Stefan Kanfer commits the Mother Of All Godwins (MOAG)
I often cite and rely on City Journal so it give me no joy to report that they put a truly wretched piece of drek yesterday. Called Useful Atheists, it is written as a memo in Hell from Reinhard Heydrich to Adolf Hitler:
Mein Führer: Our stein runneth over! Neo-Nazi groups are resurgent in Europe. Copies of the anti-Semitic forgery The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are vigorously peddled throughout the Islamic nations of the Middle East. Holocaust deniers are invited to speak at Ivy League campuses.
Seven decades ago, you put me in charge of the Jewish Question. And, at the Wannsee Conference, I came up with the immortal euphemism, The Final Solution. Of course, it led to my coming down here several years ahead of you, great leader. As the world knows, Czech guerrillas fatally shot up my open-top Mercedes. But you avenged me: the village of Lidice was destroyed in my name, and the murder of Jews continued, just as you predicted in Mein Kampf, and just as I outlined at Wannsee:
Under suitable direction, the Jews should be brought to the East in the course of the Final Solution, for use as labor. In large labor gangs, with the sexes separated, the Jews capable of work will be transported to those areas and set to road-building, in the course of which, without doubt, a large part of them will fall away through natural losses. The surviving remnant, surely those with the greatest powers of resistance, will be given special treatment, since, if freed, they would constitute the germinal cell for the re-creation of Jewry.
Who could deny our motives? Only liars and moral idiots. Of course there are plenty of these throughout the world. But even I never expected to find outspoken allies in the land that had so thoroughly destroyed the Third Reich. Mein Führer, mark well the name of this organization; it will be of much use to us in the future. They call themselves the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF). The membership is comprised of self-promoting atheists, and their latest demand is, if I may say so, worthy of me.
(The kinks are in the original article, see my note regarding the bolded passage.)
While I disagree strongly with the FFRF regarding the memorial in Ohio, to call them Nazi dupes is not only wrong, its morally insane. City Journal should publish nothing more from this wingnut.
Historical Note: Kanfer is also wrong about the cause of Heydrich’s death. He did indeed die of wounds received while riding in an open-top Mercedes, but the wounds were inflicted by a bomb thrown under the car, not by gunfire. The STEN Gun carried by one of the assassins jammed without firing.