Germany – how to deal with the ongoing process of forced conformity?

Almost 200 years ago, Georg Büchner wrote his historical drama “Danton’s Death”. Danton initially was a radical but later became an increasingly sceptical champion of the French Revolution. One of the final scenes – at the public execution of Danton and his comrades in early April 1794 – depicts a “people” cheering the beheadings and speaking contemptuously of those doomed to die. The bloodlust of the even more radical Jacobins led by Robespierre – Danton’s adversary – had not alleviated the people’s suffering; on the contrary. And yet the cheering! – Or perhaps precisely because of that?
    Just a few weeks later – though Büchner’s drama makes no mention of this – the very same people would cheer the execution of the radical Jacobins including Robespierre just as loudly. Büchner had one of Danton’s comrades say: “You are killing us on the day you have lost your reason; you will kill them [Robespierre and his comrades] on the day you regain it.” Would Büchner have agreed with this judgement? Was it “reasonable” to then execute Robespierre and his closest comrades in July 1794? What followed (the Directoire and then Napoleon’s autocracy) was hardly humanitarian either.
    Did Büchner wish to criticise the people? That is hardly likely – after all, it was the same writer who penned the famous call: “Peace to the huts! War on the palaces!” Büchner suffered alongside the people.
    Perhaps he felt much as Alfred Adler, the founder of individual psychology, did almost 100 years later. During the First World War, too, many people became brutalised; nations went to war and slaughtered each other. In 1919, Adler wrote regarding his own people¹:

“Daily, these people were subjected in their schools to lectures on their obligation to honor the ruling house. Distorted history boasts of bellicose glory of the fatherland […]. Incessant eloquent sermons pour from thousands of pulpits preaching the exhilaration of servitude and slavish obedience. Every seat of learning teaches the student the art of subservience. Boredom hovers over peace organizations and there is no one, no popular movement, that organizes against this trend. Newspapers and periodicals, politicians and parties seek the favor of the ruling powers. […] It took decades for the nation to be trained in weakness and obedience to authority and for the people to forfeit their self-respect. Then came war and no one knew from where. According to tried military tactics, the authorities kept the people in the dark. Lacking all ties of mutual trust and a strong, developed sense of community, these people, who were kept in the dark, were incapable of any open resistance.”

What happened instead:
    “They [the people] made virtue out of a necessity! In this chaos they seized at the call to arms that went out from the general staff and, reluctantly, they staggered to wherever the orders sent them. Suddenly, it seemed to them as if they themselves had uttered the call. It eased their soul. They had found a sought-after escape route. They no longer were the whipped dogs who against their will were being sacrificed to face the hail of bullets. No, they were heroes, the defenders of the fatherland and their honor! After all, they had made the call themselves and it is they who went out into a holy war as defenders of justice. Whatever might have prevented them as individuals from shedding the blood of brothers or to act against the sacred prohibition of murder disappeared in a rapture of having regained a feeling about themselves, and a newly found sense of irresponsibility that accompanies any mass movement. With this inner liberation from a feeling of the deepest humiliation and degradation, in this convulsive effort to find themselves, they timidly escaped seeing themselves as poor victims of power- lusting strangers and preferred to dream of having freely chosen to do heroic deeds.”

But Adler does not hold the people guilty.
    “No! Whoever dwelled among these people will find them not guilty. They had no voice, no guidelines, and no leader. It was dragged to the slaughter, shoved, and driven. No one told them the truth. The writers and journalists were either under a spell or in the pay of the military. From shame for having been dishonored, people tried to save themselves by serving under the banner of their oppressors.”

I find Alfred Adler’s text from 1919 highly topical. Hence the extensive quotations. A basis for discussion whose significance can scarcely be overestimated, even when it comes to our present day. A remedy for the helplessness in the face of developments in our Western countries, especially in Germany.
    One example:
    On 12 May, the German website NachDenkSeiten published a comprehensive, highly readable article entitled “EU sanctions against journalists: Alarming silence and active turning away by civil society”.² The author wrote to many German and international organisations and institutions concerned with fundamental and human rights, and in particular with freedom of expression and freedom of the press, asking for a statement on the current EU sanctions against citizens of Germany and Switzerland such as Jacques Baud and Hüseyin Doǧru. Citizens questioning EU and German war propaganda, daring to have differing opinions. And they do so with sound reasoning and evidence to back it up. Mind you: the sanctions radically restrict, amongst other things, freedom of movement, freedom of occupation and property rights; the intention is to make a normal life impossible. Without due process under the rule of law. Without a comprehensible charge, without a fair trial, without the right for defence. Downright Kafkaesque! A glaring violation of fundamental and human rights. If things were still above board in our countries, there would have to be a huge outcry of dissent and protest.
    The result of the request for comments, however, was devastating. Reporters Without Borders, the German Union of Journalists and the German Journalists’ Association responded evasively or acted as mouthpieces for the EU and the German government. Other organisations directly concerned with press freedom, such as the Federal Association of Digital Publishers and Newspaper Publishers (BDZV), the Media Association of the Free Press (MVFP), the German Press Council and the Federal Press Conference, did not respond at all. The same applied to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the Council of Europe, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, the Social Association of Germany, the German Trade Union Confederation (DGB), the German Bishops’ Conference, the Evangelical Church in Germany, the Central Council of Muslims in Germany, the Christian Democratic Union of Germany (CDU), the Christian Social Union in Bavaria (CSU), the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), Alliance 90/The Greens, The Left, the Free Democratic Party (FDP), Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier … A constitutional law professor from Austria who was contacted justified the EU and German policy. Only the AfD and the BSW expressed serious concern for democracy and freedom in Germany (and the EU).
    Now I must add: the organisations and institutions addressed are not the “people” of whom Georg Büchner and Alfred Adler wrote. But there are many organisations and institutions among them from which the “people” generally expect expert knowledge and a reasoned opinion, and which they can look to for guidance in forming their own views. Is not Amnesty International the guardian of human rights? Are not the Christian churches responsible for questions of morality and ethics? Are not professors of constitutional law responsible for determining what is right and what is wrong … Where is the people to turn when all the important and influential organisations and institutions fail?
    The National Socialists had brought all major organisations and institutions into line and declared the “people” to be a “mass” devoid of individuals with dignity, which they called the “people’s community”: “You are nothing, your people is everything.” “One people, one Reich, one Führer.” “Führer, command! We follow you!” … History does not repeat itself – but inhuman structures, attitudes and patterns of behaviour can return. And the danger grows all the greater the more a country’s politics – including Germany’s – opt for a state of war.
    Georg Büchner and Alfred Adler did not condemn the people of the French Revolution and the First World War. Today we should also follow their example in this regard. There is still much to come. Reason and humanity will likely once again be unable to rely on the “people”. We can only live with dignity if we do not become disoriented as a result, if we do not allow ourselves to be misled in our view of humanity.
    PS I must add: Germany and the war-mongering leadership of the EU are not Europe, and certainly not the world. There are institutions and figures in positions of great responsibility there who are putting a stop to the clamour for war. One of them is Pope Leo XIV, the supreme representative of the Roman Catholic Church. In an address to the students and staff of the larges Italian university, “La Sapienza” in Rome, the Pope once again showed himself to be a voice for peace (see box on page 16). His large audience thanked him with a standing ovation. That, too, could provide guidance. •

¹ Adler, Alfred. The other side: A mass-psychological study, in: The Collected Clinical Works of Alfred Adler Vol 4: Journal articles : 1914–1920, The Classical Adlerian Translation Project, Bellingham 2003

²https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=150304