Kurt Schumacher About the Nazis, 1932

Kurt Schumacher was a politician in the Social Democratic Party of Germany. He lost his right arm fighting against the Russians in World War One (just to be clear, Russia was an ALLY of Britain and France, and later, the United States, in World War One). Prior to the Nazis coming to power, Schumacher was elected as a delegate to the German Reichstag (parliament) representing the Social Democrats. He detested the communists as much as the fascists, and he said, "communists are red painted fascists" (German: "Kommunisten sind rot angestrichene Faschisten"). Kurt Schumacher died in 1952. A number of German cities have streets and plazas named for Kurt Schumacher, including Berlin, Kiel, Leipzig, Frankfurt am Main and some others.

 

In February 1932, Kurt Schumacher gave a speech in the Reichstag in which indeed he called out the Nazis and he also gave a warning to Germans of what the Nazis were doing. Less than a year later, Hitler was named chancellor of Germany by President Paul von Hindenburg. The "inner scoundrel" of Germany had come to power. AMERICANS, HEED THESE WORDS! : An important quote from Schumacher's speech that day was: "The whole National Socialist agitation is a continuous appeal to the inner scoundrel in people. … If we recognize anything about National Socialism, then it is the fact that for the first time in German politics it (National Socialism/Nazism) has succeeded in the total mobilization of human stupidity." The original German text: "Die ganze nationalsozialistische Agitation ist ein dauernder Appell an den inneren Schweinehund im Menschen. …Wenn wir irgendetwas beim Nationalsozialismus anerkennen, dann ist es die Tatsache, dass ihm zum ersten Mal in der deutschen Politik die restlose Mobilisierung der menschlichen Dummheit gelungen ist."

 

We don't have to agree with everything else, or anything else, for that matter, that Kurt Schumacher believed about the issues of those times, because he got this one essential point right. During World War Two, democracies made an uneasy alliance with Josef Stalin, a ruthless communist dictator. These democracies didn't like him, but the alternative, a possible victory by Hitler and fascism, was even a worse thought. Yes, the end of that war brought direct confrontation with communism in various places around the world that lasted for decades, and it even continues to this day, but the immediate danger of fascist victory subsided, and for a while, we remained vigilant about any fascist revival, especially as more and more information became available about the horrendous crimes of fascism. Also, let's not forget, in the aftermath of World War Two, we took former Nazi scientists to help give us an edge in rocketry, space exploration and in weaponry. Sometimes, being a purist can be hazardous to your health, and at that time, as tainted as these people might have been, we needed them to help us confront the new high-level danger we then faced ... communism. And this is a lesson for us NOW, in our own era of rising fascism; regardless of our political beliefs and opinions, we need to see the overwhelming primary danger, or we will likely lose EVERYTHING, if fascists get a second try at control of the U.S. government. The first time was a trial run, and the "Fascist-in-Chief," Trump, had people storm the Capitol Building to keep him and fascism in power. This is NOT like anything in the past in the U.S. Don't take a lot of comfort in that fascists are not a majority, it doesn't take overwhelming numbers to control a country. Don't forget, William was called "the Conqueror," but he only had something like 20,000 men to control the 2 million people of England. Hitler never won a majority in national elections, even in an election held after he had many opponents locked up and storm troopers were stationed at many polling places not long after he was named chancellor. Let me tell you, those storm troopers weren't there to hand out campaign literature. 

Right wing media, led by Fox News, is the Goebbels-like megaphone blasting out propaganda to appeal to the "inner scoundrel" of Americans in an effort to duplicate the Nazi success at taking over Germany in the 1930s with "the total mobilization of human stupidity," with hatred and viciousness toward their fellow human beings as a part of that stupidity. 

This is a public domain photo from Wikipedia that was taken by a U.S. soldier or employee performing their job at the Nuremberg Trials in the aftermath of World War Two, and it shows Kurt Schumacher as a witness at the Nuremberg Trials. Wikipedia got the photo from the website forum.axishistory.com 

WORD HISTORY:

Asset(s)-This word is related to "saturate," a Latin-derived word, borrowed by English from that language, to "satisfy," another Latin-derived word borrowed by English from Latin-based French, and it is related, through Indo European, to "sad," a word from the Germanic roots of English. It goes back to Indo European "ad," which meant "near, at, by, toward," and this gave Latin "ad," meaning "toward, to." The rest of the word goes back to Indo European "sa(h)," with the notion of "to satisfy, to be full, to be enough." This gave Latin the adjective "satis," with the meaning, "satisfied, enough, filled." The two words together gave Latin the expression "ad satis" meaning "to or toward sufficiency or plenty or having enough." Old French took this as a one word adverbial form, "asez/assez," meaning "enough, sufficiently (in amount)," and this became "asetz/assetz" in the French spoken by the Norman-descendants in England, with noun use as "satisfaction, sufficiency" (used of a person's property "being enough" to satisfy debts or the instructions of a last will). English borrowed the word as "assets" (seems in the 1300s), which many took to be a plural; thus, English speakers created "asset" as the English singular form, but not until about the mid 1800s. It was seemingly initially used in the legalistic sense of possessions being enough to pay off debts, often, but not always, of a deceased person. This led in the mid 1500s to the broader meaning "property, possession" that could be sold to convert it to a monetary amount. A combination of the meanings (sort of) may have led to the accounting idea of balancing debts with assets to determine whether a person or company had a positive or a negative financial value.