Category Archives: Fascist America

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Liberation

J. Fred Eden journal of POW liberation in 1945

[This is from a fragment of Daddy’s journal that Mom found after his death. Our friend Harry Yeomans transcribed it for her and provided us with copies. Thanks Harry!]

April 29, 1945

Only rumors. To all outward appearances, this might have been 1944. We heard in the grapevine that the Germans were ready to move – if the Russians came any closer. But we also heard that we were to be evacuated at the same time – as POWs.

Lay in bed listening for rumbles, planes, or air raid sirens and looking for flashes, flares – anything that would indicate that someone or something was coming to get us out of this – state-of-mind, at least!

April 30, 1945

I was too slow getting up and getting dressed this morning and missed roll call. When the rest came in, jabbering about Germans across the road getting ready to leave, I dismissed it as only preparations, but when a long line of guards, women – and officers pulled out, it seemed true. They were at least beginning to leave. After breakfast Sheridan came in with news that G’s had given permission for us to dig foxholes, and that the instructions were on the board.

What did this mean? Who have we to fear? [We] walked over to watch the Krauts leave – the Sgts were digging like mad – like a bunch of moles.

Across the fence all that remained of the Krauts were in confusion, like an anthill when hot water is poured on it. Tiffany’s “girlfriend” (whom he had seen and approached) was striding about in her little boots and trench coat, blond hair flying in the Baltic breeze – a guard came by – amused at all our digging. “Zwei Tage-alles gegangen” – in two days we’ll all be gone!

Strolled back to the barracks – boys from room digging trench. After all, these Krauts might get mad and strafe the place, so I got a Klim can to help dig. About that time there was a terrific explosion – Bombs! – no, it was in the flak-school – demolition! This goes on for hours, accompanied by explosions from the airfield. How that huge building stood, after all the HE around it, defies explanation.

We dig our slit trenches just in time for the biggest blow-up of all – an ammo bldg. “We thought we’d had it!”

Roll call at 1600 was a farce. Several big explosions as Major Steinhauer goes thru the motions of counting.

It’s rumored the counters are all that’s left – with about 40 interpreters. There are still Krauts in towers, but no guards in compound for roll call.

This day is down in my memory as Kraut Panic Day. They have left in a hurry. The refugees from town are loading the Red Cross parcels we have stored at the flak-school. Details went over to help get parcels out. The few guards left are trying to hold them off – not wanting to shoot, but they are pretty determined, grabbing the ones we get.

Hundreds have left Barth, afoot, ahorse, on cycles, by boat – anyway to get out! They are “fleeing in confusion.” All this excitement in contrast to the deadly inactivity of the last weeks is almost too much. The Reds must be a lot closer than Berlin says they are – East of Ankleeve – i.e. about 60 mi.

The last thing I heard before I went to sleep – “When the Krauts turned off the lights the picked up their packs and left.”

I don’t believe it. I’ll have to see it – maybe someday.

May 1

At 0530 I was rudely awakened by a messenger from Al [daddy’s A/C commander and pilot], who I found was in the Volage – waiting to go on guard in the towers! There are Americans patrolling the fence. Americans are in the towers – we are in charge! It’s like being drunk!

At 0030 the Krauts turned it over to Col. Zemke [a famous US pilot, Col. Hubert Zemke was credited with shooting down 28 German planes in air battles] – at any rate, they left it in his hands!

For the first time, we listened to BBC. No mention of us except Reds are at Auklam and Neustrelitz. The bulletin board reported by noon that 1) there was a Russian liason officer in conference with Col. Zemke; 2) that a Russian spearhead was 3 km south of Barth “proceeding slowly up the road.”

We stood at the south-most end of compound. Looking – straining to see first tank. All we could see was all kinds of refugees, forced-labor POWs, etc. coming to this camp.

The Russian liason officer was found to be fictitious, but at 2225, while we were listening to Hit Parade, the Russians did come! Too dark to see anything, but the Tannoy announced it true – 5 minutes later, the Hit Parade was interrupted to announce, “Hitler is dead!” Somebody beat us to it.

Then to top it all off – “Don’t Fence Me In” sung by Lawrence Tibbett was first on Hit Parade.

Boy, what a climax! We are freed men now – after 14 months and 11 days.

May 2

Turns out the “Russian spearhead” that reached here last night was a private with two tommy-guns and a dilapidated truck. But he has been reinforced by several other trucks of Reds.

At 1400 Col. Greening call us out. “The Russian colonel in charge of the advance unit is in Barth now, has ordered us to be ready to walk out of here in six hours. Get everything in readiness. We may not move, but we must be ready.”

There was a mad rush to get packs made, warm clothing on (it was a chill, murky day), blankets rolled, etc.

As we scurried around, there was a wild shouting from N-2 and N-3, and to my – well, amazement – I saw Kriegies tearing down fences, tipping over guard towers, streaming down the roads – running wild.

I stood watching agape for a few minutes – til I recalled the urgency of the need to get my belongings packed.

It seems Colonel Chekov – bandoliers, pistols, and all came riding in to liberate the Kriegies, and finds us still behind barbed wire, so he orders the fences torn down.

“You are freed! Go to town! Tear down the fences! I have come to liberate you!” was the gist of his speech. To keep on the right side, diplomatically, of our allies, Zemke thought it feasible to comply and so gave the orders.

A few minutes later, we heard that there are German packs over at the flak-school, that everybody is going over to get them. That sounded like the very think for packing my stuff if we had walking to do. I grabbed a coat and ran with the crowd toward the school. Hundreds were streaming toward it, other hundreds were streaming back, laden with all kinds of stuff – hats, helmets, packs, jackets, souvenirs of all kinds. One man that I vaguely recognized in the confusion was returning with the prize of all prizes – a genuine, unopened, untouched egg!

The next few minutes I shall never forget! I had supposed, and had often cogitated upon it, that the day of liberation would be a wild, maniacal one, but even in my wildest wanderings, never had I imagined the things that I saw happening at that flak-school.

The school is a huge affair, brick throughout, built and equipped to do credit to an American college. Offices, rooms, and classrooms occupy the first two floors, and the attic floor is used for warehouses. The whole is surrounded by garages or storage houses forming a side street or court around them. This was filled with equipment blown up by the Krauts before they fled.

I have read and seen movies of wild armies looting and mutilating, but I never expected to see Americans in the role. From the time I entered the court til I left sometime later, I saw thousands of at least half-crazed Kriegies breaking windows, kicking in doors, grabbing everything in sight – not particularly needing it, just taking it because it was there for the taking.

I wandered frenziedly from one room to the next – looking at first for “those packs.” Then the necessity for hast gripped me, and I began to half-run through the mazes of equpment in the attic storehouses, through bales of hats, shoes, fur helmets, fur gloves, socks, fatigue clothing – it seemed a nightmare.

Everywhere there were outlandishly garbed men, groveling on the floor amidst the stuff, searching for more prizes to add to piles of stuff already too large to carry.

I wandered through, it seemed, miles of equipment and still no packs. I gave up in despair and went to the second floor. Things weren’t quite so wild there, and I began to quiet down. I found that all I had collected was a dilapidated old German O’seas cap, two bundles of fur-lined flying helmets, and a pair of giant-sized mattens.

In disgust with myselt, I flung away the cap and mittens and gave away one bundle of helmets. The other I kept for the boys to wear on the hike.

In an office I was passing, I noticed a bevy of maps, scattered all over. I glanced through them hurriedly for one of

Barth, but all had this section cut out. I stuck a “fligerkarten” of East Germany in my pocket.

Rushing on, I came across a room with several books on desk – one was a Wehrmacht song book that for some reason I took.

In another place, I came across an English book that I carried for at least an hour. In another building, of which the door had been battered down, scores of fellows were streaming out with service caps and blouses jammed on. In the confusion inside, I saw all kinds of band stuff – bass drums bashed in, horns broken in half – I left. In short, I never found the packs, returned to the barracks. Poop is that we won’t move, but must be ready.

Peacock had been to town, returned with descriptions of a wild, dirty horde of looting, drunken Russians on horses, in carts, in Jerry autos – all hell-bent for election. Some generous American had given him a drink – of green ink.

That evening Shorty and Tiff went into Barth. A Russky gave ‘em a cup of vodka and Kirk came back pretty high, talking a mile-a-minute about the Cossacks – storming through Barth on Jeeps, half-tracks and trucks. By the time we went to bed around 2 a.m., I still didn’t know whether we were free or not. It seemed so peculiar the way the Russians gave orders – for all I knew we are now Russian prisoners.

May 3

Col. Zemke spoke to us at midday to help clear up the situation somewhat. It seems that the first Russian units (Kurds) had orders to evacuate all POWs, internees, forced labor, etc. The Commander gave orders for us to move out. He was pretty drunk too, which helped. Now the new Commissar in Barth had changed the orders. He ordered us to stay here. That if we ran out of food, “I will provide.” In short, he wanted it understood that he was boss and that he meant to be obeyed. Zemke said he sent men to Sweden and to our front lines “three days ago,” that the Russians had notified Moscow, who would notify Washington, who would notify the Eighth Air Force, etc.

“I fully expect to have you flown out of here.”

All of which sounded good – in a way – but which meant exactly zero.

Things have changed a lot around here, though. Kriegies have horses, bicycles, cars, chickens, geese, cows, eggs, meat – in fact, Al got me over to his new quarters (the former German guard barracks) to help him roast a chicken. We topped it off with some macaroni and spaghetti sauce. What a meal!

We’ve had four Red Cross parcels issued this week in a “get ‘em out to the troops to keep from loosing them” policy. So there is beaucoup food.

Zemke’s idea is to keep us strictly in camp. He says Russkies are trigger-happy. That by various means we have had seven men killed so far. But there are plenty who left with the guerrillas, or advance troop, last night. None are taking off today.

May 4

Still plenty of milling around and general confusion. Nobody knows nuthin’! Official announcement that Eisenhower orders all POWs to quote, “Stand by!” unquote. This was a good signal for the guys to leave by droves, disgusted with the situation – with the merry run-around we’re getting after two years of “standing by.” This sure makes Air Marshall Tedder and Gen. Doolittle’s statements look foolish. “Will have you out in 72 hours.” We’ve been counting pretty heavily on that I guess.

Lay out on peninsula watching guys paddling across the inlet to leave for Rostrock, Lubeck, Wismar – or anywhere to get out of here. They say the Limeys are flying them out of Wismar every hour. Also watched Russky hordes – carts, wagons, calvary, kiddy-cars – start toward Zingst. What a wild, mad lot! They don’t travel on gasoline, but on vodka.

There have been four concentration camps found in this area. Some of the truth about these places is blood-chilling. Grown men who weigh 70-80 pounds – living on a slice of bread and bowl of Jerry turnip soup for 6-7 years. Typhus, all kinds of horrible diseases – phew.

And the Krauts expect mercy. Lord, see that they get their just and due punishment.

Manure and maggots knee-deep, live men insensible to the fact that there are dead bodies lying beneath them. A British paratrooper 37 months in dark, in solitary, with only one thought left in his mind – “I wanta go to town.”

They’re dying like flies, can’t be fed, except glucose, can’t walk – uhhhh!

May 5

First part of day much same. General confusion, milling around. War seems about over, with Krauts giving up by droves. At 1615, a Jeep, a Major, a Captain, and S/Sergeant arrive from somewhere.

General Aristoff, local commissar, confers with Col. Zemke. Col. Moss from Gen. Bridges of the 9th Something arrives “to conduct evacuation.” Russians refust to recognize his authority without credentials. Current idea is that we’re waiting for big liberation stunt to be pulled by Marshal Ratakoffsky and “Monty.” Would be quite a deal, but don’t know as how I care to wait – just for the publicity. Lots of things more important to me right now.

Scores more leaving for somewhere. Al says MP’s bringing them back by scores too. So it may not be such a good deal after all.

Guard squadron had fresh meat for supper. Some guys really got a break out of this mix-up, but thousands of us are still where we started – just Kriegies in a little larger compound now.

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Fascism

This is borrowed from an old post on the website ratical.org. It’s based on a study of fascist regimes, but it’s interesting how many of this aspects are found in current political movements. There are other similar examinations of fascism in the literature, and the website Orcinus.org has lots of information about groups and movements in the US over the past 40 or 50 years or so. It’s something people need to be educated about, because it’s coming.

“Political scientist Dr. Lawrence Britt recently wrote an article about fascism (“Fascism Anyone?,” Free Inquiry, Spring 2003, page 20). Studying the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia), and Pinochet (Chile), Dr. Britt found they all had 14 elements in common. He calls these the identifying characteristics of fascism. The excerpt is in accordance with the magazine’s policy.

“The 14 characteristics are:

  1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism 
    Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. 
  2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights 
    Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of “need.” The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. 
  3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause 
    The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. 
  4. Supremacy of the Military 
    Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. 
  5. Rampant Sexism 
    The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy. 
  6. Controlled Mass Media 
    Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. 
  7. Obsession with National Security 
    Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. 
  8. Religion and Government are Intertwined 
    Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government’s policies or actions. 
  9. Corporate Power is Protected 
    The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. 
  10. Labor Power is Suppressed 
    Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed . 
  11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts 
    Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. 
  12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment 
    Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations. 
  13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption 
    Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. 
  14. Fraudulent Elections
    Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.”

Copyright © 2003 Free Inquiry magazine
Reprinted for Fair Use Only. 

This article was based upon the article “The Hallmarks of Fascist Regime” by Skip Stone, at www.hippy.com/php/article-226.html.

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From May 18, 2019

The politics of control

[I posted this on my War Journal blog on May 18, 2019… and now its come to pass. The Supreme Court has fallen into the fascist grip, and, like India, we are beginning to crash into an authoritarian government ruled by the court. If the Dems don’t do something strong and fast and solid, it’s going to get worse and worse.]

As it seems everyone must know other than those who are willfully ignorant, these reactionary Republicans around the country who are passing Draconian abortion laws are not doing it out of any love for children, unborn or otherwise.

They are doing it for the love of control. They want to control the behavior of women, especially poor women, by intimidation and threat. They want to make them afraid to have sex and punish them if they do.

And ultimately, they just want to drive the issue before the Supreme Court, which they have now gotten suitably packed with like-minded reactionaries who may–unless their humanity somehow reasserts itself under the pressure of realizing what insanity it would be–reverse Roe V. Wade. Thus affirming their need for control. It’s really pathetic.

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The elements of fascism

Because fascism is such an insidious thing, we must be vigilant and well-informed about how it looks in the early stages, before it’s too late.

[First published in November of 2016, this is pretty pertinent today, as the fascist elements released into our society by the Trump Effect are rampant, though seeming to lose much of their momentum lately. We need to remain vigilant.]

Fascism has been sneaking into our lives, into the hearts and minds of our countrymen, slipping into the national dialog in the guise of patriotism, strength, purity, religious piety, safety – all things that seem positive and non-threatening.

Trump and his appointees are pretty clearly leading us to an authoritarian state in the name of protecting us from “outsiders” and that’s why it’s problematic. From Dave Neiwert, a researcher on fascism who’s been following its rise for many years, here are a few of the characteristics that struck me as particularly noticeable in the current political climate:

— Attempted mass mobilization with militarization of political relationships and style and with the goal of a mass party militia
— Positive evaluation and use of, or willingness to use, violence
— Extreme stress on the masculine principle and male dominance, while espousing the organic view of society

— Specific tendency toward an authoritarian, charismatic, personal style of command, whether or not the command is to some degree initially elective. — [from Stanley Payne, in Fascism: Comparison and Definition]

— a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. [from Robert Paxton’s definition of fascism]

From Paxton’s “mobilizing passions” of fascism:

— the belief that one’s group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any action, without legal or moral limits, against the group’s enemies, both internal and external;

— dread of the group’s decline under the corrosive effect of individualistic liberalism, class conflict, and alien influences;

— the need for authority by natural leaders (always male), culminating in a national chief who alone is capable of incarnating the group’s destiny;

— the superiority of the leader’s instincts over abstract and universal reason;

From Roger Griffin: “Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy.”

Neiwert’s entire essay is worth reading: http://dneiwert.blogspot.com/2015/11/donald-trump-may-not-be-fascist-but-he.html

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Latent cruelty

This has all been building up for a while, I know, but the last few weeks have seemed to be particularly offensive and painful to watch in America.

Reading John Pavlovitz’ latest blog post today seems to have crystalized in my mind a few things that have been bubbling around there for a while, too. He calls it The Trump Effect, and he lays out the development of it pretty clearly. It’s been remarked on before by others and I’ve certainly been thinking it since it began to surface during the T-thing’s administration, as racism and white supremacy began to be expressed in new and more open ways, violence increased and the quality of the national conversation began to decline daily. The slide away from truth and accuracy and decency in his daily rants had its effect.

There are lots of examples, and Pavlovitz relates some of the most egregious, but to me its in the essential failure of basic human compassion in the face of this raging pandemic that it is most clear.

How people can equate the simple discomfort and slight inconvenience of wearing a mask with putting other people–and other people’s children–at risk of serious, life-threatening disease has just been beyond me to understand. But seeing it as just another expression of the crass, stupid insensitivity to others that is at the heart of the Trump Effect helps me to understand it. It somehow makes these people feel empowered, self-righteous, justified in their own petty hatreds to be pretending that refusal to wear a mask or get vaccinated is somehow an exercise of their rights as an American.

So it’s not enough just to not do it, they have to proclaim their heroic stupidity and even harass others who are wearing masks and getting vaccinated. It’s so remiscinent of something…. what is it? Oh yeah. Nazi rallies. Book burnings. Klan rallies. Lynchings.

All these are of a piece. People venting their anger and fear and seeking justification in some kind of twisted version of “rightness.” Pavlovitz lays it clearly at the feet of Trump’s monstrous venom.

Though certainly not created then or by the man, for the first time in America’s history the latent ugliness in people was revealed and validated and celebrated by a sitting president—it was officially normalized. And what we’re experiencing now; this staggering, insensitive posturing in the face of so many people’s suffering, is the late-ripening fruit of something that has been set into the bedrock of half our nation. It is the malicious entitlement that MAGA was designed to nurture from the beginning.

JohnPavlovitz.com

If you’ve followed the rise of fascism in America over the past few decades, which has been documented by many including the guy on Orcinus, you know this strain of “americanism” has been festering under the surface, held in check by the sense of decency and fair play that is–at least I believe it is–a stronger, more truly American trait, but developing under cover of various rationalizations and facades. Trump’s legitimization of that strain is what has allowed the racism to swell along with all this other petty hatred. The whole development, of course, has been facilitated and exacerbated by the ease of vicious communication made possible by the internet and social media.

So now we are facing fascist America. Big Time. Trump’s America.

{Post script: My brother was one of the 599 people who died of of COVID in Florida yesterday, so this is all very personal to me. He was a victim of the anti-vax conspiracy theory wackos, didn’t get the shot, didn’t go to the hospital when he got sick. They kept him alive for weeks, but it ravaged him so that he eventually succumbed to a cardiac arrest.]