In 1933, financed by wealthy titans of industry, Germany lost its fragile democracy to the egocentric Adolf Hitler. Hitler promised “Germany to become great again” and “to last more than 1,000 years.” Germany’s constitution was replaced by allegiance to Hitler. He outlawed competitive political parties. He upgraded and greatly strengthened Germany’s military. He groomed the military leaders with lavish praise and “iron crosses.”
Germany’s economy improved. Hitler and his Nazi party grew in popularity. German citizenry accepted, tolerated and ignored the path it was being conditioned to follow with the use of propaganda.
Those who spoke out against Nazism were eliminated. He stole from and brutalized Germany’s minority ethnic citizens. He established concentration camps with a final solution to wipe out those who didn’t fit his delusion of a master race. The physically and mentally challenged were eliminated. Treaties of past were canceled or ignored. His dealings with other nations were fraught with self-serving rhetoric and egocentric inflexibility.
In 1939 with a military pledged to Hitler and a population conditioned by propaganda, the world was plunged into the second world war.
Our founding fathers gave the United States our Constitution. This nation has ever since struggled to fulfill its promise outlined in the preamble, “in order to form a more perfect union”. The oath that binds all who take it is found in paragraph three of Article VI. It is not to the lobbyist, it is not to the campaign contributor, it is not to this or that political party, it is not to the private contractor employed by the government, and it is not to any high office holder. It is to the Constitution of the United States and the nation it serves.
The ending of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address may be applied to today: “That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
There is a reasonable expectation that those taking the oath of office will honestly endeavor to abide by it.
Paul Kimball
Park City