In These Times: An 8-9 May 2023 Column

WW2 Remembrance as the Juste Milieu's Post-Bourgeois Ideology: since we didn't learn anything from history, we are, in fact, repeating it…

Last year, I penned a rather long-ish essay about my experiences on 8/9 May in Bergen, Norway. Long story short, it was very interesting to see how Norwegians—and, by extension, most other Westerners—continue to delude themselves about virtually all matters related to WW2.

In the above-linked piece, I also remarked the following:

WW2 Remembrance as Ideology

Yet, the most pervasive, and hence probably most pernicious, aspect is the shameless abuse of memory and remembrance—which should be sombre and inviting of reflection instead of aggressive and war-mongering.

As such, post-1945 remembrance may be understood as a form of post-bourgeois ideology, imposed on the devastated continent and its peoples by the propaganda machinery of both Moscow and Washington. With the end of the Cold War and the USSR’s dissolution, there’s but one increasingly shrill version that remains, and we can all see its ugly head rearing today.

Make no mistake, this is a tremendous achievement: the establishment of a new creed, engendered by the victorious American elites and gladly picked up, disseminated, and adapted by their servile satraps in Western capitals, constitutes without question the ultimate victory of WW2.

No discussion is permitted, and no matter how egregious the West’s own actions, they must never be mentioned in polite conversation, let alone in public discourse.

‘We’ in the West will not stop this madness unless we, the people, demand our sovereignty back from the spineless critters who send weapons to war zones, such as the Donbas, without anything even resembling the most perfunctory public debate, let alone a vote by parliament.

Remembrance is a Two-Edged Sword

That, of course, is a kind of truism, but it’s perhaps even more so in the context of a local news item that appeared virtually everywhere in Austrian legacy media on 7 May 2023.

Ill: several memorial plaques in Mauthausen Concentration Camp (source)

As it happens, I’m going to reproduce state broadcaster ORF’s program from Upper Austria, home to the country’s largest (former) concentration camp in Mauthausen.

From the encylopaedia of the US Holocaust Museum (my emphases):

The site was on the bank of the Danube River, near the ‘Wiener Graben’ stone quarry, which was owned by the city of Vienna. It was located about three miles from the town of Mauthausen in Upper Austria, 12.5 miles southeast of Linz.

At the end of April 1938, the SS founded a company, German Earth and Stone Works Inc. (Deutsche Erd- und Steinwerke, GmbH-DESt), to exploit the granite which they intended to extract with concentration camp labor…

An estimated 197,464 prisoners passed through the Mauthausen camp system between August 1938 and May 1945. At least 95,000 died there. More than 14,000 were Jewish…

On May 3, 1945, the SS abandoned the camp to the custody of a guard unit of 50 Viennese firefighters, who remained on the perimeter of the camp. Members of an ‘International Committee’ formed by the prisoners in the last days of April administered the camp as units of the US Army arrived at the camp and secured the surrounding area on May 5.

Nazi authorities used these camps, among other things, for convict labour. It is quite common to do so, e.g., in the US today, but the origins of such ‘practices’ hark back to at least the Enlightenment when rulers, such as Joseph II (r. 1765/80-90) instituted convict labour to squeeze out the last bit of ‘utility’, i.e., working inmates to death has a long and sordid history in ‘the West’.

The camp was eventually taken over by US forces in early May 1945, hence the below-reproduced piece from ORF.

Excursus: Mühlviertler Hasenjagd

Before we get there, one last reminder, which I consider perhaps the most telling aspect of the history of the camp: in early February 1945, some 500 Soviet officers that had been placed in Mauthausen escaped the subcamp in Gusen. As retold by Wikipedia (my emphases),

Local civilians, soldiers and local Nazi organizations hunted down the escapees for three weeks, executing most of them. Of the original 500 prisoners who took part in the escape attempt, eleven succeeded in remaining free until the end of the war.

This happened in February 1945, and it tells you everything you need to know about the wanton cruelty and dedication of Austrians/Germans in the waning days of Hitler’s mad ambition.

A memorial dedicated to the victims of this cruel endeavour was erected in 2001.

A dramatised version of these events was eventually turned into a movie. Entitled, ‘The Quality of Mercy’ (orig. Hasenjagd: Vor lauter Feigheit gibt es kein Erbarmen, which translates into ‘Hare Hunt: For Sheer Cowardice, There is No Mercy’), and it was one of the most successful movies in Austria in 1995. Here you may find the Wikipedia entry, and if you’re looking for ‘more information’, you are referred to a quite good piece by Linda C. DeMeritt, ‘Representations of History: The “Mühlviertler Hasenjagd” as Word and Image’, which appeared in Modern Austrian Literature 32, no. 4 (1999): 135-45.

Memorial Service in Mauthausen

Without much further ado, here’s the piece from ORF, which appeared on 7 May 2023, and which is very telling (my translation and emphases, as are the bottom lines):

Delegations from all over the world commemorated the liberation of the concentration camp by the US Army at the Mauthausen concentration camp memorial on Sunday [7 May 2023]. The theme of the largest concentration camp liberation ceremony in Europe, which was also attended by survivors, was ‘civil courage’.

The chairman of the Mauthausen Committee Austria, Willi Mernyi, and the Protestant Bishop Michael Chalupka appealed for courage today to say ‘no’ to exclusion. ‘We commemorate the many people who resisted National Socialism, who saved other fellow citizens, people who initiated courageous individual actions against authorities and Nazi officials, who carried out resistance activities in factories or in armament production’, said Mernyi.

Mernyi: ‘Your work is our motivation’

One must pay respect to those people who had risked their lives and that of their families, who had shown courage ‘at a time when the majority was conformist’. ‘Your work is our motivation in the fight against racism, exclusion, chauvinism, and xenophobia. We want to honour you by saying “No” to this loudly and clearly.’

Chalupka: ‘Annihilation begins with discrimination’

‘Civil courage is resistance against every form of discrimination’, Chalupka stressed in the ecumenical service before the ceremony, which he celebrated together with Linz [Catholic] diocesan bishop Manfred Scheuer and Orthodox archpriest Ioannis Nikolitsis. ‘Annihilation fantasies begin with discrimination: when one group places itself above the other. When strangers are given pejorative labels. When they are denied equality and humanity and the supposedly superior wallow in their own prejudices. It begins with devaluation, mockery, and ridicule, and it ends with the order to kill’, warned the Bishop.

Pledge of Mauthausen Was Read Out

At the beginning of the ceremony, the Mauthausen Pledge was read out. Presenters Mercedes Echerer and Konstanze Breitebner emphasised that the pledge, which is a commitment to peace, international solidarity, and freedom, could be recited in more than 20 languages at a place like the roll call square of the former concentration camp, where only German was allowed during the Nazi era. The President of the Comité International de Mauthausen (CIM), Guy Dockendorf, evoked the spirit in which it was written—even if, in view of the current world political situation, it is challenging to continue to credibly fill the Mauthausen Oath with life.

Delegations From All Over the World

Delegations from all over the world laid wreaths in front of the cenotaph at the former roll call site. Between 1938 and 1945, almost 200,000 people from more than 40 nations were imprisoned in the Mauthausen concentration camp and its more than 40 subcamps; around 90,000 did not survive. Official Austria was represented at the commemoration by Vice-Chancellor Werner Kogler (Greens), Interior Minister Gerhard Karner, Constitutional Minister Karoline Edtstadler and Upper Austrian Governor Thomas Stelzer (all ÖVP), among others, and representatives of all parliamentary parties except the FPÖ were also present.

Van der Bellen will Open Festival on Heldenplatz

Former Federal President Heinz Fischer was among the guests of honour. The current Head of State, Alexander Van der Bellen, was prevented from attending by the coronation celebrations in London, but will open the Festival of Joy on Vienna’s Heldenplatz together with Mernyi on Monday.

The next International Liberation Celebration will take place on 5 May 2024 under the title ‘Law and Justice’.

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Bottom Lines

In a time and age when deceit and has become normalised, self-delusion is a way of life. Moreover, when it is perfectly fine for the same despicable politicians who voted for Covid mandates to gather, most solemnly, in Mauthausen Concentration Camp and pat themselves on the back calling for ‘civil courage’, I’m about to puke.

As it happened, I think today is as good a day to re-post a quite ‘old’ posting from autumn 2021:

From the above-related piece that appeared, incidentally, in Der Standard, on 20 Nov. 2021:

If you don't behave too conspicuously, you probably won't be checked at random in the lockdown for the unvaccinated. After all, everyone is allowed to go for a walk. Shopping, however, is not. That's why the police are now primarily stationed in front of shop entrances…

It is still permitted to travel to work, school or university—at least as long as they are open, but not every kind of shopping…

The penalties for violating the curfew range up to 1,450 €…

Police were urged by Interior Minister Karl Nehammer (ÖVP) to follow the maxim ‘Every citizen engagement should be a Covid-19 check’.

Now, I could say a lot about these unpleasant memories, but I’d yield the floor to Protestant Bishop Michael Chalupka:

Annihilation fantasies begin with discrimination: when one group places itself above the other. When strangers are given pejorative labels. When they are denied equality and humanity and the supposedly superior wallow in their own prejudices. It begins with devaluation, mockery, and ridicule, and it ends with the order to kill.

Is it just me who sees broad comparisons? Wait a second, that’s exactly the reason why Holocause survivor Vera Sharav was criticised for as ‘Holocaust denier’ and the like.

Remember, Remember…

Post-1945 remembrance may be understood as a form of post-bourgeois ideology, imposed on the devastated continent and its peoples by the propaganda machinery of both Moscow and Washington. With the end of the Cold War and the USSR’s dissolution, there’s but one increasingly shrill version that remains, and we can all see its ugly head rearing today.

Make no mistake, this is a tremendous achievement: the establishment of a new creed, engendered by the victorious American elites and gladly picked up, disseminated, and adapted by their servile satraps in Western capitals, constitutes without question the ultimate victory of WW2.

No discussion is permitted, and no matter how egregious the West’s own actions, they must never be mentioned in polite conversation, let alone in public discourse.

#neveragain

But let’s call out the coward double-speak for what it is: an abomination, that is, the resurrection of Evil in our midst.

It seems that ‘the collective West’ has been staring into the Nietzschean abyss for way too long.