Challenging Authority: Lessons from Hitler, Putin, and Power

Roles can consume us, distorting our sense of self. True flexibility lies in balancing personal authenticity with external expectations. Challenging authority, together, can foster justice.

Yesterday I was sitting on the couch in the living room, looking ahead. I looked outside with staring eyes after an intense day for me. There's quite a lot going on around me right now, and I'm dealing with a lot of authoritarian people. People who, like you and me, play a role in everyday life.

Are you, like me, fairly flexible?

People who, like you and me, play a role in the life of the world are often unaware that it is only a role. In many cases, this role is completely separate from who they are as human beings. Unfortunately, these people are often unaware of this. These people often surrender completely to this role. By choosing a role, you often have to live according to the requirements that this "desired" role entails. After all, a role usually also includes a certain attitude and behavior that you very often let go of in your private life. Some people identify themselves with the profile of the job and maintain this attitude even after their working hours.

Do you have the role you want?

They love the respect that other people around them show them. Many people don't know these people well enough to know that this is the case, but are we talking about coping here? Coping means: Adapting your behavior to the other person, in order to be happy yourself, and to be able to stay happy. Many of these people lose sight of who they actually are because of the coping they use on a daily basis. Often, they don't know at all how others see them or think about them. Because they often behave forcedly, they can cause a lot of unrest in their environment. There are often many people who despise them and want nothing to do with them outside of the often-business interests.

Picture: linkedin

Do you know what others think about you?

These "others" often see you as an authority, or as the one who can exert a lot of influence on them. For example, if you are a civil servant, a teacher, or a manager of these people, they will often not dare to contradict you, so you will never really find out what they really think about you. If you think about this carefully, you probably recognize those people yourself, also in your environment. You probably know which people feel the same way about you. People you know disagree with you, but never contradict you. You will never know what they think about you, and you will never hear their real opinion of you, because they think they are too dependent on you.

Do you know any of these dependencies?

Unfortunately, we are all familiar with these dependencies. It only becomes difficult when people in their attitude, because of their position or level of education, consistently want to bend others to their will with a completely "wrong" attitude and behavior. I don't want to mention the Nazis, Romans and/or people of other faiths here, but these are examples of this, in my view, misplaced behavior. I think Hitler, Napoleon, Mussolini and maybe even Vladimir Putin are good examples of this, but fortunately these are only extremes. But they also started that way in their lives. Many "normal" people will often fear reprisals if they experience this type of behavior.

Could we have stopped Hitler and Putin in their behavior sooner?

You're probably familiar with the term "followers"? Do you often think about the possible consequences of giving pushback to someone who has to or can decide on matters that are important to you? Civil servants, teachers or doctors, people who can often change your future with the click of a mouse? A well-known saying is often something that people like you and I think about: "Arrogance often comes before a fall." But who in their environment is brave enough to bring about that fall? Who is the one who, despite the possible negative consequences, "Keeps his back straight?" Who still believes in righteousness in this life?

Do you think life is just?

Picture: Vladimir Putin, Wikipedia

What I find funny about this situation is that in practice, there are very few who dare to take on this challenge. In my experience, there are few known "whistleblowers" who have escaped without damage. This is happening, in my opinion, because there are so few Whistleblowers standing up currently. There are relatively few of them, and those few are crushed by the often university-educated opponents. They cover each other's backs just a little too often in my opinion. If people stand up in unison against these coping-overwhelmed types, the outcome may well be a revolution in which heads eventually roll. Just think of Marie Antoinette and Louis the Sixteenth who ended up on the scaffold. It probably won't take off that quickly, but I suggest challenging the current orders a little more. Connect with like-minded people and go for your own happiness, what do you think about this?

 

Why Anne Frank The Diary Had Been So Popular Till Now

For a while in their lives, being Jews in Germany and Hindu in Pakistan was a curse. There are still religious disputes all over the world in every country. Although we are all made of one substance, this does not allow the average person to live in peace. One of these events, which affected millions of families during World War 2, was frequently discussed and was documented in the diary of 13-year-old Anne Frank (12 June 1929-Feb 1945). However, only one person from her family survived, and it was her father, Otto Frank.

Anne Frank was a younger daughter of a German businessman, Otto Frank, who later moved to the Netherlands and Switzerland. Holocaust victim Anne became well-known for keeping a diary and sharing her experiences. She used to read in class and had aspirations of becoming a writer. She had also written short stories. Frank and her family went into hiding for almost two years to abstain from the Nazis. Only Otto from the family managed to survive the war.

Anne Frank while writing in 1940 | credit to Wikimedia Commons

Secret Annexe (Anne Frank's hiding place)

Many Jews started hiding in their secret places as the German secret state police started invading and arresting Jews. As a result, not only was Otto's business closed, but also the Jewish community as a whole and their freedom. During the first three years of World War II (which started in September 1939), anti-Jewish legislation was created to separate Jews from Germans. Jews were subjected to greater humiliation, isolation, and demonization at every stage of their lives. They were forced not to go to the cinema hall, the shopping complex, and were restricted from many other things. In 1939, nearly 50 anti-Jewish laws were passed by the Nazi persecution. They were on a night curfew. All these things happened immediately after Adolf Hitler came to power.

otto frank
Otto frank | Credit to wikipedia

The hiding place of Otto Frank, called the Secret Annexe. This is the curse of time on the millions of Jews, about 200,000 in Germany, concentrated in and around Berlin. As a result, those who were too old, children, parents, deceased, or wounded were residing in the camp without access to running water for their toilets. In her diary, Anne detailed how the Holocaust caused Jews to suffer and eventually perish. The interactions between people and her positive and negative experiences were almost like a story from every day.

“[…] Every night, hundreds of planes fly over Holland and go to German towns where the earth is plowed up by their bombs and every hour hundreds and thousands of people are killed in Russia and Africa. No one is able to keep out of it. The whole world is wagging war and although it is going better for the allies, the end is not yet in sight. And for us, we are fortunate yes, we are luckiest than millions of people. It is quite and safe here, and we are, so to speak, living on capital. We are even so selfish as to talk about “after the war” brighten. […]”

According to the situation out there in German, peace lovers, those who oppose the war were murdered or gassed in Poland and Russia. Anne always loved to write about her friends and family, but never liked to write about the politics. However, the situations made her write about overhead noisy flying planes (overnight), bombardment of bombs, humiliations, and experience of thriller of families under unknown roof that sometimes breathless and fear could be seen in trembling hands. Holland was the closest place of Germany. Those days, it was a prominent battlefield. All of them were going through psychological trauma.

Who found Anne Frank the diary of a Young girl?

The frequently recalled victim, Anne Frank, of the Holocaust, received fame through her diary, “The Diary of a Young Girl”. Anne was born in Frankfurt and soon moved to Amsterdam when she was four and a half years old. It was a period when Adolf Hitler and other Nazi supporters led Germany. As a result, three years before the start of World War 2, a difficult time began for all Jews. Jews in those times were as worthy of death as anyone. In addition, the minutes, hours, days, and months were the hardest times ever, leading to mental illness and instability, among other things.

Otto Frank and his family were made stateless after losing their citizenship in 1941. Living in a secret annex for two years came to an end, though. The Frank family was detained on August 4, 1944, by Dutch informers, or Nazi Gestapo. It occurred in Amsterdam, and all of them were sent to the concentration camp on November 1, 1944, in Auschwitz. Anne was 15 when she was caught. Margot and Anne were later transferred to the concentration camp at Bergen-Belsen. Two of Otto Frank's assistants, Miep Gies and Voskuijl, later discovered Anne's diary and other written documents in his secret annexe. In Anne's drawers, they meticulously arranged all the important written documents and her diary.

Furthermore, Anne Frank's diary, the diary of a young girl, reveals a lot of information. Thus, Anne and her sister both rest in peace, having most likely passed away from typhus (a fever disease spread by lice, fleas, and various other insects). High fever, nausea, vomiting, and diarrhea are symptoms of acute typhus. There was no running water in the toilets. However, in some concentration camps, female inmates were used as test subjects for medical research, hundreds of whom died from the treatments, and others were killed so that autopsies could be done on them. However, those who survived, left with permanent injuries. The kids were also used for organ transplants.

Those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana

The diary of Anne became the most famous in the world and was translated into 70 languages. Originally released in 1947, immediately following India's independence. Originally, the book was translated from Dutch to English in 1952.

Additionally, read The Letter of Mahatma Gandhi to Adolf Hitler and about Holocaust survivor and author Primo Levy. The letter was an appeal to Adolf Hitler to reverse his horrific, fatally mistaken decision to start World War 2.

Letter of M K Gandhi To Adolf Hitler, On Desist of World War 2

mahatma gandhi letter to hitler

Every second human on this planet applauses on the skill of Gandhi on defeat his enemy. The political party of Gandhi were seeking not to defeat British rules but convert them into friendly behaviours. His amiable nature never considered or treated Britain as misanthropic.

Thus, this free advised was given to Hitler to give him a second thought on his monstrous acts which could have saved more than 70 to 80 millions human fatality ever noted on this earth planet in the World War 2 including 10 million people died due to genocide. World War II is generally considered to have begun on 1 September 1939

Gandhi's Letter to Hitler was written at Wardha and sent on December 24, 1940

As at Wardha,
December 24, 1940

DEAR FRIEND,
That I address you as a friend is no formality. I own no foes. My business in life has been for the past 33 years to enlist the friendship of the whole of humanity by befriending mankind, irrespective of race, colour or creed.
I hope you will have the time and desire to know how a good portion of humanity who have view living under the influence of that doctrine of universal friendship view your action.

We have no doubt about your bravery or devotion to your fatherland, nor do we believe that you are the monster described by your opponents. But your own writings and pronouncements and those of your friends and admirers leave no room for doubt that many of your acts are monstrous and unbecoming of human dignity, especially in the estimation of men like me who believe in universal friendliness.

Such are your humiliation of Czechoslovakia, the rape of Poland and the swallowing of Denmark. I am aware that your view of life regards such spoliations as virtuous acts. But we have been taught from childhood to regard them as acts degrading humanity. Hence, we cannot possibly wish success to your arms.
But ours is a unique position. We resist British Imperialism no less than Nazism. If there is a difference, it is in degree. One-fifth of the human race has been brought under the British heel by means that will not bear scrutiny. Our resistance to it does not mean harm to the British people. We seek to convert them, not to defeat them on the battle-field. Ours is an unarmed revolt against the British rule.

But whether we convert them or not, we are determined to make their rule impossible by non-violent non-co-operation. It is a method in its nature indefensible. It is based on the knowledge that no spoliator can compass his end without a certain degree of co-operation, willing or compulsory, of the victim. Our rulers may have our land and bodies but not our souls. They can have the former only by complete destruction of every Indian—man, woman and child.

That all may not rise to that degree of heroism and that a fair amount of frightfulness can bend the back of revolt is true but the argument would be beside the point. For, if a fair number of men and women be found in India who would be prepared without any ill will against the spoliators to lay down their lives rather than bend the knee to them, they would have shown the way to freedom from the tyranny of violence.

I ask you to believe me when I say that you will find an unexpected number of such men and women in India. They have been having that training for the past 20 years. We have been trying for the past half a century to throw off the British rule. The movement of independence has been never so strong as now.

The most powerful political organization, I mean the Indian National Congress, is trying to achieve this end. We have attained a very fair measure of success through non-violent effort. We were groping for the right means to combat the most organized violence in the world which the British power represents. You have challenged it. It remains to be seen which is the better organized, the German or the British.

We know what the British heel means for us and the non-European races of the world. But we would never wish to end the British rule with German aid. We have found in non-violence a force which, if organized, can without doubt match itself against a combination of all the most violent forces in the world. In non-violent technique, as I have said, there is no such thing as defeat. It is all ‘do or die’ without killing or hurting.

It can be used practically without money and obviously without the aid of science of destruction which you have brought to such perfection. It is a marvel to me that you do not see that it is nobody’s monopoly. If not the British, some other power will certainly improve upon your method and beat you with your own weapon. You are leaving no legacy to your people of which they would feel proud.

They cannot take pride in a recital of cruel deed, however skilfully planned. I, therefore, appeal to you in the name of humanity to stop the war. You will lose nothing by referring all the matters of dispute between you and Great Britain to an international tribunal of your joint choice. If you attain success in the war, it will not prove that you were in the right. It will only prove that your power of destruction was greater. Whereas an award by an impartial tribunal will show as far as it is humanly possible which party was in the right.
You know that not long ago I made an appeal to every Briton to accept my method of non-violent resistance. I did it because the British know me as a friend though a rebel. I am a stranger to you and your people. I have not the courage to make you the appeal I made to every Briton. Not that it would not apply to you with the same force as to the British.

But my present proposal is much simple because much more practical and familiar. During this season when the hearts of the peoples of Europe yearn for peace, we have suspended even our own peaceful struggle. Is it too much to ask you to make an effort for peace during a time which may mean nothing to you personally but which must mean much to the millions of Europeans whose dumb cry for peace I hear, for my ears are attended to hearing the dumb millions?

I had intended to address a joint appeal to you and Signor Mussolini, whom I had the privilege of meeting when I was in Rome during my visit to England as a delegate to the Round Table Conference. I hope that he will take this as addressed to him also with the necessary changes.

I am,
Your sincere friend,
M. K. GANDHI

Read more about how the conversation between young daughter (India Gandhi's letters) convey the messages to her father Nehru. The truth about, Love In Practice is painful when Hikmet convey through letter to his wife.