Reasons to Be Cheerful — Part 4

The reader of the first quarter of the twenty-first century may be forgiven for thinking that the world is a bad place and only getting worse. The news media work ceaselessly to alarm and anger the reader — more likely, the viewer — with tales of injustice, suffering, and misery.

It is true, there is pain and evil in this world.

Yet there is much good to be observed, if one has eyes for it. The contemporary news media apparently has no desire to find the good, and receives no money for reporting about uplifting events.

Yet there is much to celebrate, from both a human and a humane point of view, in the world today. Public health expert Claire Ninde explains:

Vaccines have been so effective at improving health and saving and extending lives that most people in the U.S. have no idea what it’s like to watch a child die a painful death from a tetanus infection or to witness a loved one experience brutal paralysis and death from polio.

Diseases which in the past routinely claimed the lives of millions around the globe are now nearly impossible to find. The pandemic of 1918 claimed many more lives than the pandemic of 2019/2020, whether measured in absolute numbers or in percentages of the global population.

Smallpox, polio, tetanus, measles, and other diseases caused many deaths annually in previous centuries; now, such illnesses are rare, and lives are longer — not only longer, but healthier — as Claire Ninde explains:

Over the last 200 years, U.S. life expectancy has more than doubled to almost 80 years (78.8 in 2015), with vast improvements in health and quality of life.

The reduction of sickness and death is one metric which indicates that the world is not as horrid as the daily newscast would have the reader believe. Another criterion is poverty, and the decreasing rates thereof.

Despite all the images — not thoughts, not data — which the media throws at the viewer, poverty is becoming more and more rare. Lucy Tompkins, writing in the New York Times, reports:

In 1990, about 36 percent of the global population — and nearly half of people in developing countries — lived on less than $1.25 a day, the World Bank’s definition of extreme poverty at the time. (It’s now $1.90 a day.) In 2000, United Nations member states pledged to cut extreme poverty worldwide — specifically to halve the proportion of people living in extreme poverty, from 1990 levels, by 2015.

Bottom line: The U.N. goal was met. By 2015, the share of the world’s population living in extreme poverty fell to 12 percent from 36 percent in 1990, a steep decline in just two and a half decades. During a single generation, more than a billion people around the world climbed out of extreme poverty, surpassing the goal.

Tabling for the moment questions about why and how this has happened, the reduction in poverty is something to be celebrated.

Disabling or lethal diseases are declining. Poverty is declining. That means that people are healthier, living longer, and doing so with more money. That is a reason to be cheerful.

Responding to Kristallnacht — An Increased Resolve to Resist the Nazis

As the violence unfolded on the eventing of November 9, 1938, National Socialist mobs vandalized and destroyed the homes and businesses owned by Jewish Germans. Many of those Jewish Germans were injured, murdered, or sent to forced-labor camps on that day or the next. Many historians see Kristallnacht as the start of the Holocaust.

These events did not always have the effect which the Nazis wanted: they had hoped that this would cement an anti-Jewish attitude among the Germans. But, instead, many Germans were appalled by what happened. Those Germans who were not yet part of the resistance were nudged into joining the secret organizations which would undermine Hitler’s war efforts. Those who were already part of the resistance became even more committed to the cause.

One example was the Scholl family. The father, Robert Scholl, the mother, Magdalena Scholl, and their five children lived in the city of Ulm. A sixth child, Thilde, had died in 1926, before the Nazi movement was known or influential.

Robert Scholl had been skeptical of Hitler from the beginning of Hitler’s political career. He clearly explained to his family why Hitler was dangerous. Although initially uncertain, all the members of the Scholl family began to see what Hitler really was, and joined Robert in his opposition to National Socialism.

After the horrors of Kristallnacht, a local Nazi publication described the destruction as deserved, and mocked German families like the Scholls for taking a stand against Hitler. Historians Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis describe the coverage in the community’s news media:

The regional newspaper, the National Socialist Courier, described the violence as “just vengeance” but was shocked and bewildered to report that some in the area were “sentimental” and not all were in favor of the destruction. “I have heard of a few people whimpering and complaining about operations against the Jews in the past few days,” wrote a columnist.

These Germans took a principled stance: the violence of National Socialism was unacceptable. The repulsiveness of Nazi violence and the insults which the Nazis directed at these Germans strengthened the resolve of these German families to oppose Hitler.

Kristallnacht was one of the events which made it clear exactly what the National Socialists were, and why the Germans must resist them.

The Scholls would have been one of those families that the writer in the Courier would have held in contempt. Over the past few years the children had listened to their father’s anger about the treatment of the Jews and the creation of the concentration camps; they had seen their friends and teachers persecuted. “All of us felt that we had to stand together to shield what we believed and cherished,” Inge Scholl wrote later. “What began among us as doubts and misgivings about the Nazis had turned into indignation and outrage.”

But they were at the heart of a state in which they had become the outsiders.

In November 1938, these events pushed Sophie Scholl, one of Robert’s daughters, further into the resistance movement. She’d already been part of anti-Hitler underground, but now she saw herself as fully committed to stopping National Socialism, as historians Gordon Thomas and Greg Lewis write:

Kristallnacht persuaded Sophie that to fight on the side of the Nazis would be evil. She told male friends who were in military service that if there was a war, they should not kill anyone.

Sophie and her brothers, Hans and Werner, discussed philosophy and religion. Their serious reflection on those topics helped them to construct justifications and lines of reasoning which reinforced their anti-Nazi network.

They shared conversations on morality, conscience, and belief, all issues that made them think about Naziism.

The spirit of their father was extending through the family, too. Sophie’s younger brother, Werner, had had enough of Nazi indoctrination, and one night he told an openmouthed squad leader that he was resigning from the Hitler Youth. Werner turned on his heel and walked out, his conscience suddenly feeling clearer. For his moment of rebellion he would be denied the chance of going to the university and would instead be drafted straight into the army.

Unperturbed, late one night, he went further, scaling a statue outside the courthouse in Ulm and wrapping a swastika blindfold over the stone lady holding the scales of justice.

Eventually, these Scholl siblings would form one of the most effective branches of the anti-Nazi resistence network. Sophie and Hans formed a secret group, called “The White Rose,” which produced leaflets and fliers encouraging all Germans to resist National Socialism.

Those writings, in turn, inspired underground actions which hobbled the Nazi war effort and which saved the lives of thousands of Jews.

The Scholl parents, and two of their children — Inge and Elisabeth — lived to see the end of National Socialism and to see Germany freed from Nazi oppression.

Sophie and Hans were murdered by the Nazis in 1943, and Werner was missing in action and presumed dead by 1944. Moved to action by their consciences, and galvanized by the events of Kristallnacht, the Scholls made a difference, saving lives and causing the war to end sooner.

Preparing for the Holocaust: How the Nazis Attempted to Preempt the Resistance

In early 1933, the Nazis — more accurately, the National Socialists — seized control of Germany when Adolf Hitler was appointed, not elected, to be chancellor. They quickly went about infiltrating and reshaping every aspect of life in Germany. They subverted social institutions.

To subvert an organization often means to change or reverse the values and principles of that organization, frequently while leaving the outward appearance deceptively unchanged. People may see a subverted organization as continuing its established traditional patterns, while it in reality is now serving a very different function.

Some historians cite the events of Kristallnacht in 1938 as the beginning of the Holocaust. Others see the Holocaust as starting in 1941, with the mass executions of Jews on the eastern Front. In either case, the reader will note that there is a significant timelapse from the National Socialist takeover in 1933 and the beginning of the Holocaust.

Why the delay?

Hitler ordered the expansion of the military, the increased manufacture of weapons, and armed occupation of the Rhineland — a region which had been demilitarized since the 1919 Treaty of Versailles — quickly after becoming chancellor. Why not launch the Holocaust at that time as well?

Part of the answer is this: The National Socialists knew that they needed to neutralize potential sources of resistance. Only when the Gleichschaltung of German society was completed — the synchronization and coordination which would bring aspects of daily life into line with the National Socialist Party — could they begin the brutal excesses of the Holocaust. At that point, so the Nazis thought, resistance would be minimal or nonexistent.

The National Socialists set about remaking Germany. Medical facilities and healthcare professionals, instead of preserving life, became places to kill. The “T4” program carried out medical assistance in dying (MAID or physician-assisted suicide) and euthanasia, killing people who were considered by the Nazis to be “unworthy” of life. Although they were called “suicides,” they were murders. The T4 program also performed forced sterilizations: men and women who did not want to be sterilized were required to be sterilized, so that they could never have children.

Another program called “Lebensborn” conducted involuntary abortions on women who were considered to be genetically inferior.

An increasing number of schools and medical facilities were government owned or government operated.

Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and church youth groups were largely abolished, and young people urged to join National Socialist groups like the Hitlerjugend for boys aged 14 to 18, the Jungvolk for boys aged 10 to 14, the BDM for girls aged 14 to 18, the Jungmädlebund for girls aged 10 to 14, and the Glaube und Schönheit for girls aged 18 to 21. The Nazis could shape a person’s thinking starting at age 10.

The German people were being controlled and managed by the Nazis. It became more and more difficult for the Germans to find a part of life that was not oppressive.

Even ordinary groups like gardening clubs, music clubs, skiing clubs, etc. were bullied into allowing the National Socialists to reorganize them.

One of the clearest examples of this Gleichschaltung occurred among religious institutions. The Nazis shut down most Christian churches, and in their places — usually in the same building — established propaganda centers which they called churches. The Nazis created a confusion of language: The things called churches by the Nazis were, in fact, not churches; they were National Socialist ideology centers. But because they used the church buildings, in which the churches used to meet, and because they met on Sunday mornings with the trappings of a church — candles and music — they seemed like they might be churches.

The differences were apparent to those who looked closer: instead of a cross at the front of the church and Christian banners with slogans about peace, faith, hope, and love, these counterfeit churches had swastikas, images of Hitler, and Nazi banners in red, white, and black. These fake churches took the place of the real churches in towns and cities throughout Germany. Meanwhile, the real churches had to meet in secret, in people’s homes, outdoors in the countryside, or wherever else they could escape being detected by the Nazis. Hitler’s government forbade them to read the Old Testament. The National Socialists despised Jesus because he was a Jew.

Defying the National Socialists, Christians met covertly to read and discuss the Old Testament, which is part of the Christian Bible, and to learn about Jesus. They also began organizing resistance: clandestine groups planning ways to undermine the Nazi war effort and save the lives of Jews.

Meanwhile, in public, the so-called “churches,” which were not churches and which were actually Nazi propaganda centers, continued to meet in those buildings which had traditionally been used as churches.

Another part of Hitler’s Gleichschaltung was the infiltration and takeover of the labor unions. The purpose of a union, as the reader will know, is to negotiate for better pay for the workers. But the National Socialists would not tolerate any type of negotiating or bargaining. The unions, once the Nazis subverted them, no longer strove assertively to maximize wages. Instead, they sought to, and succeeded in, urging the workers to comply with the directives from the National Socialist Party.

In these ways, the Nazis preemptively neutralized potential sources of resistance. They co-opted the groups which would have resisted: Boy Scouts, churches, labor unions, schools, medical facilities. Not only did Hitler’s government prevent resistance from these organizations, but it created fake versions of these same groups to comply with National Socialist ideas.

In each case, however, alert people saw what was happening, and formed their own undercover groups which stuck to the original authentic anti-Nazi ideals of these organizations. They preserved their moral values, and implemented those values as they formed hidden resistance movements.

Diverse Groups of Germans Unite to Oppose Naziism: One of Those Groups Was the Lutherans

After Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist Party seized power over Germany in early 1933, numerous large and small resistance groups formed among Germans from all demographic segments. A diverse array of people united to resist Naziism: academics and military officers, aristocrats and factory workers, Lutherans and Roman Catholics, theologians and businessmen.

Each of these groups drew inspiration from its characteristic sources.

In particular, the writings of Martin Luther motivated a variety of Lutherans as they formed secret resistance groups: academic theologians, pastors of local churches, and the ordinary everyday members of those churches — members who came from all walks of life and from all social classes.

These people risked their lives — the National Socialists murdered many of them for speaking out against Hitler — patterning their work after Luther’s “ceaseless admonitions to speak up in the face of governmental evil,” in the words of historian Uwe Siemon-Netto.

The Nazis had tried to use Luther’s reputation for their own purposes: in Nazi propaganda, they hoped to make people believe that Martin Luther, along with a long list of other great thinkers and writers, were the historical foundation on which Naziism was built. The Nazis wanted readers to think that Martin Luther, who lived from 1483 to 1546, would have supported the National Socialist movement if he’d still been alive in 1933.

But most Lutherans weren’t fooled by this ruse. Anyone familiar with Luther’s writings knew about “his unequivocal opposition to all wars of aggression — and his advice to soldiers to disobey orders that violate God’s commandments.”

Not only in Germany, but in other countries as well, he inspired anti-Nazi resistance movements: “More uniformly Lutheran countries, such as Norway, based their resistance to tyranny on Luther’s theology.”

The leaders of the National Socialist Party were cynical in their use of Luther’s persona in their propaganda. They did not believe that Luther would have supported them, even while they publicly claimed Luther’s support. The Nazis firmly rejected both Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism, as Uwe Siemon-Netto explains:

The ex-Catholics in the top Nazi leadership rejected the Catholic faith of their childhood in favor of forms of religiosity that would not pass doctrinal review by theologians of any Christian denomination, with many, such as SS leader Heinrich Himmler, embracing a rabidly anti-Christian variety of neo-paganism.

Luther himself had articulated clearly that “God takes no pleasure in murdering or killing.”

Therefore, as Uwe Siemon-Netto writes, Luther’s ideas entailed a firm rejection of any “submission to the ideology of race and blood” — a firm rejection of National Socialism.

Reasons to be Cheerful — Part 2

Although the phrase “reasons to be cheerful” was used as the title of a 1979 pop song by Ian Drury, it has salutary applications well beyond that.

An open letter, published in various newspapers in 2019 and authored by Boris Palmer, contains a list of such reasons. Palmer is a leader in Germany’s Green Party and published his list as an antidote to extreme environmentalists in his own movement who’d claimed that civilization had “ruined” their lives. Palmer offers his list as evidence to the contrary: their lives have not been ruined, but to the contrary, made much better.

Palmer notes that young people have better life opportunities than at any previous time in recorded human history. The percentage of undernourished people in the world has sunk from 28% in 1970 to 11% in 2019. Various contagious diseases have been significantly reduced or even eliminated.

While 100,000,000 people died in wars in the twentieth century, Palmer reports that fewer than 2,000,000 have died in wars in the last twenty years. The life expectancy of a newborn baby in the year 1800 was approximately 30 years. In 2019, that number was 72 years.

During those same two centuries, child mortality worldwide has sunk from 44% to 4%.

These advances, according to Palmer, are the results of deliberate actions and networked systems of governments, institutions, and businesses. All of this works together for better living conditions for human beings.