Evening star., 1945-05-01
Milan and Munich

Nothing could be more Symbolical
OF the catastrophe fallen upon the
Axis than that American troops are
now in both Milan and Munich. For
in Milan-where yesterday the
corpse of Mussolini was reviled-
Fascism was born, and in Munich
the spiritual capital of Hitler's
"thousand-year" Reich - Naziism
first found its evil voice.
Here, in these two cities, began
the two movements-basically the
same in theological content-that
were to make two culturally rich
powers of the Western world COM
NIT treason against Western civil
ization. Here were Graded the con-
spiracies that dragged Italy and
Germany into a nihilistic rebellion
against the free way of life and all
the decencies flowing from our rich
inheritance Of ancient Jewish, Greek
and Christian thought. Here the
clock was turned back. Here war
was declared on the Golden Rule,
the Sermon on the Mount and the
principle of human brotherhood
under the fatherhood of God. Here
was articulated the philosophy of
the brass knuckles, the truncheon
and the concentration camp. Here
men were told that they had no
unique individual nobility, that they
were unfit to rule themselves and
were meant only to be the inconse-
quential parts Of regimented mass
Subservient to their Duce or Fuehrer.
But it is well to remember, now
that these birthplaces of Fascism
and Naziism have fallen, that the
doctrines of Mussolini and Hitler
appealed to vast numbers OF Italians
and Germans. The people were not
at first repelled by what came out
Of Milan and Munich. The weak
neSses Of their own parliamentary
systems, the instability of their pre-
Fascist and pre-Nazi governments,
the social unrest in their lands, the
widespread economic insecurity, and
a multitude of other inadequacies
and discontents were fertile soil for
the seeds sown by the nihilists. Italy
and Germany were offered a drastic
cure, and they accepted it: Away
with democratic self-rule. Away
with individual freedom. Let dicta-
torship take care of everything, and
there would be bread and jobs
enough for all-and more than that
there would be new national glories
and a new place in the sun of the
world.
When they took to this drug, it
was as if the Italians and Germans
had decided that decapitation was
a good way to relieve headaches.
But it seemed otherwise at first. Not
until years later, when war abroad
followed upon violent internal re-
pressions, did Fascism and Naziism
begin to exact the full price from
their once-enthusiastic followers.
Now that Milan and Munich have
fallen, now that free men have taken
the birthplaces of the two most
evil movements of our modern West
tern world, the price is about paid
and we can hail the event as a
shining triumph for human liberty.
Yet we must ask ourselves whether
the lesson implicit in all this is alto
gether clear-namely, the lesson
that if men would preserve their
freedom, they must make effective
their systems of self-rule and that
they can do this only by making
very sure, above everything else,
that they are not yielding any basic
ground to the forces of omnipotent
statism. If this much at least has
not been learned during these years
OF terror and travail, then we have
no genuine assurance that the fall
of Milan and Munich really marks
the fall of the ideas that were born
there