09 November 2013, 03:59 PM IST
Seventy-five years to the day, the Nazi regime bared its anti-Semitic fangs with a ferocity that appalled and outraged even those who took a benign view of Adolf Hitler and believed that they could do business with him. They had paid scant attention to his rants against liberals, Leftists, moderate Christians, homosexuals and especially Jews before he rode to power in 1933. His speeches, delivered with mesmerising, oratorical flourishes, were widely reported in the press both in Germany and abroad.
That sort of coverage encouraged him to project his image as a leader who would rid his country of venal politicians and artists and thinkers with a modern, secular and cosmopolitan outlook. The former, he argued, were responsible, along with Jewish businessmen, for Germany's economic mess. And the latter threatened to emasculate Germany's nationalism and its 'authentic' culture. The Germans, he emphasized time and again, had to sacrifice their individual freedoms to emerge as a united people who put the nation's interest above all else under his firm, determined, even ruthless leadership.
The effects of such leadership were evident in the very first year of the Nazi regime. Jews were summarily dismissed from the positions they held in the press, radio, theatre, cinema and in schools and universities. A year later, they were eliminated from the stock exchanges. On 15 September 1935, the regime promulgated the infamous Nuremberg laws which stripped Jews of German citizenship and relegated them to the status of subjects.
Thirteen decrees that followed to supplement the laws completely banned Jews from public and private employment. By 1938 they could no longer practice the professions of law and medicine or engage in any kind of business. This was not all. Signs of the social boycott of Jews mushroomed in cities, towns and even hamlets across the Reich.
Such was the background of the fateful events on 9-10 November 1938. The immediate provocation for them was a fatal attack on a German diplomat stationed in Paris by a 17-year-old German Jewish refugee. He sought to avenge the deportation of his father, along with ten thousand Jews, to Poland and the Nazi regime's treatment of Jews. No sooner had the news reached Berlin than Hitler ordered his propaganda chief, Dr. Goebbels, to organize "spontaneous" demonstrations by the "German people" as a "natural reaction" to the diplomat's murder.
On 9-10 November Nazi goons went on a rampage the like of which had never been witnessed before even as the police and para-troopers looked the other way. Hundreds of synagogues were set aflame. Thousands of Jewish shops were looted and gutted. The shattered remains of their glass fronts littered the streets for days on end. The number of Jewish homes that were torched or destroyed also ran into the thousands. Their occupants – men, women and children – were shot to death as they sought to flee the inferno. More than 20,000 Jews were arrested and dispatched to concentration camps.
Civil courts were asked to try the Nazi goons who faced charges of murdering Jews. There were no convictions. The courts accepted the argument that the murderers could not be punished since they had merely carried out orders from above. The one who forcefully made that argument – a certain Major Buch – was candid enough to say: "The public, down to the last man, realizes that political drives like those of November 9 were organized and directed by the Party, whether this is admitted or not."
To add insult to injury, not only were the Jews who survived the barbaric attacks provided with no relief or rehabilitation, but they were compelled to pay for the loss of their own property. Indeed, as a form of punishment, a collective fine of one billion marks was imposed on them. And the state went ahead to confiscate the compensation they would receive from insurance companies.
This, then, was the prelude to the systematic liquidation of six million Jews and the uprooting of millions more. The chilling scenes of 9-10 November 1938 shocked political leaders and opinion-makers throughout those parts of the world that weren't enslaved by fascism. Some had premonitions of the horrors to come earlier that year. One of them was Indira Gandhi. Writing to her father from England in September, she said she found the European situation "perfectly sickening", expressed her concerns about Neville Chamberlain flying to Munich to cut a deal with Hitler, and praised him for his decision to visit Spain as a show of solidarity with the Republicans. The father whole-heartedly endorsed these comments.
The utterances of Mahatma Gandhi on the evils perpetrated by the Nazi regime are well documented. So are the views of the Indian National Congress. The resolutions of the party, drafted by Jawaharlal Nehru, leave not an iota of doubt about its uncompromising stand against fascism and militarism of all hues: German, Italian and Japanese.
But there were other voices that were heard in India at that time. Here is what one influential leader had to say in 1938: "German pride has now become the topic of the day. To keep up the purity of the Race and its culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic Races- the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here. Germany has also shown how well nigh it is for races and cultures, having differences going to the root, to be assimilated into one united whole, a good lesson for us in Hindusthan to learn and profit by." The author of these lines was MS Golwalkar who, two years later, would head the RSS.
Consider what was heard in Germany then – the talk of a "spontaneous reaction to an action", the plea for "unity", the call to "put the nation first", the rants against venal politicians and against "Jew-loving artists and intellectuals", the yearning for a "strong and decisive leader." Consider next what has been heard in India in the light of the Godhra and post-Godhra incidents and during the campaign speeches for the forthcoming state and national elections, especially by an RSS-nurtured figure aspiring to lead India on the strength of his messianic conceits. The coincidence could well be fortuitous. But it still sends a chill down the spine.
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