UNMIA

Video by Llanushkah

By Robert Kellner

My grandfather, August Friedrich Kellner, was a local court official in Germany during WWII. He was the chief justice inspector in the district court in Laubach, a small town in the Vogelsberg mountains north of Frankfurt. He spoke out against the Nazis and in March 1940 was called to account for his statements and almost sent to a concentration camp. After that harrowing experience he confined himself to writing down his thoughts in a diary that he titled “Mein Widerstand” (which can mean both “My Resistance” and “My Opposition”). His writings do not deal with the mundane daily events of life, but rather challenge the falsehoods of Nazi propaganda and record the inhuman atrocities committed by the Nazis. The entries in the diary read like today’s headlines, and Friedrich Kellner’s solution for the terrorism of his own time may be the answer for the terrorism confronting our generation.

Some of the diary entries refer to the murder of Russian prisoners of war, and to the execution of civilians as reprisals for resistance to German occupation. There are also entries verifying the deliberate genocide of the Jews and the Poles, and to the active anti-Semitism encountered locally. The dates of these entries belie the argument that the ordinary German was unaware of these atrocities. For example, here is one such entry from 1941:

28 October 1941: A soldier on vacation here said he witnessed a terrible atrocity in the occupied parts of Poland. He watched as naked Jewish men and women were placed in front of a long deep ditch and upon the order of the SS were shot by Ukrainians in the back of their heads and they fell into the ditch. Then the ditch was filled with dirt even as he could still hear screams coming from people still alive in the ditch.

These inhuman atrocities were so terrible that some of the Ukrainians, who were used as tools, suffered nervous breakdowns. All the soldiers who had knowledge of these bestial actions of these Nazi sub-humans were of the opinion that the German people should be shaking in their shoes because of the coming retribution.

There is no punishment that would be hard enough to be applied to these Nazi beasts. Of course, when the retribution comes, the innocent will have to suffer along with them. But because ninety percent of the German population is guilty, directly or indirectly, for the present situation, we can only say that those who travel together will hang together.

And in another entry that resonates to this day, my grandfather writes:

September 16, 1942: In the last few days the Jews from this region have been removed. The families Strauss and Heinemann were taken from here. I’ve heard from a reliable source that all the Jews were being brought to Poland to be murdered there by SS brigades.

This cruelty is terrible. Such horror shall never be erased from the history of humanity. Our murderous government has for all times besmirched the name “Germany.” For a decent German it is inconceivable that no one can bring down these Hitler bandits.

But the diary is not just a record of past evil deeds. On almost every page my grandfather confronts the mentality that succumbs so easily to barbarous doctrines, and in so doing his words serve as a warning to our own and future generations about the constant need to combat any resurgence of Nazism and anti-Semitism. In fact, he presciently speaks about the dangers of the spread of neo-Nazism occurring in our own time.

And along with this warning comes my grandfather’s constant call in the diary for America and other democracies to stand together to fight against the evils of terrorist regimes and dictatorships. His diary written in the 1940’s directly addresses what has become for our own generation the most dangerous and pressing challenge of the twenty-first century. In an entry in June 1941 he writes:

When will this insanity be brought to an end? When will the intoxication of victory turn into a terrible hangover?

Now is a unique chance for England and America to take the initiative, but not only with empty promises and insufficient measures. If America had the will to throw its entire might into the fray, it could tip the balance for a return of peace . . . Only a tremendous force and the commitment of all war material can bring the German wild steer to reason . .

Up until now the statesmen–through unbelievable shortsightedness–have neglected or failed their duty. Mankind awake! Attack together with all your might against the destroyers of peace!

No reflections, no resolutions, no speeches, no “neutrality.” Advance against the enemy of mankind!

The handwritten diary is 860 pages long with 676 dated entries, and it includes 525 newspaper clippings. The diary is divided into ten notebooks. My grandfather also gave me a set of the Archiv der Gegenwart (1939 - 1945), a scrapbook of newspaper headlines, a collection of pre-war German currency, and some other documents.

I could not fight the Nazis in the present, as they had the power to still my voice, so I decided to fight them in the future,my grandfather explained to me, when he gave me the diary for safekeeping. I would give the coming generations a weapon against any resurgence of such evil. My eyewitness account would record their barbarous acts, and also show the way to stop them. And the solution is not that complicated. If there is to be peace, you must have democracy, where laws have been agreed upon by the governed; and democracy must be preserved by men of courage who will fight for it. When dictators enslave their own people and seek to impose their anti-democratic ideology upon others, when evil seeks power, men and women of good will, no matter how much they love peace and hate war, must put aside their differences and stand together and fight.

A number of professors from such universities as Purdue, Columbia, Stanford, and the University of Texas, as well as the two universities at which I taught, the University of Massachusetts and Texas A&M University, have seen parts of the diary and have verified the historical value of this work. Also, the directors of Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem and the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. have asked me to donate the diary to them.

Before the diary ends up on a museum shelf, I want to continue to try to make it available to the widest possible audience. The diary exposes the true nature of fascism and dictatorships. Somehow we must get everyone–not just the historical researcher or museum visitor–to reflect upon the essential lessons written within these pages if we are to counter future generations of haters and terrorists.

The diary had its first public showing during the months of April and May 2005 at the George Bush Presidential Library in College Station, Texas, as part of the Presidential Library’s commemoration of the 60th anniversary of VE Day, Victory in Europe Day. Two of the links above connect to a separate Geocities page with photos of the exhibit and to the “past exhibits” page of the George Bush Presidential Library.

The German magazine Der Spiegel carried a report about the presidential library exhibit. The newspaper Giessener Anzeiger ran a series of articles written by Klemens Hogen-Ostlender, and co-sponsored an exhibit during September 2005 at the Heimat Museum in Laubach, Germany. This museum is located on the same street as the Laubach courthouse, where Friedrich Kellner wrote the diary. A permanent exhibit will be maintained by this museum. The diary was also on display at Holocaust Museum Houston in the summer of 2006. Also, the Asper Foundation is working to build the Canadian Museum for Human Rights in Winnipeg, where an exhibit for the Kellner Diary is under consideration.

The members of the research unit for Holocaust literature at Justus Liebig University in Giessen are arranging for funding to publish the diary in Germany. This will be a definitive scholarly edition of the diary, under the editorship of Dr. Sascha Feuchert, with me, Robert Scott Kellner, as an associate editor, writing the biographical introduction.
The documentary film, “My Opposition: the Diaries of Friedrich Kellner,” was produced in 2007 by CCI Entertainment and Global Television in Toronto.
An Internet search using the phrases Friedrich Kellner diary or Scott Kellner diary will provide more information. The encyclopedia entries at Wikipedia are also useful for further research. You can also contact me at the email address below:

DIARY EXCERPTS

Sept. 14, 1939: ‘Who carries the blame? The people without a brain! To trample democracy with one’s feet, and to give power to a single man over almost 80 million people are so terrible that one can probably tremble over the things which will come here.’

Sept. 18, 1939: ‘Only and alone the stubborn obstinacy of our ‘Fuhrer’ has brought us into today’s situation. We have indeed learned nothing from history.’

Oct. 9, 1939: ‘Again and again we must ask ourselves this question: How was it possible that a cultured people like the Germans could have delivered all power to only one man, given up their democracy for a dictatorship? … What our ancestors had fought to achieve over centuries, was forfeited in the year 1933 by stupid, carelessness, incomprehensible gullibility. … When there is no longer any hope in the Fuhrer’s castles in the air and other miracles, the entire house of cards will collapse. Then naturally everyone will insist he knew all along it would turn out that way. No one will admit to having been a member of the Nazi Party.’

June 25, 1941: ‘Now is a unique chance for England and America to take the initiative. But not only with empty promises and insufficient measures. If America has the earnest will to throw its entire might into the fray, it could tip the balance for a return of peace. At the height of their insane power the German people certainly can’t be brought to reason with words.’

July 29, 1941: ‘A cultural people must be able to think as individuals and behave themselves properly. But the German people have repeatedly allowed themselves to be dictated to by their ‘infallible’ Fuhrer without participating in the slightest degree in their own destiny. The Fuhrer is always right, the Fuhrer never errs. The German people have been taken in by this devil.’

Oct. 28, 1941: ‘A soldier on vacation here reported as eye-witness terrible atrocities in the occupied parts of Poland. He has watched as naked Jewish men and women were placed in front of a long deep ditch and upon the order of the SS were shot by Ukrainians in the back of their heads and they fell into the ditch. Then the ditch was closed and from the ditch you could still hear screams. These inhuman atrocities are so terrible that the Ukrainians who were used as tools suffered nervous breakdowns. … There is no punishment that would be hard enough to be applied to these Nazi beasts.’

Dec. 10, 1942: ‘If France wants to be saved it has to be enthusiastically on the side of England and America without any limitation. Each Frenchman who fraternizes with Hitler is a mean scoundrel.’

May 30, 1943: ‘The collapse of France in 1940 was a real puzzle for many people throughout the world. … France was attacked by Germany, completely robbed and plundered, and totally occupied. In spite of all this, there are still Frenchmen who are completely and totally on the side of Hitler.’

March 28, 1945: ‘While sitting at my desk shortly past 3:00 in the afternoon, I heard airplanes circling over Laubach in pursuit of retreating German columns of troops. Suddenly, while I was looking out the window toward the sky, a bomb hit the post office and two more bombs landed just across the street at the entrance of Ruhl’s courtyard. The blast damaged the front of the courthouse and blew out all the windows, including in our apartment. … My desk and I were covered with glass splinters and pieces of the ceiling. Our window curtains and the flowers are now part of the war.’

March 29, 1945: ‘Shortly after 3 o’clock in the afternoon we hear noises on the road. In the cellar of our building are gathered those wounded in the name of Goebbels’ Propaganda, and some neighbors, all obviously intimidated. Among them, naturally, are the party members, none of them with a clear conscience. These believe the approaching Allied soldiers will behave like the German soldiers did in Poland, etc. Their sheepish fear gives me pleasure. I cannot pass up the chance to make scornful remarks. … For the first time we behold Americans.’

copyright 2007, Fort Worth Star-Telegram.