aka Ken Smith: Criticizing bad folks

This is a half-formed thought, but here goes. In Berlin, in the early 1940s, Elise and Otto Hampel left postcards in public places bluntly protesting the Nazi government. These social-media-like messages said things nobody dared to say in public, and probably most would not dare to say such things in private. The secret police, the Gestapo, were famous, and fear was contagious. Many of the cards were turned into the police, and an investigation was opened and files were kept. Some dozens of the cards were noted in a report. It was speculated that some sort of organization had been formed, an underground group. The thought probably never crossed their minds that this was just a middle-aged couple sitting at their kitchen table.#

So that's the part of the story I hadn't thought about before. Two people writing a few postcards a week and putting them out in the world seemed big to those who were criticized. People with a bad conscience probably think, when it comes to criticism, that there is more than meets their eye. That more people have seen through them.#

It may be useful to let the bad folks think this, or it may be dangerous. It may put them on good behavior for a while, or it may rile them up. Corrupt people are dangerous and unpredictable. They killed Elise and Otto as soon as they could manage it.#

The image above is their Gestapo mugshot. Seems to me that in their eyes is proof that they fully knew the righteousness of their protests.#