I am not sure of today’s definition of ‘modern history’ but when I was at school the HSC topics included ‘German Unification’; ‘Causes of World War I’; and ‘Causes of World War II’.
We didn’t study the actual wars – I guess Hollywood filled in many of those gaps.
My generation’s HSC curriculum has been rightly criticised for zero Australian offerings in history (creating the terrible idea we didn’t have much worth mentioning). Given how badly it all reflected on Germany things could have been worse.
But modern history was my favourite subject – ahead of its time, by trying to teach ‘critical thinking’. And it was the only subject introducing political ideology ranging from colonialism to Marxism to fascism. The competitive ideas are theoretical in economics. In history the clash of ideology has caused wars, killed millions, structured nations, and shaped everything about our work, freedoms, and lives that we take for granted today.
I actually felt frightened when I first visited Germany. My son, who lives and works in Berlin, patiently likes to remind me ‘there is more to Germany and Germans than World War II’. His generation has moved on and that has to be a good thing. But I am rather stuck with what I learned in the 1980s when education was about understanding the Iron Curtain, why the Stasi were killing their own citizens that were trying to cross the divide in Berlin, and why the entire planet was living under threat of ‘MAD’ (Mutually Assured Destruction).
This trip we visited Portugal, Spain, and Germany – beautiful countries with complex histories and historical sites dating back to the Roman Empire. All three succumbed to 20th century fascism and inevitably I was obsessed with trying to understand how such brutal dictators could take hold, internally overwhelming all the good in those nations; with catastrophic consequences for the whole world.
The answer for me lay in the small German town of Weimer – home to their greatest writer Goethe, and for many years Martin Luther and other towering figures in history. Weimer hosted Germany’s first elected parliament after World War I because they were torn by internal revolutions and nowhere else was safe.
There is a small museum dedicated to the ‘Weimer Republic’, its initial successes, then failure to hold the line against Hitler and national socialism. The lockers for visitors to the museum are not numbered, they are named after Germans who fought against fascism. The exhibition details the plight of ordinary citizens and details how an evil coalition of military and corporate leaders conspired with Nazis to exploit citizens’ problems in order to destroy their fledgling democracy, murder their opponents, and steal their children’s lives with war.
The lesson was clear: to their eternal shame, many Germans chose to believe the fakery of
Nazism during a time of crisis and this is how a democracy imploded, and facilitated the rise of Nazism.
Wilful blindness of citizens to the truth
The entire experience was especially poignant because everywhere we travelled we crossed
paths with Americans supporting Donald Trump. Americans who are educated and experienced, but uninterested and absent in Weimer.
These intelligent Americans astonished me with their denials that Trump is a monster who will deploy the US military against its own citizens. Even though Trump himself is openly campaigning on a promise to do so. They claim not to believe he will undertake mass
deportations even though he has a detailed policy outlining how this will be done. They are not stupid people, but they are wilfully blind.
The museum narrative I wish they could have read in Weimer was emphatic about this ‘wilful blindness’ issue. ‘Democracy is neither unconditional nor enduring in all circumstances. Every democracy is vulnerable, even when it has a very good constitution. It needs committed democrats to resolutely stand up for its values. And it needs people to exercise their democratic rights in all areas of society and to take part in its democratic discourse.’
I realised each of us have a small duty to democracy that cannot be set aside in a crisis. It moved me to message Hans from Weimer to thank him and the team at The Echo for all they do to protect our own freedoms here in Australia – freedoms that we must never take
for granted because nothing in this world is ever guaranteed.
Edmund Bourke famously wrote, ‘All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing’. What unfolded in Germany post World War I, and is happening again in America, is even worse. Good people are allowing themselves to be manipulated and choose wilful blindness to the facts and their duty to democracy. As the number of citizens doing this grows, the potential consequences for their own children and the rest of the world could not be more serious and catastrophic.
It was a ‘founding father’, Thomas Jefferson who said: ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilance’. Americans would do well to remember that.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
