A RELEVANT DIGRESSION: Before discussing this image, a restatement about my priorities:

As a self-identified historian, I am attracted to ‘grand’ themes, which often animate my posts for this blog. I fear this may sometimes seem pretentious (or grandiloquent), but please bear in mind the scope and gravity of some of my topics.

For example, many of my posts target Nazism, not just for its abominable crimes, but in shuddering revulsion at one of its root philosophies: It avidly asserted that human beings should adopt the kill-or-be-killed behavior of wild animals, claiming that Nature teaches that only the strong survive and that they have the right to prey on the weak – and Aryan Germans, of course, were ‘strong.’ This premise was not just the private fantasy of Nazi fanatics; it became state doctrine, part of schools’ curricula, and was promoted in official propaganda.

Far from encouraging rising above our bestial impulses as Western civilization had long done, Nazism treated imperatives, embedded in both Judeo-Christian ethics and Humanism, for compassion, empathy, moderation etc., as foul weaknesses to be replaced with nobler qualities; like lethal vainglory, utter ferocity and ruthless self-interest. The Law of the Jungle, Enthroned.

My tirades – jeremiads – about Hitler et al are not pretentious, in that my outrage is no pretense; I am deadly serious about the peril that he and his message of Satanic intemperance were, and still are. So I try to write urgent, bitter lessons of how monstrous phenomena like his worldview can seize control of human affairs.

If my words sometimes seem overheated, it is because I feel Hitlerism (or any win-no-matter-how mindset) remains a danger, and demands exposure as extreme as its potential harm and inherent depravity. And if believing we should follow the example of vicious, mindless animals isn’t depraved, I dare not imagine what is.

I understand most people are absorbed in the challenges of their own lives and cannot dwell on abstract menaces beyond them. But reminding, and warning about these, then become the tasks of people like me, who seem more inclined to brood upon ‘abstract menaces.’  

For we should not assume that Hitlerism, or anything akin to it, could never ‘seize control of human affairs’ again. In my view, every time anyone today doesn’t recognize (or care about) the dangers of glorifying triumph, criminal pride and callousness, if those serve their personal interests, they are blowing life onto the smoldering embers of the Nazi enterprise: Exalting in aggression more fit for brutes than for men and women.

And thus, they help keep that mindset abroad, like an evil spirit. Anyone – not just mad tyrants, but Wall Street wolves, law-scorning managers, salesmen pushing unsafe used cars for commissions, etc. – who believes it is a winner’s virtue to ignore all rules in order to win (or to not lose) is effectively a spiritual heir to Adolf Hitler. Whether they recognize/admit it, or not; if not his willing accomplices, his negligent accessories.

(I exclude those who bend rules in desperation just to survive, while regretting they must do so. I condemn only those who do so to flourish, perversely proud of their lack of conscience. Nor do I suggest that every instance, from mad tyrant to shifty used-car salesman, is equivalent. Some obviously cause far more damage than others, but no such deed is ‘harmless,’ because it helps perpetuate a loathsome attitude.)

So while some of my fellow Americans might be aghast if I claim there is similarity between the ravings of a psychotic dictator and our culture’s near deification of business success, to me, ‘Sieg, Heil’ (Victory, Hail) and our football motto, ‘Winning isn’t everything; it’s the Only thing,’ feel far too close for comfort, in spirit. It is not a huge stretch from that motto, writ large, to the Nazi belief that nothing matters but prevailing, by any means whatsoever. And thus, there are revered predators all over our economy: ‘Victory, Hail!’

The sentiment beneath, ‘Winning – is the only thing’ may not be a roaring fire, but it whiffs of those ‘smoldering embers.’ It would be better if those were smothered once and for all, rather than being revived/recycled by every soulless lout who can conceive of no reason to care about any welfare but his own. And who may even expect to be honored for doing so.

I don’t imagine that self-interest will miraculously vanish, nor should it. Properly used, it is natural, rightful, and a force for improvement; and certainly, I have my own. But if it gets glorified as the highest possible aspiration, Nazism grimly demonstrated where it may lead.

I hope this helps explain why I keep harping on Nazism; I fear the spark of its outlook is still far from extinguished. I sometimes write and advocate about other matters, but never with such unapologetic fervor as for this one.

And now for this image of the Tiergarten park in Berlin, depicting a truly ‘grand theme’; the Edenic enfolding of Nature, offering better lessons about peace, vitality and continuity than any words of mine ever could.

Berlin’s main central green space is called the ‘Tiergarten,’ literally the ‘Beast Garden’ – also a commonly-used German word for a ‘Zoo.’ As often happens in cities that originated in eras that had formal ruling classes, this park was once a wooded hunting preserve of those rulers (here, the Electors of Brandenburg).  They hunted “beasts” like stag, boar, etc., in this space, which still appears to be densely wooded, along with retaining its traditional name.  We roamed around in the park, and I was surprised at how extensive the tree cover was.  Unlike, say, carefully designed Central Park in Manhattan, other than the paved foot paths, the part of the Tiergarten we saw felt a great deal like untouched woodland.  And that is probably deliberate; Germans still have an exceptional affinity to Nature, from their ancient heritage as a forest people. Thus, it must have felt appropriate to leave a great patch of woods in as close to their primal condition as possible, in the center of a vast urban mass like Berlin. 

Many, if not all, of the trees shown here must be replants; most of the ones in this space previously were ruined or cut down, splintered when the Russians fought their way into town in 1945, or burned as fuel by Berliners during and after World War 2, when normal power service got bombed to a standstill. 

Parks are meant to be places of tranquility and self-restoration – ‘re-creation’ – and the Tiergarten seemed to serve that purpose admirably.  It has been replanted and revived as a soothing environment; somehow poignant, given the man-made calamities that once churned through it. Now the madness of men is displaced here by the reassuring constancy and resilience of Nature displaying its benevolence – which the Nazis disregarded in favor of their kill joyously-or-be killed interpretation of it, and which they sought to impose on humanity – reversing our evolutionary ascent to become masters of our passions. Rather than their slaves.