Not a description of this blog, but the title of a book by Friedrich ("Fritz") Reck-Malleczewen. Born into the minor nobility in East Prussia (up by what is now the Lithuanian border) in 1884, Reck-Malleczewen moved at an early age to Upper Bavaria, where he owned an estate on Lake Kriem. A doctor and a writer (most notably of children's books), he died by a shot in the neck in Dachau in 1945.
The title of the book is rather misleading in one sense, as its tone is anything but morose. Even the pessimism (he foresaw the certainty of his own death) is spiky and defiant. In some ways, the book is reminiscent of Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler: A Memoir – the major difference being that while Haffner escaped from Germany in 1938, Reck-Malleczewen stayed behind and suffered the inevitable consequences of his refusal to buy into the intoxicating unity demanded of the German populace.
In this extract, from 9 September 1937, the author talks of the importance of the principled "No":
"In Germany, whose Hitler regime is simply a massive attempt to prolong the existence of mass-man, the target [of popular violence] will be that small elite which has done more harm to this regime with its principled 'No' than all the Chamberlain policy of impotence and endless appeasement. I believe that our martyrdom, the fate reserved for our little phalanx, is the price for a rebirth of the spirit, and that realising this, we can hope for no more good during what remains of our ruined and brutalised lives on earth than that there may be meaning to the manner of our deaths."
The title of the book is rather misleading in one sense, as its tone is anything but morose. Even the pessimism (he foresaw the certainty of his own death) is spiky and defiant. In some ways, the book is reminiscent of Sebastian Haffner's Defying Hitler: A Memoir – the major difference being that while Haffner escaped from Germany in 1938, Reck-Malleczewen stayed behind and suffered the inevitable consequences of his refusal to buy into the intoxicating unity demanded of the German populace.
In this extract, from 9 September 1937, the author talks of the importance of the principled "No":
"In Germany, whose Hitler regime is simply a massive attempt to prolong the existence of mass-man, the target [of popular violence] will be that small elite which has done more harm to this regime with its principled 'No' than all the Chamberlain policy of impotence and endless appeasement. I believe that our martyrdom, the fate reserved for our little phalanx, is the price for a rebirth of the spirit, and that realising this, we can hope for no more good during what remains of our ruined and brutalised lives on earth than that there may be meaning to the manner of our deaths."
2 comments:
Amazing quote. I'm reading Kershaw's book "Hitler / Nemesis 1936 to 1945". Your author showed startling clarity by expressing that sentiment in pre-war Germany, where all but a few saw Hitler as an overwhelming force for nation rejuvenation. I would have probably joined them.
I like the Boris Johnson lite analogy too...
Reck-Malleczewen does cause one to rethink a few assumptions. One of them is that largely Catholic Bavaria was staunchly pro-Hitler. Writing in 1940, he claims that his adopted region were bitter opponents of Hitler's regime: "southern Germany has remained sceptical about all the Prussian noise in victory, and thus has kept cleaner. The great majority of the workers and practically all the intellectuals are bitter opponents of the regime. And the farmers remain wedded to their old, unchangeable patterns of thinking and living, shrug their shoulders over the triumphs, and cannot be brought to 'participate'."
Mind you, he himself converted to Catholicism in 1933 and there may be a bit of the zeal of the convert involved here. (He's pretty hostile to the Protestant pocket in north-west Bavaria, accusing them of support for the Nazis.)
But, for me, the really interesting aspect is that all this is contemperaneous, not written after the event.
He also has some lovely names for Hitler, including "forelocked gypsy". He bears glowing and lasting testimony to Thomas More's dictum that 'the devil cannot endure to be mocked'."
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