Dave Cieslewicz
Mauthausen entrance gate pictured from the inside.
The entrance gate at Mauthausen, a Nazi concentration in Austria during World War II.
Last month I was traveling in Europe with friends. We went to Luxembourg, Vienna and Salzburg. It was nice. We got to see our friend, former Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, in his digs at the U.S. Embassy in Luxembourg where he is the ambassador. We visited numerous Christmas markets, where we ate bratwurst and drank hot, mulled wine. We went to museums and churches and heard some incredible music by Vivaldi and Mozart. We ate crisp apple strudel and schnitzel with noodles. Also, the beer was excellent.
But I can’t help myself, so I also looked into the politics of Austria. Not so happy. Turns out the Austrians are going through much of what we in America — and most western democracies — are experiencing. Like us, they have an election next year and the possibility of electing a hard-right populist is very real. That’s especially troubling in a country that embraced the Holocaust with enthusiasm. Some 70% of concentration camp commandants were Austrian.
Had I visited Mauthausen, the Nazi concentration camp near Linz, Austria, a decade ago I would have thought it was a totally alien place. From another century. From another political system. From another culture. Out of somebody else's history. As if plopped down on earth from some other world.
But when I visited it with my friends in a cold, driving rain last Friday it seemed all too real. We were there less than two weeks after Donald Trump, on Veterans Day, called his political opponents "vermin" and after his campaign spokesperson promised that they would be "crushed" out of their "miserable existence." And, of course, the rise in anti-semitism, even — maybe especially — on the left, has been startling.
So, do I think it could happen here? My equivocal answer is no, I don't think so. Hitler started by suspending civil rights. He first silenced his political opponents and then moved on to pursue genocide. Our Founders wisely made it very hard to amend our Constitution and, even with Trump's three justices in place, I don't think this Supreme Court would stand for it, though two of its members, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito, very well might.
So, largely because of our laws, legal system and lawyers, I don't think we're likely to repeat what happened in Europe in the middle of the last century. But the very fact that it feels like an open question is astounding to me.
Don't forget that Hitler came to power in a free election, just as Trump did in 2016 and nearly did again four years later. Don't forget that even after he made himself a virtual dictator Hitler still enjoyed wide support. Don't forget that the German middle class simply looked the other way when their Jewish neighbors were abused, when their synagogues were burned to the ground, when their homes and possessions were stolen, and then when they simply disappeared.
In the communities around Mauthausen the burghers could not have been ignorant of the murders of over 200,000 people there over seven years. Over 8,000 guards circulated through the camp over those years and countless other bureaucrats handled the enormous organizational details that went into industrial scale murder. Every one of those people had family and friends. They never talked to them about what they did at their jobs or what they witnessed?
My point is that Hitler wasn't a political aberration. He couldn't have done what he did without the active support or the knowing complicity of millions. There was something in the German character that allowed it to happen, something that I never thought was present in the DNA of Americans.
Until now. About 75 million people voted for Trump in 2020, but that was before his "vermin" comments. To vote for him in 2024 raises moral questions that I can't answer for the voter.
Of all the things I saw at Mauthausen the thing that I found most chilling was a small display tucked away among the exhibits. It was simply a series of panels with the resumes and life histories of the higher ranking officials at the camp. Before the war these were average people with the usual kinds of jobs. Banker, accountant, school teacher, etc. They went on to commit acts of unspeakable horror.
It's easy to think of the perpetrators of the Holocaust as the Brown Shirt thugs, but these were solid citizens. For example, Adolf Zutter was a school teacher and employment counselor with a wife and two children before he joined the SS in 1939. He worked as a guard at Dachau and then moved to Mauthausen where eventually he was promoted to adjutant to the commandant. One of his duties was to sign execution orders. He was tried for his crimes and hanged.
Like most Americans, I suppose, I tend to have a sunny disposition. I like to think that people are basically good and that, whoever might be in charge of the country, the fundamental decency of the American people will prevail.
But then I remember that 75 million of my fellow citizens voted for Donald Trump — and yes, as if there is any doubt, after his Veterans Day comments, I am very much comparing him now to Adolf Hitler. And I have to think to myself, even after he echoed Hitler’s language regarding those who oppose him, how many of us will vote for him again?
Dave Cieslewicz is a Madison- and Upper Peninsula-based writer who served as mayor of Madison from 2003 to 2011. You can read more of his work at Yellow Stripes & Dead Armadillos.
