kk,

    I can’t remember the origins. I audited whether it accorded with its act. Broadly, it did. There was a one-day error on the calculation of interest.

  43. Wild Bill and the Humiliation of Your Government didn’t rate a mention on Your 7.5.

    Now, with JGPM …

  46. BK,

    The Idiot smirked and wriggled and didn’t know which way to turn.

    Being humiliated by a woman is bad enough, but by a man!

    That vid goes in the archives.

  47. Tit for tit – Julie Bishop could have a new name – Vinegar Tits. This describes her perfectly.

  50. I must watch a replay of QT, to see Shorten in action. I am watching 7.30 and Barnaby is on. He has been feeding in the grassy paddock, he has put a bit of fat on. He needs time in the APH gym.

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