1. I wrote a column today that was (of course) about Trump's impeachment but also about a couple that died 77 years ago, Otto and Elise Hampel. This brave couple's story has nothing to do with what's happening in America today...and everything inquirer.com/columnists/att…
2. Otto Hampel was an obscure factory worker in Berlin when Hitler came into power. When his wife lost a close relative in the early days of World War II, the couple was sad, then angry, and then -- unexpectedly -- radicalized to turn against the Third Reich. 
3. Otto had an idea -- he would write postcards denouncing Hitler as "a murderer" and urging fellow Germans to "wake up!" to what was happening with the Nazis. He sneaked around to drop the cards off in stairwells of busy buildings, hoping average folks would see them and act.
4. Eventually, aided in the scheme by his wife Elise, he deposited more than 200 of them. But most citizens were terrified of the Nazi state and quickly turned the cards over to the Gestapo. Befuddled agents spent two years trying to find out who did this.
5. In 1942, the couple was finally captured and found guilty and Otto and Elise Hampel were taken to the guillotine and executed. Otto never expressed remorse and told his captors he was happy that he took a stand against Hitler.
6. Still, their bravery might have been totally lost to history were it not for a novelist named Hans Fallada who learned of their story during his own struggles with the Nazi regime. In a book published in 1947 called Every Man Dies Alone, he told a lightly fictionalized version
7. Incredibly, Every Man Dies Alone was not published in English until 2009. It became a best seller in the UK and the US. I listened to the audiobook last year and was greatly moved by both their story and the moral dilemma it posed... amazon.com/Every-Man-Dies…
8. Were the Hampels liberated by deciding to tell the truth about what was happening in Germany? Or was this a fool's errand, since hardly anyone saw the postcards and no one is known to have opposed Hitler because of what they wrote? I think the answer is clear.
9. Unlike the many who complied with the Nazis and are long forgotten, the spirit of the Hampels and their story would eventually inspire many, who read Fallada's book or saw film adaptations. In 2018, a monument was erected in their Berlin neighborhood. It says, "Wake up!"
10. In 2019, we need to wake up to what's happening in America. Donald Trump, William Barr and a collection of GOP minions are waging war on the notion of objective truth, all to gain authoritarian power in the U.S.
11. Their goal is to demoralize the opposition, to make people think that impeaching Trump over his abuses of power is a futile gesture because the GOP's fact-denial machine will crush it, no matter what.
12. Those of us fighting to save democracy in America have to never forget that we are waging a war for truth that trumps mere politics. Like Otto and Elise, history will remember us from 2019 if we stand up for what's right. Those who look away will be forgotten.
13. Again, I tried to describe what's a stake her in my column today, which is sort of about impeachment, sort of about Otto and Elise, but mostly about standing up for truth in the face of lies. Let's stick together and fight - 30 - inquirer.com/columnists/att…
