German or Nazis?

[v2]

At May, 20th, 75 years ago, German Nazis brought to the newly built Auschwitz concentration camp a group of 728 Polish political prisoners from the prison in Tarnów. This date is considered to be the day when the camp began to operate.
It is estimated that around 75,000 Polish political prisoners were murdered in Auschwitz by the Germans. On the whole, during WW2, the Germans murdered around six million Polish citizens, half of which were Jewish and the other half were Catholic.
Today we are witnessing the rewriting of history, as the victims, namely the Polish people, are being blamed for the Nazi crimes which were perpetrated by the German people during WW2.
US president Barack Obama called the German built concentration camps on Polish soil "Polish death camps", while the head of the FBI Blamed Poles and other nationalities for the crimes of the Nazis.
In Europe the French President, François Hollande, called the German people "victims of the Nazis", and very recently the German parliament thanked the allies for "liberating" Germany from the Nazis.
Here's a reminder of just who exactly the Nazis were.

 

[fubar57]

A touchy subject but I understand what you are saying V2. You cannot rewrite history just to be PC. It is what it is and to say different is a crime in itself.



Geo

 

[tomo pauk]

...
US president Barack Obama called the German built concentration camps on Polish soil "Polish death camps", while the head of the FBI Blamed Poles and other nationalities for the crimes of the Nazis.

In Europe the French President, François Hollande, called the German people "victims of the Nazis", and very recently the German parliament thanked the allies for "liberating" Germany from the Nazis.
Here's a reminder of just who exactly the Nazis were.

The things listed in second quote I can swallow (not lightly), the ones in the 1st quote I cannot - if true it's really outrageous.

 

[pbehn]

The defeat of Nazi Germany allowed all other countries in western Europe to indulge themselves in the fantasy that they never had any sympathy or sympathisers with the Nazi cause. Laughably Italy invaded Africa under what it now calls its "war of occupation", the French set up its Vichy administration and even Austria, Adolphs homeland somehow never had anything to do with anything remotely "Nazi"

 

[gumbyk]

The defeat of Nazi Germany allowed all other countries in western Europe to indulge themselves in the fantasy that they never had any sympathy or sympathisers with the Nazi cause. Laughably Italy invaded Africa under what it now calls its "war of occupation", the French set up its Vichy administration and even Austria, Adolphs homeland somehow never had anything to do with anything remotely "Nazi"

Lets not forget that Nazi's were to be found in every country at the time.

The National Socialist type of movement from which Nazism originated could (and still can) be found anywhere you look. I think, at its height, Nazism was bigger than just Germany.

As for the allies liberating the German population. I have no doubt in my mind that a number of them were liberated. Living under a tyrannical dictator tends to make people fall into line, even if they don't agree with him.

 

[syscom3]

Lets not forget that Nazi's were to be found in every country at the time.

View attachment 295029

The National Socialist type of movement from which Nazism originated could (and still can) be found anywhere you look. I think, at its height, Nazism was bigger than just Germany.

As for the allies liberating the German population. I have no doubt in my mind that a number of them were liberated. Living under a tyrannical dictator tends to make people fall into line, even if they don't agree with him.

The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.

 

[buffnut453]

Not entirely sure the Duquesne spy ring "amounted to nothing". Some of the info they are credited with obtaining and passing to Germany seems pretty harmful to British, if not American, war interests.

 

[gumbyk]

The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.

The point was more that Nazis were more than just German...

 

[pbehn]

The point was more that Nazis were more than just German...

Exactly, at the time there was a European and possibly world wide ideological conflict between Fascism and Communism. Hitlers ideas certainly had supporters in 1930s UK even in the mainstream national press. If people argue that France Italy Belgium and the Netherlands only found out what Naziism meant when it was too late then you must accept the same argument for the German population. The Nazis are also referred to as Fascists which is an italian term, I have no idea how Italy is allowed to walk away from the movement, Mussolini DEMANDED to be allowed to attack the UK during the Battle of Britain. France started rounding up Jews for deportation without being asked. I am British not German and make no apology for the Nazis or what happened to them but it sticks in my craw how so many who were obvious sympathisers not only had a cushy war but built successful political careers after the war. I worked in Europe for 15 years between 1990 and 2014 the most overtly and openly anti semitic were certainly not the Germans.

 

[nuuumannn]

The Nazi's in the USA amounted to nothing. They were roundly hated and despised by nearly everyone.

There were many non-nazi Germans before the war that felt exactly the same way and thought that the NSDAP too would amount to nothing. Underestimating how devious the nazis could be cost the lives of millions. Their ability to rally support by playing on basic fears was a powerful weapon that they used to devastating effect and it gained them plenty of support world wide. This also explains how even today nazi parties still exist in many societies. Nazism isn't dead, sadly and it is not a uniquely German thing.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neo-Nazism

 

[michaelmaltby]

Austria got virtually a free pass at the end of WW2 ... although leaders like Adolph and Herman were Austrians.

 

[stona]

There is too much generalising of the term 'Nazi' to cover other right wing nationalist organisations going on in this thread. There were many such across Europe, like our own British Union of Fascists, but these were not Nazis any more than the Italian fascists were.

All Germans were obviously not Nazis, but they lived in a Nazi state where it took courage that most people, from wherever they come, don't have in order to stick their heads over the parapet. Neither were all Nazis Germans. The Nazi movement was 100% German.

Cheers

Steve

 

[wiking85]

Not all Nazis were German, not all Germans were Nazis. The Nazi party was one of many German political parties, but it happened to get power through a quirk of history and used the apparatus of state to force itself on the people of Germany and Europe. Ultimately if found many collaborators throughout Europe and in the West, so the OP is not being 100% honest with the situation. There were many Germans there were Nazis, but the reality is that the Nazis were only ever a minority of Germans and they took over Germany; modern Germany is right to say they were liberated from their government and a awful regime that they really didn't have a say putting into power. Looking at the last free election in 1932 saw that they got a minority of the overall votes, with left parties combined getting over 50%; Hitler was appointed to the head of a minority government with the implicit goal of destroying the Left in Germany by its president, Hindenburg. You cannot honestly say the Germans were Nazis, but you can say some Germans were Nazis and forced the rest to go along or else. Its not a mystery why they did when 3.5 million Germans spent time in prisons/concentration camps for anti-regime activities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_concentration_camps

Between 1933 and the fall of Nazi Germany in 1945, more than 3.5 million Germans were forced to spend time in concentration camps and prisons for political reasons,[12][13][14] and approximately 77,000 Germans were executed for one or another form of resistance by Special Courts, courts-martial, and the civil justice system. Many of these Germans had served in government, the military, or in civil positions, which enabled them to engage in subversion and conspiracy against the Nazis.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

 

[stona]

The 'quirk of history' that brought the Nazis to power was 37.4% of the electorate voting for them in 1932 and then 43.9% (more than 17 million Germans) voting for them in 1933. Any idea that the Nazi party somehow hi-jacked the electorate is revisionism of the most insidious kind. It didn't need to, it was the most popular party in Germany.

The Germans only became victims as the war ended and then post war. German minorities, notably in Czechoslovakia and Poland but also other 'eastern' European states suffered considerably. Their treatment was not unlike that previously meted out by the Nazi state to other nations during the war. These Germans were not victims of the Nazis but other nationalistic groups in territories that the Germans had occupied and/or conquered. Other Germans certainly were victimised by the Allied armies, most notably the Soviet Union's, but others were not blameless.

I absolutely refute the idea that the German people were victims of the Nazi party. They took their cake and tried to eat it, it just didn't work out the way that those millions of voters had all hoped or assumed. This does not make the violence perpetrated against German civilians okay, neither does it justify what we would now call the ethnic cleansing of eastern territories, but the German people have to shoulder a large part of the responsibility for what happened. The ethnic cleansing of 3.5 million Germans from the roughly 25% of German territory forfeit at the end of the war was referred to at Potsdam as "orderly and humane population transfer", but a blind eye was turned to the methods used to carry this out.

Steve

 

[wiking85]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932

After the election, Chancellor Papen urged Hindenburg to continue to govern by emergency decrees. Nevertheless, on 3 December he was superseded by his Defence Minister Kurt von Schleicher who in talks with the left wing of the Nazi Party led by Gregor Strasser tried to build up a Third Position (Querfront) strategy. These plans failed when in turn Hitler disempowered Strasser and approached Papen for coalition talks. Papen obtained Hindenburg's consent to form the Hitler Cabinet on 30 January 1933.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_von_Hindenburg#The_Machtergreifung

Papen, for his part, was determined to get back into office, and on 4 January 1933 he met Hitler to discuss how they could bring down Schleicher's government, though the talks were inconclusive largely because Papen and Hitler each coveted the Chancellorship for himself. However, Papen and Hitler agreed to keep talking. Ultimately, Papen came to believe that he could control Hitler from behind the scenes and decided to support him as the new Chancellor. Papen then persuaded Meissner and the younger Hindenburg of the merits of his plan, and the three then spent the second half of January pressuring Hindenburg into naming Hitler as Chancellor. Hindenburg was most loath to consider Hitler as Chancellor and preferred that Papen hold that office instead.

However, the pressure from Meissner, Papen, and the younger Hindenburg was relentless, and by the end of January the President had decided to appoint Hitler Chancellor. After Schleicher as well had despaired of his efforts to get hold of the situation, he accepted his resignation, with the words: "Thanks, General, for everything you have done for the Fatherland. Now let's have a look at which way, with God's help, the cat will keep on jumping." Hitler threatened Hindenburg to make him chancellor or to make him leader of Reichstag. Finally, the 84-year-old Hindenburg agreed to make Hitler Chancellor, and on the morning of 30 January 1933, Hindenburg swore him in as Chancellor at the Presidential Palace.[1]

Hindenburg played the key role in the Nazi Machtergreifung (Seizure of Power) in 1933 by appointing Hitler Chancellor of a "Government of National Concentration", though the Nazis were in the minority in cabinet: The only Nazi ministers were Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick. Frick held the then-powerless Interior Ministry, while Göring was given no portfolio. Most of the other ministers were survivors from the Papen and Schleicher governments, and the ones who were not, such as Alfred Hugenberg of the DNVP, were not Nazis. This had the effect of assuring Hindenburg that the room for radical moves on the part of the Nazis was limited. Moreover, Hindenburg's favorite politician, Papen, was Vice Chancellor of the Reich and Minister-President of Prussia.

Hitler's first act as Chancellor was to ask Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag, so that the Nazis and DNVP could increase their number of seats and pass the Enabling Act. Hindenburg agreed to this request. In early February 1933, Papen asked for and received an Article 48 bill signed into law that sharply limited freedom of the press. After the Reichstag fire, Hindenburg, at Hitler's urging, signed into law the Reichstag Fire Decree. This decree suspended all civil liberties in Germany.

At the opening of the new Reichstag on 21 March 1933, at the Garrison Church at Potsdam,[22] the Nazis staged an elaborate ceremony in which Hindenburg played the leading part, appearing alongside Hitler during an event orchestrated to mark the continuity between the old Prussian-German tradition and the new Nazi state. He said, in part, "May the old spirit of this celebrated shrine permeate the generation of today, may it liberate us from selfishness and party strife and bring us together in national self-consciousness to bless a proud and free Germany, united in herself." Hindenburg's apparent stamp of approval had the effect of reassuring many Germans, especially conservative Germans, that life would be fine under the new regime.

On 23 March 1933, Hindenburg signed the Enabling Act of 1933 into law, which gave decrees issued by the cabinet (in effect, Hitler) the force of law.

Also its not like the Nazis were shy about the fact that they did not come to power by democratic means, they called their rise the Machtergreifung, the seizure of power:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Seizure_of_Power

In the German federal election of July 1932, the Nazi Party gained the largest number of seats in the Reichstag. After all of Papen's attempts to reach a coalition government had failed, federal elections were again held in November 1932, with the Nazis facing some losses but without any chance for Papen to reach a majority. He finally resigned, and though twenty representatives of industry, finance, and agriculture had signed the Industrielleneingabe, a petition requesting that Hindenburg make Hitler chancellor, on 2 December the president appointed Minister Schleicher. The new chancellor tried to gain the support of an anti-democratic Third Position alliance of DNVP and Nazis led by Gregor Strasser, along with national conservative pressure groups like Der Stahlhelm, referring to the joint efforts during the referendum of 1929 or the Harzburg Front of 1931. However these plans failed, and behind his back on 4 January 1933, Hitler met Papen, who agreed to join a Hitler Cabinet as vice-chancellor. Along with State Secretary Otto Meissner and Hindenburg's son Oskar, Papen could finally persuade the reluctant president to appoint Hitler. Papen and DNVP chairman Alfred Hugenberg trusted Hindenburg, who was able to depose the chancellor if necessary, and they were reassured by the fact that only two ministers in Hitler's cabinet, Hermann Göring and Wilhelm Frick, were Nazi Party members.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany#Nazi_seizure_of_power

Although the Nazis won the greatest share of the popular vote in the two Reichstag general elections of 1932, they did not have a majority, so Hitler led a short-lived coalition government formed by the NSDAP and the German National People's Party.[14] Under pressure from politicians, industrialists, and the business community, President Paul von Hindenburg appointed Hitler as Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933. This event is known as the Machtergreifung (seizure of power).[15] In the following months, the NSDAP used a process termed Gleichschaltung (co-ordination) to rapidly bring all aspects of life under control of the party.[16] All civilian organisations, including agricultural groups, volunteer organisations, and sports clubs, had their leadership replaced with Nazi sympathisers or party members. By June 1933, virtually the only organisations not in the control of the NSDAP were the army and the churches.[17]

The 1933 election was rigged:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_March_1933

The election took place after the Nazi Machtergreifung of 30 January when President Paul von Hindenburg had appointed Hitler Chancellor, who immediately urged the dissolution of the Reichstag and the arrangement of new elections. In early February, the Nazis "unleashed a campaign of violence and terror that dwarfed anything seen so far." Storm troopers began attacking trade union and Communist Party (KPD) offices and the homes of left-wingers.[1] In the second half of February, the violence was extended to the Social Democrats, with gangs of brownshirts breaking up Social Democrat meetings and beating up their speakers and audiences. Issues of Social Democratic newspapers were banned.[2] Twenty newspapers of the Centre Party, a party of Catholic Germans, were banned in mid-February for criticizing the new government. Government officials known to be Centre Party supporters were dismissed from their offices, and stormtroopers violently attacked party meetings in Westphalia.[3]

Six days before the scheduled election date, the German parliament building was set alight in the Reichstag fire, allegedly by the Dutch Communist Marinus van der Lubbe. This event reduced the popularity of the KPD, and enabled Hitler to persuade President Hindenburg to pass the Reichstag Fire Decree as an emergency decree according to Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. This emergency law removed many civil liberties and allowed the arrest of Ernst Thälmann and 4,000 leaders and members of the KPD[4] shortly before the election, suppressing the Communist vote and consolidating the position of the Nazis. The KPD was "effectively outlawed from 28 February 1933", although it was not completely banned until the day after the election.[5] While at that time not as heavily oppressed as the Communists, the Social Democrats were also restricted in their actions, as the party's leadership had already fled to Prague and many members were acting only from the underground. Hence, the fire is widely believed to have had a major effect on the outcome of the election. As replacement, and for 10 years to come, the new parliament used the Kroll Opera House for its meetings.

The resources of big business and the state were thrown behind the Nazis' campaign to achieve saturation coverage all over Germany. Brownshirts and SS patrolled and marched menacingly through the streets of cities and towns. A "combination of terror, repression and propaganda was mobilized in every... community, large and small, across the land."[6] To further ensure the outcome of the vote would be a Nazi majority, Nazi organizations "monitored" the vote process. In Prussia 50,000 members of the SS, SA and Stahlhelm were ordered to monitor the votes as deputy sheriffs by acting Interior Minister Hermann Göring.

 

[wiking85]

The Nazis bullied their way into power, but even for the voters that did vote for him did so on the message of economic revitalization, ending the treaty of versailles, and fighting communism in Germany. They did not vote for war, genocide, or pretty much most of the horrible stuff Hitler did. He talked constantly about being a man of peace and wanting to avoid war, just to make Germany strong again and end the economic suffering caused by the ToV and Depression, while ensuring the communists didn't try to overthrown the government yet again. Its not like they knew what Hitler had in store, he kept that pretty well hidden and in the early years had a lot of international acclaim for being a 'man of peace'.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Lloyd_George#Appeasement_of_Germany

The Germans welcomed him as a friend in the highest circles of British politics. In September 1936 he went to Germany to talk with the German dictator Adolf Hitler. Hitler said he was pleased to have met "the man who won the war"; Lloyd George was moved, and called Hitler "the greatest living German".[122] Lloyd George also visited Germany's public works programmes and was impressed. On his return to Britain he wrote an article for The Daily Express praising Hitler; he wrote, "The Germans have definitely made up their minds never to quarrel with us again."[123] He believed Hitler was "the George Washington of Germany"; that he was rearming Germany for defence and not for offensive war; that a war between Germany and Russia would not happen for at least ten years; that Hitler admired the British and wanted their friendship but that there was no British leadership to exploit this.[123] However, by 1938, Lloyd George's distaste for Neville Chamberlain led him to disavow Chamberlain's appeasement policies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Party#Rise_to_power:_1925.E2.80.931933

During 1931 and into 1932, Germany's political crisis deepened. In March 1932 Hitler ran for President against the incumbent President Paul von Hindenburg, polling 30.1% in the first round and 36.8% in the second against Hindenburg's 49 and 53%. By now the SA had 400,000 members, and its running street battles with the SPD and Communist paramilitaries (who also fought each other) reduced some German cities to combat zones. Paradoxically, although the Nazis were among the main instigators of this disorder, part of Hitler's appeal to a frightened and demoralised middle class was his promise to restore law and order. Overt antisemitism was played down in official Nazi rhetoric, but was never far from the surface. Germans voted for Hitler primarily because of his promises to revive the economy (by unspecified means), to restore German greatness and overturn the Treaty of Versailles, and to save Germany from communism.

Chancellor Franz von Papen called another Reichstag election in November, hoping to find a way out of this impasse. The electoral result was the same, with the Nazis and the Communists winning 50% of the vote between them and more than half the seats, rendering this Reichstag no more workable than its predecessor. But support for the Nazis had fallen to 33.1%, suggesting that the Nazi surge had passed its peak – possibly because the worst of the Depression had passed, possibly because some middle-class voters had supported Hitler in July as a protest, but had now drawn back from the prospect of actually putting him into power. The Nazis interpreted the result as a warning that they must seize power before their moment passed. Had the other parties united, this could have been prevented, but their shortsightedness made a united front impossible. Papen, his successor Kurt von Schleicher, and the nationalist press magnate Alfred Hugenberg spent December and January in political intrigues that eventually persuaded President Hindenburg that it was safe to appoint Hitler as Reich Chancellor, at the head of a cabinet including only a minority of Nazi ministers—which he did on 30 January 1933.

 

[stona]

What's your point? That somehow the Germans didn't vote for the NSDAP? In the UK we just got a Conservative government who polled 36.9% of the vote, slightly less than the NSDAP in 1933. Nobody has suggested that the Conservative party has not been duly elected to form a government.

Cheers

Steve

 

[wiking85]

What's your point? That somehow the Germans didn't vote for the NSDAP? In the UK we just got a Conservative government who polled 36.9% of the vote, slightly less than the NSDAP in 1933. Nobody has suggested that the Conservative party has not been duly elected to form a government.

Cheers

Steve

2/3rds of Germans didn't vote for Hitler and had him forced on them by an elite clique trying to cling to power, who were then overthrown by Hitler after getting them to agree to the Enabling Act. The UK and German electoral systems are different and got a different result. Whatever the minority of voters that did go for the Nazis in 1932 were thinking, they did not want what ended up happening, which is why when Hitler declared war on Poland even pretty anti-German journalists like William Shirer noted that the German people were despondent and didn't bother to show up to Hitler's speeches.

And hasn't there been protests in Britain precisely against the Conservative government because of the election system?

 

[stona]

But at least a third of Germans did vote for the NSDAP. Somewhere around 30% of the vote will typically win a party power, even as the main party in a coalition in elections with proportional representation, in democracies around the world. Parties have formed governments with considerably less.
Two thirds of the British electorate did not vote for the Conservative party, but that's what we got to form our government. It's how a democracy works, irrelevant in Germany post 1933, but relevant in the 1933 elections.

The German people who became victims after the war, not just the 3.5 million at whose ethnic cleansing the Allies connived, but the estimated 12 million ejected from eastern Europe (at least 250,000 died) were also not victims of the Nazis. They were victims of other nations whom they had oppressed in the name of the Nazi party. The vast majority, but it would be foolish to suppose all, were entirely innocent victims.

Cheers

Steve

 

[wiking85]

But again the 1/3d that did vote for the Nazis were either doing it as a protest vote, for his policies on welfare that were not in the context of international communism, ending versailles, no other option, etc. They weren't voting for war and Hitler kept his policies more focused on fixing what was wrong in Germany rather than fixating on racial issues or external expansion. Ultimately Hindenburg chose the Nazis and gave them unlimited power with the Enabling Act, not the German people, so trying to characterize the majority of Germans as getting what they deserved when Hitler did what he did is just bunk and frankly bigoted.