Blind by Choice...

[Albert Speer directed the production of arms and ammunition for the Third Reich during the last days of world war two. When the war was over and he stood accused with other prisoners of war at the famous Nuremburg trial, he had months during which to contemplate the role he played during those critical years. This excerpt comes from his book, Inside The Third Reich.]

"[B]eing in a position to know and nevertheless shunning knowledge creates direct responsibilty for the consequences - from the very start... One day, some time in the summer of 1944, my friend Karl Hanke, the Gauleiter of Lower Silesia, came to see me. In earlier years he had told me a great deal about the Polish and French campaigns, had spoken of the dead and wounded, the pain and agonies, and in talking about these things had shown himself a man of sympathy and directness. This time, sitting in the green leather easy chair in my office, he seemed confused and spoke falteringly, with many breaks. He advised me never to accept an invitation to inspect a concentration camp in Upper Silesia. Never, under any circumstances. He had seen something there which he was not permitted to describe and moreover could not describe...

"I did not investigate, for I did not want to know what was happening there. Hanke must have been speaking of Auschwitz. During those seconds, while Hanke was warning me, the whole responsibility had become a reality... Those seconds were uppermost in my mind when I stated to the international court at the Nuremburg trial that as an important member of the leadership of the Reich, I had to share the total responsibility for all that had happened. For from that moment on, I was inescapably contaminated morally; from fear of discovering something which might have made me turn from my course, I had closed my eyes."

[Is it not the greatest condemnation of humanity that we love darkness rather than light, because our deeds are evil? May God have mercy on us all.]