again i state that no one was forced into the ss, and to say so ignores the courage and ethics of the hundreds of thousands of germans who refused both the ss and the nazi party. perhaps they should have done more, but at least they didn't directly participate in the holocoust.

this is hardly a list to teach histoty fionn, if you are interested start with professor stokes of dalhousie unibversity, he has many books on german social history, he mined the interviews he did for decades. more radical is goldhagens book "hitler's willing executioners"

right here on mudact we have had the protection of a life long holocoust denuier and his family by our host joe offer. if you read norbert ruebsaat's blog on geist you will see the way people weave the lies. he states that has family wasn't nazi, they were deutchlans party--(the german national people's party--dnvp). and that they marched with the stahlhelm--the party's street goons also called the stahllhelm bund der frontsoldaten. nice finesse for those who do not read history. unfortunatelt for norbert and the ruebsaat clan. the dnvp and stahlhelm disappeared between 1932 and 1934. where did they go? their leader joined the nazi's immediately and took a post in the fledging ss, a branch of the sa at the time(prior to the sa being purged). manyothers followed. by 1934 all the dnvp and stahljelm were part of the nazi party and the ss branch of the sa(as the ss was then, prior to the purge). the dnvp was an openly fascist party with antisenitic policies and almost identical to the nazi party except they were led by aristocrats and wanted a furher but they wanted the kaiser or a relative to be der furher. they compromised when they lost a lot of popular support and dropped to eight per cent in the polls. they then joined the nazi's starting in 1932 and complete by 1934. they crought the german industrialists with them and were party of the coalition that passed the enabling act that allowed hitler to asume total power.
so a nice con to say one was dnvp or stahlhelm, as norbert's father used to say. except that norberts fater was thieteen when the dnvp and stahlhelm disappeared into the nazi party. ignoring that between 13/14 and 20 helmut ruebsaat, norbert's father, was in the ss and a member of the junior nazi party and when of age, 18, he joined the ss and the formal party. you just forget what happened between 1932 and 1940 and presto you\re not a nazi! of course while he was alive helmut told people he was thirteen when the war broke out so he could pretend he was too young. the truth was revealed in his obituary.

this is how you do waldheimer disease(you forget what yopu did during the war), a few tweaks here and there and no one will know. grass was ss by ideology or maybe cowardice--you could get out of fighting on the front in some ss units--at least untill near the end. and of course it was very prestigeous.

so that;s how its done. then you are a good german who didn't know anythoing about the holocoust nor other atrocities. you were just a jew hating qristoctatic fascist--not a nazi at all.and all your friends and family become good germans even joe offer. who reads history anyway?who cares?