Posted by
William D. Dannenmaier on Thursday, July 24, 2008 9:37:31 AM
Heil Obama, Sieg Heil!
By
William D. Dannenmaier
In the nineteen twenties and thirties, tens of thousands of Germans stood and chanted “Heil Hitler, Sieg Heil” (Hail Hitler, Hail Victory) as Hitler spoke. A young, gifted, orator, Hitler promised change, hope and prosperity to those cheering crowds. He had strong followings among the youth, teachers, college professors and the unemployed. He won election to the Reichstag (parliament) in the 1920s and became party chairman of the National Socialist party at the age of 36.
Does any of this sound familiar? Have we not a young, gifted orator who speaks of change and hope to chanting crowds of youth, teachers, college professors, social workers and welfare recipients?
In many respects, Hitler had an easier task. Following World War I, the people of Europe, including the Germans, the French and the English, wanted peace, but the English and French Politicians used their power following the war to divide Germany into pieces and impoverish the German people. The people to whom Hitler spoke were truly hurting. There were starving and homeless people in the streets. A mathematics teacher whom I knew in Alberta told me that as a youth he and his family had to scrounge in garbage cans for food, he had joined Hitler’s army voluntarily as a means of survival. Another student, also in Alberta, who had been in Rommel’s Afrika Corps and captured, told me that he remembered going outside one morning as a six-year-old child and seeing all the telephone and electric lines on the ground. The French army had crossed the border during the night and taken all of the telephone poles. They called it “reparations.” It was easy for people to follow a leader who promised a better life.
Obama does not have it as easy. The only people who are hungry in the United States are usually hungry by choice – preferring alcohol or drugs to food. People do not sleep on the streets except by choice as the politicians of New York City discovered when they provided shelters for the homeless – who refused to use them. Couples with no children or one child live in two and three bedroom homes with multiple bathrooms. Bill Clinton’s “trailer trash” may live in trailers, but they often have expensive boats and multiple automobiles in their yards while they spend their time on cell telephones, video-games and watching expensive television sets. Obama’s greatest help in arguing for his “change and hope” comes from the news media, which insists that American’s lives are miserable, that the sky is about to fall.
As Hitler’s power grew, he destroyed the democratic government, gaining dictatorship of the nation. He nationalized business, labor, education and agriculture. His socialist government knew what was best for all.
Are there not, again, similarities? Education is already nationalized and Obama has spoken of the need for the federal government to “equalize” pay – his federal government will decide how much business and industry should pay their employees. The government already exerts massive control over education and agriculture, but Democratic leaders want to have more control over the medical system. Hitler would agree. The national government knows what is best for all – and can enforce it.
But there was a dark side to Hitler’s federalization of everything. His first step was to abolish the Reichstag (parliament) and its democratically elected leaders. Dissenters were imprisoned. Masons, Jehovah Witnesses and members of other groups who opposed his policies were imprisoned and executed. All leaders of the Evangelical Christian churches were imprisoned and most, if not all, were executed. A notable exception was the “Sea Wolf” a leading Evangelical Christian who had gained fame, and his nickname, during the war as a submarine commander for surfacing after sinking a ship, rescuing survivors and making certain that their life boats were provided with the necessary means, including food and water, to get to the nearest land. Following the war, he became a leading Evangelical pastor. His success and humanity gained him such fame and following in Germany that even Hitler was afraid to execute him, although he did imprison him.
I would not like to see the United States follow the path of the Germany of the 1920s, but the circle of leaders with whom Obama has surrounded himself over the years and the self-serving behaviors of political leaders such as Pelosi and Reid are frightening. I don’t really believe Obama and his entourage can destroy our democracy, but the Germans of 1929 didn’t expect Hitler to destroy theirs either.