Helmut Kohl`s defense of the German people for failing to resist the Nazis 50 years ago lacks credibility. He asks: ”Who among us can say with a good conscience that, confronted with such evil, he would have summoned the strength to be a martyr?”
Hitler and his Nazi hordes did not arise suddenly in 1938 to confront the German people and invade Poland. The Nazis began more than a decade earlier as a gang of ruffians and superpatriots who could have been stopped without any risk of martyrdom. Are we to believe that during that decade the millions of Germans who learned to cry ”Heil Hitler” so enthusiastically did so out of fear? Isn`t it possible that many of them believed that being good Germans required them to follow Der Fuhrer, or that they too might share in the spoils of conquest?
There is a lesson for us in that experience. Too many Americans believe that patriotism requires them to accept actions by our government that should be condemned. Kenneth E. Sharpe`s article, ”Why are Washington`s rules different for Nicaragua?” (Sept. 13), is a case in point. He notes that the Bush administration persists in a policy to destroy Nicaragua because it will not accept its traditional role as a U.S. vassal state. That policy could be changed if enough of us exercised our right to oppose it.
