August Landmesser refused to salute
During the 1930s and 1940s, German citizens were persuaded by their government, the German National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI), that Jews were parasites (bugs) that needed “exterminated” in order for the German state to thrive.
German citizens – that means the average church-going, hard-working German citizen – went along with the policies of the German elite and powerful. The common people became convinced that Germany would be “better off” if the Jews were gone.
I’ve often questioned how an entire culture can go along with the murder of SIX MILLION Jews in gas chambers and concentration camps.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Online Encylopedia gives us the answer.
- The Nazis were in near-total control of public space.
- Government censorship prevented dissenting voices from being heard.
- Few Germans had the courage to speak out publicly against the persecution of Jews.
- They were aware of the risk that outspoken dissidents faced in a police state where politics had become weaponized.
- Opponents of the regime could be arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned in concentration camps without trial.
- Pressures to defer to authority and obey laws and decrees were present even without the added intimidation by Nazi activists.
- Many people wanted to protect their jobs or advance their careers.
- Others did not want to “swim against the tide” by failing to conform to Nazi racist norms.
- Therefore, most Germans cut off relations with Jewish friends and neighbors, in public if not in private.
- Soon, the policies of the German National Socialist Workers Party (NAZI) became culturally accepted.
But there was one guy who said “No” to the NAZI policy of propaganda that a Jew was really a bug to be exterminated.
August Landmesser
His name was August Landmesser.
He was a shipworker in Hamburg, Germany. In 1931, hoping it would help him get employment, August joined the Nazi Party.
But in 1935, August became engaged to Irma Eckler (a Jewish woman).
The Nazis expelled August from the party.
August and Irma were registered to be married in Hamburg, but the Nuremberg Laws enacted by the Nazi Party a month before the wedding prevented their formal union.
On 29 October 1935, Landmesser and Eckler’s first daughter, Ingrid, was born to them out of wedlock.
The photo at the top of this page is August Landmesser defiantly refusing to give the Nazi salute at the shipyard where he worked in Hamburg, Germany.
He was the only man refusing the Nazi salute.
Eventually arrested by the Nazis, August Landmesser died in a penal colony during World War II.
It takes courage and strength to stand against the accepted lies of culture.
Fast-forward to the United States in 2022. The Biden Administration has threatened to pull federal funding, fire workers, and otherwise intimidate any school, business, or person who refuses to comply with the propaganda that gender is subjective and personal, not objective and biological.
According to the U.S. government, what gender you are isn’t defined or constrained by your body. Gender is defined by your internal kind of subjective view of your gender. In other words, truth is not objective. Truth is how you feel, even if what you feel is a lie.
According to the deceptive “gender ideology” being perpetrated by the elite in education and the powerful in U.S. politics, the reality of male and female as a given biological fact must be replaced in our country’s education, social, medical, and political systems by an entirely internal and subjective feeling of gender identity.
If a boy says he’s a girl or a girl feels she’s a boy, then we must believe it, says the U.S. government. Society must affirm the biological lie and conform to government mandates that force recognition of a boy as a girl and a girl as a boy. If you refuse, the government will make you pay.
It’s the 1930s and 1940s all over again.
The way Nazi Germany obtained control of the German populace is the exact same way Socialist Democrats are gaining control of the American culture. If all you are thinking about when you go to the voting booth is the potential loss of federal lunch money or federal dollars for your school, city, or business, then you are no better than the German citizens of the 1930s and 1940s.
A Jew isn’t a bug to be exterminated and a boy isn’t a girl to be mutilated, no matter what the government says.
It takes courage to stand up to such powerful intimidation. There is a high cost of standing for truth and against propaganda.
I stand with August Landmesser.
Even if I’m the last man standing or the only man standing.
I’ll keep standing.
Wade,
I’ve given several copies of this to people. Keep up the good work.
Wade, this week, it was NOT a ‘socialist Democrat’ that threatened our Jewish population with words to the effect that ‘they had better get their act together’ . . . .
you may not have heard about this, but it is being reported about in the wider media and I see it as an attempt on the part of some extremists to ‘normalize’ the rising extreme anti-semitism in our land, God forbid.
I’m glad you openly speak against the persecution of the Jewish people in history and in our own time. Thank you for this. It means a great deal to me.
All ‘extremism’ converges in acts that de-humanize and take away from the dignity of the human person as created by God. At some point the far right and the far left extremes politically meet up in their ultimate destruction of innocent people
Wade, you said, “A boy isn’t a girl to be mutilated, no matter what the government says.”
I saw a woman on TV and told Judy she sounded like a man. She replied, “She is a man.”
I found something that speaks to the REASONING a Christian person might have that sets them ‘above’ the anger and the haggles and the rejections and isolations of the religious culture warriors of today. In reading what is quoted, am I right to ask, is this not a departure from the intensity of anger and contempt that is found in both extremes of left and right in today’s culture warriors? I think it is a ‘better way’ than pointing the finger at ‘those other sinners’.
Take a look:
“. . . the calling of Christians
is to be shaped and reshaped into people
whose every thought and action is characterized by faith, hope, and love
and
you then speak and act in the world
with humility, patience, and tolerance ”
(Dr. John Inazu is quoting these words from his friend Andy Crouch)
I think these are good words to explain WHY it is POSSIBLE for a Christ-follower to befriend another person whose ways and beliefs may differ from one’s own, in a way that honors the person as a child of God who is more important than any ‘differences’ that divide us from our human brothers and sisters
CHRISTIANE,
Jesus said, “You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.” (Matthew 7:13-14 NLT)
We CANNOT honor a person as a child of God “whose ways and beliefs may differ…”
Hey out there REX RAY,
Think about the great mystery that is found in the teaching of Our Lord in the Holy Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 10, wherein Our Lord told us about a man whose beliefs and ways differed from the Jewish people of His day and how that pagan man, who was looked upon with contempt, behaved . . . .
“25 And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?
26 He said unto him, What is written in the law? how readest thou?
27 And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself.
28 And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.
29 But he, willing to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbour?
30 And Jesus answering said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, which stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead.
31 And by chance there came down a certain priest that way: and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side.
32 And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side.
33 But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was: and when he saw him, he had compassion on him,
34 And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him.
35 And on the morrow when he departed, he took out two pence, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatsoever thou spendest more, when I come again, I will repay thee.
36 Which now of these three, thinkest thou, was neighbour unto him that fell among the thieves?
37 And he said, He that shewed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou likewise.”
REX RAY,
the mystery of Christ expressed in the Holy Gospels of Our Lord may not be understood easily,
but Christ opens up the meaning to those who would follow Him, especially in the parables He taught us in those Gospels.
The Samaritan was a man whose ways and beliefs were ‘different’, but in the end, when Our Lord asks ‘and who was NEIGHBOR to the wounded man?’
the answer comes to us
‘the one who showed him mercy’
What I cannot understand is how far we people wander from the simplicity that is in Jesus Christ Crucified and Risen from the Dead,
and yet how kindly and gently He teaches us ‘the better way’. A great kindness, a great mercy in that gentleness to us who struggle here below.
REX RAY,
you wrote, this “We CANNOT honor a person as a child of God “whose ways and beliefs may differ…”
And yet Our Lord Himself honored a man ‘whose ways and beliefs’ differed from the Jews of that day, a man who was considered a pagan and who was held by the Jews in contempt . . . .
Take another look at the parable of ‘the Good Samaritan’ in the 10th chapter of the Holy Gospel of St. Luke
How kindly and gently Our Lord teaches us when we cannot grasp the great mysteries of God, and we come to understand that it is the ones who show mercy to those who need it that act as their ‘neighbors’ . . . . even if the one who shows mercy is ‘different’, there was still a deep core of the acting out of love and of kindness like that of Our God, in the pagan Samaritan.
What is ‘of God’ in the way of those ‘others’ that live according to the fruit of the Holy Spirit in their lives, though they may not know the Holy Name??
Such is one of the great mysteries of Christ, that only God ‘knows’ who is saved. We cannot ‘judge’ those other sinners’ because only God ‘sees’ the human heart. So we can be peaceful in Christ and we do not need to finger-point or look down on anyone. And if we do look down on someone, let us be neighbor to someone who has been wounded and show mercy, as Our Lord teaches us to do in St. Luke’s Gospel. It is a hard learning, yes because we ourselves are among ‘the wounded’ He is healing.
CHRISTIANE,
Wade is stating that it’s wrong for an operation to turn boys into girls. It sounds like you disagree by you writing:
“It is POSSIBLE for a Christ-follower to befriend another person whose ways and beliefs may differ from one’s own, in a way that honors the person as a child of God who is more important than any ‘differences’ that divide us from our human brothers and sisters.”
When I agree with Wade, you jump on me by quoting the ‘Good Samaritan story’. If I’m seeing that the wrong way, I apologize.
REX RAY,
IF you read Wade’s other blog, you will find that I sympathize with any child who has ‘gender issues’
THEN, you can see that I dislike any extreme treatments of such a child before the child is old enough to understand what is going on . . . .
I, like Wade, do not wish to see any child undergo ‘permanent’ surgeries that alter body parts in order to please some extremist agenda . . . . that seems to me to be something that does not take the child’s dignity as a human person seriously,
as a human person cannot ‘know’ how they will feel when they are older and there are reports of people wanting to ‘reverse’ gender changes that were results of surgeries when they were quite young . . .
REX RAY,
the people I care about whose ways and beliefs differ from my own include all those who have embraced a political viewpoint that differs from my own,
and the ONLY regret I may have is that sometimes these folks only listen to certain ‘sources’ . . .
however, I will support my friends who ‘see things differently’ because I want them to have the right to make up their OWN MINDS. . . .
I did not know that your comment was addressing Wade’s issue, no.
I thought you were using something from St. Matthew’s Gospel that I felt might be seen in a different light
IF
you remembered the story told by Our Lord about ‘the Good Samaritan’ who
WAS a pagan, but whose loving-kindness for the fallen victim showed that he was a true neighbor to that poor wounded man. . . .
I think we both misunderstood each other here. And I must also apologize because I did not see what you wrote clearly.
I oppose all ‘extremism’ that puts children ‘in the middle’ of the culture wars. Children cannot handle it. They can easily be harmed by the agendas of both extremists of the left AND the right.
I would want children to ‘grow up’ and then make their OWN adult decisions rather than have others harm them as children, yes. For adults with gender issues, I also think they have the right to make up their OWN minds as to how they see things. That is a part of the dignity of any human person, that they can freely decide for themselves using their own moral consciences.
I hope this helps. I value your opinions even when I may disagree with them because they are YOUR opinions and they belong to you rightly in our free country.
CHRISTIANE,
I want peace even if I have to fight for it. (Smile)
Oh, I don’t mind a good haggle, REX RAY. 🙂
The thing is, I will almost never agree with certain political stances or practices,
but it doesn’t mean I can’t like the people who do.
The problem comes when folks insist that people who aren’t ‘lock-step’ with their own viewpoint are ‘the bad guys’;
but that has never been the American way as most people understand that we have the freedoms in this country to make up our own minds AND to stand up for our own values as long as we are respectful of one another’s rights to do the same.
But a good ‘haggle’ ? I’m in. Bring it on. And no hard feelings if there are differences of opinion. I don’t take things personally, especially THESE DAYS! 🙂
Peace sounds wonderful, but we will only fine perfect peace in the Kingdom of Our Lord.