"Remembrance of the past helps us to understand the present."
This is a remarkable afterword, written by Shirer in May 1990. I was shocked. My whole life I have never thought the world had a "German problem." I still don't. But Shirer did; he died in 1993.
And now, as the thirtieth-anniversary edition of The Rise and Fall goes to press, the world is suddenly confronted with a reunification of Germany. Soon, united, Germany will be strong again economically and, if it wishes, militarily, as it was in the time of Wilhelm II and Adolph Hitler. And Europe will be faced again with the German problem. If the past is any guide, the outlook is not very promising for Germany's neighbors, who twice in my lifetime have been invaded by Teutonic armies. The last time, under Hitler, as the readers of this book are reminded, the German behavior was a horror in its barbarism.
People ask now: Have the Germans changed? Many in the West appear to believe so. I myself am not so sure, my view no doubt clouded by the personal experience of having lived and worked in Germany in the Nazi time. The truth is that no one really knows the answer to that crucial question. And quite understandably the nations that were former victims of German conquest do not want to take any chances again.
Is there a solution to the German problem? Perhaps. It lies in enmeshing reunited Germany in a European security system out of which it could never break loose to pursue its past policies of aggression.
In one fundamental sense, the situation has changed since the fall of the Third Reich. The development of the hydrogen bomb...
...
So maybe the H-bomb...horrible threat though [it is] to the survival of the planet, will, ironically, help, at least, to solve the German problem. No more bloody conquests by the Germans, or by anyone else.
Having read those words again in order to type them I am still in shock. I will be forever in shock. He was utterly wrong. One of the noted qualities of the book is that Shirer does not blame Adolph Hitler solely for Naziism, Shirer blames the German people, for it is they after all who voted for the Nazi Party, who supported Hitler's war on the Jews and on the world, some to the bitter end--and beyond. Shirer returned to Germany in the fall of 1945. Surveying the destroyed country and the desperate civilian population he writes:
Such was the state to which the follies of Adolf Hitler--and their own folly in following him so blindly and with so much enthusiasm--had brought them, though I found little bitterness toward him when I returned to Germany that fall.
It was often said during the Soviet era, and by Presidents and General Secretaries too, that the Cold War was not a conflict between peoples but between governments. I bought that line, that lie, at the time. I have thought much about this distinction between peoples and governments in undemocratic states in my amateur's work on China and in my reading on Islam. I concluded, and have written this many times, that the government of the PRC has the support of the Chinese people and thus however one wishes to characterize the relationship between the PRC and the USA, that relationship is between peoples not just governments. The relationship, as I see it, between the Muslim world and the rest of the world is at the same time even more simple and yet more complex, the latter because of the multiple varieties of Islam, the former because at bottom, the Koran, all of those varieties are hostile toward anything and everything non-Muslim. "Islam has bloody borders." Q.E.D. We are at war with "Islam as it is practiced and preached today," i.e. with most of the peoples of the Islamic world; we were in Cold War with most of the people of the Soviet Union, are still in a Cold War state with most of the Russian people; are in whatever with the Chinese people, and, Shirer is absolutely correct, we were at war with the people of Germany in the Nazi era, not just with Adolph Hitler and his regime.
Never have I thought that war or war-like states are in the nature of a people however. The soul is a mutable thing! Souls change and with them people. Shirer was absolutely wrong to have doubted that the German soul had changed as late as 1990. The soul of the Russian people changed (for the better) after 1989 and with it the form of the Russian government. The same with the Chinese soul and the Chinese government after Mao's death in 1976. The Islamic peoples have the easiest road to change. An ancient, sacred text needs be interpreted in a modern peaceful way. This is small beer, comparatively. Ancient, sacred texts are mutable things: the Torah, the Bible, the United States Constitution. You are always going to have literalists but literalism itself is interpretation. The trick is how you practice and preach. The preaching of Mein Kampf died with the preacher. Not so the other texts. Mein Kamf could not have been put into practice literally without the German people. Peace can be found in the Koran, peace among Muslims and peace between Muslim and non-Muslim.The Muslim people who compiled the hadith and who have written the commentaries have not interpreted the Prophet's teachings in a peaceful, modern way. They can. Islam awaits its Reformation. If they do, the soul of Islam will change, just as the soul of Germany changed. If they do not, as they have not, then sooner or later the peoples of Islam will be destroyed as utterly as were those they so resemble, the people of Nazi Germany.
This is a remarkable afterword, written by Shirer in May 1990. I was shocked. My whole life I have never thought the world had a "German problem." I still don't. But Shirer did; he died in 1993.
And now, as the thirtieth-anniversary edition of The Rise and Fall goes to press, the world is suddenly confronted with a reunification of Germany. Soon, united, Germany will be strong again economically and, if it wishes, militarily, as it was in the time of Wilhelm II and Adolph Hitler. And Europe will be faced again with the German problem. If the past is any guide, the outlook is not very promising for Germany's neighbors, who twice in my lifetime have been invaded by Teutonic armies. The last time, under Hitler, as the readers of this book are reminded, the German behavior was a horror in its barbarism.
People ask now: Have the Germans changed? Many in the West appear to believe so. I myself am not so sure, my view no doubt clouded by the personal experience of having lived and worked in Germany in the Nazi time. The truth is that no one really knows the answer to that crucial question. And quite understandably the nations that were former victims of German conquest do not want to take any chances again.
Is there a solution to the German problem? Perhaps. It lies in enmeshing reunited Germany in a European security system out of which it could never break loose to pursue its past policies of aggression.
In one fundamental sense, the situation has changed since the fall of the Third Reich. The development of the hydrogen bomb...
...
So maybe the H-bomb...horrible threat though [it is] to the survival of the planet, will, ironically, help, at least, to solve the German problem. No more bloody conquests by the Germans, or by anyone else.
Having read those words again in order to type them I am still in shock. I will be forever in shock. He was utterly wrong. One of the noted qualities of the book is that Shirer does not blame Adolph Hitler solely for Naziism, Shirer blames the German people, for it is they after all who voted for the Nazi Party, who supported Hitler's war on the Jews and on the world, some to the bitter end--and beyond. Shirer returned to Germany in the fall of 1945. Surveying the destroyed country and the desperate civilian population he writes:
Such was the state to which the follies of Adolf Hitler--and their own folly in following him so blindly and with so much enthusiasm--had brought them, though I found little bitterness toward him when I returned to Germany that fall.
It was often said during the Soviet era, and by Presidents and General Secretaries too, that the Cold War was not a conflict between peoples but between governments. I bought that line, that lie, at the time. I have thought much about this distinction between peoples and governments in undemocratic states in my amateur's work on China and in my reading on Islam. I concluded, and have written this many times, that the government of the PRC has the support of the Chinese people and thus however one wishes to characterize the relationship between the PRC and the USA, that relationship is between peoples not just governments. The relationship, as I see it, between the Muslim world and the rest of the world is at the same time even more simple and yet more complex, the latter because of the multiple varieties of Islam, the former because at bottom, the Koran, all of those varieties are hostile toward anything and everything non-Muslim. "Islam has bloody borders." Q.E.D. We are at war with "Islam as it is practiced and preached today," i.e. with most of the peoples of the Islamic world; we were in Cold War with most of the people of the Soviet Union, are still in a Cold War state with most of the Russian people; are in whatever with the Chinese people, and, Shirer is absolutely correct, we were at war with the people of Germany in the Nazi era, not just with Adolph Hitler and his regime.
Never have I thought that war or war-like states are in the nature of a people however. The soul is a mutable thing! Souls change and with them people. Shirer was absolutely wrong to have doubted that the German soul had changed as late as 1990. The soul of the Russian people changed (for the better) after 1989 and with it the form of the Russian government. The same with the Chinese soul and the Chinese government after Mao's death in 1976. The Islamic peoples have the easiest road to change. An ancient, sacred text needs be interpreted in a modern peaceful way. This is small beer, comparatively. Ancient, sacred texts are mutable things: the Torah, the Bible, the United States Constitution. You are always going to have literalists but literalism itself is interpretation. The trick is how you practice and preach. The preaching of Mein Kampf died with the preacher. Not so the other texts. Mein Kamf could not have been put into practice literally without the German people. Peace can be found in the Koran, peace among Muslims and peace between Muslim and non-Muslim.The Muslim people who compiled the hadith and who have written the commentaries have not interpreted the Prophet's teachings in a peaceful, modern way. They can. Islam awaits its Reformation. If they do, the soul of Islam will change, just as the soul of Germany changed. If they do not, as they have not, then sooner or later the peoples of Islam will be destroyed as utterly as were those they so resemble, the people of Nazi Germany.
