German Journey
By Mowahid Hussain Shah

Germany has figured prominently in the history and imagination of the region constituting Pakistan. Large numbers of soldiers were recruited from these areas and shipped to Europe to fight Germany in World War I and World War II. Germany's World Cup Soccer victory has again put it in the limelight.
My father was a soldier in World War II and, through my late uncle, Syed Sadaqat Ali Shah, and my elder brother, Mujahid Syed, I had grown up hearing informed discussions about books dealing with Blitzkrieg, the Battle of Stalingrad, the Afrika Korps, Panzer leaders, the conquest of Europe, U-Boats, the last days of Hitler, and the fall of Berlin.
With that in mind, I embarked with my wife -- who has Germanic roots -- on a road trip through Germany's heartland. It is a culture visible and distinctive in its adherence to discipline, obedience, punctuality, preservation of centuries-old genealogical records, neatness, and litter-free streets. Together, it lent itself to a martial culture. Epitomizing all of the aforementioned is the small walled town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber -- a medieval marvel, which Hitler saw as a model "Aryan" city.
But this tidy package also comes with a dark underside. In the vicinity of Munich is the Dachau Concentration Camp where the horrors of the state-endorsed Holocaust unfolded. Crematoriums worked full-time to dispose of the remains of the victims of mass murder. In Dachau, there are two separately plaques dedicated to World War II heroine Noor Inayat Khan (a kin to Tipu Sultan, the "Tiger of Mysore") who was executed by the Gestapo there and is a recipient of the George Cross -- the highest civilian award given for gallantry. This did not occur in a primitive illiterate society. So education alone is not the answer after all.
The Munich Hofbrauhaus Beer Hall, almost totally destroyed in World War II -- including the room on the second floor where Hitler launched his Nazi Party 90 years ago -- has been restored. But no memorial plaques there.
Near the city of Ulm is the village home of World War II's greatest general, Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. It was from here he was taken and compelled to commit suicide for his suspected complicity in Valkyrie, the July 20, 1944 plot to kill Hitler.
An especially pleasing part of the trip was a detour to visit the university town of Heidelberg where, right next to the Marriott hotel, is the street Iqbal-Ufer, named after Allama Iqbal. And in a beautiful part of Heidelberg still stands the house, at Neuenheimer Lanstraße 58, with a plaque outside indicating that Iqbal lived there in 1907 in serene surroundings just across the street from the Neckar River.
As I was leaving Germany, my mind was riveted on the calamity unfolding in Gaza in full view of the world, with only weak and half-hearted international appeals to end the suffering and bloodshed, and Muslim elites standing by passively. History's lessons remain unheeded.
So there is little change in the human condition or in the mindset of men. Striving to better the human lot shall remain ceaseless.