I met a real live, bona fide Nazi

[fishnfla]

Actually I have known him for years. On Mon., he let me know he was a Luftwaffe pilot for 5 years. "it vas Hitler's stoopid var" he spit out bitterly. I thought I had just about heard it all, but this was a new one on me. I should not have been taken by suprise, as normally I ask my elderly clients what they did during the war, for conversation. I guess I never asked him.

He is very old, 90, and has many health problems. He has always been very talkative and active, he volunteers alot in our community, and takes care of his invalid wife, of whom he always speaks but I have never met. I guess he is near the end of his life and is trying to reconcile it.


I was shocked when he told me this,still am a little. I changed the subject and it ended there.I will see him again at the end of next month, as I am obligated by oath. I suppose I will store this secret tid-bit away like I do with the dirty laundry of others and carry on with my duties. Maybe we'll talk some more of it, who knows.

[Ksec]

1. I thought you had met *

[supernova]

2. that's true of a lot of WWII era Germans

same as southerners about racism to a degree.

It was possible to be a career military guy in Germany and not be a member of the Nazi Party, though it was rare.

edit: Ask him what he thought about all that. You might be surprised at the answer.

[Steven_S]

16. All of my family serving were Wehrmacht..

None were party members. It was not as rare as you suggest.

When I lived there sometimes I would think I could tell who had been in the party by their attitudes. But I would never ask or presume; and they would never tell.

Just my observations.

[gmoney]

3. Rent "Apt Pupil" to watch with him...

maybe he'll put you in his will.

[Dr Fate]

4. It's an interesting link to history...

...consider yourself sort of lucky, I guess...

[fishnfla]

15. You're right

I mean, I ask the other elderly gents their war roles and listen to their tales with interest. One guy was at Pearl Harbour, another at the bulge, many in the eastern pacific, Iwo Jima. One Black gentleman is very proud of his service on the USS Forrestal.

Why should this be any different?

Sorta lucky, i guess describes it

[burrowowl]

5. He could only have been Luftwaffe and

not a real NAZI. We do have troops who are Democrats.

[fishnfla]

9. I have considered that, I may be assuming

but a pilot is an officer, he stated he was one for 5 years, if he served that long as a pilot, I'm guess he was in the party.

Also the fact that he confided this information after all these years, and the nature of our visit that day (the reason he was there), leads me to believe he was ashamed and tired of hiding it. i have never heard him speak as angrily as when he spat out those words.

maybe I will ask him what rank he was and what sort of plane he flew. christ, I hope it was transport.

[Kellanved]

18. not necessarily

Many officers weren't Nazis. Take the former German chancellor Schmidt, who turned left during the war, influenced by other officers.

But few went against the nazis, most of them far too late (July 20th 44).



Young men were drafted into the Luftwaffe just like into almost all other forces. The Luftwaffe was the brainchild of Göhring, and as such pretty close to the party. That does not mean, that all pilots were Nazis. Many were drawn by the knight-like image, others were drafted, just because they knew how to fly - the Luftwaffe in 1933 only had about 10 squads, at the beginning of the war several hundred.

Near the end of the war (43+), it was entirely possible to be a pilot and not fly a single mission. Lack of gas and/or planes.

[Xithras]

6. I've met a few, don't hold it against him

He was a draftee, just like any other soldier. As for the Nazi Party membership, it was required in the 1930's if you wanted to hold any kind of decent job at all.

SS, military officers, and other high ranking officers are a different story entirely, but most Germans (and it sounds like this guy is one of them) became Nazi Party Members by necessity, not choice.

[realisticphish]

7. was he a Nazi

as in a party member, or just a guy in the Luftwaffe. Most German people weren't actually Nazis

:hippie:

[salinen]

8. I know this elderly guy

who was a machine gunner during the war. Our side. Anyway, he once was called to the front line where there was heavy fighting against the Germans. There were allied troops ahead of him and he was to shoot over them at the Germans. As he went to fire, one leg of the tripod base sunk into the sand, and as he was already on the trigger, he fired off rounds accidentally and killed many of his own guys.

[Nikia]

10. My grandmother was friend's with a Hitler Youth

Or whatever the girl's organization was. The funny thing about this is that my grandmother is Jewish. Her friend's past usually didn't come up. From time to time it did though with my grandparents calling her a Nazi and her leaving or them telling her to leave. They always made up though.

[bobthedrummer]

11. I worked for a real one, selling motor vehicles in Wisconsin.

Wisconsin had 38 POW internment camps during WWII. Milwaukee has always had some real Nazis around-to Milwaukee's shame, it was home of The Bund, and a NSWPP mayoral candidate (Art Jones) got almost 5,000 votes in 1976.

OTOH Simon Wiesenthal is 95, and he has launched a final drive to capture real Nazis before they die of old age.
Operation Last Chance
http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,1218337,00.html

I have a primal hatred of Nazis and the entire rainbow coalition of fascists.

[fishnfla]

17. yes, the peat bog soldiers, I know of them

many of them became enamored with that area, and other parts of America. They came back after the war, I've heard. My dad knows the songs they used to sing, how I dont know.

[Name removed]

12. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[ForrestGump]

13. Wehrmacht soldiers were not allowed to be members of a political party,

including the Nazi Party. Not sure if the same was true of the Luftwaffe, though -- it was (other than the SS) the most politicized of the branches of Hitler's military, but that's not surprising when you consider that Goering was a big-time Nazi.

[SmileyBoy]

14. There's lots of former Nazi soldiers around who regret it terribly.

The father of a friend of my mother's was a Nazi pilot also. He says that today he understands completely that it was wrong, but it wasn't like that back then. He regrets being a Nazi, and he also got surgery to remove the mandatory tattoo from his arm.

It's pretty much the common consensus among former Nazis nowadays.