A Yodel for Peace and Our Common Humanity

You know the second thing I remember thinking when the news got out about the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse in Iraq? I thought about Dr. Magnus Bucher. He was my Western Civilization teacher at the University of Maryland, Munich Campus in 1970. He was a fascinating man. I will never forget him.

I remember when I was signing up for classes one day another student told me to make sure I take Dr. Magnus Bucher's class. I said, "Why?" "Because he is a great teacher and he yodels." "Yodels?", I said. "Yes, he is one of the world's great yodelers, and if you ask him during class he will usually give you a yodeling demonstration." "Thanks", I said, "I will sign up now."

I was lucky. I did get into his class. And I did get the privilege to hear one of the world's great yodelers entertain our class. But more than that, I was privileged to learn from one of the most remarkable teachers I had ever had.

He not only taught us from the Western Civilization book, but he also taught us from his life. He taught us things that you would never find in a text book. He told us about when he was a young man that his family feared Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement. His mom and dad were afraid their teenage son would be kidnapped by a military regime they hated.

This was a new insight for me. It wasn't until Dr. Bucher spoke that I realized there were many people in Germany that did not believe in Hitler's philosophy. I wrongly assumed that all of Germany went off the deep end.

He told us a story of how his family wanted to hide him so that he would not be drafted by the Nazi army. But it was to no avail. They got him. And then Magnus Bucher's indoctrination into Hitler's warped world began.

The Nazi's told him that the Americans were monsters and that he should be very afraid if he were ever captured. Well as history would have it, young Magnus Bucher did get captured by the American army. He trembled with fear about what might happen to him. And then, for him, the most amazing awareness moment occurred. The Americans were not monsters after all.

The soldiers that captured him acted with compassion toward their prisoners. He was not abused or tortured. Instead he was offered gum and cigarettes in a way a friend might offer a friend. Magnus looked into the eyes of his captors and shared a moment of common humanity.

I remember sitting in a class with an overwhelming sense of pride. I remember the good feeling I had. The spine-tingling-vibrations and goose bumps. My teacher had experienced a time when the Americans were the “good guys”.

A few kind gestures from an American GI to a young and frightened German soldier would speak volumes for the United States of America. Little did the American soldiers know that their acts of kindness would lead this prisoner down the road to American citizenship. They represented a great America by treating a fellow human being with respect. Things have changed since that day in WWII.

I can’t imagine what kind of man Magnus Bucher would have turned out to be if he had been stripped naked by his captors while attack dogs were set on him. Which brings me back to the first thing I thought about the day I heard about the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse: how could American soldiers totally blow it? How could Americans become the hostile monsters that Hitler told his young recruits in WWII to fear?

At Abu Ghraib an awareness of common humanity was lost and replaced by barbaric arrogance. How does it happen? It happens when there is a lack of respect for other cultures....for other belief systems. It’s happens when ignorant human beings feel supremely powerful.

For me, I still focus on the America Dr. Bucher talked about in class. He told us inspiring stories. He told us how he escaped and how eventually made Olympic ski teams for Germany and the United States. He told us how much he respected America's values. How he moved to America and became a citizen. And now, here he was teaching American students in Munich, Germany. And, of course, along the way he became one of the world’s renowned yodelers.