On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler—Nazi Germany’s Fuhrer—called an assembly of his principal generals from the Russian front.   

The war he had started on September 1, 1939, was not going well for the Fatherland. 

Germany faced the two-front war that Hitler himself had warned against in Mein Kampf: With the Americans and British closing in from the West, and the Russians inexorably closing in from the East.

Rows of generals sat before Hitler in the dining room of a converted inn, near his Wolf’s Lair military headquarters, near the East Prussian town of Rastenburg,

Hitler and his generals

Hitler spoke about the crucial role war played in the life of nations, and how important dynamic leadership and racial purity were to a nation’s morale.  He boasted that powerful new weapons would soon be available for turning the tide of the conflict: New radar equipment, new submarines, new torpedoes. 

Victory would emerge after May, 1944. Meanwhile, his armies must hold out.

And then he threw down a challenge: 

“If the worst comes to the worst and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my people, I must still expect my entire officer corps to muster around me with daggers drawn—just as every field marshal or the commander of an army, corps, division or regiment expects his subordinates to stand by him in the hour of crisis.”

Suddenly, the unbelievable happened: For the first time since he had taken command of Germany almost 11 years earlier, he was loudly interrupted. 

“And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!”

The voice belonged to Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, the military genius who had crafted the successful conquest of France in June, 1940.

Erich von Manstein

Hitler hoped that Manstein had meant to reassure him of the generals’ loyalty.

But Martin Bormann, his toadying chief secretary, cautioned otherwise: The generals had interpreted the outburst to mean that the worst would indeed come to the worst.

As indeed it did. 

Seventy-five years later, another powerful dictator, fighting for his life, issued a similar challenge to members of his political party. 

President Donald Trump faced an impeachment inquiry from Democrats in the House of Representatives. And he believed that his fellow Republicans in the United States Senate and House were not supporting him vigorously enough. 

So, on October 21, 2019, he lectured them during a meeting of his Cabinet. “The two things they [Democrats] have: They’re vicious and they stick together.  They don’t have Mitt Romney in their midst. They don’t have people like that.” 

Romney, the United States Senator from Utah, is the only Republican who has said he might be open to impeaching Trump. He has also called Trump’s calls for Ukraine and China to investigate former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, “appalling.”

Joe Biden is a potential White House rival for Trump in 2020.  

“I watched a couple of people on television today,” continued Trump. “They were talking about what a phony deal it is. What a phony investigation it is.

“And Republicans have to get tougher and fight. We have some that are great fighters, but they have to get tougher and fight because the Democrats are trying to hurt the Republican party for the election, which is coming up, where we’re doing very well.”

Donald Trump

The following day, October 22, Trump doubled down on the unfairness of the impeachment inquiry he was facing.

Reaching out to his fanatical base, he took to Twitter: “So some day, if a Democrat becomes President and the Republicans win the House, even by a tiny margin, they can impeach the President, without due process or fairness or any legal rights.

“All Republicans must remember what they are witnessing here – a lynching. But we will WIN!”

By comparing a Constitutionally-sanctioned process to an illegal “lynching,” Trump hoped to strip the impeachment inquiry of its legitimacy.

Trump’s slander came on the same day that William Taylor, the former ambassador to Ukraine, testified before House lawmakers behind closed doors for more than nine hours.

Reading a 15-page statement, Taylor said that he had grown increasingly alarmed as American officials tried to coerce Ukraine into investigating Joe and Hunter Biden.  And he laid out a series of events that directly tied Trump to a quid pro quo with Ukraine.  

Specifically:

• Trump insisted that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy “go to a microphone and say he is opening investigations of Biden and 2016 election interference.”  
• Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union told Taylor that “everything was dependent on such an announcement, including security assistance.”

Trump’s White House secretary, Stephanie Graham, responded with more slanders:

“President Trump has done nothing wrong—this is a coordinated smear campaign from far-left lawmakers and radical unelected bureaucrats waging war on the Constitution. There was no quid pro quo.

“Today was just more triple hearsay and selective leaks from the Democrats’ politically-motivated, closed door, secretive hearings….

“President Trump is leading the way for the American people by delivering a safer, stronger and more secure country. The do-nothing Democrats should consider doing the same.” 

Adolf Hitler’s demands for loyalty-unto-death by his generals didn’t save him from final destruction.

There’s an increasing chance that Trump’s similar demands on Republicans may not save him, either.