Blog #196 Historical Lessons of Nuremberg, Life & Death

By John Shoemaker

From Nuremberg to Washington D.C., from Democracy (+) to Demonization (!) and Enlightenment (?).

I watched the movie, “Nuremberg”, which is an outstanding recounting of the “Trial of the Century”, the Nuremberg War Crime Trials for the German leaders of the Third Reich after their capture at the end of World War II. The main character was the second-in-command to the Führer, Adolf Hitler, “Reichsmarshall” Hermann Göring, with many other high-level Nazis.

Disclaimer: I am not presenting to you a movie review, and I am not a Jew. You can read a review at: The true story behind Russell Crowe's Nuremberg and the facts missed out - Yahoo Movies UK I do think that Crowe’s personification of Goering was excellent.

I have a perspective on what is happening today in our country, but first, a bit of history.

Nuremberg is a gripping true story of the effort to put on trial for all the world to see and hear the horrific, gut-wrenching testimony of the Nazi leaders and the legal challenges it presented the International Tribunal representing the U.S., U.K., France, and the Soviet Union.

Many of the charges centered around the “Final Solution” of the Nazi’s strategy to eradicate the Jewish people. They were Hitler’s ultimate scapegoat. The actual film footage of the concentration camps is so detestable and so heinous that people in the cinema’s audience groaned and turned their heads from the abhorrent scenes.

I remember watching some of the trials in TV documentaries as a boy during the 1950s. With my dad a WW II veteran, I wanted to learn all about the war: the battles, the military leaders, and the reasons for it. But the real footage is evil; it is beyond human comprehension.

Most young people today have never heard the name of Hermann Goering or the others, or the magnitude of the human tragedy that unfolded with over six million Jews (more likely as many as 10 million) who were deliberately murdered in the most inhuman ways imaginable, from medical experiments to gas chambers to being buried alive. The best way was to die by bullet before going to the ovens.

Just a couple of decades earlier was WW I, and that resulted in another 10-20 million dead. Yet the youth of our country have virtually no knowledge of it. That war is a whole other story filled with lessons.

Much of World War II is straightforward history and is well documented. There is so much to learn from the worldwide contagion, WW II,  that eventually killed between 80-100 million people from Europe to Africa to Asia to the Pacific.  The numbers are indeterminable due to the extreme nature of such a war across all continents and from so many that had no trace - their bodies vaporized.

What captured my attention with the film Nuremberg was that an American psychologist spent many hours studying all 22 of the first round of Nazis to go on trial, especially Goering. He and so many others wanted to know HOW anyone could be so evil and commit so many acts of evil?  The acts were horrific, but even more insane is that the cruelty and depravity increased over the years. What were these people, like Goering, thinking? Are they just a bunch of sociopathic, mentally deranged killers? They must be a special kind of evil that has no empathy, sensitivity, or human feeling of respect for life, right? If they are unique, can we learn to spot them early so they don't create the same problem again?

What was the conclusion of the psychologist who knew more about Goering than anyone, plus the other Nazis, after thousands of hours of intimate interviews alone in his cell?

He said they were not special.

Yes, they were arrogant, narcissistic, power-hungry, self-serving, aggressive men – not unlike normal people. Of course, the conclusions were rejected immediately by his command staff and others for years after the war. After all, there had to be something special about their warped minds that would allow such evil deeds.

Not according to the psychologist.

He said any person…any American…could do the same thing if they were in a position with “absolute power” to do what they want and have complete, unfettered control over people.

It’s like the experiments done where a person can decide on what level of pain they would give to others if they had sole control over the victim. They quickly learned to issue pain (electric shocks) with increasing frequency and pain levels.

Goering reminded the Court that Hitler was democratically elected. Yes, by a democracy. He won by offering hope to the German people, by giving them self-respect, and by providing reasons for their demise. Hitler leveraged the crippling demands and reparations imposed on Germany by the Allies after World War I to shift the blame onto them, not onto the Germans.  Lastly, he blamed the Jews for their problems since he said the Jews controlled the economy, money, and financial institutions.

From a democracy, Hitler reformed the political system to be “National Socialism,” known by the derivative term “Nazism”. Goering said they moved away from democracy because everyone knew it was a “weak system” of government. Then the Brown Shirts were set upon the population, and worse, the Gestapo was created for lethal enforcement. Slowly, but surely, the seeds sown created a dictatorship with the greatest evil known to mankind.

Today, we face many who are young, ignorant, poor, unskilled, envious, and looking for an easy answer. That answer, Socialism and/or Communism, seems to provide sensible and likeable solutions with government controlling lives with laws, welfare, and business, along with a list of so-called benefits like free housing, healthcare, childcare, income, and education. The promise is nirvana.

It is bait. It is also a shiny object with a hidden, sharp hook that can capture minds, ruin lives, and even entire societies.

History has proven that capitalism in a free-market society can create massive wealth. A “meritocracy” that rewards those who work hard, are risk takers, or are simply smart enough to start companies that offer high value and earn high returns.

Socialism has a history of failures in Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and, closer to home, most of South America. It does not matter what natural wealth is available – look no further than Venezuela. It was one of the wealthiest countries in the world, with a massive oil supply rivaling Saudi Arabia's. But their democracy, driven by promises of free stuff, evolved into a socialist governance that succumbed to a dictatorship. That became the expected death knell for Venezuelan society: lost jobs, political corruption, uncontrolled crime, taking control from foreign companies to run the oil industry themselves, and the resulting destruction of production, equipment, and delivery systems due to a lack of skills and overall competence.

The result is that Venezuela is now one of the poorest countries in the world, with millions migrating out of the country due to a lack of food, jobs, and safety. It is a broken country that relies mainly on drug distribution. Unfortunately for their dictator, Maduro, Trump will not tolerate this criminal activity and may have met his doom.

Fundamentally, Socialism/Communism baits people with a promise of easy living, while masking the dangers of dependency. Even today, some US cities and counties are implementing “income guarantees” and considering other socialist policies, such as higher taxes, income redistribution, wealth tax, reparations, rent control, and government-run businesses. From San Francisco and Seattle to Cook County/Chicago, people love the idea of free government income in addition to welfare funds, which weakens ambition and encourages taking the handout instead of a hand-up. They do not sense that, without a need to seek employment (not referring to the disabled or sick, who deserve protection), they are doomed to a low level of living.

Worse, where does the money come from? Taxpayers will tire and leave. Socialism, to use the tired expression, is only good until you run out of other people’s money (OPM). The resentment builds among those who work and see their money going to those who decide not to work. This eventually results in economic depression, and dictatorship takes over.

During the chaos, capitalism is scapegoated. It is a type of “CDS” or Capitalism Derangement Syndrome where left liberal socialists keep pounding on the notions that corporations are evil, companies are responsible for high prices, homes become too expensive, and other poisonous scapegoats are created involving racism and religion. It is all a formula for failure.

We must recognize that the most significant number of supporters for the “Socialist Ideology” are poor, on welfare, or have state, local, and federal government jobs, plus those in academia, where many do not have business experience and rely on job security with minimum or no job performance metrics.

Trump has a very different, proven concept of governance. He believes in the power of capitalism and free markets to resolve complex issues of product availability, pricing, demand, and innovation. Capitalism will allow the market to decide on priorities.  It is about wealth creation, not wealth confiscation. He believes in treating criminals as criminals, ending crime by illegal aliens, protecting our borders, reducing taxation, motivating businesses for onshoring and to make investments, enabling investments in the U.S. by other countries, reducing the size and involvement of the Federal Government in our lives, and to outlaw legal discrimination like Woke/DEI/Gender ID and other notions that creates social division, including anti-Semitism, racism, no-go zones, drug and human trafficking.

The proof of such success is clear, but a growing segment of society is disenfranchised and uninterested in creating businesses, working hard, and taking risks. They want to get free support. This is a path to disaster.

Sometimes, people forget and have to re-live time and again failed ideas with inhuman consequences, believing they have the magic to make it work this time.

Such is life. Humanity has been burdened by war for thousands of years. Even today, although many think we have advanced to a level of civility, the fact is that wars will continue due to the inhumanity of humans.

We are not civil. We have a long journey ahead of us. We must learn from our mistakes in our history of human advancement.

Otherwise, the pain, suffering, and death will continue. Normal people will morph into a new Hitler or Goering.