ON ORDERS - by Hugh Murray

ON ORDERS  -  by Hugh Murray

Over the weekend I watched a Netflix disc movie, "Your Unknown Brother," made in 1982 in German.  It was about an anti-Nazi German during the 1930s.  He had been sent to prison for his political activities, but once released in 1936, decided to continue his activities, despite his fear.  I found the movie slow and boring.  In some ways it was more like a theater production than a film with some of the actors’ movements utterly unrealistic, choreographed  like dance.

            Not until the end of the film did I realize it was a DEFA (East German) film.  The main characters portrayed were members of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD), seeking to discredit and overthrow Hitler by placing a red flag atop a factory smokestack, distributing leaflets, and other activities to let others know that there still existed an opposition to the Nazi dictatorship.  The Communists in the film seem to be aware of their ineffectiveness following  three years of Hitler’s domination in Germany.  One of the members of the KPD has even informed to the Gestapo.  The film’s mood shows it was made in the last decade of the DDR, for an earlier film would have depicted the ever correct policy of the Party, and how it sparks some success in persuading Germans to reject Hitler.  By the 1980s, one senses, that the Party was aware that it was not always correct.
            More interesting than the film were the features on the same disc.  One in particular, interviewed a woman who had joined the KPD in the 1920s.  She relates the story of some of her activities.  She lived in a neighborhood in which the Nazis were popular even before Hitler achieved power.  Beginning in the late 1920s, the KPD asked her if some people might stay in her apartment from time to time.  She said yes.  She did not know who the visitors were, and the conversations with them were minimal.  She noted that sometimes they did not even speak German.  But the Party ordered her to do this, so she did.
            In 1933 she was visiting her mother, who asked if she had read the day’s newspaper.  No, not yet.  Her mother showed her, - several Bulgarians had been arrested in connection with the Reichstag fire, treason, (the burning of the German Parliament building led to emergency security measures that soon would transform Hitler from mere Chancellor to dictator).  The woman looked at the newspaper photos of the Bulgarians on page 1.  (One, Georgi Dimitrov, would later head the Comintern).  She told her mother she recognized them as those who were staying at her apartment.  Decades later she peers into the camera to explain – she had no idea who the men were, but the Party ordered me to do it, so I did it.  She may not have known who they were, and it is still disputed as to who fired the Reichstag building, but she was simply following orders.  Party orders.
            After WWII various Germans were tried for war crimes.  Their main excuse was simple – I was simply following orders.  Orders not of a Party, but of the nation and its elected leaders.  Also after WWII there was a famous psychological experiment conducted in the US.  At Yale University students were to use a devise to administer electric shocks to others at the command of a “scientist.”  The student could see the reaction of the human guinea pig, their contorted face, even if they might not hear the shouts of pain.  In reality, the victims were also students pretending to be shocked.  The devises controlled by the student did not sent electricity to the victim area.  On the other side of the glass, the actors only pretended to be victims.  Yet, most students were quite willing to administer what they assumed to be shocks, very painful ones by the expressions of the “victims.”  In liberal, democratic America, enlightened university students (at a time when relatively few attended university), were willing to inflict pain on command of a minor authority figure.
            The results of the Milgram experiment were so disturbing to liberals (who seem to prefer the assumption that only Germans could follow brutal orders to such extremities) that they pressured to psychological association to enact “ethical” rules which would in future prohibit another Milgram experiment.  That is often the liberal approach to science, by the way, when they disapprove of the results of scientific research: forbid the test – be it IQ exams, police promotion exams, firefighters tests, and even future Milgram experiments.  Interestingly, the New York Times published an article on the 50^th anniversary of the Milgram experiment and its importance, and I commented on line that had the “ethical” procedures of today been in effect 50 years prior, there would have been no Milgram experiment, and no New York Times article assessing its importance.  Indeed, had the liberals had the present “ethical” procedures in place decades ago, mankind would have been deprived of the important results of those experiments.  The liberals and their “ethical” concerns are determined to prevent mankind from learning the truth about humanity.
            I did it because I was ordered to – says the Nazi war criminal; says the woman Communist who harbored Dimitrov in Berlin in 1933, perhaps says an American Communist who simply delivered a sealed suitcase containing papers from one apartment to a hotel room (a suitcase that may have contained atomic secrets).  I did it because I was ordered to do so, said many of the American students in the Milgram situation.
            Yet, a child does something because mommy said to do it, no questions asked.  Just do it.  Do like your daddy says.
            We all have done things because we are ordered to do so. We do it to please mom and because we love her and trust her.  We do it for dad for the same reasons.  Should we do things in the same manner for Stalin?  For Hitler?  We may have extremes, with Hitler and Stalin on one side, and parents on the other.
            What about teachers?  Scientific authorities?  (Or seeming scientists, as in the Milgram experiment.  Or even the American TV ad of previous decades, “I’m not a medical doctor, but I play one on television;” he then urges the audience to purchase a brand of headache tablets.
            We cannot survive as total skeptics.  We need to trust.  The question is, whom do we trust?  In what areas of life:  How far should we go:  Should we prepare to execute our child because God has commanded it as He commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac in Genesis?  As a test?  Or should we refuse such a command?  Which commands accept?  Which refuse?  And how much should we calculate the cost of refusing to obey?
            I do not want to excuse, but surely it is “understandable” how a good Communist might seek to rid the earth of Ukrainian kulak vermin; how a good Nazi might seek to purify the earth by eliminating Jewish vermin; how Ruandan Hutus might seek to destroy the Tutsi cockroaches, how in Bosnia…But if they perform such tortures, such executions, such murders, such mass murders, one hopes they are made to pay the price for such atrocities.
            I did it because I was ordered to do so!  Did you approve of the order?  Disapprove?  Neutral?  If you disapproved, did you resist, in part, in full?  What might be the consequences of your failure to perform your duty?  To you?  To your family?  Friends?
            Some of us have been fortunate to have had basically good parents, basically good friends, and to have lived in a nation that is essentially fair and just.  But just view the terrific 2011 South Korean film “My Way” for a glimpse of the horrible choices afforded two talented men born in the 1920s.  One was forced to fight inside two armies in which he did not believe.  The other had to fight in three.  By contrast, we in the West are most fortunate.  And to retain these basically good choices granted to us, we may even have to struggles against those who have been corrupted, distorted, crippled, by their family, friends, party, ideology, or nation.  Sometimes we must join or act alone to insure that right does make might.