Hitler's Holocaust Railway with Chris Tarrant

[jjb1970]

While there is a lot of truth in what you say, how "industrialised" do you have to be in order to exterminate some 20 million of your own citizens (Stalin)? Versus the 6 million exterminated by the Nazis.

Either the Soviets were using enormous numbers of people (men and women) to achieve such numbers OR they did it on an "industrial" scale.

 

I have to take issue with your assertion that the Nazi's behaved the way they did with the knowledge of and willing co-operation & participation of the "ordinary German".

From 1933 until 1945, Germany was literally, the ultimate police state.

People "knew" they had to co-operate or disappear and those very brave few who actively opposed the Nazis prior to 1933 and afterwards, rarely lived to tell the tale. OR they went deep underground and on the surface, made no waves.

 

It is very, very easy to sit here in this modern world in a free country to criticise the actions of those in the past but if you compare their situation with say, an "ordinary North Korean" today - I think you will get a better comparison with what it was like in the past.

Don't forget that although Hitler did win the election in 1933, he very quickly cemented his power by removing Hindenburg, making himself "fuhrer" and making all other political parties illegal.

Control of the entire state apparatus and economy was quick and brutal so if you didn't conform, you were out.

 

I don't think you can compare North Korea and Germany. Hitler rose to power via entirely legitimate and legal means. German's of that era had known a tolerant and liberal democracy under the Weimar Republic. Hitler didn't remove Hindenburg, he ascended to the role of Fuhrer when Hindenburg died. Germany was clearly a brutal state but that is not synonymous with people objecting to the government. The destruction of the Jews followed a four phase course of identification, expropriation, concentration and extermination, the first three stages were carried out completely in the open and plenty of ordinary German's and businesses profited handsomely from expropriated Jewish wealth, properties, businesses, assets etc. There is some debate over how much ordinary German's knew about the "final solution" but the debate is more a question of how much than if as stories were leaking back from Poland, the USSR etc, and it was a vast under taking. With respect to the Police state aspect, it is a matter of record that on several matters German's did resist Nazi policies, the euthanasia program has already been mentioned. Throughout the war German officers continually fought with Hitler on matters of operations and tactics, risking their careers and many joined the resistance yet very very few raised any objections to the mass murders in the East and the extermination of Jews (which the army had to be aware of since they took part and did their bit. In fact, you don't need to dig very far to find plenty of examples of respectable German generals and officers being most complimentary about wiping out Jews and other such undesirables. There are numerous example of complaints about the mass killings based on the disorderliness of things which disappeared once things were done with less disruption. A good example is crystal night which provoked huge opprobrium in Germany but the opprobrium of which was based on an objection to the vandalism and public displays of violence but which reverted to quiescent acceptance when the Nazi's reigned in the worst excesses of the SA and SS and did carried on in a more orderly way.

On industrialized mass murder, it is generally ignored just how well organized the holocaust became. Consider the effort needed to define and concentrate Jews across Europe, the logistic effort shipping them to death camps (which, obviously is where the railway link is), the way the camps were engineered for efficiency and to maximum throughput. Stalin was undoubtedly evil (as was Mao) but there is nothing comparable to the extermination camps (extermination camps were not concentration camps) and the final solution, it tends to be forgotten just how short the time frame of the holocaust was. Most of the killing of Jews took place within about a year. Whilst other regimes have built their own versions of concentration camps where brutality and death were prevalent but the extermination camps were something different entirely.

Something to keep in mind was that most of those who did the killings such as reserve Policemen were older German's who knew life before Nazism, and many of which were not ardent Nazi's and who needed little encouragement. You can't really make an equivalence between such men and people in North Korea.

Edited December 5, 2018 by jjb1970

[adb968008]

Thought provoking thread.

I have been to Auschwitz on several occasions, each time it hits you as hard as the first.

 

The original camp, was an army barracks, and laid out as such, 3- floor blocks of dense rooms, or internal spaces.

Somewhat oddly as a hang over from this is the house light, over the building doors, combining the building number and the comical outline of a man performing a theatrical trick... its completely at odds with the camp purpose.

 

Then you drive a mile or so, pass close to the Rail Polska yard (which presumably was built for this purpose) to the “new” camp.. row after row after row of brick fire places in a huge expanse of site.. each is all that remains of what was once a wooden hut with dozens of people in. It should be a pause for thought, that transport trains using BR52’s is a little more Hollywood, BR 52’s were the Chieftain tanks of the railways, they were used for military purposes, the death trains used whatever else was available, and in that regard it should be considered BR 58 311, preserved at Ulm, operational on DB, built in 1921, was once allocated to Auschwitz in the war.

 

My wife is Polish, her family had to flee Lvov, Poland as the Russians/British and French redrew the Polish post-war border at the Yalta conference, without consulting Poland and left many citizens losing what remained of their homes & land. Her grandmother is 90 and remebers the war.. with an anecdote that war started to end at Breakfast in 1944, when Russians suddenly appeared at the back, as did Germans at the front, and started shooting through their living room whilst they had breakfast. Their experience of Germans is nothing to that compared of the Russians. Lvov was captured by German, given to the USSR in 1939, only to be attacked again by Germany in 1941 and defeated by the USSR in 1944, only then to cease being Polish, and forcibly become a Ukrainian Russian Language city.

Neither belligerent considered Poland as “home”, they didnt care for the land, its structures or its people, that was in the way of their objectives.. it was just a battleground that had to be traveresed, in pursuit of armies that defended their own territories on the otherside.

 

The educated Polish populace were killed by the Germans or sent to Siberia to starve and freeze by the Russians. If there children looked aryan they were taken from their parents by Germans to be reeducated with new families in Germany. The Russians forced recruited Polish kids to carry munitions to soldiers at the front. Poles had minimum wage, not allowed to be educated and were even not allowed to count beyond the number 500. When it came to collaboration with Germans, it was through lack of choice, Polish women were rounded up to pleasure the german soldeiers in random street sweeps, the males were often Rounded up to work in Army supplies & logistics without pay, and often were transported as slaves, a family member may just leave their ruined house on a few minute errand, for food, water or whatever, and simply never be seen again. The Russians had much less organisation and just freely destroyed, stole, raped and killed everything in their path., which is why her family fled, left everything and hid, as for postwar return to Lvov, Poland, now known as Lviv, Ukraine in the USSR at that time, there was no ever going back... all they have is a few pictures of the life they used to have, which is incredible that they even survived at all.

 

What amazes me, when i look at an English language PKP tourism travel guide from the 1930’s, and my LMS 1938 timetable promoting air service to Scotland and Isle of Man, seeing 100mph PKP steam locomotive design winning an innovation award in Paris in 1938, is how quickly economic wealth, prosperity across the continent, East to West turned into murder and mass destruction so quickly due to political naivity, unpreparedness of national armies and trust in their neighbour, which set about a path which saw wealth distributed in the west whilst the East was servile to a master further east that prevented an economic rebuild for 70 years.

 

One thing i have ssen, and is apparent in this thread, is the lack of self critiscm of the UK. The UK wasnt a wholly law abiding & obedient law force, to quote an italian major on the subject, brought up to Winston Churchill when asked about British army crimes in Italy against its populace... Churchills response.. the ”Dont worry as Victor, I get to write the history book”. Many Poles have a lot of opinions on the UK in WW2, especially after a few drinks, and they are somewhat enlightening in their different narrative to ours... it starts with Katyn and isnt helped by Sikorskis death in Gibraltar, nor the planned forced resettlement of the survivors of Siberia (Former educated Poles and remains of their families, like Doctors, Science, Graduate levels etc), whom were left to die, became refugees in the middle east and were told the UK planned to resettle them in Germany or the USSR post war as the new Soviet Polish government saw educated Poles as a threat to their power, how do you think they felt about that as they bobbed around the med on a boat looking for a port after the war ?

 

On the subject of Israel, their is a view that this was the victorious nations equivalent of the Madagascar plan of the Nazis, about ensuring the jewish refugee problem wasnt the victorious nation’s problem, they also point out much as Russian strategy is to always “take land” in victory, the British in retreat always set the opposing forces against each other, citing Israel, India, Cyprus and others, and also point toward this as what they also suggest was the British plan to gain concessions for Brexit negotiations with the EU, hence the EUs appointment of a single focal negotiator and a set piece unified front throughout this period as a successful counter, whilst playing the opposing forces in the UK against each other, but now we digress.

I highly reccomend drinking with the poles (just pour every 3rd vodka onto a plant), they say it as they see it, no holds barred, their family stories of WW2 are mind numbing, once you hear them you start to understand why Poles get agitated about Death camp geography and western stories of Poles actions towards Jews in the war without the counter view.. we safely watch the films on TV, but it was their grand parents who had no choice but to star in them.

Edited December 6, 2018 by adb968008

[Allegheny1600]

Thank you, adb968008.

That is a very interesting post from someone who has clearly experienced things from the eastern viewpoint.

I visited Poland in 1990 and had a good 'look around' and also drank with the locals (much to my dire state of health the following day!).

I maintain that Poland and it's people are wonderful.

However, I still maintain that Germany and most Germans are lovely people too. Having travelled to and wintered in Morocco since the early 1970's, I got to know many Germans of an age to have actually served during the war and they were not bad people, at all.

Modern Germans are certainly very nice people and surprisingly, most actually seem to like the Brit's.

 

To quote you, above "One thing i have ssen, and is apparent in this thread, is the lack of self critiscm of the UK. The UK wasnt a wholly law abiding & obedient law force,"

I have read instances of British soldiers executing numbers of German guards after liberating concentration camps - completely against military codes of conduct. Now, I cannot say how I would have reacted in such circumstances but it is entirely possible that I would have behaved in the same way.

However, what I find disgusting is such personnel were allowed to get away with such acts of murder - that is not right.

What is also not right is the genocide enacted upon German people during the expulsions from eastern Europe at the end of WW2 and in the aftermath of the war. Not only were millions of civilians and troops murdered but it was covered up and ignored by the victorious 'allies'.

I very much get the feeling that the official and continuing line is "well, they were only Germans and they deserved it"

 

I beg to differ.

To allow such things to happen makes us no better than them.

Which is very sad - have we learned nothing?

[Allegheny1600]

Something to keep in mind was that most of those who did the killings such as reserve Policemen were older German's who knew life before Nazism, and many of which were not ardent Nazi's and who needed little encouragement. You can't really make an equivalence between such men and people in North Korea.

Please - don't be naive.

"such men" as your older German's doing killings - yes, they should have known better but they also knew that had they resisted, not only would they get a bullet but their family would get executed too - and, such men would mainly have had families, wives, children, maybe adult offspring with children of their own. Thereby making them less capable of resisting not more.

That is why I draw the comparison between North Korea and Nazi Germany;

Both states are completely totalitarian police states with very well developed spy networks.

Both states will make you disappear should you go against the will of the political apparatus.

Both states had/have total control over the population. 

 

It may well be that both states populations "know" what is going on, through "Chinese whispers" and the like but their ability to resist is zero.

 

Having visited totalitarian states# (Yugoslavia in 1977, Portugal after during a military coup, Morocco many times) I maintain that in a situation where you live in fear - you will do as you are directed to because if you do not, you will disappear, horribly.

 

#None of which were particularly evil, it has to be said but the atmosphere of fear is still all pervading.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Allegheny1600

[adb968008]

Stettin (Szeczin) & Breslau (Wroclaw) is the story you refer to, the Allies failed to stand up for the territorial demands of the USSR and and such gave the USSR much of western Ukraine and White Russia, (belarus). As compensation Poland was given equal territory from Germany’s eastern frontier.

 

The Poles, having lost their homes, wealth and families, seen opposing armies march through their homes on 4 occasions in 6 years, commiting all imaginable crimes, now saw that their very own ruins were now being given to the Russians and were expelled off their lands with nothing not even a place to stay, forget any concept of a DWP, Benefits office or Compensation claims...

 

The only message was dont stay, but if you do, you become a minority in a Russian country, give up your assets and be persecuted, treated badly if not killed, or get on this train and leave with a promise that you could help themselves to any of new lands they can find in the west and claim it for yourselves, if they had a German speaker there, you can kick them out, dead was preferable as there would never be a counter claim in the future.

Poles murdered the now disarmed Germans at will, just as the Dutch murdered their own Collaborators and the Danes outcast all females who had German relationships during their “occupation”.

 

As an aside This is why much of PKPs steam fleet included German prototypes (BR52 excluded which were a purchase/reparations), but locos like BR03 pacifics, that lay in German territory). anecdoatally this is why I dont believe the “Gold train” story of Wroclaw... if anyone hid the train, they would be German, in 1945 they would be dead or have left.. Poles arrived from Lvov, Minsk etc 500 miles away, would know nothing of this city. Those who have visited Wolsztyn would doubtlessly have been told, that the town was originally on the Polish/German border in 1945

 

The military war ended in 1945, but domestic retribution by the populace of many countries endured after.

Edited December 6, 2018 by adb968008

[jjb1970]

Please - don't be naive.

"such men" as your older German's doing killings - yes, they should have known better but they also knew that had they resisted, not only would they get a bullet but their family would get executed too - and, such men would mainly have had families, wives, children, maybe adult offspring with children of their own. Thereby making them less capable of resisting not more.

That is why I draw the comparison between North Korea and Nazi Germany;

Both states are completely totalitarian police states with very well developed spy networks.

Both states will make you disappear should you go against the will of the political apparatus.

Both states had/have total control over the population. 

 

It may well be that both states populations "know" what is going on, through "Chinese whispers" and the like but their ability to resist is zero.

 

Having visited totalitarian states# (Yugoslavia in 1977, Portugal after during a military coup, Morocco many times) I maintain that in a situation where you live in fear - you will do as you are directed to because if you do not, you will disappear, horribly.

 

#None of which were particularly evil, it has to be said but the atmosphere of fear is still all pervading.

 

Firstly, I'm not aware anybody has claimed any of this is in any way concerned with German's born since the end of the war or who reached adulthood after the war.

 

Secondly, you may want to study the subject, there is no shortage of examples of German's opting out of participating in the genocide and suffering no adverse consequences.

 

You may also want to study the way that the regime was highly sensitive to public opinion and changed course on the euthanasia program, pogroms etc when public opinion reacted adversely.

 

Elements of the German army and establishment were happy to conspire to kill Hitler when it was obvious that they were about to lose the war, some of the plotters were active participants in genocide and saw no reason to resist when they were winning. One of the plotters was Arthur Nebe (do a bit of research on who he was, happy to command Einsatzgruppe B, then claim some sort of moral high ground in the resistance).

[adb968008]

Please - don't be naive.

"such men" as your older German's doing killings - yes, they should have known better but they also knew that had they resisted, not only would they get a bullet but their family would get executed too - and, such men would mainly have had families, wives, children, maybe adult offspring with children of their own. Thereby making them less capable of resisting not more.

That is why I draw the comparison between North Korea and Nazi Germany;

Both states are completely totalitarian police states with very well developed spy networks.

Both states will make you disappear should you go against the will of the political apparatus.

Both states had/have total control over the population.

 

It may well be that both states populations "know" what is going on, through "Chinese whispers" and the like but their ability to resist is zero.

 

Having visited totalitarian states# (Yugoslavia in 1977, Portugal after during a military coup, Morocco many times) I maintain that in a situation where you live in fear - you will do as you are directed to because if you do not, you will disappear, horribly.

 

#None of which were particularly evil, it has to be said but the atmosphere of fear is still all pervading.

Closer to Europe, one has to just walk into an Embassy and suffer the same fate.

 

Ive experienced much of Germany over the years and count many as friends, it is quite definitely not the country or DNA it used to be. Germans are exceptionally open, friendly and respecful.

 

Again an anecdote, if you put a frog in boiling water it jumps out. If you put it in cold water, and warm it, it wont...

 

What worries me more, is the UK seems to be heading in a more extremist non-tolerant direction, not by government policy but by the populist sentiment, which is the same route which those with despotic desires use to ferment and use to ascend, circumventing the establishment and exploiting it to gain power throughout history, and people want it, until they realise, by which time its too late. Fortunately we have the reds, blues and yellows with time served limits to keep it in check.

That doesnt alter the publics mentality and behaviour... a culture of giving benefits then later taking them away does nothing to quell jealousy and anger, which eventually turns to hate and blame... all they lack is a focal point and a critical mass.

 

People dont realise how extremist a country is until its too late, unless your outside that country looking in and see whats happening.

Edited December 6, 2018 by adb968008

[luckymucklebackit]

I have personally traveled extensively in Germany and have visited Poland on about six occasions.  The only time I felt uncomfortable was a business trip to Dresden, where my host was very outspoken about the infamous bombing of the city in 1945 and I had to carefully try and steer the conversation to avoid offence.  That said the city is an extremely interesting place to visit with a eclectic mix of architecture.

 

Jim

[jjb1970]

I was in Indonesia in 1998, it's quite disturbing to see how people can just flip and go on rampages. Conversely I was in Egypt on 9/11 when the WTC was destroyed and most Egyptian's went out of their way to be very apologetic and nice to American and indeed foreign people in general despite many of them probably having sympathy for some of the aims of Islamists. Unfortunately there has been a widespread rise in populist politics of an unfortunate kinds and intolerance in much of Europe and more widely which is very disturbing.

[Welchester]

I have personally traveled extensively in Germany and have visited Poland on about six occasions.  The only time I felt uncomfortable was a business trip to Dresden, where my host was very outspoken about the infamous bombing of the city in 1945 and I had to carefully try and steer the conversation to avoid offence.  That said the city is an extremely interesting place to visit with a eclectic mix of architecture.

 

Jim

 

I was quite interested to learn that Dresden is twinned with Coventry and that there is a very warm relationship between the two cities.

[brack]

which eventually turns to hate and blame... all they lack is a focal point and a critical mass.

 

People dont realise how extremist a country is until its too late, unless your outside that country looking in and see whats happening.

Look at Adorno et al's work on authoritarianism and the prewar work of the Frankfurt group. There's lots of flaws in their work, but they found a larger proportion of the US population had fascist or authoritarian tendencies in their views than that of prewar Germany.

 

In some ways I think seeing Germany and how far things went very quickly caused other nations/peoples in the west to step back from the edge a little.

[Francis deWeck]

I was quite interested to learn that Dresden is twinned with Coventry and that there is a very warm relationship between the two cities.

I believe that the bombing of Dresden has been reported very one-sidedly, insofar as it was an important city in the Nazi war machine. The trouble is that this bombing was a case of reaping the whirlwind. The death of so many German citizens was turned into a propagandist event, but the airmen who were tasked to carry out the mission were cast as 'perpetrators' of something approaching a war crime. Not so for the Luftwaffe, who bombed London, et al. It is noticeable that RAF bombers were referred to as 'Terror' bombers by the German people; a case of blindness as to what Hitler and Co. had unleashed on the World. Nevertheless, it is heart-warming to see that there is this relationship between the two cities, and that despite the past things are moving on.

[Ozexpatriate]

All of the "how could this happen" questions can be addressed through neuroscience.

 

People are very susceptible to having their empathy manipulated. Despite millennia of philosophical thought our primate brains are still hardwired for tribal behavior.

 

If a minority of people can be defined as the "other", meaning outside our "in group", our empathy for them drops dramatically. Where there is no empathy, even otherwise "good" people are capable of atrocity. This is frighteningly easy and demonstrable in neuroscience experiments. Defining a minority as "the other" is the engine of genocide.

 

The empathy "in group" (our tribe) could be defined by race, ethnicity, religion, politics or a host of different and arbitrary divisions.  Totalitarian regimes are good at defining the "in group" and the "out group"/"other" to manipulate empathy.

 

A simple example of how people treat the "other" is violence by football supporters where the "other" becomes supporters of the other team - despite being the essentially the same by every other measure.

 

This program may not play for you but I found it enlightening.

[EddieB]

Thought provoking thread.

 

One thing i have ssen, and is apparent in this thread, is the lack of self critiscm of the UK. The UK wasnt a wholly law abiding & obedient law force, to quote an italian major on the subject, brought up to Winston Churchill when asked about British army crimes in Italy against its populace... Churchills response.. the ”Dont worry as Victor, I get to write the history book”. Many Poles have a lot of opinions on the UK in WW2, especially after a few drinks, and they are somewhat enlightening in their different narrative to ours... it starts with Katyn and isnt helped by Sikorskis death in Gibraltar, nor the planned forced resettlement of the survivors of Siberia (Former educated Poles and remains of their families, like Doctors, Science, Graduate levels etc), whom were left to die, became refugees in the middle east and were told the UK planned to resettle them in Germany or the USSR post war as the new Soviet Polish government saw educated Poles as a threat to their power, how do you think they felt about that as they bobbed around the med on a boat looking for a port after the war ?

 

Sometimes it would be helpful to be taught "our" history from the perspective of nationals from other countries.  Travelling to those countries is indeed a way of gaining a better understanding and recognising the planks in our own eyes.

 

It is certainly true that the Poles suffered greatly from both sides during the War.  However Polish history mustn't airbrush out the Jewish Pogrom that took place in Kielce in 1946.

[alfsboy]

Perhaps I can join this conversation .My American friend who I have known since the 60's married a German girl .Lindy or as she was actually named Seiglinde .Her family were all middle ranking hard line Nazis .The Patriarch ,her step father ,was a party official ,was Streichers secretary for a time.Hee actual father was an SS panzer  officer who died in Russia  early on.Her two Onkels were an SS oficer in Das Reich,an intelligence officer in Das Reich who probably sent the troops to Oradour  and the other was an official in Berlin ,My friend got on with them all though he noted that the Onkels had a habit of disappearing when police and foreign cars were around.They were all all unrepentant Nazis who blamed the Jews for everything  and considered the war to have been a victory against the Jews..The Patriarch had a Jewish wife but divorced her in 33 .He married Lindys widowed mother ,who was also a raving Nazi.A right bunch 

Lindy hated Hitler and the Nazis.She was a  BDM flakky in the end and managed to save a friend  critical of Hitler from Dachau through getting her step father to get him out..she blamed Hitler and the Nazis for killing her father and a lot of young friends and was very out spoken about it .She even attacked them all once a dinner.

My frIend got on well with the Patriarch who was 'de Nazified in Hammelburg camp, at that time run by an understandably  vicious Jewish major in the British army whos  main aim in life was to kill as many Nazis as he could mainly through starvation and suicide .The patriarch survived by agreeing to be the batman for black US Army Sargent   something the other inmates wouldn't do .The   Sarg saved him but when he returned to the US it was danger time and ill treatment .He was saved by his ex Jewish wife turning up to say he had saved all her family from the gas chambers.He had looked after them since 33.

        Later one of the dreaded onkels was living under a false name and was  arrested and it turned out he ran a  major KZ labour camp  and had murdered thousands  including setting dogs on girls etc.By that time it was German court and jail so no great hardship there .,When the family except Lindy had  all died she was flabbergasted to see she was a multi millionaire .A clue to the family wealth was that she remembered going to a flat in Munich stuffed full of old paintings during the war  .Another member of the family had been one of Hitlers art directors They had kept every uniform ,pass ,party card and weapons badges medals etc all hidden under a huge  fake  log pile .My friend who had divorced by then  and gone off to Vietnam for dubious educational work (he  was MI )got all that . Weird story

Goldhagen was right .He said Germans hated THE Jews not single Jews.My uncle(not Jewish ) was in a camp for while as he was a Belgian citizen though British and incarcerated .He said the Germans were vain arrogant and stupid  and the Nazis ten times worse .Cant really  argue with that .He travelled Europe in the thirties   as ` textile rep said not one of his hundreds of Jewish clients was ever seen  again after the war .

You will note I haven't named anyone .That is at the request of my friend .Lindy is still alive and has her own life .I do have copies of documentation ,names and have checked what I could on the net . .I even found some details my friend didnt know.

There you have it .Murderers ,thieves ,haters and one slight saint .Sums it all up really .Sorry if it upsets any German  reader but sins of fathers etc .....

[jjb1970]

Sometimes it would be helpful to be taught "our" history from the perspective of nationals from other countries.  Travelling to those countries is indeed a way of gaining a better understanding and recognising the planks in our own eyes.

 

It is certainly true that the Poles suffered greatly from both sides during the War.  However Polish history mustn't airbrush out the Jewish Pogrom that took place in Kielce in 1946.

 

I've found there are several universal truisms around the world which have applied in every country I've ever visited or person from every nationality I've ever known (and I've known quite a few and travelled pretty widely):

 

-People extend a generosity of interpretation to their own nations past which is seldom extended to others;

 

-No matter what people might think of their own nations problems or past, people don't appreciates being told about by outsiders;

 

-Every people, nation has acted like complete so and so's at some point, some perhaps more than others but in those cases it's generally because success has offered more opportunities than any moral or ethical difference;

 

-You don't have to scratch very deeply to find tribalism everywhere, and there seems to be an innate need to separate the world into "them" and "us", it doesn't take that much for such sentiment to escalate into violence and death.

[Edwardian]

Hmm. As the mother of a friend of mine (Jewish, as it happened) used to say of any German or Austrian of a certain generation, "I wonder what he did in the war. They all did something, you know".

 

Our family friends of that generation were a Wehrmacht POW befriended by my grandfather and his Austrian wife, a nurse in the Reich for the duration.   

 

Later, I was at university with Hans Frank's granddaughter. Great girl. Lot of baggage to deal with.

 

Did anyone listen to The Ratline on Radio 4?  The podcast was the best way to enjoy it to the full. 

 

It was fascinating in many ways, not least the way the son persilscheined his Nazi father in the face of the apparent evidence and the touching friendship that, nevertheless, persisted between him and the descendant of the Jews for whose death the father had been responsible.  

 

Finally, I was sitting in the waiting room of a university dental hospital during the 1990s, waiting for an operation to remove wisdom teeth under a general anesthetic, reading Allan Bullock's tome on Hitler. The student undertaking the operation came to introduce himself. He was German and terribly offended at my choice of reading matter. He asked why I would want to read about that as it was all in the past and best forgotten.  The reply I gave him pretty much sums up my take on this; we need to understand what happened, to make sure it never happens again and that is because, if we do not guard against it, this sort of thing could happen again, and it could happen anywhere. He seemed unconvinced.

 

Don't fool yourself that it happened in Germany a long time ago and could not happen here in the future. Look at the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and the USA, and read the Daily Mail for an invitation to take the first steps on the path that led to Auschwitz. It starts by demonising a group of "others" - benefit scroungers, asylum seekers etc - for whatever you think is wrong with your life. Great supporter of Mosley's BUF, the Mail. To this day the paper's DNA is remarkably unchanged.     

[jjb1970]

All of the "how could this happen" questions can be addressed through neuroscience.

 

People are very susceptible to having their empathy manipulated. Despite millennia of philosophical thought our primate brains are still hardwired for tribal behavior.

 

If a minority of people can be defined as the "other", meaning outside our "in group", our empathy for them drops dramatically. Where there is no empathy, even otherwise "good" people are capable of atrocity. This is frighteningly easy and demonstrable in neuroscience experiments. Defining a minority as "the other" is the engine of genocide.

 

The empathy "in group" (our tribe) could be defined by race, ethnicity, religion, politics or a host of different and arbitrary divisions.  Totalitarian regimes are good at defining the "in group" and the "out group"/"other" to manipulate empathy.

 

A simple example of how people treat the "other" is violence by football supporters where the "other" becomes supporters of the other team - despite being the essentially the same by every other measure.

 

This program may not play for you but I found it enlightening.

 

Indeed, it is something people are generally reluctant to face because of the implications for all of us. The divisions alter over time but there seems to be an innate need in human beings to seek to be a part of a group, and to define ourselves by that. And if you look around these divisions are everywhere, usually they are reasonably harmless save for a bit of shouting at sporting events or if arguing about politics, but if I listen to a lot of the rhetoric flying around about certain groups and minorities it wouldn't take that much for the underlying sentiments to escalate to something very sinister.

[jjb1970]

I think the unusual (but far from unique thing) about Hitler was that he took his own prejudices and crack pot racial theories seriously enough to actually act them out. And persuaded a nation to follow him. If we are honest I think we would all admit to having some prejudices and having said some pretty bad things, but in the vast majority of cases it is heated words or grumbling but normal human decency (or maybe social conditioning?) means it doesn't go beyond intemperate words for most people. However a minority do take their prejudices seriously enough to follow them to their logical conclusion. I frequently hear Islamophobia and hateful words about people on benefits (and to be fair, the well off in the other direction) in particular, as well as almost casual prejudice towards China and certain other groups. However few people would consider themselves prejudiced and fewer still would actually go out and kill somebody or beat them up just for being of a particular faith, race or nationality. It does happen, and happens far too often but it is far from the majority position, However an unscrupulous politician can easily change that.

[Ozexpatriate]

Don't fool yourself that it happened in Germany a long time ago and could not happen here in the future. Look at the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and the USA, ...

The 'good news', such as it is, is that this is not a majority position in the US. To say more is to stray in forbidden territory, but your point that to assume it could not happen again in a western society is well taken.

Edited December 6, 2018 by Ozexpatriate

[adb968008]

Sometimes it would be helpful to be taught "our" history from the perspective of nationals from other countries. Travelling to those countries is indeed a way of gaining a better understanding and recognising the planks in our own eyes.

 

It is certainly true that the Poles suffered greatly from both sides during the War. However Polish history mustn't airbrush out the Jewish Pogrom that took place in Kielce in 1946.

I’m not portraying Poles as saints.

The point I am making is that British people are not really in a position to judge Europeans of any country.

 

We are the only country in Europe, from Russia to Portugal, From Greece to Finland, in 900 years, not to have had a neighbour invade our territory, thoroughly from end to end, stealing, murdering and killing the populace and looting its belongings whilst enslaving the remaining or carving up territory for a prolonged period, even the neutral Swiss got stuck in, in 1815, Portugal had to rule its country from outside its own borders in exile, Spain ate itself... the list of European incursions is endless.

 

Therefore we cannot truly understand the motivations of both those doing it, or those receiving it, no amount of pointing a negative with a double negative will change that, simply put.. we, our fathers, fathers fathers or any other fathers going back centuries have not experienced on our own shores what it feels like to be defeated, humiliated, invaded and hopeless, without mercy of the invaders. The most we have experienced is local skirmishes.. for an English story as such, closest is the Channel Islands, after that it’s empire.

 

In my own family, I have a bedtime story of one Gibertybone, and his skeleton soldiers who come looking for people at night and hence kids have to be perfectly still and sleep, it’s actually quite a long story and usually I was scared stiff and asleep or bored asleep before my mother finished it, today my little one has it. I asked my grandfather once where he got it. He told me his grandfather gave him the story, from him as a kid who’s own parents told him.. the ultimate story was of hiding from Napoleons troops and our family had to escape from what is modern Belgium, 200 years ago, with much of the family killed for being discovered making a noise, after being scared of a rattling sabre. I myself have a fear of horses probably from this, but 200 years later it’s a bedtime story, but my Great grandfather was apparently very anti-French and resisted going to France in WW1, he sadly died there, and as a result my grandfather grew up a very poor up bringing had nothing good for the Germans, whilst my fathers side, is, some generations ago of wealthy German descent (again 150 years plus)...I know there was family friction back those days.

 

It’s Memories which ultimately have a bearing on actions of revenge in the next tragic war.. WW2’s beginnings was highlighted by destroying the railway carriage of humiliation of WW1 for Germany.,. It’s a symbol, victory by France over Germany in WW1, which itself was the product of humiliation of France in the Prussian wars of 1870... you can keep going back adfinitem.

 

The great success of WW2 has been to nullify the feeling of resentment in today’s German people, by rebuilding them rather than subjugating them, but every few years another country in Europe generally provokes contention by pointing out their past.

Where WW2 failed was Eastern Europe, it leads to fear and resentment of Russia, with mutual mistrust, fortunately the US is the overseer of this relationship, had the US / NATO not existed its highly likely peace would have been lost a few decades ago, Germany would have needed to re-arm itself... and so the cycle would have continued.

If the EU manages to hold European peace beyond 200 years (ie out of living memory, and out of living memory of those who may remember someone who once held a living memory, chances are the passion for revenge or rectification will cease and the story become just a story).

 

Try explaining to a Pole, the aerial bombings of London, when Warsaw was a completed and gutted ruin, every building without exception destroyed (not just damaged but an utter roofless, wall collapsing burnt out ruin), for miles in all directions, without heat, light, water or even the luxury of a still hanging front door, when 6 years earlier it had streets that were as elegant as the champ de elysees. (I have the 1932 PKP English language tourist guide, complete with pictures to see myself).

 

Ultimately, an all encompassing community, squabbling and all, is why peace prevails, That is why the EU exists, and our lack of experience of being invaded is why we are so indifferent towards it... we have individual loss in overseas conflicts, but we haven’t felt the full pain in our back yards, we simply don’t understand it.

Edited December 6, 2018 by adb968008

[caradoc]

Don't fool yourself that it happened in Germany a long time ago and could not happen here in the future. Look at the growth of right-wing populism in Europe and the USA, and read the Daily Mail for an invitation to take the first steps on the path that led to Auschwitz. It starts by demonising a group of "others" - benefit scroungers, asylum seekers etc - for whatever you think is wrong with your life. Great supporter of Mosley's BUF, the Mail. To this day the paper's DNA is remarkably unchanged.     

 

Edwardian, you have just done precisely what you accuse the Daily Mail of doing; You have demonised a group of people (99.9% of whom you do not, and never will, know) with the express intention of causing hatred towards and fear of them. Your comments are outrageous.

[Edwardian]

Edwardian, you have just done precisely what you accuse the Daily Mail of doing; You have demonised a group of people (99.9% of whom you do not, and never will, know) with the express intention of causing hatred towards and fear of them. Your comments are outrageous.

 

Outrage, a Daily Mail speciality.

 

As the great Tom Lehrer once observed "There are people who do not love their fellow man. I hate people like that!" 

Edited December 6, 2018 by Edwardian

[jjb1970]

The problem with explanations which explain everything is that they also explain nothing. The point about national rivalry is well taken, but Anti-Semitism has roots which go back to the dark ages in Europe with no rational reason for it, as until 1948 they were a religious people without a nation and were a threat to nobody. Similarly, prejudices against gypsies have very deep roots in Europe. Multi-national states can force people to co-exist peacefully (the Habsburg empire being a good example) but it doesn't really remove nationalism and everything that goes with it. The most savage acts of destruction tend to stem from essentially internecine rather than from international conflict (examples abound, in the former USSR, China, Rwanda, Indonesia etc). Then again, once labels are attached to things they become important.

[adb968008]

The problem with explanations which explain everything is that they also explain nothing. The point about national rivalry is well taken, but Anti-Semitism has roots which go back to the dark ages in Europe with no rational reason for it, as until 1948 they were a religious people without a nation and were a threat to nobody. Similarly, prejudices against gypsies have very deep roots in Europe. Multi-national states can force people to co-exist peacefully (the Habsburg empire being a good example) but it doesn't really remove nationalism and everything that goes with it. The most savage acts of destruction tend to stem from essentially internecine rather than from international conflict (examples abound, in the former USSR, China, Rwanda, Indonesia etc). Then again, once labels are attached to things they become important.

WW2 didn’t start because of Jews, they were ostracised, but the invasion of Poland, annexation of Austria, Recovery of Czech Sudetenland and demands of Alsace and Lorraine had nothing to do with European Jewry.

Similarly Hitler didn’t invade Russia or France to rid it of Jews.

 

The Jewish people were collateral in a war of conquest and desire to build empire.

The Jews were persecuted as a result of obedience to that empire in order to survive themselves. There were people who both supported and opposed that, in all countries.

Edited December 6, 2018 by adb968008