Silent Night?
Christmas and you
This is the last Kansan you will receive in 1966.
This week we have given you the top news stories of the past year on all major scenes, national, international, Kansas, campus, and some feature material which came to newsworthy recognition during the year.
You've also read about what Christmas has become and how it has been perverted over the years, with commercialism and crass materialism and a general obscurity of the true meaning of the holiday. Frankly, we're a little tired of hearing what's wrong with Christmas.
Christmas, in fact, is a personal celebration. True, it has been used and re-used over the years as a commercial gimmick, and the season itself has been extended from the middle of fall to the end of January. And a thousand other things have happened to it.
But the true meaning of Christmas has not been lost. The true meaning does not spring from department stores or from city park departments or from Jaycee "Xmas tree" lots. The meaning,
rather, is within the heart and mind of the beholder.
Christmas is a time for renewal of acquaintances, for relaxation and for some self-introspection. It is a time for each to remember and celebrate Christ's day in the manner of his own religious choice, even if that be none at all.
So if you find that a full-page ad screaming about a Christmas sale or a department store or street corner Santa doesn't seem to radiate the true meaning of Christmas to you, look past it; the meaning will always be there—it only has to be found. Have yourself a "Charlie Brown" Christmas, and think about what Christmas means to you.
But most important, this is a time to relate the Christmas celebration to our own lives, to at least remember the Christmas story and how it affects our everyday thoughts and actions on the other 364 days of the coming year.
With this in mind, then, the entire Kansan staff wishes you all a very merry Christmas.
The editors
To the editor:
Myth obscures German resistance
Inexplicably, the UDK's recent editorial chent seems to be a sustained chorus of "Deutschland, Deutschland UNTER Alles." Several German students have ably replied to Mr. Austin's series of careless innuendoes. I wish merely to correct a very common error which appeared in Mr. Lovekin's recent editorial on Nazism.
Mr. Lovekin states that "it was only when defeat and destruction became inevitable that there was any effort of opposition (to Hitler), which was all too little and too late."
THIS NOTION that the German Resistance was a feeble, johnny-come-lately effort on the part of a few disgruntled generals is a myth which soon after the war became the official Allied version of the history of the Third Reich. The myth received a tremendous shot in the arm from William Shirer's best-seller "The Rise and fall of the Third Reich." It has become so firmly entrenched in the popular imagination that its death may be very slow in coming.
ONE OF THE few surviving leaders of the Resistance, Fabian von Schlabrandorff, published a book early this year entitled "The Secret War against Hitler." I recommend it highly as an absorbing work which singlehandedly does in the Shirer thesis.
But come it must; and we have sufficient documentation of the actual situation to demand an intelligent revision of our ideas about the German opposition to Hitler.
Von Schlabrendorff traces in some detail the entire history of the resistance movement in Germany from its real beginning as early as 1933 to the end of the war. He carefully delineates the
size of the movement, its composition, its leadership, its organization, its strategies, and its failures.
EAR FROM being "the whole show," the military anti-Nazis were only part of an essentially civilian-led group. Obviously, however, the military played an absolutely necessary role, since any seizure of power had to have the loyalty of at least some strategically placed men in the army.
The German Resistance was made up of persons from the four large areas of public life: the state, the armed services, the trade unions, and the church. Before the outbreak of the war in 1939, the Resistance was well organized and had even tried (unsuccessfully) to convince Britain of the gravity of the situation before Munich. By the middle of the war, the Resistance had significantly won over elements of the army through some of its outstanding officers.
The opposition to Nazism had plans for the seizure of power worked out to the last detail, including the takeover itself, a provisional government with men to staff it, an edict ordering the cessation of hostilities, etc. There were attempts to assassinate Hitler in 1939, 1943, and 1944. The last two of these were flawlessly executed; they failed, not because of Resistance ineptness, but because of the diabolically charmed life which Hitler led.
IN 1942 anti-Nazi Germans met secretly with unofficial representatives from Britain in neutral Sweden, and entrusted to them details of the leadership, make-up, strength, and strategy of the opposition movement. This information was communicated to Anthony Eden, then British Foreign Secretary, along with the important plea for Allied recognition and support of the German Resistance.
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY kansan
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Eden, along with the other Allied government officials, felt for various reasons that he could not commit his government to such a policy (which would have included, as an important boost to anti-Nazi morale in Germany, the provision that if the opposition managed to seize power the Allies would not demand unconditional surrender). To the end of the war and beyond the Allies refused to recognize the existence of the opposition within Germany.
Von Schlabrendorff shows graphically the almost impossible conditions under which the Resistance had to operate: a highly organized totalitarian state in which their every move was scrutinized. The remarkable thing is that they achieved what they did. Of course, they did not succeed; and nothing quite takes the place of success. The Allied breakthrough and the ending of the war swallowed up—indeed, temporarily obliterated—the very existence of the opposition.
THE NAMES of those Germans who resisted Nazism—many of them from the very beginning—deserve a place of honor among both their fellow Germans and citizens of the formerly Allied countries; names such as Von Schlabrendorff himself, a lawyer and public servant; Carl Goerdeler, mayor of Leipzig and the civilian leader of the Resistance; Colonel-General Ludwig Deck, military leader of the Resistance; Major-General Henning von Tresckow; Major-General Hans Oster; Martin Niemoeller, a leading minister of the Protestant Church in Germany; Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a distinguished theologian; Julius Leber, a labor leader and Social Democrat; Ewald von Kleist-Schmenzin, a prominent landowner. All but two of these men were executed by the Nazis.
The majority of Germans, of course, were neither Nazis nor anti-Nazis but simply non-Nazis, who out of fear or resignation did as they were told. The members of the Resistance were brave men who voluntarily risked the stigma of treason and the daily possibility of death. That kind of bravery does not occur frequently in any country.
Acting assistant professor of religion
James W. Woelfol
2
Daily Kansen editorial page Thursday, December 15, 1966
An open letter
Same old ASC?
To the students of the University of Kansa
Tuesday night I attended a meeting of the All Student Council (ASC). I had read in the UDK earlier about apathy and lack of interest in student government, so I decided to go to the meeting and see for myself what the ASC did or did not do.
The members didn't have a lot to discuss Tuesday night. Several bills were introduced and tabled, as is the custom for new legislation. But the members did have an "election." They chose a new vice-chairman, and I think Mr. Brian Barker will do the job pretty well. I confess, though, that I favored Mr. Barker's opponent, John Hill.
AFTER SOME INITIAL teeth-pulling to get the members to say anything at all about the candidates for the ASC's most important legislative position, two people commented favorably on Mr. Barker's wit and enthusiasm, and one person spoke in favor of John Hill.
Since I know John very well, and because I have this semester worked a great deal with him, I asked the council's permission to speak on his behalf. I thought that there were many things about John—his intense interest in student affairs and his considerable experience with the type of work the new vice-chairman will be doing are the most important ones—which the council, and especially the many new members, ought to be aware of.
THE COUNCIL VOTED on my request, and I admit that I was surprised when the majority present refused to listen to what I had to say. I suspected the reason, and Chairman Prager supported that suspicion when he said, "Well, I can see we're back to party lines again." It seemed that most of the members of one party had already made up their minds and didn't want to risk or tolerate any more student's attempts to change them.
I asked one of the ASC members about the incident after the meeting, and—almost shocked at my naivete—he told me in a most parental way that the people's decisions had indeed been made before the meeting, even before the nomination of the opposing candidate, and that any attempt to change them would only waste the council's time. There was a basketball game at 8:00, you know.
WHAT DO I THINK NOW about apathy toward student government? If an interested student, a person with some relevant things to say and one who takes it upon himself to attend an ASC meeting so that he can say them, cannot obtain permission from the reigning party to stand up and express himself for a few moments, why should he be interested in student government? Why should anyone be interested?
And, as the chairman and the member suggest, if decisions are made before the party members even get in the door for ASC meetings, why bother to have meetings at all? Why not simply tally party strength, ask the party president which way he wants to jump, and chalk up the votes accordingly?
Maybe the last two suggestions are a bit harsh. But the point remains; if the ASC continues to pay as much homage to politics and as little attention to the interests of the individual student, the supposed backbone of its existence, why should its members condemn apathy? They should encourage it! Then they could arrive at basketball games only 15 minutes late, instead of 20.
Bill Sampson Topeka junior
(Editor's note: Mr. Sampson is president of the KU Progressive Alliance.)