Looking through an expert's prism on US. - Germany parallels

Hugh Trevor-Roper

Carol Forsloff - Trevor Roper, the British historian of Adolph Hitler, spoke at the University of Washington of parallels between Germany and the United States and the risks from their histories that mirror news today.

It was a different time, when Roper spoke.  It was early 1965.  The Civil Rights Act of 1964 had been passed.  John F. Kennedy's death, howeverfresh, had been absorbed, the grief had passed, the country had moved on.  It was a time of optimism mostly, with a belief in the power to change and with a relatively new President Johnson promising to eradicate poverty and racism along with it.  Women gained new opportunities. American looked ahead.  The War in Vietnam was debated, but the country believed it would be over in time and folks would carry on.

These days the conflicts in the press reveal great political divisions,
issues so greatly espoused that it is debated by experts whether people
will even read or listen to another view.

It is a time when the President of the United States Barack Obama has been compared to Hitler; some associate Hitler with the last President of the United States,George Bush,  by those whose agendas are different and who may or may not understand the specifics of German and American history as Roper knew so well.

And the fear for the future, if all things happened in the right way, according to Roper, was from the right, with the values that reflect where that place is on today's spectrum of political and social concerrns.

Roper was considered the foremost authority on the life of Adolph
Hitler at the time he spoke at the University of Washington, as he had tracked the rise and fall of the dictator in the context of Germany and the history of the world.  He knew beyond the superficial the risks that had occurred in Germany and what America could face without its people using reason and commitment to rise above the foolish and the vain.  He was an admirer of the works of Locke and Rousseau.

In the context of his work,Roper is considered to be by his  peers to be right of center on his political views,significantly anti-Communist at the time of his flowering as a historian, and someone who brought to bear a broad spectrum from the social sciences to support his views.  He was not without controversy
either, having at one time authenticated the Hitler diaries and then withdrew his support.  But his knowledge of Hitler's last days has been accepted by others as substantial enough for realistic discussion, as he is considered an authoritative source of that period.

At the time of Roper's presentation at the University of Washington,  a
reporter was yet somewhat a girl, naively, blithely believing in the best.  As years have passed the reporter has turned gray, the words, the message fresh as it was heard.

Roper said this, as I paraphrased it in notes at the time, as he made the parallels about the United States and Germany and whether America could experience the trauma of Germany and the dissolution of its democratic ways.

"Germany and the United States were both expanded through violence,
through the submission of minorities to the will of the richer and more
powerful groups, " Roper said, outlining his first comparison.  "Both
worship the gun and uniforms.  Both have had a history of admiration and
glorification of war and the military.  Both are democratic countries,
with highly literate populations and Christian majorities.  Both believe
they are superior to others."

What might happen that could catapult the United States into a cauldron
where untruths could surface, where idle stories would become
pronounced, where liberty would become license and lies transformed to
false realities while people marched along?  Roper was asked by that
young journalist, who stood and trembled with the question from the
floor.

This is what Roper said, in words that journalist remembers, on pieces of paper scratched and soiled and barely readable now.

"It would take a time of great strife, an economic devastation not
unlike Germany had before World War II,"  Roper explained.   His words
are paraphrased as these:   "From that problem people could become
chaotic and fix on leaders, empty promises and lose trust.  They would
respond to slogans, paranoia, parades that could grow to mobs."


Roper's warning recalled from those decades when America held such
promise for its young, is brought forward as context for the news today.  ISIS is the terror of the moment, as the Republicans have now gained control of both houses of Congress as well as dominance of the Supreme Court.  

The election of 2016 will determine whether all the elements of Roper's conditions are met and if indeed the United States could face a right-wing thrust that would make it the inheritor of the type of mantle it once fought valiantly against.