Friday, May 12, 2017
Hermann Göring High School
Brooklyn, New York
Wilhelm Johnson was at the top of his game. He held a master’s degree in history from NYU and had spent over 35 years working hard to become a master teacher. In all his decades in the classroom he had never stopped honing his skills. Even now, at a time in his career when many of his colleagues had begun to coast toward retirement, Johnson worked into the evening every day, personally grading essays and polishing his lesson plans for the next day. He loved his job and considered it a great honor and privilege that the Reich had bestowed on him the responsibility of molding young minds in the largest and most important city in the Bundesland of New York.
Johnson turned to the whiteboard at the front of his senior modern history class, wrote in large block letters “WATERSHED MOMENT,” and asked the class, “Who can tell me what a watershed moment is?” As usual, Patricia Garland’s hand popped up as if it had a will of its own. Garland was the highly-resented, curve-busting class gunner, but Johnson had to give her her due; she knew her stuff, and since hers was the only raised hand he said, “Miss Garland.”
“A watershed moment is a crucial dividing point in history where all subsequent events go one way or the other, a turning point. It derives its name from a geographical watershed in which the water that falls on a particular side of a ridge drains to one river, and the water on the other side drains to a different river.”
“That is exactly correct, Miss Garland. I see you have been reading ahead.” Garland beamed; several of her classmates were unable to resist rolling their eyes. Turning back to the whiteboard and tapping the phrase, Johnson said, “Today we are going to talk about the decision to replace Abraham Esau with Werner Heisenberg as the head of the German nuclear weapons program in 1940. With the rather obvious exception of the Great Führer’s 1921 decision to assume his role in history by stepping up to lead the Party, the Heisenberg appointment was perhaps the most crucial moment of the 20th Century.”
From the back of the class, Brad Anderson piped up without raising his hand, “Surely Field Marshal Keitel’s decision to nuke London and Moscow in late 1943, causing England and the Soviet Union to surrender within days of one another, was more important to history than an obscure administrative shift in the German Army Ordnance Office.”
“Any fool can pull a trigger, Mr. Anderson. Who is more crucial, the first user of a revolutionary new weapon, or the genius who invented it in the first place? And in this case, timing was everything. Under Esau, the German nuclear weapons program was at a standstill. After the war we learned there was a competing program right here in the former United States called the ‘Manhattan Project.’ German scientists estimate the American research program was not that far behind and might have had an operational weapon as early as 1945. That is why Heisenberg’s appointment was so crucial. His combination of charisma, intelligence and hard work was just what the German program needed to get on track to beat the Americans. He replaced Esau in February 1940 and began pushing for the Reich to throw its industrial might behind the project. As a direct result of his efforts, Germany had an operational weapon by August 1943, and the rest, as they say, is history. The weapon was literally unstoppable. Within six months every one of Germany’s enemies had either surrendered outright or sued for peace, marking the beginning of Germany’s program for the unification of the world’s governments under Berlin’s leadership. That obscure administrative shift, Mr. Anderson, was the very essence of a watershed moment.”
The bell rang; books began slamming shut a microsecond later, and students started shuffling toward the door. Johnson called out to their retreating backs, “Don’t forget! Quiz on Monday on the Great Führer’s 1947 decision to conquer Japan, his former ally.”
The next hour was Johnson’s planning period, and as the students made their way out of the room he walked over to his desk at the front of the room. Before he sat down he heard someone clear their throat behind him. He turned around to see Becky Schumann, perhaps his brightest student after Patty Garland, waiting to speak to him.
“Yes, Miss Schumann, how can I help you today?”
Becky looked up shyly and in a hesitant voice said, “Mr. Johnson, I have learned so much from you, and I wanted to take just a moment before the end of the year to thank you and tell you how much I have loved being in your class.”
“Why, thank you Becky. That is a very nice thing to say and it warms the cockles of an old teacher’s heart to know he is appreciated.”
“Uh, you’re welcome. I also hoped you could help me with a couple of questions I have been turning over in my mind as we studied the events of the last several decades this year.”
“I am happy to help if I can. What’s on your mind?”
“Well,” Becky said so softly her voice was almost inaudible, “it’s about The Final Solution.”
“What about it?”
“Umm. This year we learned that from its very beginning the Party opposed the Jewish-materialistic spirit, and when the Great Führer came to power in the 1930’s, one of the first things he did was start rooting the Jews out of positions of influence. Then, early in the Great Unification War that began in September 1939, Reichsführer Himmler implemented The Final Solution to completely eliminate the world’s population of about 15 million Jews. The Final Solution was deemed complete in July 1951 when the last known pockets of Jews were finally tracked down and eliminated.”
“Very impressive Becky. With your grades I am not surprised, but it looks like you really have been absorbing history this year.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson.”
“So, what’s your question?”
“Well, um, I guess it is not so much a question as it is a doubt.”
“What are you doubting?”
Becky paused before answering. She was obviously nervous, and Johnson was beginning to suspect why. She took a deep breath and said, “Can I tell you something in confidence?”
“Of course, you can.”
“Well, um, you see,” Becky stammered in nervous agitation, “I know the Party requires Christians to adhere to Party-approved Positive Christianity. But my parents adhere to Evangelical Christianity, and the other day we were talking about The Final Solution, because it was part of my lesson. And . . . are you sure this is confidential? I wouldn’t want my dad to get in trouble.”
“It’s OK Becky. You can trust me. This conversation is protected by student-teacher confidentiality. Besides, you are one of my brightest students and I like you very much. I would never do anything to hurt you or your family.”
“Oh, I’m so glad to hear that, because I really do need to talk this through with someone.”
“What is it you need to talk through, Becky?”
“Well, um, my dad, in this conversation, he said he thought The Final Solution was evil.”
There it was. There was nothing for it now. The cat was out of the bag. Becky had implicated her father in sedition. Johnson did not know the man, but he genuinely cared for his students, and he hoped he could take Becky by the metaphorical hand and lead her back to the true path.
“And what do you think Becky?”
“Well, I don’t know. My dad and I talked about it a long time, and his arguments really has my head spinning.”
“Let’s talk about those arguments. What does he say; why does he think The Final Solution was evil?”
“His argument is pretty simple really. He says that killing a person for no other reason than that he has a different ethnic background than you is self-evidently evil. It follows that killing 15 million innocent men, women and children for no other reason than that they were Jews is genocide, which is perhaps the greatest evil there is.”
Johnson was silent as he contemplated the radical extent of the anti-Party sedition that had just been revealed to him. Becky’s father had as much as accused the Great Führer of committing “the greatest evil there is.” It was breathtaking; he was momentarily stunned into silence.
“Did you remind him that no one at any level of government has raised the slightest question about The Final Solution for over 65 years, and I see no sign at all that is about to change?”
“Of course. He said it doesn’t matter.”
“It doesn’t matter? How in the world could that not matter?”
“He says that morality is not determined by headcount. He says a moral choice either conforms to a transcendent objective moral standard or it does not. And if it does not, even if every other person on the planet disagreed with him about whether The Final Solution was evil, he would be right, and they would be wrong.”
“Well, I hope you can see that it is pretty darned arrogant for him to set his own moral standard up as the only correct one.”
“He says it is not his standard, but God’s standard. God commands us not to murder, and he says that every one of the 15 million Jews killed in the implementation of The Final Solution was murdered.”
Johnson’s head began to swim at the implications of what he was hearing, but with an effort of will he pushed that aside and said, “Murdered? Really? Murder is a legal conclusion. Surely you know that The Final Solution was perfectly legal. It was sanctioned by the duly-instituted governmental authorities everywhere it was implemented. How could it have been immoral if it was perfectly legal?”
“That’s what I said, but dad said an action, even a legal action by a government official, that transgresses God’s law is still evil.”
“Well there you go; we finally get to the bottom of it. If this God your dad talks about does not exist, then his law does not exist, right?”
“Sure, that seems obvious.”
“Beginning with Darwin in 1859 and continuing up to the present day, science has been advancing and religion has been retreating. We have reached the point where science has displaced religion in every area of inquiry. Science has finally proved that God does not exist.”
“Oh, I didn’t think about that. But if God does not exist, where did the universe some from? Why is there something instead of nothing? I don’t see how the universe can account for its own existence. Something creating itself from nothing does not make sense to me.”
“That’s a valid objection, but fortunately there is an answer. Our greatest scientists tell us that because the laws of nature – like the law of gravity – exist, the universe can indeed create itself from nothing.”
“The laws of nature are something, not nothing. Where did they came from?”
“Another good question. And just this year one of our most famous physicists wrote a book answering it. In a nutshell, he said the laws of physics are a brute fact that we simply must accept as a given.”
“OK. So what you’re telling me is that science has proven God does not exist.”
“Right.”
“And a transcendent objective moral standard like the one my dad talks about can exist only if God created it.
“Right.”
“And since God does not exist, a transcendent objective moral standard does not exist.”
“Excellent. You’ve got it.”
“But morality sure feels like a real thing.”
“Of course, morality is a real thing. I never suggested otherwise.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. I misunderstood. If morality is real, where did it come from?”
“Here again, science has the answer. Science has proved there is no God. It follows there is nothing in the universe but particles in motion. And from this it follows there is no objective morality. Another of our greatest scientists says, the universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.”
“But, Mr. Johnson, that sounds like morality can’t exist.”
“You’re right if by ‘morality’ you mean the sort of ‘objective transcendent morality’ your dad talks about. But that is not the only kind of morality there is. You see, humans sit at the top of a grand evolutionary pyramid that has been built over billions of years. And over the eons our ancestors developed by trial and error certain behaviors that helped them to survive. Today, we call those survival-beneficial behaviors “morality.”
“And The Final Solution was one of those survival beneficial behaviors?”
“Well, it’s not quite that simple. Science tells us that there are many kinds of good and evil, all determined by the norms in the society in which one happens to live. In the case of The Final Solution, in a competition of war, German society prevailed over all other societies and therefore the moral prescriptions of German society are followed all over the world. In other words – and listen very carefully to what I am about to say Becky – there is no place anyone can stand from which to judge the moral ideals of German society, because we are all in German society, and German society is where, by definition, all moral ideals come from. In other words, The Final Solution was deemed good by German society, and it was therefore, by definition, good.”
“So it all turns on the fact that God does not exist. Even if my dad feels very strongly that killing 15 million men, women and children for no reason other than that they were Jews is evil, he is wrong, because The Final Solution was good by definition, because it was accepted by society and there is no place outside of society to judge what it accepts as good.”
“Exactly. I am glad you are getting it.”
“Thank you, Mr. Johnson. It is such a relief to know that science has proved that the Party’s actions are always, by definition, moral, since the Party controls society.”
“Any time Becky.”
“And again, Mr. Johnson, I would hate for my dad to get in trouble. This whole conversation is just between us, right?”
“Of course; set your mind at ease on that score.”
“Thank you again. I will see you Monday.” Becky smiled a little smile and seemed to heave a small sigh of relief as she turned and walked to the door. Johnson watched her leave, and as the door closed behind her, he reached for his phone to call the Brooklyn division of the Gestapo. “‘Greatest evil there is,’” Johnson murmured as he dialed. “We’ll see what you think about that when your door is kicked down tonight.”