Landscape with a Rainbow Effect is one of the last painting of Joseph Wright (1734-1797). I enjoy the use of light and contrast. Wright lived in Derby and among his patrons were some of the early manufacturers of the Industrial Revolution, which he also depicted in his art.
I've commented frequently on the deterioration of academia and its inability to reform itself, most recently in An Urgent Problem. Here's another example.
In March of this year, Yale Law School terminated the contract of Helyeh Doutaghi, an Iranian-Muslim, after it was alleged she was associated with a terrorist network. An embarrassed Yale then did enough investigation to decide to terminate her. The Law School hired her to be Deputy Director the Law and Political Economy Project and an Associate Research Scholar. But here are the bigger questions. Below is Doutaghi's Yale bio. Why would anyone hire someone with this resume? What need did it fulfill? What intellectual contribution would be made to a law school by someone with this background? Who did they reject in the hiring process?
The Yale bio:
Her research explores the intersections of the Third World Approaches to International Law (TWAIL), encompassing Marxian and postcolonial critiques of law, sanctions, and international political economy. Helyeh's doctoral dissertation draws on the mechanisms, harms, and beneficiaries of the sanctions regime imposed on Iran, centering questions of value transfer and wealth drain. Additionally she is interested in International Humanitarian Law (IHL), having written about its history, practice, and the production of knowledge (and ignorance), particularly in the context of the U.S. military.
Doutaghi received a Doctorate in Legal Studies from Carleton University in Canada. She came to Canada because her father worked at the Islamic Republic's embassy in Ottawa before being expelled in 2012 by the Canadian government because “the Islamic regime is using its mission here to monitor the activities of Iranian-Canadians.” He is currently acting head of the Iranian consulate in Hong Kong. His daughter remained in Canada after he left. She does not appear to be an American citizen.
Just within the past few days, Doutaghi tweeted in response to a tweet saying "Iran has a right to defend itself":
"including targeting all US military bases in the region, the occupied Palestinian territories, and any state that enables aggression by allowing its airspace or territory to be used for attacks on Iran."
When Doutaghi was let go by Yale, many "scholars" came to her defense, claiming she was "an internationally recognized and published scholar of international law, political economy, and armed conflict" and that "she has always advocated for the rights and self-determination of oppressed people, including Palestinians".
Doutaghi is indeed internationally recognized and published, which is an indictment of the extent of corruption in the disciplines of international law and political economy.
This is how the Yale Law and Political Economy Project describes itself, using all the usual cliche phrases of progressive thought:
The Law and Political Economy (LPE) Project brings together a network of scholars, practitioners, and students working to develop innovative intellectual, pedagogical, and political interventions to advance the study of political economy and law. Our work is rooted in the insight that politics and the economy cannot be separated and that both are constructed in essential respects by law. We believe that developments over the last several decades in legal scholarship and policy helped to facilitate rising inequality and precarity, political alienation, the entrenchment of racial hierarchies and intersectional exploitation, and ecological and social catastrophe. We aim to help reverse these trends by supporting scholarly work that maps where we have gone wrong, and that develops ideas and proposals to democratize our political economy and build a more just, equal, and sustainable future.
And this is its Manifesto:
This is a time of crises. Inequality is accelerating, with gains concentrated at the top of the income and wealth distributions. This trend – interacting with deep racialized and gendered injustice – has had profound implications for our politics, and for the sense of agency, opportunity, and security of all but the narrowest sliver of the global elite. Technology has intensified the sense that we are both interconnected and divided, controlled and out of control.
New ecological disasters unfold each day. The future of our planet is at stake: we are all at risk, yet unequally so. The rise of right-wing movements and autocrats around the world is threatening democratic institutions and political commitments to equality and openness. But new movements on the left are also emerging. They are challenging economic inequality, eroded democracy, the carceral state, and racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination with a force that was unthinkable just a few years ago.
Meet the Executive Director of the Project:
Corinne Blalock is the Executive Director of the Law and Political Economy Project and a Lecturer and Associate Research Scholar at Yale Law School. Her research draws on her education in both law and critical theory to explore how our political economy and market logic transform and limit the ways we imagine our society and the role of government in it.
In other words, the Law and Political Economy Project is designed to expand the role of government so that people like Blalock and Doutaghi and their acolytes can dictate how we should live our lives and ensure no one has "bad" ideas.
Ah, now I know why they hired Doutaghi. She's now gone but the LPE Project is still there. Yale Law School is fundamentally anti-American. Why should it receive one dollar of public funding? Not seeing much diversity in thought in this corner of academia.
This is also a reminder of the need for a strict vetting process for visas. Doutaghi, who appears to have entered the country in 2023 when hired by Yale, should never have been admitted to the United States.
The NBA on TNT was a joy to watch. This is one of my favorite segments. A Shaq-Kenny Smith colloquy on the strategy of filling a gas tank. Ernie Johnson can only shake his head while, astonishingly, a stunned Charles Barkley remains silent for the entire two and a half minutes, a rare occurrence.
And a fun NBA Finals between the Pacers and Thunder. Too bad Tyrese Haliburton went down in the first quarter of Game 7, but Indiana gave it a good try before running out of gas. Had not seen much of Haliburton before the playoffs but was really impressed by him. Unfortunately, an Achilles injury means he may miss all of next season.
This is on my Mount Rushmore. Shaq was deadass lmfaooo 😂😂😂😂😂pic.twitter.com/XB7LFfV8Zr https://t.co/lrCTRzbC1r
— Lion (The System) (@Champ_Lion) June 1, 2025
Came across this map of Comancheria, the homeland of the Comanche, showing the extent of the tribe's raiding areas into the 1870s. The tribe dominated this region for almost two centuries, holding off the Spanish, Mexicans, and Anglos. Their arrival in the early 18th century also drove the Apaches off the plains and into the mountains of New Mexico, Arizona, and Mexico.
The deeper red area, covering the Texas panhandle, the Midland-Odessa area, and slices of New Mexico, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Kansas was the heart of Comancheria, a no-go zone for outsiders. The raiding area is much larger, in the east extending to Dallas-Fort Worth, Austin, and San Antonio. In the 1840s, a Comanche raid even reached the Gulf Coast near Corpus Christi. Comanche raids also extended well into Mexico.
In 2018 we visited the homestead of Lyndon Baines Johnson's parents and grandparents, about 60 miles west of Austin, and learned how family members narrowly escaped capture during a Comanche raid in the early 1870s.
The entire New York Times Editorial Board published an opinion piece on anti-semitism in the June 14 issue of the paper.
It is welcome to see the Times address this issue, but how the Board chose to do so illustrates the shortcomings of its blinkered worldview and why, at the end of day, it amounts to a bunch of meaningless words because of the Board's refusal to even mention the underlying causes in today's America, including the role of the Times in fomenting that hate among its heavily progressive readership.
I also see that the structure of the editorial which, as always with the Times, starts with an attack on Trump, is done in the hope that their left-leaning readers will pay attention to what follows.
For these reasons, the Board uses tortured language and phrasing throughout.
My interests are not in defending either party. I've voted in every presidential election since 1972, but in 2024 left the presidential line blank because both Trump and today's Democratic Party were unacceptable to me, albeit for very different reasons. A former long time reader, I've written about my own discouragement with the Times here.
Below is the editorial in full, with my comments entered in brackets and boldface.
Antisemitism Is an Urgent Problem. Too Many People Are Making Excuses.
The list of horrific antisemitic attacks in the United States keeps growing. Two weeks ago in Boulder, Colo., a man set fire to peaceful marchers who were calling for the release of Israeli hostages. Less than two weeks earlier, a young couple was shot to death while leaving an event at the Jewish Museum in Washington. The previous month, an intruder scaled a fence outside the official residence of Gov. Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and threw Molotov cocktails while Mr. Shapiro, his wife and children were asleep inside. In October, a 39-year-old Chicago resident was shot from behind while walking to synagogue.
[Important to note that all of these incidents were by supporters of Hamas, who are also linked to the Left, a fact admitted by the Times later in this article.]
The United States is experiencing its worst surge of anti-Jewish hate in many decades. Antisemitic hate crimes more than doubled between 2021 and 2023, according to the F.B.I., and appear to have risen further in 2024. On a per capita basis, Jews face far greater risks of being victims of hate crimes than members of any other demographic groups.
American Jews, who make up about 2 percent of the country’s population, are well aware of the threat. Some feel compelled to hide signs of their faith. Synagogues have hired more armed guards who greet worshipers, and Jewish schools have hired guards to protect children and teachers. A small industry of digital specialists combs social media looking for signs of potential attacks, and these specialists have helped law enforcement prevent several.
[The Jewish population of the U.S. was at its peak in 1940 when Jews constituted about 3.7% of the nation's population. Relative to America's overall population, the Jewish population has been shrinking which has societal and political consequences. Even with this decrease in relative population, demographic changes since WW2 have resulted in 80-85% of the world's Jews living in just two countries, the U.S. and Israel, with about equal populations. The next three largest populations, about 400,000 each in the UK, Canada, and France, constitute about 7-8% of the world's Jews. The first two countries are governed by political parties hostile to Jews. In France, the governing party is not hostile but although Jews constitute less than 1% of the population they are the objects of more than 60% of hate crimes. And all three countries have large and rapidly growing Muslim populations, which the governing parties are desperate to placate. It looks like the Jewish population will become even more concentrated in Israel and the U.S. Overall, since the Holocaust, the global Jewish population has, at best, been restored to its pre-1940 numbers even as the world's population has more than tripled.]
The response from much of the rest of American society has been insufficient. The upswing in antisemitism deserves outright condemnation. It has already killed people and maimed others, including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor who was burned in Boulder. And history offers a grim lesson: An increase in antisemitism often accompanies a rise in other hateful violence and human rights violations. Societies that make excuses for attacks against one minority group rarely stop there.
Antisemitism is sometimes described as “the oldest hate.” It dates at least to ancient Greece and Egypt, where Jews were mocked for their differences and scapegoated for societal problems. A common trope is that Jews secretly control society and are to blame for its ills. The prejudice has continued through the Inquisition, Russian pogroms and the worst mass murder in history, the Holocaust, which led to the coining of a new term: genocide.
In modern times, many American Jews believed that the United States had left behind this tradition, with some reason. But as Conor Cruise O’Brien, an Irish writer and politician, noted, “Antisemitism is a light sleeper.” It tends to re-emerge when societies become polarized and people go looking for somebody to blame. This pattern helps explain why antisemitism began rising, first in Europe and then in the United States, in the 2010s, around the same time that politics coarsened. The anger pulsing through society has manifested itself through animosity toward Jews.
The political right, including President Trump, deserves substantial blame. Yes, he has led a government crackdown against antisemitism on college campuses, and that crackdown has caused colleges to become more serious about addressing the problem. But Mr. Trump has also used the subject as a pretext for his broader campaign against the independence of higher education. The combination risks turning antisemitism into yet another partisan issue, encouraging opponents to dismiss it as one of his invented realities.
[What the Times describes as a "pretext" for a "campaign against the independence of higher education", is actually an attempt by the administration to stop blatant violations of the Civil Rights Act by academic institutions, violations that have led to the outbreak of antisemitic incidents at the most progressive universities in this country. It's not Donald Trump that created a partisan issue. The partisan issue was created by progressives turning much of academia and other institutions into platforms where only their opinions are considered legitimate, where dissent is suppressed, and where discrimination is rampant against disfavored groups. In fact, the Supreme Court case that gave birth to "diversity" used the term because of the perceived importance of diversity of opinion, which is not allowed today on most campuses. Without addressing these violations, which the Times apparently supports, antisemitism in academia will never be effectively curtailed, because it is embedded in the very essence of academia. I discussed this at exhaustive (and probably exhausting) length in The Danger Within: Equality or Equity, Which Side Are You On?]
[Donald Trump can be, and has been, reckless and careless at times in his actions and rhetoric, as I've pointed out at length in numerous posts, but it is his administration that has tried to dismantle the ideological framework leading to the increase in antisemitism. In contrast, while a number of Democratic politicians have voiced support for Israel and/or opposition to antisemitism, I don't know of any prominent figure in the party who objected to the Biden administration's goal of embedding this hateful ideology into the federal government and American society as a whole.]
Even worse, Mr. Trump had made it normal to hate, by using bigoted language about a range of groups, including immigrants, women and trans Americans. Since he entered the political scene, attacks on Asian, Black, Latino and L.G.B.T. Americans have spiked, according to the F.B.I. While he claims to deplore antisemitism, his actions tell a different story. He has dined with a Holocaust denier, and his Republican Party has nominated antisemites for elected offices, including governor of North Carolina. Mr. Trump himself praised as “very fine people” the attendees of a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Va., that featured the chant “Jews will not replace us.” On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said.
["Even worse, Mr Trump had made it normal to hate". Doesn't the Editorial Board read its own newspaper? According to the 1619 Project, which the Times published to much fanfare, America from its inception has been a nation founded on the principle of whites hating others. According to the Times, we've always been a horrible country. And, if you don't accept the Times characterization of this country, let's look at another indicator of hate and race relations. Since the early 1970s the Gallup organization has been regularly polling white and blacks on the status of race relations, asking whether they are good, okay, or bad. Over four decades, starting in 1972, those of both races responding good or okay had slowly but steadily climbed, reaching in 2012 to 72% of whites and 67% of blacks. And then the trend began reversing, well before Trump's appearance on the scene. By 2022, the figures were 42% for whites and 33% for blacks. You can now look at numerous surveys of use in the media of terms like "racism", "white supremacy", and see an enormous upturn in their use during the second Obama administration. Fomenting racial tension and resentment has been part of the declared mission of the Times over the past decade.]
[The term "Since he entered the political scene" is doing a lot of work here. According to the FBI data there was no increase in hate crimes for much of Trump's first term. There is a huge surge during the George Floyd riots of summer 2020 (make of that what you will), and while it is followed by a rapid decrease, hate crimes during the Biden administration occur at a rate of about double that of the Trump administration. The increase in Asian attacks is, uncomfortably, attributed to a highly disproportionate number of assaults by blacks, which is why it has attracted less attention after an initial outburst aimed at alleged white anti-Asian hate. Perhaps the Biden administration's relentless emphasis on race essentialism and promoting the conspiracy theory that whites and Jews have plotted to maintain White Supremacy may also have had something to do with the increase.]
[By citing the Charlottesville quote, the Times shows it is a prisoner of its own false narrative. It is part of the "unexamined life" of those that work at the Times. The full transcript of Trump's remarks show that right after he says "very fine people", he goes on to state he is not talking about neo-nazis and white nationalists. Later in the same ramblings, he restates he is not talking about neo-nazis and white nationalists, adding "they are bad people". In the context of his remarks it is clear Trump is referring to the debate over what to do with the Lee statue and clear he condemned those the press explicitly and repeatedly said he refused to condemn. In 2024, the leftist "fact checker" Snopes finally acknowledged that the prevailing media use of the term was misleading and false. Nonetheless, President Biden, VP Harris, and former President Obama all used the false accusation during the 2024 campaign, with Biden saying it was the reason he decided to run in 2020.
The Charlottesville incident also demolished the last bit of lingering respect I held for the traditional news media. While, by 2017, I mistrusted most of what I heard and read from those sources, I still felt that they could get the basics right. My mistake. When I first heard about Trump's Charlottesville remarks my reaction was "Well, the guy's an idiot" and assumed he said it and meant exactly what the media told me he meant. It was only a couple of years later when I came across a full transcript of the press conference that I realized I had been lied to.]
["On Jan. 6, 2021, at least one rioter attacking the Capitol screamed that he was looking for “the big Jew,” referring to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, Mr. Schumer has said." Oh, my God, one rioter!! And the source is Chuck Schumer? The Times is really reaching here for examples. Here's something we do know about Senator Schumer. In 2024, confident that the Dems would hold regain the House, and hold the Senate and the Presidency, he reassured Columbia University, in an email obtained by a Congressional committee, that it could ignore all those Republicans pestering the school about antisemitism because it would all go away after the election. I don't think the Times wrote a story about that email.]
The problem extends to popular culture. Joe Rogan, the podcaster who endorsed Mr. Trump last year, has hosted Holocaust conspiracy theorists on his show. Mr. Rogan once said of Jews, “They run everything.” In the Trumpist right, antisemitism has a home.
It also has a home on the progressive left, and the bipartisan nature of the problem has helped make it distinct. Progressives reject many other forms of hate even as some tolerate antisemitism. College campuses, where Jewish students can face social ostracization, have become the clearest example. A decade ago, members of the student government at U.C.L.A. debated blocking a Jewish student from a leadership post, claiming that she might not be able to represent the entire community. In 2018, spray-painted swastikas appeared on walls at Columbia. At Baruch, Drexel and the University of Pittsburgh, activists have recently called for administrators to cut ties with or close Hillel groups, which support Jewish life. In a national survey by Eitan Hersh of Tufts University and Dahlia Lyss, college students who identified as liberal were more likely than either moderates or conservatives last year to say that they “avoid Jews because of their views.”
["Progressives reject many other forms of hate even as some tolerate antisemitism." Can we please stop with this progressive self-congratulation? How many articles has the NY Times published in the past decade about white people, that had it been done regarding any other race would be promptly denounced as racist? Answer: A google search in October 2023 on 'NY Times Whiteness" came up with 5.6 million results. The Times supported continuing the documented Ivy League practice of discriminating against Asians in admissions and denounced the Supreme Court decision banning the practice. And have you read the outpouring of hate by some progressives against Hispanics because of their increased support for Trump in 2024?]
[And progressives don't just "tolerate antisemitism", they encourage it with the ideology they promote.]
[Notice how all the college examples they give are of students, none of administrators or the institutions themselves, despite many well-documented incidents. There is no mention of the recent report on Harvard's blatant anti-semitism. That's because mentioning antisemitism condoned or practices by the institutions would be seen as pro-Trump and lead to bigger questions about what is happening more broadly in education. Both college and K-12 education is failing on many fronts, but regarding Jews, unless there is radical reform soon, the doctrines being taught to our children will increase antisemitism, making this country increasingly hostile to Jewish life, a point the Times refuses to address.]
One explanation is that antisemitism has become conflated with the divisive politics of the current Israel-Hamas war. It is certainly true that criticism of the Israeli government is not the same thing as antisemitism. This editorial board has long defended Israel’s right to exist while also criticizing the government for its treatment of Palestinians. Since the current war began, we have abhorred the mass killing of civilians and the destruction of Gaza. Israel’s reflexive defenders are wrong, and they hurt their own cause when they equate all such arguments with antisemitism. But some Americans have gone too far in the other direction. They have engaged in whataboutism regarding anti-Jewish hate. They have failed to denounce antisemitism in the unequivocal ways that they properly denounce other bigotry.
[There are many Jews, including me, who don't like Netanyahu and think at least parts of the settlements policy in the West Bank are bonkers. But there are vanishingly few Jews who do not support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state. The small cadre of anti-Zionist Jews can be found primarily in academia or the NGO community where their real religion is Progressivism. We see a recent example in the proud announcement of Harvard Divinity School regarding its first Professor of Modern Jewish Studies, Shaul Magid, an anti-Zionist Jew. A reviewer accurately calls his most recent anti-Zionist book "an intellectual crime". The school boasts of Magid, “His disciplinary range stretches from Hasidic mysticism and American Judaism to critical Black studies and political theology". We know what that phrasing really means. This is Harvard Divinity School saying to those protesting Harvard's antisemitism, "screw you Jews, you better know your place." It also illustrates why institutions like Harvard are incapable of reforming themselves without outside pressure being brought to bear. Otherwise they will succeed in their strategy of waiting things out until a Democratic administration, tolerant of their discrimination, is back in power.]
["This editorial board has long defended Israel’s right to exist while also criticizing the government for its treatment of Palestinians." This is a joke. Yes, the Times defends Israel's right to exist but it opposes both editorially and, more importantly, in its news sections, anything Israel does to ensure its continued existence. The slant of the Times news section regarding Israel has been evident for years. Remember when one of their most experienced reporters wrote an article casting doubt on whether a Jewish temple ever existed on the Temple Mount, endorsing an outrageous claim made by the Palestinians? I do. More recently, since October 7, the Times news staff credulously reports any claim made by Hamas and continues to do so no matter how many lies Hamas is caught in, while treating any Israeli claim cautiously, inserting every possible caveat and doubt. The Times problem is not just with Israel. The Sulzberger family have always been uneasy around "Jewish" Jews and Jews who dress "funny" and in recent years the paper launched a full scale assault on those "embarrassing" Jews, starting a jihad against Hasidic Jews, based on alleged defects in the education provided to Hasidic children. The Times campaign is illustrative because it combines several elements.
It targets distinctively Jewish looking Jews. They seem odd even to many other Jews.
The created narrative is those greedy Jews (Oppressors) are stealing state education funds from black kids (Oppressed). Well, what else do you expect from privileged Jews? (Let's ignore that the Hasidic community is poorer in general than non-Hasidic Jews).
State support should be reduced and Hasidim schools must be made to conform their instructional programs to state requirements, which include equity. In other words, Hasidic children must be taught their parents are racist White supremacists and they should be ashamed of them and of their religion.
To allow educational flexibility by these schools would make other children feel unsafe, cause harm, and encourage racism. It's why the progressive state must control every aspect of life.
Bigger message - all private schools must be either abolished or under close State control to ensure conformity.
Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.
Looking at the support for the allegations made by the Times, I would have sent the reporters back to answer a dozen questions about methodology and have them do a comparison with the performance of New York City public schools before proceeding with publication. The Times, interested only in creating narratives to support its preferred policies, would not take the risk of finding anything that would disrupt that narrative.]
Natan Sharansky, the former Soviet dissident, has suggested a “3D” test for when criticism of Israel crosses into antisemitism, with the D’s being delegitimization, demonization and double standards. Progressive rhetoric has regularly failed that test in recent years. “Americans generally have greater ability to identify Jew hatred when it comes from the hard right and less ability and comfort to call out Jew hatred when it comes from the hard left or radical Islamism,” said Rachel Fish, an adviser to Brandeis University’s Presidential Initiative on Antisemitism.
["Hard right" and "hard left" are false equivalencies. The "hard left" includes the most progressive universities in this country, as well as publications like, well, like the New York Times. And all of this antisemitism is nested within the broader race essentialism promoted as its top domestic priority by the Biden administration and embraced by many of our leading institutions. These are power centers within our country. There is also a growing and very disturbing trend towards antisemitism in the "hard right". Some of it from those who've gone insane over the past few years like Tucker Carlson, some from grifters like Candace Owens, some from nasty pieces of work like Nick Fuentes, among others. They do have a lot of followers but where do they rate against the institutional strength of the "hard left"? Another way to look at it is polling data regarding Jews and Israel, which demonstrate a lot more support from Republicans and conservatives, with less and rapidly eroding support from Democrats and progressives.]
Consider the double standard that leads to a fixation on Israel’s human rights record and little campus activism about the records of China, Russia, Sudan, Venezuela or almost any other country. Consider how often left-leaning groups suggest that the world’s one Jewish state should not exist and express admiration for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis — Iran-backed terrorist groups that brag about murdering Jews. Consider how often people use “Zionist” as a slur — an echo of Soviet propaganda from the Cold War — and call for the exclusion of Zionists from public spaces. The definition of a Zionist is somebody who supports the existence of Israel.
[Glad for the Times to say that last sentence clearly. On the other hand, why does the Times consistently refer to Mahmoud Khalil, the Columbia student the administration seeks to deport, and who enthusiastically supports the murder of Zionists, as simply "a Columbia pro-Palestinian activist"? To be fair, Khalil is consistent as he also supports the destruction of the U.S. as a settler-colonist entity. A good example of why it is important to rigorously review people before they are admitted in to this country.]
Historical comparisons can also be instructive. The period since Oct. 7, 2023, is hardly the first time that global events have contributed to a surge in hate crimes against a specific group. Asian Americans were the victims in 2020 and 2021 after the Covid pandemic began in China. Muslim Americans were the victims after Sept. 11, 2001. In those periods, a few fringe voices, largely on the far right, tried to justify the hate, but the response from much of American society was denunciation. President George W. Bush visited a mosque on Sept. 17, 2001, and proclaimed, “Islam is peace.” During Covid, displays of Asian allyship filled social media.
Recent experience has been different in a couple of ways. One, the attacks against Jews have been even more numerous and violent, as the F.B.I. data shows. Two, the condemnation has been quieter and at times tellingly agonized. University leaders have often felt uncomfortable decrying antisemitism without also decrying Islamophobia. Islamophobia, to be clear, is a real problem that deserves attention on its own. Yet antisemitism seems to be a rare type of bigotry that some intellectuals are uncomfortable rebuking without caveat. After the Sept. 11 attacks, they did not feel the need to rebuke both Islamophobia and antisemitism. Nor should they have. People should be able to denounce a growing form of hatred without ritually denouncing other forms.
["University leaders have often felt uncomfortable decrying antisemitism without also decrying Islamophobia". This is a misunderstanding about why university leaders are uncomfortable. They are uncomfortable because the principles of critical race theory are so embedded in curriculum and the very ethos of progressive universities that antisemitism cannot be denounced unequivocally because it would undermine the entire oppressor/oppressed analytical structure the universities have embraced without reservation.]
Alarmingly, the antisemitic rhetoric of both the political right and the left has filtered into justifications for violence. But there has been an asymmetry in recognizing the connections. After a gunman murdered 11 people at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, observers correctly noted that he had become radicalized partly through racist right-wing social media. There has been a similar phenomenon in some recent attacks, this time with the assailants using the language of the left.
The man who burned marchers in Colorado shouted “Free Palestine!” and (awkwardly) “End Zionist!” The man charged with killing the young Israeli Embassy workers in Washington last month is suspected of having posted an online manifesto titled “Escalate for Gaza, Bring the War Home.” His supporters have since published a petition that includes “Globalize the Intifada.” The demonizing, delegitimizing rhetoric of the right bore some responsibility for the Pittsburgh massacre; the demonizing, delegitimizing rhetoric of the left bears some responsibility for the recent attacks.
Americans should be able to recognize the nuanced nature of many political debates while also recognizing that antisemitism has become an urgent problem. It is a different problem — and in many ways, a narrower one — than racism. Antisemitism has not produced shocking gaps in income, wealth and life expectancy in today’s America. Yet the new antisemitism has left Jewish Americans at a greater risk of being victimized by a hate crime than any other group. Many Jews live with fears that they never expected to experience in this country.
[These sentences reveal the Times worldview; "It is a different problem — and in many ways, a narrower one — than racism. Antisemitism has not produced shocking gaps in income, wealth and life expectancy in today’s America". In other words, racism is America's real problem while antisemitism is a problem for Jews and one that distracts from America's real problem which is why antisemitism needs addressing. This means that Times has learned nothing, or wants to learn nothing, about the ideology and fake history, as in the 1619 Project, it has promoted in recent years. In that respect, the Times continues to endorse a racist ideology in which the only reason for any discrepancy between races and ethnic groups in our society is because of white and Jewish supremacy. The Times will never escape its contradictions until it repudiates racial essentialism.]
No political arguments or ideological context can justify that bigotry. The choice is between denouncing it fully and encouraging an even broader explosion of hate.
The position of the Times reminds me of the recent book, Original Sin, by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson in which they breathlessly report how the media, including Tapper, were hoodwinked by the Biden administration into believing Joe Biden was actually functioning as president. The truth, as anyone observing Biden during the 2020 campaign and his presidency could see, was that he had severe difficulty in functioning, leading many of us to wonder who was really running the White House. The legacy media including Tapper, wanted to be mislead because reporting honestly would have helped the Republicans and avoiding that was much more important than the truth, and that part of the story is ignored in Original Sin.
Same thing with the Times. This editorial studiously avoids examining the paper's role in its reporting, and that of progressive institutions, in support of the poisonous ideology of critical race theory in leading to the eruption of antisemitism among those who share the beliefs of the Times own staff. Instead it is all attributable to this mysterious "hard left", about which the Times gives us no details as to constitutes this faction.
The closing words of the Times editorial are meaningless. Just words. I guess it now allows them to say they denounced antisemitism even on the left and now they can go back to doing exactly what they've been doing all along.
You can read all of my reporting on the Times here.
This is a revised version of a post I published on this date ten years ago.
On June 18, 1945, at a White House meeting with the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, the Secretary of War and the Secretaries of the Army and Navy,
President Harry Truman approved plans for the invasion of Japan. Along
with the President the other key participants were General George C
Marshall and Admiral Ernest King, Chiefs of Staff for the Army and Navy.
Richard B. Frank's 1999 book, Downfall: The End of the Imperial Japanese Empire, using information that had only become available in the prior decade recasts
our understanding of the events
of the last few months of WWII and the endgame with Japan, culminating
in its surrender on August 14, 1945 (the formal ceremony took place on
the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay on September 2). These sources include
Russian
archives which became available after the fall of the Soviet Union; the
release, after Emperor Hirohito's death in 1989, of his lengthy account
(dictated in early 1946) of those months; the completion of the Japanese
War History Series and the release of additional American intelligence
information, most importantly, of the Magic Diplomatic
Summaries. The Magic materials were a daily summary of intercepted
Japanese diplomatic cables produced by U.S. intelligence
analysts.
These summaries, distributed to senior American policy makers, provide
us with a new window on the information
they were receiving about Japanese intentions and the contemporaneous interpretations placed on that information.
In recent decades the end of the war has focused on the American
decision to use the newly developed atomic bombs, but Frank's book covers
much broader ground, opening our eyes to a vision of a surprising
counterfactual history in which the U.S. may not have invaded Japan, even
if the bombs had not been dropped and the war had continued beyond
mid-August 1945.
What were Truman and the others thinking about as they entered the meeting room on June 18?
The night before, Truman had written in his diary that the decision whether to "invade Japan [or] bomb and blockade" would be his "hardest decision to date".
The men entering the meeting knew the American public was increasingly war-weary and shocked by the
enormous casualties of the past year. In the first 30 months of WWII,
the U.S. suffered 91,000 battle deaths, an average of about 3,000 a
month. With the D-Day landings in France and the
American assault on Saipan in the Pacific in June 1944, the toll accelerated. During
the next twelve months, 196,000 Americans died in combat, an average of
more than 16,000 a month (1).
With the end of the European war in May, public pressure to start
bringing the troops home was increasing, though a poll that month found
the U.S. public still preferring unconditional surrender to a negotiated
end to the war by a margin of 9 to 1.
In
early 1945 the Pacific war grew even more horrendous as we approached
Japan. On the 8-square miles of Iwo Jima over five weeks in
February and March 1945, 7,000 Americans died and 17,000 were wounded
fighting 21,000 Japanese soldiers; the desperate nature of
the fighting captured in the words of General Graves Erskine at the
dedication of the 3rd Marine Division Cemetery on Iwo:
"Victory was never in doubt . . . What was in doubt, in all our minds, was whether there would be any of us left to dedicate our cemetery at the end, or whether the last Marine would die knocking out the last Japanese gun and gunner."Iwo was followed on April 1 by the American landing on Okinawa. In the next ten weeks another 50,000 American soldiers and sailors were killed or wounded in the course of eliminating a Japanese garrison of 92,000 in a struggle that came to resemble the trench warfare of WWI, the grinding and unrelenting nature of which had also resulted in thousands of additional psychiatric casualties.
The question is how long could Japan have survived in this scenario and
whether the ending would be an organized surrender of all Japanese military forces or a
disorganized collapse in which scattered fighting continued across the
Pacific and mainland Asia.
The end of the Pacific war, just as that of the European war, would have been grim under any scenario.
This post only begins to touch on the issues impacting the end of the war and covered in detail in Downfall.
Frank discusses the Soviet attack on Japan in Manchuria and its impact
on the Japanese government, the lead up to, and the impact of, the
Hiroshima and Nagasaki attacks, Japanese cabinet deliberations and
debates over peace terms, the controversy over American casualty
estimates for the invasion (for an excellent summary of the complex history and methodology of the casualty estimates read "A Score of Bloody Okinawas and Iwo Jimas" by DM Giangreco in Hiroshima In History, edited by Robert James Maddox (2007)) and the nuts and bolts of U.S. and Japanese
military operational planning.
The book is
thought provoking, giving the reader a greater appreciation of the
information decision makers had available, the different paths that
could have been followed and the consequences that would have flowed
from them. It is particularly valuable in conveying what it is like to
have to make decisions affecting the lives of millions with only the
information you have available at the time and without the advantage of
hindsight.
It strikes THC that these events would be a terrific instructional tool
for students and others regarding real-life contingencies and
decision-making. A course where students were assigned roles in the
American civilian and military hierarchy and then fed information as it
became available and asked to make decisions based on the available
information would make for a memorable learning experience, and would
probably be humbling and sobering to those who think everything looks as
clear to the participants at the time as it does to others in
hindsight. It could be done in two parts - the first based upon what we
know happened through the decisions to drop the atomic bombs and accept
the continued role of Emperor Hirohito and a second based on a scenario
where the bombs are not dropped and the war continues. Most
importantly, those participating should be challenged along the way by
the instructor(s) but not led to any predetermined outcome.
----------------------------------------
(1) 196,000 is double
the total number of American combat fatalities in the 80 years since 1945
including Korea, Vietnam, The Gulf War, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Ten years ago I wrote four posts about the Iran Nuclear Deal. Thought I'd relink to them given current events.
The Iran Deal: It Was Never About Nuclear Weapons in which I analyze the negotiations, the actual contents of the JCPOA (yes, I read the whole thing), and the underlying agenda of the Obama administration. It also includes the conclusions of a number of prominent Democrats.
He's At It Again about the rhetoric employed by the president in support of the agreement.
Let's Not Forget About the Iran Nuclear Deal discussing progressive Democrat Rep. Ted Lieu's analysis of why the JCPOA was a bad deal.
What Is The Iran Deal? Turns out it was not a treaty, nor an executive agreement, a signed document, or legally binding. It was, in John Kerry's words, simply a political commitment.
For an assessment of the current situation, today's Tablet Magazine carries an interview with a former IAEA inspector regarding Iran's nuclear facilities, Can Israel End Iran's Nuclear Program? Having reached this point, the only way out is to do so by whatever means necessary (though I want Israel to do this without direct American involvement).
I'll also link to a piece I wrote in January 2020, Reflections On The Middle East Wars, which includes some additional comments on Iran. Since writing it, I've done additional research which would lead me to add material to the Iraq section, though I knew the basics at the time and should have made the point more clearly. If I were doing that post today I would emphasize in addition to the intelligence failures, the absolute disaster of the Bush administration when it came to post-war planning and defining goals. I was not impressed with George W Bush during the 2000 campaign but felt reassured on the foreign policy side with Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Powell leading the team. I viewed them as sober, experienced politicians. What a mistake! Cheney went nuts, Rumsfeld was irresponsible, and Powell employed passive-aggressive behavior throughout. They were never in agreement about the decision to attack Iraq or what to do afterwards while National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice failed miserably in what should have been her role in reconciling those views and coming to some time of agreement. And the ultimate responsibility was President Bush's in going to war with no clear sense of goals or plan for the aftermath, other than fantasies about Iraq's future. The failures of the foreign policy establishments of both parties after the ending of the Cold War is a cautionary tale and one of the reasons Trump ended up as president.
And now Rafael Devers is gone from the Red Sox. Pictured are my two Devers bobbleheads. His last game with the Sox was on Sunday against the Yankees in which Raffy homered in the 5th and drew a walk in his next, and last, at bat in the 8th.
After a miserable start to the season, going 0-21 with 15 strikeouts, Raffy had been the best hitter on the team, averaging .296, slugging .538, with an on-base percentage of .413.
The return haul from the Giants in the trade is not impressive. Nor was the return from the Dodgers in 2018 in the Mookie Betts trade. There are some differences in the circumstances. Mookie had an expiring contract and a was much better all-round player. Devers is in the 3rd season of a ten-year contract, defensively challenged, and playing solely as a DH. In addition, he and management clearly did not see eye to eye. Still disappointing as the Sox had just swept the Yanks, won 7 of 8, and were above .500 for the first time in over a month. Guess management needed to find something to break the momentum.
On this date in 1959, 36 year old Solly Hemus entered the game in the 8th inning as a pinch-hitter for shortstop Alex Grammas. The St Louis Cardinals, playing at home, entered the 8th down 3-1 to the Cincinnati Reds. With two out, George Crowe doubled home Ken Boyer, reducing the Reds' margin to one, and Solly came to the plate with Crowe on second and a chance to even the score. Instead, he hit a weak grounder to shortstop Eddie Kasko who made the easy throw to first, ending the inning. It was Solly's last appearance as a player in a major league game.
My first memory of collecting baseball cards was of the most frequent cards being those of Phillies shortstop Granny Hamner and Solly Hemus of the Cards, so this must have been 1959, or possibly 1958 (when Hemus was also with the Phillies). It was always a disappointment getting Granny or Solly because I wanted the big sluggers and top pitchers who were rarities in the card sets we purchased, although a stick of gum came with each pack!
Solomon Joseph Hemus was a shortstop, second baseman, and pinch hitter, who came up to the Cards in 1949, after spending four years during WW2 as an ordnance loader on aircraft carriers, playing with the Birds until traded to the Phillies during the 1956 season and returning to St Louis before the 1959 season.
Born in Phoenix in 1923, Solly's SABR biography starts with this description:
Pepper pot. Bulldog. Firebrand. Scrapper. Solly Hemus answered to all those descriptions in 11 years as a major-league player and 2½ as a manager.
It goes on to quote Cards GM Bing Devine, “Solly was a hell-bent-for-leather, fiery ballplayer with limited talent.”
Hemus was considered a weak defensive infielder. That description is consistent across the board from the observers reported in the SABR biography. However, it raises an interesting question about the newer baseball metrics, because from 1951 through 1953, Hemus is rated by Baseball-Reference as the fourth, first, and sixth rated defensive player in the National League according to Wins Above Replacement (WAR). Defensive performance is notoriously difficult to quantify and I think it more likely this is a problem with WAR than with contemporary observers.
Solly is also rated by WAR as a top ten offensive player in 1952 and 1953, even though his conventional stats (HR/RBI/Avg) don't look too impressive (15/52/.268 and 14/61/.279). However, he drew a lot of walks, something no one was paying a lot of attention to at the time, finishing 4th and 5th in the league, making him 6th and 3rd in on-base percentage (another stat no one used at the time). His effectiveness as a hitter also explains his extended career as a pinch hitter after he stopped being a regular after the '53 season.
According to the SABR biography, Solly was also a racist, something that became apparent in his 2 1/2 tenure as Cardinals manager which began with the 1959 season. The Cards were one of the last National League teams to integrate and two young black players, Curt Flood and Bob Gibson, began their careers under Hemus. Both grew to despise their manager for his remarks and treatment; Gibson about to quit baseball because of it until coach Harry Walker persuaded him to stay. Years later Hemus apologized to both players but the damage had been done. The SABR bio concludes with this:
Late in his life he told author David Halberstam that he had grown up and started in baseball in an era when ethnic insults were common, and had failed to keep up with changing times. He always thought of himself as the underdog: “If you can’t hit, you can’t run, and you can’t throw, you’ve got to holler at them.”
Hemus prospered in his post-baseball career and lived until he was 94, passing in 2017.
The first albums I owned were by The Beach Boys. This song from 1963 got me interested in the group, a knock off of Chuck Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen with a surf sound and new lyrics. California seemed so exotic to a kid in Connecticut.
Four years later they were recording this. It was all Brian Wilson.
Heard the sad news about Brian today and thought about all the years I’ve been listening to him and admiring his genius. Rest in peace dear Brian.
— Bob Dylan (@bobdylan) June 11, 2025
Wickenburg, about 60 miles northwest of downtown Phoenix, is the oldest town in Arizona north of Tucson, being founded in the early 1860s, beating Phoenix by about five years. It owed its founding and initial growth to the discovery of gold and the presence of the Hassayampa River.
It had continued prosperity in the first part of the 20th century due to its location on the road from Phoenix to both Prescott and Los Angeles, losing that advantage in the 1970s, when I-10 from Phoenix to LA was located to the south and I-17 provided a faster route to Prescott, while avoiding Wickenburg.
Today we visited the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in the town, which proved to be a little gem of a museum. The Caballeros museum is in the small downtown area and there are several restaurants within a block. On its ground level floor the museum features interesting western art and exhibits on the history of Wickenburg, but it is when you descend into the basement that you find the real treasure - recreated stores and houses of 1912 Wickenburg along with well-done and fascinating dioramas of different aspects of the town and region's history. A great way to spend an hour and a half, and kids would love that downstairs area, just as we did.
On this date in 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act. The bill had been the subject of much controversy in Congress, before being passed by the Senate 28-19 on April 24, and in the House, on May 26, by the narrow margin of 101-97. The only Representative from a district containing, or adjacent to, the affected tribes to vote against the bill was David Crockett. You can read about Crockett's objections here.
The Removal Act, as proposed by President Jackson, with the enthusiastic support of most of the white population in the south, was designed to remove members of the Five "Civilized" Tribes (Cherokee, Chickasaw, Creek, Choctaw, and Seminole) from the southeast, moving them to what later became the state of Oklahoma. The Removal Act provided the funding to allow this action.
The term "civilized" is used to distinguish these tribes from those in other areas of the country and in different eras. These tribes all had established treaty relations, as autonomous nations, with the United States, and they were in compliance with those treaties. The treaties established them on lands across the southeast and each tribe had organized governance structures and were pursuing agricultural and settled ways. There was also considerable intermarriage between whites and tribe members. This was a very different scenario from the situation with the nomadic tribes of the Great Plains like the Sioux and Comanche, which the federal government would face in future decades.
Some factions of each of the tribes would voluntarily remove themselves, but others refused to leave, leading to the forced migrations of the late 1830s, known as the Trail of Tears, as well as to the Seminole War of 1835 to 1842 in Florida.
Although it was their white neighbors who triggered the expulsion, it was carried out by the federal government, which, at the outbreak of the Civil War, led all the removed tribes, who also held black slaves, to support the Confederacy.
The Indian ways of life in the Western Hemisphere were doomed from the moment Europeans first arrived. The diseases the Europeans carried with them, and the lack of immunity of the native population resulted in population reductions of 80-90% across both continents.(1) When the Pilgrims landed in Plymouth in 1620, they settled on the remains of an Indian village wiped out from disease.(2)
Later, there was no way the United States would allow the nomadic raiding culture of the Plains Indians to continue. The only path of survival was adaptation to European ways while keeping selective parts of native cultures. This is what the tribes of the southeast tried to do and, indeed, they were living in peace with their neighbors in 1830. The problem was the insatiable hunger for land by those white neighbors. One of the arguments made in favor of the Removal Act was that the U.S. military establishment was so few in number that it could not prevent settler infringement on native lands, an infringement that would inevitably lead to violence, and thus the Removal Act actually protected the tribes. Whatever the arguments, the removal remains a blot on our history.
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(1) There is a lot of variation in population estimates for the pre-Columbian Western Hemisphere, but the bulk of Indians were south of the current borders of the U.S. It's likely that less than 5% of the total population in 1491 lived within today's United States borders.
(2) Mortality rates for the European settlers were also high. Half of the Pilgrims died in that first winter, and in the Chesapeake region the toll was staggering, as you can read in The Barbarous Years.
Mrs THC and I had tickets tonight to see the Outlaw Tour with Sierra Hull, Billy Strings, Bob Dylan, and 92-year old Willie Nelson. Unfortunately, I've got a bit of a condition that makes us unable to attend but the THC Daughter and friend will use our tickets.
In lieu of that, here's a mini-concert I put together.
Boom by Sierra Hull from her new album, A Tip Toe High Wire.
Two from the Billy Strings album, Highway Prayers, released last fall, and hitting #1 on the charts (or whatever they call it nowadays). An instrumental, Escanaba, named after a town on Michigan's Upper Peninsula that the Mrs and I passed through a few years ago, and Gild the Lily.
A couple from Dylan. My Own Version of You from 2020's Rough and Rowdy Ways. Dylan's voice is shot but that he could produce an album with such amazing lyrics, nearly 60 years after his first recording, is remarkable. And Mississippi from 201's Love and Theft.
Finally, from Willie, an unusual choice. This is Willie performing a Brian Wilson song, The Warmth of the Sun, with the Beach Boys harmonizing behind him. Willie has an immediately recognizable voice.
Live At Leeds, the only live album by the original lineup of The Who, was released on this date 55 years ago. Recorded at Leeds, UK in February 1970. This is the incredibly dynamic instrumental Sparks. Starts to get interesting at 0:58 with major theme and Entwhistle's bass and then Moon's drums kick in - catch the syncopation at about 2:35, and then Townshend's monster crash chord at 2:58. Best listened to at the highest possible volume.
Willie Mays was born 94 years ago on this date. He passed last year, but we'll still remember him here.
"There have been only two authentic geniuses in the world, William Shakespeare and Willie Mays."
Tallulah Bankhead
On the 80th anniversary, a republish of a post from ten years ago.
On April 25, 1945 American and Soviet troops met near the town of Torgau
on the Elbe River, cutting the remaining and rapidly shrinking Nazi
held lands in half. Two weeks later the war in Europe would be over.
The path to that historic meeting began in an April twenty eight years
before. On April 6, 1917 the United States declared war on Germany and
entered World War One, while three days later Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
began his journey via a sealed railcar from exile in Switzerland across
Germany to Russia. Both events were massive
miscalculations by German military leadership. In the first instance it
was the unleashing of unrestricted submarine warfare against all
shipping to Great Britain, including that of the neutral United States,
the Germans understanding it would trigger American entry into the war
but gambling they could starve England out of the war before the United
States could bring its military to Europe in any meaningful numbers.
In the case of Lenin, the German strategy was to insert a virus into the
ongoing chaos of revolution in Russia following the abdication of the
Czar in March 1917 and thus knock Russia out of the war. In the
short-term the strategy worked; under Lenin's direction the Bolsheviks
outmaneuvered their fellow, more moderate revolutionaries, who were
reluctant to use force against the violent Bolsheviks. Lenin, perfectly
willing to use force against his enemies, organized a coup, and
took over the reigns of government, dismissing the Constituent Assembly (the first popularly elected legislative body in Russian history), establishing the Bolsheviks as the revolutionary vanguard of the communist dictatorship, and within
a year of taking power setting up the first prison camps for
political prisoners that later became known as the Gulag. By March
1918, the Bolsheviks had accepted a humiliating peace treaty with the
Germans. But it was too late for Germany. The submarines failed to
starve the British, the last German offensives in France ground to a
halt, the Allies (including the Americans) counterattacked, German army
morale collapsed and the German High Command panicked, beseeching the
Kaiser and politicians to seek a truce. And longer term, the new Soviet
Union was to arise as a much more formidable opponent than the old
Russian Empire.
In 1941, Germany's Fuhrer, Adolph Hitler, made his own
miscalculations about the same two countries. On June 22, 1941 he
launched a surprise attack on the Soviet Union, Germany's ally since
August 1939, confident that his armies could easily overwhelm the Soviet
military before the onset of winter but, along with his military
commanders, drastically underestimating the resiliency of the Red
military, the ruthlessness of Joseph Stalin and Soviet leadership
in their conduct of the war, and indifferent to how the atrocious Nazi occupation
policies would alienate many potential supporters in the recently
occupied borderlands and Ukraine. The result was the largest and
most murderous military campaign in human history leading to the deaths of up
to thirty million soldiers and civilians.(1)
Later that year, Hitler compounded his mistake when he declared war on
the United States only four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl
Harbor, an attack of which he had no prior knowledge, and an action he was not
required to take under his loose alliance with Japan. The reasons for
his decision remain unclear and controversial among historians but what
is true is that it rescued President Franklin Roosevelt and U.S.
military leaders from a dilemma. They viewed war with Germany and Japan
as inevitable but saw Germany as by far the bigger threat, and had
already agreed that in the event of war with both countries the United
States would direct 85% of its resources against Germany. During those
four days when Japan, but not Germany, was at war with the U.S.,
Roosevelt and his military commanders knew that public opinion would
require all efforts to be directed against the Japanese, taking away
from American military capabilities for what they believed was the
inevitable war against Germany. With Hitler's decision, the bulk of the
American war effort was directed against Germany and the opening of a
Second Front landing in Western Europe became a possibility, something
that Britain alone could never have done (it's also the most effective
practical rebuttal to continuing conspiracy theories that FDR knew in
advance of the Japanese attack and wanted the war; in reality it
complicated his foreign policy).
June of 1944 again saw critical miscalculations by Hitler regarding the
U.S. and the Soviet Union. In the West, he was convinced that the
long-anticipated Allied landing would take place at the Pas de Calais
region of France where he concentrated his best armored and infantry
units but the invasion instead took place in Normandy against weaker
German opposition and the Allies gained a foothold from which they could
not be dislodged.
That same month, the Germans were anticipating a large Soviet offensive
on the Eastern Front. They believed the attack would come either in the
Baltic region or in Ukraine and made their dispositions
accordingly. Instead the massive assault, begun on June 22 (the third
anniversary of Hitler's surprise attack), took place against the
undermanned Army Group Center, in what is now Belarus,
resulting in a catastrophic defeat for the Nazis with Soviet armies
advancing hundreds of miles into Poland and reaching the outskirts of
Warsaw, where Stalin cynically ordered a halt (for more as to why, read Warsaw Does Not Cry).
By late March 1945, American, British and Canadian armies were crossing
the Rhine and moving into the heart of Germany against crumbling, but
occasionally fanatical, resistance (particularly from SS units). To the
east, the Soviets began their final assault on Berlin on April 16, still
desperately defended by the German army. Though the war was clearly
lost Hitler felt that Germany was not worthy of him and, rather than
surrendering, deserved total destruction in a final orgy of
bloodletting. It took three days for Soviet armies to encircle the
German capital and launch their final assault to capture the city.
Hitler emerged from his bunker in Berlin on April 20 making his last appearance above-ground to award Iron Crosses to members of the Hitler Youth.
Two days later Hitler was advised by his military staff that his plan
to have Berlin relieved by an Army Group under General Steiner had
failed or, to be more accurate, his fantasy that there ever was a
Steiner Army Group capable of relieving the Nazi capital was finally
punctured.
The failure of the Steiner attack was the basis for one of the most memorable scenes in the 2004 German film Downfall, which recounts the final days in the bunker, much of it told from the perspective of Traudl Junge, a young secretary to the Fuhrer. The film is stunning in its grim account of the end of an evil era and Bruno Granz, in the role of Hitler, is astonishing. Ian Kershaw, the author of an excellent two-volume biography of Hitler (Hubris and Nemesis) wrote of the performance:
Of all the screen depictions of the Führer, even by famous actors, such as Alec Guinness or Anthony Hopkins, this is the only one which to me is compelling. Part of this is the voice. Ganz has Hitler's voice to near perfection. It is chillingly authentic.
You can watch the scene by clicking here; it's well worth your time. In the room with Hitler at one point we see two men standing, one thin and odd looking in a brown uniform. The figure in brown is Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda. Next to him is Martin Bormann, the Fuhrer's Chief Secretary and nominal head of the Nazi Party - they are the primary political figures left in the bunker as both Heinrich Himmler and Hermann Goering had fled the city. Outside the room are two women standing next to each other. The taller one on the right is Traudl Junge. Towards the end of the scene another woman moves forward in the crowd; Eva Braun, Hitler's long-time mistress.
The fighting for the city ground on day after day with the Soviets inching forward towards the Reichstag and Chancellery, under which the Fuhrer's command bunker was located. This video contains footage of the street fighting as recorded by Soviet cameramen.
Hitler and Eva Braun were married on April 29 and killed themselves the
following day. Joseph Goebbels and his wife Magda arranged for their doctor to inject their six young children with morphine and then crush cyanide capsules between their teeth. Goebbels and his wife then
committed suicide.
The burned remains of Hitler, Braun, and the Goebbels were discovered and
identified by the Russians (though they did not inform the British or
Americans), reburied and
reexcavated several times, winding up at a Soviet security base in
Magdeburg, East Germany. In 1970 the KGB conducted a final excavation,
smashing and burning the remains and scattering them in a river (though
part of Hitler's skull may have been preserved in the Moscow archives of
the KGB).
Martin Bormann attempted to escape the bunker on the night of May 1-2
but committed suicide or was killed by Russian patrols. His fate
remained uncertain for many years until remains were found at a West
Berlin site in 1972 and identified as his (later confirmed by genetic
testing in 1998). Himmler committed suicide on May 23 after being
captured by the British, and Goering killed himself the following year at
Nuremburg, just hours before his scheduled hanging.
The formal German surrender of the city took place on May 2, 1945 while
the overall capitulation of Germany took place on May 7 (US and British
front) and May 8 (Russian front) though severe fighting continued in the
area around Prague, Czechoslovakia until May 11.
Stalin ordered the Soviet military commanders to take Berlin as quickly
as possible and not be concerned about casualties (not that the
Soviet leaders ever appeared to be concerned about casualties). The
cost was about 350,000 Soviet soldiers killed or wounded in the Battle
of
Berlin (for comparison, American losses for the entire war were about
one million) along with an indeterminable but probably similar number of
German soldiers and civilians. The city, already heavily damaged by
British and American bombing raids, was reduced to rubble and
significant reconstruction did not begin until after the Soviet
blockade of West Berlin in 1948-9 and the founding of the North Atlantic
Treaty Organization (NATO) in 1949. For more on the Blockade read Berlin Divides.
Traudl Junge was among those that left the bunker on the night of May 1-2, one of the few who escaped death or Russian captivity. Just before her death in 2002 she gave an interview, parts of which are included at the beginning and end of Downfall. This excerpt from the close of the movie shows her speaking about her actions and responsibility.
For the returning Russian soldiers, of whom 8 to 9 million had died in
the war, the hopes of many for a better life and less arbitrary cruelty
by their rulers were destroyed by Stalin's suspicion as told in the
greatest and most factually accurate of rock/pop history songs, Roads To Moscow by Al Stewart, of which THC has written before, with its haunting closing verse.
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(1) Strangely, both Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and Hitler's in 1941 were prompted by the same analysis - Russia needed to be defeated in order for Britain to be defeated. For more read Bonapartaroo Barbarossa.
