May 10. Nazis burn
books considered to be ‘un-German’ in the square of Berlin University. Another
bonfire in Munich, while children watched: ‘As you watch the fire burn these
un-German books,’ the children were told, ‘let it also burn into your hearts
love of the Fatherland.’ Books came from a blacklist of tomes removed from
public libraries – works by Heinrich Mann, Upton Sinclair, Erich Maria
Remarque. Any books that depict war in an unpleasant light were destined for
the flames. Their places on the shelves were filled with Mein Kampf by Hitler and books by other leading Nazis, mostly
novels written by home-grown authors that glorified war.
Comment. Books have been
destroyed for centuries; most odd, it’s as if the philistines believe that
ideas can be un-thought. The most tragic and famous is the destruction of the
library of Alexandria. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit
451 was published in 1953 and he stated it was his response to the scourge
of McCarthyism, though later he considered it was a general abhorrence of book
burning. Needless to say, books still get burned by people who believe they
know best – even the Harry Potter novels! [Naturally, book burning by the Nazis
was nothing compared to their heinous treatment of Jews and others, even this early in
their short-lived so-called Thousand Year Reich.]
July 26. Hitler’s
cabinet announced plans for the compulsory sterilisation of people suffering
from blindness, deafness, physical deformity, hereditary imbecility, epilepsy
and St Vitus’ dance. Force may be necessary.
Comment. Hitler’s belief
in eugenics and the uber-Aryan is like something out of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, though that book was
published in 1932. Huxley’s book has been banned over the years, notably in
some US states, one of them citing ‘because it centred around negative
activity’!
July 28. UK – drought
warning as temperature reaches 90F (32C)…
Comment. Oh, this was
before anyone had invented the catch-all excuse Global Warming, conveniently
renamed Climate Change.
August 4. Forest fires
rage in Dorset and Hampshire following dry weather… (12 Aug – rainfall ends the
drought and puts out the forest fires)
Comment. You can rely
on the English weather to sort things out…
August 23. Decree from
Berlin – all doctors must be Nazis.
Comment. Of course it
wasn’t only this profession that was forced into following the Nazi credo. If
you wanted to work or advance in work, then it seemed the only way was to
espouse the Nazi doctrine. Appalling; it would never happen in the UK...
Sep 1. HG Wells has his sci-fi novel published: The Shape of Things to Come – a future history, predicting the Soviet experiment will become hidebound in dogma, while the capitalist US Treasury will soon be unable to afford its armed forces. Germany and Poland would be at war by 1940, and after a hundred years or so a Utopia will be formed, with a benevolent dictatorship, which too will fall though bloodlessly…
Comment. This alternate history (1933-2106) features the abolition of all organised religion (including Islam and Roman Catholicism), among other things! His prediction was that Poland and Germany would fight for ten years; Britain would remain neutral.
Oct 14. Germany quits
the League of Nations and walks out of the Geneva disarmament conference.
‘Equality, not arms, was my aim,’ Hitler said. A referendum will be held to get
the German people’s approval of their policies – however, only the Nazi Party
is on the ballot paper, all opposition is banned… Result: 95% in favour!
Comment. There was no way that Hitler would honour any verdict at the end of a disarmament conference, so it made sense that walked out. He had a completely different agenda, outlined in his book, of course. Of course other regimes around the world have emulated this plebiscite ruse = one party, bound to win!
What is done in the past, echoes through all eternity... to paraphrase a certain general who became a slave who became a Gladiator.
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