# Ordinary German's Responsibility for the Holocaust?



## Negative Creep (May 13, 2009)

Sensitive subject I know but I need to write an essay on it but not getting very far. Basically I'm wondering just how responsible the bulk of the populace was for what occurred. The final solution was the idea of Nazi top brass, but without people to carry it out it would never have happened; it needed men and women willing to carry it out. In the occupied zones there were many, especially Ukrainians and Poles who were also happy to kill Jews. Hitler's anti semitic polices certainly weren't unique so you can't simply blame him. Any thoughts?


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## The Basket (May 13, 2009)

Not something to answer really.

Remember any dissent against Nazism was not good for you health...so maybe things happened which happened because good people were too scared.

But I can forsee this thread too hot to handle.


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## vikingBerserker (May 13, 2009)

I would certainly think (and hope) they would not have been in favor of them. It's one thing to show prejudice against a group of people, but it's an entirely different matter to exterminate them. Keep in mind that none of the concentration camps were in Germany proper.


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## Soundbreaker Welch? (May 13, 2009)

I don't think people in Germany realized how many millions of people actually died in the concentration camps. They may have realized that some people were obviously dying in the camps, but they probably didn't guess it's full monstrosity. 

If you haven't seen it, The film "Judgement at Nuremburg" deals with this sensitive subject pretty well. It's an interesting and engaging film, and doesn't try to hide the reality of the issues.


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## pbfoot (May 13, 2009)

I would highly doubt that the majority approved but I'm sure the deportation of the of "undesirables" must have common knowledge , the trains must have been noticed but as to the disposition of the trains and such I'm sure a majority were not aware of the end results. The same thing occured in Canada and the US with the deportation of the Japanese from the west coast when fear and propaganda prevailed amongst the civilian population


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## RabidAlien (May 14, 2009)

My understanding (quit laughing!!!) was that most people went along with Hitler's policies because, as PB stated, it wasn't good for one's health to speak out against them. Hitler, before the war, had given them their pride back, restored the economy and given the German people an outlet for their anger and frustrations. Shipping an entire racial group to labor camps was one thing, but when the word got out that they were actually death-camps, I think folks started to wonder. But were unable to speak up, because by the time they realized what a monster Hitler was, he already had his goons in place to make folks disappear in the night. That, and even in the allied armies, the harsh realities of the death-camps was too much for most people to envision, so they discounted the stories as rumors. "Nobody could be that cruel". 

I would say that the average German's responsibility would lie more in the realm of complicity with the acts, simply because they did nothing to speak out and stop the atrocities. Moreso those living near camps. However, I can also understand it from their side, as well...they may have outnumbered the guards and SS, but nobody wants to be the poor sap who gets capped first as the mob pulls down the corrupt official. Nobody wanted to hear the clanking of the SS tank divisions rolling into their town to deal with any possible uprising against Nazi policies. Nobody wanted to be shoved into a train with a bunch of "undesirables" to share their fate. The average German citizen just wanted to survive. So while they *knew* these things were happening, it was easier to rationalize away that "its happening somewhere else, and I can do no good alone, but would disappear like the rest."


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## davebender (May 14, 2009)

Ordinary Germans, especially people too young to vote prior to 1933, were just along for the ride.


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## Soren (May 14, 2009)

The ordinary German knew nothing of it. The official story given to the public was that the Jews were relocated to the east unharmed. The scam was so extensive that even Waffen SS soldiers didn't know about the cruelty of the camps. 

Special shooting squads and camp guard divisions were created to handle the "jew-problem", as well as take care of the execution of prisoners as it was well known soldiers would go crazy, go into deep depressions leading to suicide if ordered to shoot prisoners or civilians.


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## Negative Creep (May 14, 2009)

The more I look at this question the harder it gets! I think it rests on whether you think someone who stands by and lets an atrocity happen is culpable themselves? It's a trait of human nature to go with the flow, find scapegoats and to pretend terrible things aren't happening, therefore that individual isn't to blame. A good example would be the "I was only following orders" defence after the war.

The problem I'm with the 'no responsibility' side is that those who did the killings were still ordinary people. When looking at any aspect of history it is very easy to think of things in black and white and simple good and evil, whereas of course nothing is ever that simple. I've been reading about many of the impromptu killings that took place in the early days of Barbarossa and many of the killers were ordinary soldiers. It's really hard to fathom how one soldier I read about wrote to his wife saying how he loves them and hopes his children were safe, then killing Jewish women and children.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 14, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> I would certainly think (and hope) they would not have been in favor of them. It's one thing to show prejudice against a group of people, but it's an entirely different matter to exterminate them. Keep in mind that none of the concentration camps were in Germany proper.



That is not true, Concentration Camps were all over Germany proper. There is a former camp only about 30 km from where I live now. I visited one of the most notorious ones at Bergen Belsen. Also have you heard of Dachau? It is just outside of Munich.

The difference though is that the real "Death Camps" were located out in the East. Tens of thousands though still died in camps that were inside Germany's original borders.

As for the question about knowing. I would venture to say that a good majority of the populace knew something was going on, but the extent of it was not known. I saw a really good documentary the other night on German TV on this where German citizens were interviewed, most said they knew of something bad happening but were to scared to end up the same fate. One lady interviewed lived in Berlin and her Jewish friend came and asked to be hidden until she could escape. She refused to hide her for fear that her own children would be taken away. She said she lives with that shame every day. 

I have read my Grandfathers diary. He was paraded through a camp after he was captured. In his diary he explains the horror that he was seeing for the first time and the last entry states that "We are going to burn in hell."


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## Capt. Vick (May 14, 2009)

Walter Cronkite has expressed the view that he felt that the average German was culpable in the Holocaust as soon as they allowed their free and independent news outlets to become mouth pieces for the Nazi party. Arguably this could have been prevented at the early stages in the Nazi takeover of the government if the will had been there. As far as standing up to the Nazi and demonstrating against their anti-Semitic policies without having to worry about punitive retribution, it was done. In Berlin no less, and by women, several times during and I believe before the war. And as a final point, I believe I heard in a documentary somewhere that soldiers, both SS AND Wehrmacht, which resisted joining firing squads out of moral belief, were not disciplined. I believe the thing to remember here is that these crimes did not take place in a vacuum and the perpetrators knew it. That is why they tried to keep a lid on things. With code words like “exported” being euphemisms for “killed” and so on as well as there being no overt command paper trail leading back to Hitler. I imagine that they were not only worried what the average German on the street would think if they FULLY knew the extant of the complex apparatus that was set up to implement the “Final Solution”. Two other points I would like to make: 1) We must be careful of generalisms. There were Nazi party members who helped people escape the clutches of the “Special Groups”. 2) To deny to Holocaust is frankly delusional. Other then an initial off the cuff outburst from one member of the first group of Nazi bigwigs to be tried at Nuremburg, dismissing the photographic evidence of said atrocities as “propaganda”, not one of them used “It didn’t happen” as a defense against these particular charges of “crimes against humanity”. Seems strange if it never happened doesn’t it?


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## Soren (May 14, 2009)

It is one sad chapter in history for sure.

Here are some disturbing pictures from the end of WW2.

Just before the concentration camp at Dachau was runover by the Allies the original camp guards, the actual culprits, had fled, and ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers were ordered to guard the camps. It was these soldiers who had to stand up to the Allied retributions, like this Wehrmacht officer beaten to death by a shovel shortly after the last picture was taken:











US soldiers executing German soldiers at Dachau after revealing the camps:


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## evangilder (May 14, 2009)

The last photo was Americans executing SS soldiers that were Waffen SS, and not camp guards. It is a sad chapter in history. War is hell and WWII was hell.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (May 14, 2009)

I don't know a lot on the holocaust, so I may be wrong on this. I think that the common German people knew that Jew's and other "undesirables" were taken to the camps. They didn't know, or had very little knowledge, on what happened in those camps. Again, sensitive subject that I don't know a lot on, so I apologize for any wrong information.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 14, 2009)

I knew somehow that someone would try and change the subject and turn it into an allied soldiers committing atraucities...


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## Soren (May 14, 2009)

What ? Come on! YOU mentioned Dachau, so I thought I'd share some history of the place. 

And how is this really showing the US in a truly bad light, they afterall thought that these were the actual camp guards, who btw weren't typically very nice people. They didn't know that the soldiers there actually were just Waffen SS Wehrmacht soldiers who had been forced to guard the place for the real culprits to flee. Neither party was aware of what they were in for.

So please, your assertion was uncalled for!


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## davebender (May 14, 2009)

> Concentration Camps were all over Germany proper.


The German Communist Party (KPD) received 14.6% of the vote in 1932. Hitler was elected on an anti-communist platform. After he came to power hundreds of thousands of communist sympathizers were incarcerated for a few months. Normal prisons could not hold them all. The concentration camps in western Germany were constructed for this purpose. Later some were used as labor camps but that was not their design purpose. I suspect that many ordinary Germans did not immediately reconginize the change in concentration camp usage.


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## Negative Creep (May 14, 2009)

With regards to retribution, it's amazing there wasn't more. I've read a few accounts of prisoners and Allied soldiers taking revenge on camp guards (if ever there were a case for justified murder that must be it) but these were rare. By that stage the survivors could barely comprehend what was happening or if the liberation was another German trick


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 14, 2009)

davebender said:


> The German Communist Party (KPD) received 14.6% of the vote in 1932. Hitler was elected on an anti-communist platform. After he came to power hundreds of thousands of communist sympathizers were incarcerated for a few months. Normal prisons could not hold them all. The concentration camps in western Germany were constructed for this purpose. Later some were used as labor camps but that was not their design purpose. I suspect that many ordinary Germans did not immediately reconginize the change in concentration camp usage.



Near the end of the war many were transferred from eastern camps to camps within Germany to continue with the mass killings as long as possible. Several hundred thousand Jews were killed in camps within Germany's borders.



Soren said:


> What ? Come on! YOU mentioned Dachau, so I thought I'd share some history of the place.
> 
> And how is this really showing the US in a truly bad light, they afterall thought that these were the actual camp guards, who btw weren't typically very nice people. They didn't know that the soldiers there actually were just Waffen SS Wehrmacht soldiers who had been forced to guard the place for the real culprits to flee. Neither party was aware of what they were in for.
> 
> So please, your assertion was uncalled for!



I did not say you were showing the US in bad light.

I said it was only a matter of time till someone tried to change the subject. The subject is not about the US, it is about Germans and the Holocaust...


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## Soren (May 14, 2009)

I really don't feel I ventured offtopic at all with my post. 

What people need to understand is that 95% of the German public knew nothing of the horrors being committed in the Nazi concetration camps, and that only a very few soldiers actually participated in the murders committed there. The bad guys were offcourse Hitler, Himmler other high ranking individuals who involved themselves with the camps, as well as the camp guard divisions and shooting squads formed to carry out these horrid crimes.

People shouldn't blame the ordinary Geman soldier or civilian as they mostly knew nothing of it, yet they often came to pay for the crimes of the few scumbags who actually committed them.

Like I said, a very sad chapter in history.


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## marshall (May 14, 2009)

I don't know much about knowledge of ordinary Germans that lived 60-70 years ago, but I found this:

Amazon.com: What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany: Eric A. Johnson, Karl-Heinz Reuband: Books

I don't want to advertise this book (because that's probably against the rules) but reading only the reviews can give something to think about. And if someone's really interested in topic he or she can buy or borrow this book.


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## vikingBerserker (May 14, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> That is not true, Concentration Camps were all over Germany proper. There is a former camp only about 30 km from where I live now. I visited one of the most notorious ones at Bergen Belsen. Also have you heard of Dachau? It is just outside of Munich.



Yup you're right, I stand corrected.


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## davebender (May 14, 2009)

> Near the end of the war many were transferred from eastern camps to camps within Germany to continue with the mass killings as long as possible. Several hundred thousand Jews were killed in camps within Germany's borders.


If they wanted to continue killing camp inmates they would not have gone to the trouble of moving them to a new camp. Just shoot the prisoners and abandon the camp before the enemy arrives. 

Towards the end of the war many camp officials became afraid of post-war retribution. So they quit mass executions and made an attempt to transfer prisoners west. This did not go well mainly due to the break down in the German government after March 1945. Supplies did not always arrive and you didn't always know who was in charge. In the midst of this chaos some camps like Dachau had a cholera epidemic. In hindsight they would have done the prisoners a favor by leaving them in the original camps to be over run by the Red Army. That way sick prisoners don't have to undertake a forced march.


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## renrich (May 15, 2009)

I would venture to say that Chris's post earlier about knowledge of the camps in Germany is the most accurate portrayal of the situation. Someone mentioned that Walter Cronkite stated that the German people lost control of the free press and that precipitated the problem. It is ironic that Cronkite may have said that. The news media, if it is free, reports "news" as it sees fit. I would guess that early in the Nazi party's climb to power the press, on the whole, supported Hitler because his goals were to restore Germany to a position of economic security. By the time it becme clear that the Nazis intended a dictatorship, the press could no longer report any but the government line. A lesson perhaps for future generations.


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## parsifal (May 15, 2009)

Do not fall for the old chestnut that as an organization the Wehrmacht was blameless. The wehrmacht had almost as much blood on its hands, as an organization as the SS. As an example, 598000 Russians were captured in the Kiev enciclement. Within days over 200000 (yes thats two hundred thousand) had been slaughtered by the wehrmacht. There were more than 4.9 million Russian soldiers slaughterd in this way, with about half of them murdered directly by the Wehrmacht. There were another 6 million civilains murdered by the wehrmacht in Russia. There were countless massacres undertaken by the German army across Europe with no thought given to the rule of law, to the morality of it, or even the consequences of it. Germany is guilty of a traversty against humanity and this should never be forgotten. These are not my words, they are those of my father, who fought in the war . He is about the only German I know who is honest enough to admit they knew exactly what was happening, and he was just a corporal. For the record, he and his family helped to shelter and escape of a number of Jewish families living in Berlin during the war. They managed to get to Sweden that way. It is also pretty clear that the majority of senior officers knew very well what was happening, and supported it. 

There was recently a documentary aired on local television, that looked into a prison camp for senior german officers and held in a camp in England, for the duration of the war.They were secretly recorded by the British intelligence services. Most were clearly indicating that they knew what was going on, and most also approved of it. The German officer corps represented the ultra conservative elements of germans society and believed wholeheartedly in the 5th column allegations made by the Nazis, namely that Germany had been stabbed in the back and that the Jews were at the centre of a worldwide conspiracy. Consequently many believed that society had to be rid of these devisive elements.

The trouble with making collective guilt allegations is that we become just as bad as the nazis if we engage in that. There were many Germans who did not know about the crimes, many who could do nothing, and many who tried to oppose Hitler. So, it is wrong to collectively hold Germans accountable. But it is also wrong to suggest that just a few were responsible. The Nazi regime was a popularly elected and supported regime, whose ideas were supported by many. There were many who actively participated in the crimes, some for nothing more than to participate in the state sponsored robbery of the victims. 

For the record, German war guilt was well established after the war during the Nuremberg trials. i happen to support those findings. We should forgive what happened, but we should never forget


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## Bernhart (May 15, 2009)

can't imagine that 95% didn't know, both my parents where in Holland and while both where children at the time they were aware that something bad was happening to the jews. My dad's family hid a family for almost 2 years, they knew the peanalty for doing so was death. mom remembers the round ups and if jews didn't cooperate or do as they were told being shot in the streets. she remebers several istances especially in 1944 when the allies were closing the germans stepped up the searches.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

davebender said:


> If they wanted to continue killing camp inmates they would not have gone to the trouble of moving them to a new camp. Just shoot the prisoners and abandon the camp before the enemy arrives.
> 
> Towards the end of the war many camp officials became afraid of post-war retribution. So they quit mass executions and made an attempt to transfer prisoners west. This did not go well mainly due to the break down in the German government after March 1945. Supplies did not always arrive and you didn't always know who was in charge. In the midst of this chaos some camps like Dachau had a cholera epidemic. In hindsight they would have done the prisoners a favor by leaving them in the original camps to be over run by the Red Army. That way sick prisoners don't have to undertake a forced march.



There are several reasons why they were moved. It is however known that Hitler gave orders to continue with the killings inside of Germany's borders.



renrich said:


> I would venture to say that Chris's post earlier about knowledge of the camps in Germany is the most accurate portrayal of the situation. Someone mentioned that Walter Cronkite stated that the German people lost control of the free press and that precipitated the problem. It is ironic that Cronkite may have said that. The news media, if it is free, reports "news" as it sees fit. I would guess that early in the Nazi party's climb to power the press, on the whole, supported Hitler because his goals were to restore Germany to a position of economic security. By the time it becme clear that the Nazis intended a dictatorship, the press could no longer report any but the government line. A lesson perhaps for future generations.




That is 100% true. I remember my Grandmother telling me that they could only listen to state sponsored radio and that all the "radio jockies" were nazi party members and only talked the party line.

By the way interesting side note. My Grandmother has a permanent dent in her forehead after she was hit in the head with a rifle butt after trying to give food and water to Jewish prisoners on a train. She worked for the Red Cross at the time.



parsifal said:


> The Nazi regime was a popularly elected and supported regime, whose ideas were supported by many.



I think we have to look at how and why the Nazi party came to power. I 100% believe that if most people knew what was going to happen, they would not have voted for the party. It is easy to choose who to vote for, when you economy is ruins, life sucks and a certain someone makes promises and keeps some of them in the beginning.



Bernhart said:


> can't imagine that 95% didn't know, both my parents where in Holland and while both where children at the time they were aware that something bad was happening to the jews. My dad's family hid a family for almost 2 years, they knew the peanalty for doing so was death. mom remembers the round ups and if jews didn't cooperate or do as they were told being shot in the streets. she remebers several istances especially in 1944 when the allies were closing the germans stepped up the searches.



I agree that 100% knew something bad was going on. I just think the extent was not known. I also believe that a large number did nothing based off of fear alone.


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## renrich (May 15, 2009)

The posts by those who have relatives or friends who lived in those days are invaluable. Many thanks. It is hard for US citizens who have never lived anywhere but the US and especially those who are relatively young to understand how truly terrible the behavior of some during WW2 was. However, there are some parallels in American history. During The War Between the States, there were atrocities commited by soldiers on both sides. There were POW camps where conditions in the camps were tantamount to execution. Many of us have heard about Andersonville, GA. where conditions, most of which were the result of poor judgment and mismanagement, caused many prisoners to die of malnutrition and disease. There were Union camps where POWs appeared to have been deliberately treated in such a way to cause death, notably Camp Douglas and another camp in Maryland, the name escapes me. The winners always get to write history. In more recent history, the majority of all Japanese and those of Japanese descent regardless of citizenship were rounded up and put into concentration camps after PH. There was much hysteria after Pearl Harbor but it certainly looks different today than it must have then. As a matter of fact the attitude of many US citizens today(including of course politicians) is much different today than it was in the days immediately after 9-11. What seems extreme or unthinkable behavior today looked totally different on Wednesday morning, 9-12-01.


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## Soren (May 15, 2009)

It really disturbs me how Parsifal seems to suggest the German people were evil and knew all about what was happening, when infact he couldn't be more wrong.

I have talked to many German veterans, most of them Wehrmacht soldiers, including officers, but also civilians, and they ALL made it quite clear that they knew NOTHING about the horrors committed in the camps. Some had heard rumors about attrocities being committed, true, but otherwise they didn't know. The official story they had been given was that all jews were to be relocated in the east unharmed but away from the German people, which they had no problem with as the jews were seen as terrorists back then. 

And as for the murder of the Soviet POW's by the Wehrmacht, it is worth remembering that by far the majority of the deaths were caused by the Wehrmacht having to move on, with no food reserves, which resulted in masses of Soviet prisoners starving to death. The Germans simply couldn't feed that many. Few were actually executed, and of those who were it was by hands of the shooting squads and the gestapo. 

And as for 4.9 million Soviet soldiers murdered, that is a grossly exaggerated figure. In total around 3 million Soviet POW's died as prisoners of war, and the far majority of those were through starvation.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

renrich said:


> The posts by those who have relatives or friends who lived in those days are invaluable. Many thanks.1.



Just last Wed. I was at the funeral for my wife's grandmother who died last Friday at 96. We were looking through her photo albums and one was particular interesting for me. Her husband (my wife's grandfather) was in the Wehrmacht and served on the east front. The pictures were very amazing (from a historical point of view). There were actual combat pics including several of them climbing over destroyed T-34 tanks. The ones that I found most interesting were the ones that he took in the Russian POW camp (found it very surprising that he had a camera there). He came home in 1947 and died shortly thereafter due to a lung illness that he contracted in the POW camp.



Soren said:


> And as for 4.9 million Soviet soldiers murdered, that is a grossly exaggerated figure. In total around 3 million Soviet POW's died as prisoners of war, and the far majority of those were through starvation.



And that would make it any better? 

The funny thing Soren is that if you talk to most Germans they will tell you the opposite of what you are saying. The full extent of what they knew is debatable, but the majority knew that something terrible was going on. *But hey what do I know? I only grew up in Germany, in a German family and speak to Germans on a daily basis. You know better...*

Oh well after that last post, the fun is about to begin...


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## Njaco (May 15, 2009)

I have to agree with Soren that maybe a good portion did not know what was going on in the camps but disagree with him that they were mostly blind to the whole thing. To get a true grasp on the situation you would first have to understand the feelings of most Germans, Austrians and other European nations regarding Jews and even Communists during that time. This was the 20s, 30s and 40s and they didn't have the luxury of Civil Rights movements or awarness of race or religion that we have today. Even Hitler didn't come by this view alone. It was developed during his time in Vienna and the underground culture that wanted to blame all the troubles of the world on race or religion or politics.

But the populace did know something was going on and it wasn't good. The race-based laws that Hitler passed in the 30s brought a whole host of horrors on the jews and that was in the open. How could you deny the large yellow stars that people wore or the businesses that were filled with hate graffitti? This had been going on for years and the people were aware.

Maybe not exactly as to what was going on, but they knew its wasn't Utopia for the internees.


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

The Germans , as well as Japanese were horrific in their complicity. The racial policies and views held by most Germans toward other nations are absolutely horrible. They fought for the glory of Germany and bowed to an emporer named Hitler who while trying to become like Napoleon thrust the world into one of if not its darkest moment. I do not think the whole pain and human suffering can even be measured. Western civilization has lost much of its prestige due to the war. And many Germans still today harbor feelings in private that they long for the glory days of the third reich but will never say it openly.


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## renrich (May 15, 2009)

I find that there are many instances where photos seem to tell a different story than what we read or hear in history books. I have seen photos and old news reels that show POWs being liberated from German and even Japanese POW camps who looked like they were in relatively good physical condition and had had a decent diet. It does seem surprising that a POW would have a camera in a camp. I remember as a child driving through Fort Sam Houston in 1944-45 and seeing German and Italian POWs tending to the landscaping on officers row. They had armed guards but they did not look they had a bad life at all. One thing about old photos is obvious. Pictures taken during the Second World War of US military and civilians show that we did not have nearly as many obese people as we have today.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I have to agree with Soren that maybe a good portion did not know what was going on in the camps but disagree with him that they were mostly blind to the whole thing. To get a true grasp on the situation you would first have to understand the feelings of most Germans, Austrians and other European nations regarding Jews and even Communists during that time. This was the 20s, 30s and 40s and they didn't have the luxury of Civil Rights movements or awarness of race or religion that we have today. Even Hitler didn't come by this view alone. It was developed during his time in Vienna and the underground culture that wanted to blame all the troubles of the world on race or religion or politics.
> 
> But the populace did know something was going on and it wasn't good. The race-based laws that Hitler passed in the 30s brought a whole host of horrors on the jews and that was in the open. How could you deny the large yellow stars that people wore or the businesses that were filled with hate graffitti? This had been going on for years and the people were aware.



Agreed

Like I said in an earlier post, I do not think that any of us can truly understand how something like this could happen. By this I mean how it all started with the Nazi's taking power. It was very easy at that time for someone like Hitler to take power.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

Amsel said:


> And many Germans still today harbor feelings in private that they long for the glory days of the third reich but will never say it openly.



No they do not...

A very small minority of right wingers still believe such a thing, but I promise you the majority do not hold the feelings that you think they do. Where do you even come up with such a thing?


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

I was refering to the ones who grew up in the reich. It can't ever be proven but one can draw conclusions and thats about it. The third reich had quite a few positive attributes as well as Hitler himself so it isn't that surprising. I don't think it is possible to deconstruct everybody who grew up in the third reich totally.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

Amsel said:


> I was refering to the ones who grew up in the reich. It can't ever be proven but one can draw conclusions and thats about it. The third reich had quite a few positive attributes as well as Hitler himself so it isn't that surprising. I don't think it is possible to deconstruct everybody who grew up in the third reich totally.



I seriously doubt that as well. The majority that I have truly spoken to (not just family members) only remember the horrors that happened because of the Third Reich and pray that something like this never happens again.

I am sure that there are some though that do as you say.


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I am sure that there are some though that do as you say.


I get that feeling when reading many of the fine biographies and histories of Germany in WWII. I do not hardly get the sense of shame for fighting for one of the most evil regimes in history but only regret that the war was lost. I read some accounts that show the authors or subjects to have feelings of guilt but it is mostly not genuinely felt. One gets the feeling in many instances where they display feelings of pain for losing the war.


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## Njaco (May 15, 2009)

I think that may be because of a soldiers view of the war and it was a duty and honor more so than a political agenda. So you will get a sense of loss but not so much shame which is understandable. Most - MOST - soldiers fought the war because they were soldiers, nothing more.


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I think that may be because of a soldiers view of the war and it was a duty and honor more so than a political agenda. So you will get a sense of loss but not so much shame which is understandable. Most - MOST - soldiers fought the war because they were soldiers, nothing more.



I agre completely. My assessment is purely clinical with no emotion injected into the conversation. I cannot hate the Germans as a people. My opinion is that the world has changed in many ways and it is too easy to make quick judgements on such a subject. Especially when the subject is so faceted and has so many qualifiers such as age, location, education and numerous other possibilities. Based on todays standards they seem to be a wicked people for the treatment of the Jewish people as well as other undesirables, but then again every nation has gone through some dark times including my own. I cannot judge the Germans or Japanese as a people for the war because they lived in a totalarian society but I can only give my opinion on actions.


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## Soren (May 15, 2009)

> And that would make it any better?



Adler, the point was that they weren't murdered in cold blood, they starved to death because the Wehrmacht simply had no way to feed them. So there's a difference. Wether one is better than the other, well I'll let you decide that for yourself.

And please, this axe you seem to have to grind with me, tell it outright already, and relieve me of this constant unjust hammering of yours, it is really beginning to bug me. But since you in an openly mocking manner insinuated that I am of the opinion that I know more than you, please provide proof to this accusation. I believe I have treated you with nothing but dignity and respect, I ask only the same in return.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 15, 2009)

Amsel said:


> I get that feeling when reading many of the fine biographies and histories of Germany in WWII. I do not hardly get the sense of shame for fighting for one of the most evil regimes in history but only regret that the war was lost. I read some accounts that show the authors or subjects to have feelings of guilt but it is mostly not genuinely felt. One gets the feeling in many instances where they display feelings of pain for losing the war.



As long as a particular soldier did not commit a war crime or take part in one, I do not feel they should be shamed for fighting for their country. That is what every soldier does, whether they agree with the regime or not. 

A soldier who served honorably should never feel shame for his service. I am even proud of my grandfathers service in the Wehrmacht in WW2, just as much as I am proud of my American grandfathers in the US Army in WW2.

Again an honorable soldier should not feel shame for his service.



Amsel said:


> I agre completely. My assessment is purely clinical with no emotion injected into the conversation. I cannot hate the Germans as a people. My opinion is that the world has changed in many ways and it is too easy to make quick judgements on such a subject. Especially when the subject is so faceted and has so many qualifiers such as age, location, education and numerous other possibilities. Based on todays standards they seem to be a wicked people for the treatment of the Jewish people as well as other undesirables, but then again every nation has gone through some dark times including my own. I cannot judge the Germans or Japanese as a people for the war because they lived in a totalarian society but I can only give my opinion on actions.



I can understand and agree with what you are saying.



Soren said:


> And please, this axe you seem to have to grind with me, tell it outright already, and relieve me of this constant unjust hammering of yours, it is really beginning to bug me. But since you in an openly mocking manner insinuated that I am of the opinion that I know more than you, please provide proof to this accusation. I believe I have treated you with nothing but dignity and respect, I ask only the same in return.



Just go back and read the PM that I sent your yesterday or the day before.


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## parsifal (May 15, 2009)

I didnt grow up i germany, but as I said, I have a father (well step father, who is a proud German and served in the wehrmacht during wwii). He was a machine gunner, and served at Stalingrad, Kursk and in many of the various battles on the southern front. He categorically states that it was common knowledge that things were happening, and that nearly all the soldiers serving in the forces knew about it. Moreover the wehrmacht was complicit in a large number of war crimes, and not just death by neglect, though that was a favourite tactic. Many of the Soviet deaths were by shooting, as the largest single massacre that I know of, just south of Lvov, by regulars of the wehrmacht, clearly demonstrates. 

For those who would like to think about this a bit more , here are some bits and pieces from the net that may assist in understanding the case against the wehrmacht.

War crimes of the Wehrmacht - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia



The Wehrmacht: history, myth, reality - Google Book Search


War crimes of the Wehrmacht


The Holocaust in the letters of German soldiers on the Eastern front (1939-44) - Journal of Genocide Research


German Crimes Against Soviet Prisoners-of-War in Poland. Central Commission for the Investigation of German Crimes in Poland. 1946

War Crimes and Criminals

I do not claim that this is a systematic or comphrehensive account, you need to do a lot more detailed research to do that, but it is unequivocally proven that the wehrmacht participated in a very large number of massacres.

After the war there was an international commission that looked into various German institions,and judged whether they were immoral organizations or not. I forget the exact teminology that was applied, but essentially the SS was found to be ammoral, but the wehrmacht was not, however the commission noted at the time the strong likelihood of wehrmacht complicity and particiaption in avery large number of massacres and other attrocities. 

People can judge for themselves in this, but the official findings of the international community, as exemplified at the Nuremberg trials, was that Germany was guilty of waging an aggressive and illegal war, and that with that there were many travesties of common decency and attrocities. Most of the perpetrators of those attrocities have never been made to account, though the principal perpetrators have long since faced justice.

Now, did the allies and the Soviets engage in illegal behaviour. You bet they did, but the difference is fundamentally this....whereas the allied incidents were still illegal under their legal and military codes, the murders undertaken by the Germans were institutionalised, and more disturbing, supported by many. In the case of the Soviets, there is a slight mitigation of circumstance for them, since they were not signatories to the Geneva convention until 1949, and did not recognize its jurisprudence until that time. The majority of German POWs that were murdered by the Soviets occurred 1944-7, as the full extent of German attrocities became appararent, after the adoption of the Geneva convention the surviving 40% of German POWs were treated better than they hadd previously


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

I wonder why Soviet war crimes are no big deal. If there was a poll for most evil regime I would put Stalin as the grand champion of homocide.


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## Matt308 (May 15, 2009)

Well based upon most overall deaths due to both regimes, it probably goes goes to Stalin. But subjectively, they are rather equally heinous aren't they. Good post Parsifal.


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## Amsel (May 15, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> Well based upon most overall deaths due to both regimes, it probably goes goes to Stalin. But subjectively, they are rather equally heinous aren't they. Good post Parsifal.


Heinous indeed. It's hard to believe that was not too long ago.


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## Matt308 (May 15, 2009)

What is most disturbing is that youth my kids age remember WWII like they remember Waterloo or Ghengis Khan. Sad really. And unfortunately, we are doomed to repeat it. I just hope I'm gone.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 16, 2009)

Matt308 said:


> What is most disturbing is that youth my kids age remember WWII like they remember Waterloo or Ghengis Khan. Sad really. And unfortunately, we are doomed to repeat it. I just hope I'm gone.



I agree completely and I think it is a sad shame.


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## Juha (May 16, 2009)

IMHO ordinary German’s responsibly varied from person to person. IMHO an average Germans should have guessed that destiny of away transported Jews would not be too nice but it would have been difficult to guess how cruel it was. The enormity of holocaust was something unprecedented in modern times and it was and still is difficult to accept that one’s own state behave utterly amorally. On the other hand those who lived near concentration camps or those who knew that millions were transported Auschwitz-Birkenau etc and almost nobody away from there should have guessed that something very sinister was happening. Also discussions between high ranking officer PoWs, which were recorded by British showed that at least many of them knew on murders of PoWs and Jews in the East.

Finnish SS-men saw war crimes from late June 41 onwards, in fact they were in opinion that the killings were most common during first weeks. Finns were really ed on behaviour of Germans and saw mass murders of PoWs and civilians, especially chances of Jews to being shot out of hand was high.

On Soviet war crimes, they were victors and the world isn’t perfect so the got away of it.

Juha


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## vikingBerserker (May 16, 2009)

The truly sad part to me is look how many more times something like this has happened since WWII.


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## Soren (May 16, 2009)

Some facts to consider are these:

The Soviet armed forces, which didn't comply with the rules of the geneva convention, treated German POWs even worse than the Germans treated Soviet POWs, often castrating, cutting off ears and poking out the eyes of captured German soldiers. After this the German soldiers were left for dead later to be found by their comrades. THIS resulted in revengeful retributions such as the massacre of POWs as-well as the burnings of several villages. That is war, and war is hell!

Now as for the treatment of Soviet POWs, it wasn't good by any means, but it needs to be noted that ~90% of all Soviet prisoners who died under the custody of the Wehrmacht did so of starvation, and that because of the simple fact that there was no way of feeding them. In short they were not murdered or massacred, they were left to starve to death as this was the only option, that or send them back to reenlist in the Soviet army, so again no choice.

And finally, the murder of the jews was NOT supported by the German population, the general public in no way being aware of the horrorfying things being committed in the camps. Now obviously rumors as always slipped out, and some people knew that something wrong was going on, but nearly no'one knew about the true extent of things. Fact is that most Germans knew absolutely nothing about the systematic murder of jews in concentration camps, and had they known about it then the war would've been a short one. Hitler knew that, hence why so much was done to keep it a secret, cause if the public found out he knew his troops would stop fighting and him and his party would be history.

One simply cannot get a whole country to fight for something they don't believe in, unless the truth is kept away from them and they're tricked into it, which is exactly what Hitler did, he tricked an entire country into war. Mankind in general will always strive for what it believes to be the right and good thing to do, not evil. The German army was even supported by the catholic church, and every German soldier had written on his belt buckle 'Gott Mit Uns' or 'God With Us', as a symbol that god was on their side.


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## Vassili Zaitzev (May 16, 2009)

vikingBerserker said:


> The truly sad part to me is look how many more times something like this has happened since WWII.



It's the ugly side of human nature. Unfortunately, those who do not learn about the past are doomed to repeat it.


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## Colin1 (May 16, 2009)

Soren said:


> Some facts to consider are these...


I had no idea of the specifics of the savagery meted out by Germans on Russian POWs and vice versa, it's sobering stuff.
I tend to agree with most of what you say, I would reinforce your point concerning the average German civilian by saying that within a totalitarian system like Nazism, it wouldn't be too clever to 

i. go poking your nose in and
ii. protesting about it, vociferously or otherwise

as you'd be likely to join the victims of the very attrocities you're protesting about.

As regards the belt-buckle motif carried by German soldiers, well, how many armies (throughout history) went into battle convinced that God was on their side? Hardest-hitting example I guess would be The Crusades and how futile a claim was it in the case of, say, the Sixth Army during the last days of Stalingrad?

German soldiers bunkered down wherever they could find shelter, who were too exhausted by numbing cold and malnutrition to even step out and pick up admittedly rare air-dropped supplies, were highly unlikely to be wondering when God was going to show up and turn things around for them.


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## Juha (May 16, 2009)

Soren
1) Finns seemed to think that shooting of PoWs by German soldiers were more common in early days, that weakened the revenge theory. Yes, there were also Soviet atrocities in those early days and some killing were clearly revenges to Soviet atrocities.

2) Finns were really appalled how some, in fact rather many ordinary German soldiers handled and murdered Jews regardless their age or sex. What was writtten to soldiers belt buckles didn't seem to have effect on their behavior.

Juha


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## Soren (May 16, 2009)

Colin,

The belt buckle was pure propoganda, a way of convincing the troops that they were fighting for a good cause. 

One needs to consider that in all wars waged in history every military will try to demonize its' enemies, and this to ensure that its' soldiers will be effective against the enemy and not hesitate to kill the enemy if they get the chance. If a military didn't do this it simply couldn't effectively wage a war, cause soldiers absolutely need to know that they are fighting for a rightous cause, otherwise moral will quickly plumit and the soldiers will eventually refuse to fight. This also explains the rough treatment POWs often got, nomatter where they were incarcerated. To the average German the Soviets were terrorists, rapists etc etc, the Nazi government pretty much made it sure that the average German saw the Soviets almost as monsters. Now most people knew better ofcourse, but they still saw the Soviet Union as an evil empire (They weren't all wrong about that either!) just waiting to pounce on Germany as soon as it got a chance, and the public therefore fully supported the invasion in 1941.


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## GrauGeist (May 16, 2009)

Here's a quote by Lutheran Pastor Niemoller that pretty much sums it up:


> In Germany, they first came for the communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a communist.
> Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew.
> Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist.
> Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Catholic.
> Then they came for me -- and by that time there was nobody left to speak up.


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## vikingBerserker (May 16, 2009)

GrauGeist said:


> Here's a quote by Lutheran Pastor Niemoller that pretty much sums it up:




A-fricken-Men!


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## RabidAlien (May 17, 2009)

Who was it that said "the only thing needed for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing"? 

Some thoughts of my own, late at nite...

1. Atrocities were committed on both sides of the lines. Allied and Axis. If Germany had won, we would be reading about the evils the Soviets committed, instead of vice versa. 

2. The average German knew something was going on. The rumor mill will ALWAYS fly faster and farther than the media/propaganda machine. So they knew. The extent of their knowledge will differ, but they knew. 

3. By the time that the details were coming regularly enough that the average citizen could no longer discount them as fantasy/exaggeration, it was too late to speak up. They would have disappeared, too.

4. Hitler got as far as he did because, quite simply, he was brilliant. He didn't start off rounding up Jews. He started off by giving Germany back its pride. He restored its economy and military. He gave the average citizen a reason to walk around with their heads held high again. Germany has always been a proud, strong nation (ask any number of Roman emperors). The Treaty of Versailles took that from them, and left in its place a smoldering resentment. Hitler fanned that. Give them strength again, give them jobs and a strong economy...then slowly give them an enemy to turn their pent-up anger and frustrations on. Give them subtle radio/news clips that point them in the direction you want them to go...and when they realize where they're headed, its really too late.

5. The Wermacht troops, as well, may have known, to some extent, what was taking place with the Jews. But when the first shot's fired, the average grunt's viewpoint narrows to the portion of the line directly in front of him, and maybe a little to each side. Your world is your foxhole. You don't worry about what's happening to someone else as long as your foxhole is there and you've got a rifle. I read somewhere, as well, that the average German grunt wasn't encouraged to think for themselves overly much. Take initiative to win the battle, yes. Ponder politics? No.

I really should be asleep...


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## parsifal (May 17, 2009)

Juha said:


> Soren
> 1) Finns seemed to think that shooting of PoWs by German soldiers were more common in early days, that weakened the revenge theory. Yes, there were also Soviet atrocities in those early days and some killing were clearly revenges to Soviet atrocities.
> 
> 2) Finns were really appalled how some, in fact rather many ordinary German soldiers handled and murdered Jews regardless their age or sex. What was writtten to soldiers belt buckles didn't seem to have effect on their behavior.
> ...



JUuha

Finland fought what I consider to be an honourable war. It is the only country in Europe that did not persecute any minority, and absolutely refused to hand over any Jews, foreign or nationals to the Nazis.

I particulalry remember one story of a particular member of the Finn army who saved the lives of more than ten German SS troopers, and was offered the iron cross as a reward by a th ankful German High Command. He turned it down, saying that as a Jew, he found it reward enough for SS men to owe their lives to someone they would otherwise despise.

All this talk of diminished German responsibility is untenable as a defence to German attrocities. For a start, it was germany who started the war, by invading country after country, not the other way around. In the case of the invasion of the USSR it was the Germans who started the indiscriminate massacre of prisoners, and further, codified that with the infamous "commissar order, and soon thereafter the Fuhrere directive that essentially lifted all moral responsibilities and sense of ethics from every GTerman soldier fighting on the eastern front. I dont recall the exact wording, but it stated something along the lines to fight and kill without mercy or pity, or sense of guilt about what they were doing. Germans were generally enthusiastic ihn their support for this illegal order, and carried it out with great enthusiasm. The result was at least 10 million Russian dead, avoidable deaths, not your average or unavoidable casualties of war. Germany embarked on a war of ethnic cleansing, which is a nice way of saying they murdered people indiscriminately.

Did the Russians respond to that, you bet they did, as the trail of murdered German soldiers across the battlefields of Eastern Europe demonstrate. The Russian nation is a proud country, and the war against the Nazis was not a war fought for the communists, or for Stalin.....it was a war of national liberation, of the defence of the motherland against an invader. And theres the rub.....the Russians were invaded, making the the germans the instigators of the trouble. Moreover, it was the Germans who started the mass killings. Why can I say this...because the Germans were massacreing prisoners and civilians from the very beginning long before the Russians had the chance or capability to do the same in reply. In June and July 1941 the numbers of German prisoners being captured by the Russians was insignificant, whereas the numbers of Russians (soldiers and civilians) being capturedm numbered in the millions. It was the Germans who had official orders to commit murder, it was the germans who invaded country after country without even bothering to declare war (the only exception to this being the German DOW against the United States), it was the Germans who even stabbed their erstwhile allies in the back, and lied and cheated to everyone they had dealings with, time after time after time.......

And what of the common man, what is his responsibility in all of this. They do have to shoulder a portion of the burden of guilt. It started in 1933, with the election ofa regime that clearly was ammoral and not interested in the rule of law. To try and say that the German nation was duped is utter rubbish. They knew what Hitler was, and decided to seel their souls for thirty pieces of silver regardless. Why???? Well in the case of the anti-semitism it was because most Germans agreed with Hitler, Jews were seen as one of the root causes to Germany's trouble, the 5th column that sneakily stabbed Germany in the back, and robbed her of her victory in 1918. That this is totally baseless is clear now, but the germans allowed their innate prejudices get the better of them, and the final solution was the logical outgrowth of that 

Every German soldier bears a portion of war guilt as well, by the oath of fealty they made to Adolf Hitler personally, and not to the German State. This was not a minor or obscure emantic use of words. At the time it was seen for waht it was, an abject promise to do what was in the interest of Adolf Hitler, and not what was best for the country, or what was right and just. A soldiers job is to protect his country, not a particular individual, and most people saw the oath to Hitler for what is actually was

When I ponder this subject I always think of John Donnes famous poem , as made famous in by Ernest Hemingway's book bearing the same name

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

Never a more true word than for germany were these words spoken


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## Juha (May 17, 2009)

Hello Parsifal
It’s generally true, that we protected foreign Jews here, but there were a few regretful exceptions. Of course Jews born here had same rights as other Finns and they served their country as other Finns and some paid the ultimate price for that.

On eastern front, Germany was the invader, who started the killing of PoWs, I don’t know, I know that there were at least some cases of Soviets killing German PoWs very early on. A couple cases which came into mind. one PzD lost a platoon from its Recon Battalion very early in the war, most were shot after they had surrendered, some might being mutilated, I cannot remember all details, Germans also came across murdered bodies of those LW crew members shot down on the first day of Barbarossa. 

But Hitler had made clear to top WM officers already in March 41 that extreme brutality was necessary in Russia proper and the intelligentsia educated during Stalin’s time had to be destroyed. I see commissar order as a part of this plan. And Lebensraum rhetoric tells the rest.

On average German’s responsibility, as I wrote early, I think it varies from person to person. Hitler’s platform in 1933 wasn’t extermination of Jews, gipsies etc even if there were hints to that direction, so I’d not put too much weight on Germans voting behaviour. Of course in democracy one pays the price of the policies of the state and has some responsibility because of that. But usually many things influence voting decision. Much more important is what Germans felt and what they did during the next 12 years. Prosecution of Jews was open from early on, anti-semitic laws, crystal night , beatings of Jews, forcing them to use the star of David and then deportation of them. Germans knew, most of those who lived at nazi time are already dead, themselves what they felt and did at that time and had clear or burdened conscience on that, I’d leave it for that but those actively participating killings. Germany had paid large sums to Jews and Israel as compensations probably also to others, don’t know that for sure, especially I don’t know have they compensated to Soviet PoWs and slave workers.

Juha


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## vikingBerserker (May 17, 2009)

I think the first significant killing of POWS/Civilians occured in 1940 by the Russians, "Katyn Massacre".


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 17, 2009)

Soren said:


> Some facts to consider are these:
> 
> The Soviet armed forces, which didn't comply with the rules of the geneva convention, treated German POWs even worse than the Germans treated Soviet POWs, often castrating, cutting off ears and poking out the eyes of captured German soldiers. After this the German soldiers were left for dead later to be found by their comrades. THIS resulted in revengeful retributions such as the massacre of POWs as-well as the burnings of several villages. That is war, and war is hell!



You have it the other way around. The revenge killings started because the Germans were killing the Russian POWs. Don't church it up.



RabidAlien said:


> ed, too.
> 
> 4. Hitler got as far as he did because, quite simply, he was brilliant. He didn't start off rounding up Jews. He started off by giving Germany back its pride. He restored its economy and military. He gave the average citizen a reason to walk around with their heads held high again. Germany has always been a proud, strong nation (ask any number of Roman emperors). The Treaty of Versailles took that from them, and left in its place a smoldering resentment. Hitler fanned that. Give them strength again, give them jobs and a strong economy...then slowly give them an enemy to turn their pent-up anger and frustrations on. Give them subtle radio/news clips that point them in the direction you want them to go...and when they realize where they're headed, its really too late.



That about sums it up. Very well said.



parsifal said:


> And what of the common man, what is his responsibility in all of this. They do have to shoulder a portion of the burden of guilt. It started in 1933, with the election ofa regime that clearly was ammoral and not interested in the rule of law. To try and say that the German nation was duped is utter rubbish. They knew what Hitler was, and decided to seel their souls for thirty pieces of silver regardless. Why???? Well in the case of the anti-semitism it was because most Germans agreed with Hitler, Jews were seen as one of the root causes to Germany's trouble, the 5th column that sneakily stabbed Germany in the back, and robbed her of her victory in 1918. That this is totally baseless is clear now, but the germans allowed their innate prejudices get the better of them, and the final solution was the logical outgrowth of that
> 
> Every German soldier bears a portion of war guilt as well, by the oath of fealty they made to Adolf Hitler personally, and not to the German State. This was not a minor or obscure emantic use of words. At the time it was seen for waht it was, an abject promise to do what was in the interest of Adolf Hitler, and not what was best for the country, or what was right and just. A soldiers job is to protect his country, not a particular individual, and most people saw the oath to Hitler for what is actually was
> 
> When I ponder this subject I always think of John Donnes famous poem , as made famous in by Ernest Hemingway's book bearing the same name



While I agree with you on most accounts of your post, I feel you are very wrong in judging people for electing Hitler. They did not know what he was going to do when they elected them. Also condemning normal soldiers for doing there job (those that did not commit savage acts; and I am sure the majority of 8 million did not do so) is also wrong and quite insulting to the honor of a fighting solder.

Like I said I am *proud* of what my Grandfather did in the Wehrmacht. He served honorably, as any soldier should do for there country.

I think you fail at looking at the overall picture and how these events happen. It is easy to judge every man, woman and child when you were not there...

I am in no way trying to downplay what happened. Germany committed the worst atrocities that mankind has ever seen. We should never forget these things, but we should not shoulder the blame on everyone for it. That would be like saying all Brits should shoulder the blame for treatment of the Scots (that is just plain obsured and ignorant).

If someone did not commit a crime, they have nothing to answer for.

If they were born after 1933, they have nothing to answer for.


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## Waynos (May 17, 2009)

I agree with everything said by Rabid Alien about the reasons Hitler came to power and was so popular except one. It was not a srtrong economy, it only gave the appearance of being so but it was in reality a house of cards that by 1939 faced imminent collapse, guess what happened next.

That is the reason the war began when it did despite Hitler having promised his generals, in accordance with their forward planning, that there would be no war until 1944, he simply could not afford to wait.

Ironically, we are in the same boat with our own economy now, Al Quaeda/Muslim threat anyone? Or maybe I'm being paranoid, it has been known 

edit to add, I am in no way trying to deny the threat posed by murderous extremist nutters, only the extent and scale of the threat as promoted by our leaders to keep us scared.


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## parsifal (May 17, 2009)

Chris

My position is uncompromising on this issue because I am also conscious of the allied contribution to this descent into barbarism. Instead of presenting a strong and uncompromising front to the Nazis, they instead allowed things to slide, things like Czechoslovakia, and the Anschluss. WE sold our souls as well. So what if a few Jews got roughed up every once in a while.....who cares about the Czechs, and Austria, isnt that really part of Germany anyway???? We wanted peace so badly that we were prepared to make sacrifices to our own morality to do that.

The only way to counter a thing like the Nazis is to be uncompromising in the defence of the morally right thing to do. Germany started down the road to oblivion the first time someone looked the other way. We are just as guilty of that.

So if we want to learn from history, the first thing we as individuals have to do is call a spade a spade. The Nazis were evil, they got there in part because of German support and Allied complicity. We, two generations removed from it all do the fallen, and anybody who suffered at the hands of the Nazis a great disservice if we try to approach this issue with good manners foremost in our minds. I believe it important to say "this was evil" "it happened because we let it happen" When it comes to looking for blame, we like to say "it was them, not us" when in this case, it really was us. If we do that, face our own collective failures, we make sure it wont happen again, and 50 million people did not die for nothing


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## Waynos (May 17, 2009)

The thing about appeasement is that while this was going on, at the same time we embarked on the biggest arms programme in history. The shadow factory scheme was set up, fighter command was created and radar developed and installed at the highest priority. We ALWAYS knew we would go to war against Hitler, but we had to be ready. We made the mistake of assuming Germany had greater strength than it really did, and it is the case that had we made a stand against the reoccupation of the Rhineland Hitler would have turned round and gone home. There are two points to be made however. 1. This would not have prevented war, only delayed it, prolonging the suffering of German jews while strengthening Germany's position and 2. This was a miscalculation, not a criminal act.

Britain and France *could not* go to war any earlier than they did with the intelligence that was available. France fell quickly anyway. A combined British and French capitulation in 1936/7 would have acheived what? A clear conscience? I am glad things panned out the way they did overall.


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## pbfoot (May 17, 2009)

parsifal said:


> JUuha
> 
> Finland fought what I consider to be an honourable war. It is the only country in Europe that did not persecute any minority, and absolutely refused to hand over any Jews, foreign or nationals to the Nazis.


how about Denmark


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## parsifal (May 17, 2009)

pbfoot said:


> how about Denmark



Capitulating to the enemy without even firing a shot in resistance is not honourable. The Danes thought they would escape Nazi mistreatment if they collaborated. They were mistaken, and in 1943 they paid an even higher price


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## Marcel (May 17, 2009)

The Germans must have known. My grandparents did know at that time (1943-1945) and they were Dutch, being occupied by Germany, so I cannot imagine the majority of the Germans not knowing what happened.




parsifal said:


> Capitulating to the enemy without even firing a shot in resistance is not honourable.



Remember, in a war, especially WWII, honour is a myth. I would not judge the Danish on this fact.


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## parsifal (May 17, 2009)

Waynos said:


> The thing about appeasement is that while this was going on, at the same time we embarked on the biggest arms programme in history. The shadow factory scheme was set up, fighter command was created and radar developed and installed at the highest priority. We ALWAYS knew we would go to war against Hitler, but we had to be ready. We made the mistake of assuming Germany had greater strength than it really did, and it is the case that had we made a stand against the reoccupation of the Rhineland Hitler would have turned round and gone home. There are two points to be made however. 1. This would not have prevented war, only delayed it, prolonging the suffering of German jews while strengthening Germany's position and 2. This was a miscalculation, not a criminal act.
> 
> Britain and France *could not* go to war any earlier than they did with the intelligence that was available. France fell quickly anyway. A combined British and French capitulation in 1936/7 would have acheived what? A clear conscience? I am glad things panned out the way they did overall.



Appeasement was not part of some grander , cunning plan to fool Hitler whilst we busily rearmed ourselves. It was a idealistic dream of achieving peace at any cost . It represents a near total abrogation of our responsibilities as guardians of freedom. far from achieving peace, or re-armament, it nearly cost us our freedom, and costs millions of lives to right a wrong that should have been fixed 10 years earlier (from 1945)

We should have acted at the first legal opportunity to intervene. Likely triggers could have been the repudiation of the Versailles treaty, the remilitarization of the Rhineland. There was a not ashortage of material or intelligence, just a shortage of the necessary will to do the right thing.

Churchill was about the only prominant figure who was seriously calling for a united stand against the Germans. Others were far less honourable, and in fact I consider them to be all but traitors. Stalin, for all his malevolence saw that as well. He had wanted to re-constitute the old entente with the allies, but they were so weak (in character), and so indecisive at the time that he knew he could not trust them. 

But the thing that really stands out for me, with regard to the holocaust has nothing to do with the high events of the time. It has to do with a little boatload of Jewish refugees trying to escape Hitlers Germany just before the war. About 500 Jews chartered a liner and departed hamburg, trying to escape the Nazi tyranny. They went to France, Britain, the US, even Mexico, in a desperate bid to be given assylum. Each country shamefully refused them entry, until at last they were forced to return to Germany, wher I believe most of them were incarcerated in Dachau, where they perished. This one little incident, so insignificant to the world stage says volumes about the depths of moral decay the western democracies had sunk to

So the western nations cannot hide behind the veil of appeasement as some grandiose plan to buy time. In the lead up to the war every day that went by saw the Germans pull ever more ahead in the military arms race that was occurring. The allies were set to overtake the germans by 1941 in military production, but that was because of initiatives that followed the fall of Czechoslovakia....what were the allies doing before that. I venture to accuse that they were selling their souls to obtain peace at any cost.......


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## Njaco (May 17, 2009)

Soren, I would not be so quick to throw a Catholic grace upon the German army or Hitler. One of the tenets of National Socialism, as stated in 'Mein Kampf" was that along with Jews and Communists was also to rid the Catholics. But there were far too many complications with that so for a large part, it was ignored. Catholics were another group of people that Hitler wanted to get rid of.


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## Waynos (May 17, 2009)

I did not seek to portray appeasement as a cunning plan. rather an act of desperation following years of neglect and decay that began as soon as WW1 was finished, leaving us in no state to make a stand against anybody.

It is true that Chamberlain hoped to avoid a war, as everyone did at that time, but it is equally true that the work to create the tools to beat Germany, that we made such vital use of when the time came, began then and was largely instigated by the likes of Chamberlain who we so comfortably lambast from our modern position blessed with 100% hindsight.

I think that to understand the decisions made at that time one has to place oneself firmly in the mindset of the time. After all, is it so hard to understand the real desperation to avoid a war that existed when the biggest and most horrific killing spree that man had ever known had ended only a decade and a bit before? This was a fresh horror, not a history lesson like it is to us. And yet, despite this, the preparations were being made, because it was accepted that we would have to make that stand.

I asked the question earlier, what would a total capitulation in the mid 30's (let us not forget, to the total disinterest of the USA) have achieved? Ifind the position of those who seek to criminalise anyone and everyone who did not actively seek to put a stop to Nazism in its early days a little too simplistic a view for my taste. I do not mean that in a derogatory way to any individual person, but I just find the standpoint too easy an option to take.


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## pbfoot (May 17, 2009)

parsifal said:


> Capitulating to the enemy without even firing a shot in resistance is not honourable. The Danes thought they would escape Nazi mistreatment if they collaborated. They were mistaken, and in 1943 they paid an even higher price


read your history please , 16 Danes died although not a lot I don't believe they had a chance to react it was over before they knew about it


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 17, 2009)

Marcel said:


> The Germans must have known. My grandparents did know at that time (1943-1945) and they were Dutch, being occupied by Germany, so I cannot imagine the majority of the Germans not knowing what happened.



By 1943 to 1945 the truth was certainly coming out. I completely agree with that. My grandparents even said the same thing. By the later stages of the war it impossible to not know what was going on.

The question though is, what could they have done about it?


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## Marcel (May 17, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> By 1943 to 1945 the truth was certainly coming out. I completely agree with that. My grandparents even said the same thing. By the later stages of the war it impossible to not know what was going on.
> 
> The question though is, what could they have done about it?



Well, what the Dutch did about it, almost nothing. 

Of course, quite a number of Jews and other "undesirable" went "under water" here, hiding with non-jewish families. But it was dangerous for the host families and many people didn't have the guts to do this, which is quite understandable if you see what happened to the people that were caught.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 17, 2009)

Marcel said:


> But it was dangerous for the host families and many people didn't have the guts to do this, which is quite understandable if you see what happened to the people that were caught.



Yeap, and I think a lot of people fail to realize that today.


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## parsifal (May 17, 2009)

pbfoot said:


> read your history please , 16 Danes died although not a lot I don't believe they had a chance to react it was over before they knew about it



I agree that it was difficult and futile, however, i also believe that most Danes beleved that collaboration would make it easier and better for their country. In other words, sacrifice some of the nations moral fibre in order to make life easier. Rememeber your original question, was Denmarks war honourable.

The 1939 election in Denmark had a campaign slogan "Whats the Point?" meaning we should collaborate. Danes came to regret the decision to collaborate.

There were also Danes who served in the SS, and I believe Danes who reported Jews to the SD for deportation. Not many.....I think only about 50 (I should check, I cant remembe the exact numberr), but enough to taint the nations honour

Just before the war, ther was a bloc of nations, the neutrals, that signed an agreement called the Oslo Accords. Essentially this group of nations wanted to stay out of the war at any cost, siding with neither side. I dont remeber all of the member countries, but the ones I do remember include Belgium, Holland Denmeark, and Norway. All of these nations ended up under Nazi domination, and by electing to adopt a "neutral" status in fact assisted the Nazis. Belgium, for example, refused to allow the allies to enter Belgium before the 1940 invasion, and paid a very heavy price for it....what might have happened if the belgians had joined the alliesas they should and allowed the passage of the french army into the Ruhr in 1939. Perhaps the fate of Poland might not have been so pointless if they had. In Norway, the intransigence and passive support of the Nazis was exposed with the Altmark affair.....Norwegians saying they had boarded and searched the ship, saying they found nothing, only to have their complicity exposed by Captain Vian, boarding and releasing over 300 allied sailors held captive.

These are the actions of a morally bankrupt regime. If the members of the oslo alliance had sided with the allies rather than play games in the middle, they might not have all survived, but they would have emerged with a less tarnished reputation. And honour for nations remains a very important commodity.

I agree with Churchill...."the enemy of my enemy is my friend" he also was very critical of the neutrals, threatening at one stage of the war to declare war on Turkey because of its continued complicity with the Nazis. There is only one way to deal with phenomena like the Nazis, and that is to be uncompromising in the stand that you take


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## pbfoot (May 17, 2009)

parsifal said:


> I agree that it was difficult and futile, however, i also believe that most Danes beleved that collaboration would make it easier and better for their country. In other words, sacrifice some of the nations moral fibre in order to make life easier. Rememeber your original question, was Denmarks war honourable.
> 
> The 1939 election in Denmark had a campaign slogan "Whats the Point?" meaning we should collaborate. Danes came to regret the decision to collaborate.
> 
> There were also Danes who served in the SS, and I believe Danes who reported Jews to the SD for deportation. Not many.....I think only about 50 (I should check, I cant remembe the exact numberr), but enough to taint the nations honour


Yes Denmarks war was admirable


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## trackend (May 17, 2009)

I think that the figures are too large as to a how many died in the consentration camps or in the war as a whole, only very rough estimates are possible despite the documentation that was uncovered at the end of the conflict. As for how many knew what was going on again this will only ever be an estimate. We will never know for sure how many knew but would never admit to having known. I can only speculate that IMHO the numbers of camps in exsistance must have meant that many thousands of non camp running Germans probably did know of their exsistance and what was happening behind the wire.


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## Soren (May 17, 2009)

About the catholic church and the Germany army; Christianity in Europe during WWII


*Adler,*

I am not churching anything up, the Wehrmacht didn't start off executing Soviet POW's, this started after the partisan attacks and mutilation of captured Wehrmacht troops. But the Soviet POWs were neglected from start to finish, and simply because there was no way of feeding them. 

The murder of soviet POW's was mainly carried out by the shooting squads the Gestapo. They started it, and the Soviets followed up on it by murdering and mutilating what ever Germans they could capture, and this often meant Wehrmacht soldiers. And so the Wehrmacht carried out their own reprisals, which remarkably weren't worse than they were. Seeing ones buddy mutilated in the manner that some of the captured Wehrmacht soldiers were would send nearly any soldier into a bloodlusting rage. 

*Parsifal,*

You should really read up on Denmarks part in WW2. If anyone was honourable, Denmark was. Denmark's intelligence service was quoted by Churchill as "second to none" and vital to a lot of Allied successes.

Denmark also made sure that nearly no jews were handed over to the Germans, with nearly all being safely sailed to Sweden.


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## syscom3 (May 17, 2009)

In 1943, if someone had told me that their were going to be camps set up that were going to be atrocities committed upon political prisoners that would shock the soul; I would have believed it possible.

If someone in 1943 told me there were going to be death camps established where men, woman and children would go in and executed the same day, I would never have believed it possible.

At a certain point, the mind just shuts down and refuses to accept that atrocities are being committed in ones name. Not to excuse any of the Germans who were old enough to understand what was happening, but the events of the time make "normal" people refuse to acknowledge evil deeds being done.


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## Njaco (May 17, 2009)

Soren, you may be correct in agreeing with Mr. Walker's assumption on the Nazis and the Vatican but I remember my impression after reading 'Mein kampf' and the books by William Shirer that Hitler held no love for catholics - maybe not as much as he had for the jews but close.


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## Soren (May 17, 2009)

Njaco,

It's not just Jim Walker, the author of the site, you can read about it many other places. 

But it's true that in general Hitler didn't like any form of religion, the difference was just that he loathed the jews and not the christians which he claimed to actually be helping.


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## Njaco (May 18, 2009)

Thanks, I'm not going to argue the refrences he has. Like I said, I alsways thought based on what I have read, the Catholics weren't out of the gunsights either.


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## Seawitch (May 18, 2009)

Soren said:


> The ordinary German knew nothing of it.


Now thats what most of them say! I don't believe the ordinary German was so gullible either, events like 'Crystal night' put to many ordinary Germans in the picture.
Then again, Hitler said 'The bigger the lie...the more people will believe it'.......but is that true?
I'm half German by the way, quite convenient at a time like this and an Anglo German football match.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 18, 2009)

Soren said:


> *Adler,*
> 
> I am not churching anything up, the Wehrmacht didn't start off executing Soviet POW's, this started after the partisan attacks and mutilation of captured Wehrmacht troops. But the Soviet POWs were neglected from start to finish, and simply because there was no way of feeding them.
> 
> The murder of soviet POW's was mainly carried out by the shooting squads the Gestapo. They started it, and the Soviets followed up on it by murdering and mutilating what ever Germans they could capture, and this often meant Wehrmacht soldiers. And so the Wehrmacht carried out their own reprisals, which remarkably weren't worse than they were. Seeing ones buddy mutilated in the manner that some of the captured Wehrmacht soldiers were would send nearly any soldier into a bloodlusting rage.




Yes the poor Germans were always innocent Soren. You are correct...


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## Juha (May 18, 2009)

Soren
It’s very difficult to believe that it was impossible to feed the PoWs during summer and autumn 1941. And so it is not surprising that not even Alfred Rosenberg, the former editor of the Voelkische Beobachter and from summer 1941 the Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories didn’t think so. See from one of links Parsifal gave, Rosenberg Letter to Keitel Concerning Maltreatment of USSR Prisoners of War, 28 February 1942 his letter to Keitel on 28 Feb 42. There a high ranking nazi official tries to convict the highest ranking Wehrmacht officer that it wasn’t in Germany’s interest that Soviet PoWs were dying like flies and gives some simple advices how that can be avoided. 

And see secret order to his troops by one of notable German fieldmarshals. 
Secret Field Marshal v.Reichenau Order Concerning Conduct of Troops in the Eastern Territories, 10 October 1941
The secret order of Field Marshal v. Reichenau, CG of 6th Army, 10 Oct 41, especially the last part of it.

Von Reichenau was an extreme case but he had a big army in his command and so his orders had wide impact.

Juha


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## Amsel (May 18, 2009)

> Secret Field Marshal v.Reichenau Order Concerning Conduct of Troops in the Eastern Territories, 10 October 1941


If you take away the nasty racial cannotations, I really don't see anything wrong with these memos. Most of the orders seem vital to invading a large country while being involved in total war.


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## Soren (May 18, 2009)

The German army had a ZERO I repeat ZERO ability to feed the millions of Soviet POWs they had under their custody. All the food the nation could produce was already occupied by the German armed forces, and there was simply no way of feeding that number of POWs. So neglect was the only option, that or waste precious ammunition by shooting the prisoners or the unthinkable idea of sending them back to reenlist in the Soviet army. The path chosen was an obvious one.

The executions done by the Wehrmacht were nothing but reprisals, which are bad enough in themselves, provoked by the murder, torture mutilation of Wehrmacht personnel by the Soviets. And the Nazies started it all by murdering Soviet POWs in cold blood.



DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Yes the poor Germans were always innocent Soren. You are correct...



Adler why are you being like this ? You're acting like a child for christ sake! 

Did I say the Germans were innocent? No on the contrary I made it quite clear that the Germans started it, the Soviets then returned the favor. Only point made was that it wasn't the Wehrmacht who started shooting POW's, it was the Gestapo SS shooting squads. The Soviets answered back by murdering mutilating any German soldier they could get their hands on, be it Wehrmacht or SS troops. This in return stirred up reprisals by Wehrmacht.


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## Juha (May 18, 2009)

Soren
Quote: “The German army had a ZERO I repeat ZERO ability to feed the millions of Soviet POWs they had under their custody.”

The point is that the Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories thought otherwise, and I’m inclined to believe that he knew the food situation better than you. And if you read his letter he wanted to use Russian/Ukrainian etc. food supplies to feed the PoWs not German ones.

Amsel
As I saw the order it clear indications that reprisals against civilians were in order and Jews would suffer, IMHO both were against international law, so no wonder that these were secret orders.

Juha


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## Amsel (May 18, 2009)

Juha said:


> Soren
> Quote: “The German army had a ZERO I repeat ZERO ability to feed the millions of Soviet POWs they had under their custody.”
> 
> The point is that the Reichsminister for the Occupied Eastern Territories thought otherwise, and I’m inclined to believe that he knew the food situation better than you. And if you read his letter he wanted to use Russian/Ukrainian etc. food supplies to feed the PoWs not German ones.
> ...


I don't know about that. If you are fighting as a civilian you don't have many rights anywhere. The referals to the Jews is against international law and is evil, but partisans are not protected and martial law is common in warzones. International law is not often follwed in any war.


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## Juha (May 18, 2009)

Hello Amsel
I meant this part. "These measures will be extended to that part of the male population who were in a position to hinder or report the attacks. The indifference of numerous apparently anti-soviet elements which originates from a "wait and see" attitude, must give way to a clear decision for active collaboration. If not, no one can com-plain about being judged and treated a member of the Soviet System."

IMHO a state could legally demand loyalty from its citizen but an occupaing force couldn't LEGALLY demand in pain of death that citizens of an enemy state actively hindered forces of their state.

Juha


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## Amsel (May 18, 2009)

Point taken, Juha.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 18, 2009)

Soren said:


> Adler why are you being like this ? You're acting like a child for christ sake!



I told you before in a pm.


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## BombTaxi (May 18, 2009)

Reichenau's order was, and still is, despicable, and the efforts of the Wehrmacht to implement it give the lie to the oft-repeated myth that the SS were the evil guys and the Wehrmacht were just humble soldiers trying to fight with honour. It wasn't just about killing Jews and partisans (awful as that was), it was also about killing ordinary Russian civilians on the slightest of pretexts. Hoth and Manstein (himself part Jewish) also endorsed violent action against Jews in occupied territory, and even Paulus admitted that the generals by and large complied with Nazi wishes and thereby (and I quote from his time in Soviet captivity) "became completely involved in the consequences and of his [Hitler's] policies and conduct of the war". It was also clear the senior German commanders viewed Judaism and 'Bolshevism' as being part of the same ideological system which needed to be eradicated. By implication, it seems that Soviet POWs and civilians could expect little better from the Wehrmacht than Jews could. 

(Source: Anthony Beevor, _Stalingrad_, Penguin Books, 1999)

I am not saying that the Russians were innocent - thier systematic campaign of rape and looting through Germany in 1945 remains one of the most vile and horrific acts commited by an army against a civilian population, after the conduct of the Germans in Russia in earlier years. But to say that the persecution of Jews was the work of Nazi extremists and not decent ordinary Germans is simply not true - hte Wehrmacht was involved from the top down in this persecution, and no amount of rationalising or excuses will make that fact go away...


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## syscom3 (May 18, 2009)

BombTaxi said:


> ......
> 
> I am not saying that the Russians were innocent - thier systematic campaign of rape and looting through Germany in 1945 remains one of the most vile and horrific acts commited by an army against a civilian population, ....



Sometimes revenge must be taken. In the rationale of total war in 1945, the Russians cannot be faulted for leveling the score.


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## BombTaxi (May 18, 2009)

Absolutely, I cannot deny that it made perfect sense in that time and place, but it was vile nonetheless.


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## Amsel (May 18, 2009)

syscom3 said:


> Sometimes revenge must be taken. In the rationale of total war in 1945, the Russians cannot be faulted for leveling the score.


They should have leveled the score against their own despicable goverment as well. The Russians just killed you if you were captured and repatriated, man or women. I have read Antony Beevors book on Stalingrad, as well as The Fall of Berlin 1945. The Eastern front was a despicable war, but it was needed to grind down two of the most horrific regimes in the history of the world. Both regimes were antisemitic and the genocide upon the Russians and Jews was horrific, I pity the Russians who were being killed by the Germans and in greater numbers by their own goverment. Hitlers terrible hate for the Jews ad Slavs were Germany's undoing, and that just shows what happens to people who rely on their goverments. Totalarianism is no excuse, there should have been a rebellion; the problem being that the nation of Germany didn't have a problem with the treatment of the Jewish people so rebellion was unlikely.


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## Soren (May 18, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> I told you before in a pm.



No you didn't. You just said I was biased, thats it. Do you feel that justifies you acting like a child ? Come on.


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## Soren (May 19, 2009)

Regarding the letter to Keitel,

Fact is that in the letter sent to Keitel it is NOWHERE mentioned that Germany could feed the 3+ million Soviet POWs under custody in the east. It is requested that they be fed within the framework of possibility, unfortunately that meant no food at all.

For there to be enough food for the Soviet POWs the German government would have had to get the POWs into labor first, that was the only way that enough food could be produced for these 3+ million people. And that is also exactly what Rosenberg requests in the letter to Keitel.


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## vikingBerserker (May 19, 2009)

In 1940 Stalin ordered the execution of 22k Polish Officiers (most were POWs from the Russian invasion of Poland) and it was carried out so the mentality started before the German invasion.

I find it interesting that we always hear about the Holocaust but we hardly ever hear about Stalin starving the Ukraines from 1932-1933 when 6-7 million people starved so he could make a point. 
Ukrainian Famine
Both are equally horrific.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 19, 2009)

Soren said:


> No you didn't. You just said I was biased, thats it. Do you feel that justifies you acting like a child ? Come on.



Keep it up Soren. You think I am acting like a child now? Let's go...



vikingBerserker said:


> I find it interesting that we always hear about the Holocaust but we hardly ever hear about Stalin starving the Ukraines from 1932-1933 when 6-7 million people starved so he could make a point.
> Ukrainian Famine
> Both are equally horrific.



The victor always gets to right history, but you are very correct. Many people look past that Stalin was just as evil as Hitler was.


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## Juha (May 19, 2009)

Soren
Of course I’m not surprised your comment but from the letter

Quote: “Anyhow, with a certain amount of understanding for goals aimed at by German politics, dying and deterioration could have been avoided in the extent described. For instance, according to information on hand, the native population within the Soviet Union are absolutely willing to put food at the disposal of the prisoners of war. Several understanding camp commanders have successfully chosen this course. However in the majority of the cases, the camp commanders have forbidden the civilian population to put food at the disposal of the prisoners, and they have rather let them starve to death….”

So Rosenberg clearly saw that local food supplies were not utilized in majority of cases and that caused numerous unnecessary deaths.

Quote: “Even on the march to the camps, the civilian population was not allowed to give the prisoners of war food. In many cases, when prisoners of war could no longer keep up on the march because of hunger and exhaustion, they were shot before the eyes of the horrified civilian population, and the corpses were left.”

And how this differ from Bataan Death March?

Quote: “In numerous camps, no shelter for the prisoners of war was provided at all. They lay under the open sky during rain or snow. Even tools were not made available to dig holes or caves.”

If one didn’t provide any shelter against elements for PoWs in Russian winter or even tools to those to construct them themselves, IMO he has acted criminally.

Juha


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## Juha (May 19, 2009)

Hello vikingBerserker
Yes Stalin rule was very bloody, probably bloodier than that of Hitler’s. But it seemed to have been a bit less aggressive but maybe Stalin only had more patience.
On Katyn, a heinous crime and it wasn’t only a massive murder of Polish officers because most of them were reserve officers and so also part of Polish intelligence, teachers, lawyers etc.

It seems that Katyn would also have been the last stop to Finnish reserve officers and Suojeluskuntalaiset (members of voluntary military organization) if we had went under during the Winter War. 

Juha


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## parsifal (May 19, 2009)

An intersting postulation. What would have been the outcome if the Germans had won, in the sense that they conquered western europe and then managed to make peace with the british. would the nazi regime have survived the eventual death of hitler....what would have happened in post hitlerian europe, in say the liberated '60s. Would there have been a nazi regime today? Was the 1000 year reich ever a possibility? Would the Germanpeople, once they had enslaved western europe have been content with going back to being just plain Germans, or would they have clung onto the master race bs????


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## RabidAlien (May 19, 2009)

It might not have had Hitler's mania running it, but I think Nazi Germany would have lasted for quite a bit longer before self-destructing. There's always bullies and brutes about, and plenty of political types who would have been more than happy to pick up his torch and carry it. Even if someone decent had been elected (say, Rommel), he still would have been surrounded by fanatics and would have had to perform his own sweeping set of purges to safely change the course of Germany. I think Germany would have coasted along happily for a decade or two, as the conquered territories would have provided a boost to their economy, but it would only be a matter of time before they would have to turn their sights on new and fresh sources of economic influx. I can't imagine North America buying too much into German-made products simply due to the slave-labor involved in creating them. So it would only be a matter of time before Germany and the US/Canada teamed back up with the British. That conflict I shudder to even think about.


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## Njaco (May 19, 2009)

I don't think Occupied Europe would have lasted long. Underground resistance would have grown very strong and maintained pressure to return a country (France, Denmark, etc.) back to its idenity and sovernty.


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## Glider (May 19, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I don't think Occupied Europe would have lasted long. Underground resistance would have grown very strong and maintained pressure to return a country (France, Denmark, etc.) back to its idenity and sovernty.



I would love to agree with you on this but I cannot. I believe that more French people fought for the Germans against the resistance, than for the resistance. With that background I don't see the resistance lasting long.

Most French I believe would have gone for the quiet life and not put up much resistance. They had fought the war, lost to the Germans (again) and morale would have been too low.


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## Colin1 (May 19, 2009)

RabidAlien said:


> ...So it would only be a matter of time before Germany and the US/Canada teamed back up with the British. That conflict I shudder to even think about.


It would certainly have a massive effect on the complexion of any future war
With Europe and the Soviet Union under Nazi occupation, the UK as an 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' would effectively have its strategic relevance halved, largely because Nazi forces are now approx 54 miles away from sovereign US territory - across the Bering Straits.
This would be a far safer jump-off point for an invasion for the Nazis than the UK would be for US/Canadian forces, assets required making their way to the ports across land, rather than US/Canadian assets making their way across the Atlantic, this would significantly limit their irretrievable losses, that is to say a a de-railed train-load of tanks on their way to the Bering can be recovered, a ship-load at the bottom of the Atlantic can not. A troopship pays more dividends per successful strike than a large, road-going troop convoy which can easily disperse at the first sign of trouble.

The UK would still be attractive as a means of maintaining a second front and dividing Nazi forces but we would need to consider US resolve to release assets to Europe with a potential major Nazi breakthrough coming in through Alaska and sweeping south into the US.

If the Japanese haven't subjugated the Chinese, then a Chinese/Australian/NZ presence in China could relieve some of the pressure from a determined Nazi thrust across the Bering.

Furthermore, the conundrum could not be allowed to fester for 'a decade or two' this would allow the Nazis time to develop their newly-conquered territories for war manufacture as well as birthing a generation of fighting-age men by whatever nefarious means.


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## evangilder (May 19, 2009)

Colin, a major Nazi breakthrough coming all the way through Alaska ans 'sweeping south into the US' would have to cover a LOT of territory. That is a huge distance, and would have to pass through Canada to even reach the US.


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## Colin1 (May 19, 2009)

evangilder said:


> Colin, a major Nazi breakthrough coming all the way through Alaska ans 'sweeping south into the US' would have to cover a LOT of territory. That is a huge distance, and would have to pass through Canada to even reach the US.


If they've defeated the Soviet Union, why would the continental US be regarded any differently?
It doesn't alter the fact that Nazi Germany is no longer across the Atlantic but on the US's back doorstep.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 19, 2009)

parsifal said:


> An intersting postulation. What would have been the outcome if the Germans had won, in the sense that they conquered western europe and then managed to make peace with the british. would the nazi regime have survived the eventual death of hitler....what would have happened in post hitlerian europe, in say the liberated '60s. Would there have been a nazi regime today? Was the 1000 year reich ever a possibility? Would the Germanpeople, once they had enslaved western europe have been content with going back to being just plain Germans, or would they have clung onto the master race bs????



Check out the movie "The Fatherland". Really good movie that kind of dables in that subject.


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## Ferdinand Foch (May 19, 2009)

Hey Negative Creep. I don't know if your still having trouble with your essay, but I thought that this might help. My high school history teacher had a book called, "Hitler's Willing Executioners; Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust." I haven't read it myself, but it was a national bestseller, so it has to be alright (Hope this helps). 
As for the original topic, with my personal feelings, and after looking at some of the arguements here, I gotta say that that the German people had to have known that something was up. I mean, between Mein Kampf, the Kristallnact, and the speeches that Hitler gave before WWII, that would have had to have known that something was bound to happen, maybe not on the scale that it was, but at least something. 
That being said, I doubt that many people would have wanted to speak up, or else if they wanted to disappear in the middle of the night. This reminds me of the scene in "Swing Kids," where one of the main characters (I forget his name), turns in his own father to the Gestapo for criticizing the Nazi Regime, in his own home! Yeah, so because of that, I doubt that many people would want to speak out. 

Njaco: How was Mein Kampf to read? I tried reading a few years back, but I could only get about two pages in. To me, Hitler was just too full of himself, was too vain for my taste.


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## Marcel (May 19, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Check out the movie "The Fatherland". Really good movie that kind of dables in that subject.



The book is much better.


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## Njaco (May 19, 2009)

Ferdinand, its been about 20 years or more but I remember that first impression it wasn't nothing special but as I recognized the history of the book I was kinda amazed. It seemed IIRC to me that he wanted to blame everybody and saw himself as the new Neitschze (spelling). It seemed logical but you had to read between the lines.


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## Amsel (May 19, 2009)

Colin1 said:


> If they've defeated the Soviet Union, why would the continental US be regarded any differently?
> It doesn't alter the fact that Nazi Germany is no longer across the Atlantic but on the US's back doorstep.


The same reason that the Nazis couldn't defeat the UK applies to the U.S. The combined seapower of the allied forces would make it difficult to do a land invasion through the Bering sea. Also the geography of Alaska, Western Canada, and the Pacific Northwest would be an enormous obstacle. That is not counting the nuclear option that the U.S. developed and used to great effect in the PTO.


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## BombTaxi (May 19, 2009)

The Third Reich would have imploded within decades of winning WWII. The whole society and economy was geared to warfare and could not survive without it.

Just a note on comparison's of Hitler to Nietszche. These often arise because both men were great users of the terms _ubermensch_ and _untermensch_. They did not have the same meaning. While Hitler used these terms in a racial context, Nietszche used them to describe individuals who had either broken away from the slave mentality that he attributed to Christian society, or to describe those who could not do this. While reading Nietzsche, especially _Thus Spoke Zarathustra_, the reader may see some germs of Hitler's later ideas, but this was not Nietzches intent, and the man himself showed no sign of sympathising with the views Hitler held three decades after his death. 

It is ironic that in his lifetime, Nietzsche was intellectually associated with anarchist movements, and it was in this context that attempts were made to ban his work in the 1890s. As well as having a small influence on Nazi thought, Nietzsche has been a mojor influence on intellectuals such as Sartre, Camus, Derrida, Heidegger and Foucault. Other fans of Nietzsche include de Gaulle, Mussolini, Theodore Roosevelt, Theodore Herzl and Richard Nixon. All in all, a widely read philosopher, interpreted in various ways by all sides of the political spectrum. I tend to feel his branding as a proto-fascist is unfair and based on very narrow interpretations of some his work... but you probably guessed that 

MODS: My apologies in advance for straying into political territory, I just wanted to make the point about Nietzsche not being a fascist. Please delete the relevant section of the post if you feel I have overstepped the mark. 

Thanks

BT


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## Colin1 (May 19, 2009)

Amsel said:


> The same reason that the Nazis couldn't defeat the UK applies to the U.S. The combined seapower of the allied forces would make it difficult to do a land invasion through the Bering sea. Also the geography of Alaska, Western Canada, and the Pacific Northwest would be an enormous obstacle. That is not counting the nuclear option that the U.S. developed and used to great effect in the PTO.


Fair points Amsel
but it's worth considering that an undefeated Nazi Germany would likely have a nuclear capability too


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 19, 2009)

Marcel said:


> The book is much better.



That is the truth for most book/movies.


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## RabidAlien (May 19, 2009)

I had envisioned a ColdWar-type decade or two, eventually erupting into conflict...a lull that would allow two war-weary nations to re-arm and re-gear.


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## parsifal (May 19, 2009)

Colin1 said:


> If they've defeated the Soviet Union, why would the continental US be regarded any differently?
> It doesn't alter the fact that Nazi Germany is no longer across the Atlantic but on the US's back doorstep.




If I could just clarify my original post.....I was assuming that peace was made with Britiain, and that the Soviets had not invaded. I was also not so interested in external threats, though the forign relations issue would have been intersting, rather, whether the essentially imperialist and reactionary Nazi dogmas could have survived long after the death of Hitler. To what extent could the ordinary Germans give up their priveleged position as the "master race"? How would the nazi creed have travelled in the post war liberation movements such as the liberal '60s, the gay rights movement etc. I think it would have been an utter train wreck for Germany and the rest of occupied Europe. Trade wise the Nazi regime was very innefficient.....I think Eurpoe woulod have descended very quickly to occupy a kiund of third world subculture, fullk of racial nutters and complete contradictionsi


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## Soren (May 20, 2009)

DerAdlerIstGelandet said:


> Keep it up Soren. You think I am acting like a child now? Let's go...



Let's go ? Let's go where ? Starbucks ? I crave for coffee.


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## Njaco (May 20, 2009)

Thanks BT. It was shortly after I read "Mein Kampf" that I decided to check out Neitzsche and only read a few parts of "Thus Spoke...." It was taxing after a while and its been 20+ years since I've read both books. Basically a lazy man's 'been there, done that'. Thanks for the insight.


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## BombTaxi (May 20, 2009)

Njaco said:


> Thanks BT. It was shortly after I read "Mein Kampf" that I decided to check out Neitzsche and only read a few parts of "Thus Spoke...." It was taxing after a while and its been 20+ years since I've read both books. Basically a lazy man's 'been there, done that'. Thanks for the insight.



No problem 8) I read Geanealogy of Morality for the Philosophy half of my BA, and Nietszche is second only to Foucault in my list of geniuses who are almost impossible to read. I have read Thus Spoke..., but it was a while back, I might try and re-acquaint myself when I have some time off soon...


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## Kiwikid (May 22, 2009)

One of the major psychological factors was the near starvation from blockade in WW1 and the humiliation of the German people by the Treaty of Versailes followed by hyperinflation and communist uprisings in 1923 made the German people hungry for a saviour to restore pride and hope...

By the time they realised he was a nutter it was too late.


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## tango35 (May 23, 2009)

As the starter of this therad said right its a sensitive subject and as a German i spoke with my family about this time often. The so called " little" man heard rumours , especially when he was living on the country side.
But it was forbidden by law to intervene or to support the Jews, Commies, gays, etc. otherwise the supporter were sent to prison or to the camps.
In that time every german could know it by reading Mein Kampf, and it right in the beginning the germans could see the jewstars on the clothing, but they had the Police, Gestapo and so after installing the System Hitler there were no chance to stop it from Germany it self.

Interesting are other points, a) why closed the rest of the world their border for jewish refugees ? and b) if the the allied airforces had the capabilities to bomb single cars or strafe single soldiers why they didnt bomb the railways to the Concentration Camps ?? or were there a plan not to do it ?

For my opinion here we had now over 65 years of reflection about why it happened.


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## DerAdlerIstGelandet (May 24, 2009)

tango35 said:


> As the starter of this therad said right its a sensitive subject and as a German i spoke with my family about this time often. The so called " little" man heard rumours , especially when he was living on the country side.
> But it was forbidden by law to intervene or to support the Jews, Commies, gays, etc. otherwise the supporter were sent to prison or to the camps.
> In that time every german could know it by reading Mein Kampf, and it right in the beginning the germans could see the jewstars on the clothing, but they had the Police, Gestapo and so after installing the System Hitler there were no chance to stop it from Germany it self.



Very good points. As I said before, I think a lot of people choose not to understand this. It is not a lack of understanding, but they choose not to understand.


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## Njaco (May 24, 2009)

I think the Allies were not aware to the extent of what was happening although there were tells - from jewish immigrants to, I believe, even the Vatican. May have dismissed it as too far fetched.


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## Marcel (May 24, 2009)

Njaco said:


> I think the Allies were not aware to the extent of what was happening although there were tells - from jewish immigrants to, I believe, even the Vatican. May have dismissed it as too far fetched.



I think they knew/suspected, or at least partly. I also think that many would have liked to interfere, but the priority wasn't high. I think their priority was first defeat Germany military. Helping the Jews was not a way to do that, so it wasn't done. One way or the other, the Jews only hope were those few people willing to stick their necks out and hide their Jewish coutrymen. I think the only thing you could accuse the German people of is that there weren't enough people brave enough. Hiding and helping Jews could be done as is shown by many stories, but it was extremely risky and you needed nerves of steel to do it.


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## BombTaxi (May 24, 2009)

The refusal of other countires (including the UK) to accept the Jewish refugees is a shameful fact which has been buried (in a most convenient manner) by the enormity of the atrocity the Germans went on to perpetrate. It is also a symptom of times. Anti-Semitism was rife not only in Germany and Russia, but all over Europe. The UK's own history of anti-Semitism stretched back to at least the 13th century, and it had been particularly rife in the poorer parts of London during the closing decades of the 19th century - so much so that it fact played a moajor role in the Jack the Ripper case of the late 1800s.It was also a factor in the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s in France. Anyone familar with the social history of the era should not be surprised at the reaction of other European countries to the westward flow of Jewish refugees.

As for deliberately targeting the camp infrastructure, my belief is that a combination of entrenched attitudes about Jews, ignorance/disbelief of the true scale of the Holocaust, and the pressing need to support the invasion of Occupied Europe combined to prevent a specific intervention being made. Perhaps with hindsight we can say more should have been done; but at the time the plight of the Jews must have seemd to be a relatively minor issue in the wider strategic context.


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## Juha (May 25, 2009)

IMHO
France took rather many Jewish refugees from Germany before the WWII and even if there was fairly strong anti-Semitism in French society some 4/5 of French Jewry was saved by ordinary French people who hided them. 
And UK have had a long serving Jewish Prime Minister in late part of 19th century, so even if there was anti-semitism it wasn’t all powerful.

On bombing of rail-connections to KLs, now at lest the biggest killing KL, Auswitz-Birkenau was very far from UK or Southern Italy where Allied a/fs were and seemed to have had good rail-connections, so it would have been very difficult to cut those connections, especially when we know that effective cutting demanded constant bombing, otherwise connection, at least limited connection, was soon re-established by repair gangs.

Juha


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## Ferdinand Foch (May 25, 2009)

Njaco said:


> Ferdinand, its been about 20 years or more but I remember that first impression it wasn't nothing special but as I recognized the history of the book I was kinda amazed. It seemed IIRC to me that he wanted to blame everybody and saw himself as the new Neitschze (spelling). It seemed logical but you had to read between the lines.



Ah, thanks Njaco. I just found Hitler's writing style very confusing to follow, which is probably why I gave up on it.  In terms of writing, he certainly was no Churchill.


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## RabidAlien (May 26, 2009)

I don't believe that bombing the rail lines to the concentration camps would have helped the Jewish prisoners any, anyway. The Nazi's viewed them as less than human....so it would not have mattered one bit to them if the prisoners had to hike 100 miles to the camps. If a few died along the way, so what? Leaving the rails open was a small mercy, if that, but as stated, there was a war going on and every bomb was earmarked for defeating Hitler. THAT was the best way to help the Jewish community.


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## Njaco (May 26, 2009)

Ferdinand, for the other side of the coin, pick up Churchill's "The River War" - I slogged through that for a month and developed headaches!


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## Ferdinand Foch (May 26, 2009)

Great, I have a lot to look forward to then, . Reminds of reading Manchester's The Last Lion: Visions of Glory. I swear to God, I feel asleep multiple times trying to read through it. Started reading it early November of last year, and finished it just last March.


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## Njaco (May 27, 2009)

Well, being a Yankee like me, you will find Churchill's late 19th century slang - umm, entertaining. I think I sang "God Bless the Queen" for about a year.


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## Ferdinand Foch (May 27, 2009)

Since were in good company, I tend to sing "Over the Hillls and Far Away" from time to time, that old British army song. It's funny too, since I'm part Irish.


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## Cromwell (May 27, 2009)

I think it is important to note that many people of many races and creeds went to their doom in concentration camps - it was not exclusive to the Jews, although they obviously suffered greatly as we should all know.

Also the camps were often run by Non-Germans in association with the German forces.


They actually started as work-camps and well one thing led to another. I think if all the Slave Labour in Germany had risen up it could have been a dramatic and swift end to the war in 43 or 44 


NB - when they came from the East, the Russians kept them (the camps) running and actually kept many of the inmates *in* to their certain doom 





BombTaxi said:


> The refusal of other countires (including the UK) to accept the Jewish refugees is a shameful fact which has been buried (in a most convenient manner) by the enormity of the atrocity the Germans went on to perpetrate. It is also a symptom of times. Anti-Semitism was rife not only in Germany and Russia, but all over Europe. The UK's own history of anti-Semitism stretched back to at least the 13th century, and it had been particularly rife in the poorer parts of London during the closing decades of the 19th century - so much so that it fact played a moajor role in the Jack the Ripper case of the late 1800s.It was also a factor in the Dreyfus Affair of the 1890s in France. Anyone familar with the social history of the era should not be surprised at the reaction of other European countries to the westward flow of Jewish refugees.
> 
> As for deliberately targeting the camp infrastructure, my belief is that a combination of entrenched attitudes about Jews, ignorance/disbelief of the true scale of the Holocaust, and the pressing need to support the invasion of Occupied Europe combined to prevent a specific intervention being made. Perhaps with hindsight we can say more should have been done; but at the time the plight of the Jews must have seemd to be a relatively minor issue in the wider strategic context.


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