Dangerous Delusions Lessons of a Lifetime Dr Rolf Schulze 9781545056868 Books
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The crowd near the Chancellery in downtown Berlin was most agitated and repeatedly uttered the phrase "Der Führer kommt" while my father hoisted me onto his shoulders. Even though he was six feet tall, I was too young to know where to look for Hitler’s open Mercedes or to understand future events and the meaning of the Nazi regime to me or my family. First rationing in 1938, then experiencing my first British bombing while in Hamburg. Way too close during nightly Allied bombings of Berlin while going to grade school. Later leaving small town Silesian Boarding School while fleeing from Soviet tanks and artillery at the end of WW II, being nearly killed by a strafing US P-47 not long before Patton's Third Army soldiers liberated me and my English born mother in April of 1945. The American C-Ration package, including a carton of cigarettes which were better than gold and kept us alive. The war was finally over for us, even though our post-war suffering was not done since the Russians blockaded Berlin while the US Air-Force, the Brits and French planes, hauled just enough powdered milk and coal to Western Berlin's two-and-a-half million starving but grateful citizens. While my undergraduate studies and post-graduate Sociology Ph.D. studies, enabled me to formulate and test my theory of gradual indoctrination of children into a variety of religious, political or nationalistic belief systems. Such indoctrination is just about universal. My own early indoctrination into Nazi ideology was terminated somewhat before the end of WW II, as that of many others by Hitler’s failures and disastrous military losses. Finally reading about what I have chosen to call the "Dangerous Delusion" of Aryan superiority versus Jewish and Slavic inferiority, taught me enough to feel deeply ashamed of what my fellow Germans had allowed to happen in the extermination camps in Poland and elsewhere. Other dangerous delusions are all too common around our fragile and over populated planet. While ISIS and related ideologies have not matched Hitler’s military accomplishments or the German gas chambers of the exterminations camps, the Islamic caliphate of Abu Bakr al Bagdadi has attracted enough Muslims and others to challenge the West and its more secular cultures. Education and Science must be taught versus Dogma and unchecked beliefs typically taught in Koranic Madrasas. As it turned out my father, who was drafted into the German Army at the age of 38, is now buried in the formerly Eastern Polish territory annexed to the Soviet Ukraine, now the "independent" Ukraine. His involuntary sacrifice enabled my mother, me and my younger brothers, to emigrate to the USA in 1950.
Dangerous Delusions Lessons of a Lifetime Dr Rolf Schulze 9781545056868 Books
This book attacks and justifies attacking many dangerous delusions, but primarily details a truly remarkable life begun in Berlin, Germany on March 13, 1932, a national election day that “gave Adolf Hitler sufficient votes to set in motion his selection as chancellor less than a year later.” (page 10)Rolf Schultze, a Professor Emeritus in Sociology at San Diego State University, writes eloquently for his generation to today’s young people. For any group to consider its members superior as the “Aryan” Nazis considered themselves superior to Jews was among Schultze’s earliest valuable lifetime lessons. A false “Potemkin” prosperity turned out to rest on forced labor and all-out aggression against “inferior” peoples. In his Foreword, he writes (page 5):
"My fervent hope is that humanity will eventually learn to live without the dangerous ideological delusions which have all too often led to war and genocide. Today’s generation faces perhaps even greater dangers in our abuse of the environment. We are not just killing each other, we are killing increasing numbers of other species; and we are on the verge of endangering all life on earth. Will the present generation recognize today’s dangerous delusions any better or sooner than my generation recognized theirs?"
Schultze identifies himself as a Secular Humanist, a disbeliever in any deities or blind faith in anything, but who also fervently believes in the human potential to think clearly, to judge wisely, and to live courageously in his or her own best interests and those of his or her community under even the most trying circumstances. His parents taught him to live that way from his earliest years, when his father’s cutlery and china store helped them live in middle class comfort. He remembers how his beloved father, Erich, took him at ages 4-8 to museums rather than to church, and engaged him in discussions beyond most held between fathers and such “under-aged” sons.
Schultze has also been a feminist from early childhood, respecting and honoring women’s many unique capabilities and extensive devotion to family and community life. He strenuously objects to male chauvinism in all its forms, especially sexual abuse, ruthless exploitation, and oppression as is routinely found in such cultures as that of the Saudis. He pays tribute to all his mother endured to shepherd him and his two younger brothers through the travails of their times together in rural villages during the heavy bombing of Berlin, and in their even more stressful months as refugees in WWII’s immediate aftermath.
Like most pre-teen boys, Rolf and his friends got into their share of trouble, but how many boys have lived unscathed while playing with unexploded munitions? While living in a tiny, remote Bavarian village, Rolf was walking the gravel road back into town after running an errand to a neighboring village. On feeling the hairs on the nape of his neck rising, he turned to see an airplane coming straight at him. Rather than fall into a ditch as everyone had been taught to do, he barely reached and dashed through an open door to a cellar built into the nearby embankment. Just then many powerful rounds from the strafing American P-47 fighter-bomber tore up the road and the ditch beside it. Schultze devotes his short final chapter to his lifetime love of the number 13, for having escaped serious injury or death on days numbered 13 throughout his life.
This book is delightful to read, despite a few rough edges. Schultze completed his detailed autobiography by age 57, partially to share his “Lessons of a Lifetime” with unknown others, but especially to share them with his two sons, Mark and Eric, and the more extended Schultze family to follow. By 2007, he had added many photographs and the final two short chapters. He’d already told of his non-combat U.S. Infantry service during the Korean “police action,” his love of photography and flying — both powered and sailplane, his pacifism, love of women, and joys in his chosen careers, first as a machinist/tool and die maker in Germany and, much later, sociology in America. The book needs slight editing and an index, but adds significantly to humanity’s meager cache of documentaries told by or about “everyman” and “everywoman,” not only about the notorious, powerful, rich, or merely famous.
For those who fear or despise current or former enemies — or immigrant “aliens,” Schultze’s story is an object lesson in how an intelligent, caring person can grow from being — his words, not mine — “a good little Nazi” to becoming a productive contributor to his beloved, adopted America. Late in the book (page 281), he writes:
"As a father, I can hardly ask for a greater reward than to have two sons who have succeeded so magnificently in their lives and respective careers. I could only wish that my father, who died of dysentery in a post war Russian POW camp, had some hope or perhaps a premonition that his family would survive and thrive despite the war. To this day I still miss my father greatly. I can only hope that any members of my family will never have to see war again."
On page 107, Schultze had already quoted Albert Einstein: "You cannot simultaneously prevent war and prepare for war." Given his youthful experiences in devastated Europe and later experiences in marvelous but also profligate America, he came to know at first hand that most of the delusions supporting moves toward war — racism, religious fanaticism, overblown partisanship of every kind, belief in charismatic but fear- and hate-spouting politicians, ever-expanding wasteful consumption, etc. — are among humanity's worst self-deceptions, for in war there really are no winners, only losers, worse losers, and still worse losers, all too often people who did nothing personally to wreak the utterly demoralizing havoc, but who mindlessly went along with the — usually blindly patriotic — crowds.
I'm seven years Schultze's senior. Here I am at age 20, soon after Japan surrendered, atop a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the kind of plane that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war with unspeakable horrors. As a 1943-1946 veteran of service in our Army Air Corps/Army Air Force, I know Schultze speaks truths we all ignore at our peril! Wake up, millennials, it can happen to you and to your families!!
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Tags : Dangerous Delusions: Lessons of a Lifetime [Dr. Rolf Schulze] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. The crowd near the Chancellery in downtown Berlin was most agitated and repeatedly uttered the phrase Der Führer kommt while my father hoisted me onto his shoulders. Even though he was six feet tall,Dr. Rolf Schulze,Dangerous Delusions: Lessons of a Lifetime,CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform,1545056862,POLITICAL SCIENCE Political Ideologies Fascism & Totalitarianism
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Dangerous Delusions Lessons of a Lifetime Dr Rolf Schulze 9781545056868 Books Reviews
I read this book and as a woman I particularly liked Chapter 13.
The author explains his high regard for women who are often relegated to an inferior position in society. He mentions religions who featured women as gods and their essential role a givers of life through pregnancy and birth.
Men should listen, respect and love women... Remember “Men have a few minutes of fun while women have nine months of hard labor."
This book attacks and justifies attacking many dangerous delusions, but primarily details a truly remarkable life begun in Berlin, Germany on March 13, 1932, a national election day that “gave Adolf Hitler sufficient votes to set in motion his selection as chancellor less than a year later.” (page 10)
Rolf Schultze, a Professor Emeritus in Sociology at San Diego State University, writes eloquently for his generation to today’s young people. For any group to consider its members superior as the “Aryan” Nazis considered themselves superior to Jews was among Schultze’s earliest valuable lifetime lessons. A false “Potemkin” prosperity turned out to rest on forced labor and all-out aggression against “inferior” peoples. In his Foreword, he writes (page 5)
"My fervent hope is that humanity will eventually learn to live without the dangerous ideological delusions which have all too often led to war and genocide. Today’s generation faces perhaps even greater dangers in our abuse of the environment. We are not just killing each other, we are killing increasing numbers of other species; and we are on the verge of endangering all life on earth. Will the present generation recognize today’s dangerous delusions any better or sooner than my generation recognized theirs?"
Schultze identifies himself as a Secular Humanist, a disbeliever in any deities or blind faith in anything, but who also fervently believes in the human potential to think clearly, to judge wisely, and to live courageously in his or her own best interests and those of his or her community under even the most trying circumstances. His parents taught him to live that way from his earliest years, when his father’s cutlery and china store helped them live in middle class comfort. He remembers how his beloved father, Erich, took him at ages 4-8 to museums rather than to church, and engaged him in discussions beyond most held between fathers and such “under-aged” sons.
Schultze has also been a feminist from early childhood, respecting and honoring women’s many unique capabilities and extensive devotion to family and community life. He strenuously objects to male chauvinism in all its forms, especially sexual abuse, ruthless exploitation, and oppression as is routinely found in such cultures as that of the Saudis. He pays tribute to all his mother endured to shepherd him and his two younger brothers through the travails of their times together in rural villages during the heavy bombing of Berlin, and in their even more stressful months as refugees in WWII’s immediate aftermath.
Like most pre-teen boys, Rolf and his friends got into their share of trouble, but how many boys have lived unscathed while playing with unexploded munitions? While living in a tiny, remote Bavarian village, Rolf was walking the gravel road back into town after running an errand to a neighboring village. On feeling the hairs on the nape of his neck rising, he turned to see an airplane coming straight at him. Rather than fall into a ditch as everyone had been taught to do, he barely reached and dashed through an open door to a cellar built into the nearby embankment. Just then many powerful rounds from the strafing American P-47 fighter-bomber tore up the road and the ditch beside it. Schultze devotes his short final chapter to his lifetime love of the number 13, for having escaped serious injury or death on days numbered 13 throughout his life.
This book is delightful to read, despite a few rough edges. Schultze completed his detailed autobiography by age 57, partially to share his “Lessons of a Lifetime” with unknown others, but especially to share them with his two sons, Mark and Eric, and the more extended Schultze family to follow. By 2007, he had added many photographs and the final two short chapters. He’d already told of his non-combat U.S. Infantry service during the Korean “police action,” his love of photography and flying — both powered and sailplane, his pacifism, love of women, and joys in his chosen careers, first as a machinist/tool and die maker in Germany and, much later, sociology in America. The book needs slight editing and an index, but adds significantly to humanity’s meager cache of documentaries told by or about “everyman” and “everywoman,” not only about the notorious, powerful, rich, or merely famous.
For those who fear or despise current or former enemies — or immigrant “aliens,” Schultze’s story is an object lesson in how an intelligent, caring person can grow from being — his words, not mine — “a good little Nazi” to becoming a productive contributor to his beloved, adopted America. Late in the book (page 281), he writes
"As a father, I can hardly ask for a greater reward than to have two sons who have succeeded so magnificently in their lives and respective careers. I could only wish that my father, who died of dysentery in a post war Russian POW camp, had some hope or perhaps a premonition that his family would survive and thrive despite the war. To this day I still miss my father greatly. I can only hope that any members of my family will never have to see war again."
On page 107, Schultze had already quoted Albert Einstein "You cannot simultaneously prevent war and prepare for war." Given his youthful experiences in devastated Europe and later experiences in marvelous but also profligate America, he came to know at first hand that most of the delusions supporting moves toward war — racism, religious fanaticism, overblown partisanship of every kind, belief in charismatic but fear- and hate-spouting politicians, ever-expanding wasteful consumption, etc. — are among humanity's worst self-deceptions, for in war there really are no winners, only losers, worse losers, and still worse losers, all too often people who did nothing personally to wreak the utterly demoralizing havoc, but who mindlessly went along with the — usually blindly patriotic — crowds.
I'm seven years Schultze's senior. Here I am at age 20, soon after Japan surrendered, atop a B-29 Superfortress bomber, the kind of plane that dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end the war with unspeakable horrors. As a 1943-1946 veteran of service in our Army Air Corps/Army Air Force, I know Schultze speaks truths we all ignore at our peril! Wake up, millennials, it can happen to you and to your families!!
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