Nazis and Boy Scouts

[rwan]

----- Original Message -----
From: Otto Sell <o.sell at telda.net>
To: s~Z <keithmar at jetlink.net>; <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Saturday, May 06, 2000 2:35 PM
Subject: Re: Nazis and Boy Scouts


s~Z wrote:
"strange watching two men I have grown to like a lot seeing so much evil in
each other."

Having avoided up to now taking part in this discussion because I´m a German
("as the saying goes - an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are
mentioned in a proverb" - Chinua Achebe), but now coming home after a twelve
hour taxi night  (31 rides) I get 38 mails including your answer to the hj
vs boyscout thing of Kai and Doug - RIGHT YOU ARE.

First of all I don´t agree with Doug on the question of a moderated list -
but would stay if this open list would become one like he stays although he
has another opinion on the status quo. I think Kai´s comment was
inappropriate in language, ´cause Doug certainly has no censorship in mind
when he thinks of a slightly edited list. But the ones who stay outside stay
outside for whatever reasons they may have. Everybody is free to open his
own list. So quality isn´t the thing but I guess time is a big reason for
many people for not getting into every thread.

Kai - watch your words, please (but only a little)
Getting personal is no solution (bad word in this context, I know, better
say ´way`) and as a German I would never apply "nazi" to someone from
another nation.
Not all Germans were nazis but certainly all nazis were Germans, even the
Dutch, Austrian, Hungarian or whatever ones because these countries didn´t
exist anymore as sovereign states, were part of the nazi imperium. The
Spanish and Italian fascists were fascists but no German nazis, not those
ones who are responsible for the biggest crime in human
history, the Holocaust.

You're slightly off the mark: Hungary stayed an "independent" state even for
a long time during the war (W W II), but with a system just as much
fascistic as that of the Italians under Mussolini (IL Duce), the Spanish
with Franco or the Portugese with Salazar, only starting before any of
those. In the backlash of W W l (the Great War) Hungary lost one third of
its territory - some of which it should never have posessed - lost its quite
feudalistic ruling class and - most importantly - its position within the
Austro-Hungarian Empire. All this gave way to a revolution of a
liberal-bourgeoise nature first and a communistic one after that. That last
fase lasted something like 130 days. Not long for a historical period, but
the powers dictating the terms of the Treaty of Versailles and - in this
case more to the point - those of  the Treaty of Trianon, didn't take long
to crush this serious case of Russo-communist expansion, which it
partly/certainly was. With "Governor" Miklos Horthy, in a very Franco-like
way, entering the scene. Bloody repression/revenge followed with the first
anti-Jewish laws limiting the number of Jews in the professions or in higher
education: the so-called Numerus Clausus in the early twenties. From that
time on Hungary was an extremely conservative, very Catholic,
corporativistic country. With some open-minded opposition that could voice
its concerns. The war changed that: much of the idea behind joining in on
the side of the German Nazi's after - and certainly not before - attacking
Russia was in re-establishing the glory of a lost "Greater Hungary" that has
never existed in the first place, having only been a fictitious part of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire and not a separate entity. Many Jews and other
"un-Hungarian elements" have been sent off during 1942/1944 to do
"war-labour": that is to say, to participate - unarmed - in the war: dig
ditches and such. But then again, the Hungarian army itself was pushed into
the role of cannon-fodder by the Germans: fighting a war under German
command in the bitter Russian winter with - more often than not -
insufficient weaponry, munition and clothing. These troups were pushed forth
by the Germans and - themselves - pushing those unarmed and even worse-clad
Jews, communists, what not,  in front of them. It became a tragedy for all.
At the end of 1944, Governor Horthy tried to negotiate a separate
peace-treaty with the Allied Forces. That was the moment for Germany to
formally occupy Hungary and for the worst type of political idiots within
the country - true nazi's - to take over. With many thousands of people
rounded up and shot, floating in the river Danube. The previously "slight"
trickle of deportations increasing manyfold. The absolute terror of an
absolutely mad ideology. "A screaming comes across the sky. It has happened
before, but there's nothing to compare it to now." The Horthy-regime and the
worst times of communism after the war could produce similar horrors, but
not quite to that extent, which is why I wish to make the distinction
between the fascistic and the nazi period of Hungary. Even though (more
than) some in Hungary do try to rehabilitate the
leaders/participants/institutions of the Horthy era, which in itself is a
crime against humanity and sanity.

Goldhagen may be right or wrong but when they talked about the number of
Germans more or less involved in the extermination they were shocked about
the one million, claiming it must have been less, I always thought: No, it
must be more, much more. The knowledge what was going on in those camps
outside the original "Reichsgebiet" was widespread.
It was common German language (still in the sixties) to say "Ich habe beim
Doktor mal wieder bis zur Vergasung gewartet" if you´ve waited for hours.
You know what German Bundeswehr soldiers called their gas masks? "Adolf
Eichmann Hobbyshop."
If Pynchon leaves the Holocaust out of GR it´s because it was not
appropriate for him to write about that topic in the seventies and I fully
agree with Domine Vobiscuit´s today´s post on that:
"I think Pynchon is forcing his readers to call upon historical knowledge to
to fill in those gaps that he leaves textually marginalized."

So really let´s get back to the books.

Otto

"I am an animal, you see that. I don't have the words, they didn't teach me
the words. I don't know how to think,
the bastards didn't let me learn how to think. But if you really are ...
all-powerful ... all-knowing ... then you figure it out! Look into my heart.
I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my
soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! You take from me what it is I want
... it just can't be that I would  want something bad! Damn it all, I can't
think of anything, except those words of his ...'HAPPINESS  FOR EVERYBODY,
FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!' "
(Strugatzki: Roadside Picknick, very pynchonesque)