Fear's Grandchild

German train over the Rhine river, photo by Roderick Eime at Flickr

I am thinking about how much is at stake in the USA’s elections.

If you are able to vote early, please do. Your vote is essential, but in the event that disruptions kick off on Election Day, in all but (I think) two states you don’t physically have to be at your polling station on that day to put your vote in.

In case you aren’t sure your vote matters, today I am dusting off with light editing something I wrote not long after the Berlin Wall came down in 1989. It would not have happened if Germany’s 1933 elections had turned out differently.

Whatever happens in this year’s USA elections will echo through decades and generations. What kind of echo we set up matters immensely. What tales will be told fifty years ahead that uncoil from what we do or fail to do now?

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                                                    FEAR'S GRANDCHILD

We like to believe nothing like the Holocaust can happen again. Then, when it happens in some distant place, we tell ourselves it is in a nation somehow beneath the level of the most advanced nations—we are still safe from such a horror on a larger scale. Do we prefer to forget the racist violence Germany began showing again after the Wall came down, visible in firebombings and other incidents?

As I read news from Germany today, the image foremost in my mind comes from near the end of a visit to Europe in October 1989. My chills come not from what was said, but from what was left unsaid and when it was not uttered.

Over there, the sense of something immense about to happen filled the air. At home, it had been a distant curiosity, a faint scent drifting on a light breeze. There, it was a storm in the making, a scent of ozone and fear, a rising whirlwind of unstoppable change. Germany, reunited?

The West tried to watch events calmly. The Germans have been changed by the years, editorials read. They feel a keen sense of shame at what they were. They would never do the same again. The editorials read like panic-stricken people trying to talk themselves out of a deeply felt terror in the hope that repeating those reassuring messages enough times would make them true, and the dread that it would not.

I had been to Germany briefly the previous winter and formed impressions that made me uneasy with the bubbling cauldron across the border. Having mentioned them only once to my brother, I held my tongue while he formed his own. We were in Austria with a friend of his, a translator for the European Parliament, as Leipzig boiled and people began questing in growing numbers for asylum in Austria. What probably occupied less than five minutes on nightly news in the States, we saw at length every evening. Night after night, the news was full of demonstrations in Leipzig. The friend translated commentary for us in real time.

My brother and I both felt anxious. Like the Europeans, we felt torn by the events so close at hand. Intellect, principle, our inbred belief in freedom, all argued that surely those who were not free deserved a chance to govern themselves. We had been traveling mostly in German-speaking countries, and we deeply appreciated the universally cordial, friendly treatment we had received. Yet still...

Perhaps an illustration explains the anxiety, ours and western Europe's, best. One of my most enduring images of Germany happened during an earlier visit. In the small hours of morning, I looked down from my hotel window upon streets and sidewalks utterly deserted, except for one man walking. As far as he knew, not a soul was about except him; yet when he came to a street, he took extra steps to reach a crosswalk and waited in winter cold for its light to give him permission before he crossed the street. What manner of people are these who still obey any authority so blindly, even when it makes no sense? What guarantees that no evil will ever again exert authority here?

We talked about such observations and our conflicting feelings. We are USA-born and USA-reared. Questioning is not only part of our nature, but part of what we feel to be our duty in a democracy. It is hard for us to understand such pervasive regimentation, and harder to think of it as good—yet the individuals we met all made the best of impressions. We were both pondering much when he returned to the States.

I stayed on until the end of the month, wishing I could extend my stay to be present for the unknown watershed event that was so clearly about to happen. Hotel staff informed me about the San Francisco earthquake when I checked in. After seeing my worry for friends turn me as pale as a ghost, they treated me with particular warmth for my entire stay. Students, mostly German, on the train for the next segment of my journey were similarly compassionate and helpful, providing news from their magazines and suggestions for finding out specifics. If anything, such kindness exaggerated the incongruity between the people I met and the relatively recent history of their society.

My last whole day in Europe, I spent on a train bound for my port of departure. A German student sat in my compartment. It would be a shame to waste this last chance to explore. I began by asking about some unfamiliar trees. She did not know an answer and seemed at first not to welcome the overture, but then she changed her mind and began to talk.

Here was an adventurous spirit. She was returning from a few months in Morocco. She told me about customs there, such as the significance of a dye pattern painted on her hands. I asked riskier questions: What did she think about the speculation that Germany would reunite? I had not been so bold as to broach that topic earlier, but my curiosity burned and it was my last chance to ask anyone there.

I think we cannot do that for at least another twenty years. Doing it now would be too soon. We are not ready.

She had been away at a critical time. I told her how German officials were being quoted in the news, as if unification would be welcome and not a great problem. I told her what many editorials had been saying: that it was inevitable, that it would be wondrous and fine... I also told her about anxieties felt by Germany's neighbors.

For several moments, I thought I might lose my fragile contact with her. She looked uncomfortable. I suppose she made a decision about me. Instead of shutting off our conversation, she went on. Our government is becoming more conservative, like yours, and there is much resentment against foreigners because of the jobs they take. If we tried to reunite with the East now, there would be many problems.

Then the most precious revelation in all of that journey began. She told me about her family.

Her father and grandfather did not support the Nazis, she said. They did not say much about it, but they did not want to serve the Nazi army in the war, so they did not go. The family had two houses, one in the city and one in the countryside. When the authorities came for them in the city, they said, Oh, this is such a shame! We just moved to the countryside a few weeks ago. We are only visiting here for the day.

Authorities in the city had no jurisdiction to induct people who lived in the countryside, so they went away and reported a relocation. Her father and grandfather switched to staying at the country house in case the authorities came back to check whether they really weren’t living in the city. German bureaucracy ground slowly, but eventually authorities would arrive at the country house. Then her father and grandfather would say, We would obey your induction notice, but we moved to the city and are only visiting here today. They successfully avoided the military draft throughout the entire war this way.

She struggled visibly with apprehension while she told this story, as though she felt frightened to speak yet believed she should. But it was meant for my ears only. During the telling, a German matron old enough to remember the war boarded our train and came to our compartment. My companion halted her story in mid-sentence when the matron's hand first touched the door. She ignored me as if we had spoken not a word of introduction to each other. Taking my cue from her, I pretended the same.

After a silence of several kilometers, the matron departed and my companion resumed her tale exactly where she had left it, in mid-sentence.

Today, I watch news of neo-Nazi resurgence in Germany. I read about parallel groups here. I think of my one-day confidante.

I wish it were not so wise of her to be afraid.