Deutschland by Gerhard Baerg

The book is called “DEUTSCHLAND,” published in 1938 by Henry and Holt Company.  The author is Gerhard Baerg of Depaw University.   This is a reader designed for second year students of the German language.  Nothing particularly notable about this book, except for the fact than it dates from the late 30s, just as the Second World War was on the horizon.  

I found it at the Indianapolis Public Library Service Center, on Meridian Street, which is a prime source of used books for my online bookselling business.  It’s miraculously unblemished, and its pages only slightly yellowed, after 73 years.

 Along with passages of prose about all aspects of German culture, it had black & white pictures of exercising youth, pictures of statues, of actors, of architecture, and—on page 248—this translation from the German:

Adolf Hitler owes his success to his ability as leader of political campaigns.  After he had joined the little group in Munich, it grew very rapidly and soon became a great popular movement.  For many years he worked untiringly to unite all Germans and to put an end to all political division.                          

Was the author a member of the Bund? Did he have pro-Nazi sympathies?  At that point in history, it should have been clear to a scholar of German that Germany was persecuting Jews and other minorities, and a warmonger.  It’s unclear, however, whether the author loved Hitler—or if he was just a dolt.

Patrick Buchanan certainly would have been with the Bund.  In fact, he still is; just look at his 2009 book: Hitler, Churchill and the Unnecessary War.   In this book, Buchanan puts forth the proposition that Hitler was a rational actor on the historical stage.

The only reason that he persecuted Jews, he claims, is because Great Britain promised to defend Poland if Germany invaded.

So, reading between the lines, the implication is that—because Jews wanted Churchill to go to war— that the Jews were responsible for putting themselves in the ovens. And of course, the icing on the cake for Buchanan is the insinuation that, because Hitler was a rational actor, he had good reasons for murdering 6 million of them.

But I digress. 

The Palestinian is, in many ways, the new Jew; stateless, without respect or significant political power within U.S. borders.  So when Gingrich said that Palestinians are an invented people to The Jewish News, he didn’t fear any repercussions. (That is, he’s written Palestinians—and Arab Americans in general—off as a potential wellspring of support in the upcoming presidential election.)

And when he extended that remark in the Saturday, Dec. 10, 2011 Republican candidates’ debate to label all Palestinians terrorists, I felt sure that he commanded a respectful sieg hiel from Josef Goebbels in the grave.  While Buchanan’s anti-Semitism’s just a throwback to a déclassé Jew-hatred, Gingrich’s different brand of anti-Semitism (the Palestinians like the Jews being a Semitic people) is something more virulent.  That is because, Gingrich—like Hitler in his time—is all too willing, and able, to step on the backs of the powerless on his way to power.