Germania's Demise
2 weeks after the 1933 election Hitler passed the Enabling Act, making him dictator of Germany. Opposition parties were banned. Non-compliant judges were removed from the bench. There was a lot of political violence. There was a lot of political acquiescence. Joseph Goebbels was appointed minister for public engagement and propaganda, controlling the national media, film, theatre, arts, and other cultural aspects.
The Nazis claimed the arts as theirs. The art of their time was silenced and declared ‘degenerate’. Hitler’s architect Albert Speer built the gigantean Reichs Chancellery in the center of Berlin. Together they drew up plans of their grand visions for the German capital Berlin, renamed ‘Germania’. It was the same style of romantic realism and classical architecture that Donald Trump promotes to ‘Make American Architecture Beautiful Again’. His White House lists exhibitions at the Smithsonian institution they deem ‘degenerate’. Or, in today’s language: ‘Woke’.
It was in the Führerbunker below his grandiose Chancellery that Hitler took his own life. His body was dowsed in petrol and burned in the garden behind the building. The building was heavily damaged during the battle of Berlin and dismantled by the Soviets, along with the remains of one of the greatest mass murderers in history. With this act of suicide, he escaped being held responsible for the suffering of millions.
Like Hitler, my father’s father also committed suicide, not believing in a chance to rebuild his life after the war. He had run the family pharmacy at a time when most medications were teas and ointments made by hand. Everything was plundered by the Russians and destroyed.
Months after the war, my grandmother received a typed letter from a caretaker pharmacist in their shop. He tells of the death of both her husband and her mother. The destruction of their hometown and the plundering of their pharmacy. And, because her children had asked, the death of their beloved pets. By then, they were refugees in the Western part of the country. They had to rely on the kindness of strangers to survive.
Now, 80 years on, Germany has become a destination for refugees fleeing various catastrophes south of the Mediterranean. Their stories are just as harrowing as the ones of my ancestors fleeing the Soviets in 1945. A growing number of German politicians are being voted into office promising to send them back to the catastrophes they came from.
Across the Atlantic, the MAGA movement has implemented the art of disappearing people they deem unworthy of their country. Likely, their own ancestors, too had fled a catastrophic event.