Thursday, May 21, 2009

Common Ground?

I watched a documentary produced by the BBC today titled, "The Fatal Attraction of Adolph Hitler." It examined the euphoric allegiance that kept so much of Germany enraptured by Hitler during the Nazi Regime. Even during the intensive Allied bombing in which 300,000 German civilians died, the majority held firm in their commitment to their "Fuhrer."
 As Hitler began the systematic slaughter of millions of innocent Jews and others, most of Germany did not realize the horror that was taking place in Death Camps like Auschwitz where two million were murdered in one location. Even those who knew of Hitler's "Final Solution" had been led to believe the lie that this atrocity was actually a necessary action. 
Obviously, the Nazi Regime was ultimately defeated and most know that Adolph Hitler committed suicide in his bunker as the Russian Army closed in on Berlin. 

The Nazi Regime was now history and the killing stopped, but then many of the German people who had supported Hitler were faced with the reality of what he had done. As the German people witnessed the evidence of what Hitler had ordered, the spell was broken. National pride and loyalty gave way to horror and regret. The attraction that had been dressed up in politics and promises had been fatal for millions. Adolph Hitler had been successful in swaying an entire country to support mass genocide.
As every book, movie, or documentary that deals truthfully with The Holocaust makes you feel, I sadly thought of all of the innocent life that was so tragically taken. 
I thought of the loss that so many families suffered and I thought of the loss that the world had suffered as the possible contribution of these millions of lives were denied...and then I wondered...I wondered if the political rhetoric would mean the same to Americans if we could see just some of the tens of millions of babies that have been murdered in our own National Holocaust. I wonder if we would be so quick to applaud the liberal mantra of "freedom of choice" if we could just see some of what these lives may have brought to our world. 
Would the "fatal attraction" to the idea of "choice" be as appealing to us if we were forced to stand in close proximity to just some of the 50 million dead. 50,000,000 lives wasted. 
This is the ghastly fact that no amount of "common ground" will ever cover up. 

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