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2012/11/20 09:27:10
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Because the other thread got locked for being off topic, I thought it could do with it's own thread, and hopefully attract some more points of view on this subject...
BaronIveagh wrote:Because I (surprisingly) am not so arrogant as to assume that even the majority of Germans were 'in the know'. It's easy to claim ex post facto that everyone knew, because after the fact, everyone does, so it colors their memory of events.
No, you don't have to be arrogant, you just have to read about the situation.
For example, here's a quote from historian Felix Romer, who studied recordings taken in secret of German soldiers held in Washington during the war. "An especially interesting aspect is the perspective of Wehrmacht soldiers on the Holocaust. There it is confirmed that the majority of soldiers knew very well and had heard rumors - in principle, everyone could have known about it who wanted to know."
The surviving documents suggest that it was not common knowledge, as the German government spent a lot of time and money on disinformation and suppression. They were big on compartmentalizing the operation, which limited the spread of information.
They don't, and you're simply fething wrong. The level of secrecy needed to hide the murder of nine million people is incredible, and little effort was made to that regard. As I've pointed out several times in this thread, you don't buy one way tickets for 800,000 people to a tiny detention camp, and have everyone in the railway service fooled. You don't redistribute formerly Jewish homes and property to people who lost theirs to allied bombing, and keep every beneficiary from suspecting what happened to the previous occupants.
If people cared to know, they knew. Most didn't care to know.
What it did not do was bring any new incidents to light, or offer any new proof of additional people responsible. Maybe reading only the parts that fit your personal views are the reason you are unaware that your claims are not based on fact.
That you think the scale of the situation can be measured by listing the atrocities one by one is a clear demonstration you have no idea of the breadth of the killing. There isn't a listing of every steppes village where some or all of the men were shot, such a thing is simply not possible. The scale of the slaughter, and number of individual acts means we will be forever dealing with a number in the millions, rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
I honestly don't know why you've taken the approach you have. Perhaps you feel honour bound to defend the German people or something. Whatever. What happened wasn't a uniquely German failing. It's what can happen to any society when they suffer a generation of propaganda, and have neighbour encouraged to turn in their neighbour. That people can be taken to such a point that they would no longer act or speak out when such atrocities become known should be a warning for everyone, but instead people choose to pretend that people didn't know.
This message was edited 3 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 09:33:45
“We may observe that the government in a civilized country is much more expensive than in a barbarous one; and when we say that one government is more expensive than another, it is the same as if we said that that one country is farther advanced in improvement than another. To say that the government is expensive and the people not oppressed is to say that the people are rich.”
Adam Smith, who must have been some kind of leftie or something.
2012/11/20 10:23:42
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
I'd never seen this documentary before, it really was quite harrowing. Part of it explores how the Gestapo couldn't have done what they did without help from the people. People falsely reporting their neighbours/making disingenuous claims and such. It's quite likely that this kind of thing would have happened in any country that had this kind of system in place.
There was another BBC documentary on Hitler last night, focusing on his "Charm Offensive", a quote from a German woman saying that "they didn't really care that communists and Jews were being taken away as they were the enemies of Germany" (not the exact quote)
Perhaps that's because its something they are more comfortable with? People don't like to acknowledge the depths of depravity that human beings are capable of visiting on others.
What's the end result of all of this anyway? I've met some Germans and their attitudes towards the war are more than a little conciliatory, actually to the point where it is becoming tiresome. At least there is the recognition within the German governmental and educational administration that they were responsible for some appalling behaviour. Not that this absolves them in any way at all, but the history teaching is there, the monuments are there, the bureaucratic framework to try and stop such a thing happening again in the future - compare the situation in Germany with that of Japan, who matched the actions of the Nazis and then some yet for whom there is absolutely no recognition. Imagine a situation now where top German politicians visited the grave of German war criminals, where history books have been re-written to disavow massacres of civilian populations, and the national anthem of the nation reverted to the one used during the Nazi era. That is the situation in Japan now, yet it seems to get very little acknowledgement beyond Asia.
There used to be a sketch show on a Comedy called Harry Enfield here in the UK. There was a young-ish German guy in Britain who would be standing at a bus-stop, going into a bank of whatever. He would be having a perfectly normal conversation, then all of a sudden his face would drop, he would look at his feet and say "I must apologise for my people's behaviour during the war". It was funny, but I've had almost exactly the same situation happen to me in real life, and it's obviously common enough for that comedy sketch to have worked. Very annoying in the sense that I've wanted to talk to German students on occasion about politics/history, and its impossible to have an anthropological, un-emotive discussion about the war or anything surrounding it.
Anyway realise that this isn't really central to the topic, but the sense of national shame and collective guilt that many (educated) German people seem to carry indicates to me that they hold themselves directly responsible for what happened with the holocaust and other atrocities, even if they are several generations removed from it. So perhaps that is their own perspective, regardless of what outsiders might ascribe to them or what they knew.
sebster wrote:I honestly don't know why you've taken the approach you have. Perhaps you feel honour bound to defend the German people or something. Whatever. What happened wasn't a uniquely German failing. It's what can happen to any society when they suffer a generation of propaganda, and have neighbour encouraged to turn in their neighbour. That people can be taken to such a point that they would no longer act or speak out when such atrocities become known should be a warning for everyone, but instead people choose to pretend that people didn't know.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. It's exceptionally nasty to think that people are capable of this, whilst being capable of acts of kindness and decency at the same time. It would be easier to chalk atrocities up to a minority of 'evil' people, but the painful truth is that ordinary people are capable of terrible things, given the right circumstances.
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2012/11/20 11:20:56
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
The myth of the Gestapo is one which has suited us for a while.
Far from their being a shadowy Gestapo agent in every block of flats, every street or even village or town, the majority or German citizens that were denounced were fingered by their own neighbours and 'friends'. Score settling, avarice, greed, and general spitefulness held sway over large tracts of the populace.
It is a complex subject, one I find fascinating and horrifying in equal measure. Horrifying because it can happen today, to any of us.
sebster wrote:I honestly don't know why you've taken the approach you have. Perhaps you feel honour bound to defend the German people or something. Whatever. What happened wasn't a uniquely German failing. It's what can happen to any society when they suffer a generation of propaganda, and have neighbour encouraged to turn in their neighbour. That people can be taken to such a point that they would no longer act or speak out when such atrocities become known should be a warning for everyone, but instead people choose to pretend that people didn't know.
I think you've hit the nail on the head here. It's exceptionally nasty to think that people are capable of this, whilst being capable of acts of kindness and decency at the same time. It would be easier to chalk atrocities up to a minority of 'evil' people, but the painful truth is that ordinary people are capable of terrible things, given the right circumstances.
It's human nature, no matter how hard we twist ad turn away from it, it will happen, repeatedly.
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Pacific wrote: compare the situation in Germany with that of Japan, who matched the actions of the Nazis and then some yet for whom there is absolutely no recognition. Imagine a situation now where top German politicians visited the grave of German war criminals, where history books have been re-written to disavow massacres of civilian populations, and the national anthem of the nation reverted to the one used during the Nazi era. That is the situation in Japan now, yet it seems to get very little acknowledgement beyond Asia.
Europe is our doorstep, so we hear about it a lot more than something that happened on the other side of the world. Our sphere is perceived to have a lot more relevance.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 11:43:08
2012/11/20 11:45:46
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
The SS quite rightly took the blame at the end of WW2, but the crimes of the regular army were overlooked by the allies and the soviets due to the necessity of rebuilding the armies of the FDR and the GDR. They needed experienced NCOs, so they often ignored the Whermacht's crimes, despite the large number of atrocities they were guilty of.
The SS fitted the bill in the role of the scapegoat.
Don't you hate realpolitik?
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
2012/11/20 13:25:31
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
My position on this is pretty well laid out in the previous discussion. The Germans knew what was going on and they didn't do anything to stop it. And I say that while also thinking many members of Germany's military and government were railroaded unfairly after the war in the post-war trials! The fascination some people have with downplaying the atrocities and the culpability of Germans at the time has always baffled me. Legitimately there are people who just don't think its as bad as the current narrative purports (I think our fellow poster Baron falls in here), but there are other people who would outright deny these things happened or just hand wave them away like it doesn't matter and it is truly vexing.
Far from their being a shadowy Gestapo agent in every block of flats, every street or even village or town, the majority or German citizens that were denounced were fingered by their own neighbours and 'friends'. Score settling, avarice, greed, and general spitefulness held sway over large tracts of the populace.
And I'll note the same thing happened in the Soviet Russia with the NKVD and no one has ever questioned that Russians at large knew about the Gulags and what happened in them.
This message was edited 4 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 13:42:24
Far from their being a shadowy Gestapo agent in every block of flats, every street or even village or town, the majority or German citizens that were denounced were fingered by their own neighbours and 'friends'. Score settling, avarice, greed, and general spitefulness held sway over large tracts of the populace.
And I'll note the same thing happened in the Soviet Russia with the NKVD and no one has ever questioned that Russians at large knew about the Gulags and what happened in them.
Yes, I am aware of this. This facet of history is still glossed over though it may not be held in the same regard as Germany of the 30's and 40's as the impression is that Germany was supposed to be some kind of enlightened democracy, and the Soviet Union was a proper dictatorship where dissent and questioning were totally frowned upon. Wrong on this basic level, but it holds some degree of truth.
Germans were able to question the methods of Hitlers regime.
0103/07/01 13:20:05
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Yes but I'm attempting to draw a comparison. Russia is a massive country with a population many times that of Germany. Not only that, but the population is no where near as concentrated, especially not in the 1920's and 30's. People were repressed, freedom of information was repressed and yet people knew about the crimes committed by the Soviet government. No one has ever claimed they didn't.
Now of course there is a difference between knowing and knowing what went on at the Ghetto's and the Concentration Camps or the Gulag, but how can anyone legitimately believe that Nazi Germany would could hide such a thing let alone try? They promised when the party was elected into power to restore Germany and they said exactly how they were going to do it. Genocide was on the party platform and people voted for it. Tens of millions of Jews didn't flee Germany and Europe because they felt nervous. Even if people didn't know the specifics they knew in a broad sense what was happening in the country of Germany at this time period.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 13:53:58
LordofHats wrote: Yes but I'm attempting to draw a comparison. Russia is a massive country with a population many times that of Germany. Not only that, but the population is no where near as concentrated, especially not in the 1920's and 30's. People were repressed, freedom of information was repressed and yet people knew about the crimes committed by the Soviet government. No one has ever claimed they didn't.
Now of course there is a difference between knowing and knowing what went on at the Ghetto's and the Concentration Camps or the Gulag, but how can anyone legitimately believe that Nazi Germany would could hide such a thing let alone try? They promised when the party was elected into power to restore Germany and they said exactly how they were going to do it. Genocide was on the party platform and people voted for it. Tens of millions of Jews didn't flee Germany and Europe because they felt nervous. Even if people didn't know the specifics they knew in a broad sense what was happening in the country of Germany at this time period.
It's even more amazing when you consider that Hitler didn't really have a finely detailed plan and dealt in vague gestures and rhetoric, the citizens lapped it up. In Germany I think the people leapt to fill the gaps in Hitlers 'grand plans', much like those in power did. It made his delusions stronger.
2012/11/20 15:54:57
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Lordofhats, you can add oral history to your historical context!!
Oral history is the last refuge of the untalented! I would report your Professor to the authorities for polluting the minds of students with left wing, tea party, liberal, environmental, zionist, facist, rubbish!!
Back on topic.
I mentioned earlier that it was politically expedient to make the SS fall guys for every atrocity in Germany.
Now, when the Americans rebuilt West Germany, they recognised early on that to de-nazify the whole country would have been impossible, thousand of civil servants, doctors etc would not have been employed, thus making it hard to govern Germany. Hence the need for the idea that most Germans did not know what was going on.
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
2012/11/20 15:57:17
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Oral history is the last refuge of the untalented! I would report your Professor to the authorities for polluting the minds of students with left wing, tea party, liberal, environmental, zionist, facist, rubbish!!
Maybe your aware but most historians would agree with you One of my professors however was an avid supporter of the value of oral history as supplementary to more traditional historical scholarship
There was a book, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution, that explains that nearly all the Germans did in fact know a lot about the Holocaust, and that the reason evidence sometimes points that they did not know is because they didn't care and didn't leave records. There's plenty of other reliable information that they knew. LIstening to the Germans is foolish. From them, everyone was totally against Hitler and the crowds of the 1930s never would have existed.
The title and cover have always led me to believe that this would be extremely apologetic.
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Do_I_Not_Like_That wrote: The SS quite rightly took the blame at the end of WW2, but the crimes of the regular army were overlooked by the allies and the soviets due to the necessity of rebuilding the armies of the FDR and the GDR. They needed experienced NCOs, so they often ignored the Whermacht's crimes, despite the large number of atrocities they were guilty of.
The SS fitted the bill in the role of the scapegoat.
Don't you hate realpolitik?
The Wehrmacht was at least as involved with the Holocaust as the SS. I remember reading that the Wehrmacht raped 10,000,000 Russian women.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 16:19:21
As a discussion grows in length, the probability of a comparison to Matt Ward or Gray Knights approaches one.
Agreed, when you consider that nearly 20 million Russian soldiers and civilians were killed. Of course, the Russians did the same to German women...
"Our crops will wither, our children will die piteous
deaths and the sun will be swept from the sky. But is it true?" - Tom Kirby, CEO, Games Workshop Ltd
2012/11/20 17:47:14
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
It's a hard number to get your head around, but it's probably true.
I've seen estimates of Red Army mass rapes going the other way as high as 15,000,000.
The decimates on both sides are about 1 million and 2 million respectively and overall number are extrapolated from there.
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2012/11/20 18:22:52
Subject: Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
It's a hard number to get your head around, but it's probably true.
I've seen estimates of Red Army mass rapes going the other way as high as 15,000,000.
The decimates on both sides are about 1 million and 2 million respectively and overall number are extrapolated from there.
The 10,000,000 figure definitely reliable, especially considering the German views toward the Russians and what the Germans did to the Russians during the Holocaust.
Whoever came up with the claim of 15,000,000 women raped by the Red Army needs to be institutionalized, fast. Anyone who doesn't want to be labeled immediately as a Holocaust denier and a Nazi sympathizer by the historical community should perpetuate that outrageous myth. I have studied the subject, and the number of Nazi women raped by the Red Army is not more than 1.6 million. Some estimates would put it at less than 1.5 million. There's also a huge difference in the historical context between both mass rapes, and they should not be compared. Rapes of non Germans by the Red Army were also far less common.
I'm also very familiar with the tactics of Holocaust deniers and other Nazi sympathizers, and extremely over exaggerated statistics about the rape of Nazi women by the Red Army that has no basis in reality is one of their common tactics. It attempts to portray the Germans as victims, and is frequently used because open Holocaust denial is illegal in many countries. The deniers then turn to over exaggerating supposed crimes by the Allies, both real and imaginary, to try to make the Nazis seem like sympathetic victims.
As a discussion grows in length, the probability of a comparison to Matt Ward or Gray Knights approaches one.
Testify wrote: The fact that virtually every woman (and girl) under 40 in Berlin was raped by Soviet soldiers doesn't phase you, huh?
That is not accurate. Not every girl and woman was raped. Such claims are either sensationalist nonsense (probably designed to sell a book or documentary) or are made up by Holocaust deniers.
If literally every girl and woman was raped, it would be very easy to determine, and there would not be any historical debate on the number of women raped.
I think it's reasonable to conclude that your average German was aware of the Holocaust in the broad sense - "Hitler's getting rid of Jews." That'd been going on, in one way or another, since he came to power. More Germans should have stood against it - some did, but far too few. Then again, how many Americans stood against the internment of Japanese-Americans?
I think it's unreasonable to conclude that your average German was aware that many were being specifically sent to death camps rather than internment camps not designed to kill you.
2012/11/20 18:44:50
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Seaward wrote: I think it's reasonable to conclude that your average German was aware of the Holocaust in the broad sense - "Hitler's getting rid of Jews." That'd been going on, in one way or another, since he came to power. More Germans should have stood against it - some did, but far too few. Then again, how many Americans stood against the internment of Japanese-Americans?
I think it's unreasonable to conclude that your average German was aware that many were being specifically sent to death camps rather than internment camps not designed to kill you.
All of German society was intensely involved with carrying out the Holocaust.
The American internment camps have absolutely no similarity to Nazi concentration camps. Claiming that they do is degrading to the Holocaust. Such comparison is a tactic of Holocaust deniers.
That largely depends on what you include under the umbrella of the Holocaust.
The American internment camps have absolutely no similarity to Nazi concentration camps. Claiming that they do is degrading to the Holocaust. Such comparison is a tactic of Holocaust deniers.
No similarity beyond being immoral, you mean? The point isn't that the American internment camps were exactly like the Nazi ones - it's a wild stretch of imagination to draw that conclusion from what I said, by the way - but that, in times of war, loyalty tends to override objections to actions taken by the government that the average citizen would consider to be wrong - or even oblige the citizen to conclude that they must be morally right. An awful lot of Americans believed that waterboarding was a perfectly moral thing to do to terrorist suspects after 9/11, for example.
Your last point is good except that the Germans could smell the camps and hair and bone fragments rained onto the towns.
That seems unlikely, given that five out of (if I recall correctly) seven were located outside Germany.
Edit: I just reread that again, and the reason given after stating that it seems unlikely has become superfluous upon doing so. It's unlikely for a lot of reasons.
This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2012/11/20 20:03:17
2012/11/20 19:31:08
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Ouze wrote: I don't know, man. I only have anecdotal evidence but I only remember a small and vocal minority supporting that; and many more being against it.
Well, as late as 2009, a CNN poll suggested fifty percent of the country was in favor of waterboarding.
2012/11/20 19:53:14
Subject: Re:Culpability of the Wehrmacht and greater German population in the atrocities of Nazi Germany
Testify wrote: The fact that virtually every woman (and girl) under 40 in Berlin was raped by Soviet soldiers doesn't phase you, huh?
That is not accurate. Not every girl and woman was raped. Such claims are either sensationalist nonsense (probably designed to sell a book or documentary) or are made up by Holocaust deniers.
If literally every girl and woman was raped, it would be very easy to determine, and there would not be any historical debate on the number of women raped.
The American internment camps have absolutely no similarity to Nazi concentration camps. Claiming that they do is degrading to the Holocaust. Such comparison is a tactic of Holocaust deniers.
No similarity beyond being immoral, you mean? The point isn't that the American internment camps were exactly like the Nazi ones - it's a wild stretch of imagination to draw that conclusion from what I said, by the way - but that, in times of war, loyalty tends to override objections to actions taken by the government that the average citizen would consider to be wrong - or even oblige the citizen to conclude that they must be morally right. An awful lot of Americans believed that waterboarding was a perfectly moral thing to do to terrorist suspects after 9/11, for example.
I agree with that point, but it's important to make clear that you mean only on the level that it was unjustified. Beyond that, there aren't any similarities.
Testify wrote: The fact that virtually every woman (and girl) under 40 in Berlin was raped by Soviet soldiers doesn't phase you, huh?
That is not accurate. Not every girl and woman was raped. Such claims are either sensationalist nonsense (probably designed to sell a book or documentary) or are made up by Holocaust deniers.
If literally every girl and woman was raped, it would be very easy to determine, and there would not be any historical debate on the number of women raped.
....how does the number of rapes committed by the Red Army have anything to do with the Holocaust
It doesn't. Holocaust deniers use it as a proxy argument because they can't openly claim that the Holocaust didn't happen, and many of their claims that are directly about the Holocaust are illegal in many countries.
If you had the context of that post, it would be clear that it's referencing Germans during the war. It is also an established fact that nearly everyone in Germany claimed to be totally against Hitler after the war, to an extent that would have rendered all the massive crowds and support for the Nazis non existent. It's not about you.
Please share.
This message was edited 2 times. Last update was at 2012/11/20 20:10:57
As a discussion grows in length, the probability of a comparison to Matt Ward or Gray Knights approaches one.
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