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When the Bombs Stopped

“Seventh-century chroniclers and hagiographers had no love of the abstract; for them the purpose of political power was contained in one concrete and comprehensible word: peace.  Peace could be broken in two ways: from without…or from within.”

Paul Fouracre and Richard A. Gerberding,

 Late Merovingian France, History and Hagiography 640 – 720 

As much as we would like to think we’ve progressed since the seventh century, much about political power remains the same.  Peace comes at a price and we should honor those who shoulder that price for us.  On today, Veterans Day, I would like to thank all of those who maintain our peace through force of arms from dangers both domestic and abroad.

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Given the nature of modern warfare and the consequences of recent attacks such as the bombing of the Boston Marathon I’d also like to acknowledge our first responders: the fire fighters, police and medical teams for the enhanced role they now play in keeping the peace.  Together with our veterans, they keep us safe and at liberty to pursue life and happiness every day of our lives.

Prior to World War II, we celebrated a different holiday on November 11th.  It was called “Armistice Day” and it grew out of the decision to cease of hostilities at the end of World War I (then known as the Great War).

In the fall of 1918, with its army reeling and its navy in mutiny, the Germans sued for peace based on a framework outlined in a speech given by U.S. President Woodrow Wilson called the “Fourteen Points.”  On November 10, 1918 the allied forces entered into an armistice with Germany in Compiègne, France that would provide a cessation of the war, until a new treaty could be ratified.  They signified that the shelling would stop on the 11th hour of the next day.

From that day forward, on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, countries around the world would honor the 20 million who lost their lives during the war with a minute of silence.  A second minute of silence honored those who had survived them, their spouses, their children and their comrades.

The holiday changed after World War II when it became clear that “the War to End all Wars” would not live up to its nickname.  Since we honor those who died in combat on Memorial Day, Veterans Day was dedicated to the living.

While I support the change and honor those who have fought for our country, a part of me still appreciates the idea of a holiday honoring the moment the bombs stopped.

J.C. & Me Part II

“Gentlemen.”  Adams’s voice rumbled through the classroom, ominous in its implication.  “The mid-term examination is Wednesday next.  It is yet but a cloud on the horizon, but let me assure you…it is an ever darkening cloud.”

From the first day of class, Adams’s “The World Since 1919” had us careening through the cataclysm that was Germany in the wake of the war to end all wars.  As the Weimar Republic struggled to assert itself, ultra-nationalist parties attacked it for betraying the fatherland by signing the Versailles Diktat. Centrist candidates and mainstream leaders were assassinated in the street. Violent putsches flourished; one so successful that the government had to flee from Berlin to Dresden.

With Adams as our guide we rode the “toboggan slide” of the German mark as it fell from 4.2 marks to the dollar in 1922 to 2.5 trillion to the dollar, a year later.  When the Germans failed to keep up with their reparations, we saw the Allies occupy the Ruhr – seizing 80 percent of the nation’s coal, iron and steel.  Hunger riots became common.  Separatist movements flourished.  Despite Allied efforts to stabilize the mark and the German economy, one weak government followed another until the rise the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP), or as we have come to know them: the Nazi Party.

Hitler’s movement spread through the nation’s beer halls, tapping a nativist hatred for Jews and a country’s resentment of occupation.  As it grew into a national power, violence became the signature of German politics.  Hitler’s “brown shirts,” the Sturmabteilungen, were deployed to disrupt opposing political rallies by brute force and to ensure the enthusiastic support for rallies of their own.

After seizing power, Hitler became a master at using mass demonstrations to whip up his allies and to cow his opposition.  And Adams gave us a ringside seat.  As he described the procession of arms and armies marching down Berlin’s Vossstrasse to the German Chancellery, his voice reverberated throughout the room.

“When they reached reviewing stand, the elite guard of the German infantry, the Wachtruppe, snapped their left arms upward in salute of der Fürher, and they commenced the Stechschritt, a march that is called, mockingly in the west, “the Goose Step.”

Someone in the classroom chuckled.  Adams’s head snapped up from his index cards. He frowned.

“It is not the sight of the Goose Step that made it impressive.  It was the sound of ten thousand boots pounding the cobblestones at the exact same instant and thousands of voices around you screaming in unison, ‘Sieg Heil!  Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!’ “ He offered up a rueful smile.  “And you are a nice young graduate student doing post-doctoral work in Germany…what do you do?”

I felt a trickle of sweat roll down my back.  He left us all to wonder what we would do in his place in pre-war Nazi Germany.

As the fall marched on, Adams again warned us of the gathering storm that would be our final exam.  But, in class after class, his stories grew more familiar.  The Marshall Plan, the Berlin airlift, the Cuban missile crisis, the assassination of President Kennedy, Nixon’s visit to China.  With each passing day, I had to reconcile my memories with the more worldly account that Adams proffered.  On the last day of class, Adams covered the news from that morning’s newspaper, bringing “The World Since 1919” finally up to date.

Forty years ago, during a fall much like this one, Adams took history out of the books and made it come to life.  It was no longer an abstract discussion of socio-political movements with little impact on our daily lives; it became a precursor to all that defines us today. I discovered that history is not about the past.   It is about the present.  And I’ve been trying to keep up with it ever since.

For the record, I passed both of Adams’s classes.  I felt lucky to pull down a C in each of them.   And for those paying attention, I snuck a reference to those boots pounding the cobblestones into ANVIL OF GOD.  I thought it was an appropriate reference for Carloman’s army and it was my way of paying homage to a true master of history.

I found the above picture of Adams as a young man, about the age he was during his post-doctoral work in Germany.  He is on a ship.  I don’t know if he is going to Germany or coming home.  But from the sober look on his face, I’d guess the later.

J.C. & Me

To appreciate my fascination with the past, you have to understand how I was introduced to it.  It started with my older brother Jimmy in the fall of 1973.

“You have to take History 54.”  He was insistent.

“I can’t take that class.  I’m a freshman.  I’m supposed to take History 5 with Shewmaker.”

“Adams is going to retire this year.  And he’s only teaching two more classes.  One this fall; the other this winter. You should take both of them.”

“I’ll fail both of them.”

“It would be better than not taking them.”

So, I signed up for “History of the World Since 1919,” bought the single assigned textbook (of the same name) and trudged to Reed Hall to take a seat among the fifty-or-so upper classmen who deserved to be in the room.  I arrived early, which was lucky, as more than 100 people were crowding into the auditorium.  I remember thinking that maybe I had misread the course guide.

I had been fortunate to have good history teachers in high school: Doc. Farrell, Doc. Pruitt, and Ms. Koob.  Each employed a different approach to studying the past, but all were inquisitive, engaging and most of all entertaining.  Now that I was in college, I wondered how they would compare.

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The room grew quiet as the first of Baker’s bells signaled the start of class. I heard the door open at the back of the room and turned to find an elderly man shuffling down the aisle with a tripod cane.  His hair was white and stood straight up from his head in what, at the time, was called a “crew cut” (a worrisome sign in 1973).  He wore a grey suit, with a black shirt tied to the top button.  What drew my attention, however, were the largest and blackest pair of sunglasses I had ever seen.  They wrapped around his face so that light was blocked on all sides.  (I would learn later that these were designed for cataract patients).

My brother is hazing me, I thought.  There was no way I could relate to this ancient relic.  Adams slowly made his way to the front of the class and sat down at a small desk.  He’s sitting down! I screamed in my head. He’s going to teach the class from a chair.  I wanted to strangle Jimmy.  I wondered whether or not I still could transfer out of the class, and readied myself for an hour and ten-minute snooze.

Once seated, Adams pulled out a stack of yellowed 3 X 5 index cards and placed them carefully on the desk.  Next came a huge magnifying glass, the rectangle kind my grandmother used for reading the paper.  He’s going to read them to us?  I groaned aloud.

Adams lifted the first index card off his carefully arranged stack, drew it before his huge magnifying glass and, lifted his head.  I had the distinct impression he wasn’t looking at the card.

And then, he opened his mouth to speak.

He had a voice that made James Earl Jones sound like Mickey Mouse.  It boomed across the room with such resonance and authority that it swept all of us into its embrace and transported us across time and space until we found ourselves in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles just outside Paris in 1919.  We watched a pale and nervous Herman Müller, the German Foreign Minister, blink into the blinding light of the mirrored hall before picking up the pen to sign what was called by his countrymen back home, the “Diktat.”  The treaty acknowledged German “guilt” for World War I and promised “reparations” for the damages inflicted on the allied nations during the war. The terms “guilt” and “reparations” took on an ominous tone coming from Adams’s mouth, as if they foreshadowed the dawning of the Apocalypse.  I would learn weeks later how much they did.

J. C. Adams taught history at Dartmouth College for 34 years. A 1970 Esquire cover story named him one the 10 best college professors in the country.  An expert in Balkan and Russian history, Adams was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania and received his M.A. & Ph.D. in modern European diplomatic history from Duke. He spent a year in 1937 doing post-doctoral work in pre-war Europe and served with U.S. Army military intelligence during WWII.  He received the Bronze Star and one battle star before being discharged as a major in 1945.

“John made history come alive,” eulogized fellow history professor Charles T. Wood, when Adams died in 1986, “and his courses were always filled.”  Revered by his students, Adams also was renowned for his tough grades.   So tough that, Woods said, “His was a course that the seniors took in the spring after they had been admitted into law school.” (Italics added).

Exactly and hour and ten minutes after he had begun, the Baker bells began to chime again and Adams put down his last index card.  I, and my 100-plus classmates returned from our trip into the past to our classroom in Reed Hall, in Hanover, New Hampshire during the fall of 1973.

“Until Wednesday,” Adams’s voice promised.  I couldn’t wait.  Next: The Gathering Storm.