A work of fiction, steeped in historic fact, that examines misguided idealism in early Nazi Germany and asks what can we learn from it today?…
by William Schoenl
Revival! Johann wanted Germany to revive.
A student at the University of Berlin, he joined the Nazi German Student Federation during the Depression because he thought the Party would deal with unemployment and revive Germany. He cheered when Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in January 1933.
He ignored Nazi stormtroopers beating up Jews and others on the streets of Berlin. When Jakob Schlesinger, a Jewish acquaintance of his, was being beaten he walked on. He did not report the assault to the police, who would probably have done nothing since Hermann Goering, Hitler’s henchman, had become head of the Prussian police and made Nazi stormtroopers auxiliary police.
When a fire burned down the Reichstag, the German Parliament building, in February, he accepted the Nazi explanation that Communists set the fire. Communists and Socialists were placed in concentration camps — the first concentration camps under the Nazi regime. Johann approved of an Enabling Act in March that enabled Hitler to govern by decree. Now, he thought, the revival of Germany could begin in earnest.
At the University faculty and students were jumping on the Nazi bandwagon. A new Civil Service Law in April dismissed Jews, other “non-Aryans,” and those deemed unreliable from the Civil Service; the Law was extended to apply to university teachers. Some faculty joined the Nazi Party and to further their careers taught in accord with Nazi doctrine. German Volk (people) classes became popular. In line with the Nazi doctrine of Lebensraum —expansion for more living space for the German people — faculty taught about Germany’s past and broader borders. Faculty also taught courses in so-called “racial science,” in which Johann enrolled.
In May, the German Student Association called for students to burn books across Germany. Johann threw books by Sigmund Freud and other Jewish authors and works considered “unGerman” in spirit into the bonfire on the square across from Humboldt University in Berlin — thousands of books were burnt.
What can we learn today from these happenings? First, think critically and make distinctions. Even as Johann made no distinction between being pro-German and being pro-Nazi, some students today, including at Ivy League Universities, make no distinction between being pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas nor any distinction between criticism of Israel’s government and anti-Semitism. Nor do some others distinguish between support of an ally Israel and destruction in Gaza. They do not engage in critical thinking.
Secondly, the danger of politicizing universities whether from the right or the left. In the case of Johann, universities were politicized by the extreme right Nazi government and by faculty and students. Many students, like Johann, acted partly out of misguided idealism. In the United States in recent years, some universities were politicized from the left by faculty and students, many of whom acted partly from misguided idealism. In the U.S. today the danger of the government politicizing universities from the right also exists. This calls for critical thinking and making distinctions as well.
William Schoenl’s creative nonfiction has appeared in Across the Margin, Wilderness House Literary Review, and Litbreak Magazine. He is retired from Michigan State University. Besides writing, he is presently interested in establishing programs for dire human needs in Ghana and Uganda.
