In the early 20th century the “Führerprinzip” (or leader principle) held wide sway. It dictated absolute obedience to the leader over concerns of right and wrong. Karl Neumann, the German U-boat captain responsible for the sinking of the Dover Castle hospital ship during World War I, was acquitted in 1921 by Germany’s Supreme Court, which stated that all civilized nations recognize the principle that a subordinate is covered by the orders of his superiors.

These words paved the road to Auschwitz. Germany took a very long time to honor disobedience. When I was a correspondent in Germany between 1998 and 2001, I attended a ceremony at a military base being renamed for Anton Schmid, a soldier in Hitler’s army who disobeyed orders when confronted by Nazi brutality toward Jews in the Vilnius ghetto.

Schmid saved more than 250 Jews, before he was arrested in 1942 and executed. In his last letter to his wife, Stefi, he wrote, “I merely behaved as a human being.”

But human beings had all vanished in the Nazi death trance. “Merely” was the wrong adverb. “Uniquely” would have been closer. It can be singular just to be human.

At the postwar Nuremberg Trials, the idea was established that obedience to an illegal order does not absolve an individual of criminal responsibility. It has since become a core principle of international criminal law. The manifestly unlawful — genocide, crimes against humanity — must be resisted even if ordered. For example, the Convention Against Torture provides that, “An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.” (Trump thought torture works when he took office but said he’d allow generals to override him.) Germany now teaches “innere Führung,” the inner moral compass necessary to resist barbarity.

The world mistrusts Trump. The British, in their majority, see him as a loose cannon. Many Germans dismiss him as a joke, their best-case scenario. In Asia, his intentions in North Korea are feared. So it was reassuring last month to hear Air Force Gen. John Hyten, the commander of United States Strategic Command, say he would not obey an illegal order to launch nuclear weapons from his commander-in-chief, Trump.

“If it’s illegal,” Hyten said, “guess what’s going to happen. I’m going to say, Mr. President, that’s illegal.”

The world, too, can go over a precipice. Disobedience may stand between humanity and Armageddon. The last thing we need is everyone saluting. A dog knows that. Alabama, in its disobedience to Trump, knows that.