Bureaucrats

I note this week an incident which occured in the office fifteen years ago. A new boss asked I do something a bit dodgy ethics-wise. My response, upon pondering the request, was: 'interesting.' His ballistic reply: "It wasn't a question, it was an order." The counter-response once again, 'interesting,' only infuriated him more. He recognized, in his heart of hearts, as I knew in mine, I wasn't going to do it, no matter what.

The eventual consequence of the exchange was that I was denied work of any significance for a period of ten years. In fact, a cadre of three, this boss, his superior, and one toady underling, eventually took upon themselves, the work of sixty people, leaving nothing but rote crumbs for the rest of us, until, damage done, they left, together.

People reacted to forced idleness in various ways. One staffer, previously distinguished by his workaholism, as demonstrated through emails written at 3 a.m., suffered a breakdown and retired on a medical disability. Others had no problem with being paid for inactivity. My response, after a decade of deep devotion to the firm, was to fortify my heart against office politics, releasing energy for activities elsewhere.

I arrived at 5 a.m., leaving eight straight hours later, to attend afternoon classes at a local seminary. (I constantly worried the trio might, one day, attempt contact, while I was out of the office, on a work-related matter; no matter, in three years, not once.) I worked evenings on tasks related to opening a homeless shelter. Whereas any bureaucratic talents I possessed went unused at the office, here they were here tested to the limit, interacting with politicians, the police, hospital administrators, clergy, corporations, the media, and other shelter directors (especially, them, since they resented competition for limited financial resources and acted accordingly).

This period of life came to mind, this past week, as I read letters written, during World War II, by Helmuth James Von Moltke to his wife Freya. The scion of a revered German military family, whose reputation initially offered some protection, Helmuth served the Reich as a otherwise clandestine lawyer in a bureaucracy that posed considerably more ethical dangers, in the extreme, than my office, but in some ways, contained similar characteristics, to all bureaucracies.

As an attorney assigned to produce opinions related to international law, Motlke reports in September 1941, "The following landed on my desk yesterday: An officer reports that ammunition produced in violation of international law was found on Russians: dum-dum bullets. That they were such could be proved by the evidence of the Medical Officer, one Panning, who used the ammunition in a large-scale experimental execution of Jews. This produced the following results: such and such was the effect of the projectile when fired at the head, such when fired at the chest, such in abdominal shots, such when limbs were hit. The results were available in the form of a scientific study so that the violation of international law could be proved without a doubt."

In matters of no great consequence, I often offered, as a good bureaucrat, and in way of intellectual exercise, "let me know what you want to prove, or not, and I'll produce statistics either way." The absolute depravity of the Third Reich is encapsulated, in the above 'proof', where such documentation is considered allowable and compelling (such as it is today, perhaps, when presented by ethically untroubled lawyers, who employ the 'gay defense,' tactic, alledging justifiable self-defense, to win release of murderous homophobic clients).

Von Moltke is cognizant of his predicament. He writes, "The realization that what I do is senseless does not stop my doing it, because I am much more firmly convinced than before that only what is done in the full recognition of the senselessness of all action makes any sense at all." Even so, in the case of the dum-dum bullets, he willfully envisions a future of justice as he concludes, "That surely is the height of bestiality and depravity and there is nothing one can do. But I hope one day it will be possible to get the reporting officer and Herr Panning before a court of law."

The inextinguishable hope of Von Moltke got him killed, in the end, for complicity in the circles of men and women rounded up and killed by the Gestapo, after the plot on Hitler's life failed, in July 1944.

At our shelter for those with active addictions or criminal records of violence, who can not enter other shelters, for the protection of women and children, we were frequently accused, by competitors (even though they didn't allow admittance of our guests to their facilities) of enabling the clients. Friend Mark, and I, considering, in retrospect, our high death rate, have discussed many times whether our work did any good, or at least, more good than harm. Some days, I think it enough, in the endeavors someone undertakes, to be 'a fool for Christ,' other days, less so.

Von Moltke tells the story of a priest whose job it was to spend the night with prisoners before their execution. After commenting on the suprisingly consistent good nature of the fellow under such conditions, Von Moltke writes, "I made him describe such a night; it is horrible and yet, somehow, sublime. He said that no-one is so well prepared to face death as these people; and he said that in the 8 years of his work, there was not one . . . who did not go to the scaffold calmly. What an accomplishment such a night means! It is gruesome and frightful; but such a night poses questions which are not put otherwise so starkly, so nakedly and absolutely." It brought back the night I spent bonding with a previously remote, alternatively violent and gentle guest, watching the sunrise, the morning after a hurricane.

Nothing in my experience approaches the horror Von Moltke faced, nor the courage he demonstrated - I pray he won't mind then if I apply any lessons garnered by his struggle to my life. I do grasp, though, from limited experience, that when you encounter life and death on such stark terms, much of the facade of detail, falls away, so that what is left, is magnified, and counts all the more.

Yet, throughout the war, he retreated, to the family farm, or even just to his apartment, with a book, whether a biography of Charles XII, or (so ironically delicious, a book by the great Jewish philosopher) Spinoza, for solace, and for strength, since any text you approach in circumstances like these, seems to carry a serendipitous relevance (reminding me further of the time I took a Catholic Worker farm phamphlet on organic toilets to surrpeticiously read at a meeting of high-ranking company executives). Von Moltke's revelation alleviates guilt and permits me not only to excuse time I spend reading, as not time taken away from more important work, but to value reading, in itself, as a quiet act of self-preservation, or even subversion, when no other means is permitted.

Some letters included exchanges with his wife on whether the recitiation of grace should be imposed upon their children before meals. Bonfoeffer, in similar circumstances, wrote from prison, on the significance of regular Sunday church attendance. Perhaps, likewise, I discern the parable of the rich young man who sulks away after Jesus tells him he must discard his worldly goods to follow Him. I have the feeling He was trying to tell us He realized this wasn't possible for most folks, and that as the man walked away, He still gazed upon Him with tenderness, because He knew, in the weakness and helplessness of all people, it's enough that we do little things in our lives, to preserve the dignity of those around us, as well as our own, especially under conditions we can't control, so that we remember our reliance remains upon Him, the Great Transcender. Our spirit, aligned with His, is the only thing, temporally and eternally, unconquerable.

Von Moltke wrote in November 1941: "We must, it seems to me, do all we can to instill into their very flesh and blood, the principle that there must be an accounting for every action, and that all men are equal before God, so that whatever happens to one human being concerns all others too, and that no-one can hide behind some notion that any human being is in a different category."

I'll leave him with the last word.