Ghost of Nazi Past, Ghost of Nazi Present

Part I – Cultural, Parliamentary, Media, and Judicial Manipulations

Quite often as I’ve spent time preparing material for this blog space, I’ve thought to myself, “this is a resurgence of Nazism”. I had been raised in a household by a father who purchased every book he could find related to the first and second world wars. I knew that it was important to direct attention to this area and parallel the changes the Nazi’s made to law with those being prepared by the global government. I understood this would be an extremely time consuming task and one which I was not too excited to start. Fortunately for me, around Christmas time, as I passed through the history section in Barnes & Noble, a book title caught my eye. The book The Third Reich In Power by Richard J. Evans had done exactly what I was preparing to do. It seemed as though it was God’s Christmas present to me for which I am thankful. Richard Evans has provided an excellent high level overview of Nazi changes to law and culture—a book which I highly recommend.

I will be quoting from Evans’ work extensively in this and the next blog post. The format will be that I present a passage from The Third Reich In Power followed by citations of global governance proposals. I have already dedicated ink to much of the material I’m about to cover, but it is worth re-reading as one considers we have seen this before in various dictatorships, and in particular, the Nazi regime.

Throughout my lifetime, I’ve heard people argue that what happened in Nazi Germany could never happen again. My father advised me that when people truly start to believe that, that’s when it will happen. Perhaps Richard Evans best explains this mindset as “the further in time we get from Nazi Germany, the more difficult it becomes for historians living in democratic political systems and in cultures which respect the rights of the individual to make the leap of imagination necessary to understand people’s behaviour in a state such as Nazi Germany, where imprisonment, torture or even death might await anyone who dared to voice the slightest criticism of the regime and its leaders.” Pg 116

Indeed, and today the masses may be prepared to accept the doctrines like those of the Nazis-- the newly-proposed model of Shared Security, a.k.a, “Civilian-Military Cooperation (CIMIC), “Responsibility to Protect”, “Human Security”—because their architects present the doctrines as belonging to the human rights framework. Nonetheless, the definition of human rights has become a slippery slope. For example, any religious or political viewpoint that does not fall within “common shared value” guidelines is considered extremist and said to be a gross violation of another’s human rights. Therein the hostilities begin.

Following, I have divided sections into topic. The lead section which is bolded has been quoted from The Third Reich in Power. The italicized sections following it are citations which demonstrate there are calls to implement similar legislation.

Cultural/Social
“…he [Justice Minister Gurtner] quickly appointed a committee to revise the Reich Criminal Code of 1871 in accordance with the new ethos of the Third Reich. As one committee member, the criminologist, Edmund Mezger, put it, the aim was to create a new synthesis of ‘the principle of the individual’s responsibility to his people, and the principle of the racial improvement of the people as a whole.” Pg 72

“Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.” – Article 29, Universal Declaration on Human Rights

“UNESCO promotes respect for all dimensions of cultural diversity since it is the very fabric of humankind and the “common heritage of humanity”, as stipulated in the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity…The Declaration furthermore aims at preserving cultural diversity as a living, and thus renewable treasure that must not be perceived as static but rather as a process guaranteeing the survival of humanity…the Declaration is dedicated to preventing segregation and fundamentalism which, in the name of cultural differences, could sanctify those differences and in doing so, counter the message of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.” Rosa Guerreiro

“…its rhetoric [Nazi regime] announced from the start that it intended to represent the people as a whole, mobilizing them in support of a new kind of state that would overcome internal divisions and create a new national community for the whole German race.” pg. 58

“We may well need a ‘global coalition of the sane’… A coalition of the sane would have to be pursued across divides of all kinds and under a flag that would be recognized by all peoples to be their own…These advocates of a coalition of the sane would need to raise their voice in support of the large majority of the world who does not have the arrogance to believe they own the truth alone, but instead has the wisdom to know we are profoundly interconnected and interrelated…” Prince Hassan

“The only way for everyone to creatively construct a common future is to…seek in the dialogue with the Other new reference points for oneself and, second, general agreement on the aim of constructing a ‘common civilisation’…” - Dialogue Between Peoples and Cultures in the Euro-Mediterranean Area

“The purpose of the law, in the eyes of the Nazis, was not to apply long-held principles of fairness and justice, but to root out the enemies of the state and to express the true racial feeling of the people.” Pg 73

“…men like the criminologist professor Edmund Mezger, a member of the committee charged with preparing a new Criminal Code, who declared in a textbook published in 1933 that the aim of penal policy was ‘the elimination from the racial community of elements which damage the people and the race…the problem, as they put it, of ‘community aliens’…people who for whatever reason were not ‘racial comrades’…and therefore one way or another had to be removed from society by force…anyone who was just merely ‘indifferent’ towards it was acting ‘from a criminal or asocial mentality’ and was thus a ‘criminal enemy of the state.’ Pg 80

“Out of the full spectrum of human personality, one-fourth is electing to transcend…One-fourth is ready to so choose, given the example of one other…One-fourth is resistant to election…They are unattracted by life ever-evolving…they go about their business, eating, sleeping, reproducing and dying…One-fourth is destructive…They are defective seeds…In the past they were permitted to die a “natural death””

“...we approach the quantum shift from creature-human to co-creative human—the human who is an inheritor of god-like powers…Before this stage of power can be inherited by the God-centered members of the social body, the self-centered members must be destroyed…We come to bring death to those who are unable to know God. We do this for the sake of the world…The riders of the pale horse about to pass among you…This is the most painful period in the history of humanity.” - “The Book of Co-Creation: An Evolutionary Interpretation of the New Testament Part III, The Revelation: Alternative to Armageddon”, 1980 self published manuscript – Barbara Marx Hubbard, pg 59-61


Parliamentary/Electorate
“…Papen had by no means abandoned his dream, articulated openly during his period of office as Chancellor in 1932…His speechwriter Edgar Jung continued to argue in the summer of 1933 for a vision of the ‘German revolution’ that would involve ‘the depoliticization of the masses, their exclusion from the running of the state’. Pg. 28

“Another step was taken on 30 January 1934 when, under pressure from the Reich Interior Ministry under the Nazi Wilhelm Frick, a new law abolished all the federated states, from Prussia downwards, along with their governments and parliaments, and merged their Ministries into the corresponding Reich Ministries…Reich Local Government Law of 1935, in abolishing local elections, placed the appointment of mayors largely within competence of the Interior Ministry in Berlin.” Pg. 47-49

“Now the challenge which faces most of our institutions, which are part and parcels of the system of indirect democracy, is whether they can evolve to meet a world where there are many ways to express the voice of the people besides elections and where knowledge is so wide spread that a group of few cannot claim monopoly on the truth. The participation of the peoples in elections is diminishing in many societies…I would venture to say that of the democratic institutions the first to evolve would be the Parliament: no longer the monopolist of the voice of the people, nor of knowledge for the people, they may have to reinvent themselves…” Giandomenico Picco

“…traditional actors, such as states, need to re-adapt themselves in order to deliver and meet their obligations with their citizens. They should do so through a redefinition of their national interest, the recognition of the intersection between domestic and international politics (redefining thus, the concept of sovereignty) …” Alliance of Civilizations


Press/Media
“Dietrich secured the promulgation responsible for the content of their papers, removed the proprietors’ powers of dismissal and laid down rules governing the content of news-the strength of the German Reich abroad or at home, the community will of the German people, German defence, culture or the economy, or to injure the religious sensibilities of others’. Membership in the Reich Association of the German Press was now compulsory by law and subject to revocation if a journalist contravened a code of conduct enforced by professional courts.” Pg 144

"I share the distress of the Muslim friends who feel that the cartoon offends their religion. I also respect the right of freedom of speech. But of course freedom of speech is never absolute. - Kofi Annan

“Free speech is nowhere absolute. Notwithstanding legitimate concerns among media professionals that government bodies not restrict their range of action for political purposes, any diverse society must regularly revisit the lines it draws in its legislation and within its editorial decision-making processes, over where to draw the line between free speech and that speech which foments hatred…” – Alliance of Civilizations Analysis on Media

“Calling for the establishment of a Code of Conduct for journalists risks arbitrary interpretation by licensing authorities within individual states for partisan purposes, and conflicts with the concept of free expression underlying media rights in many countries. However, standards have been developed which cover many of the concerns related to the state of cross-cultural media coverage, including the International Federation of Journalists’ code, and are voluntarily pursued in many countries today.” – Alliance of Civilizations Analysis on Media

“Goebbels was clear that control over the press should mean that all newspapers and magazines should follow the same line. To help steer their content from the centre, the Propaganda Ministry took over the two main press agencies…and merged them into the German News office. This supplied not only much of the national and international news content for all papers but also commentaries and instructions as to how the news was to be interpreted. Pg. 146

“The AoC will seek to establish a rapid response media-based mechanism to be mobilized during times of increased global tensions around cross-cultural issues.”
“This mechanism will be developed in three stages: 1. an international network of prominent personalities who are strongly involved in cross-cultural issues and are in a position to provide insights into potentially divisive intercultural debates will be created. 2. When an event that threatens to polarize communities along religious or cultural lines occurs, this network will be rapidly mobilized. Op-ed pieces (including some that may be co-authored across relevant cultural, national, and/or religious lines) signed by members of this network will be produced in a short space of time and translated in major languages. 3. This media content will then be distributed to major print media editors for their consideration as they try to cover and explain divisive cross-cultural issues to their readers, and disseminated through other mechanisms. – Alliance of Civilizations Implementation Plan


Judicial
“…it would be a mistake to imagine that the regular courts continued more or less unaltered by the advent of the Nazi dictatorship. They did not.” Pg. 70

“The central goal of a human security strategy has to be the establishment of legitimate political authority capable of upholding human security…At an operational level, the primary task of any deployment is to assist law enforcement. This means that a much larger investment will have to be made in civilian capabilities for law-enforcement, i.e. police, court officials, prosecutors and judges… Military troops will be an important component of these operational capacities, but they will have to restructure and reequip along new lines and they will need to be integrated with civilian capabilities, such as police, tax and customs officers, judges, administrators, providers of aid and human rights specialists. The ultimate aim is to be able to deploy different packages of military-civilian capabilities according to the situation.” - A Human Security Doctrine for Europe

“A new law, passed on 10 February, took the Gestapo out of the jurisdiction of the courts, so that there could henceforth be no appeal to any outside body against its actions.” Pg. 55

“Perhaps the most important challenge is the considerable cultural shift both for the military and civilians. The new type of human security office…will have to develop a common ethos, which will require…putting individual human beings, whoever they might be, above nation or homeland…the legal framework could build on the domestic law of the host state, the domestic law of the member states and the rules of engagement, international criminal law, human rights law, and international humanitarian law…a human rights oriented, bottom-up approach would require that the rules of engagement are public, and are translated into local languages, so that the local population is aware of them.” - A Human Security Doctrine for Europe

Next blog post I will devote commentary to the Nazi's control of religion and youth--areas which deserve added attention. As Evans wrote

“Goebbel’s propaganda machine could not persuade people that all their most dearly held values and beliefs had to be abandoned in the brave new world of Hitler’s Third Reich” pg 214

But they tried and failed and they will fail once more.