Eighty-one years ago, 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. 

Albert Speer

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!”

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

Adolf Hitler addressing boy soldiers as the Third Reich crumbles

“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. 

* * * * * * * * * *

Why have Republicans almost unanimously stood by Donald Trump despite the wreckage he has made of American foreign and domestic policy?  

Fear—that they will lose their privileged positions in Congress if they don’t.

This could happen by:

• Their being voted out of Congress by Trump’s fanatical base; or
• Their being voted out of Congress by anti-Trump voters fed up with Trump’s appalling behavior.

House and Senate Republicans’ support for Trump hinges on one question: “Can I hold onto my power and all the privileges that accompany it by sticking—or breaking—with him?” 

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 Fascistic 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.

In his bestselling 1973 biography, The Life and Death of Adolf Hitler, British historian Robert Payne harshly condemned the German people for the rise of the Nazi dictator:

“[They] allowed themselves to be seduced by him and came to enjoy the experience….[They] followed him with joy and enthusiasm because he gave them license to pillage and murder to their hearts’ content. They were his servile accomplices, his willing victims.”

Like Hitler, Trump offered his Republican voters and Congressional allies intoxicating dreams: “I will enrich all of you. And I will humiliate and destroy those Americans you most hate.”

For his white, Fascistic, largely elderly audience, those enemies included blacks, atheists, Hispanics, non-Christians, Muslims, liberals, “uppity” women, Asians.

For most of the first three years of his first term, he faced little opposition. What cost Trump the White House wasn’t Democratic or Republican courage but a deadly disease—COVID-19—which Trump refused to take seriously.

Democrats cowered before Trump’s slanders—thereby ensuring more assaults.

Most of the press quailed before Trump. Only a few media outlets—notably The New York Times, CNN and The Washington Post––dared investigate his crimes and blunders. 

In 1960, the Russian poet, Yevgeney Yevtushenko, published “Conversation With an American Writer”—a stinging indictment of the cowardly opportunists who had supported the brutal tyranny of Joseph Stalin: 

“You have courage,” they tell me.
It’s not true. I was never courageous.
I simply felt it unbecoming
to stoop to the cowardice of my colleagues.

Too many Republicans know all-too-well how it feels to stoop to the cowardice of their colleagues.

Since Donald Trump retook the office of President on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his litany of criminal, if not treasonous, actions:      

• Trump fired the inspectors general—who are charged with protecting the government from waste and corruption—from more than a dozen federal agencies.
• Several career lawyers who worked on the criminal investigations into Trump during the Biden administration were fired by Acting Attorney General James McHenry because he “do[es] not believe that the leadership of the Department can trust you to assist in implementing the President’s agenda faithfully.”
• Trump ordered a purge of about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations.
• Their “crime”: Trump blamed them for investigating his inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and his illegal holding of highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.

• Without explanation, Trump fired Rohit Chopra, the director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, which protects consumers from unfair, deceptive and fraudulent business practices.
• Following Trump’s executive orders, federal agencies deleted multiple federal web pages and data. Among the agencies: The Pentagon, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Census Bureau. The changes affected content related to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), gender identity, public health research, environmental policy and social programs.
• Following Trump’s anti-DEI executive order, the United States Department of Defense (DOD) deleted content that included the achievements of nonwhite groups, such as Navajo code talkers, black Tuskegee Airmen, Medal of Honor winners and women veterans. As in Joseph Stalin’s Soviet Union, those that Trump hates are made to disappear from history.

• Trump fired the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointed himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
• Trump held what amounted to an ambush meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the White House. Siding with Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, Trump blamed Zelensky for Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
• Trump demanded that Zelensky sign over mineral rights to the United States without America’s providing a security guarantee for Ukraine. Zelensky left without signing such an agreement.
• The Trump-authorized and illegitimate Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) led by billionaire Elon Musk, dismantled multiple agencies, invaded the privacy of untold millions by accessing sensitive data systems and fired tens of thousands of federal workers.
• Trump filed frivolous and extortionate lawsuits against major news networks CBS and ABC.
• Against CBS: Trump  claimed that its news magazine, “60 Minutes” deceptively edited an interview with Kamala Harris to damage his presidential campaign and influence the election.  He initially sought $10 billion in damages, then increased it to $20 billion. Paramount, the owner of CBS, agreed to pay $16 million in legal fees and a contribution to the future Trump Library.

• Against ABC: He claimed that its commentator, George Stephanopoulos, falsely stated he was found liable for “rape” in the case brought by columnist E. Jean Carroll. The jury found Trump liable for sexual abuse and defamation, but not rape. The judge later clarified that what the jury found Trump did was in fact rape, as commonly understood.
• Nevertheless, in December 2024, ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a foundation for Trump’s presidential library and $1 million in legal fees to settle the lawsuit.
• Trump solicited and received a $400 million luxury jet from Qatar for use as Air Force One, in direct violation of the Emoluments Clause of the United States Constitution, which prohibits federal officials from accepting gifts from foreign countries.
• The jet will cost taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars to bring it up to presidential standards, including a security sweep of the entire aircraft and costly upgrades to ensure classified communications. After Trump leaves office, it will be transferred to his Presidential library.

Qatar’s donated plane

John Taggart from Claydon Banbury, Oxfordshire, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

• On February 28, 2026, Trump—in concert with Israel—launched an unprovoked series of devastating airstrikes against Iran.
• On March 11, Trump told a reporter: “You know, you never like to say too early you won. We won. We won the, in the first hour, it was over.” 
• But then—to Trump’s surprise and fury—Iran closed the narrow Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20%-25% of the world’s total liquid petroleum consumption (about 20–21 million barrels per day) flows.
• Overnight, gas prices rose. By late April, the national average for a gallon of regular gas reached $4.02 to $4.04, compared to roughly $2.98 before military operations began.
• On April 5—Easter Sunday, no less—Trump posted on his website, Truth Social: “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open up the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH! Praise be to Allah. President DONALD J. TRUMP” 
• This was followed on April 7 by another post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. I don’t want that to happen, but it probably will.” 
• Legal experts and international organizations such as Amnesty International warned that attacking civilian infrastructure would constitute war crimes under international law.

Albert Speer, Minister of Armaments for the Third Reich, was appalled. 

His Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler—the man he had idolized for 14 years—had just passed a death sentence on Germany, the nation he claimed to love above all others.    

On September 1, 1939, Hitler had triggered World War II with the invasion of Poland. This led to a series of quick, spectacular victories—over Poland, Norway, Denmark and France.

Then, on June 22, 1941, Hitler turned on his ally, the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a non-aggression pact in August, 1939.

It had taken the Wehrmacht six weeks to conquer France. Hitler believed that was how long it would take to defeat the Soviet Union.  

German soldiers invading the Soviet Union

Again, a series of spectacular battlefield victories followed—before the Wehrmacht was halted at the gates of Moscow. A year later, still enmeshed in Russia, the turning point came at Stalingrad, with the loss of the elite Sixth Army and 800,000 soldiers.

Starting in 1943, the Red Army slowly but steadily regained ground it had lost—the western half of Russia—and began pushing back the Germans. By March, 1945, it was fighting inside Germany—and heading straight for its capital: Berlin.

And by March, 1945, so were American and British forces. After landing in Normandy on June 6, 1944, they had steadily pushed their way across Europe and into Germany.

On March 19, 1945, facing certain defeat, 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. And he entrusted the campaign to Albert Speer, his favorite architect-turned-Minister-of-Armaments.

Albert Speer and Adolf Hitler pouring over architectural plans

Now living in a bunker 50 feet below bomb-shattered Berlin, Hitler gave full vent to his most destructive impulses.

“If the war is lost,” Hitler told 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.

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

* * * * *

During the 2024 Presidential campaign, Americans were repeatedly warned that Donald Trump intended to embrace Project 2025, a collection of policy proposals to fundamentally reshape the U.S. federal government.

Among these: 

• The Department of Justice must be thoroughly “reformed” and tightly overseen by the White House.
• The director of the FBI must be personally accountable to the President—just as the head of the KGB is personally accountable to Vladimir Putin.   

Seal of the Justice Department

• Federal employees could be instantly fired for not obeying illegal orders, or on mere whim—including the whim of the President.
• The Environmental Protection Agency would be stripped of its authority to protect the air, water and soil.
• The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) which the project calls “one of the main drivers of the climate change alarm industry” would be abolished.
• Fossil fuels—the leading cause of global warming—would be favored and environmental regulations to combat climate change abolished. 
• Federal funding for all public transit systems across the country would be eliminated.
• Traditionally independent federal agencies such as the Department of Justice, Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission would be placed under Presidential control.
• The wealthiest 1% would receive massive tax cuts at the expense of the poor and middle class.
• Conception would be designated as the point where life begins.
• Abortion would be outlawed.
• Access to birth control would be sharply restricted, if not banned.

All of these have since been vigorously implemented by the Trump administration. Yet almost no Republican members of Congress have dared to oppose this wholesale rejection of almost 250 years of American democracy.

Since Trump retook office on January 20, 2025, Republicans have lustily supported or remained silent about his following acts of criminality, if not treason: 

• On January 20, 2025—his first day as re-elected President—Trump granted clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack. This sends a clear message that his supporters can commit virtually any crime against his opponents with impunity.

 Donald Trump

• Trump revoked the security clearances of 51 former Intelligence officials. Their “crime”: Signing a letter in 2020 stating that reports about a laptop allegedly belonging to Hunter Biden, son of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden, had “classic earmarks of a Russian information operation.”
• During a press conference in North Carolina, Trump reaffirmed his stance that Canada should become the 51st state. Rejecting the longtime friendship between the two countries, Trump took an increasingly aggressive stance toward Canada, imposing steep tariffs and even threatening military intervention.