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What Does it Mean to Carry the Swastika Flag?
A
s a scholar of modern
German history, I’ve been
working on a study of anti-
Semitism in Germany and the
United States in the late 19th and
early 20th centuries. What I saw
unfold in Charlottesville, Va., and
then at Bedminster, N.J.,
gave me the horrible, sink-
ing feeling that my book
is going to need a new
chapter.
On Saturday, Aug. 12,
2017, thousands of young
Americans marched
through the streets of
Richard E.
Charlottesville chanting
hate-filled slogans like
Frankel
“Blood and soil” and “Jews
will not replace us” and
carrying the swastika
flag. They clashed with protesters
and caused dozens of injuries. A
car plowed into a crowd of people
protesting the white supremacist
demonstration, killing one person
and injuring many more.
Later that day, President Donald
Trump issued a statement:
“We condemn in the strongest
possible terms this egregious display
of hatred, bigotry and violence on
many sides, on many sides. It has
been going on for a long time in our
country — not Donald Trump, not
Barack Obama. It has been going on
for a long, long time. It has no place
in America.”
The “hatred, bigotry and violence”
he said, came from “many sides” (a
point he apparently felt he needed
to stress). He did not mention the
fact that one side was carrying swas-
tika flags, the flag of Adolf Hitler’s
National Socialist Party, the flag of
Nazi Germany. He did not specifi-
cally condemn those who carried
that flag.
They were, according to the presi-
dent, all equally responsible: those
who marched under the Nazi ban-
ner and those who opposed them.
All equal. Nazis and anti-Nazis. But
how is that possible? How can it be
that in 2017, the president of the
United States, a country that fought
Hitler’s Germany and sacrificed
hundreds of thousands of its young
men in order to ensure its ultimate
defeat, could not or would not bring
himself to condemn Americans who
marched under the flag of the Third
Reich?
8
August 24 • 2017
jn
What does it mean to march
under the swastika flag? What
does the swastika flag symbolize?
What did it mean to the people
who hoisted it in Germany — the
people who inspired the Americans
who marched this weekend in
Charlottesville?
Those who inspired the
marchers in Charlottesville
marched through the streets
of Germany, provoking vio-
lence, and singing “when
Jewish blood spurts from the
knife.”
Those who inspired the
marchers destroyed democ-
racy and eliminated all civil
liberties in Germany.
Those who inspired the
marchers demonized Jewish
citizens, physically assaulted them,
removed them from all aspects of
public life, stripped them of their
rights, their property, their very abil-
ity to survive in the only country
they had ever called home.
Those who inspired the marchers
carried out the biggest pogrom in
modern German history, destroying
267 synagogues, vandalizing Jewish
businesses, attacking Jews in their
homes and killing hundreds, all in a
single night in November 1938.
They demonized and physically
attacked political opponents, homo-
sexuals, Roma and Sinti, the handi-
capped and any others they consid-
ered outside the boundaries of the
German racial community.
They murdered more than 70,000
men, women, and children —
German citizens! — who had been
diagnosed with mental and physical
disabilities in just two years between
1939 and 1941.
They started the most destructive
war in the history of the world, caus-
ing the deaths of tens of millions of
people, mostly innocent civilians.
They murdered more than 33,000
Jews in just two days at Babi Yar,
outside Kiev, Ukraine in 1941.
They shot 1 million unarmed
Jewish civilians — men, women and
children — across Eastern Europe in
just the last six months of 1941.
They murdered close to 3 mil-
lion Jews in the gas chambers of
Chelmno, Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec,
Majdanek and Auschwitz.
They enslaved millions of people
— Jews and non-Jews — from across
Detroit Animal Rescue
Statistics Misleading
Europe to work for their war of con-
quest.
They fought to destroy the most
basic values that America has
claimed to stand for over more than
two centuries: the fundamental dig-
nity and equality of all people.
The world is a complicated place.
There are rarely simple, black and
white answers to the problems that
confront us. But sometimes, every
once in a while, there are. And this
is one such moment. If the president
of the United States cannot con-
demn individuals who march under
the flag of Adolf Hitler and Nazi
Germany, how can he possibly claim
to represent America, its values and
all of its citizens? In perhaps the
easiest test of his young presidency,
Donald Trump has failed, and failed
miserably.
It isn’t often that historians get to
see their work gain such relevance
in the present. And for those of us
who study the history of hatred, big-
otry and the evils of Nazi Germany,
the prospect of such relevance is
most uncomfortable. If my work has
taught me anything, it’s the impor-
tance of keeping the boundaries of
one’s moral universe as wide as pos-
sible. In the early 20th century, too
many Germans pushed too many
others beyond the boundaries of
their moral universe — beyond the
borders of the German racial com-
munity — where their fate was at
best no longer of any concern to
them; at worst, they represented an
existential threat. When that hap-
pens, the horrors committed under
the swastika flag become possible.
How safe are we today? How
extensive are the boundaries of
our own moral universe — each
and every one of us? Those who
marched in Charlottesville under
Hitler’s flag and the president
who chose not to condemn them
revealed the boundaries of their
moral universe to be sadly and
frighteningly small. The flag that
flew on that horrible day — with
that symbol of ultimate evil at its
heart — should remind us all just
where such a limited sense of fellow
feeling can lead. •
I recently read your article “Detroit
Dog Rescue saves the city’s stray
dogs through adoption, retraining”
(Aug. 3, page 10).
First off, Detroit Dog Rescue is a
great organization and I applaud you
for celebrating and highlighting the
incredible work they do.
The Michigan Humane Society
believes that working collectively
toward saving lives is the most effec-
tive way to drive change. In 2016,
MHS placed and saved the lives of
11,218 animals, which we could not
have done without the amazing work
of community partners like DDR.
However, there are parts of the
article that I am having a hard time
validating and that I don’t believe
effectively illustrate recent efforts to
improve animal welfare in Detroit.
For example, you cite that Detroit
animal control officers euthanize
“nearly 90 percent of the dogs” they
pick up. Under the leadership of
Director Melissa Miller and Assistant
Director Kelly McGloughlin, Detroit
Animal Care and Control has made
significant and meaningful change.
The live-release rate is between 60-70
percent in 2017 year-to-date and
looks only to improve. It has been
years since a 90-percent euthanasia
rate was a reality at Detroit Animal
Care and Control.
MHS does not euthanize healthy
or treatable animals, which includes
our flagship Dresner Foundation
Animal Care Campus.
The idea of citing 50,000 stray
dogs in Detroit is also perpetuating
a myth that has been largely, and
universally, discredited. Further,
it shows a picture of Detroit that
does not (a) celebrate the progress
and commitment of organizations
like MHS, Detroit Animal Care and
Control, MACS and Detroit Dog
Rescue, and (b) creates an image of
Detroit that is far from the truth.
We have issues in Detroit, but this
is a great city. At MHS our goal is to
see Detroit as the next great animal-
friendly city. There is still much work
to do, no question, but the reality
of our collective progress is greater
than the statistics cited in your
article.
Richard E. Frankel is an associate professor at
the University of Louisiana at Lafayette. He is
the author of Bismarck’s Shadow. This essay
first appeared on History News Network.
Matthew Pepper
President and Chief Executive Officer
Michigan Humane Society