You would have done what you are doing today

In the swimming pool of my childhood („De Bütt“, Hürth) there are still two swimming pools.

One was less than one meter deep, the non-swimmer pool.

The second was a large, serious swimming pool with a three-meter board above it and deep enough that diving to the bottom was a test of courage.

You will surely agree with me on this thesis: If a visitor does not dare to splash around in the non-swimmer pool, then he will certainly not dare to swim in the large pool.

So far, so plausible, right?

But this also means: The question is answered.

Which question?

Well, the question.

What would you have done

Every student in Germany, not just in my generation, has had the question placed as a heavy burden on their young shoulders, and the question is: What would you have done there and then?

The question is answered: Nothing. You would have done nothing.

How do I know that you would have done nothing?

Because you are doing nothing today.

I can almost hear you as I write this, in the last hours of yet another much too short night. I hear you protesting from the near future: „I am not doing nothing! I am doing something!“

And then, because you realize how dangerous the accusation of „relativization“ is in Our Democracy, you add: „Besides, today is not like back then. That was a one-time injustice!“

For explanation and documentation: According to §130 StGB, anyone who „approves, denies or trivializes an act committed under the rule of National Socialism“ can be thrown in jail or punished otherwise (and in a way that is suitable to disturb public peace, which is largely assessed at the discretion of the prosecutor and judge).

In practice, this means: The Our Democracy functionaries can slander political opponents as „Nazis“ etc. without punishment – the prosecutors are bound by the instructions of Our Democracy functionaries.

However, anyone who points out parallels in the actions and thoughts of the Our Democracy functionaries to certain aspects of the former totalitarianism can easily be prosecuted for „relativizing“ past crimes. In this case, punishment and public humiliation often occur without charges and proceedings, as house searches are already practiced as punishment.

Saying „never again“ is dangerous in Germany when the „again“ is attempted by the „good“.

Relative to the professional pool

But don’t worry, dear swimming students, we are not relativizing here, except in the sense that today relates to back then, as the non-swimmer pool relates to the professional pool with diving board.

In Great Britain, right next door, a veritable totalitarianism is currently being installed – including persecution and conviction for thought crimes.

The British police are daily on duty against thoughts that are not yet illegal but could develop into illegal thoughts.

You tell yourself: „That has nothing to do with me, that is not my country, they are not even in the EU occupation zone!“ – Thus, the question is answered about what you would have done as a citizen of a neighboring state: nothing.

In Germany, government critics who called for demonstrations against the „illegal injustice“ of the government are thrown in jail under flimsy accusations without due process.

And what are you doing?

You might complain a little, but even that only cautiously. You don’t want to lose your job. Or experience one of the mentioned and always unspoken threatening punitive house searches – and the suspicion of wrong thinking is enough.

And so on and so forth. And anyway, what should you do?

The back then is the deep pool with diving board. The today is comparatively the non-swimmer pool – and you hardly dare to let any water splash today, let alone jump in with a run.

I can understand you.

Little about the outside world

Yes, I can understand you. And I would do the same – if I were free from this tendency to seek the reason for my insomnia in the early morning hours, many lines and paragraphs long.

But even my writing changes little about the outside world. Neither you nor I change much, otherwise you and I would have long been in jail. Or would be standing in bathrobes at the door, filmed by the mocking cameras of state broadcasting, while the obedient police officers (they are just doing their job) turn our house upside down as senselessly as humiliatingly and confiscate conspiratorial inventory.

The question of what we would have done back then is answered – and I mean that it is not particularly relevant. (Except if one enjoys being a „hero in thought.“ Some imagine they are James Bond. Another imagines they are a resistance fighter. What one dreams while searching for bargains in the supermarket.)

Our daily Broder

Almost daily, one wants to quote Henryk Broder in these years. I last did so in the essay „You shall speak the truth, but without Einstein“: „If you wonder how that could happen back then: because they were back then as you are today.“

Broder does not say that today is like back then. He suggests, however, that today other terrible and inhumane conditions will follow, but due to the same weaknesses as back then. (For illustration: Every accident due to drunkenness may end differently catastrophically; yet the accidents share one common cause.)

First know what

People did not know back then what would come after, that is, after the back then. They did not even know at the beginning that the back then was indeed a back then with a capital B!

We also do not know what will happen after our today. We do not know how deep this swimming pool still goes, whether we can already fathom the entire depth or are still splashing towards completely different abysses – and what monsters there await us.

That it will not be „like before“ seems quite clear. De-industrialization will not be followed by re-industrialization; especially not when German top people are leaving in their thousands while artificial intelligence redefines the global economy and society.

Neither you nor I can change too much about the external circumstances. For that, we would first have to know what is really happening.

The children so nice

Be honest: You sense it too, you feel it in your bones, that where they allow us debate and protest and even a little change, it is only a harmless playground. Like giving children a few building blocks or a computer game so they can build and then knock down their cute little houses without consequence. It calms the children so nicely while the adults do the real things.

I do not know what I would have done back then.

But I know what I must do today: I must become smarter, want to be a little less shallow. Do not want to be Laodicea, want to take to heart Revelation 3:15 where it says: „You are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were cold or hot!“

Ah, I am too realistic – or too worn out – to say that I am working on being the person I want and should be. It would be much and for the first time probably enough gained if I resembled less the person I definitely do not want to be.

The muffin, the person

The sun has now risen, the coffee has been drunk, and the muffin baked by my daughter has been eaten.

I cannot change the world, but I can change myself. I am working on being less the person I do not want to be.

And if I had the power to command, I would command you to do it in your own way and according to your own, honest understanding.