DuBow Digest – A Newsletter on American Jewish –German

Relations

AMERICAN EDITION

January 7, 2009

Dear Friends:

First and most important, my best wishes to all of you for a healthy and
prosperous New Year.

Second, my apologies for having sent most of you two copies of the last edition.
It’s not that I thought you so loved DuBow Digest that you needed to receive it
twice. The problem was “computer glitches”. How’s that for covering up a
sending mistake I made.

IN THIS EDITION

NEO-NAZI & EXTREMIST ACTIVITY 2009 – Lots of numbers. What do they

mean?

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER 1945? – Are the wars of today a carryover of what
took place in Europe in the 1930’s and 1940’s?

McCHECKPOINT – Charlie ain’t Charlie anymore!

SWEDEN LEAVES THE EU PRESIDENCY – THANK HEAVENS! HOWEVER…

Will Spain be any better? And what about the new President and High
Representative?

LOSS OF A GREAT LADY – Freya von Moltke was one of a kind.

THE AUSCHWITZ SIGN – A larceny might be something much larger.

NEO-NAZI & EXTREMIST ACTIVITY 2009

How much neo-Nazi and extremist activity was there in Germany during 2009?
The Interior Ministry keeps close tabs on such matters. In an article appearing in
dw-world.com they noted, “Early figures released by the ministry indicate that
there were 12,066 right-wing incidents recorded between January and October
2009 -- slightly more than in the same 10-month span in 2008. However, the vast
majority -- almost two-thirds, or 8,369 incidents -- were propaganda-related. The
number of violent attacks actually fell, from 639 to 572. A total of 576 people

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were injured due to activities by the extreme right.
The (almost) final official figures have now been released. According to
preliminary statistics from the Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA), if December
2009 statistics follow the trend of the year’s first 11 months, then it will have been
the first time in six year there was a reduction in right-wing violent crime. Up until
the end of November, 624 right-wing extremist crimes were registered in
Germany. Compared to 682 during this time in 2008, this means a reduction of
8.5 percent, the paper said.

In 2008, in total, incidents related to right-wing extremism were at their peak,

with a total of 19,894. Of these, just over a thousand were violent.
Last year in Germany there were around 156 right-wing organizations with an
estimated 30,000 members and associates, according to the Federal Office for
the Protection of the Constitution. Membership in these kinds of groups has been
falling for several years now, going from around 38,600 in 2006 to 30,000 in
2008.
Also of increasing concern to German police are left-wing extremists. There are
not as many of these as there are right-wing extremists, but the number of
offenses motivated by extreme left-wing politics also rose over the past few
years, from 2,765 in 2007 to 3,124 in 2008.
Media coverage of left-wing extremism in Germany has also increased. Earlier in
December, after a series of what appeared to be politically motivated arson
attacks, Kristina Köhler, a member of Angela Merkel's ruling Christian Democrats
(CDU) and the newly appointed German minister for family affairs, senior
citizens, women and youth, came under fire from opposition parties for putting
right-wing, left-wing and Islamic extremism on the same level. She told national
weekly Welt Am Sonntag that during coalition talks between her party and the
Free Democrats (FDP) they had decided to make existing programs aimed at
combating right-wing, left-wing and Islamic extremism more balanced. In the
past, Köhler had criticized the programs as being one-sided.

So, what does all that mean? While I’m pleased that the Government is following
all this kind of activity and letting the citizenry know that it exists, I’m not sure that
numbers mean a lot. Of course, upsurges in numbers are not unimportant.
However, it is the quality of what the extremists are doing and whether they are
recruiting more members and financial support seems to me to be of greater
importance. The fact that the neo-Nazi NPD Party has representatives in a few
State parliaments is of greater concern than whether their adherents committed a
few more or less acts of violence.

Perhaps most important is the fact that the Government is now following left-wing
extremists. It is the anti-Semitism hiding under a cover of anti-Israelism that
appears to me to have the best chance of having an impact. The neo-Nazi types
want to take over the Government but that is highly unlikely. However, the left-

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wing and Islamic extremists, at least in the short run, only want to influence
Government policy. That is easier to do. And they might just have a greater
chance of some success. It is certainly something to keep a sharp eye on. I’m
glad the Interior Ministry is doing exactly that.

WHAT HAPPENED AFTER 1945?

I have often wondered what actually happened in Germany right before and right
after the end of World War II. I’ve read more than a few books on the subject but
have never been satisfied that I got the “real” inside of what it was like in
Germany after they were so totally defeated and destroyed and how they turned
themselves into a pacifist democratic society which today they are. Did they just
cynically forget the 12 years of being Nazi in order to butter up to the Allies? Did
they quickly see their way clear to win everything in the coming peace that they
could not win in two wars? And, what are the implications for today.
I recently came across a book review in The National Interest, a publication of
the Nixon Center in Washington that has, in my opinion considerable insight. The
review is of The Shadow of War by Richard Bessel. The review is by Richard
Overy is a professor of history at the University of Exeter. He is the author of
numerous books on the Third Reich and the Second World War.

Overy writes, “The portrait he (Bessel) paints of a Germany in the very depths of
an abyss of violence and social disaster is a necessary curative to the often-
passive way in which defeated Germans are portrayed in triumphalist military
histories of Allied victory. Germans were people too, and the terrible things that
happened in their country in the final months of defeat and the years of slow
readjustment to peace exposes the shallowness of the view, widely held among
the Allied populations, that Germany just had to be brought to his knees to make
the world a better place. The suffering experienced by ordinary Germans was a
very human suffering, visible since 1945 in a hundred other civil wars and wars
of liberation where the civilian population has been abused, bombed, deported or
forced to flee.
BESSEL’S ACCOUNT is not an attempt to revisit the theme of “Germans as
victims” in which victimhood is shared irrespective of the historical circumstances
that produce it. The mass murder of millions of Jewish and non-Jewish
Europeans is victimization of a quite-different kind. It cannot be thought of in the
same terms as the messy consequences of defeat experienced by the society
that generated the mass murder in the first place. What Bessel does is simply
record what a society facing exceptional violence and social crisis is like. The
situation in Germany was unique.

Overy in his review brings the horror of total war in the 1930’s and 40’s up to date
and concludes, “Nothing on this scale afflicts Western society, and we would do
well to acknowledge that fact more fully. The constant memorialization of World
War II has created a misplaced sense that the war for civilization is still being

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fought out today as it was seventy years ago. It is not. Moreover, as Bessel’s
grim text reveals, civilization was capable of endorsing a great deal of barbarous
activity in its own defense. The war created the possibility of gross inhumanity
and sustained its grim imperative even during the early months of peace. But the
conditions that gave occasion to global war and the necessities that fueled its
growing barbarization are part of a past history. There is nothing to be gained
from reviving the discourse of crisis that German defeat in 1945 brought to an
end. The narrative of that earlier apocalyptic struggle and its savage aftermath
should be seen as a sobering corrective to the self-indulgent belief that our age
has as great a measure of crisis as the age of total war.

I think he’s right. What is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be equated
in any way with the awfulness of World War II. However, while I think nothing can
come even close to total war of that time, there are new long range horrors on
the horizon. Islamic extremism and the upheavals in the Islamic world cannot just
be set aside because millions so far have not been killed. Today, unhappily, we
have the situation where nuclear weapons in the wrong hands can bring about
something worse than 1945 in the wink of an eye.

I would advise reading the review (and perhaps the 544 page book). It will give
you an opportunity to get a truly accurate picture of Germany in 1945 and think
through for yourself what lessons that period have for today’s world.
Click here: http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=22608

McCHECKPOINT

For those of you too young or with faulty memories, Checkpoint Charlie was the
major entrance/exit place where non-Germans (i.e. Americans, Brits, etc.) could
exit West Berlin through the Berlin Wall into East Berlin. It was manned on one
side by the American Army and on the other, the Soviets and the East Germans.
When the Wall came down 20 years ago the Checkpoint was disassembled and
after a short while it was difficult to remember exactly where this East-West point
of international friction actually stood. In practically no time at all, old buildings
were taken down and new, modern structures replaced them. While it’s true that
a museum of sorts was established in one of the old buildings at the crossing
point, the area was left without any sort of an historic identity.

I’m sure they don’t mean it to be a symbol of American triumphalism but an

application has been made to open a McDonalds at this location which has its
place in history and in many Cold War spy novels. My guess is that if they had
opened a Mickey D’s while the Wall was still up the Soviets would have
dismantled it themselves much earlier in order to get their hands on to Big Macs.

Read all about it! http://www.thelocal.de/society/20091229-24245.html

SWEDEN LEAVES THE EU PRESIDENCY – THANK HEAVENS! HOWEVER…

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The EU Presidency, which lasts for six months, rotates regularly through the
member States. On January 1st the Swedish presidency ended and was taken
over by Spain. Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt their time in office was
a great success. DW-WORLD.DE reported, “But despite pats on the back from
Reinfeldt and others, not everyone agrees on the degree of success achieved by
Sweden over the past six months. Several EU diplomats say the Swedish prime
minister was in fact not very transparent when he was consulting member states
on how to fill top EU posts. Sweden has also been criticized for being too
assertive on certain foreign policy issues.
One of the biggest examples was a call by Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt
for East Jerusalem to be declared the future capital of an independent
Palestinian state. Other EU members responded in a subtler manner, calling
instead for talks on the status of Jerusalem. Bildt also accused Israel of being the
country of "divide and rule" in trying to stop EU governments from backing the
proposal.

O.K. Sweden is gone. Now we come to a very difficult crossroads. Again, DW-
WORLD.DE, “As Sweden's turn with the EU presidency comes to an end, there
is a sense that the rotating role in the EU will never be the same again. In
addition to the new foreign policy chief, the Lisbon Treaty created the position of
an EU president, the first of whom is former Belgian Prime Minister Herman van
Rompuy. Rompuy will take over many of the major duties previously performed
by the country sitting in the driver's seat, leaving Spain with the tricky task of
redefining the role of the EU's rotating presidency.

As I pointed out in the last two editions of DuBow Digest, “the new foreign policy
chief”, Lady Catherine Ashton came out of the shoot roundly criticizing Israel
without even visiting the Middle East. It is my understanding that her term runs
for 2 ½ years as does that of EU President van Rompuy. They are bound to
become stronger in their posotions. That does not auger well for Israel.
No criticism yet from Berlin. A little disappointing. Stay tuned.

LOSS OF A GREAT LADY

Freya von Moltke was an exceptional human being. The AP reported that Freya
von Moltke, a prominent member of the anti-Nazi resistance in World War II, has
died at the age of 98 in Norwich, Vermont where she lived.

Along with her husband, Helmuth James Graf von Moltke, the former countess
was vocal in her opposition to Germany's National Socialist regime during the
1930s and 1940s.
Born into a family of bankers in 1911, von Moltke met her future husband when
she was 18. The pair were married in 1931 and both of them received law

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degrees before setting up a law practice in Berlin during Hitler's rise to power.
The von Moltke family estate in Kreisau, now Krzyzowa, Poland, was used for
meetings of what became known as the Kreisau resistance movement. Members
of the group were part of an attempt to assassinate Hitler, headed by Claus
Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg, in July 1944.
Helmuth von Moltke was drafted into the German army as an international law
expert. He went on to use his influence to have Jews deported to countries that
would give them safe haven. He also argued that Germany should adhere to the
Geneva Convention in its war with the Soviet Union. He was executed in January
1945 for treason.
Upon her husband's arrest, Freya von Moltke fled with her two sons, emigrating
to South Africa, where she began to write and give lectures about the German
resistance movement.
She moved to Vermont in the United States in 1960 to live with Eugen
Rosenstock-Huessy, a professor and social philosopher who escaped from
Germany after the rise of the Nazis.
When he died in 1973, von Moltke dedicated her life to promoting Rosenstock-
Huessy's work and that of her late husband. She published numerous books
about resistance to the Nazis during the Second World War.

Krzyzowa was the site of a reconciliation mass between Germany and Poland in
1989.

They just do not make many more like Frau von Moltke these days. She was a
great lady. Read some more about her. Click here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freya_von_moltke

THE AUSCHWITZ SIGN

In the last few weeks some of you might have read about the stealing and
recovery of the “Arbeit Macht Frei” sign from the Auschwitz Memorial Camp Site.
While I reported on it in my last Germany Edition I did not include it in the
American Edition – for reasons that now escape me. In any case, the sign, cut up
into several pieces was found and the five Polish perpatrators were arrested by
the Polish police. It was announced that the theft had taken place on behalf of a
“collector”. With no reason given, I (and many others) assumed it was for
eventual sale and financial profit.

The plot now thickens…

ynetnews.com now reports, “A wealthy British Nazi sympathizer is behind the

theft of the Auschwitz death camp gate sign, the British Sunday Mirror reported.

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 According to the report, the "Arbeit Macht Frei" sign, which was stolen some two
weeks ago and recovered two days later damaged and cut into three pieces, was
destined for a UK collector of Nazi memorabilia, who used a Swedish neo-Nazi
group to carry out the task of stealing it.
A source in Sweden told the Mirror: “The collector wanted it as a trophy – and
used his neo-Nazi contacts to put word out he was prepared to pay huge money
for it.
“Arrangements had been made to hide the sign in a cellar in Stockholm, waiting
for the British man to collect. The plan was to use the British guy’s money to fund
neo-Nazi hate attacks in Sweden.” Had the deal been successfully executed, it is
believed that the buyer's funds would have been used to support extreme
rightists wishing to carry out terror attacks and disrupt the upcoming elections in
Sweden.
Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet recently reported that the sign's buyer was not
a Swedish citizen, despite the fact that the group working to obtain it was an
underground neo-Nazi group in the Scandinavian country.

According to Aftonbladet, the neo-Nazi group had planned to assassinate

Sweden's leaders during the upcoming election year.
Reports say the group was in possession of weapons and detailed plans of how
to infiltrate the parliament building in Stockholm via its visitors' hall, and from
there shoot the prime minister and the foreign minister. Following the affair's
exposure, Poland requested Sweden launch an in-depth investigation into the
theft, and the request was passed on to the Justice Ministry in Stockholm.

While the whole thing things seems a little on the bizarre side, we should never
underestimate how dangerous extremist, neo-Nazi of thinking (and activity) can
be. While Germany was not in any way involved in this plot, I am always pleased
to read how on top of such things the German Government is. In this case the
Poles and Swedes deserve kudos.
See you later in the month

*************************************
DuBow Digest is written and published by Eugene DuBow who can be contacted at
edubow@optonline.net Both the American and Germany editions are also posted on line at
www.dubowdigest.typepad.com.

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