My Turn: Am I Kadavergehorsam?

After reading the Recorder about the young mother of three who was shot by a Federal ICE agent in Minnesota, on Jan. 8, my first response wasn’t, “What can I do about this?” Instead my reaction was fear of what could happen if I did something.

When I saw Renee Good’s innocent face on TV, as she tried to simply drive away in her family’s maroon minivan, indignation brewed within me, magnified by the hypocrisy of those in power who see this killing as nothing more than self-defense. However, my initial rage quickly turned to fear, and I found myself suppressing my urge to act as I slipped into the falsehood that at least my family and I are safe. Is this not the objective of a police state where law enforcement creates fear through violence to maintain order?

After graduating from college in the 1980s, I worked as a researcher in Freiburg, in what was then West Germany. I was bold enough at that time to ask my German colleagues how so many of their people during World War II could close their eyes to what was happening around them. I was told about the old German Prussian word “Kadavergehorsam,”meaning, “to be obedient like a cadaver.” To be a good Prussian was to submit unquestionably to the will of those who held power, be it a parent, priest, employer, president, chancellor, king or dictator.

Did this unquestioned obedience emerge out of social pressure or national pride alone? Or was it a form of self-preservation rooted in fear that had the greatest effect on achieving compliance, though not without a tremendous cost. Many of the German people either never got the chance or ventured to express their fears, and those that did either were executed, emigrated or spent the war in citizen-work camps, as was the fate of my German landlord who dared to speak out.

While the U.S. Military and its allies, with the support of the American people, achieved for Germany what its own citizens were unable to do during WWII, many of the descendants of those same Americans are supporting the heartless acts of what certainly feels like the new Axis of Evil assuming power today. In honor of my Dad and all the other Americans who chose to fight against real tyranny, I can only hope that history isn’t repeating itself. As a husband and father I am trying to find courage to speak out and act. Perhaps this letter to the Recorder is my first step against my own Kadavergehorsam.

Bruce Tease is a proud citizen of Greenfield and the USA.