Once Upon A Time in Germany - Experiences That Inform My Views Today

In the late 1970's, shortly after I graduated from high school, I headed to Kiel, Germany for a year of living, studying and a bit of volunteer work abroad. 

Homesteading in Nebraska.

My own family of origin's ties to Germany were pre-WWII. My ancestors immigrated to the US during the late 1800s, three generations before me. My knowledge of German history was vague and incomplete. As I set off for Europe, I was primarily interested in travel and adventure in the present. I was in many ways oblivious to the influence on the country of the events of the past. Traveling to new places, was my focus. Fortunately, first hand experiences always offer education, sought after or not. 

While in Kiel, I lived with a host family. My host family consisted of my host mother, father and their teen daughter, an only child. The family had regular contact with and consistent in person visits with aunts, uncles and the grandparents of my host sister on both sides of the family. These visits gave me the opportunity to get to know three generations of Germans in an extended family. However, until I had the ability to understand and converse in German, I didn't have many conversations of substance with the grandparents.

Despite several years of taking German language classes in high school, my German was very limited. My host family actually didn't mind. Learning English themselves, was a factor, in their motivation to host me. Hosting an American student was an opportunity to have an in house tutor and to improve their own and their daughter's command of the English language. Over time we all improved our communication skills in both languages, plus quite a bit in pantomiming.

At the time I took these photos, the Berlin
Wall was still very much a reality. People
attempting to escape East Berlin 
were still shot.

As my fluency in German improved, my interaction with the extended family members of my host family increased. One of the grandfathers made attempts to speak English with me. He made it known that he was interested in having a conversation once my understanding of German improved. Living in a setting where learning a second language is a necessity, provides an optimal opportunity for becoming conversational in that language. Eventually, having conversations of substance in German became a possible and proud reality. 

As a young adult, I was surprised when the grandfather in my host family broached the subject of Germany during WWII with me. I listened, respectfully, to my elder, who had clearly been anticipating the chance to address me, the young American about Germany's history. He was anxious to describe and explain the participation of the German people in the Nazi movement. He clearly wanted to explain his own membership as a teen in Hitler's youth.

Another American exchange student and I
had the opportunity to visit Berlin with a
family whose siblings were separated from one
another by the Berlin Wall. They had
been unable to see close family
members since the end of WWII.

He described the hardships in Germany during his youth. He described economic depression, the prevalence of crime, violence and unemployment. He explained the hopelessness, the lack of opportunity for self determination and personal advancement. He presented a story of the impossibility of providing for oneself and one's family. There was in his view, nothing available for himself or his fellow German citizens of the time, to better ones situation, or improve one's life until, it seemed, the rise of Third Reich and the hope it offered.

He was led to believe, at the time, that participation in the organized youth movement of the dictatorial government was the only opportunity to work to improve ones life and the prosperity of their country. It was a chance for the people to be a part of something bigger and important. There were no other options. That is what he was told and what he believed. 

Basically, what he was saying to me, was that he and his fellow young countrymen bought the propaganda of the time and place. It promised safety, security and prosperity. The lies promised prosperity without risk. Little did they know (Did they have any idea? I still wonder.) the huge cost to themselves, their Jewish neighbors, to their country and ultimately to the world. They were headed into a life without choices, a life of complete tyranny. They did not anticipate the horrors that were the result of handing over personal belief, integrity and responsibility to those obsessed with power. Life without freedom. Life controlled by the state. A state without, accountability. Or morality.

Visiting the Berlin Wall with a family whose
lives were  so profoundly affected by it's
presence was beyond eye opening.
That was another experience to write
about on another post.

As an older German, this grandfather had lived through an atrocious time in history. He carried the lifelong burden of having followed lock step with the powers that controlled everything. It was hard to determine from what he told me, if he had ever truly felt his participation was optional. Personally chosen or not, he carried the burden of joining in enough to feel a need to explain himself, even to an unaware and naïve American student.  

I see similarities in our current political environment to what I learned about the time described to me by my host Grandfather. 

There are parallels in our current culture, with mandates to follow new guidelines without question. There are restrictions in our movement, interactions, businesses and worship. There are requirements to wear specific clothing items, and to conform. There is a silencing of dissenting ideas. Views different from the mainstream are shunned. Many are afraid to voice an opinion that differs in anyway. In real life interactions or on social media platforms one risks being verbally attacked for sharing independent thought. Symbolically, we wear covers over our mouths, quieting our voices and hindering even our breath. The forced conformity is being easily implemented by the extreme fear that has been fostered upon us though the natural human desire for safety. The conformity is enforced by critics, neighbors and even friends who have now risen to new levels of condescension, those around us have become the snitches, dubbed the "Karens", they are the enforcers in our lives, in our own times. 

An attempt at life with every risk eliminated, of complete security and with all of our desires met without any effort of our own, is not likely to result in growth or deep understanding. If all of our basic human needs are to be supplied by someone seemingly more intelligent, with more resources and more personal power than ourselves, where is our own growth and self actualization? If only another can provide, what happens to our own power of choice? We will ultimately view those providers with envy.  Will we only participate begrudgingly in a system from which we will always want more? Will we always look to others to provide easy solutions for ourselves without assessing our own responsibility?

The conversation I had with my host grandfather, so many years ago has come to mind frequently in the last months. As we  have all acquiesced to following the ever increasing limiting rules for our own safety and security, I remember his need to explain. As we continue to obey every new level of restriction, we are relinquishing control over our own lives at each step. We are trading our own individual judgement and power for the false promise of complete safety and life without risk. 

Despite my own struggles with the fear and anxiety due to the threat to the health of myself and my family, I have lived long enough to know that life without risk really just doesn't exist. It just doesn't work that way. We take precautions but none of us really live a single day without risk. If we do, it is not likely to be a very satisfying life. Living  life while attempting to be completely safe and watching others around me attempt the same, the fear that has grown in me has been the fear of our entire citizenry living in complete compliance. The anxiety churning in me during this ongoing lengthy crisis is of being surrounded by others controlled by the power of false safety. I fear living in the midst of the willingness of others to march lock step without evaluating the situation. Seeing completely unquestioned compliance with power terrifies me beyond the fear I have of an illness.

It all has served as a reminder to think for myself, encourage my grown children to do the same and to value the freedom we have had the good fortune to be born into. I pray that I will have the courage to continue to trust my own thinking, speak it when helpful and to act on it when needed.

He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security. - Benjamin Franklin

As a result of current events,
I've been digging more into
history. Currently reading
Bonhoeffer by Eric Metaxas.

Find good books!

Another thought provoking resource for deeper insights, I found:

https://stoppingsocialism.com/2020/09/nazis-rioters-far-left-tactics/

Additional thoughts September 18, 2021

Recently, having recounted this story yet again, I had another insight about the explaination from my German host grandfather. This one possibly more profound than all of the above discussion of the human desire for safety and how people will so readily relinquish freedom to feel secure. Defending my choice not to participate in what I consider an unethical mandate for a medical intervention, I realized the magnatude of acting on ones own conscience.For a German grandfather to feel the neccesity to explain himself to a random American teenager several decades after his participation as a Hitler youth speaks to me of the burden he continued to carry from his teen years on. That is a heavey burden to bear for going along with the mainstrem at the time. Suffice it to say, it is not one I am willing to carry or am wanting my loved ones to carry going forward in their lives.