In Ursula LeGuin's 1974 science fiction classic "The Dispossessed" the fictional philosopher, revolutionary, and founder of a planetary syndicate Laia Aseio Odo once said that "True Journey is Return". Of course, you could more simply attribute this quote directly to LeGuin, but the concept nevertheless is one that has been understood throughout the ages by religious, pilgrims, archaeologists, sailors, and tellers of tales from Homer to Tolkien. Or for that matter, anyone who has in their life time ventured not just "there and back again" as Bilbo Baggins described his adventures but moved between locations more than once.
A romantic idea indeed. But sometimes "amazing journeys" back home again, involve matters that are anything but romantic. Indeed what is arguably among the ugliest and most destructive forms of collective and politically motivated slander has found its way home back to its native land.
Like a less than penitent prodigal son gone back for succor, the Dolchstosslegende has through an unlikely journey that piles layer upon heaping lay if irony, returned home again. And those who know it's destructive history, can only look upon this development with a great deal of trepidation. Because the results were not good last time the Dolchstosslegende took hold in the Germany.
For those who haven't read my previous posts or any other sources about the Dolchstosslegende, the word literally means "dagger-stab legend" in German, but is often translated as The Stab in the Back stories. Basically it refers to the belief that the "fatherland" didn't loose the war because the a victory couldn't be procured against the other side militarily or politically because of internal factors. Which is to say that the war was lost both because the population at large failed to rally behind the war effort sufficiently (ei "Support the Troops") and because certain suspect elements of society actively sabotaged the war effort. In Weimar Germany these suspect elements were communist, socialists, labor unions, but above all the Jews. But in other well known social contexts the scapegoats were the hippies, the liberals, the draft dodgers, the protesters, and Jane Fonda.
In recent years there has been some growing recognition about the extent to which stories such as WWI Veterans getting spat on by Jews and Communists (sound familiar anyone?) fueled the rise of Nationalist Socialism in Germany during the 1920's and early 1930's.
In an age when an honest accounting of history, is becoming an ever more precious thing, I was shocked to see Jerry Lembcke (as much a scholar of the Dolchstosslegende as there has ever been), has pointed out that the these stories have taken this disturbing homeward journey. My first thought on reading the article "No Parade for Hans", was to hope that this was just a veiled warning to anti-war Americans and that the Germans themselves aren't actually going to buy into such rhetoric, as it has such a sinister and -dare I say it-evil history in their country. But upon reflection I couldn't help but wonder a series of other things.
1) How far exactly is this depoliticization of the issue going to go?
2) Did this article talk about the German reaction to WWII as "opposition to most war" in such pathological terms to convey that idea that all such opposition is pathological?
3) Does even the Holocaust counts for almost nothing in the conviction of that the most important thing is always to "support the troops" and say little else?
4) Why can't the German reaction to their own history been seen as a rational response to a terrible thing?
5) Are people losing their sense of that history or are some pundits of our day truly trying to convince people to suspend all moral scruples in favor of wanting a guaranteed compliant population during wartime?
6) Wasn't and aren't that perversion/suspension of basic morality a major part of what Nazism, neconservatism, and the Dolchstosslegende all ask(ed) of the citizen?
7) Why is so little room in this story given to the variety of opinions that different veterans may hold? And why does it occur to so few that many anti-war veterans in particular may not even want some victory parade?
8) How many people even notice the running assumption that ordinary people have no say in whether or not their government initiates a war under the new rules? Indeed, people are always told that the war is being waged in their name, and that the soldiers are fighting for their sake, and yet public opinion on the war is increasingly seen as irrelevant. Or even a potential source of disobedience if enough ordinary people aren't so sure that the war is really for their benefit or the nation's. Why have so many Americans forgotten their high school civics class?
It's been said that Hollywood movies often put historical periods through a contemporary lense. I can't help but thinking of how towards the end of the Bush era Tom Cruise playing a dissident Nazi officer said "North Africa is lost. You can serve the Fuhrer or you can serve Germany. Not both." And this from the actor who has played both a Top Gun pilot and Ron Kovic. Can it be that Americans who were once horrified and mystified so much by Nazi Germany can now more easily understand a nation that was led to horrific, unspeakable things by stories of a war effort stabbed in the back and troops spat upon?
Ultimately, this begs the question of exactly how low those who promote the Dolchstosslegende (American, German, or otherwise) are truly willing to go. If they are willing to low-ball the Holocaust and the forces that helped bring it about to support their own version of history, what else are they willing to distort, minimize, or even lie about?
Say Goodnight Readers!
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