Fascism: Why Not Here?

Preface

ix PREFACE THIS BOOK BEGAN, as I suspect many do, with memorable teaching experiences . My most memorable have involved traveling with students and my former colleague Dale McGowan to Germany and Austria to study the relationship of German culture to the rise of National Socialism. In these trips, we focused on German music, and particularly the operas of Richard Wagner, as our entry point into German history, philosophy, and social thought. Trying to get students, from their American point of view, to understand the Germans’ descent into National Socialism was a great challenge for me as an educator. As I sought ways to help them grasp what it might have felt like to be an ordinary German citizen in the 1920s and 1930s, I drew parallels to the sorts of political and ideological struggles they could see in contemporary American politics in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks: calls for bold and decisive leadership and for military vengeance, appeals to an arrogant sort of nationalism, a notable lack of dissent, acquiescence in greater government surveillance and arrest powers, a wartime mentality, and an almost pathological veneration of the common man against elites of all sorts. The whole thing ultimately rekindled in me the question that nags many of those who have studied the Third Reich: could it happen here? I’m grateful to both McGowan and our intrepid students for helping me find ways to address that question. By lucky circumstance, I was up for sabbatical leave at about the time I began this project, and by even luckier circumstance, I was granted the Carol Easley Denny Award to help fund the research for this book. I am x ❙ PREFACE very grateful to St. Catherine University and to Charles Denny and the Denny family for their great assistance. As writing progressed, I was helped by several cherished colleagues. Jeanne Emmons, professor of English at Briar Cliff University, read and critiqued the chapter on Romanticism. Jane Lamm Carroll, associate professor of history at St. Catherine, helped with Populism and Nationalism. Paul Schons, professor of German at the University of St. Thomas, helped with interpretations of German culture on several chapters. I am grateful to them and to many other supportive and helpful colleagues. My wife, Cheryl, provided much critique and support and was helpful in innumerable other ways. My marriage to her is one more lucky circumstance. ...