By Edward Maxwell III
In Part II of this series, we looked at Maistre's “Generative Principle of Political Constitutions.” In Part III, we fast-forward to the 20th century, and examine the regime that forms the anti-foundation of our world.
Ours is an age of darkness. It besets us on all sides. Everywhere one turns, things threaten to fall apart; the center cannot hold. On this much we may all agree, whether liberal or illiberal. That is, unless you are Steven Pinker, which, thank Christ, you are not.
Our civilizational mythos tells us that the darkest point was some time in the early 1940s. We seem fascinated by it, again, liberal or not, whether out of enchantment or of horror—we cannot look away. If Maistre is right, this may prove our undoing. In this midnight hour, a man plunged himself, like Aeneas bound for Avernus, into the darkness. The descent is easy; the real work is getting back out.
Lothrop Stoddard: Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today (1940)
Stoddard is probably lesser known even than Filmer or Maistre, but was still prominent enough in his day to have worked his way into The Great Gatsby. A Harvard doctor, lawyer, historian, Klansman, and rabid eugenicist, his testimony before the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization led to the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, basically the alt-right's wet dream. In the 1930s, Stoddard's books were standard reading at military colleges such as the Army War College, the Navy War College, and the Army Industrial College, where he regularly lectured. At the end of the 1930s, he journeyed into the Third Reich, his views being seen as sympathetic enough to gain him unusual access to the people and institutions of wartime Germany. The result of this journey was his book Into the Darkness.
We are no less a theocracy today than any civilization ever has been. And our mythos today is that WWII was a titanic struggle between the forces of good and the forces of evil, the former triumphing over the latter forever. But also, Nazism threatens to rear its satanic head at every turn, but Nazis are both evil and stupid, but we cannot be too vigilant against this formidable foe, and so on it goes. In any case, it is obvious to everyone with even a basic familiarity that Nazi Germany presents several exegetical problems: a) how can the economic miracle be explained? b) how can the nation of Schiller, Hegel, Goethe, etc. have all decided to become barbarians at once? c) does it not seem even just a little bit coincidental that the greatest evil in history by far just happens to be within living memory?
It would be an interesting experiment to view Nazi Germany as we might view say, the Mongol invasions—with some historical detachment. That is of course impossible; one always has an ideology. While anyone claiming not to have an ideology is not to be trusted, the best thing we can do is to try earnestly to examine things in the light of multiple ideologies.
The great value of Stoddard's book—more than that it is a primary source offering unprecedented access, that Stoddard himself was so formidably learned, that his journalism makes today's look like a middle school book report—is that it is a first-hand account of Nazi Germany not colored by hostile ideology. And yet this is no puff piece. Stoddard is not afraid to paint particular people unflatteringly, describing a regional party leader as “a distinctly sinister-looking type; hard-faced, with a cruel eye and a still crueler mouth. A sadist, if ever I saw one.”[1] Alyssa Milano's estrogen-fueled jeremiads are rarely so scathing. Stoddard also point-blank asks the clerical President of Slovakia about “reports that Slovakia is merely a puppet state of the Reich.”[2] He is not here to fellate anyone, nor is he under any illusions that he is going to get the full story, even in the strictest off-the-record comments. He is well aware of the rigorous sanitation process through which journalistic statements go before leaving wartime Germany and the sort of trouble into which one can get for displeasing the government—he details them for the reader. Summarizing the foreign journalist's situation:
“There are quite a few locked doors, and he had best not try and open them. But at least he knows where he stands, and the rules of the game are made clear to him.”[3]
Read the entire article at ZerothPosition.com
References
- Stoddard, Lothrop (1940). Into the Darkness: Nazi Germany Today. Duell, Sloan & Pearce, Inc. p. 56.
- Ibid., p. 82.
- Ibid., p. 46.
- Ibid., p. 70.
- Ibid., p. 264.
- Ibid., p. 65.
- Ibid., p. 35.
- Ibid., p. 286.
- Ibid., p. 258.
- Ibid., p. 68–9.
- Ibid., p. 77.
- Maxwell III, Edward (2020, Jul. 16). “Tyranny and the Modern State Cult”. The American Sun.
- Stoddard, p. 268.