Nazi Perversion Menaces World Culture
Nazi Perversion Menaces World Culture Strikes at Christian as Well As Jewish Anti-Fascists Sadism Crushes Vienna's Gaiety By THOMAS MANN THERE is so much hatred in the world. Not even we can...
...THERE is one part of this great National program which is above thfe realm of controversy...
...This did not set well with the other elements and accounts for the failure to effect coalescence...
...IT was only when the Federal Government abruptly cut down its contributions to purchasing power by $250,000,000 a month last year, that there promptly began the- sharp decline of business...
...Our annuel national income is fifteen billion dollars higher...
...We.cannot say to millions of men and women that they shall have neither a job in private industry nor the help of their Government in earning their livelihood in a self-respecting way...
...There might be a certain distinction between those refugees who could in no case have breathed ^within Hitler's Germany, and those who would have liked to remain there and cooperate, if only this had been permitted them...
...A distinction, too, has seeped in, in the case of Jewish or non-Jewish members of the German emigration, although such a distinction is beside the point and would not naturally occur to us...
...The world is, to a considerable extent, forced to accept the mode of thought, terminology ind stupid distinctions of National Socialism...
...Above and beyond that", however, I believe that I have correctly defined its purpose in what I have just said...
...It represents policies tested by experience, and found wholly necessary to the assurance of business recovery and the satisfaction of human rights...
...Today we know that any vigorous policy of economic reconstruction must combine relief with a sound public works program to •dd to the country's permanent wealth...
...The LaFollette movement lacks understanding, foresight, and courage, and is inevitably destined to failure...
...This effect is not restricted to the individual, immediate sufferer, but its depraving influence stretches out over the whole world, compelled because of its moral backwardness to reactions and countermeasures, beyond which the rest of the world bas, fundamentally, developed...
...will be a powerful factor in complete economic recovery...
...He fails to recognize that private industry, with its mass production and its extensive use of labordisplacing machinery, will never again be able to give employment to the outcast millions the* have confronted the nation for the lest eight years...
...LaFollette Bid for Votes From Both Sides Can't Win MAHONEY...
...It presents a practical combination of good business, common sense, and the golden rule...
...After the lecture there were sometimes questions from the auditorium and on one of these occasions, in a university town, it happened that a young British student got up and, in the form of a question, gave expression to the opinion, the accusation, that I had allowed no justice to rule, had painted everything in black and white, had assigned all that is good to Democracy, and all that is bad to Fascism, that I had forgotten Christianity which practices love and justice...
...Mingled witkjnjj^ joyful gratitude for the sympathy, confidence, and all the hearty kindness surrounding me here, I feel humbled before the fate of my suffering and deserted comrades...
...But there are some proposals which would detour the course of action and lead it Unto a futile blind alley...
...On the contrary...
...A real tie with church and dogma I may not ascribe to myself, and in a certain sense this may have been-an advantage, for it was perhaps exactly for that reason that I was able very early to perceive the idea of Christianity as homogeneous and independent from confessional shadings and disputes...
...The stimulation of residential construction, through stum clearance and through the private home building program launched a few months ago...
...Several million more people hive'jobs)" how than were employed when Roosevelt became President...
...A few years ago the progressives inside the Republican Party "combined with the Socialists and the trade unionists of Wisconsin to form the Farmer-Labor Progressive movement...
...This is especially true of my own country, of Germany, wkich from time to time falls into the completely erroneous supposition that it can, through the rejection of the Mediterranean spirit and influence, that is to say of the Jewish and Christian, free itself from alien elements and develop without contamination the intrinsic nature of its people and its culture...
...Hardly anyone today questions the need for prompt action...
...And so it would be the fulfillment of my most profound wish, if all of you who have read this article would lend your help to the "American Committee for German Christian Refugees" in its great humane task...
...Enduring political parties are not built on discontent and desperation...
...Hard-headed realists fail txr see anything fundamental about LaFollette's political proposal...
...National Socialist anti-Semitism is at the same time anti-Christian...
...We should like to have nothing whatever to do with it and yet, regrettably, we do have ' something to do with it, through the hatred whieh it forces upon us because of its evil results—a feeling which, however, we regard as beneath our dignity...
...What a fallacy that is...
...I have, for example, been told of the end of a colleague of mine whom I knew well...
...PEW students of economics such as guide the * destiny of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor movement have faith in President Roosevelt's haphazard program, except that he may accidentally hit upon, or be compelled to take, a line of action which will be a radical departure from his present plans and proposals...
...IN the Fall of 1937, the march of recovery was severely checked...
...distracted men and women whose pallor proves the horrors they have but barely escaped, and which must have been truly hellish...
...It represents the universal idea, the idea of the one God, and thus, embracing everything humane, stands as the great moral correction to all narrow and one-sided nationalism...
...Every attack on Christianity, every denial of its morality, means a relapse to immorality and heathenism which warrants no other name than barbarism...
...And because we forgot the lines on the map and answered the overwhelming logic of this human appeal, we were able to preserve the American Nation...
...Our public expenditures, Ij*ely directed, have been like necessary replacements in a factory, so largely increased business profits and boosted national income between 1933 and 1937, that by the beginning of last year there was every prospect of balancing the budget...
...We have the example of a world-famous man to prove how lacking in imagination, how incapable of really understanding what is happening, this world still is,—perhaps because it desires to be so—that of the English dramatist, Bernard Shaw...
...If we learned anything in the bitter years between 1929 and 1933, it was the danger of sitting idly by end allowing the downward spiral to go" unchecked...
...Let us solve our common problems by united action on , the whole American front...
...Indeed my conscience hurts me because, while all these horrible things are happening in...
...but any solution for the problems confronting the nation today is singularly lacking...
...HELLISH NAZI DEEDS MAKE DEATH DESIRABLE A LL this makes us think of a matter which indeed has not left our minds for a moment during all the past weeks: the terrible and only too typical particulars of the National Socialist misdeed against Austria...
...While the philosophy of this program was as old as our Nation, as deeply rooted as the traditions of democracy, the practical application of skis philosophy to the industrial problems of the twentieth century was new and untried...
...While I was advocating the democratic idea -which today finds itself so on the defensive, I was by no means forgetting Christianity, but was dn the contrary standing up for its spirit and defending its against its enemy...
...This brilliant intellectual wrote to his translator, Siegfried Trebitsch, a Viennese Jew, who had escaped to Zurich, and from there had made certain literary suggestions to Shaw, that he was not interested in any such suggestions, but that it would very much interest him to learn why in heaven's name Trebitsch had left Vienna...
...AGUELY, LaFollette hopes to revive private * industry to the point where full employment and prosperity will prevail...
...Such a state of oblivion—and obviously willful oblivion — is possible in the case of a man like Shaw...
...but it is generally felt that he will meet the immediate needs of the people more effectively than LaFollette can possibly do with his very scattered minority forces...
...He opened his door, saw the men with their swastikas standing before his threshold, turned on his heels, made straight for his room which was on the fourth floor, and jumped out of the window...
...Our civilization is indebted to it as much as to classical antiquity and even more...
...It is superfluous for us to assure everyone that our deep sympathy and indignation goes out toward the Jewish portion of the German emigration...
...the highly gifted writer Egon Friedell, which illustrates the terror aroused by the conquerors, the deadly fear caused by the mere sight of them, even if their intentions for the moment were not death and destruction...
...The German spirit exists only since the adoption of Christianity by the Teutonic tribes...
...LIEUTENANT OF THE LATE FLOYD OLSON...
...There was nothing spectacular about this proceeding, nor did it obtain speedy and startling results...
...Between 1933 and 1*37, a large proportion of those who had been on relief went back h»to private industry...
...The Govern•Bent's credit is better than at any time in history...
...But our confidence in the President and his program was justified by events,—a sustained four-year recovery during which business rallied vigorously, profits multiplied, and 8,000,000 workers returned to jobs in private industry...
...Relief" by States Death to Jobless LOCAL ADMINISTRATION OF AID TO UNEMPLOYED WOULD DESTROY WPA, BRING BACK DOLE AND BREADLINE—SLUM CLEARANCE DRIVE NOW IS ESSENTIAL...
...Experience has demonstrated that you can't organize a national party by making an appeal to isolated progressives all over the nation and bring them together and attempt to weld them into a united, homogeneous movement...
...In every county in the united States, for the benefit of our generation and future gen2?**on8' tftere *re schools and hospitals, roadways and bridges, wat could never have been built with the dole...
...My own conscience compels me to help with all my strength...
...He seems to cast a longing glance for the return of an economic order that had reached the expiring stage...
...Twenty years ago, progressive trade unionists and working-class political advocates in Minnesota proceeded to lay the foundation for an enduring political movement of the wealth producers based on their essential economic interests...
...He was dead instantly and perhaps he is to be congratulated that he was spared the humiliations and tortures which others must endure today and that he was not compelled to increase the number of those who, having saved their bare lives, are dependent in foreign lands upon the charity of a world that has already become indifferent...
...Did the young men not know, I asked, that in Germany Christianity was persecuted and suppressed, together with Democracy, and did one not have the right to identify the two, since the essen. tial human content of both conceptions were the same...
...Thus it causes the world at large to descend ' to its hate-rilled and nonsensical racial theories...
...By WILLIAM MAHONEY State Liquor Commieeioner of Minnesota U ANK AND FILE members of the Minnesota Farmer-Labor movement show little enthusiasm over the new LaFollette political adventure...
...It shows too much froth and too little substance...
...But no responsible person would contend that we are presented , with anything like^e-menace of early 1933...
...The program now before Congress carries forward the progressive economic and social ideals developed during th> past five years...
...The hungry and destitute all over the country made this appeal...
...LaFollette is in the'middle, hoping to win from both sides, and his movement will be crushed in the struggle...
...The fortunate few who Hved by ownership were fearful of the future of private property, and the countless many who lived by the sweat of their brow were losing faithr in a system which denied them bread...
...Today we know that the budget can never be balanced by a penny-wise and pound-foolish policy...
...ROUSE MAN IN STREET TO HUMANE TASK A ND yet it is a matter of supreme impor*^ tance to arouse him again and again and sharpen his conscience...
...I am a Protestant by birth and education...
...There are families whse morale and health and spirits have been preserved through useful public employment...
...These ideals themselves, whether one indicates them by their political or by their religious names, are threatened today, and it ^s in the name of Western culture itself, when one, even as I, offers resistence to this threat...
...My spiritual structure and form was essentially shaped by German Protestantism, for it was Protestantism which for centuries determined German intellectual life and German culture...
...In doing this, it was impossible 'to avoid a polemical characterization of the powers inimical to Democracy today, which we include under the name of Fascism...
...Christianity, flowering out of Judaism, was for me from the very beginning one of the basic pillars of western culture...
...IN that period of peril, the unemployed and helpless worker in *• San Francisco did not say to the unemployed and helpless worker , in Pittsburgh: "I am from California and you are from Pennsylvania and, therefore, our problems are different and must be handled in different ways...
...1*HE American Committee for Christian * German Refugees was of Bourse founded for a general humanitarian purpose end "with the object of general human solidarity...
...It would externl Federal aid first to those rich localities which need it least, and last to those stricken communities which need it most.- It would return us to the devastating combination of "do nothingism" on the one hand, and the breadline, the soup kitchen, and the dole on the other...
...Practical persons would rather accept Roosevelt with his empiric remedies than LaFollette with his ideal vagaries...
...Apart from the organizational weakness of the LaFollette political venture, the failure to enunciate any fundamental demands that would meet the economic riddle of capitalism condemns this new movement to ultimate failure...
...There will be a new political alignment in which the reactionaries and the progressives will confront each other...
...He happened to live in the same house with a girl who seemed desirable, to members of the storm troops...
...This jealousy and animosity and did not make the progress that was expected...
...But while our troubles are smaller than they .were in March 1933, our knowledge and power to remedy them are infinitely greater...
...We now propose to correct the too sudden reduction of public expenditures, and to substitute a program which will permit gradual reduction as' business revives...
...Not even we can say that we have remained untouched by hatred: Beyond a doubt, there are things we do hate, although at the game time we are ashamed of this, for hatred, like every emotional action, binds us to the object of our hatred, even though in a negative sense and attempts to drag us down to its own level...
...Despair was beginning to settle upon millions of families in every walk of life...
...Among these is the proposition for a larger amount of compulsory financing by the States and a "relatively siaaller assumption of national responsibility...
...compels it to accept its distinction of . "Aryans" as against Jews, and forces us, much to our own astonishment and dismay, to take part in this vulgarly mythical mode of thought —just as other nations are compelled to keep step with its terrific armament, although the epoch calls for peace and recognizes war as contrary to the will of God...
...t Today we know from experience that men and women will not' **ay on relief if they can get jobs elsewhere...
...against Vienna, a city loved by us all, which, since the conquest of the Reich by National Socialists, had become the refuge of Christian western civilization of German spirit and of German tongue...
...Our banks are sound'where they had been in collapse...
...How can any one wonder at the lack of understanding of the man in the street...
...Wisconsin had a much older porgressive movement operating inside the Republican Party, which served for a few years as an example for Minnesota progressives but was abandoned as worthless...
...And so it is a merit on the part of the American Committee to make it clear to the non-Jewish part of the world that it would be an error for it to regard itself as untouched by this problem...
...for, in the fate of these people, many of whom were politically completely indifferent and innocent, sad unaware of what was being done to them, lies an element that moves us most profoundly...
...The greatest problem confronting the nation today js the problem of unemployment, and in his analysis of unemployment, LaFollette fails to recognize the causes and offers no adequate solution for the problem...
...We cannot say to fair-minded and intelligent business that we will no longer create purchasing power and a market for goods through the wise use of public credit...
...The progressives who had operated within the Republican Party and enjoyed some of the fruits of political success claimed hegemony over the movement...
...The fact is that today the localities play an important part both in financing and in administering relief...
...Whenever I hear this proposal to turn the relief load back to the States, I cannot help thinking back to the tragic times of 1932 and early 1933...
...For example, there is now before the Senate a proposal to require a minimum 25 per.cent contribution from each State toward the relief of unemployment within its borders...
...In that crisis, the American people placed full faith in the program of economic action sponsored by President Roosevelt...
...To call for "collective bargaining," the "right to organize," civil and religious liberties, and the right to a living are platitudinal and fail to arouse the interest, much less the enthusiasm, of the millions of unemployed, destitute, and desperate people of the nation...
...In addition, a very large portion of the Federal outlays will be in the form of sound, self-liquidating loans, returning yearly to the Federal Treasury...
...The LaFollettes did not lend their leadership and influence to this combination of progressives and working-class groups and have finally shown their scorn of the entire attempt by launching the so-called "National Progressives," which doubtless will shatter the Farmer-Labor Progressive Association of political groups of Wisconsin...
...In conclusion, let us remember that it is the way of folly to cut down public activity faster than private industry can assume the load...
...Therefore we in•1st that the maintenance of relief for those who cannot find employment is an absolute obligation of civilised government...
...Yet I am only a more or less accidental rep-resentative of exiled German culture...
...The only reason why more did not go back ^s» because there was nowhere for them to go...
...r\URING all this period of development, the Farmer-Labor forces of Minnesota have endeavored to get other states to move in like manner, and only in a very meager degree has anything been done...
...My answer was, had to be, that it was my prerogative to ignore the approach...
...The program of President Roosevelt now before Congress embodies the methods which were so successful when vigorously utilized before...
...It has taken time, patience, and intelligent effort to secure progressive results, and there is still much work to be accomplished...
...By Senator ROBERT F. WAGNER IN early 1933, the American people faced the gravest economic 4 emergency in their history...
...It includes relief, public works, and the direct stimulation of cnpdit- facilities available to private industry...
...It has only one advantage: that it brings anew into our consciousness the bonds 'that tie western man to Christianity and surely serves to renew our possible lethargy toward Christianity and to urge us into new activity...
...The marriage of Teutonism and Mediterranean humanity produced Germany as a nation, and what would be left, if Germany repudiated Christianity, would be nothing but barbarism, useless and dangerous to culture and humanity...
...Two or three of Hitler's men intended to visit her, but made a mistake and rang the doorbell of the author...
...We are all members of one great nation with unlimited resources...
...Its principles and professions are made up largely of platitudes and not concrete and fundamental demands, LaFollette's criticisms of prevailing economic conditions and of the inconsistencies and iniquities of a capitalist system of production were given expression and generally accepted long before they were formulated by Phil LaFollette...
...For today, we can draw on the rich storehouse of a decade Packed full of, experience...
...Europe, I am living an honored and outtvafdly happy life in free America...
...I am sponsoring a hill to increase from $500,000,000 to $1,003,000(000 tno slLiir.-clearar.ee pr<.g:-am commenced last year...
...This was not done by sending out a call to unorganized and unclassified progressives to all join hands in launching a new political movement...
...It is a great mistake on the part of the public to believe that the problem of emigration is a specially Jewish one...
...A RIGHT-HAND MAN OF GOVERNOR BENSON AND ONE OF THE FIRST FARMERLABOR ORGANIZERS TO BECOME A MAYOR...
...Under the new program, they will continue to do so...
...Our workers and business people in the city and on the farm are not panicstricken as they were five and a half years ago...
...We therefore »ost reject any proposal to wreck the public works program and If substitute the philosophy of charity...
...Rather it was done by enlisting the organized trade unionists and the organized farmers into a close-knitted political movement to carry on economic education and political activity amongst the working people...
...But any proposal to transform a great National duty into the separate responsibility of forty-eight States would not bring economical or equitable relief...
...National Socialism is just such |' B beted and dangerous thing...
...Democracy, it seems to me, is nothing but the political name for the ideals which Christianity brought into the world as religion...
...The loftiest apd the best of what the western hemisphere has brought to maturity in the rearm of art, of literature, of the moral and aesthetic life, is unthinkable without the immeasureably civilizing influence which Christianity exerted...
...H If, however, there is any special reason for sympathizing with the so-called "Aryan" or 'rather Christian group among the refugees, or if we need any particularly emphatic rea!tonJ[or helping these courageous unfortunates, then this reason lies in the fact that they •are clearly and -visibly martyrs to their convictions, which raises them above the level of passive victims to that of active combatants against the world-evil 'called National Socialism...
...This is now lost as well, and a new stream of refugees is pouring over the world...
...The colleague of whom I am speaking had for a few days been observing the events taking place during the occupation of the city...
...IN THE NAME OF WESTERN CULTURE—RESIST FASCISM /"kN the lecture tour I just finished, which took me through the whole enormous continent of America, through a great number of cities, I spoke about Democracy, tried to define this conception, to demonstrate its deeper content, to urge the present necessity of giving new life to this content, of revivifying and making it attractive once more to the youth of the world...
...It must rather become aware that the National Socialist persecution of Jews goes hand in hand with the persecution of Christianity— indeed, that both hostilities are expressions of the same barbaric and unspiritual point of view...
...SEES "NATIONAL PROGRESSIVES" DOOMED...
...If we learned anything in the increasingly prosperous years between 1933 and 1937, it was the high value of a bold and intelligent offensive against hard times...
...VJB.AT are the basic facts which must guide this bold and intelligent drive to resume our recovery...
Vol. 21 • May 1938 • No. 22
