Donald Tusk, Polish prime minister, issues a warning
PLUS: New documentary "Against All Enemies" explores how veterans turn to domestic extremism
I am en route to Poland because the world is in turmoil, and I want to understand it better.
The story of Poland in the 20th century is tragic, heroic and redemptive. It is a story of mass death, subjugation, epic suffering, and ultimately, freedom. The winds of war are blowing through Europe again. They can always be felt in Poland. Poland remembers what happened, and it is never far away.
Every American should know the name of Polish prime minister Donald Tusk. As reported in El País, he said something that should be heard by every American:
Donald Tusk, 66, has an image of his childhood etched in his memory. It is a photograph that was in his family home in Sopot, on the shores of the Baltic Sea, next to his hometown: a beach full of smiling, happy people. The snapshot was taken on August 31, 1939. “A dozen hours later, five kilometers away, the Second World War began,” he remembers. The Polish prime minister warns that Europe is once again “in a pre-war era” and must get ready to defend itself.
“What is most worrying now is that literally any scenario is possible. We have not had a situation like this since 1945. I know it sounds devastating, especially to people of the younger generation, but we have to mentally get used to a new era. We are in a pre-war era. I don’t exaggerate. This is becoming more and more apparent every day.”
Robert Jackson was an associate justice of the United States Supreme Court, US attorney general and solicitor general before he rose and delivered the words below at closing arguments, as the chief American prosecutor at the Nuremberg War Crimes trial:
It is common to think of our own time as standing at the apex of civilization, from which the deficiencies of preceding ages may patronizingly be viewed in the light of what is assumed to be "progress." The reality is that in the long perspective of history the present century will not hold an admirable position, unless its second half is to redeem its first. These two-score years in the twentieth century will be recorded in the book of years as one of the most bloody in all annals. Two World Wars have left a legacy of dead which number more than all the armies engaged in any way that made ancient or medieval history.
No half-century ever witnessed slaughter on such a scale, such cruelties and inhumanities, such wholesale deportations of peoples into slavery, such annihilations of minorities.
The terror of Torquemada pales before the Nazi Inquisition. These deeds are the overshadowing historical facts by which generations to come will remember this decade.
If we cannot eliminate the causes and prevent the repetition of these barbaric events, it is not an irresponsible prophecy to say that this twentieth century may yet succeed in bringing the doom of civilization.
Incredibly, the amnesia has settled over much of the free world, while hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors and veterans of the Second World War are still alive, at the twilight of long human life spans. The greatest event in human history that shattered the world seems to have been forgotten. Its lessons and warnings dismissed.
Poland was destroyed in 1939, and occupied for six brutal years before falling under the Soviet Jack boot for another 45 years. The destiny of a nation was consumed by nationalism and madness from a neighboring state that turned away from civilization and towards the darkness.
Jackson described with laser sharp brevity what happened under the title “The Seizure of Power and Subjugation of Germany to a Police State.”
The Nazi Party seized control of the German State in 1933. "Seizure of power" is a characterization used by defendants and defense witnesses, and so apt that it has passed into both history and everyday speech.
The Nazi junta in the early days lived in constant fear of overthrow. Goring, in 1934, pointed out that its enemies were legion and said:
"Therefore, the concentration camps have been created, where we have first confined thousands of Communists and social democrat functionaries."
In 1933 Goring forecast the whole program of purposeful cruelty and oppression when he publicly announced:
"Whoever in the future raises a hand against a representative of the National Socialist movement or of the State must know that he will lose his life in a very short while." (2494-PS).
New political crimes were created to this end. It was made a treason, punishable with death, to organize or support a political party other than the Nazi Party (2548-PS). Circulating a false or exaggerated statement, or one which would harm the State or even the Party, was made a crime (1652-PS). Laws were enacted of such ambiguity that they could be used to punish almost any innocent act. It was, for example, made a crime to provoke "any act contrary to the public welfare" (1390-PS).
The doctrine of punishment by analogy was introduced to enable conviction for acts which no statute forbade (1962-PS). Minister of Justice Gurtner explained that National Socialism considered every violation of the goals of life which the community set up for itself to be a wrong per se, and that the acts could be punished even g though it was not contrary to existing "formal law." (2549-PS).
The Gestapo and the SD were instrumentalities of an espionage system which penetrated public and private life (1680-PS). Goring controlled a personal wire-tapping unit. All privacy of communication was abolished (1390-PS). Party Blockleiter appointed over every 50 householders spied continuously on all within their ken (1893-PS).
Upon the strength of this spying individuals were dragged off to "protective custody" and to concentration camps without legal proceedings of any kind (1956-PS) and without statement of any reason therefore (2533-PS). The partisan Political Police were exempted from effective legal responsibility for their acts (2347-PS).
With all administrative offices in Nazi control and with the Reichstag reduced to impotence, the judiciary remained the last obstacle to this reign of terror (2469-PS). But its independence was soon overcome and it was reorganized to dispense a venal justice (784-PS) Judges were ousted for political or racial reasons and were spied upon and put under pressure to join the Nazi Party (2967-PS). After the Supreme Court had acquitted three of the four men whom the Nazis accused of setting the Reichstag fire, its jurisdiction over treason cases was transferred to a newly established "People's Court" consisting of two judges and five Party officials (2967-PS). The German film of this "People's Court" in operation, which we showed in this chamber, revealed its presiding judge pouring partisan abuse on speechless defendants (3054-PS). Special courts were created to try political crimes, only Party members were appointed judges (2065-PS), and "judges' letters" instructed the puppet judges as to the "general lines" they must follow (D-229).
The result was the removal of all peaceable means either to resist or to change the Government. Having sneaked through the portals of power, the Nazis slammed the gate in the face of all others who might also aspire to enter. Since the law was what the Nazis said it was, every form of opposition was rooted out and every dissenting voice throttled. Germany was in the clutch of a police state, which used the fear of the concentration camp as a means to enforce nonresistance. The Party was the State, the State was the Party, and terror by day and death by night were the policy of both.
“Terror by day and death by night.”
This is where the madness leads. Always.
Humans have not yet evolved beyond war. This is essential to comprehend. When a Polish prime minister speaks of war, free people should listen. He is issuing a warning. Poland knows war. They know the Russian bear, and his destructive potential.
The world is turning again. Something is building. Something terrible. I’ll write about it this week.
New documentary "Against All Enemies" explores how veterans turn to domestic extremism
On the latest episode of The Warning podcast, I spoke with Charlie Sadoff, director and producer of the new award-winning documentary "Against All Enemies," which premiered yesterday on Apple TV. The film goes inside the violent extremist movement in America, and shows how experienced military personnel are organizing and recruiting. We talk about the history of such movements, and what we both expect from these groups come election day.
You can watch it here, or listen to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform:
This is something I have been saying for the last four years: The likes of Gaetz, MTG, Tucker Carlson, my insurrectionist neighbors have no sense of history, no idea of what their betrayal of this country will bring. Same with the fat goose in the red tie who went to military school then fled Selective Service, tail between his legs. They all think war will never touch them because they live on the west side of the Atlantic.
They are wrong, and they will have brought this all to the rest of us.
I continue to quote "my" good comic strip friend, Pogo: "I have seen the enemy, and he is us." The elephant in the room is the Republican Party standing proud on Nazism and fascism. That one entire political Party in our country would be so boldly and nakedly anti-America is chilling. The authoritarianism being proffered by Trump and his minions is nothing like this country has ever witnessed or experienced. The Civil War pales in comparison. Trump seeks blood and violence. True Americans must stay this beast of evil.