My Grandad The Nazi

[moodforaday]

Fascinating and tragic story on BBC

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/4734661.stm

(...)
Looking at these photographs it's impossible to avoid what one always hopes wasn't true about the Third Reich - these men are not monsters. No matter what sort of gangsters, charlatans and psychopaths they may have been following, the vast majority of the German people, even the vast majority of the Waffen SS were normal people.

In fact, my grandfather liked football and swimming, he seems to have been more normal than I am. And his two last letters home speak of a loving family man desperate for the war to end so he could return to his pregnant wife and young daughter.

And that, I suppose, is why I find this microscopic story of an insignificant part of the Third Reich so fascinating. If it shows that my grandfather can not only stand aside while bad things happen but actively take part, then it could happen to any of us. It's a lesson that's been taught again and again, but in this anniversary year it's worth hearing again.

[leveymg]

1. There goeth, but for the grace of G_d . . .

I feel the same way every time I see a photo of Auschwitz.

I'm not standing idly aside. Glad you're not! :hi:

[SmokingJacket]

2. "It could happen to any of us."

I agree.

But I recently read "Hilter's Willing Executioners," and the author's argument is that Germans willingly slaughtered the Jews because they were virulently anti-Semitic. It's not that they stood by and let it happen; they had become over the previous decades utter hate-filled bigots. HATRED -- and a man willing to harness this hatred to accomplish his own goals -- is what made it happen.

[leveymg]

4. I read the book - the concept of collective guilt still bothers me.

It wasn't the Germans who killed the Jews -- it was a minority of Germans and their allies (the Waffen SS and auxillaries) who volunteered for duty in the Special Groups and Mobile Police units in the occupied East.

The German High Command made sure that most of the regular German army was not directly involved in the wholesale liquidations -- as the book makes clear, such operations were terrible for morale and led to a substantial percentage of psychological casualties for units who carried out mass killings of civilians.

I can only hope that history doesn't blame "the Americans" for the crimes of BushCo. I know that would be unjust.

[SmokingJacket]

6. Well, we ARE responsible for Bushco.

Not in the sense that you or I should be tried for war crimes, but in a larger, weaker sense: we are part of a system that elected him.

And it's because we're responsible that we also must do everything we can to stop him. I truly believe that. Since I'm an American, I can't just sit back and watch him destroy other countries (and our own) and just say, Oh, well, not my prob, I voted for Gore!

While average Germans did not kill Jews, Germans as a whole did in fact HATE Jews (with, obviously, many individual exceptions). Germans did NOT boycott stores that refused to serve Jews, for example. They allowed the bigotry into their society and embraced it. That's not the same as killing 6 million people.

People are responsible for their leadership.

[Ysolde]

7. I wrestle with this issue a lot...

We don't own the media. We can't even get the truth out about treason, etc. on the front pages. How do we get the brainwashed masses out of their stupor and make them stand up for what's right for everyone?

I hadn't termed it "collective guilt" before, but isn't it, really? Isn't it true that "if we choose not to decide, we still have made a choice"?

Just as religion and religious leaders enabled slavery, they enabled the Holocaust, and they are enabling the wholesale discrimination against Gays. I really feel like the worse the economy gets for the masses, the more groups that it will be acceptable to hate.

Even if none of us voted for the ReThugs committing the current crimes, maybe we were too accepting of past infringements in the name of compromise?

Egad! I always have trouble writing on this issue! I think each person is responsible for their choices and behavior, but I do see the point that so many people do not know any "better" because they are ignorant or brainwashed. Should they be let off? A large part of me says "No!", the compassionate side says "Yes.".

[SmokingJacket]

10. "Guilt" is probably too strong a word, but "responsibility" works.

I don't really like the notion of collective guilt, because it equates tiny amounts of guilt with massive amounts.

But even if I didn't vote for Bush, I'm responsible for getting him out of there -- I have to bear that much responsibility. I *should* feel queasy about what crimes are being committed in my name.

I think it's like a teenager being asked to take out the garbage: "I didn't ask to be born!!! I never wanted to be part of this family, why should I take out YOUR garbage?? I wish I lived with the Harrisons!"

I didn't ask to be part of a neocon country -- too bad! As long as I live here, I have to bear the responsibility of it.

The day I can't do that anymore, I'm outta here.

[Ysolde]

11. Thanks for that answer.

I think maybe substituting "responsibility" for "guilt" may even bring my husband around on this.

Appreciate it!

[sui generis]

13. Technically you could say that Iraq was responsible for Saddam

too.

The fact of the matter is that usurpers, such as George Bush, who cheated in 2000 to steal the presidency, are not a result of democratic process.

In a more extreme form, if everyone is responsible for laying the groundwork for bad leadership, then the founding fathers are just as culpable. Heck, Jesus Christ has a whole shitload of crap to answer for.

You have to acknowledge there is a disctinction between a "nation" and it's collective peoples. Historically it's accurate to say that "America" did this or that, atrocities included. It is not accurate to say "all Americans" or even "most Americans" support the war.

Even our support of the war when it happened initially was based on information spoon fed to us by presidential interpretation of our "intelligence" agencies, and by the media.

[bpilgrim]

21. bush was never elected - n/t

peace

[Lindacooks]

9. That may be true, but Germans were buying Jewish property

that had been confiscated when they were shipped off to concentration camps - do you think they didn't make the connection between all these people disappearing and Hitler?

And I think 'the Americans' are to blame for the crimes of BushCo. Anyone who voted for him is, and we who didn't take to the streets are too.

[Igel]

15. I have reasonable doubt.

And even if they did, there's no reason to think they thought it wrong, or that they were collaborators in genocide. Or could bring themselves to think it wrong, or themselves wrong.

The US sat by for a couple of years while Hitler spread throughout most of Europe: for FDR to have done otherwise would have been politically inexpedient. Not our skin. While the Baltics and the Czech lands and Poland were gobbled up, when Finland was attacked, we watched newsreels. When the Japanese and Soviets reached their non-aggression treaty after some nasty fighting on the Khalkha, we said little.

Stalin had been too busy for the previous decade purging millions, and causing starvation for millions of others. Nobody did anything. He decimated the ranks of his military commanders; nobody did anything. Then, in wartime, following in the footsteps of the Ottomans and Ivan IV, Stalin moved entire ethnicities. They kept their POWs--both Soviets released from German captivity, and German captives--until the mid-50s, long after the war ended.

The people that were informing on their fellow "Soviets" profited; those that filled in the gaps in society that the purges created profited. Those that got military promotions profited. Those that moved into the properties and lands formerly occupied by non-Communists and non-Slavs profited.

And, both in the US and in the USSR, people justified it: Not our battle; we don't want to intervene in 'old Europe'. If the party does something, it must be right. Guilt by association. Not necessarily because they originally believed it, but because to not believe it would be far, far too difficult. (Sorry for the rant ... wife's out of town, I've buried myself in Solzhenitsyn's dissent literature and Simonov's war literature.)

[pretzel4gore]

5. too simple....

to get to the bottom of why longtime neighbors could turn on others and crush them, you have to check out human nature, capacity for sin, saints with eyes that see and devils with eyes that see, stupid people and ignorant people etc....
the philosophers have been doing this since time began...
and the problem has always been control of information; boys who call 'wolf' and 'rabble rousers' and 'demagogues' and conmen/preachers and so on...iow people with means who influence situations...nothing's changed. the fact is, in the pre 2nd war era, the west's ruling class and the biz class were overwhelmingly supportive of fascism; they were forced to confront it not only by events but by their own people, who hated fascism and bullying and wanted justice etc (like we here at DU)
hitler won the 2nd world war on nov7/00
the south won the civil war on nov7/00
and anyone who tries to argue that is being precious, just like the nazipoos in usa, britain france etc were after they were forced by circumstance in ww2 to fight someone whom they admired, and many still admire.
history is bunk, as che guevera once said. it's almost all written by the upper class twittery, who lie lie lie to make their own look ok, to hide theie side's hideous crimes. check out the spanish civil war if you want to know about what the piggy was thinking/doing while hitler mussolini (and stalin) were grabbing for the main chance....

[sui generis]

12. ze chermans, ze eeefil chermans

that's painting a single color with a huge broad brush.

There were decent Germans everywhere, and besides Jews weren't the only people killed by the system.

I have not read HWE but it sounds completely different than my understanding of the time, from my own family's history. I really don't like revisionist history - either side.

The truth is more complex.

[SmokingJacket]

19. Of course it's more complex.

I wasn't trying to explain the entire phenomenon of evil.

What I was reacting to is the notion that the Germans were victims of Hitler, that they had nothing to do with the massive success of the Holocaust in murdering millions of people.

Just like there are Americans who object to Bush, there were anti-Hitler Germans -- many of them.

But what the author of HWE points out, and which a lot of people forget, is that Hitler was preceded by many decades of anti-Semitic propaganda, which German society at large (not everyone, of course, there are always exceptions) bought into.

The Holocaust would not have been possible if Germans didn't -- as a whole -- hate Jews (and Gypsies, and Gays).

[sui generis]

3. during WWII

the only way to get butter and sugar and flour and occasional fresh fruit to feed your children if you were a civilian was by using the food ration card issued to the family for participating in party activities and for having someone serve in the military.

Civilian "strategic" vocations were coopted into military service - so civil engineers and doctors were conscripted into service, and went on about their tasks of civil engineering and doctoring, while wearing the uniform. Technically, and tenuously, they were "Nazis".

Not every one who served in the military was seen as "fit" to serve in the "final solution", and in fact the guardsmen that did serve in those camps went through a psychological "hardening" (weeding out) process to get the real psychos left over in charge of the brutality and day to day oversight of the camps. The rest were sent away to less "challenging" positions to the various fronts.

The German military was not about choice - like you have a "choice" to be a republican or not. If you wanted to feed your family, if you wanted to have any kind of pay at all or not be treated as a suspicious political dissident, you had to serve in the military or in some support of the military.

The world is not as black and white as we would like it to be when we think of Germany and Germans during WWII.

[kiraboo]

8. Exactly right. Hitler never received a majority vote in

Germany i.e. most Germans rejected him over and over again. As for rampant anti-semitism, this existed virtually everywhere in the Christian world. Hitler was able to manipulate the sentiment to his advantage. The book Hitler's Willing Executioners makes a point but I don't believe that Americans would have reacted very differently at that time had they been in the same situation. Hey, right now we appear to be having little difficulty finding Americans who are willing to sadistically torture and rape Iraqis, and about 40-50% of us support the government which sponsors this. People in glass houses...well. You know.

[SmokingJacket]

20. You make an excellent point.

Anti-Semitism was rampant throughout the Christian world, but only Hitler managed to harness it so effectively. Hatred is a normal thing -- but it doesn't mean we should accept it. Far from it.

The Holocaust COULD happen again -- is, in fact, happening on a smaller scale in Iraq. All it takes is for people to allow themselves to have their fears/hatreds manipulated by a power-hungry leader.

The reason HWE affected me so much is because it is SO universal. The German people saw the hatred of a particular people, the Jews, become a normal part of their lives.

We can't allow ourselves to hate Muslims, or anyone, in a similar fashion.

[theboss]

23. True, but this writer's grandfather was SS

The SS was different; it consisted largely of the true believers. A German infantryman in the 30s and 40s had a certain level of plausible deniability.

Someone in the Leibstandarte SS would not. It would be nearly impossible to wear that uniform and not have been involved in an atrocity on some level.

[RethugAssKicker]

14. What is a human "Monster"

I'm sure the same can be said of slave-owners who brutally beat and killed their slaves.

The same I'm sure could be said for all the so-called "Normal" people who savagedly killed and ruined the indians of North America...

I'm also sure that a grandchild of Hitler himself, can view his grandad in a positive manner... This however does not take the "MONSTER" image away, nor does it redeem him in ANYWAY!

I for one am tired of people who minimize yesterday murderers! Anyone can be viewed at different angles and different points of views attained.... However, the violence and brutality of the level committed by Nazis and American imperialists should never be forgotten or allowed to be apologized away!! Never.... THEY WERE HUMAN MONSTERS!!

[sui generis]

16. okay fine

now define "they"

As an American, and therefore an American Imperialist, I guess you're one of the "they" too?

The point is that there IS a human side to all of this no matter how hard we want things to be simple and black and white. No matter how hard you want to believe that all Germans were monsters, remember some Jews served as Kapos, and that doesn't make all Jews monsters either.

[RethugAssKicker]

17. The point I am making

is that there is always a "human" side to every human being; no matter how awful that person was/is... including Hitler , Jeffrey Dahmer, Gacey etc.... Just depends on which side you choose to "see". As a victim of such horrible crimes, I'm sure they don't see the "good' side of that person. Only the MONSTER side.... If you think its ok for one to see the "normal" side , why isn't it ok for me to view the "MONSTER" side???

[sui generis]

18. oh - didn't get the sarcasm

sometimes a smilie helps

:hi:

[RethugAssKicker]

22. Yeah, I haven't figured

out how to get some of those things.