The kids ask me where I'm going. "To work on Number 4," I tell them. They reply with, "That's the Nazi's place," "Nazi Bastard," and similar type stuff.
What do these kids know about Nazis or bastards, let alone a Nazis bastard? But their disapproval, in not outright hatred, is clearly evident. And they are so very young.
Where did they come up this stuff? I hope it's not from school?
In high school, I had to do a report on a famous person from World War II. It was more than a book report. It had stages. First was the person chosen. Then an outline with sources listed. Finally make an oral presentation using note cards and pass in the report.
I chose Erwin Rommel. I have no idea how I came to even know of Rommel. The teacher had no idea of who he was. That surprised me. As far as I knew, he was regarded as one of the best military men of the war. And more than that, he was respected and loved not only by his own men but also by his enemies. This seemed extraordinary to me.
Anyway, I told her this stuff. She still didn't know who he was. He was "The Desert Fox. You know he was the guy who chased the British all over Africa."
"The British?"
"Yes, the British. They thought very highly of him. So much so, a memo or something was sent out reminding them that Rommel was the enemy."
"Was this Rommel a German?
"Yes, didn't I say so?"
"No, You didn't. You can't do it on a Nazi."
"He wasn't a Nazi, he was a German soldier, a Field Marshall."
"No Nazis"
"He wasn't a Nazi!"
Pick someone from our side or I will assign someone to you."
I said I would, but I didn't. Rommel interested me. I looked him up in the library. There were encyclopedia references and some books.
"In any numbering of the great captains of history, the name Erwin Rommel must stand in the first rank. Rommel was the outstanding Axis field commander of the Second World War, and was respected, even admired, as well as feared by nearly all of his opponents. He was a man of great integrity, almost gruesome personal bravery, a legendary leader and a tactical genius. He was in all respects a soldier's soldier. Rommel made his name known to all in the first world war by repeatedly leading against daunting odds, and often through horrifying terrain, his platoons, companies and, on occasion, even battalions. In a sense Rommel never looked back. He always saw warfare as a chaotic business where detailed planning was nearly useless and where the bold opportunistic attack, even if breathtakingly risky, was far preferable to the deliberate maneuver, no matter how elegant. Rommel in all respects was a true warrior, an amazing leader, and truly thought of brilliant military exploits in battle."
"Beyond dispute, Rommel was a master of maneuver on the battlefield and a leader of purest quality. Wherever he appeared he inspired. His speed of perception and decision, his energy of execution and his boldness of concept placed him among the great and his military exploits have left a footprint in history. Rommel was more than a tactical commander of bravery and genius. He was reflective. He evolved from his own experience and observation soldierly lessons which he committed to paper and from which all learned and continue to learn. Wherever he went, as has been remarked, he taught: and he still teaches. Rommel was not only a master practitioner he deduced theory from practice and the military art benefited from that. Of course Rommel, ultimately, was beaten and he lost. But, although what must matter in war is to win, that truism cannot provide the sole criterion for judgment of military talent. War may be considered as a business, but its conduct is also an art. Ultimately Napoleon was beaten as well as Montrose, and Lee. Few could deny their genius. With all his imperfections, as a leader of men in battle Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel stands in their company.
"A man of the greatest personal bravery, he earned the deep respect of his adversaries for his brilliant achievements."
But ultimately it was his death that most intrigued me. The Encyclopedia Britannica offers this:
"Conspiracy against Hitler.
As early as the fall of 1943, Rommel, a purely professional soldier whose judgment was not swayed by political predilections, had been convinced that the war could no longer be won and that was prepared neither to face that fact nor to draw the inevitable conclusion--the necessity of making peace with the Western powers. In the spring of 1944 some of Rommel's friends who had joined the clandestine opposition to Hitler approached Rommel and suggested to him that it was his duty to take over as head of state after Hitler had been overthrown. Rommel did not reject the suggestion, but the men who wanted to extricate Germany from the war never revealed to Rommel that they planned to assassinate Hitler. They knew that Rommel did not accept the idea of murder for political ends; he had invariably disregarded any execution orders given by Hitler. When the invasion began, Rommel tried on several occasions to point out to Hitler that the war was lost and that he should come to terms with the Western powers. On July 17, 1944, at the height of the invasion battle, Rommel's car was attacked by British fighter-bombers and forced off the road. It somersaulted, and Rommel was hospitalized with serious head injuries. In August he had recovered sufficiently to be able to return to his home to convalesce. In the meantime, after the failure of the attempt on Hitler's life on July 20, 1944, Rommel's contacts with the conspirators had come to light. Hitler did not want the "people's marshal" to appear before the court as his enemy and thence be taken to the gallows. He sent two generals to Rommel to offer him poison with the assurance that his name and that of his family would remain unsullied if he avoided a trial. On October 14 Rommel took poison, thus ending his life. He was later buried with full military honours."
"Thus the dictator's paranoia ended the saga of the Fox and robbed him of one of his most respected and capable generals and one of the greatest knights of the 20th Century."
The choice for Rommel: to fight a no-win battle for his country and take down his friends, his wife and his son or to commit suicide, to kill himself to protect them. What is a soldier, a patriot and a family man to do?
No, I wasn't going to back down; I went ahead with my report. And at the outline part, I got blasted.
"No Nazis"
"He wasn't a Nazi."
"Do it on one of the good guys."
"He was one of the good guys, he was just on the wrong side. Hitler killed him. Isn't that enough to make him one of the good guys."
She gave me some name to work on, but I kept with my report.
I gave it to her and she was gave it right back to me. I wasn't allowed to make my oral presentation.
I wish I still had the report. Now some
thirty-five years later, revisionism is everywhere and to a large
degree I agree. We should always question prior assumptions. Or the
other hand, we shouldn't either make up stuff or deny what happened.
I do know Rommel was not a Nazi, and I know
that his conduct is that of a person who should be held up as a
positive example. He should hold a place of honor not only for
Germans, but also for all peoples. And I believe that . . . .
It doesn't matter. "Nazi." How can one be a teacher in the late
sixties and believe that all World War II Germans were Nazis? What
kind of perverted logic was at work? Did she say we fought Nazi
Germany? Rommel was a German. Therefore, Rommel was a Nazis.
However she did it, she arrived at the fact that
because Rommel was a World War II German General, he had to be a
Nazi. And she was a teacher. And that, in itself, is unnerving, at
least to me. I had to paint some ceilings in an old man's
apartment once. He was called a Nazi. He was so happy to see me because it meant he
could sit down. If he sat down he couldn't get back up, not without
help. So, he had been standing, waiting for me. He offered me some tea. And we talked as I setup
to paint his ceiling. He was by the stove and he would push off
toward the refrigerator for the milk. He moved slowly but his feet
moved in very quick little steps. He pushed off the frig back toward
the stove. It was both funny and sad. I came for my
tea, and he pushed off toward his chair. He slowed down and he almost
didn't make it. He just sort of collapsed in the chair. We talked. He had come over to America in 1930, to
work in a relative's sausage company. Now nearly 45 years later, the
company was a big institutional grocer. It was obvious that he didn't
share in any of the money. He was in a little one bedroom, living
room/kitchen apartment. It also meant, he was no Nazi, coming to
America in 1930. The Kids must have equated being from Germany, or
having a German accent with being a Nazi. I wondered if this was the
result of their schooling. He had fought for the Kaiser in World War I,
the war to end all wars. I asked him what happened to him when the Second
World War broke out. Did he get locked up like Japanese/Americans and
people who looked Japanese did. He told me he worked at the shipyard.
I thought that was extraordinary. Here was a guy who fought against
us and now he was making warships for us. He said he didn't
understand it either. I thought that this went against everything
I had come to believe about the paranoia I had come to equate with
the American government. He was an American citizen, but I really
thought that wouldn't matter. I thought I might have to rethink all
of it. Now, some thirty years later, I know he was
maybe quite lucky. We did imprison German/Americans and
Italian/Americans. We even went to Latin America and kidnapped people
to imprison. As it turned out my feeling about American paranoia was
less than it actually was. He said he was going to have a cookie and
offered me one. I helped him up and he was scurrying off to the
kitchen cabinets. I thought it couldn't be that hard to design a
chair that would lift and tilt and allow this man to go when he
wanted to go. But it would expensive. Maybe one of those $19.95
special things advertised on TV. You know with a free set of steak
knives. But I could never work it out. I painted, and he talked. I think he liked
to talk. He definitely appreciated the fact I liked to listen. He
told me about the trenches, and why you don't do three on a match. I
had heard it before but now I was getting it from a German
perspective. And it was the same. That was what was so amazing. Life in the
German trenches was life in American trenches. It was simply life in
the trenches. It is a soldier's life. He told me how the cannons bombarded and
then someone gave the command and everyone got up and charged. You
ran through the explosions, and gunfire. Men got shot and went down
and you charged on, men got blown up and you charged on, you charged
through the smoke and fire. He said often you didn't shoot because
you couldn't see anyone or anything to shoot. He hesitated, then started and stopped. It
seemed that he wasn't sure if he wanted to say what he had started to
say. But he started once again, much slower and much more
thoughtfully. I learned that one time, the smoke cleared
and he was staring at an American. They were all alone just the two
of them. Their rifles, bayonets fixed, were pointed at each other.
And they just stared at each other. I wanted to know what happened, I had to know what
happened, but I knew I shouldn't ask, I couldn't ask, and I didn't
ask. "I went the way I was going. He went the way
he was going." "I never looked back, because I knew . . .
." He never told me what he knew. I wanted to
know but I didn't ask. He changed the conversation. He wanted me to
talk about me. And so I did. He gave me a book written in German for
my wife. She couldn't read it because Germany had changed the way it
wrote. It was written in an older form of writing. What an
extraordinary thing to change your written language. Nazi bastard. Yea right. An American citizen
with a German accent. I remember talking to an American veteran of
the First World War. He told me the same story of the trenches. He
also told me, of coming face to face with a German and them passing
without shooting each other. Could it be I met the same two guys?
What a coincidence that would be! Maybe this sort of thing happened
several times. Would their commanding officers think them cowards? It
must be a difficult thing to look a man in the eye and kill him, to
kill him for no reason other than you have been told you are supposed
to kill him. What must it have been like before guns,
when combat was all hand-to-hand? When you watched men march or
charge toward you and you had to wait until you were close enough to
wield a sword or a club. Anyway, now I was off to work on Number 4,
"The Nazi's place." Probably, just another American with a German
accent. Maybe he's Russian or Polish, what do these kids know of
accents. So, I knocked and said I was there to . . . .
Today I can't remember what I was there to
do. Anyway, I went in and began doing whatever I
was supposed to do. He was old man with what I thought was a German
accent. He wasn't looking for anyone to talk to. Or maybe, I just
wasn't a person he wanted to talk to. In any case, he didn't say
anything more than he had to say. And then sometime, I saw it. The Tattoo. I
wanted to look away, but I couldn't. Were you a Jew? There was nothing in the
room that jumped out to me and said Jew. Did you convert?
No, one couldn't. Not after that. I have to
know. I need to know. Were you a Jehovah Witness? Were you a
homosexual? A gypsy? You must tell me. I have to know. I need to
know. A professional criminal? A political
prisoner? Did you have some mental or physical defect? Did you say or
do the wrong thing at the wrong time? You must tell me. I have to
know. I need to know. How did they come and get you? Did they take
you alone? Your family? I have to know. I need to know. I must know.
You can trust me. You must tell me. Where were you? What happened to you? You
must tell me. I must know. Who were you with? What were their names?
What did they look like? You must tell me. Tell me everything. I have
to know. I need to know. I must know. You can trust me. I will tell everyone.
Everyone must tell me. Everyone must tell his or her story. Someone
must gather every story. Start with me. You must tell me. I have to
know. I must know. But I never said a word. He never said a
word. We just looked at each other. Looked at each other for the
longest time. I have no idea how long. I began to tremble. And there were no words.
He continued to tell me and still there were
no words. My soul was screaming, it was crying. There
was anger. There was despair. But there were no tears. There might
have been resolution. And still there were no words. And when he had told me more than I could
ever understand, he looked away and let me go. And still there had
been no words. And I knew . . . . . I knew . . . . . __________________________ I
can't tell you what I knew. Hell, I can't even tell you what I know.
And I can't tell you his name. But I can tell you what I
believe. I believe that it good to
take pride in one's family, team, occupation, avocation, school,
town, state, region, race, nationality, language, religion, all the
varied things that when taken together gives one a sense of personal
and group identity. Not only do I believe it is good, I believe it
may well be necessary. I also believe that that
sense of pride must never be allowed to become a sense of
superiority, superiority "affecting an attitude of disdain or
conceit; haughty and supercilious." A sense of superiority can easily
and rather logically lead any individual or group into the most
despicable of behaviors. I believe that all of us, by
the undeniable fact that we are human beings, have the potential to
displace our humanity and become "Nazi Bastards."