Halting the Snowslide

Posted on February 9, 2020

The events between 1933 and 1945 should have been fought in 1928 at the latest. Later, it was too late. One cannot wait until the freedom fight has been labeled high treason. One cannot wait until the snowball has become a snowslide. One must crush the rolling snowball. The snowslide, no-one is able to halt…

Erich Kästner was a German writer who witnessed the “events between 1933 and 1945” from close by. When he wrote these words, he knew what he was talking about.

History does have lessons for us, only they are seldom heeded. My fear is that the November election will be too late for stopping the avalanche of Trumpism. We are already at the stage that Kästner mentioned where words have lost their usual meanings, the stage where decorated war veterans are called traitors, where war criminals are presented to us as heroes, where collusion is called “perfect”, and where doing one’s civic duty is labeled lack of loyalty. That, it seems to me, is more than a snowball one can easily crush. And who is going to halt the snowslide?