All the Frequent Troubles of our Days

All the Frequent Troubles of our Days by Rebecca Donner is the story of Mildred Harnack, an American doing a PhD in Germany who witnessed the rise of Hitler and became part of the largest underground resistance group in Berlin. The story is considered narrative non-fiction and it reads almost like fiction. The author is Mildred’s great-great niece.

I read this book a few years ago. As always when I read, I underlined bits that strike me as interesting. Let me share some of them and invite you to draw comparisons to today’s astonishing turmoil.

In 1932, “Fascism is on the rise in Germany, but it still seems possible to defeat it. Left-wing politicians outnumber Nazis by a wide margin.” However, in the election, the Nazi party gets 37% of the vote and becomes the largest party in the German parliament, the Reichstag.

As a Phd student, Mildred has done her share of teaching but in 1932 she was fired. Later, she discovers that “Nearly every book Mildred assigned in the two years she taught at the University of Berlin will be burned.”

Mildred finds another job where she teaches people who are “poorer, predominantly working class, mostly unemployed. Precisely the type of person the Nazi party has been relentlessly targeting.” Germany has shrugged off its monarchy, but “there’s another friction Mildred senses it every time she watches women in mink coats stroll past bone-thin beggars” while shopping.

The US Consul General is guest speaker at an event Mildred attends. Six months later, he will describe Hitler to colleagues: “With few exceptions, the men who are running the government are of a mentality that you and I cannot understand. Some of them are psychopath cases and would ordinarily be receiving treatment somewhere.”

In January 1933, Hitler has just been appointed chancellor of Germany. “What’s burning the night of January 30, 1933 are torches – twenty thousand of them.” They signal a Nazi victory parade. “Germany has awakened!” writes Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels. “The German revolution has begun.” Hitler spoke of restoring Germany’s greatness. At this time, committed socialists like Mildred and her husband Arvid aren’t safe at all.

Arvid’s cousin, Dietrich Bonhoeffer speaks out against the regime. “It is critical,” he says, “to distinguish between a ‘leader’ and a ‘misleader’.” Immediately, his microphone is cut off. The broadcast is finished.

Alfred Hugenberg leader of one of the other political parties is at Hitler’s first cabinet meeting. “Hugenberg is backed by aristocrats and wealthy businessmen who cringe at the Nazi Party’s populist rhetoric. Hugenberg thinks he can control Hitler. So do Vice-Chancellor Franz von Papen and President Hindenburg.” When Hitler proposes holding a new election to consolidate a right-wing coalition and pass a law that “will crush their left-wing opponents.” Hugenberg hesitates but then “lets Hitler has his way in the cabinet meeting, just this once, he (Hugenberg) can handily manipulate the lowborn Nazi leader and position himself for his own power grab. Hugenberg withdraws his objection.” Later Hugenberg writes “I’ve just committed the greatest stupidity of my life.”

“Hitler identifies Communists as the cause of chaos and violence in the streets.” He “asks the men and women of Germany to grant them [the Nazi party] four years to rebuild the country.” Hitler designates “Minister of the Interior Wilhelm Frick [to] draft legislation that will enable Hitler to assume totalitarian control over the economy and all other aspects of the political and cultural landscape.” Meanwhile Minister Without Portfolio Hermann Goring creates the Gestapo, “Hitler will invalidate the Weimar Constitution, destroy Germany’s parliamentary democracy, and engineer its complete and total transformation into dictatorship.” All this in just six months.

What might we consider parallels in today’s environment?

• the parallel to Alfred Hugenberg might be today’s current crop of Republican senators and members of the house who are going along with everything Donald Trump does and all the appointments he makes
• the parallel to Communists, the poor, and the unemployed is clearly today’s illegal immigrants as well as anyone associated with DEI
• Minister of the Interior might be Russel Vought combined with Elon Musk and backed by Project 2025
• there are many Trump appointees and Trump himself attempting to invalidate sections of the US Constitution such as ending birthright citizenship, freezing federal funds, and firing inspectors general
• the astonishing speed at which Trump and his appointees are moving

Having seized power, Hitler needs to maintain the support of the vast majority of Germans. “To win them over, the government must control all media. It is to this end that Hitler creates the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda and puts Joseph Goebbels in charge of it.” Goebbels “wastes no time in setting up seven departments in the Reich Chamber of Culture to oversee Germany’s newspapers, film, radio, music, visual arts, theatre, and literature. Germany’s celebrated free press is no more.”

How has the media fared in the US?

• the owners of several major US newspapers are now Trump loyalists
• Trump recently took charge of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
• Trump has threatened or initiated law suits against various news outlets such as CBS, the Des Moines Register, has falsely accused media outlets of being “government financed organs of the state”, and predicted “darker days” for the industry prior to winning the election
• Trump has long identified the media as “the enemy of the people”
• the FCC is now investigating outlets including NPR and PBS
• a stated objective of Project 2025 is to restrict and/or destroy freedom on the press

“Germany’s theatre and film industries are purged of all Jewish writers, actors, producers, and directors.” While Trump is not targeting jews, he has appointed three ambassadors to Hollywood: Sylvester Stallone, Mel Gibson, and Jon Voight. In November, Stallone called Trump a ‘second George Washington’; Gibson endorsed Trump and before the election said that Kamala Harris has the IQ of a fence post; Voight, another strong supporter of Trump, is outspoken about his right-wing and religious beliefs.

“All media is put in the service of spreading Hitler’s ideology.”

When the German parliament buildings are set on fire, it is falsely called a “Communist crime against the new government.” Mass arrests begin at midnight. “The next morning, Hitler uses the fire as a pretext to declare a national emergency, pressuring President Hindenburg to sign a decree that suspends indefinitely all seven sections of the Weimar constitution guaranteeing basic civil liberties to Germans.” Freedom of the press and freedom of the speech are immediately abolished. The Nazi government now has the right to silence all opposition.

After a second election, Hitler still doesn’t have a majority so he convinces politicians to pass the Law to Remove the Distress of People and Reich (The Enabling Act). “In five short paragraphs, it guts what remains of the Weimar Constitution and transforms Germany into a dictatorship.” With the right cooperation and manipulation, it was that easy.

The book continues to describe Mildred’s life and the changes taking place in Germany.

• Women’s rights are curtailed and for the most part women are confined to their roles inside the family. “A woman’s world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home,” declares Hitler.
• Contraception and even condoms are curtailed.
• “Over nineteen thousand women in leadership positions at the ministries and in regional and local government offices are immediately dismissed.” Women disappear from a whole host of jobs and are discouraged from going to college. “The single goal of a young woman’s education is to prepare for motherhood.” “The farmer’s wife is celebrated as the feminine ideal.”
• “It is now a crime to criticize the Nazi government” and there is “systematic prohibition of all forms of opposition.”
• Dachau is established to house political prisoners mainly communists, Social Democrats, and other left-wing opponents. Himmler is put in charge. “Jews are singled out and bludgeoned by Nazi guards.” “There are twenty thousand political prisoners by March 1933.”

“Every day, Nazi propaganda disseminates misinformation and false promises. Every day, Hitler wins more German hearts and minds … And it’s all happening so fast.”

Donald Trump, his cabinet and Elon Musk are also working fast thanks to the program and plan worked out by Project 2025. They are also disseminating false information – lies in other words.

On the topic of women, there are attacks on DEI, increasing restrictions on abortion, and as stated in Project 2025 an intent to “restore the family as the centrepiece of American life”. The subtext for that last statement is clear: women, just as in Nazi Germany, belong in the home.

Moreover, an objective of Project 2025 is to establish the United States as a Christian Nationalist ethno-state. An article in Time magazine states: that speaker of the House Mike Johnson and other representatives “embrace of the ethos of Christian nationalism – a cultural framework that advocates for a particular expression of Christianity [their expression of Christianity] to be fused with American civic life, with the government vigorously promoting and preserving this version of Christianity as the principal and undisputed cultural framework.”

And a detention centre in Guantanamo is an alarming parallel to Hitler’s establishment of Dachau.

I could go on … but I think this post is already too long. If you aren’t worried about what Trump’s regime is doing to the US and the rest of the world, I hope you’ll reconsider.

Read Rebecca Donner’s All the Frequent Troubles of our Days. It’s a compelling story of one woman’s experience living in Nazi Germany and attempting to counter Hitler’s regime. It’s also an alarming parallel to what is currently going on under Donald Trump’s new regime.

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M.K. Tod writes historical fiction. Her latest novel THAT WAS THEN is a contemporary thriller. Mary’s other novels, THE ADMIRAL’S WIFE, PARIS IN RUINS, TIME AND REGRET, LIES TOLD IN SILENCE and UNRAVELLED are available from Amazon, Nook, Kobo, Google Play and iTunes. She can be contacted on Facebook or on her website www.mktod.com.