BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:45 PM

I don't think that six million Jews were murdered in the Holocaust--I think that six million human beings were murdered

More than six million - remember as well as the Jews the Nazis went after other people identified as enemies or as surplus to requirements. Gypsies, Slavs, non-Aryans, Communists, Liberals, disabled people, homosexuals... Most of the human race actually, when you got down to it.

And it happened in what arguably was the most civilised country in the world. That's what's frightening, because the seeds are always here in our civilised western world for the same kind of evil to come again, in some different form.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: frogprince
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 09:53 PM

Wolfgang, I'll join the rest who have expressed appreciation that you decided in favor of hitting the submit button. And, also as others have expressed here, this thread is a prime example of the most worthwhile effects of the "cyber world".

Of the parallels in experience I might think of as an American born in our midwest in 1942, one detail stands out for me personally: I had to have been at least 30 years old before I heard word one about the internment of Americans of Japanese descent during WWII. I was deeply jolted, and grieved, when I finally learned about it. If the source had not been plainly credible, I don't know that I could have immediately accepted it as true. It just wasn't something that could have happened in "my America".
                      Dean.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:33 PM

Wolfgang--what a wonderfully evocative piece. I have take the libery of printing it out to pass on to some friends. I salute you and your courage in sharing your experience.

M.Ted, it IS important to note that those murdered WERE Jews, and were Gypsies, and were homosexuals. People who happened to be Jewish or the other proscribed classes were murdered SPECIFICALLY because they were what they were. To gloss over that fact is to lessen the horror of it all.

Frogprince, I was a two year old in southern California at our entrance into WWII. I lived in the West Los Angeles area where there were numerous Nisei nurseries and truck farms during my high school years. I even knew the liquor store owner who fought in the Nisei division in Europe, and had Nisei friends in school and the 'hood'. But nobody ever spoke of the internment camps. It wasn't until my senior year at UCLA that I first heard about that blot on our history; it was a paper presented by a fellow (caucasion) student in our historiography seminar. BTW the California attorney-general who requested the internment was Earl Warren, whose Supreme Court broke educational segregation in the U.S.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 11:23 PM

I didn't learn until a year or so ago that Canada too interned their West Coast Japanese.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: ragdall
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:47 AM

I didn't learn until a year or so ago that Canada too interned their West Coast Japanese.


Ebbie,
Not only Japanese.

World War II
During World War II the War Measures Act was used again to intern Canadians, and 26 internment camps were set up across Canada. In 1940 an Order in Council was passed that defined enemy aliens as "all persons of German or Italian racial origin who have become naturalized British subjects since September 1, 1922". (At the time, Canada didn't grant passports and citizenship on its own, so immigrants were "naturalized" by becoming British subjects.) A further Order in Council outlawed the Communist Party. Estimates suggest that some 30,000 individuals were affected by these Orders; that is, they were forced to register with the RCMP and to report to them on a monthly basis. The government interned approximately 500 Italians and over 100 communists.

In New Brunswick, 711 Jews, refugees from the holocaust, were interned at the request of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill because he thought there might be spies in the group.
Source

rags

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ebbie
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:51 AM

Whoa. Learn something every day. Thanks, Ragdall.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 01:28 AM

You're right, Bill, it was just the Marx company, not the Marx Brothers who made those toy soldiers. (grin)

My analogy to Hitler was pretty directly intended. Hitler created burning domestic issues over supposed dire "threats" to German society by various token groups...primarily Jews and Communists. He used the torching of a major public building by someone (one wonders who) as a pretext for assuming vastly extended legal powers, which enabled him to set up a dictatorship in what had been a democracy. He gave enormous funding to the military, which allowed Germany to build the world's most powerful, modern, and effective fighting forces by 1939. He greatly increased the surveillance of his own citizenry and the powers of the police. He invaded a small power (Poland) under the ridiculous pretext that Poland was threatening to attack Germany! He even arranged a setup phony "attack" by prisoners dressed in Polish Army uniforms on a German radio station just before the German attack...the prisoners were shot dead, of course, so they told no tales). He engaged in pre-emptive, unprovoked attacks on Poland, Denmark, Holland, Norway, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Luxembourg, and Russia, and even the USA, in fact (in Dec '41)...and I may still have left somebody out. (I don't count England or France in that list, though, because they declared war on him first...) He managed to convince his own people that all this was legitimate defence of Germany, and that Germany had, in fact, been forced to defend itself against attacks and betrayals by its "corrupt and evil" opponents. He believed he was confronting absolute evil and bringing in a New World Order which would save western civilization.

Does any of that sound a bit like the Bush administration to you? And like a whole series of things done by various American administrations in the last few decades? It sure does to me. It's been happening by degrees...just like Naziism happened by degrees. It did not all happen in one day. Things slowly got worse, and it crept up on people, and that is what has been happening in the USA for several decades...in fact since the late 40's, I'd say.

The USA and Russia took up where Germany left off, building world empires for themselves. Russia went bankrupt. Now the USA figures it has the whole playing field wrapped up, and it can invade anyone it wants to, bomb anyone it wants to, and assasinate anyone it wants to.

There is a price to pay for that kind of megalomania. I don't know when it will be paid, but the time will come. Maybe it will be long after all of us are dead and gone, I don't know.

Regarding the hate propaganda dispensed by both the Axis and the Allies in WWII...and the hate propaganda continued by the Allies after it was all over (which I witnessed firsthand as a young boy)...you say, "Let's face it---we had to win or you would not be able to write the things you have written."

That's right, Bill, we had to win. But one does not NEED hate propaganda to win a war! A war can be won very effectively with nothing but honest patriotism, courage, and love of one's own people, it does not require any concocting of ridiculous propaganda movies and magazines to engender hatred of another people. It does not require the stereotyping of a whole other nation as vicious subhumans, nor does it require a belief in your citizenry that the people you are fighting are inherently "evil" (which they must certainly are NOT, in almost every case). It just requires faith and devotion in the values of one's own system and a deep desire to defend it effectively.

Anyone who panders to the sort of zenophobic garbage that was reflected everywhere in the grotesque propaganda I saw in North America in the 50's and 60's against Germans and Japanese (or Communists, for that matter) can hardly claim to be any saner or more decent than the supposedly "evil" people and systems he is whipping up hate against, can he?

Demagogues are demagogues, and lies are lies. Doesn't matter what side of the conflict they are on.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 04:58 AM

IMO, the greatest crime that the US, and the UN, will be found guilty of in the future is the standing by during massacres in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia, Somalia, etc.



LH,

"It just requires faith and devotion in the values of one's own system and a deep desire to defend it effectively."

And is this not exactly what all those who support ANY government can have?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:12 AM

I am not really able to respond adequately in one posting to either Wolfgang's initial posting or the many other interesting comments, which have followed. I would end up writing a book.
I have written this elsewhere here, but this is worth repeating. In 1941, a frightened, ten year old boy, Peter Moorhouse, stood on the Torpoint side of the Tamar and watched the bombs burn his native Plymouth. His parents, who were in the middle of it, survived. His cousins, who were playmates, were killed in one direct hit.
For years later, the then fourteen year old Rolf Peters, an evacuee, returned to the bombed ruins of his native Kleve, an area which had also been devasted by the deliberate destruction of the dykes in the high water of February 1945 and the battle, which finally took the Arnhem objectives.
Until the killing arrived on the doorstep of these children, the war had seemed like a sports score board. They had been told that the good side was winning.
It was the ability of so many people to distance themselves from the reality, which allowed this awful tragedy to take place. Even the appalling Adolf Eichmann could not stomach the consequences of his work, when he saw it close up. The tragedy was predicated by the mass surrender (insidious, as LH says) of common humanity. Not only Germany was guilty of that.
The Germany of 2006 has a strong constitution and a human rights record, which shames most other countries. A lot of very bad people did get away with their crimes. All the same, I reckon Germany has made a far better attempt at facing up to its past than most other countries.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:25 AM

I suppose there is at least a fair amount of truth in the East German claim what is was not guilty of the acts of the Nazi (NSDAP) regime. The German Democratic Republic (East Germany - DDR) was ruled by the Socialist Unity Party (SED), a union of the Communists (KPD) and the Social Democrats (SPD). During World War II, the Nazis imprisoned as many Communists and Social Democrats as they could catch, while others escaped from Germany. Many of those who escaped, including Willy Brandt (of West Germany's SPD), served in the Resistance.

The SED traced its roots back to the Kiel Sailors' Revolt (Kieler Matrosenaufstand) of about 1916, and seemed to claim to have had clear Socialist thinking all the way through to 1989 - unblemished by association with the National Socialists (Nazis). In many ways, there's a lot of truth to that.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ernest
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 07:54 AM

Joe, the SED might not been associated with the Nazis (although they twhitewashed those that were useful to them), but they were associates of Stalin. Not that much better in my book.

The union of Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD) to SED was not a voluntary one, the Social Democrats were forced too unite with the KPD by the Russians.

The first out-of-area campaign by German Soldiers after the war was the East German army suppressing the uprising of the people in Prague.

And I think you have seen the Wall by yourself.

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 08:27 AM

Wolfgang's post war generation in Germany did not really have much of a say in dealing with those who were responsible for the horrors (some would say the whole nation was responsible) as this was largely settled by others before they were really old enough to be aware.

The big names had taken their own way out or those that remained had been tried and convicted with much publicity.

I wonder how that generation would have dealt with Goering, Speer etc - had this gang somehow survived to enable it?

However I feel the most telling was the treatment of the next wave of criminals due for judgement. The judges.

Stanley Kramer's 1961 film Judgement At Nuremberg http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055031/ is a very sensitive and emotional introduction to these lesser known trials. It demonstrates well the situation that Wolfgang describes and how this came about.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 11:47 AM

Little Hawk, I disagree with everything you opine in your post of 1:28am
from the third paragraph on, but it is your opinion and you're entitled to it.
However, you speak of North American xenophobia against Japanese and Germans in the 1950s and 1960s. I believe that characterization is factually wrong. Well, I don't know about Canada, but in the U.S. by that time Japan and (West)Germany were well on their way to being forgiven and becoming our allies. In 1950 I was 11 years old, and even then a news junkie. No school I went to was teaching hate of those groups; government and private programs were assisting those countries.
Interestingly, you mention the communists as a parenthetical aside...that was the one area that we could have been be considered xenophobic.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:51 PM

John on the sunset coast,

I was born in 1972 - long after you say that Germany and Japan had long since been forgiven - you might say that my generation was as far removed as could be from those horrors by comparison to little hawks.

Yet I played with those same plastic WWII figures, and guess what - the british and american soldiers were the good guys and the germans and japanese were the bad guys. It was taken as given.

I grew up as a child surrounded by the common perception of practically every other kid my age, that Germany was the enemy, before discovering slightly later that actually the soviets were. I remember being apprehensive upon meeting german people and being hugely curious too to talk to one of these "aliens" (it wasn't something my parents ever taught me).

All of this before the age of 10.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 01:01 PM

the british and american soldiers were the good guys and the germans and japanese were the bad guys. It was taken as given.

And it was essentially true. Not necessarily as individuals, but for what they stood for.

Oddly enough, born in 1938, I can never remember playfights where the Germans were the enemy - it was bows and arrows and Robin Hood generally. And the idea that the Russians were enemies at all - that was never something that was even considered. They were the good guys who had helped beat the Nazis.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 01:26 PM

John I would say that the "coastal capitals" may have been moving on but in the great unwashed midwest there was still a bit of the war going on!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 01:32 PM

Sure was, Spawzer. I can say without much fear of dispute that the children of the Midwest were firmly in the throes of the WWII generation. The TV shows were full of caricatures and propaganda even though the war was over years before. Japanese people were still "Japs", the Germans were still "Krauts", and that was in the homes and on the TV's well into the 70's.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: MMario
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 02:01 PM

frogprince - I am amazed that you were able to get into the 70's without having heard of the internment of Nisei in the US. I think I first learned of it somewhere around entering grade school - '59 or '60.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 03:44 PM

It's more complicated than just a matter of prejudice.

In the light of Wolfgang's post, does it seem unreasonable for people to have felt that, until that generation which had backed Hitler was no longer a significant force in Germany, a measure of distrust was appropriate?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 04:20 PM

I think the whole world was still in shock.

It's a difficult reality to comprehend and believe. Reason to reaxamine MTed's point earlier about seeing it not as 6,000,000 Jews but 6,000,000 innocent ordinary people murdered as a result of their views and beliefs (not wishing to neglect those others who were murdered, just that "not all the victims were jews but all the jews were victims")

Our global collective Psychology was deeply affected in many ways. I don't believe that even max's databanks could support speculation on this subject.

It's too big, yet we need to do it or run the risk of repeating history.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:05 PM

Excuse me, but playing with plastic WWII soldiers in 1950 is not demonizing Japanese and Germans. But, yes, if you are American the Japanese and German soldiers were the enemy for WWII games.
I don't know of any responsible government agency, or major political party that still considered the former enemy as a current one then. Did some individuals? Probably. Did Americans on the whole? Assuredly not. We were sending CARE packages to Europe, includig West Germany. We were building a democatic Japan. We were in love, by and large, with United Nations agencies--UNESCO, WHO, etc. We had moved on to dealing with the 'Communist Menace.'

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:19 PM

Just a thought ...

Perhaps the amount of time that has been spent on the subject of plastic soldiers is slightly facile and tactless in the context of Wolfgangs original point.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 05:42 PM

John, I was talking about the comic books, the movies, and that sort of stuff that was going on in popular culture in the 50's and early 60's in North America...as well as the stuff that was disseminated to students in junior high and high school. It was calculated to portray WWII Germans and Japanese (not some of them, all of them) as sadistic, subhuman, evil monsters. It had nothing whatsoever to say about postwar Germans and Japanese. They were being cultivated by the government as Allies against the Soviets...that was a separate matter, and was based on a new hate campaign and a whole new war...against the Communists this time.

The Soviets were no doubt guilty of similar hate propaganda, and maybe worse. That doesn't excuse it when we do it.

Winning a war should be a cause for immense relief, thanksgiving, celebration, and then getting on with something more positive. It should not be an excuse for rubbing salt into the wounds of the wretched people who had the bad fortune to lose that war and depicting them in your popular media as inhuman fiends for the next few decades or the next hundred years. Could that be in order to perhaps expiate one's own collective guilt for having massacred cities full of civilians with firebombing and A-bombs? Very possibly. The best way to distract a people's attention from their government's own more questionable actions is to dump all the imagined evil in the world directly on someone else's shoulders, after all, isn't it?

That's the normal political game. Pass the guilt. Pass the buck. Pass the blame. Pass the ammunition. And get ready for the next war.

Munitions manufacturers have to live too, after all!

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 07:16 PM

LH: I think we have to put this in the prespective of the time.   We did not have TV/Internet/etc; in the days of WW2. A report by a Murrow from London or the reporter (Hicks) on the D Day Invasion armada was considered a communication marvel.

The newspapers of the time printed shocking photos of atrocities heaped on our troops--in Japan. Later, of course, Concentration Camp shots---and before that troops in Europe freezing during battles like The Bulge.

I mention this to put things into perspective of the time which we have to think of when we speak of it. As we would in any era.

So, the sad part is that, and it applies today as well, that the vast majority of the public think in stereotypes, read headlines, and form opinions (these days) from sound bytes.

So, to unite the nation and get "patriotism" you had to build the cause the way it was built. In truth--it was the "good war"--as is said.   Did we do bad things like incarcarate the Japanese-Americans--yes. That can be whole diffrent thread. But your comments dealt with spreading hate and carictature of the enemy.   To that end the media --such as it was then---did what they had to in uniting this nation to defeat a terrible threat.

Can we equate that with today's events and with the Bush administration?   I don't think so. By that I mean that they are the ones that have more media and outlets in their control--newer technologies, if you will---and are using it for purposes totally opposite to what we had to do in WW2 to defend ourselves. This is all about power, arrogance, and, frankly, the Iraq invasion was akin to the Reichstag fire---if the administration wants to make analogies.   An event to create a situation.

It may well be that it is too bad that the USSR is kaput. Perhaps the "balance of terror" kept us all in a safer mode. Who knew.

Would that human nature were such that peace and good will were the mode. But it is not so.

We can continue this thought by talking of religion--all faiths--does it divide or unite (I opt for divide), international allegiances shifting like sand over time, or that we can go to space but cannot do the simplest things on our own planet.

But that can only take us far afield from this discussion---yet, it is all of a piece.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 07:17 PM

My only point was based on the difference in attitudes from what Wolfgang was experiencing to what we did.

I am more than aware of National views and where we were going, etc. What I still would contend is that many of the Joe Average folks in the heartland were still harboring feeling from WWII. I don't recall anything overt in my experience but there wasn't a lot of love lost there either.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 29 Sep 06 - 10:35 PM

You are correct, LH, that there were war movies and comic books that did portray enemy combatants in a highly negative way well into the 1950s. Some even showed civilians in a bad way, but those civilians were usually portrayed as foreign spies, gestapo-like police etc. Rarely, if ever, was the entire population so depicted, and nobody I knew, at least, ever made that leap. Americans were a very forgiving people as I alluded to in my post of 11:47am
It is the same for comic books as for the toy soldiers--the enemy was who the enemy was. While those comics and movies were flourishing, the alien Japanese and the Nisei were quietly, and effectively reintegrating as part of the American main stream.
With due respect, Catspaw, if you know of no overt actions during the 50s and 60s, it is difficult to credit your observation.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:29 AM

John, that is EXACTLY the point. People were polite enough but below the surface it was obvious looking back exactly how many believed. Comments about Japs and Gerries flourished.

Reading your posts it seems that you believe it was not this way for you and I believe you. It just wasn't that way where I was.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: freda underhill
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 02:31 AM

Like others I found Wolfgang's post very thoughtful and moving. I agree with spaw - how wonderful it is to read things like this, from someone of a similar generation but a different culture, from the other side of the planet. And I have previously wondered what it was like for you, Wolfgang, growing up with all that to deal with.

As you might have picked up I have worked with refugees for many years and read about Germany's enlightened policies towards refugees in the 90s. To me that was a sign that Germans had truly thought about things - their current humane policies are much more enlightened than Australia's, for example, and they set a good example for other European countries.

The games vary from country to country, in Afghanistan children of the Hazara minority in central Afghanistan play a game called "taliban" which basically involves raiding a pretend food truck and eating all the imaginary food they want.

Media and politicians demonise Muslim Australians - I see some parts of the population uncritically accepting whatever guff they are fed. It can happen anywhere, and our country which was so progressive a couple of decades ago has become stained with racism.

In Australia our equivalent of growing up with a "whitewashed" view of history meant not finding out about the history of what had happened to indigenous people here until I was an adult. There was nothing about it in our history education at school.

And we used Persil to do our washing, too!

best wishes

Freda

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:03 AM

"Did we do bad things like incarcarate the Japanese-Americans--yes"

It's probably fair to point out that the british treatment of German POW's was so good that only one ever successfully escaped - whereas the brits and americans couldn't wait to get out of the camps they were in, German POW's in Britain lived a life of comparative luxury.

In those days there was a prevailing philosophy best described in the words of Churchill: "let a nation be judged by the way it treats its prisoners"

There weren't any japanese prisoners to speak of as to be captured was a source of ignominy and shame so it was better to die fighting or kill yourself (and your wife and kids in some cases)

Looking at Guantanamo bay nowadays it seems hard to judge the bush positively by those criteria.

When you read on the mudcat about legally endorsed torture, corporate "slavery" in prisons, the apparent victimisation by the police of minority groups and invasions of other countries in flagrant disregard of the UN, it isn't hard to see why some view this encroachment of "the dark side" into american everyday political life as being comparable to the mass hypnotisation that occurred before WWII in Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 10:22 AM

Catspaw--if your point is that there were a some people never forgave former WWII enemies, Ill concede that; I'll go further, there are some people who probably hate them to this day. In fact there will always be bigots and idiots who irrationally hate one group or another.
My point is that this unforgiveness and hatred during by the 1950s was not institutional, and I don't believe it was widespread because it wasn't institutional.
Essentially you may be right in the particular, but I believeI am correct in general.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:25 AM

It was institutional, John, in the public school system. I went to junior high and high school in New York State, and I can assure you that there was a concerted propaganda effort to make us hate and despise three groups of people:

# 1. Communists
# 2. WWII Germans (but not postwar Germans)
# 3. WWII Japanese (but not postwar Japanese)

It was extreme hate propaganda. The reason I was aware of it as such was that # 1, I was a foreigner living in the USA, which gave me a different perspective on things, and # 2, I've always been an "outsider" anyway. If I see the herd of sheep all going one way, I usually instinctively question it, resist it, and go the other way.

Obviously, I would not have made a very good Nazi, given this basic negative response to conventionally common prejudices in any given society. I always tend to sympathize with the underdogs or the common targets in any given pecking order. I identify with them. Most (or at least a majority of) people tend to identify with the "winners" and the people on top, I've noticed.

Quite aside from school, the hate propaganda I mention was also a common feature of comics, movies, and popular culture, and I was well aware of that too as a kid. The whole thing began to moderate and ease off some in the later 60's.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 11:49 AM

I've been totally fascinated by German history for decades--but especially after spending 2 years in Hanau--(near Frankfurt am Main) in the 70's.

There has been evidence coming out in recent years of the links of many in the former DDR to Nazi crimes. Wolfgang definitely did not intend to give the DDR a clean bill of health--with his (amazing!) grasp of English he is being sarcastic when he states "the socialist Germany was by definition free from any guilt".

Recently there have been many questions as to why the DDR did not feel such a soul-wrenching burden as West Germany did--and still somewhat does--even going to such lengths as the controversy over "Ich hatte einen Kamaraden" which Wolfgang, I believe discussed in another thread--link to a fascinating article in German.

I remember--in fact I taped the program--the palpable feeling of das Jahre Null (year zero)--that German history had started in 1945--in a program on the radio about post-war Germany--a program which emphasized this. Again this was in an ironic sense--the clean slate approach was something the producers of the program strongly disagreed with--clear subtext that it was largely a whitewash.

And, as posters above have noted, it's also clear why it was done--the Cold War. Remember the book on the Krupp family which came out, I believe, in the 1960's---William Manchester, I think---the Krupps had a sordid history which was largely ignored in signing up West German industry to oppose the Eastern bloc.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:09 PM

I recall talking to a veteran, who had been involved in taking the surrender of a German armoured unit. The Germans were apparently amazed at the instructions to lay down their arms. They had assumed that the Western forces would join them and fight against the "Bolshevists".
That seems to bear out what you wrote Ron. There was a deep seated fear of the Russians. It now appears that the fear of the Russians was largely pumped up by politicians and the big businesses of the time to keep the Cold War going. There were good financial reasons for doing so. After the death of the late, unlamented hood Franz Josef Strauss, it emerged that he had been involved in gun running to the DDR! The arch "anti Communist" certainly understood business. I doubt very much that he was unique.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:18 PM

Munitions industries everywhere have a sordid history, Don...but most people would probably admire Krupp nowadays if they had backed "a winner" in '39-45. They didn't.

I have an old copy of an article in a local Canadian newspaper from August 1934. It's about Adolf Hitler, chancellor of Germany. Its title is: "Hitler buckles down to save sinking nation - financial and foreign trade situation worst in history"

There is no hint in the article to suggest that Hitler will one day be seen as an evil leader. They had not yet decided that he was a bad guy. The tone of the article seems to suggest, rather, that he is resisting radicalism and taking well-thought and careful measures to rescue a country in great financial and social disorder.

My, my. That was 1934. It's ironical, in retrospect. Read the same paper 10 years later, and you'd hear a totally different story about Hitler. It reminds me of the days when Saddam Hussein was seen as a good ally and friend of the USA.

Once the decision is made, a good ally or a friend or a respected colleague can be turned into a monster and a threat to the entire world virtually overnight...all through the magical power of the mass media.

Or an arms industry can be seen as despicable (Krupp)...or heroic ("the arsenal of democracy)...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:26 PM

There were lots of parallels drawn between Hitler and FDR in the early 30's-- in both Germany and the US-- the general tenor being both strong leaders with strong medicine for desperate times. Especially Hitler's dealing with unemployment.

Few dealt with the hideous aspects of Hitler's plans at that point.

The Voelkischer Beobachter (Nazi organ) made parallels between FDR and Hitler explicit.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:38 PM

However sypathetic we may be towards the difficulties of Wolfgang's post war generation - at least there was such a thing.

We should perhaps always remember that for many others - there was not.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:42 PM

Yup. See, you don't hear much about the bad stuff until the decision has been made that someone IS an enemy. Then you hear all about it all the time...

You hear nothing or virtually nothing about bad stuff that is being done by your friends, however.

It is not surprising that most Germans either actively or passively supported the Nazi government both prior to and during the war years. They were getting the Nazi media's version of reality every day, and it was their country, after all, and they were fighting for victory and national survival...as any country does once a war is underway. What else do you think they would have done, under those circumstances?

It takes an extremely unconventional and independent mind, a real outsider, to go against that sort of social pressure during wartime. It also takes a willingness to face being called a "traitor", "appeaser", "wimp", "coward", "peacenik", and all those kind of nasty terms that get applied to some Americans now if they oppose Bush's pre-emptive war policies.

Similar problem. Different country. Different war.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:44 PM

Actually, the German fear of the Russians was both heightened by propaganda--and totally justified, considering what the Nazis had done in Russia--and the revenge the Russians were taking as they moved West towards the end of the war.

What I thought was fascinating, from talking to lots of people in the 2 years I was there, was the poor reception some in the West gave to fellow Germans coming from the East. Maybe it was that before the Wirtschaftswunder, conditions in West Germany were bad--that's why US soldiers were kings for a while--and there wasn't much to share. So more mouths and more competition were not welcome--until the economy took off.

But it seems that West Germans still look at the "Ossi's" differently--I wonder if Wolfgang can comment on this--to confirm or deny--it's possible my sources aren't the best.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:50 PM

I think the pattern in England has been a bit different from what comes across from the American.

A level of anti-German feeling, as expressed in stuff like footbvall fans chanting the Dam Busters theme, or T-shirts and tabloid headlines, and that kind of stuff has never gone away. During the World Cup in most pubs, if there was a match on involving Germany, most people would automatically be backing the other side.

But by now it's basically tribal rather than anythingelse. It wouldn't be so different if it was a question of France. If it was France playing Germany I wouldn't be sure where the balance would be. It's a matter of national rivalries which have become ritualised. Rather the same way that in Ireland ( or even more so in Scotland, I gather) it tends to be a matter of always backing the team who is playing against England. Or like football club loyalties - "Anyone but Arsenal", for example. But I wouldn't read too much into that kind of thing.

But I don't think the differences with the Russians during the Cold War period ever made their way into popular culture in that way. The only time this country ever fought the Russians was back in the Crimea in the 1850s, and that's a long time ago. The Cold War? That was basically a matter for politicians to worry their heads over.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ebbie
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:51 PM

My German friend said that at the tail end of the war, all the soldiers had one goal- that when it came time to surrender, they hoped fervently it would be to the West.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 12:59 PM

Darn right they wanted to go West! Matter of fact, Patton wanted to reform the surrendered German soldiers into Allied units and get busy right away fighting the Russians and driving them back to Minsk...or maybe even Moscow. He would have found lots of willing Germans to help in doing that. ;-) But he was jumping the gun a little, and the Allied High Command was not amused. They retired him, to all intents and purposes, and he didn't live long after that (got killed in an auto accident). Patton's problem was, he just couldn't stand peace breaking out, because it left him with nothing to do. The man simply loved fighting battles.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Micca
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:03 PM

For an insight (well it gave me an insight anyway) try and get hold of and view Edgar Reitz's 3 series of "Heimat" it covers life in Germany ,in the countryside , with members of a family covering the relevant periods of recent history, It shows on a personal level in sveral of its story strands what and how "ordinary Germans" experienced the events of the time, I can not recommend it more highly

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:14 PM

He would have found lots of willing Germans to help in doing that. Possibly, though I woudn't be too sure about that - I rather think most Geerman soldiers had had their fill of fightig by that time. But I doubt if he'd have found many British or American troops who would have felt that way.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 01:19 PM

People were tired of fighting, all right. The Russians were tired of it too. Most people did not enjoy war nearly as much as General Patton did. He seems to have loved it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,Dr. Norman Winstanley
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 02:56 PM

We all should read about Germany's treatment of migrants and refugees in this the 21st century, before we start talking about 60 years ago.

Petrova remarked "It is to Germany's shame that
the European Union's most powerful Member State has not only missed
deadlines to adopt a comprehensive anti-discrimination law in conformity
with EU rules, but also apparently does not at present have a publicly
available draft law."

ERRC Advocacy Officer Virgil-Cristi Mihalache said:
"Germany has explicitly excluded non-citizen Roma from minority rights
protections in Germany. We wonder when the German government will remove
this arbitrary distinction, which in practice has only served to divide
Roma into 'deserving' and undeserving'."

Maybe Wolfgang has a view on this ?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 03:10 PM

Some Americans also realized what was going on with the Cold War opportunism and whitewash of some Germans:   Remember this sardonic bit: "And the widows and orphans in old London Town/ Who owe their large pensions/ To Werner von Braun".

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 03:34 PM

LH - I certainly am glad that I went to school on the Sunset Coast...I don't think I would have like the New York school system you describe. I do find it hard to believe that your schools did not, at that late date--5 to 15 years after the war--differentiate between militarists of Japan and Nazis of Germany and their respective general populations. The immediate post-war population was, afterall, the wartime population.
But you were there and I was not.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:01 PM

Well, John, it was a very conservative, reactionary area. Small town people with small town ultra-conservative attitudes. They voted solidly for Goldwater in '64, as I remember. I knew people who thought that Congress was full of Communist agents who had infiltrated the Democratic Party and the highest courts. If you're on the west coast, you would have grown up in a far more liberal society, I think.

I frankly hated the place. I felt like bending down and kissing the ground when I eventually returned to Canada in '69.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

But the implication of Wolfgang is that there was a degree of artificiality in making the distinction between ordinary Germans and Nazi supporters so far as many of that generation were concerned. Ordinary Germans were for the most part Nazi supporters.

Just as would have been the case for ordinary British people or ordinary Americans, if the circumstances of history had conspired to put Nazis in power in their countries. Because it's worth remembering that when the Nazis came to power, most Germans were against them. Their mass support really came after they were in power, which is how it can work.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 04:57 PM

Fear and coercion were explicit tools of the Nazi regime though.

Most who did the coercing were themselves afraid.

I suppose the distinction was that at some point, nearer the start of the chain there was a well organized minority that were the initiators, and they just so happened to have a real handle on how to push peoples buttons.

Goebbells is credited with being a master of propaganda. He put the fear of God into the silent majority and then whipped up their anger with lies about foreign policy and the Jews.

What was it someone once said about fox etc putting fear into the mind of the working white american and then subtly suggesting various scapegoats for him to keep him loyal in the name of the national interest?