- 3 months ago
Disaster Transbian episode 23
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00:00Help the party! Help the party!
00:02Help the party!
00:04Help the party!
00:06Help the party!
00:08Help the party!
00:10Your paper and your party are pure crap, sir!
00:13What did you say?
00:15I said, this is loud as shit!
00:18And so are you!
00:20You're a crazy foreigner!
00:22I'm sorry!
00:32Don't do it!
00:34Please go!
00:50On the night of my mother's birthday, it was November, the eve of November the 10th,
01:09and my brother and I were very excited about my mother's birthday coming up,
01:14and we went to sleep in our bedroom,
01:17and I think it must have been maybe 11 or maybe a little bit later than 11 o'clock at night.
01:23All of a sudden, some bricks and rocks were being thrown through our window,
01:30and my brother was always braver than me.
01:34He was a year younger, but he was braver, and I was hiding under the blanket,
01:39and he went to the window to check to see what was going on,
01:43and he told me that it was the people in our neighbors,
01:49the people of our town were throwing the bricks and rocks through the window.
01:53And he also told me that the civil policeman in our town was standing on the edge of the crowd,
02:03and he didn't do anything about it.
02:07The death of Ernst von Roth.
02:10Ernst von Roth died of his wounds on November 9th, 1938.
02:15Word of his death reached Hitler that evening while he was with several key members of the Nazi party
02:23at a dinner commemorating the 1923 Beer Hall push.
02:27Adolf Hitler, the leader of the new National Socialist Party.
02:32In Munich, the capital of Bavaria, they decided to try and overthrow the government.
02:37But Hitler's stormtroopers were not yet powerful enough and couldn't get the support of the army or the police.
02:45Their November uprising failed and merely ended in confusion and 14 deaths.
02:55Ludendorff and Hitler were put on trial for treason.
02:59Ludendorff was let off.
03:01Hitler was sent to prison, where he brooded on his failure for a few months in rather comfortable surroundings.
03:08After intense discussions, Hitler left the assembly abruptly without giving his usual address.
03:20Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels delivered the speech in his place and said that the Führer has decided
03:28that demonstrations should not be prepared or organized by the party insofar as they erupt spontaneously.
03:37They are not to be hampered.
03:40The chief party judge, Walter Bush, later stated that the message was clear.
03:45With these words, Goebbels had commanded the party leaders to organize a pogrom.
03:52Some leading party officials disagreed with Goebbels' actions, fearing the diplomatic crisis it would provoke.
04:00Heinrich Himmler wrote,
04:02I suppose that is Goebbels' megalomania and stupidity which is responsible for starting this operation now in a particularly difficult diplomatic situation.
04:15The Israeli historian Saul Friedlander believed that Goebbels had personal reasons for wanting to bring about Kristallnacht.
04:24Goebbels had recently suffered humiliation for the ineffectiveness of his propaganda campaign during the Sudeten crisis
04:33and was in some disgrace over an affair with a Czech actress Lida Barova.
04:39Goebbels needed a chance to improve his standing in the eyes of Hitler.
04:44Matt, what's up?
04:46How do you feel about the Holocaust?
04:48Oh, uh, anti.
04:50Anti.
04:51Good call.
04:52That makes sense.
04:53Me too.
04:54That's really the only call with the Holocaust.
04:55Yeah, not a fan.
04:56Have you heard of a fellow, a dude, a chaperino by the name of Reinhard Heydrich?
05:05Reinhard Heydrich?
05:07Reinhard Heydrich.
05:08I don't believe I have.
05:11I mean, in a way, it's like one of those German names where I'm like, if you just said it out loud apropos of nothing,
05:18I'd be like, oh, that's that famous Nazi.
05:20Yeah, I mean, yes, yes, he is a famous Nazi, and you're right.
05:24I think 90% of people hearing that would be like, he probably did some Nazi shit back in the day, right?
05:29Probably some Nazi shit, yeah.
05:30I mean, just judging by the context of the podcast we're on and that very German sounding name.
05:35But no, I don't think I've heard of him.
05:37Well, he's not just, he is a Nazi, but he's also the Nazi.
05:43Oh, good.
05:44Wow.
05:45So here on Behind the Bastards, we pretty much exclusively discuss the worst people in history and their horrible crimes.
05:49Monsters are our business.
05:50Sure.
05:51So you, Sophie, and you, Matt, and also our regular listeners will know what it means when I tell you, this might be the worst person we ever cover.
06:00Oh, great.
06:01What?
06:02Yeah.
06:03Right at us.
06:04Right at us.
06:05Reinhard Heydrich is the man who is the architect of the Holocaust.
06:09Oh, shit.
06:10He is the man who, there were a lot of people who wanted to do a Holocaust.
06:13Yeah.
06:14He is the guy who figured out the nuts and bolts of it.
06:16He was the most passionate about Holocausting and he figured it out.
06:20Yes, absolutely.
06:21He, and he, he found that was the niche he chose within the Nazi system.
06:26Um, and he, he made that be his thing.
06:29And then 11 million people died.
06:31Wow.
06:32Yeah.
06:33Um, he's, he's a pretty bad dude.
06:35So fuck that guy.
06:36Yeah, no, I mean, I'm, I'm anti him.
06:38Yeah.
06:39Yeah.
06:40At 1.20 a.m. on November 10th, 1938.
06:44Reinhard Heydrich sent an urgent secret telegram to the Siekerheitspolizei Security Police, SIPO,
06:52and the Sturm of Thailung, S.A., containing instructions regarding the riots.
06:58This included guidelines for the protection of foreigners and non-Jewish businesses and property.
07:05Police were instructed not to interfere with the riots unless the guidelines were violated.
07:12Police were also instructed to seize Jewish archives from synagogues and community offices
07:20to arrest and detain healthy male Jews who are not too old for eventual transfer to labor concentration camps.
07:30Heinrich Mueller, in a message to S.A. and S.S. commanders, stated the most extreme measures were to be taken against Jewish people.
07:42Beginning on November 9th, the S.A. and Hitler Youth shattered the windows of about 7,500 Jewish stores and businesses,
07:53hence the name Kristallnacht, Kristallnacht, and looted their goods.
07:58Jewish homes were ransacked all throughout Germany.
08:02Although violence against Jews had not been explicitly condoned by the authorities,
08:08there were cases of Jews being beaten or assaulted.
08:12Following the violence, police departments recorded a large number of suicides and rapes.
08:18Donatas S.A. and British police officers
08:21especially in the U.S.
08:22House form electionDirector
08:28O but first do you hear about This was said стать
08:44The rioters destroyed 267 synagogues throughout Germany.
09:14Austria and Sudetenland.
09:18Over 1,400 synagogues and prayer rooms, many Jewish cemeteries, more than 7,000 Jewish shops,
09:26and 29 department stores were damaged and in many cases, destroyed.
09:32More than 30,000 Jewish men were arrested and imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps,
09:39primarily Dachau, Buchenwald, and Sachsenhausen.
09:43The synagogues, some centuries old, were also victims of considerable violence and vandalism,
09:51with the tactics the stormtroopers practiced on these and other sacred sites described
09:57as approaching the ghoulish by the United States consul in Leipzig.
10:03Tombstones were uprooted and graves violated.
10:08Fires were lit and prayer books, scrolls, artwork, and philosophy texts were thrown upon them,
10:16and precious buildings were either burned or smashed until unrecognizable.
10:22Eric Lewis recalls the destruction of the synagogue that a tiny Jewish community had constructed
10:28in a small village only 12 years earlier.
10:31It did not take long before the first heavy gray stones came tumbling down,
10:37and the children of the village amused themselves as they flung stones into the many colored windows.
10:44When the first rays of a cold and pale November sun penetrated the heavy dark clouds,
10:50the little synagogue was but a heap of stone, broken glass, and smashed up woodwork.
10:56The Daily Telegraph correspondent Hugh Green wrote of events in Berlin.
11:02Mob law ruled in Berlin throughout the afternoon and evening,
11:07and hordes of hooligans indulged in an orgy of destruction.
11:12I have seen several anti-Jewish outbreaks in Germany during the last five years,
11:17but never anything as nauseating as this.
11:26I am the second, alone in a faceless crowd.
11:47Alone in a faceless crowd
11:52A human caught in monochrome dreams
11:59I scream to wake up
12:02My voice drowns deep underground
12:10Only the dead can hear me, see me
12:15If you did this thing and said it would be
12:18If a generational person would bear with me
12:2135.000 absolutely, it's not easy to give
12:24You're watching, you're watching
12:26The Alarm, you're watching
12:27You're watching, you're watching
12:30I'm watching, you're watching
12:31And we're watching, you're watching
12:34Only one of those, you don't know how to do it
12:37It's now for 2 or 3, and you're watching
12:39And now hands, you're watching
12:41I'm sorry!
13:11What?
13:11I don't know what I'm doing.
13:41boycott of Pickle, 1933, where our show windows were plastered with Jew, Jew, don't go to
13:51the Jew, and so on and so forth. These are really some of my childhood memories. Family
13:59life was great. Outside the family, it was not so good. You were insulted in the street
14:09many times. You were called dirty Jew, things like that. For several years, I did have Gentile
14:20girlfriends, and of course, under the pressure of the Nazi time, they could no longer associate
14:25with me, and I would not dare associate with them. I was standing on the edge of the crowd,
14:33and he didn't do anything about it. So we became very frightened, and we started to go across
14:45the hall to our parents' bedroom. Now, while we were crossing the hall, our front door is at the end of
14:56the hall. Some of the people had uprooted a telephone pole, and they smashed the front door
15:05down, which was made out of this beautiful colored glass, and they smashed it down, and they came
15:14running through the hallway, and they were running to go upstairs to the second floor. Now, in the
15:20meantime, we went to our parents' bedroom where they were sleeping, and we asked them what's happening,
15:31and again, they didn't want us to worry. They said, well, we don't know what's happening right now,
15:38but for now, we will hide in the attic of our building. We lived on the first floor, and the teacher of our
15:48town lived in that room next to us, and then on the second floor lived the rabbi, and that's what those
15:55townspeople were doing with that telephone pole. They wanted to go through our apartment to get to the
16:03second floor to get to the rabbi, and on the third floor lived a non-Jewish family, and then on the fourth
16:10floor was the attic. So that's what we did. We went up to the attic, and there we met the family of the rabbi
16:24who was already up there. Now, the rabbi wasn't there, and we wanted to know what had happened to him,
16:35and so I looked through this little window of the attic, and I saw the rabbi standing on his
16:44veranda, and there were two, I guess they were SS men. They were holding him by the arm, and another
16:54one came along with some kind of a scissor or implement, I don't remember, and yelled it and cut off his beard.
17:01Racial hatred and hysteria seemed to have taken complete hold of otherwise decent people. I saw
17:08fashionably dressed women clapping their hands and screaming with glee, while respectable middle-class
17:15mothers held their babies to see the fun. Many Berliners were, however, deeply ashamed of the pogrom,
17:23and some took great personal risks to help others to their beleaguered Jewish neighbors. The son of a
17:30U.S. consular official heard the janitor of his block cry, they must have emptied the insane
17:37asylums and penitentiaries to find people who do things like that. KOLD briefly reported on a 2008
17:46remembrance meeting at a local Jewish congregation. According to eyewitness Esther Harris, they ripped
17:53up the belongings, the books, knocked over furniture, shouted obscenities. Historian Gerhard Feinberg is
18:01quoted as saying, houses of worship burned down, vandalized, in every community in the country where
18:07people either participate or watch. The former German Kaiser Wilhelm II commented, for the first time,
18:16I am ashamed to be German. Goring, who is in favor of expropriating the property of the Jews,
18:24rather than destroying it, as had happened in the pogrom, directly complained to Sietcherheit
18:31Polizei Chief Heydrich immediately after the events. I'd rather you had done in 200 Jews than destroy so
18:39many valuable assets. Goring met with other members of the Nazi leadership on November 12th to plan the
18:55next steps after the riot, setting the stage for formal government action. In the transcript of the
19:02meeting, Goring said, I have received a letter written on the Führer's orders requesting that the Jewish
19:09question be now, once and for all, coordinated and solved, one way or another. I should not want to leave
19:17any doubt, gentlemen, as to the aim of today's meeting. We have not come together merely to talk
19:23again, but to make decisions, and I implore competent agencies to take all measures for the elimination of
19:31the Jews from the German economy and to submit them to me. The persecution and economic damage inflicted
19:38upon German Jews continued after the pogrom, even as their places of businesses were ransacked.
19:45They were forced to pay, oh my god, that's a lot of fucking syllables, a collective fine, or atonement
19:54contribution of 1 billion Reichsmarks for the murder of von Roth, equivalent to 7 billion dollars in 2020
20:03U.S. dollars, which was levied by the compulsory acquisition of 20 percent of all Jewish property
20:11by the state. Six million Reichsmarks of insurance payments for property damage due to the Jewish community
20:18or instead paid to the Reich government as damages to the German nation. Jews were required to pay for
20:27the cost of all damage causes by the pogrom to their residences and businesses. The number of
20:35immigrating Jews surged as those who were able to left the country. In the 10 months following
20:41Kristallnacht, more than 115,000 Jews immigrated from the Reich. The majority went to other European
20:50countries, the United States, or mandatory Palestine, though at least 14,000 made it to Shanghai, China.
21:00As part of government policy, the Nazis seized houses, shops, and other property the emigres left behind.
21:08Many of the destroyed remains of Jewish property plundered during Kristallnacht were dumped near
21:16Brodenberg. In October 2008, this dump site was discovered by Yaron Sabore, an investigative journalist.
21:27The site, the size of four football fields, contained an extensive array of personal and ceremonial items
21:34looted during the riots against Jewish property and places of worship on the night of November 9, 1938.
21:43It is believed the goods were brought by rail to the outskirts of the village and dumped on designated land.
21:52Among the items found were glass bottles engraved with the Star of David,
21:56painted mezuzot, painted windowsills, and the armrests of chairs found in synagogues in addition to an
22:05ornamental swastika. He finds the symbols. The troll keeps leaving symbols, which according to grandpa was
22:13the original Nazi symbol instead of the swastika. The reaction of non-Jewish Germans to Kristallnacht was
22:20buried. Many spectators gathered on the scenes, most of them in silence. The local fire departments
22:28confined themselves to prevent the flame from spreading to neighboring buildings.
22:32In Berlin, Police Lieutenant Otto Belggart barred SA troopers from setting the new synagogue on fire,
22:41earning his superior officer a verbal reprimand from the commissioner.
22:45You're on notice. I don't take kindly to kidnapping and attempted murder. But since you have a god card,
22:50I suppose I can allow you to be in my tournament finals. However, try anything funny and I'll probably
22:55issue you a stern warning and whack my finger at you. Then you'll be sorry.
23:00The British historian Martin Gilbert believes that many non-Jews resented the roundup.
23:07His opinion being supported by German witness Dr. Arthur Flehinger, who recalls seeing people crying,
23:15all watching from behind their curtains. Rolf de Sowers recalls how a neighbor came forward
23:22and restored a portrait of Paul Ehrlich that had been slashed to ribbons by the stern-up tailung.
23:30He wanted it to be known that not all Germans supported Kristallnacht. The extent of the damage
23:37done on Kristallnacht was so great that many Germans are said to have expressed their disapproval of it
23:44and to have described it as senseless. There was, however, no personal comment or even acknowledgement
23:51from the German leader Adolf Hitler himself about Kristallnacht. In the article released for a
23:59publication on the evening of November 11th, Goebbels ascribed the events of Kristallnacht to the
24:06healthy instincts of the German people. He went on to explain the German people are anti-Semitic. It has no
24:15desire to have its right restricted or to be provoked in the future by parasites of the Jewish race.
24:24Less than 24 hours after Kristallnacht, Adolf Hitler made a one hour long speech in front of a group of
24:31journalists where he completely ignored the recent events on everyone's mind. Wow, that reminds me of
24:37someone, a certain recent president that the United States had. But I want to know your opinion. You're
24:43the president of the United States. That's enough. Thank you. Thank you very much. 19 days out from
24:49the election, you've been labeled a racist. You've been called a sexist. Thank you very much. How do you
24:54respond to that? I am the least racist person you've ever met. Through injection, ingestion or any other route.
25:02Trump now claims he wasn't being serious. I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters like
25:11you just to see what would happen. Put in the form of a question to a group of extraordinarily hostile
25:17people, namely the fake news media. The White House had already tried to walk back the president's
25:25comments with no mention of sarcasm, just accusations that journalists were taking it all out of context.
25:32Thank you very much. On Friday night, he took no questions. An unusual move in one of the shortest
25:39White House briefings yet. According to Eugene Davidson, the reason for this was that Hitler
25:44wished to avoid being directly connected to an event that he was aware that many of those present
25:51condemned, regardless of Goebbels' unconvincing explanation that Kristallnacht was caused by popular wrath.
25:58Goebbels met the press conference in the afternoon of November 11th and said that the burning of
26:04synagogues and damage to Jewish-owned property had been spontaneous manifestations of indignation
26:11against the murder of Herr von Roth by the young Jew Gritspan. In 1938, just after Kristallnacht,
26:20the psychologist Michael Mueller Claudius interviewed 41 randomly selected Nazi party members on their
26:27attitudes towards racial persecution. Of the interviewed party members, 63% expressed extreme
26:36indignation against it, while only 5% expressed approval of racial prosecution. The rest being non-committal.
26:45A study conducted in 1933 had then shown that 33% of Nazi party members held no racial prejudice,
26:58while 13% supported persecution. Sarah Ann Gordon sees two possible reasons for this difference. First,
27:06by 1938, large numbers of Germans had joined the Nazi party for pragmatic reasons rather than ideology,
27:15thus diluting the percentage of rabid anti-Semites. Second, the Kristallnacht could have caused party
27:22members to reject anti-Semitism that had been acceptable to them in abstract terms, by which they
27:30could not support when they saw it concretely enacted. During the events of Kristallnacht, several
27:38Gallichter and deputy Gallichters had refused orders to enact the Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the
27:45SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders while expressing disgust. Some Nazis helped Jews
27:56during the Kristallnacht. As it was aware that the German public did not support the Kristallnacht,
28:03the propaganda ministry directed the German press to portray opponents of racial persecution as
28:09disloyal. The press was also under orders to downplay the Kristallnacht, describing general events
28:18at the local level only with prohibition against depictions of individual events. In 1939, this was
28:27extended to a prohibition on reporting any anti-Jewish measures. Wow. The U.S. ambassador to Germany
28:36reported in view of this being a totalitarian state. A surprising characteristic of the situation here
28:43is the intensity and scope among German citizens of condemnation of the recent happenings against Jews.
28:52To the consternation of the Nazis, the Kristallnacht affected public opinion counter to their desires.
28:58The peak of opposition against the Nazi racial policies was reached just then, when according to
29:05almost all accounts, the vast majority of Germans rejected the violence perpetrated against the Jews.
29:12Verbal complaints grew rapidly in numbers, and for example, the Dusseldorf branch of the Gestapo reported
29:19a sharp decline in anti-Semitic attitudes among the population. There are many indications of
29:28Protestant and Catholic disapproval of racial prosecution. For example, anti-Nazi Protestants
29:36adopted the Barman Declaration in 1934, and the Catholic Church had already distributed pastoral letters
29:44critical of Nazi racial ideology, and the Nazi regime expected to encounter organized resistance
29:52from it following Kristallnacht. The Catholic leadership, however, just as the various Protestant churches,
30:03refrained from responding with organized action.
30:06Martin Sasse, Nazi party member and bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Thuringia,
30:16leading member of the Nazi German Christians, one of the schematic factions of German Protestantism, published
30:24a commendium of Martin Luther's writings shortly after the Kristallnacht. Sasse applauded the burning of the
30:32synagogues and the coincidence of the day. Writing in the introduction, on November 10th, 1938,
30:40on Luther's birthday, the synagogues are burning in Germany. The German people, he urged, ought to heed these words
30:50of the greatest anti-Semite of his time, the warner of his people against the Jews.
30:59Diarmade McCulloch argued that Luther's 1543 pamphlet on the Jews and their lies was a blueprint for the Kristallnacht.
31:10Holy fucking shit, what a title. Oh my god. Luther's attitude toward Jews took different forms during his
31:17lifetime. In his earlier period, until 1537, or not much earlier, he wanted to convert Jews to
31:25Lutheranism, Protestant Christianity. In his later period, when he wrote on the Jews and their lies,
31:32he denounced them and urged their prosecution. In his treatise, he argued that Jewish synagogues and
31:41schools be set on fire, their prayer books destroyed, rabbis forbidden to preach, homes burned, and
31:48property and money confiscated. Luther claimed they should be shown no mercy or kindness. Kill them all
31:56and show no mercy. Yeah. They said show no mercy. Afforded no legal protection, and these poisonous,
32:03envenomed worms should be drafted into forced labor or expelled for all time. He also advocates their
32:13murder, writing, we are at fault in not slaying them. The book may have had an impact on creating
32:22anti-Semitic German thought. With the rise of the Nazi party in Weimar, Germany, the book became widely
32:29popular among its supporters. During World War II, copies of the book were commonly seen at Nazi rallies,
32:37and the prevailing scholarly consensus is that it may have had a significant impact on justifying the
32:45fucking Holocaust. Since then, the book has been denounced by many Lutheran churches. Kristallnacht
32:54sparked international outrage. According to Volker Ulrich, a line had been crossed. Germany had left
33:01the community of civilized nations. It discredited pro-Nazi movements in Europe and North America,
33:09leading to a sharp decline in their support. Many newspapers condemned Kristallnacht, with some of them
33:16comparing it to the murderous pogroms incited by Imperial Russia during the 1880s.
33:22The United States recalled its ambassador but did not break off diplomatic relations, while other
33:30governments severed diplomatic relations with Germany in protest. The British government approved the
33:37Kindertransport Program for refugee children. Kristallnacht marked a turning point in relations between Nazi
33:46Germany and the rest of the world. The brutality of the pogrom and the Nazi government's deliberate
33:54policy of encouraging the violence once it had begun laid bare the repressive nature and widespread
34:01anti-Semitism entrenched in Germany. World opinion thus turned sharply against the Nazi regime, with some
34:10politicians calling for war. On December 6, 1938, William Cooper, an Aboriginal Australian, led a delegation of the
34:20Australian Aboriginal League on a march through Melbourne to the German consulate to deliver a petition which
34:28condemned the cruel prosecution of the Jewish people by the Nazi government of Germany. German officials refused to accept the tendered document.
34:37Christallnacht changed the nature of Nazi Germany's persecution of the Jews from economic,
34:46political, and social exclusion to physical violence, including beatings, incarceration, and murder.
34:53The event is often referred to as the beginning of the Holocaust. In this view, it is not only described as a pogrom,
35:03it is also described as a critical stage within a process in which each step becomes the seed of the next step.
35:13An account cited that Hitler's green light for Kristallnacht was made with the belief that it would help him realize
35:21his ambition of getting rid of the Jews in Germany. Prior to this large-scale and organized violence
35:31against the Jews, the Nazis' primary objective was to eject them from Germany, leaving their wealth behind.
35:40In the words of historian Max Ryan, in 1988, Kristallnacht came and everything was changed.
35:47While November 1938 predated the overt articulation of the final solution, it foreshadowed the genocide to come.
35:57Around the time of Kristallnacht, the SS newspaper The Schwartz Corps called for a destruction by swords and flames.
36:06At a conference on the day after the pogrom, Hermann Goering said,
36:12the Jewish problem will reach its solution if, in any time soon, we will be drawn into war beyond our border.
36:21Then it is obvious that we will have to manage a final account with the Jews.
36:27Kristallnacht was also instrumental in changing global public opinion.
36:32In the United States, for instance, it was this specific incident which came to symbolize
36:39Nazism, and it was also the reason as to why the Nazis became associated with evil.
36:48Five decades later, November 9th's association with the anniversary of Kristallnacht was cited as the
36:55main reason as to why Schicksalstag, the day the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, was not turned into a new
37:04German national holiday. A different day was chosen. October 3, 1990. German reunification.
37:12The avant-garde guitarist Gary Lucas' 1988 composition, which juxtaposes what would become
37:22the Israeli national anthem ten years after Kristallnacht, Hatikva, with phrases from the German national anthem,
37:31Dutchland Überallis, amid wild electronic shrieks and noises, is intended to be a sonic representation
37:40of the horrors of Kristallnacht. It was premiered at the 1988 Berlin Jazz Festival and received rave reviews.
37:49The title is a reference to Arnold Schoenberg's 1899 work, Verklartenacht, that presaged his pioneering work
37:58on atonal music. Schoenberg was an Austrian Jew who had moved to the United States to escape the Nazis.
38:06In 2014, the Wall Street Journal published a letter from billionaire Thomas Perkins that compared the
38:13progressive war on the American 1% of wealthiest Americans and the Occupy movement's demonization
38:22of the rich to the Kristallnacht and anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany. Get the fuck out of here. The letter
38:30was widely criticized and condemned in the Atlantic, the Independent, among bloggers, Twitter users,
38:38and his own colleagues in Silicon Valley. Perkins subsequently apologized for making the comparisons
38:46with Nazi Germany, but otherwise stood by his letter saying, in the Nazi era it was racial demonization,
38:55now it's class demonization. Kristallnacht has been referenced both explicitly and implicitly in countless
39:04cases of vandalism of Jewish property, including the toppling of gravestones in a Jewish cemetery in
39:11suburban St. Louis, Missouri, and the two 2017 vandalisms of the New England Holocaust Memorial,
39:18as the memorial's founder Steve Ross discussed in his book, From Broken Glass, My Story of Finding Hope
39:26in Hitler's Death Camps to inspire a new generation. The Sri Lankan finance minister,
39:33Mangala Samara Wiara, also used the term to describe the violence in 2019 against Muslims by Sinalisi
39:42nationalists. Our apartment was not ransacked too badly, but a lot of our furniture was broken and a lot
39:50of things were missing, but you could still live in it. However, the rabbi's apartment and when the people
39:57had rushed up there during the eve of my mother's birthday, they burned all of his books. He had this
40:06beautiful library and they got torn and burned and his furniture was really destroyed. And the people who
40:16were on the third floor, they pretended they didn't know anything was happening. After the night of the broken glass,
40:29everybody in Germany wanted to leave. I mean, I think maybe that was the objective of the Nazis,
40:40to try and get everybody out. And of course, by this time, my father wanted to leave too. But it was very
40:49difficult. You couldn't, you couldn't get any affidavits. We did have some relatives that were living here
40:55in the United States and they were working very hard to get my father and my mother to come to the United
41:02States. But it wasn't happening. So my father had heard, he wanted his children to be safe most of all. So my
41:15father had heard of this lady who was taking children across the border into France. She did it for a fee. She did not do that
41:27do that because she was a kind hearted woman. She did it because she was going to make money out of this deal.
41:37So all of the money that my father had saved that I had up in that attic, he gave it to her,
41:46just so that she would bring us to safety to France.
41:50And the lady had explained to us that we had to pretend to be her children. And then she had
42:03provided the passports for us to get across the border into France. And I don't know how she did it,
42:10but she had everything looking very official with my brother's picture and his passport and mine.
42:18And so the night came that we were going to get separated from our parents.
42:27And my mother and father tried to be cheerful. And I really didn't understand
42:37that they might have known in the back of their heads that they might never see my brother and me again.
42:45I want people to understand that if they see injustice at the beginning, if we can do something
42:53the minute we see injustice and not be bystanders and not do like the people who lived on the third floor
43:04and do like the people that were throwing the bricks and rocks through the window and the policemen
43:10who went along with some of the rules that the Nazis had, if we stopped this at the beginning,
43:17well, such horrors as the ghettos and the concentration camps would never happen.
43:23Kristallnacht was publicly referenced on January 10th, 2021, by the former governor of California,
43:31Arnold Schwarzenegger in a speech decrying the actions of President Donald Trump and the attack
43:37he incited on the US Capitol on January 6th. Now, I grew up in Austria and very aware of Kristallnacht,
43:47or the night of broken glass. It was a night of rampage against the Jews carried out in 1938
43:54by the Nazi equivalent of the Proud Boys. Wednesday was the day of broken glass right here in the United
44:01States. The broken glass was in the windows of the United States Capitol. But the mob did not just
44:07shatter the windows of the Capitol. They shattered the ideals we took for granted. They did not just
44:13break down the doors of the building that housed the American democracy. They trampled the very
44:19principles on which our country was founded. Now, I grew up in the ruins of a country that suffered the
44:26loss of its democracy. I was born in 1947, two years after the Second World War. Growing up,
44:35I was surrounded by broken men drinking away their guilt over their participation in the most evil
44:41regime in history. Not all of them were rabid anti-Semites or Nazis. Many just went along,
44:48step by step, down the road. There were the people next door. Now, I have never shared this so publicly,
44:58because it is a painful memory. But my father would come home drunk once or twice a week,
45:06and he would scream and hit us and scare my mother. I did not hold him totally responsible,
45:13because our neighbor was doing the same thing to his family, and so was the next neighbor over.
45:18I heard it with my own ears and saw it with my own eyes. They were in physical pain from the
45:24shrapnel in their bodies, and in emotional pain from what they saw or did. It all started with lies,
45:33and lies, and lies, and intolerance. So being from Europe, I have seen firsthand how things can spin
45:40out of control. I know there is a fear in this country and all over the world that something
45:46like this could happen right here. Now, I do not believe it is, but I do believe that we must be
45:52aware of the dire consequences of selfishness and cynicism. President Trump sought to overturn the
46:00results of an election, and of a fair election. He sought a coup by misleading people with lies.
46:07My father and our neighbors were misled also with lies, and I know where such lies lead.
46:15President Trump is a failed leader. He will go down in history as the worst president ever.
46:21The good thing is that he soon will be as irrelevant as an old tweet.
46:27But what are we to make of those elected officials who have enabled his lies and his treachery?
46:32I will remind them of what Teddy Roosevelt said,
46:37Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president.
46:46John F. Kennedy wrote a book called Profiles in Courage. A number of members of my own party,
46:53because of their own spinelessness, would never see their names in such a book. I guarantee you.
46:59They are complicit with those who carried the flag of self-righteous insurrection
47:04into the Capitol. But it did not work. Our democracy held firm. Within hours, the Senate
47:13and the House of Representatives were doing the people's business in certifying the election
47:18of President-elect Biden. What a great display of democracy.
47:23Korn Pop was a bad dude. And he ran a bunch of bad boys.
47:29Now you see this sword? This is the Conan sword. Now here's the thing about swords. The more you
47:37temper a sword, the stronger it becomes. The more you pound it with a hammer and then heat it in the
47:44fire and then thrust it into the cold water and then pound it again and plunge it into the fire and
47:49into the water. The more often you do that, the stronger it becomes. I'm not telling you all this
47:56because I wanted to become an expert sword maker, but our democracy is like the steel of this sword.
48:04The more it is tempered, the stronger it becomes. Our democracy has been tempered
48:11by wars, injustices and insurrections. I believe, as shaken as we are by the events of recent days,
48:21we will come out stronger because we now understand what can be lost. We need reforms, of course,
48:28so that this never ever happens again. We need to hold accountable the people that brought us to this
48:33unforgivable point. And they brought into that idea that the only way to make their lives better was to
48:39make other lives worse. And some of them joined because they were frustrated with the government,
48:45and some of them just joined because everyone else was doing it. In the end, it didn't really
48:52matter why they joined. They were all broken in the same way. That's the bottom line here. I mean,
48:57if you find yourself at the crossroads, wondering if that path of hate might make sense to you for one
49:02reason or the other, or even wrapping yourself with a flag of hate, I want you to know where that path ends.
49:10Pictures taken in Milan and only just released here show the last of the Huns to leave that
49:15Italian city. They had quite a send-off too.
49:31Milan was in a state of the wildest excitement at about this time, for partisans had just killed
49:49Mussolini. The bodies of the ex-dictator, his mistress, and fellow fascists were left lying in the square,
49:56and the enraged Italians took the opportunity of kicking them and flinging rubbish on them.
50:11Firemen were called in to disperse the mob, whereby now were, what shall we say, perhaps a trifle over-excited.
50:17The final gas-dictator was the hanging of the bodies upside down, outside a petrol station.
50:26Well, at least it's a warning to all remaining fascists, everywhere.
50:29The final gas-dictator was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one that was the only one
50:59No!
51:01No!
51:03Oh my God!
51:13Can't get rid of it. It's funny if it's so bad.
51:16So?
51:17Why?
51:18Why?
51:19We can't happen here.
51:20Right?
51:21That's right.
51:29What's wrong with you?
51:32Get out of here!
51:34Erichsleiter, es ist passiert.
52:04I'll call you, the driver is dead.
52:27I want you to see very clearly in front of you and in mind.
52:31Because throughout history
52:33Hate has always been the easy path, the path of least resistance.
52:38I get it.
52:39And I mean, it's easier to find a scapegoat for a problem
52:42than to try to make things better ourselves, right?
52:45But let me be clear.
52:47You would not find success on the end of the road.
52:50You would not find fulfillment or happiness.
52:53Because hate burns fast and tight.
52:56It might make you feel empowered for a while,
52:59but eventually consumes whatever vessel it fuels.
53:02It breaks you.
53:04It's the path of the weak.
53:07And that's why there has never been a successful movement based on hate.
53:12I mean, think about that.
53:14The Nazis, losers.
53:17The Confederacy, losers.
53:19The apartheid movement, losers.
53:21And the list goes on and on.
53:23I don't want you to be a loser.
53:27I don't want you to be weak.
53:29See, I've spent most of my life helping people find their strength.
53:36This is where the action is strength.
53:39And despite all of the things that we may disagree about,
53:42and all my friends who might say,
53:44Arnold, don't talk to those people.
53:46It's not worth it.
53:47I don't care what they say.
53:49I care about you.
53:50I think you're worth it.
53:52I know that nobody is perfect.
53:55I can tell this firsthand.
53:56And I can understand how people can fall into a trap of prejudice and hate.
54:01Whether you grow up surrounded by hate,
54:04or get sucked into by some of big tech's algorithms
54:07that push you to the extreme.
54:09I can see how it can happen.
54:11I think all of us hold some prejudice.
54:13There's no two ways about that.
54:15And we have to fight it our whole lives.
54:18I know this is not the path of least resistance.
54:23It's easier to just throw around some bogus science claiming
54:26that you're superior to someone else,
54:28than it is to actually work on becoming better yourself.
54:32It's easier to make excuses that the Jewish people conspired to hold you back,
54:37than it is to admit that you just needed to work harder.
54:41It's easier to hate than it is to learn.
54:45It's easier when someone challenges you to get hurt of feelings,
54:49and to go and find some echo chamber that will tell you that you're right and they're wrong.
54:54But remember, easier isn't better.
54:57It isn't.
54:58When you spend your life looking for scapegoats,
55:01you take away your own responsibility.
55:05You remove your own power.
55:06You steal your own strength.
55:08Nobody who has chosen the easy path of hate has gotten to the end of that road and said,
55:14Oh, what a life.
55:16No.
55:17They die as miserably as they lived.
55:22No matter how far you've gone,
55:24I want you to know that you still have the chance to choose a life of strength.
55:29But you have to give up your war against everyone that you hate.
55:34Let's give up that war.
55:36Whether you hate them because of their color of their skin,
55:39or their religion, or their gender, or their sexual orientation,
55:42it doesn't matter.
55:43Give it up.
55:44Give up that war.
55:46You know the war that you have to really fight?
55:48It's the war against yourself.
55:51Give it up.
55:55Give it up.
55:56Give it up.
55:57Give it up.
55:59Give it up.
56:00Bye babe.
56:01Give it up.
56:02Bye.
56:03Bye babe.
56:04Bye, bye.
56:05I'm the mom of the guys' back to Wish class.
56:06I can't wait to think about myself.
56:07You know the name of the man.
56:08I'm the man.
56:09Bye babe.
56:10Bye babe.
56:11There's the folks that left.
56:12Let's get back to you.
56:13It's the girl.
56:14I can't wait to see you.
56:15I can't wait to see you.
56:16I can't wait to see you.
56:17You know the one.
56:18You can't wait to see you.
56:19What do you think?
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