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I
I
RALF DAHRENDORF
551
from the
Sonderweg
to general theory, and worse, from the individual
to structure, thus losing the
gestalt
of the issue, its human face . This
is inexcusable at all times, but more so in an essay honoring a great
witness of our times , and one addressed to its victims, or rather–
using the word with the heavy irony of the title of Dan Segre's auto–
biographical book-the "fortunate" survivors. The question, "What
is to be done?" is not a Leninist request for partisan action to help the
world spirit along its inexorable path, but it is about the human
qualities needed to resist the totalitarian temptation. What does it
take not to become a passive object of the perversion of civil values?
How do individuals - you and I - avoid the slippery slope of im–
moral politics?
The first answer is,
principiis obsta.
How simple the advice
sounds, to beware of the first steps in the wrong direction, and yet
how infinitely difficult it is in practice! My father was a young Social
Democratic member of the
Reichstag
in 1933, so that he was not
temptable but arrested with the others. After his release, he was an
almost automatic member of the Resistance. Tried before the
Volks–
gerichtshof
in 1944, he survived in prison and soon rose to a promi–
nent position in the East German Social Democratic Party (SPD).
It
was then that he made a decision which makes me forever proud of
him.
In
February 1946, there was pressure on the Central Commit–
tee of the East German SPD, of which my father was vice-chairman ,
to send a message to the trade union congress which was meeting at
the time, to the effect that the Social Democrats were prepared to
have talks with the Communists about future relations between the
two parties. What a harmless-sounding proposition! A mere mes–
sage to a friendly organization, about mere talks, with no indication
of the intended outcome. But my father recognized that this message
meant in fact the subjection of the party to pressure for a merger of
Social Democrats and Communists which would legitimize the new
regime of Stalinism by invoking "socialist unity." He said no and
stuck to it despite attempts to pacify him, to corrupt him, and in the
end to threaten him. Within hours he had to leave Berlin and start a
new life in West Germany.
We all know the counterarguments. "You must stay with it in
order to prevent worse." "It will not work anyway; we just have to sit
out a few unpleasant weeks, or at most months." As long as cir–
cumstances are even faintly normal , this is of course true. I have lit–
tle patience with those professional moralists who live in free societ–
ies but claim to suspect totalitarian dangers at every turn of events .
