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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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BURYING "GEORGE WASHINGTON" Buenos Aires, Argentina. 18 September 1963. Authorities at Our Lady of Hope Hospital in Buenos Aires confirmed today that Adolph Hitler, former Dictator of Germany, succumbed here to stomach cancer and other complications at 9:15 PM. He was seventy-four. His wife, Eva, his private secretary, and a few close comrades from the old Nazi Party were present at the end. Once acclaimed as absolute ruler of Germany’s Third Reich, “Der Führer” had lived reclusively, under heavy guard, in a rural suburb of Buenos Aires since escaping from Berlin by airplane and submarine in April 1945, as the Soviet Army closed on the city. Controversy has arisen over Hitler’s burial. Frau Hitler says her husband wished to be buried in Munich, Germany, where he began his political career. Confidential sources say Konrad Adenauer, Chancellor of West Germany, has not answered Frau Hitler’s request of a state funeral with military honor guard for the ex-dictator. Admirers and former members of Hitler’s government have praised him as a ‘Great Hero’ of Germany, but various political groups oppose his burial in German soil. Some propose that he be interred in Austria, where he actually was born on April 20, 1889. “Hitler did nothing for Germany worthy of remembrance,” said Erich Steinwehr, member of an anti-Hitler group which opposes his burial anywhere in Europe. “They should cremate him and scatter his ashes at Buchenwald or Auschwitz. Mingling his dust with the dust of his victims would be a fitting end to a life of evil.” A member of the team which kidnapped Adolph Eichmann from Buenos Aires, in May 1960, and brought him to Israel for trial and eventual execution, expressed regret that Hitler escaped similar justice. “After Eichmann, of course, Hitler was on his guard,” said the Israeli agent, who asked not to be named. “In time, we might have reached him, but Death got there first.” Hitler rose from obscure origins and a political career as a street agitator to become Chancellor of Germany and finally absolute Dictator in 1933. Initially praised for revitalizing Germany, he embarked upon a path of ruthless conquest which started World War II, costing the lives of scores of millions of combatants and civilians. He also ordered the infamous “Final Solution” which caused the murders of millions of Jews and other “undesirables” in the death camps of the Third Reich. Hitler’s career ended with Germany’s total defeat in 1945. ******* This is a fictional account, of course (although details about Hitler’s career, the Final Solution, and Eichmann’s capture are true). Russian authorities finally confirmed, in the early 1990s, that the bodies of Hitler and his wife, Eva Braun, were burned by aides in the garden of the Berlin Chancery on April 30, 1945, after their suicides. Hitler feared having his body desecrated, as the Italians had done to Mussolini. Had Hitler survived, his demise might have occasioned such a report. I wrote it to highlight a recent controversy over memorializing another notorious world figure. I refer, of course, to Yasser Arafat – leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), sponsor of a decades-long campaign of suicide-bombing terror attacks against Israel, and embezzler of billions intended to help Palestinians who still live in hovels in Gaza. After being transported to a Paris hospital last week, Arafat lapsed into a coma and finally died on November 11. Following a state funeral in Egypt (where he was born in 1929), Arafat was interred in a stone and marble tomb in Ramallah, in the West Bank section of Israel, on November 12. Wild displays of Arab-style mourning accompanied the burial. Spokesmen for numerous European governments praised Arafat’s “service to the Palestinian people”, and media figures eulogized his “tireless work for peace”. (Arafat shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994.) The Bush government, which has called Arafat an obstacle to peace in recent years, sent Assistant Secretary of State William Burns to attend the funeral. Israel sent no delegation. I was a college freshman in 1960 when Israeli agents kidnapped Adolph Eichmann in Buenos Aires and brought him to Israel for trial. An Israeli court convicted the Final Solution’s Engineer of “crimes against humanity”. Israel hanged him in 1961 – and a good job, too. (I thought so at the time and still do.) The world – possibly excepting Eichmann’s family and a few unrepentant Nazis – agreed. Eichmann caused the deaths of millions in the Nazi death camps. His execution closed the book on a wretched chapter of history. Justice was done. No one eulogized Eichmann as a “hero” of Germany, or a tireless worker for racial purity, or any such foolishness. (There were no Washington Post puff pieces on his grieving widow, his lovely family, or his playful dog, Heinz.) In contrast, Yasser Arafat – who ordered violent death for thousands of innocent people – is being lionized as the “George Washington” of Palestine. (At least one hysterical commentator said George Washington was a terrorist, too.) Major USA news organs – which savaged Trent Lott when he praised Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrat run for president in 1948 – now accord Yasser Arafat the respect usually reserved for Mother Theresa. How – one wonders – will Osama Bin Laden be characterized when his death is finally reported? (Maybe he’ll make the cover of Time with a model of the World Trade Center next to him.) Although many things have changed since 1960, I believe a major shift in world opinion about both Israel and the USA has produced this fawning treatment of the terrorist Arafat. In 1960 Israel still basked in the good feeling that surrounded its 1948 birth. That glow permeated the United Nations, the American government, most of Europe, and the American news media. Author Leon Uris had just published his runaway best-seller, Exodus – a novel about how modern Israel was formed. Everyone – well, almost everyone – loved the plucky little country where Jewish women bravely fought beside their men to carve a nation out of the desert. Not an eyebrow was raised when Eichmann was spirited out of Argentina without the diplomatic nicety of extradition. (Try to imagine the world-wide uproar over such an event today.) Somehow, between then and now, Israel’s stock with the world community, and with the major media, has crashed. Much the same has happened to the United States. (We have both fallen a long way, baby.) After World War II, the USA could do no wrong. We helped save the world from fascist tyranny, spent billions on the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, and kept the Soviet army from overrunning the rest of Europe. French girls could not kiss enough American GIs. Gradually, the bloom went off the rose as Europe began to see us as a “threat” instead of a “protector”. Europeans never understood Ronald Reagan, just as our own major media did not. In 1987 I was shocked to hear a friend in Switzerland describe Mr. Reagan as more dangerous than the Soviet leader, Gorbachev. Felix and his countrymen saw Mr. Reagan as a crazy cowboy who might pull the nuclear trigger. The Swiss – who stayed neutral and made big bucks from both World Wars – couldn’t imagine that Mr. Reagan’s stand against the Soviet Empire would soon cause its collapse. Our own media were just as clueless. Indeed, they are still in denial about it. The Soviet collapse solved two problems and created a new one. It ended the Soviet threat and allowed German reunification. The new problem was that these events recast Europe’s balance of power. As was true early in the 20 th century, Germany became too strong to control and was highly unpredictable. France, of course, had always been unpredictable. Ever-alert to opportunities to regain their lost status as great powers, both nations saw the Middle East as a new base for military alliance and economic advantage. France, Germany, and Russia began to supply weapons to Iraq and other Arab countries that craved military power. Ties with Israel weakened as a new power alliance was formed between Europe and the Arab world. With this new alliance simmering beneath the surface, Al Qaeda launched its shocking attack on the United States on September 11, 2001. I am not alone in thinking that Osama bin Laden wanted to see if George W. Bush had (as Don Corleone would say) “real coglione”. Had Mr. Bush (and the USA) stayed curled in the fetal position after this fearsome “kick”, the European powers would not have shown their hand. The new alliance would have remained hidden. But “W” blew the cover off by taking on Al Qaeda and Iraq. (Ooh, how Europe hates cowboys.) Nor would he back off when the European powers expressed their disapproval and tried to influence our presidential election. Ultimately, the extent of French and German involvement with Iraq was exposed, showing that John Kerry was blowing smoke when he claimed he could get those countries to help pacify Iraq and establish its new government. The long and short of it is that the major continental European powers are now aligned, hip and thigh, with radical, militant Islam. They cannot possibly support Israel. Since we do support Israel and oppose Islamic terrorism, those European powers cannot support us, either. England and other nations have kept free of the Islamic entanglement and remained our allies. In addition, the United Nations is much changed from its original composition and purpose, as I described in an earlier article (1). Consisting of only 51 nations at its founding, the UN now has 191 signatory nations – some as small as the Principality of Monaco (population 32,270). Many of these new members are hostile toward the United States and Israel. From 1955 to 1992, the UN passed sixty-five resolutions against Israel. The count has increased since ‘92. The vision of the world’s great powers working together to maintain peace has been warped beyond recall. The anti-Israel, anti-USA slant of the major US media is harder to grasp. I don’t fully understand it, but I believe it is informed by the media’s strong left-liberal bias. Surveys for a decade or more have shown that media reporters and commentators lean heavily Democrat. Some 93% of them voted for Mr. Kerry. Since liberal, postmodern doctrine now sympathizes with Palestine and Islamic terrorism, this could explain the media’s anti-Israel posture. It might explain the media’s anti-USA posture, too – particularly their obvious antipathy to the war in Iraq, which was initiated by a Republican. I can recall no similar media drumbeat about Mr. Clinton’s various military excursions – bombing aspirin factories, invading Haiti, etc. Had a Democratic president started the current war – as was true for all of our 20 th century wars – the media might well be supporting it and cheering their guy on. Maybe it’s just “the party, stupid”. Finally, the media are always suckers for good copy. With his funky headgear, military fatigues, and pistol strapped to his hip, Yasser Arafat seemed the epitome of a freedom-fighter. He looked like a man of action, and the media ate it up. Somehow, though, they had amnesia about all the young men who blew themselves up, taking thousands of innocent men, women, and children with them. Good copy or not, the guy was a thug. Time we admitted it. GW he wasn’t. However the media tallied things up, they gave Yasser good press for his last public ride. As Shakespeare said (in another context), “Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it…” (2) ******* (1) “UN out of Control”, 14 October 2004; ( http://www.ahherald.com/atlarge/2004/041014_un_control.htm) (2) MacBeth, Act I, Scene 4.
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