DerAdlerIstGelandet said:
Okay Lunatic I hate to say this but you really are talking a bunch of BS now. For the first thing I agree about the moral obligations of soldiers. There is no excuse for that. But I will tell you one thing right now and that is that a lot of Germans did not know what was going on. My Grandfather was one of them and you know I how tell because it was in his diary. My Grandfather was respected man and he never lied about anything. If you are calling my Grandfather a lier then you are lucky we are not talking face to face. As for the Germans not saying anything unless they got there "booty" as you called it, you are full of it. The German people never got anything, they never recieved anything. The Germans were just as scared of Hitler as anyone else. My Grandmother was a member of the German Red Cross and she has a steel plate in her head from being hit over the head by a SS soldier because she tried to feed the Untermenschen as they were called. So take your holier then thou attitude and your German bashing some where else. There I finally got it out of me, I am tired of hearing it.
It depends where they lived. Rural Germans indeed had little idea what was going on. But the German's in most cities knew damn well. You have only to watch films of Berlin, Munich, or any other major city taken in 1937 to see. It was well documented.
When the Jews and other undesribles were displaced, this opened up opportunities for the "true" Germans, so they clearly did benefit. Most German's supported Hitler's rise to power, you are making it sound like he was not a popular leader. His rise to power was largely based on telling the "true" German's that they were superior and that the Jew's had conspired against them during and after WWI, denying them their rightful place in the world.
Hitler's Germany was paid for with booty for the German people. This is an undeniable fact. Why did Germany go to war in 1939, contrary to "the plan" which was to go to war in 1942? Why did Hjalmar Schacht fall out of power?
The answer is that Schacht wanted to follow the plan, and wait until 1942 to goto war, but this required backing off the munitions buildup which would doom the German economy to hyper-inflation by summer '40. Hitler chose to take the country to war two years early rather than back off such production, because backing off would have meant the standard of living of the average German would stop rising and maybe fall a little, something he feared would weaken the Nazi party's hold on the German public. The choice was back off on arms production and government buying in general in 1938 or goto war no later than very early 1940. Hitler chose war.
That fact is the standard of living for the average German rose from the moment Hitler came to power. Initially this was done by ingoring the terms of the treaty of Versailles, stopping the payment of reperations debt, and ramping up various industries through government purchasing. When this began to flatten out, the continued growth of the standard of living was perpetuated by stealing property, businesses, and jobs of the Jews (and other minorities), which bought them another 2-3 years. Finally, when nothing else could continue the improvements of the standard of living, Hitler took the country to war.
The fact that the average German was benefiting from Nazi policies is proven by the fact that standard of living of the average German was still on the rise until 1944! A big reason why Germany lost WWII was because they failed to enter a "war economy" until mid-44 (defined as 90% of the economy devoted to the war effort). In 1943 only about 60% of the German economy was devoted to the war effort, where by the end of 1942 90% of the US economy was so focused.
Sure the hard core Nazi's were benefiting the most, but their power was based upon bribing the average German to look the other way and allow the Nazi's to do whatever they wished as long as they got their share. That's just the facts. So when you say, "The German people never got anything, they never recieved anything.", that's just not true.
And when you say, "The Germans were just as scared of Hitler as anyone else.", that's not true either, the average German loved Hitler. Fear of the Gestapo and the SS did not reach the average German until the the war started going hopelessly badly for Germany in about mid-44.
Now, all that being said, I certainly do not hate the German people for this, it's in the past. But it is simply not true that the average German had no idea what was going on. In the beginning they simply chose not to acknowlege what was happening, for selfish reasons. Later, you are right, it was too late for them to do anything about it even if they wanted to (but that was pretty much after 1938).
Finally, remember that we in the USA have our own shame to live down in how we treated native Americans, especially in the late 19th century. Again it was the same thing, as long as the "people" were benefiting, they didn't want to know the details.
Do you realize that most Germans (at least in the 80's) have no idea there was a holocaust in which over 6 million Jews were exterminated?
Do you realize that even today, the Japanese generally believe that "Japan was a not very agressive nation in WWII that was conquered by the USA"?
Denying history or choosing not to know simply makes it more likely to happen again.
=S=
Lunatic
