A stark monument in Hamburg’s courthouse square, near the infamous Dammtor prison. Photo by the author.

I’m married to a German citizen who’s a life-long resident here in Hamburg, and I spent most of the winter and spring in this city of two-million — a far cry from my rural Wisconsin homestead outside a town of 2,000. Not far from our flat is Hamburg’s federal, state and municipal courthouse square, which has a billboard-sized concrete cuboid monument with a blunt, stark, and grim reminder. It reads simply: 1933. The monument is also the site of Dammtor prison where during the terror the Nazi regime conducted 468 executions using the guillotine.

It’s frightening to follow news of repression in the United States, and people here ask why I intend to fly back this month. The short answer is my connection to the rest of my family and friends, my work colleagues, personal identity, the national park system, and the intentional community farmstead that a group of us built with our own hands over the last 36 years.

The prevalence and unpredictable expansion of political persecution is what my friends here and at home are afraid of. They know even high-ranking Republican Party stalwarts like Alaska’s U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski have said publicly, “We are all afraid. I’m oftentimes very anxious about using my voice because retaliation is real.”

This trepidation in high places prompted Sally Quinn to write in the New York Times on May 10, “Washington is …., “Washington is physically, emotionally, psychologically and spirituality permeated with an invisible poison. The emotion all around … is fear. Nobody feels safe.” Perhaps nobody should. Trump said Nov. 17, 2023 in New Hampshire, “We will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists, and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country.” I wonder if Sally Quinn and I qualify for the “vermin thug” list.

It’s hard to say, since Trump himself could hardly be more thuggish. On his first day in........

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