By John Burtis
Saturday, September 30, 2006
Yikes, as a European historian with a specialty in German I couldn't overlook the recent decision taken by Berlin's world famous Deutsche Oper to cancel their upcoming production of Mozart 's "Idomeneo."
They say there were a few add ons tossed into Wolfgang's masterpiece. But you know those touchy theater critics running loose around Mecca, Medina, Hyannisport, and Damascus. and we all know how many back flips we have to perform to keep them from shooting nuns, gunning down ushers, stoning producers, beheading directors, and getting on the Democrats' nerves.
The opera was cancelled, according to Kirsten Harms, the director, because of "...the question of security for people's lives."
Echoing many of his countrymen, and a small voice from New Hampshire, to name an incredulous few, German Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble retorted, "This is crazy. This is unacceptable." It sure is wahnsinnig. It 's definitely untragbar.
Surprisingly, all of this abject groveling is taking place in Berlin, the capital not only of Germany, but of Prussia. and Prussia was a German state never noted to snivel or roll over before the threat of a zoot suit Muslim riot.
Whenever anybody thinks of Prussia, most folks think of Frederick the Great.
But you know, I was always far more captivated by Frederick the Great 's old man, Frederick William I. Now there was a Prussian of the old mold, and not a man to cancel a musical performance because some batch of hopped up, bomb tossing, sword waving Islamist mad men might get excited when the tickets go on sale and threaten a ruckus in his town, oh my, no.
Frederick William I used to dress as a commoner after dinner with his Tabak Collegium -- the group of boyos he used to hang around with rather than dither with the legislators, courtiers and hangers on -- and walk the streets of Berlin alone. after letting himself out a side door at night in order to get a first hand idea on how the working folks thought things were going in Berlin, he'd wander the beer halls and alley ways of his capital incognito.
He was a staunch law and order man, who had ordered the police to shoot miscreants on the spot for a variety of crimes, and was not one to truck with hoodlums - he was known to whack beggars with the staff he carried to move them along, and to grab and hold miscreants for the local Polizei.
His most famous caper was the arrest of his son, who had run away with a childhood friend in a vain attempt to dodge the intensive daily instruction and the accompanying military drill for his upcoming regency.
Frederick William had the young Frederick imprisoned in a cell above the execution yard, on a diet of bread and water, for a considerable period of time.
Finally, after a lengthy lecture on the need for single monomaniacal dedication to people and state of Prussia, the Prussian king held Frederick in the barred window to witness the hanging of his little companion for treason.
It is said that Frederick the Great returned to his studies with renewed vigor.
and it is highly doubtful that his father, Frederick William I, who was primarily responsible for old saw that "the Prussian army created the state," would respond in any way other than his stentorian, "Marsch!" to any hint that Muslims anywhere might be at all exercised by the content contained in the few musicals and operas then playing in Berlin.
Otto von Bismarck, another Prussian forebear with a reputation as a can do pro-Prussian guy, who served as the architect of modern German foreign policy, whose nickname was the Iron Chancellor, can be heard spinning in his mausoleum today, as the news of this abject supine salaam reaches him.
You remember the Iron Chancellor, I'm sure. He 's the great big guy noted for signing the instrument of German unification in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles after another one of those lightning wars against France you hear so much about, in 1870.
But I guess that old Prussia's gone, including their black flag, which nobody would ever mistake for a token of surrender.
But the new Prussia's as quick to raise a white flag as the new Democrats are, though our Democrats have far more practice in the unconditional surrender end of things.
But it would certainly be interesting watching Frederick William I and Otto von Bismarck sizing up a few of our hard nosed politicos as they explain their current Realpolitik while bowing, genuflecting, kow-towing, and frog marching around the Kaabah for the Islamo-fascists.
You know the team roster by heart. Start with Kucinich and Kerry, end with Honest John Murtha and Dick Turban.
and then imagine what those two tough old boys would think of our D team.
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