https://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2021/12/je-suis-august-landmesser/
Ezra Levant, a Canadian hero in the cause of freedom, and naturally branded “far right” and worse by his enemies, has done a powerful, indeed, a gut-wrenching story to camera about the hottest place in hell, and those who are destined to occupy that hideous place. He and others have referred to this as the curse of those who do nothing in the face of evil.
According to Scott Horton of Harper’s:
One of John F. Kennedy’s favorite quotations, which he attributed to Dante, was that “The hottest places in Hell are reserved for those who in time of moral crisis preserve their neutrality”. Of course Dante never actually said that, but the sense of the statement is clearly to be found in these lines from the third canto of the Inferno.
Many of those who are merely standing by during the Covid State crisis, in the view of many, the worst crisis in the history of modern “liberal” democracies, cluelessly look back and chastise those who in 1930s Germany did little or nothing to oppose the Nazi tyranny but simply went quietly, to get by. Don’t rock the boat, and they won’t notice us. We don’t really know what they are up to. Today we reassure ourselves that we would never have behaved like all those compliant Germans.
Levant chose to focus on a particular German who did stand out and stand up during the oppression. His name was August Landmesser (pictured above). He has become famous for the photograph of his refusal to perform the Nazi salute during a rally. His arms were firmly folded, in defiance of the overwhelming, lunatic majority all around him—the madness of a German crowd.