Category: Hard Nosed Folks Both Good & Bad

The Nazis are history’s archetypal villains.
The Nazis are undeniably fascinating. Those guys were just such scum. Human history is dirty with tin-pot dictators who coveted something and were willing to commit genocide to obtain it. The Nazis, however, truly industrialized the process.
The death camps were models of efficiency. Over the course of some 12 years, the Nazis systematically murdered 17 million people. That works out to around 1,400 souls per day.
It’s honestly tough to comprehend the scale. That’s like murdering every man, woman and child in New York City twice. Or killing my small Mississippi town 630 times over. What I have always found most intriguing, however, is how Hitler convinced so many people to be complicit with his outrage. One psychopath is a statistical inevitability. A whole culture full of them is a terrifying anomaly. While all Germans obviously didn’t support the Final Solution, you’ve got to admit that plenty of them did.
I would assert that the Germans in 1943 were not really fundamentally different from us today. To believe otherwise would be intrinsically racist, and racism is today’s unforgivable sin.
If we presume that this particular population was no different from that of any other comparably industrialized society, how then did they come to build these massive institutional death factories? They kept shoving human beings into them right up until we forced them to stop. Such a sordid outcome has to be due to some diabolical combination of nature versus nurture.
The Germans were indeed suffering in the lead-up to WWII. A historically proud people, they found themselves economically crushed international pariahs in a world trying desperately to claw its way out of the Great Depression. That this was a self-inflicted wound would be an easy thing to argue. However, theirs was an undeniably sordid lot.
Into this dark state of institutional hopelessness stepped Adolf Hitler — a former Austrian Corporal-turned-failed artist with an undeniable gift for oratory. His MO was timeless. Hitler convinced the German people that their problems were not of their own making. It was the Jews and similar so-called untermenschen who were responsible for their misery. Once things got ramped up, it was a short hop to the death camps. But there had to be something more.
It is one thing to sit in a board room and conjure up these satanic schemes. It is quite another to actually pull the trigger or throw the lever. Heinrich Himmler purportedly visited a death camp but once and was rendered physically ill by the experience. How, therefore, did the Germans find enough people willing to do those ghastly jobs?
I would assert that this was perhaps easier than you might think. I assume that every advanced society has its own ready pool of potential death camp guards. Under the right circumstances, these people are normal citizens, living out their lives in peace as productive members of society. Under the wrong circumstances, they slip into their snazzy black uniforms and torture people to death en masse. You have likely met a few of these people. You might even be married to one.
Think back to the college professor who enjoys toying with your future. Your grade will determine whether your life succeeds or fails. When discussing the problem, you don’t get sympathy, support or understanding. The person across the desk is intoxicated by power and clearly enjoys it. Then there’s the traffic cop who pulls you over and obviously revels in the position of unquestioned authority.
Some institutions stratify people into two categories. You are either one of them or you are everybody else. The military was like that to a degree. Once people are properly stratified, it is not an impossible chore to take it to the next level.
The world is dirty with these people. Positions of authority attract them. Government bureaucrats, politicians, and folks in similar positions of extreme authority are susceptible. You just have to know where to look.
Now make no mistake, the overwhelming majority of law enforcement officers, college professors, and even politicians are not potential homicidal maniacs. They are altruistic good folks just making their way in the world. However, you can indeed see the outliers if you look for them. I personally find it easier to tolerate some of the world’s more abrasive personalities within this context. When I grow inevitably frustrated, I sometimes mutter, “Death camp guard” to myself. I find this cathartic.
Ruminations
The overarching point is this. We are intrinsically no better than the Nazis, the Soviets, or Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge. Additionally, just because somebody wears a uniform, possesses a laminated ID card, or attended some kind of special school doesn’t make them any more morally laudable than the rest of us. The Founding Fathers knew this. That’s why those brilliant old guys crafted the Bill of Rights as they did, to keep the potential death camp guards peacefully in their place.

It was one of the most epic manhunts in American history, and it required arguably the greatest lawman of the 20th Century to finally bring it to a successful conclusion—Frank Hamer.
For several years during the Great Depression of the 1930s, Clyde Barrow and his girlfriend Bonnie Parker and their gang terrorized small towns across the Midwest and Southwest. Robbing numerous banks, grocery stores and rural gas stations, they ranged from New Mexico to Indiana and from Minnesota to Louisiana, murdering nine men in the process, six of whom were law enforcement officers.
The bold Barrow Gang seemed to have little trouble evading capture. Following a robbery, they thought nothing of driving 1,000 miles or more at high speeds across multiple state lines, preferring large cars such as the Ford four-door sedan with a powerful V-8 engine under the hood as getaway vehicles. Not surprisingly, they obtained those cars by stealing them.
When confronted by police, who were usually armed only with six-shot .38-caliber service revolvers, Bonnie and Clyde responded with overwhelming firepower: automatic and semi-automatic rifles, shotguns filled with buckshot and .45-caliber semiautomatic handguns. Clyde’s weapon of choice was the BAR (Browning Automatic Rifle), which fired devastating rounds of .30-06 ammunition. Barrow obtained the BARs and high-powered handguns by breaking into National Guard armories.
Ironically, Frank Hamer was no longer a Texas Ranger when he was asked to track down Bonnie and Clyde. Retired after a long and illustrious career with the Rangers in which he had risen to the rank of captain, Hamer was credited with bringing many outlaws to justice in the Lone Star State. He was also known for having killed numerous men in the line of duty—some sources say as many as 53. For his pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde, Hamer would be paid $180 per month and hold the title of Special Investigator.
He began his investigation in early February 1934 by learning as much as he could about the Barrow Gang. “It was necessary for me to make a close study of Barrow’s habits,” Hamer said. “An officer must know the mental habits of the outlaw, how he thinks, and how he will act in different situations.”
Hamer soon learned that Bonnie and Clyde’s life on the run was anything but glamorous, despite all their stolen money. The couple had become so notorious that they often had to lay low by sleeping in their car and bathing in creeks, eating whatever they could find. In addition, the pair argued incessantly, with Clyde occasionally beating Bonnie.
Captain Hamer eventually discovered that the gang ran a somewhat circular route from Dallas, Texas, to Joplin, Missouri, to Shreveport, Louisiana, then back to Dallas. He also learned that a career criminal by the name of Henry Methvin was now occasionally a member of the gang. Hamer reasoned that if he could somehow locate Methvin, Methvin might lead him to Bonnie and Clyde.
The break in the case came when Henry Methvin’s father, Ivy Methvin, came to the realization that it was only a matter of time until his son was captured or killed as a result of running with the Barrow Gang. Ready to make a deal, he let it be known to local law enforcement that he would finger Bonnie and Clyde if his son Henry was given immunity from prosecution. It didn’t take long for Hamer get the word and agree to the arrangement.
The Barrow Gang visited the Ivy Methvin home every few weeks to rest and recuperate for a few days, so officers told Ivy to let them know when Bonnie and Clyde were next due. Hamer finally got that long-awaited phone call on the evening of May 22, 1934; he and five other veteran lawmen immediately sprang into action.
The officers set up an ambush in some pines and brush along a rural road near Gibsland, Louisiana, along the route Bonnie and Clyde were expected to take. Ivy Methvin had been instructed to park his truck along the berm on the far side of the road in front of the hidden officers and remove one of the truck’s wheels. It was hoped that when Bonnie and Clyde approached the truck they would recognize it and stop to see if Ivy needed assistance. It was then that Captain Frank Hamer and his posse would effect the arrest. The plan was to take Bonnie and Clyde alive, if possible.
The ruse worked to perfection…almost. At about 9:15 a.m. on that fateful May morning, as Bonnie and Clyde’s car approached Ivy Methvin’s parked truck, a large, slow-moving logging truck was suddenly seen approaching from the opposite direction. Would the log truck inadvertently pull between the gangsters’ car and the hidden officers, blocking their view and field of fire?
The officers did not allow that to happen. As soon as Bonnie and Clyde’s vehicle was within range the officers opened up with fully-automatic and semi-automatic weapons, pumping a total of 167 bullets and buckshot into Bonnie and Clyde’s car. Bonnie was hit at least 41 times, Clyde 17 or more, the driver’s-side door protecting Clyde somewhat. Both outlaws died instantly. Thus ended the lives of the infamous outlaws Clyde Barrow and Bonnie Parker.
Found in their car was the suspected arsenal of weapons: two BARs, nine Colt semi-automatic pistol, and one revolver—all loaded. Three bags and a box held more than 2,000 rounds of ammunition. On the floor was a valise containing 40 BAR magazines, fully loaded with 20 rounds each. In addition there were 15 car license plates, stolen from various states.
As a result of his relentless, expert detective work, Captain Frank Hamer was hailed as a national hero, and rightly so. However, that national image of the lawman was not to last. In 1967, 12 years after Hamer’s death as a result of a heart attack, Warner Brothers studios in Hollywood released the film Bonnie and Clyde. Starring Warren Beatty as Clyde and Faye Dunaway as Bonnie, the film won two Academy Awards.
Unfortunately, the movie was a highly-fictionalized account of the actual true story, portraying Captain Frank Hamer as the villain. Hamer’s wife, Gladys, was so incensed that she sued Warner Brothers for defamation, invasion of privacy and unauthorized use of Frank Hamer’s name. She received $20,000 from the studios as a settlement, a large sum of money at the time.