Mormons, Nazis, and Anti-Semitism

[_Morley]

..... For myself, I am content to let God judge the matter.

Only God Can Judge Me.

[_harmony]

What Clark didn't condemn (apparently—we have only Quinn's word for it) was the "forced population movements, apartheid, and ghettos." But, as we have seen, Clark didn't take these reports at face value, so it is difficult to assess how much blame he deserves. For myself, I am content to let God judge the matter.

That's a cop out, Nevo.

[_Nevo]

That's a cop out, Nevo.

If we're going to start condemning people for not being fully cognizant of, or actively condemning, outrages committed across the globe, then I'm not sure that any of us would be left blameless.

Michael Moore opposed the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 for the reasons he gave in his film Fahrenheit 9/11. Should I conclude from Moore's anti-war position that he "endorsed" Saddam's treatment of the Kurds, or that he thought weapons of mass destruction are "a swell idea"? Personally, I think Moore's position was naïve and misguided, but I don't label him a Baathist sympathizer and accuse him of complicity in mass murder.

Anti-war protesters here in Canada like to march around with placards saying things like "No Blood for Oil!" and "Get Our Troops Out of Afghanistan Now!" Should I conclude from their anti-war stance that they support female genital mutilation, acid being thrown in the faces of young girls, beheadings, and other Taliban atrocities?

Clark's pacificism, isolationism, and cultural prejudices may now strike us as wrongheaded but I am reluctant to condemn him for these views.

I am reminded of the eloquent tribute Churchill paid to Neville Chamberlain:

At the lychgate we may all pass our own conduct and our own judgments under a searching review. It is not given to human beings, happily for them, for otherwise life would be intolerable, to foresee or to predict to any large extent the unfolding course of events. In one phase men seem to have been right, in another they seem to have been wrong. Then again, a few years later, when the perspective of time has lengthened, all stands in a different setting. There is a new proportion. There is another scale of values. History with its flickering lamp stumbles along the trail of the past, trying to reconstruct its scenes, to revive its echoes, and kindle with pale gleams the passion of former days.

What is the worth of all this? The only guide to a man is his conscience; the only shield to his memory is the rectitude and sincerity of his actions. It is very imprudent to walk through life without this shield, because we are so often mocked by the failure of our hopes and the upsetting of our calculations; but with this shield, however the fates may play, we march always in the ranks of honour.

It fell to Neville Chamberlain in one of the supreme crises of the world to be contradicted by events, to be disappointed in his hopes, and to be deceived and cheated by a wicked man. But what were these hopes in which he was disappointed? What were these wishes in which he was frustrated? What was that faith that was abused? They were surely among the most noble and benevolent instincts of the human heart—the love of peace, the toil for peace, the strife for peace, the pursuit of peace, even at great peril, and certainly to the utter disdain of popularity or clamour. Whatever else history may or may not say about these terrible, tremendous years, we can be sure that Neville Chamberlain acted with perfect sincerity according to his lights and strove to the utmost of his capacity and authority, which were powerful, to save the world from the awful, devastating struggle in which we are now engaged. This alone will stand him in good stead as far as what is called the verdict of history is concerned.

— Winston Churchill

[_harmony]

That's a cop out, Nevo.

If we're going to start condemning people for not being fully cognizant of, or actively condemning, wartime outrages committed across the globe, then I'm not sure that any of us would be left blameless.

The requirement to judge does not include the requirement to condemn.

[_Morley]

If we're going to start condemning people for not being fully cognizant of, or actively condemning, outrages committed across the globe, then I'm not sure that any of us would be left blameless. ....

We are not "condemning people for not being fully cognizant of, or actively condemning, outrages committed across the globe." Please stop trying to redefine what we are saying.

To take only one example (below), JR Clark was aware of, and was actively responding to, written reports about what was happening to the Jews in Europe.

To recap part of Corpsegrinder's quote:

In February 1941, the New York Times reported that Berlin’s Nazi Party newspaper referred to the necessity of “eliminating all Jews.” This was an echo of the LDS newspaper’s headline in 1938, “Death for 700,000 Jews Threatened: Semites Must Get Out or Die, Nazis Declare.” Even this stark Utah report gave less than one-tenth of Adolf Hitler’s goal of killing every Jew in Europe. During the balance of 1941 and increasingly thereafter, newspapers in every major American city reported specific examples of the mass execution of Jews throughout Nazi-controlled Europe. In apparent response to such reports, LDS author N. L. Nelson wrote a book against Hitler in the early months of 1941 and referred to the Nazi “butchery” of the Jews.

In his June reply to Nelson’s manuscript, Reuben defended Hitler and added, “There is nothing in their history which indicates that the Jewish race have [sic] either free-agency or liberty. ‘Law and order’ are not facts for the Jews” (p. 335).

How does J. Reuben Clark get a pass from you (or anyone else) for this?

[_Nevo]

To take only one example (below), JR Clark was aware of, and was actively responding to, written reports about what was happening to the Jews in Europe.

Okay, let's look closely at what Quinn says:

In February 1941, the New York Times reported that Berlin’s Nazi Party newspaper referred to the necessity of “eliminating all Jews.”

Did JRC read this February 1941 NYT report? We don't know.

If he read it, did he believe it? Again, we don't know. But we can be reasonably sure on the basis of other statements that he made around this time that he would not have accepted such a report at face value.

Also, what did "eliminating all Jews" mean in February 1941? It almost certainly didn't mean murdering all Jews. That was a last resort, and it wasn't settled on until after the invasion of the Soviet Union went sideways.

This was an echo of the LDS newspaper’s headline in 1938, “Death for 700,000 Jews Threatened: Semites Must Get Out or Die, Nazis Declare.” Even this stark Utah report gave less than one-tenth of Adolf Hitler’s goal of killing every Jew in Europe.

What did JRC think about this report? We have no idea. He never commented on it.

Was it Hitler's "goal" in 1938 to kill every Jew in Europe? That doesn't appear to have been the case. Certainly he wanted the German lands to be free of Jews, but his initial idea seems to have been to deport them to the East and basically use them as slave labor. Should JRC have known this? I don't see how he could have. Even now historians have a hard time discerning Hitler's intentions.

During the balance of 1941 and increasingly thereafter, newspapers in every major American city reported specific examples of the mass execution of Jews throughout Nazi-controlled Europe.

The first mass executions of Jews didn't take place until after the invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941—after JRC wrote his letter to N.L. Nelson. What newspapers reported in the latter half of 1941 "and increasingly thereafter" has no bearing at all on Clark's letter—or N.L. Nelson's book, for that matter.

In apparent response to such reports, LDS author N. L. Nelson wrote a book against Hitler in the early months of 1941 and referred to the Nazi “butchery” of the Jews.

This is typical "Quinnspeak." If JRC was reviewing a draft of Nelson's book in June 1941, how could Nelson be responding to "specific examples of the mass executions of Jews throughout Nazi-controlled Europe" that were reported after July 1941? (If there any such massacres reported between February and June, then why doesn't he mention them?) For all we know, Nelson's reference to the Nazi "butchery" of Jews could have been in reference to the deaths that resulted from the "Kristallnacht" pogrom in 1938.

In his June reply to Nelson’s manuscript, Reuben defended Hitler and added, “There is nothing in their history which indicates that the Jewish race have [sic] either free-agency or liberty. ‘Law and order’ are not facts for the Jews” (p. 335).

JRC's defense of Hitler consisted of him agreeing with Nelson that "Hitler is undoubtedly bad from our American point of view" while noting that he had accomplished some good things. He also warned Nelson to be cautious in accepting media reports about the Nazis at face value since, in JRC's view, they were likely to be inaccurate.

Quinn quotes Reuben as saying that "there is nothing in their history which indicates that the Jewish race love either free-agency or liberty. 'Law and order' are not facts for the Jews." Since Quinn doesn't supply the full text of Clark's letter, it is hard to know what he is specifically responding to in Nelson's manuscript. Quinn's presentation insinuates that Clark is defending Hitler's "butchery" of Jews, but that is not indicated anywhere in the excerpt that he quotes and seems to me to be extremely unlikely.

Without access to the full letter, and the specific parts of Nelson's book to which it refers, I think we should avoid jumping to conclusions. It may be that Clark did think a "law and order"-type crackdown on German Jews was justified, but we can't deduce that on the basis of this single quote. What we can be sure of is this: JRC's 1941 letter in no way suggests that he endorsed the mass killing of Jews.

[_Morley]

....

What we can be sure of is this: JRC's 1941 letter in no way suggests that he endorsed the mass killing of Jews.

I agree. What is sad, however, is that he didn't condemn the crimes that were obviously being committed against the Jews. Instead, he chose to vilify them.

[_harmony]

....

What we can be sure of is this: JRC's 1941 letter in no way suggests that he endorsed the mass killing of Jews.

I agree. What is sad, however, is that he didn't condemn the crimes that were obviously being committed against the Jews. Instead, he chose to vilify them.

Too bad he didn't vilify the crimes instead of the Jews.

[_Morley]

I agree. What is sad, however, is that he didn't condemn the crimes that were obviously being committed against the Jews. Instead, he chose to vilify them.

Too bad he didn't vilify the crimes instead of the Jews.

(Yeah, I'm afraid my antecedent wasn't that clear.)

[_Corpsegrinder]

From Nevo:

The first organized mass killings of Jews took place after the invasion of the Soviet Union in July 1941. The "Final Solution" as we know it wasn't implemented in earnest until the summer of 1942.

The "Final Solution" was not a foregone conclusion in 1941 even among the Nazi leadership, so it is absurd to castigate Clark for "refusing" to condemn it.

This statement is a lie.

Is it Nevo’s lie? I don’t know for certain, but I suspect it is because Nevo has studied the issue and is a smart guy…albeit somewhat unprincipled. But I figure there’s a 95% chance that Mr. Nevo is knowingly misrepresenting the facts.

In point of fact, the Einsatzgruppen--Hitler’s mobile killing units--perpetrated the first mass killings of Jews shortly after the Nazi invasion of Poland in September of 1939. From then on, the Einsatzgruppen followed Hitler’s main army into the conquered territories, killing Jews, intellectuals, communists and others in similar proportions to the concentration camps.

Nevo knows this because anybody who has systematically studied the Holocaust knows this.

Let’s jump forward to September of 1945, at which point people in the United States had learned of the full scope of the Holocaust. In 1945, did J. Reuben Clark condemn the attempted extermination of the Jews?

Apparently not.

J. Reuben Clark remained an “ardent” anti-Semite to the end of his life.

Should we not expect more from an Apostle of the Lord?