Echoes of Berlin
Does history repeat itself?
I wasn’t planning on posting while away, but having just finished a few days in Berlin I found the echoes of that city’s history impossible to ignore. Bear with me, I’m writing on my phone on a plane
Berlin is a city layered in history. Just the more recent strata include Prussian, Weimar, Nazi, Cold War, and Reunification. So much of that history seems to parallel things that are happening today in the States.
The Nazis took over Germany never having won a majority election. They formed a government with a plurality, quickly consolidated power through force and the abnegation of the rule of law, and turned Germany into an imperialist fascist dictatorship.
Walking through exhibitions such as the one at the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe, you can’t help but see the common elements. Trump has not won a majority election either. The Nazis demonized - among many groups - the Jews, the Roma, the disabled and homosexuals. The Nazis burnt books and took over any parts of society that could oppose them like the courts, the media or universities. Upon taking power they immediately asserted authority over leading cultural institutions and propagandized artistic expression. Among the first tools of terror the Nazis used was deportation.
Trump is demonizing brown people and trans people, among others. He is bludgeoning institutions like courts, universities, media and law firms to capitulate to his will. He is rewriting and propagandizing public history. He is asserting authority over cultural institutions like the Kennedy Center and the Smithsonian. Among the first tools of terror he is using is deportation.
It is not exactly the same but it is inescapably similar. We are walking down a parallel path and if we keep going, the destination will be nearly identical.
Berlin is very frank about its history. Being in Berlin, and reading about what is happening back home — it is impossible not to to feel a little overwhelmed. In Berlin, I watched a video of an older woman describing how she was forced as a child to separate from her family. She was the only one to survive. I started crying, thinking about how the last eyewitness to the Shoah were dying just as the most ugly aspects of humanity are again rearing up in the US and Europe.
Later I saw this. In the States, a 90 year old survivor of Auschwitz shamed an ICE official at a town hall like meeting.
As these eyewitnesses move on from our world it becomes easier for humanity to revisit horror.
It was a rough day. But I want to tell you how it ended. Kind of on a lark, I picked up tickets to a musical performance at the Deutche Oper. The translation of the website made it sound like the Opera orchestra would be playing big band jazz. Hey? Why not?
Turns out they were playing a tribute to Broadway. The program focused on Gershwin, Leonard Bernstein, Jerome Kern, Kander and Ebb, and Cole Porter. It was fantastic. And clearly both the orchestra and the audience loved it.
There I was, sitting in Berlin, the epicenter of one of the most antisemitic moments in world history, listening to a German orchestra pay tribute to largely Jewish composers, who fled Europe to escape antisemitism, to rapturous applause. At one point a female vocalist took the stage. She said something like “we are paying tribute to the American Songbook, not the Make America Great Again songbook.” She got huge applause. Me included.
It gave me hope.
The other thing that gave me hope was Court of Appeals Judge, J. Harvey Wilkinson. Back when I was a cub, the nomination of Judge Wilkinson encountered considerable opposition from Civil Rights groups when he was put forward by President Reagan. Ultimately Judge Wilkinson was confirmed by a relatively narrow 58-39 vote. And yet here he is today saying:
“It is difficult in some cases to get to the very heart of the matter. But in this case, it is not hard at all. The government is asserting the right to stash away residents of this country in foreign prisons without semblance of due process that is the foundation of our constitutional order. Further it claims in essence that because it has rid itself of custody, there is nothing that can be done.
This should be shocking not only to judges but to the intuitive sense of liberty that Americans far removed from the courthouse still hold dear.“
Read the whole opinion.
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/25900495-2025-04-17-court-order-dckt/
Judge Wilkinson is 80 years old. I wish more Republicans had his courage and clarity. But I am grateful that he, for a unanimous panel, chose to reject Trump’s authoritarian gambit, and stand for the rule of law. Hopefully he will inspire more to do so.
Beautiful, Rick. Hope you’re having a great trip!
Great post Rick. I was overwhelmed by the memorial in Berlin.