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Posts Tagged ‘ALBERT SPEER’

THE AFGHAN-AMERICAN TALIBAN: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Politics, Social commentary on February 13, 2025 at 12:23 am

On April 15, 2015, CBS News broke a truly sensational and disturbing story:    

Agents from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) were investigating the online leak of home addresses of senior and former officials of the FBI, DHS and other Federal law enforcement agencies.  

Even worse: Rather than Islamic terrorists being the culprits, the suspects were believed to be members of an American Right-wing extremist group.

The message was entitled: DHS-CIA-FBI TRAITORS HOME ADDRESSES.

It read: “LET THESE EVIL NWO SATANISTS KNOW THAT THERE WILL BE HELL TO PAY FOR THEIR 911 TREASON, AND THEIR FUTURE FEMA CAMP PLANNED PUBLIC CRACKDOWN TREASON ALSO

“JESUS IS LORD, AND THE PUBLIC IS IN CHARGE, NOT THESE SATANIC NWO STOOGES”

“NWO” could be an acronym for “New World Order,” a term used by conspiracy theorists to refer to a totalitarian world government.

In a statement, DHS said:

“The safety of our workforce is always a primary concern. DHS has notified employees who were identified in the posting and encouraged them to be vigilant. DHS will adjust security measures, as appropriate, to protect our employees.”

CBS did not say where the information was posted. 

Click here: Right-Wing Group Blamed In Leak Of U.S. Officials’ Home Addresses: Report

Americans shouldn’t be shocked to find that a Right-wing group betrayed the safety of its fellow Americans.

The goals of both the American Right and Islamic terrorist groups such as the Taliban actually share much in common:

  • Women should have fewer rights than men.
  • Abortion should be illegal.
  • There should be no separation between church and state.
  • Religion should be taught in school.
  • Religious doctrine trumps science.
  • Government should be based on religious doctrine.
  • Homosexuality should be outlawed.

A 2010 book, American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right, vividly documents the similarities between these two groups.

Its author is Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos, an American political blog that publishes news and opinions from a liberal viewpoint.

Buy American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind Jihadists and the Radical Right Book Online at Low Prices in India | American Taliban: How War, Sex, Sin, and Power Bind

American Taliban opens with this provocative statement:

“Yes, the Republican party, and the entire modern conservative movement is, in fact, very much like the Taliban.

“In their tactics and on the issues, our homegrown American Taliban are almost indistinguishable from the Afghan Taliban.

“The American Taliban—whether in their militaristic zeal, their brute faith in masculinity, their disdain for women’s rights, their outright hatred of gays, their aversion to science and modernity or their staunch anti-intellectualism—share a litany of mores, values, and tactics with Islamic extremists….

“Let’s be honest, the freedoms that jihadists hate are the very same freedoms that our own homegrown repressive ideologues hate: freedom of thought, of inquiry, of lifestyle.”

Its subsequent chapters document the all-consuming rage of the American Right to brutally control the lives of their fellow citizens.

Ironically, Moulitsas’ thesis is—unintentionally—supported by no less an authority than Right-wing author Dinesh D’Souza.

Dinesh D’Souza 

Gage Skidmore, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

Among the bestsellers D’Souza has written: Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader, and Obama’s America: Unmaking the American Dream.

The title of his 2008 bestseller sums up D’Souza’s take on liberalism: The Enemy At Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11.

From the book’s dust jacket:

“Muslims and other traditional people around the world allege that secular American values are being imposed on their societies and that these values undermine religious belief, weaken the traditional family, and corrupt the innocence of children.

“But it is not ‘America’ that is doing this to them, it is the American cultural left. What traditional societies consider repulsive and immoral, the cultural left considers progressive and liberating….

“D’Souza argues that the war on terror is really a war for the hearts and minds of traditional Muslims—and traditional peoples everywhere. The only way to win the struggle with radical Islam is to convince traditional Muslims that America is on their side.”  

In short: America needs to adopt the values of the Taliban.

* * * * *

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.

If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.

Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told Albert Speer, his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, “the nation will also perish.

“This fate is inevitable. There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.

“Besides, those who will remain after the battle are only the inferior ones, for the good ones have all been killed.” 

Hitler’s view was: “If I can’t rule Germany, there won’t be a Germany.”

Apparently, some members of the American Right have reached the same decision about the United States. 

UGLY–AND UNSPOKEN–TRUTHS ABOUT THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 25, 2024 at 12:29 am

The 1982 TV-movie, “Inside the Third Reich,” offers a scene that has no doubt echoed throughout Gaza since October 7, 2023.      

It’s 1940, and the British—fed up with being repeatedly attacked by German bombers—are retaliating with an air raid on Berlin. 

For the first time in its seven-year history, Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich is under attack. 

Albert Speer (played by Rutger Hauer), Hitler’s favorite architect, is forced to take cover in an underground bomb shelter. It’s dark and cramped.

Inside the Third Reich - Where to Watch and Stream Online – Entertainment.ie

Rutger Hauer as Albert Speer

A woman sits next to him, sobbing repeatedly: “The German people only want peace. Why won’t they make peace? Why won’t they make peace?”

By which she means—intentionally or not: Why won’t the British simply agree to give Germany whatever it wants?  

There has been a lot of this sentiment coursing through Gaza—and its allies in the Islamic world and elsewhere. It’s not stated as honestly as it is below, but translates to this anyway:

“Why won’t the Israelis allow Hamas to slaughter them—as it did on October 7, 2023?”

(Under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, an estimated 1,200 men, women and children were slaughtered by Hamas terrorists in streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival. About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.) 

“Why are the Israelis bombing us?”

(Because they don’t like having their men, women and children slaughtered and kidnapped.)

“Why does the United States allow Israel to bomb us?”

(Americans didn’t like it when 3,000 of their own citizens were slaughtered by Islamics on 9/11. Within a month, America began pulverizing Afghanistan—home of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden—and its occupation lasted 20 years.) 

“We only slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. But they have killed—by our estimate—43,985 Palestinians. That’s so unfair.”

(Under this logic, Israel should be allowed to kill only 1,200 Palestinians: “I smacked you in the mouth once, so you should be allowed to smack me in the mouth once. Actually, you shouldn’t be allowed to smack me back at all.”)

“Israel is waging war on civilians—not Hamas.”

(Hamas has deliberately embedded itself among a civilian population: “Ha, ha, you’ll have to kill all these innocent people in order to kill us.” For Israel to accept such sanctuary would be to confer immunity on Hamas and guarantee ceaseless future attacks.)

List of leaders of Hamas - Wikipedia

Emblem of Hamas

“Palestinians didn’t attack Israel—Hamas did.”

(Hamas is overwhelmingly supported by Palestinians. A man who shelters a known killer is by definition an accessory to that killer’s crimes. Yet Hamas refuses to allow civilians to take shelter in its tunnels. Nor does it use its underground network to supply much-needed food and resources for Gazans.) 

“Israel is fighting a war of genocide against Gaza!”

(The universal rallying cry among Gaza residents—and their Islamic and non-Islamic allies—is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Which means: When Israel is destroyed and its citizens are slaughtered. For Hamas, no “two-state solution” will do.) 

According to CNN, several videos are circulating online that “show Israeli soldiers in Gaza behaving in offensive and disrespectful ways toward the civilian population. Other videos show soldiers ransacking private homes, destroying civilian property and using racist and hateful language.”

(Soldiers are universally notorious for showing disrespect for their enemies, whether civilian or military. During the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman set out on his legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia in 1864. His soldiers ravaged the countryside, destroyed all sources of food and forage and left behind hungry and demoralized Southerners. 

March to the Sea | Civil War Trails | Civil War Sites in Georgia

Sherman’s March

(As for Israeli soldiers “using racist and hateful language”: During World War II, GIs referred to Germans as “krauts” and to Japanese as “Japs.” During the Vietnam war, grunts called Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers “gooks.” In Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans used “ragheads” and “Hajiis” to describe their enemies. 

(War is, by its nature, destructive—of lives, of property, of feelings for humanity.

(William Tecumseh Sherman minced no words in describing its evil: “You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it….You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war….

(“They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war….”

(Sherman’s words—which appeared in a September 12, 1864 letter to Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun—could be addressed to Hamas and the Gaza residents who support it: 

(“Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You depreciate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.”)

“The Holy Land.” 

(There is no “holy land.” There is only desert claimed by two warring religions. Both sides believe “God is on our side.” So there will never be peace, only eternal war—until global warming finally makes the Middle East so hot that no one can live there.)

HITLER AND TRUMP: YOU OWE ME LOYALTY; I OWE YOU NOTHING

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on November 18, 2024 at 12:10 am

On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.    

The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.  

At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:

“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own 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.”

Adolf Hitler

Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.

Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.

Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!” 

Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.” 

Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his all-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.

Erich von Manstein

And, which, in fact, happened.

As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.  

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.

“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”

Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump. 

Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.

In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:

“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.” 

James Comey official portrait.jpg

James Comey

When Comey refused to overlook Trump’s treasonous contacts with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump fired him.

On October 9, 2019, The Week published an article: “Note to Republicans: Trump will betray you just like he betrayed the Kurds. The one constant in the president’s life is betrayal.”  Specifically:

“Trump’s forte is con artistry. He sells books he doesn’t write to people who don’t read. He failed as a businessman but succeeded as a fake businessman on TV. The supreme irony of his life is that he poses as a dealmaker when he is the opposite. Trump doesn’t make deals. He breaks them….

“If there’s a constant in Trump’s life, it’s betrayal. He has betrayed his business partners, his customers, his employees, his friends, his wives, and his voters. A man who is willing to betray those closest to him will not hesitate to turn his back on foreigners thousands of miles away.”

To enrich himself at the expense of his followers, Trump has peddled a variety of expensive products. Among these:

  • “Never Surrender” sneakers;
  • Mugshot T-shirts, mugs and posters;
  • Bibles made in China (as he rails against a trade deficit between China and the United States.

On the international level, Trump has withdrawn the United States from a host of international agreements. Among these:

  • The Trans-Pacific Partnership;
  • The Paris Agreement to combat global warming;
  • The Iran nuclear deal.

As a result, the world no longer trusts the United States to honor its commitments.

A 2018 Pew Research Center survey found that 82 percent of Europeans didn’t trust Trump’s handling of international issues. Seventy-five percent of Canadians and 91 percent of Mexicans didn’t trust him to do the right thing regarding world affairs. 

For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty goes only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.

LIKE NAZIS, LIKE REPUBLICANS: IT’S POWER, NOT MORALITY, THAT COUNTS

In Bureaucracy, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 10, 2024 at 12:18 am

Frank Brandenburg had just turned 16 in 1979 when he saw the NBC mini-series Holocaust, depicting the Third Reich’s extermination of six million Jewish men, women and children.

He was stunned. Had such atrocities really taken place? 

His parents, friends and teachers refused to talk about Adolf Hitler and his Nazi party that had tyrannically ruled Germany for 12 years.  

“No one wants to talk today about that! Let the past sleep,” he was repeatedly told.

Frank Brandenburg had a deeply personal reason for pursuing the truth. He was a citizen of West Germany, growing up in a country that was still divided in two for having lost World War II—a war Hitler had started.

He started reading such books about the Holocaust as:

  • Inside the Third Reich, by former Reichminister for Armaments Albert Speer, stated that it had happened.
  • David Irving’s Hitler’s War, on the other hand, seemed inconclusive on the subject.
  • The Auschwitz Lie, by Thies Chrostophersen, flatly asserted that the victorious Allies had concocted this slander to blacken the good name of Germany.

So Brandenburg did something no other teenager had dared attempt: He set out to meet and interview as many former members of the Third Reich as possible.

Among those he interviewed:

  • Lina Heydrich, the widow of Reinhard Heydrich, the #2 man in the Schutzstaffel, or SS.
  • Otto Remer, who put down the July 20, 1944 generals’ plot against Hitler.
  • SS General Karl Wolff, a close confidant of SS Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler.
  • The widow and sons of Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess.
  • Hans Baur, Hitler’s personal pilot.

These interviews ultimately became a 1990 book: Quest: Searching for Nazi Germany’s Past, co-authored by Brandenburg and Ib Melchior. It is a book that can never be duplicated, because those interviewed by Brandenburg are now dead.

Image result for Images of Quest: Searching for Germany's Nazi Past

Of his encounters with so many former Nazis, Brandenburg reflected:

“Today I know that in some cases…I was confronted with defensive statements, evasion, self-exoneration and prejudiced portrayals of the facts.

“But when I began my project, at the age of 16, I—naively—had no conception that this might be the case. Not one of the people I talked to expressed any kind of guilt or remorse. Not one of them had regrets or concern for their victims.

“Yet, it is easier for me to understand that. Who, in his old age, wants to admit having committed such misdeeds? To admit that everything one had believed in, worked for and lived for, had been corrupt?”

Related image

Nazi SS soldiers marching

Which helps explain the reaction historians will receive when, in the future, they interview supporters of Donald Trump.

The Original Nazis were guided by Hitler’s belief that the world was polluted by corruption and ugliness—and their mission was to remove that ugliness and corruption.

This meant removing those peoples they deemed inferior—Jews, Slavs (Poles, Serbs, Russians), Communists, liberals, gypsies, the physically and mentally handicapped.

Today’s Republicans believe themselves to be the only legitimate political party. And so do their supporters.

No sin—or even crime—is intolerable if it’s committed by a Republican.

On October 7, 2916, The Washington Post leaked a video of Republican Presidential nominee Donald Trump making sexually predatory comments about women:

“You know I’m automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star they let you do it. You can do anything.

Related image

Donald Trump

Right-wingers rushed to excuse Trump’s misogynist comments as mere “frat boy” talk.

  • Corey Lewandowski, a former Trump campaign manager and now CNN commentator: We are electing a leader to the free world. We’re not electing a Sunday school teacher.” 
  • Jerry Falwell, Jr., president of Liberty University: “When they ask [if Trump’s personal life is relevant] I always talk about the story of the woman at the well who had had five husbands and she was living with somebody she wasn’t married to, and they wanted to stone her. And Jesus said he’s–he who is without sin cast the first stone. I just see how Donald Trump treats other people, and I’m impressed by that.”
  • Ralph  Reed, founder and chairman of the Faith & Freedom Coalition: People of faith are voting on issues like who will protect unborn life, defend religious freedom, grow the economy, appoint conservative judges and oppose the Iran nuclear deal.”

In 2017, Roy Moore, the twice-ousted former chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, ran for the state’s U.S. Senator. 

Four women, in a Washington Post story, accused Moore of seeking romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his 30s, and even trolling malls for such dates. 

Kay Ivey, the state’s Governor, offered the real reason why Republicans supported Moore:  

“I believe in the Republican party, what we stand for, and, most important, we need to have a Republican in the United States Senate to vote on things like the Supreme Court justices, other appointments the Senate has to confirm and make major decisions. So that’s what I plan to do, vote for Republican nominee Roy Moore.” 

In short: The Republican party—like the Nazi party—intends to attain absolute power over the lives of American citizens.

Compared to that, electing even accused sexual predators shrinks to insignificance.

A WARNING TO REPUBLICANS: VIOLENCE CAN FLOW TWO WAYS

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 28, 2024 at 12:10 am

“We mock you. We mock your fear. We want your fear. It’s going to be accountability. We are taking apart the administrative state. We’re going to destroy the deep state, and we’re going to hold everybody responsible that put this republic in the situation its in today. 

“Accountability, responsibility. And that will come with authority. The authority of Donald J. Trump as the 47th president of the United States.”

The speaker was Steve Bannon, former Trump campaign manager and White House advisor. And he was issuing a warning to everyone who didn’t enthusiastically accept Donald Trump as his Once and Future Fuhrer

Threats of violence have become common among Republicans since 2015, when Trump first ran for President. And they continue to cast a shadow over the 2024 Presidential campaign.

On March 16, 2016, Trump warned Republicans that if he didn’t win the GOP nomination in July, his supporters would literally riot: “I think you’d have riots. I think you would see problems like you’ve never seen before. I think bad things would happen. I really do. I wouldn’t lead it, but I think bad things would happen.” 

An  NBC reporter summed it up as: “The message to Republicans was clear: ‘Nice convention you got there, shame if something happened to it.’”

Eight years later, on March 16, Trump made a similar threat: “Now if I don’t get elected, it’s going to be a bloodbath for the whole—that’s gonna be the least of it….If this election isn’t won, I’m not sure that you’ll ever have another election in this country.”

The Third Reich similarly relied on violence—or the threat of it—to preserve its dictatorial control over Germany.

A key representative of that violence was Reinhard Tristan Eugen Heydrich.

A tall, blond-haired former naval officer, Heydrich was both a champion fencer and talented violinist. Heydrich joined the Schutzstaffel, or Protective Squads, better known as the SS, in 1931, and quickly became head of its counterintelligence service.

In 1934, he oversaw the “Night of the Long Knives” purge of Hitler’s brown-shirted S.A., or Stormtroopers.

Reinhard Heycrich

In September, 1941, Heydrich was appointed “Reich Protector” of Czechoslovakia, which had fallen prey to Germany in 1938 but whose citizens were growing restless under Nazi rule.

Heydrich immediately ordered a purge, executing 92 people within the first three days of his arrival in Prague. By February, 1942, 4,000-5,000 people had been arrested.

In January, 1942, Heydrich convened a meeting of high-ranking political and military leaders in Wannsee, Germany, to streamline “the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.”  

An estimated six million Jews were thus slaughtered.

Returning to Prague, Heydrich continued his policy of carrot-and-stick with the Czechs—improving the social security system and requisitioning luxury hotels for middle-class workers, alternating with arrests and executions.  

Two British-trained Czech commandos—Jan Kubis and Joseph Gabcik—parachuted into Prague. 

On May 27, 1942, they waited at a hairpin turn in the road always taken by Heydrich. When Heydrich’s Mercedes slowed down, Gabcik raised his machinegun—which jammed.

Rising in his seat, Heydrich aimed his revolver at Gabcik—as Kubis lobbed a hand grenade at the car. The explosion drove steel and leather fragments of the car’s upholstery into Heydrich’s diaphragm, spleen and lung.

Scene of Reinhard Heydrich’s assassination

Hitler dispatched doctors from Berlin to save the Reich Protector. But infection set in, and on June 4, Heydrich died at age 38. 

The assassination sent shockwaves through the upper echelons of the Third Reich. No one had dared assault—much less assassinate—a high-ranking Nazi official.

Nazis had slaughtered tens of thousands without hesitation—or fear that the same might happen to them. 

Suddenly they realized that the fury they had aroused could be turned against themselves.

Which brings us to the leaders of America’s own Right-wing.

The names of infamous Nazis were widely known:

  • Reichsmarshall Hermann Goering;
  • Propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Goebbels;
  • Deputy Fuhrer Rudolf Hess;
  • SS-Reichsfuhrer Heinrich Himmler;
  • “Hanging Judge” Roland Freisler;
  • Architect Albert Speer;
  • SS Obergruoppenfuhrer Reinhard Heydrich; and
  • Fuhrer Adolf Hitler.

Adolf Hitler introducing his new cabinet, 1933

Members of the Nazi government

And so are the names of the infamous leaders of the American Right: 

  • Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell;
  • Texas Senator Ted Cruz; 
  • Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas;
  • Evangelist Franklin Graham;
  • Florida Senator Marco Rubio;
  • Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito; 
  • Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; 
  • Former President Donald Trump.

The difference between these two infamous groups is this:

In Nazi Germany, ordinary Germans could not learn about the personal lives of their dictators—including their home addresses—and to conspire against them.

In the United States, ordinary citizens have an array of means to do this. They can turn to newspapers, TV and magazines. And if that isn’t enough, “people finder” websites, for a modest price, provide addresses and names of relatives of potential targets.

In Nazi Germany, firearms were tightly controlled.

In the United States, the Right’s National Rifle Association has successfully lobbied to put lethal firepower into the hands of virtually anyone who wants it.

Eighty-two years ago, Reinhard Heydrich believed himself invulnerable from the hatred of the enemies he had made. That arrogance cost him his life.

The day may soon come when America’s own Right-wingers start learning that same lesson.

DEMOCRACY’S FALLING? BUT WHAT ABOUT MY CAREER?

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on May 9, 2024 at 12:05 am

And the most glorious exploits do not always furnish us with the clearest discoveries of virtue or vice in men. Sometimes a matter of less moment, an expression or a jest, informs us better of their characters and inclinations, than the most famous sieges, the greatest armaments, or the bloodiest battles whatsoever.
—Plutarch, “Life of Alexander” 

Hope Hicks served in President Donald Trump’s administration as White House Director of Strategic Communication from January to September, 2017.    

Today she’s a prominent witness at his trial for concealing hush money payments in 2016 to porn “actress” Stormy Daniels.

On January 6, 2021, Hicks had a problem: She feared she might never work again.

From 2017 to 2018 she served as White House Communications Director. After leaving the White House, she returned to serve as Counselor to the President from 2020 to 2021.

Hope Hicks November 2017.jpg

Hope Hicks

And then came the Trump-inspired attack on Congress on January 6.

Among the infamies and crimes Trump committed—and Hicks witnessed—during his four years as President:

  • Repeatedly attacking the nation’s free press as “the enemy of the American people” for daring to report his growing list of crimes and disasters.
  • Publicly siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin against American Intelligence agencies—such as the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency—which unanimously agreed that Russia had interfered with the 2016 Presidential election.
  • Giving highly classified CIA Intelligence to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. 
  • Using his position as President to further enrich himself, in violation of the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
  • Firing FBI Director James Comey for refusing to pledge his personal loyalty to Trump—and continuing to investigate Russian subversion of the 2016 election.

Keep Laughing!: Songs about Nuclear Annihilation from 1940's-80's

  • Shutting down the Federal Government on December 22, 2018, because Democrats refused to fund his useless “border wall” between the United States and Mexico. An estimated 380,000 government employees were furloughed and another 420,000 were ordered to work without pay for 35 days.
  • Allowing the deadly COVID-19 virus to ravage the country, killing 400,000 Americans by the time he left office.
  • Attacking medical experts and governors who urged Americans to wear masks and socially distance to protect themselves against the deadly COVID-19 virus.
  • Repeatedly lying—while still in office and afterward—that the 2020 election had been “stolen” from him by massive voter fraud.
  • Illegally trying to pressure state legislatures and governors to stop the certification of the vote that had made Joe Biden the president-elect.
  • Inciting his followers to attack the Capitol Building where Senators and Representatives were meeting to count the Electoral Votes won by himself and Joe Biden. His objective: Stop the count, which he knew would prove him the loser.

So Hope had plenty to feel tormented about.  

Yet it wasn’t any of these offenses that upset her.

It was something far more personal: She feared that the public’s association of her with Trump’s attack on Congress would doom her, at age 32, to permanent unemployment.

On January 6, 2021, she exchanged a series of texts with Julie Radford, First Daughter Ivanka Trump’s chief of staff. 

HICKS: “In one day he [Trump] ended every future opportunity that doesn’t include speaking engagements at the local proud boys [sic] chapter

“And all of us that didn’t have jobs lined up will be perpetually unemployed

“I’m so mad and upset

“We all look like domestic terrorists now”

RADFORD: “Oh yes I’ve been crying for an hour”

HICKS: “This made us all unemployable

“Like untouchable

“God I’m so fucking mad”

RADFORD: “I know there isn’t a chance of finding a job 

“Visa also sent me a blow off email today

“Already”

HICKS: “Nope. Not being dramatic, but we are all fucked.

[Referring to Trump]: “Attacking the VP [Vice President Mike Pence]?

“Wtf is wrong with him” 

Albert Speer, former architect and Minister of Armaments for his late Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler, would have fully empathized. 

Monochrome photograph of the upper body of Albert Speer, signed at the bottom

Albert Speer

Bundesarchiv, Bild 146II-277 / Binder / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 DE <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

With the collapse of the Third Reich, he found himself hurled from power and facing trial as a war criminal at Nuremberg.

His prosecutor, Robert H. Jackson, said: “Speer joined in planning and executing the program to dragoon prisoners of war and foreign workers into German war industries, which waxed in output while the workers waned in starvation.”

Yet Speer falsely claimed he had simply been an apolitical architect who had been drafted into serving as Minister of Armaments—and hadn’t known about the Holocaust. 

The prosecution couldn’t prove he had. So he escaped a death sentence—and was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment.

Emerging from prison in 1966, Speer lamented that no architectural firm in postwar Germany would hire “Hitler’s architect.” 

So he spent the rest of his life writing—at great profit—about his 12 years as a high-ranking official in the Third Reich. As “The Good Nazi,” he portrayed himself as a political innocent deceived into hell by a Mephistopheles-like Hitler.

Like Speer, Hope Hicks has repudiated her own former Fuhrer—after serving him during his worst infamies.

And, like Speer, she isn’t facing the dangers of poverty. Her net worth is estimated at $1 million, owing to her past work as a model and public relations agent.

UGLY–AND UNSPOKEN–TRUTHS ABOUT THE ISRAEL-GAZA WAR

In Bureaucracy, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on April 29, 2024 at 2:03 am

On October 7, the Hamas terrorist organization which governs Gaza invaded Israel, killing 1,139 soldiers and civilians, and kidnapping another 253—including women and children.

Since then, Israel has pounded Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. About 62% of all homes have been destroyed. More than a million residents have been rendered homeless. Damages have been estimated at over $13 billion.

To date, more than  31,184 Palestinians have been killed and 72,889 injured, according to the local health authorities.

Across the nation, scores of university students have protested Israel’s retaliation against Gaza.

Among the universities targeted: Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the University of Texas at Austin, the University of Southern California, Emory University in Atlanta, Boston’s Emerson College.

Clashes have erupted between pro-Palestinian and pro-Israeli students. Jewish students have been threatened with death. And several universities—such as USC—have been forced to cancel upcoming graduation ceremonies for fear of violence.

This has forced universities to call on police to clear pro-Palestinian encampments and arrest demonstrators who make it impossible for serious-minded students to get an education.

Aftermath of an Israeli air strike in Gaza

Palestinian News & Information Agency (Wafa) in contract with APAimages, CC BY-SA 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

As a result, it’s time for a commonsense update on the war—and the terrorism-supporting questions that go with it.

“Why are the Israelis bombing Gaza?”

Because they don’t like having their men, women and children slaughtered and kidnapped.

“Why does the United States allow Israel to bomb Gaza?”

Israel is a sovereign country and does not take its orders from the United States.

“Hamas only slaughtered 1,139 Israelis. But Israelis have killed over 31,000 Palestinians. That’s so unfair.”

Under this logic, Israel should be allowed to kill only 1,139 Palestinians: “I smacked you in the mouth once, so you should be allowed to smack me in the mouth once. Actually, you shouldn’t be allowed to smack me back at all.”

“Israel is waging war on civilians—not Hamas.”

Hamas has deliberately embedded itself among a civilian population: “Ha, ha, you’ll have to kill all these innocent people in order to kill us.” For Israel to accept such sanctuary would be to confer immunity on Hamas and guarantee ceaseless future attacks.

Emblem of Hamas

“Palestinians didn’t attack Israel—Hamas did.”

Hamas is overwhelmingly supported by Palestinians. A man who shelters a known killer is by definition an accessory to that killer’s crimes. Yet Hamas refuses to allow civilians to take shelter in its tunnels. Nor does it use its underground network to supply much-needed food and resources for Gazans.

“Israel is fighting a war of genocide against Gaza!”

The universal rallying cry among Gaza residents—and their Islamic and non-Islamic allies—is: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Which means: When Israel is destroyed and its citizens are slaughtered.

For Hamas, no “two-state solution” will do.

According to CNN, several videos are circulating online that “show Israeli soldiers in Gaza behaving in offensive and disrespectful ways toward the civilian population. Other videos show soldiers ransacking private homes, destroying civilian property and using racist and hateful language.”

Soldiers are universally notorious for showing disrespect for their enemies, whether civilian or military.

During the Civil War, Union General William Tecumseh Sherman set out on his legendary “March to the Sea” through Georgia in 1864. His soldiers ravaged the countryside, destroyed all sources of food and forage and left behind hungry and demoralized Southerners. 

March to the Sea | Civil War Trails | Civil War Sites in Georgia

Sherman’s March

As for Israeli soldiers “using racist and hateful language”: During World War II, GIs referred to Germans as “krauts” and to Japanese as “Japs.” During the Vietnam war, grunts called Vietcong and North Vietnamese soldiers “gooks.” In Afghanistan and Iraq, Americans used “ragheads” and “Hajiis” to describe their enemies.

War is, by its nature, destructive—of lives, of property, of feelings for humanity.

William Tecumseh Sherman minced no words in describing its evil: “You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it….You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war….

“They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war….”

Sherman’s words—which appeared in a September 12, 1864 letter to Atlanta Mayor James M. Calhoun—could be addressed to Hamas and the Gaza residents who support it: 

“Now that war comes home to you, you feel very different. You depreciate its horrors, but did not feel them when you sent car-loads of soldiers and ammunition, and moulded shells and shot, to carry war into Kentucky and Tennessee, to desolate the homes of hundreds of thousands of good people who only asked to live in peace at their old homes, and under the Government of their inheritance.”

“The Holy Land.” 

There is no “holy land.” There is only desert claimed by two warring religions. Both sides believe “God is on our side.” So there will never be peace, only eternal war—until global warming finally makes the Middle East so hot that no one can live there.

HITLER AND TRUMP: YOU OWE ME LOYALTY; I OWE YOU NOTHING

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on February 14, 2024 at 12:10 am

On January 27, 1944, Adolf Hitler convened a meeting of 100 of his military chiefs, including all the army group commanders of the Eastern front.    

The war against the Soviet Union was going badly while the Americans and British were preparing to invade France. And Hitler believed he had the recipe for assuring victory: The Wehrmacht needed to be inoculated with the spirit of National Socialism.  

At the end of his long-winded speech, he addressed this challenge to his generals:

“If the worse ever comes to the worst, and I am ever abandoned as Supreme Commander by my own 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.”

Adolf Hitler

Sitting in the front row was Field Marshal Erich von Manstein, perhaps the most brilliant member of the German General Staff. It was Manstein who had designed the “Sickle Cut” attack on France in May, 1940.

Bypassing the much-vaunted Maginot Line, the Wehrmacht struck through Belgium, taking the French completely by surprise. As a result, it defeated France in six weeks—something Germany had been unable to do during the four years of World War 1.

Now, in a loud voice, Manstein proclaimed: “And so it will be, Mein Fuhrer!” 

Hitler froze; it had been more than a decade since anyone had dared interrupt him. Then, trying to make the best of a bad moment, he continued: “Very well. If this is the case, it will be impossible for us to lose this war.” 

Hitler hoped that Manstein had intended to reassure him of his loyalty. But Martin Bormann, his al-powerful secretary, told him that the generals had interpreted the outburst differently: That the worse would indeed come to the worst.

Erich von Manstein

And, which, in fact, happened.

As the Russian army closed in on his underground bunker in April, 1945, Hitler revealed his utter contempt for the Germans who had so blindly served him for 12 years.  

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told his former architect and now Minister of Armaments, Albert Speer, “the nation will also perish. This fate is inevitable.

“There is no necessity to take into consideration the basis which the people will need to continue even a most primitive existence.

“On the contrary, it will be better to destroy these things ourselves, because this nation will have proved to be the weaker one and the future will belong solely to the stronger eastern nation.”

Just as Hitler demanded loyalty from his accomplices to infamy, so does Donald Trump. 

Former FBI Director James Comey has had firsthand experience in attacking organized crime—and in spotting its leaders.

In his bestselling memoir, A Higher Loyalty, he writes:

“As I found myself thrust into the Trump orbit, I once again was having flashbacks to my earlier career as a prosecutor against the mob. The silent circle of assent. The boss in complete control. The loyalty oaths. The us-versus-them worldview. The lying about all things, large and small, in service to some code of loyalty that put the organization above morality and the truth.” 

James Comey official portrait.jpg

James Comey

Validating Comey’s comparison of Trump to a mobster is the case of Michael Cohen, Trump’s longtime attorney and fixer.

A longtime executive of the Trump Organization, Cohen told ABC news in 2011: “If somebody does something Mr. Trump doesn’t like, I do everything in my power to resolve it to Mr. Trump’s benefit.”

In April 2018, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York began investigating Cohen. Charges reportedly included bank fraud, wire fraud and violations of campaign finance law.

Trump executive Michael Cohen 012 (5506031001) (cropped).jpg

Michael Cohen

By IowaPolitics.com (Trump executive Michael Cohen 012) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

On April 9, 2018, the FBI, executing a federal search warrant, raided Cohen’s office at the law firm of Squire Patton Boggs, as well as at his home and his hotel room in the Loews Regency Hotel in New York City.

Agents seized emails, tax and business records and recordings of phone conversations that Cohen had made.

Trump’s response: “Michael Cohen only handled a tiny, tiny fraction of my legal work.”  

Thus Trump undermined the argument of Cohen’s lawyers that he was the President’s personal attorney—and therefore everything Cohen did was protected by attorney-client privilege. 

Cohen, feeling abandoned and enraged, struck back: He “rolled over” on the man he had once boasted he would take a bullet for. 

On August 23, on the Fox News program, “Fox and Friends,” Trump attacked Cohen for “flipping” on him:

“For 30, 40 years I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they—they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go. It—it almost ought to be outlawed. It’s not fair.”

For Trump, as for Hitler, loyalty went only one way—from others to him. No one who served either man—no matter how loyally or how long—could be certain when he would be deemed disposable.

REPUBLICANS: STILL AWAITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER SAVIOR”—PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 26, 2024 at 12:15 am

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Nazi Fuhrer Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany:           

“Destroy all German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants!”

If implemented, it would deprive surviving Germans of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him was Albert Speer, his favorite architect and Minister of Armaments. 

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

But Hitler refused to back down. He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

The next day, Speer told Hitler: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!” 

“Then all is well,” said Hitler, suddenly with tears in his eyes.

“If I stand unreservedly behind you,” said Speer, “then you must entrust me rather than the Gauleiters [district Party leaders serving as provincial governors] with the implementation of your decree.”

Filled with gratitude, Hitler signed the decree Speer had thoughtfully prepared before their fateful meeting.

By doing so, Hitler unintentionally gave Speer the power to thwart his “scorched earth” order.

Trained as an architect, Speer had joined the Nazi Party in 1931. He met Hitler in 1933, when he presented the Fuhrer with architectural designs for the Nuremberg Rally scheduled for that year. 

From then on, Speer became Hitler’s “genius architect” assigned to create buildings meant to last for a thousand years. “If Hitler had been capable of friendship,” Speer said after the war, “I would have been that friend.”

In 1943, Hitler appointed him Minister of Armaments, charged with revitalizing the German war effort.

Nevertheless, Speer now crisscrossed Germany, persuading military leaders and district governors to not destroy the vital facilities that would be needed after the war.

“No other senior National Socialist could have done the job,” writes Randall Hanson, author of Disobeying Hitler: German Resistance After Valkyrie.

“Speer was one of the very few people in the Reich—-perhaps even the only one—with such power to influence actors’ willingness/unwillingness to destroy.”

Despite his later conviction for war crimes at Nuremberg, Speer never regretted his efforts to save Germany from total destruction at the hands of Adolf Hitler. 

* * * * *

As the Third Reich came to its fiery end, Adolf Hitler blamed the German people for being “unworthy” of his “genius” and losing the war he had started.

His attitude was: “If I can’t rule Germany, then there won’t be a Germany.”

Fortunately for Germany, one man—Albert Speer—finally broke ranks with his Fuhrer.

Albert Speer

Albert Speer

Risking death, he refused to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. Even more important, he successfully blocked such destruction and persuaded influential military and civilian leaders to disobey the order as well.

As a result, those targets slated for destruction were spared.

Fast forward 75 years: Facing the end of his Presidency, Donald Trump desperately sought to remain in power. Having “joked” about being “President-for-Life,” he now fought to make that a reality. 

Unlike his 44 predecessors, he rejected the will of the voters and for almost three weeks denied his successor access to the resources he needed to launch a smooth transition.

Donald Trump

Even worse: Instead of showing concern for the country he claimed to love, Trump sought to relentlessly destroy those institutions that guarantee American freedom and safety:

  • The Pentagon
  • The CIA
  • The FBI
  • The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency

His attitude clearly was: “If I can’t rule America, there won’t be an America.” 

Meanwhile, House and Senate Republicans embraced his most outrageous lies—or refused to openly refute them—as the COVID-19 pandemic slaughtered about 1,000 Americans a day.

Even Republicans who privately admitted the Trump era was ending realized that 70 million hate-filled Americans voted for him in 2020. And eagerly awaited the coming of the next would-be Fuhrer.

They would also eagerly vote out of office any Republican who dared break with the man they worshiped like a cult leader. 

For Congressional Republicans, staying in office—and keeping their power and perks—was their top priority.

On November 25, 2019, CNN political correspondent Jake Tapper interviewed Representative Adam Schiff on Donald Trump’s upcoming impeachment trial for abuse of power and obstruction of Congress.

What would it mean if Republicans uniformly oppose any articles of impeachment against Trump? asked Tapper.

“It will have very long-term consequences, if that’s where we end up,” replied Schiff.

“And if not today, I think Republican members in the future, to their children and their grandchildren, will have to explain why they did nothing in the face of this deeply unethical man who did such damage to the country.” 

In the end, only one of 53 Republican Senators—Mitt Romney—dared to vote for impeachment. And he became an instant pariah for it. 

On March 18, 1945, Albert Speer, opposing Hitler’s plans to destroy Germany’s infrastructure, addressed a memo to his Fuhrer, in which he wrote: “No one has the right to take the viewpoint that the fate of the German people is tied to his personal fate.”

The country is still waiting for a Republican Albert Speer to step forward and save America from the self-destructive intentions of its own would-be Fuhrer.

REPUBLICANS: STILL AWAITING THEIR “ALBERT SPEER SAVIOR”–PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on January 25, 2024 at 12:05 am

President Donald Trump seemed poised to fire his handpicked CIA director.    

He believed that Gina Haspel had stonewalled the release of documents supposedly exposing “deep state” plots against his 2016 campaign during the Obama administration.

[In fact, the Obama administration had acted entirely within the law during the 2016 Presidential campaign. The FBI has a legal mandate to keep track of subversive activities—especially when they involve members of a Presidential candidate’s campaign.

[On July 9, 2016, high-ranking representatives of the Trump campaign met at Trump Tower with at least two lobbyists with ties to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

Gina Haspel official CIA portrait.jpg

Gina Haspel

[The participants included:   

  • Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr.;
  • His son-in-law, Jared Kushner;
  • His then-campaign manager, Paul Manafort;
  • Natalia Veselnitskaya, a Russian lawyer with ties to Putin; and
  • Rinat Akhmetshin, a former Soviet counterintelligence officer suspected of “having ongoing ties to Russian Intelligence.”

[The reason for the meeting: To dig up “dirt” the Russians might have on Hillary Clinton, Trump’s opponent for the White House.] 

Trump was also angry at FBI Director Christopher Wray—who replaced James B. Comey in May, 2017. Trump had fired Comey for daring to investigate ties between his 2016 campaign and Russian Intelligence agents. 

Chris Wray official photo.jpg

Christopher Wray

The reason for his anger at Wray: Wray had dared to contradict Trump’s false claims that

  • “Rampant voter fraud” was a widespread problem; and
  • Antifa posed a greater terrorism danger than white supremacist groups. 

During the 2016 Presidential race, Russian propaganda played a major role in convincing millions of Americans to vote for Donald Trump. Social media platforms—especially Facebook and Twitter—were flooded with genuinely fake news to sow discord among Americans and create a pathway for Trump’s election.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, a former KGB officer, had quickly assessed Trump as an egotistical narcissist. By appealing to Trump’s vanity, Putin expected to sharply reduce the military and political threat the United States represented to a resurgent Russia. 

So notorious was the role played by Russian Intelligence in misleading American voters in 2016 that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was determined to prevent a repetition in 2020.

The man ultimately tasked with this mission was Chris Krebs, the director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency run by DHS.

Chris Krebs official photo.jpg

Chris Krebs

Krebs launched a massive effort to counter lies spread by Russians—and Americans—on social media platforms. Among his duties:

  • Sharing Intelligence from agencies such as the CIA and National Security Agency with local officials about foreign efforts at election interference.
  • Ensuring that domestic voting equipment was secure.
  • Attacking domestic misinformation head-on.

As a result, Krebs was widely praised for revamping the department’s cybersecurity efforts and increasing coordination with state and local governments. 

By all accounts—except Trump’s—the 2020 election went very smoothly.

On November 17, 2020, Trump fired Chris Krebs. 

The reason: Krebs had not only countered Russian propaganda lies—he had dared to counter Trump’s as well. For example: He rejected Trump’s claims of widespread voter fraud: There “is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

Trump fired Krebs by tweet—and accompanied the outrage with yet another lie:

“The recent statement by Chris Krebs on the security of the 2020 election was highly inaccurate, in that there were massive improprieties and fraud, including dead people voting, poll watchers not allowed into polling locations, glitches in the voting machines which changed votes from Trump to Biden, late voting, and many more. Therefore, effective immediately, Chris Krebs has been terminated as director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency.”

In a November 17 story on the CNN website, CNN reporters Kaitlan Collins and Paul LeBlanc bluntly concluded:

“[Krebs’] dismissal underscores the lengths Trump is willing to go to punish those who don’t adopt his conspiratorial view of the election.

“Since CNN and other outlets called the race for President-elect Joe Biden, Trump has refused to accept the results, instead pushing baseless conspiracies that his second term is being stolen.

“This includes falsely claiming during an election night address that he had already won reelection, that he had won states that were actually still up in the air at the time and that his opponents were perpetrating a fraud.” 

 * * * * *

Seventy-five years earlier, on March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, Adolf Hitler ordered a massive “scorched-earth” campaign throughout Germany.

All German agriculture, industry, ships, communications, roads, food stuffs, mines, bridges, stores and utility plants were to be destroyed.

If implemented, it would deprive the entire German population of even the barest necessities after the war.  

Opposing him—at first openly, and later secretly—was Albert Speer, his former architect and now Minister of Armaments. 

Speer argued that there must be a future for the German people: “If our enemies wish to destroy us, why help them?  We must leave the people something.”

But Hitler refused to back down: “I don’t want to hear any more.”

He gave Speer 24 hours to reconsider his opposition to the order.

Speer could not directly promise to carry out Hitler’s “scorched earth” order. So he gave Hitler a vague answer that essentially committed him to nothing: “My Fuhrer, I stand unconditionally behind you!”