Superman of the Holocaust
In the Revolution of Nihilism, Herman Raushning makes chilling revelations about the rise of fascism with Hitler at the helm. With a bloated megalomaniac fascist like Narendra Modi muscle-flexing his way into the faction-ridden BJP’s incomplete dream sequence, here is an extract from the book which might appear relevant in the current morally corrupt and politically/ethically disintegrating social fabric of contemporary India. The arrival of the manufactured Superman is as much a myth as a reality in the broken times of a broken democracy, stagnating and rotting to its threshold. Here’s what Raushning wrote:
“…And the question becomes more and more insistent, how long can a State, a nation, a society, endure a governing elite devoid of all principle, without disintegrating? ...Error or deliberate deception? Which was it? Was the National Socialist Party in doubt as to its own real character; did it genuinely regard itself as a movement of national rebirth, or did it cleverly and deliberately adopt that disguise in order to attain power? Undoubtedly, both the one and the other… Hitler himself pursued carefully calculated tactics: he damped down the Socialist tendencies in the movement and brought the Nationalist ones into the foreground. He was out to gain powerful patrons and friends who could help the movement into power… …It was precisely at this point that Hitler showed his real superiority over his elite: at the right moment he took a course which was extremely awkward for him and an extremely unpopular one, but which alone led along the road to power — the camouflage of the “dynamic” revolution as a movement of national renewal. He put up with the dissatisfaction and disgust of his elite, and allowed them to abuse him for his “inadequacy” as an “advocate,” and for his supposed idea that he could attain power by means of speeches and parades, threats and extortion, and secret deals with bankers and soldiers, industrialists and agrarians…”
Before the Second World War, entire Europe and the US (In India, did Gandhi oppose Hitler, really?) watched tacitly and without discomfort (almost similar to what they did for such a prolonged period as the ethnic cleansing and massacres continued in Kosovo and Bosnia etc, in recent times), even as the Holocaust continued unabated and the concentration camps flourished in Poland and beyond, becoming living tales of unprecedented brutality, genocide, mass rape, and the everyday living hell of fear, dying and death, inside packed trains like cattle, on execution grounds, digging their own graves, with children pushed into furnaces, their skin turned into soap and shampoo, the old and disabled dumped into gas chambers, and the emaciated men into hard labour camps, and young women compelled to prostitute and strip for German officers outside the concentration camps.
The whole world watched, especially Europe and the US, and not a finger was lifted, till the time Poland was invaded. By that time, millions of Jews had been eliminated and dehumanised across the ravaged landscape, even while the rich Jews bought their freedom, and the richest businessmen and multinationals chose to align with Hitler.
Between human blood flowing on the streets and capital in the cash registers, the only threat that is united here is the nostalgia of Hitler as a Superman
Not difficult to see the similarities in a neo-liberal country completely weakened by the decline of its own moral compass, the cathartic, cash rich gladiators riding on mass frenzy as in IPL, the decline of a strong, visionary, honest, respected leadership, the crumbling of the State into a pro-rich and anti-poor organism, as vicious and insensitive as a draconian law being pushed down our throats. So there we have, a genocide forgotten, and the Superman at the helm of the genocide, backed by his octopus-like joint family, his Sangh Parivar, his cadre, sections of the middle-class and media, and, of course, the corporates who want him to be the next prime minister.
Between human blood flowing on the streets and capital in the cash registers, the only threat that is united here is the nostalgia of Hitler as a Superman. No problems, if he has walked upon the graves of thousands, burnt, raped and hacked bodies, dismantled tens of thousands and little children into filthy, hungry camps, deliberately blocked the process of justice, targeted one community of Indians and condemned and exiled them in their own country and land, and of course, tacitly celebrated the doings of his own home ministers, and top cops, during the carnage, and later, in the multiple fake encounters in Gujarat.
Oh, what a lovely track record to boast off, and how shining this India is for the corporates of this democracy, all so proud of their Bharat Mata. Truly, it reflects the original ‘patriotic’ and ‘nationalist’ character of the RSS and the BJP, as it does of the big business, their hearts cold like a frozen memorial outside a concentration camp.
