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| Universally recognised as a symbol of Nazism, although the Swastika has a more ancient origin |
Many countries have national service in which men (sometimes women as well) have to go into uniform and, if necessary, fight for their country. Although this has never been a British tradition, it has now been suggested here. The conscripted do not have the right to make the decision to go to war. That is done for them by older politicians who rarely see any of the fighting. The soldiers in uniform just have to fight, kill and either be killed or survive until the war is over.
They may opt to be classed as conscientious objectors, sometimes abbreviated to ‘conchies’. The phrase that has a hint of contempt in it and those who choose not to fight are often looked down on as cowards by those who do put on the uniform (and their supporters). However, it takes a certain type of bravery to reject war as a means of solving problems. It is often easier, in fact, to join the crowd lining up to enlist. At least no-one will accuse you of being a coward.
The Jehovah’s Witnesses, who stand on street corners in all weathers and knock on doors to try and convert people are all conscientious objectors. They pay their taxes and generally obey the law but they will not fight for their country, owing allegiance to a higher power. Many of them suffered badly at the hands of powerful rulers like the Nazis, who did not have sympathy for their views and regarded them as expendable – like the Jews they sent to the gas chambers.
I have a certain sympathy for this point of view but I cannot back it completely. There is a phrase, which I think I heard on the radio first, that ‘the best is the enemy of the good’ and that sums up my attitude. Obviously, we should not be trying to sort out our problems by king each other. The current war in the Middle East surely demonstrates that. Hamas will never destroy Israel and Israel will never destroy Hamas so the two sides have to learn to live with each other – which they show no signs of being either willing or able to do at present.
Yet, this message falls on deaf ears when delivered to people who think that violence will solve their problems by destroying their enemies – Jews, blacks, Arabs or whoever. The Nazi fascists really believed they could create a lasting Reich by killing Jews. Actually, although we remember that aspect of Nazism now, the Second World War did not start because of the killing of Jews. It started because Germany had to be reined in and we need a war to do so.
This is also why we dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and why we bombed Dresden so ruthlessly. We had to convince the fascists and fanatics who ruled these countries that the fighting was over and they had lost. Pacifism was never going to do that. It was necessary to defeat them militarily, to fight fire with fire, to talk them in the language they understood – whatever cliche you care to use – to show that resistance was doomed.
That argument would never convince conscientious objectors that boycotting all war was worthwhile. If you were not prepared to fight for your homeland off you went to the gas chambers. Between 1500 and 2000 Witnesses were killed in the course of the war. This number is minute when compared to the six million Jews who were gassed or shot and there is some evidence that, if they kept their heads down, Witnesses might be allowed to survive.
However, although they may not have been persecuted like the Jews, who were killed automatically because of who they were, Witnesses had to learn to do the Nazi salute and pass themselves off as good Germans, to prop up fascism even if they would not fight for it. When it comes down to it, you have to make choices in life and some Witnesses chose to be complicit in Nazism. Others died or exiled themselves to avoid supporting facsism.
We did some fairly horrific things to the German people during the war, brutally bombing their cities from a sky which we increasingly controlled.. And to the Japanese for that matter. Japanese soldiers were not taken prisoner until the US army paid their soldiers a kind of ransom fee for bringing them in alive. To be fair, the Japanese authorities did not countenance surrender to the hated enemy either, death being preferable to the dishonour of surrender.
Yet still neither country would surrender when it must have been obvious that they could not win the war. Lots of German citizens, who were suspected of being ready to surrender, were executed by their own side, their bodies left to hang from trees and lampposts, presumably to discourage those who saw them from having defeatist thoughts. If you surrendered – or even thought about surrendering – you were killed by the fascist overlords.
This kind of fanaticism will not be defeated by idealism or conscientious objection to war. It needed the kind of brutality that fascists inflicted on those they considered inferior to stop them in their tracks. That is why I would have fought in the Second World War and why it was right to bomb German cities like Dresden and Hamburg. Otherwise, it would have been necessary to sacrifice the lives of soldiers who were fighting their way to Berlin or Tokyo.
Life is about alternatives not absolutes. If you could say to the parents of those soldiers who had willingly put on army uniforms that the war could be won in a week or two by bombing but you would extend it by continuing to fight on land, inevitably at the cost of the lives of those soldiers, so that you would not be condemned by later generations for war crimes, you would be justified in opposing the atom bomb or the blanket bombing of Dresden and Hamburg.
I do not think I could do that, however. You cannot defeat fascism with idealism.
Edwin Lerner
My other blog is diaryofatouristguide.blogspot.com
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