BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany

Subject: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 07:03 PM

I wanted to write this since long and there is no special reason why I do it today instead of last year or next week. I start and I end with facts, but the middle part is a personal account that may not be true for other West-Germans of my generation. Younger Germans (Mudguard) will not have made similar experiences at all and Germans of my generation (Susanne) may not have encountered that type of language I shall describe.

Where did all the Nazis go after the war? It looks at the first glance that immediately after the war all the Nazis were sentenced (and some of them executed) by the Allies and the remaining 99+% of the Germans were innocent or deluded. The allied courts gave the remaining Germans the feeling/excuse that all culprits had been sentenced and that it was not Germany’s business to deal with its past.

As early as 48, the interest of the Western Allies, in particular the USA, was no longer a denazification campaign but the new threat from the East. Germans could now quite easily get the ‘Persilschein’ (a word which is now unknown). Persil was the most popular washing powder then (slogan: Persil washes as white that there is no whiter white) and a good translation would be (assuming that Dash is a washing powder known to you) the “Dash certificate”. That’s how the US certificate that the holder was not involved in Nazi crimes became known in German. In 1948, everyone was busy getting the Persilschein that washed the brown past into an immaculate white. It was easy to get that certificate then (a bit of lying or bribing did help) and so it was official that nearly all remaining Germans were without any personal guilt.

--------------------

My father (born in 1919) was not willing to marry my mother before he knew he would survive. His generation were those that had in 1939 finished their military service and therefore fought in the war from the first to the last day. Of the nineteen boys in his class, only four have survived the war, which is quite normal for that generation. That’s why I was not born during the war, but early in 48.

I cannot recollect that the Nazi time was a theme in school when I was young or that any adult talked to us about it. Did we grow up innocent? Not really. “We are not in a Jews’ school”. “Do you think you are in a Jews’ school?” were sentences we often heard from our teachers. Before I knew what a Jew was (or even met one) I knew that ‘Jews+noun’ was bad. The word ‘Jews’ implied that something was wrong or laughable. A ‘Jews’ school’ was a school in which everybody talked at the same time and there was no real order.

I must tell you a bit about our language. If we say “Jewish + noun” that is completely neutral and the “Jewish” is just an adjective used for clarification. If we say Jews + noun (that’s a single word in German then, that implies contempt and ridicule. “Jewish jokes” are jokes as told by Jews, “Jews’ jokes” are bad jokes as told about Jews. If a German would say “Jews’ food” instead of Jewish food he would imply that at the very least he doesn’t like that food.

That “Jews’ school” expression as a mean to discipline us has been a companion of my school years. I have heard it for the last time in 1964.

When I went to a shop to buy the smallest of fireworks (allowed to sell to kids) those that you can explode between your fingers without any harm I asked for “Jews’ farts” (the PC name then was “midges’ farts”). Where does this expression come from? When the extermination camp guards after a hard day’s work burned the bodies there were sometimes (like in most fires) small explosions heard in the ovens. Then the guards may have said to each other: “Have you heard that Jew’s fart?” That’s how this expression did come into our language. As a kid you just repeat the expressions you hear without caring about etymology or about the verbatim meaning. But I cannot recall that I was even once corrected by an adult when I used that expression.

“Bis zur Vergasung”, “until the gas(s)ing (comes)”, was the expression to designate that something was done much longer than tolerable or too long to still be agreeable. “Ad nauseam” would be the “English” expression I’d use today. “He had us make pull-ups until the gassing comes”, “We did play football until the gassing comes” would be two contexts in which I would have used that expression. This expression had a harmless sense long before Hitler in chemistry. “Vergasung” was the process to bring a substance into the gaseous state. That could take sometimes very long and needed a lot of energy. “Bis zur Vergasung” in pre-Hitler German meant “very long”, “unendurably long”. I cannot recollect that I have ever been reminded when using this expression that in post-Hitler German such an expression should not be used anymore for its ugly association. When I found it out one day (old enough then to think about expressions) I couldn’t use that expression any longer.

No, we never had any teacher who taught us the Nazi ideology or who played down the German crimes. But these expressions of my childhood language stay in my mind as indicators that the denazification with the whitewash-certificates was at least in parts only superficial and that some Nazi thinking and talking remained long after 48.


------------------------------------------

When did it change? The change started in the early sixties. The first Auschwitz-trial (1963-1965) was a watershed for it was the first ever trial for Nazi crimes in West-Germany that had not been run by the Allies. Then the student rebellion in 67/68 was a time in which the questions like “What have you done in the Nazi time?” became popular. But in the 69 election, the fact that Brandt (who became chancellor after that election) during the war has fought on the ‘wrong’ side has still been used as an argument against him (with little success). Today that would be an argument for him. Perhaps the real reason for the slow change of Germany into a rather normal country was a “biological”. In the sixties and seventies, those who were too young to be involved into the Nazi crimes became the majority among the working population. For the young Germans (who are now getting old), the Nazi time is the most ugly part of our history that we have no personal interest to suppress or to be silent about.

In the early post-war years Germans did avoid mentioning that time and that went so far that some American films about that time were dubbed to eliminate all anti-Nazi elements. Can you imagine for instance seeing “Casablanca” dubbed and shortened so that it was a smuggler story without any Nazi in it? Ridiculous, but so it was to spare the Germans hurt feelings. Since the sixties, we can see that (and other) film(s) dubbed correctly. We now even can see Colditz in German TV and laugh or get angry if the plot is too silly.

I’ve written this even a bit more for myself than for the readers, but some of you may have wondered how quickly Nazi Germany transformed into a democratic West-German ally. To those I say no, it wasn’t quick, it took a long time and the aftershocks of the murderous years could still be felt by a young boy growing up in post-holocaust Germany.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Don Firth
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 07:16 PM

Thank you for that, Wolfgang. There is much food for thought in what you have written.

Don Firth

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 07:48 PM

Very interesting stuff, which I am sure will result in many different responses. The thoughts and experiences of those being born elswhere in the world at pretty much the same time as Wolfgang - may also be interesting to read?

Just this week a gallery here in the (UK) West Country was holding a sale of Hitler's paintings - this too resulted in many different responses.

One was that as these were painted by Hitler as a very young man they had nothing to do with the later horrors and his part in them. I am not sure what my thoughts are on this view.

I could not help thinking how different the world would have been had Hitler been more successful at making a living from painting than he was. And that paintings which were largely ignored at the time and which very little money would have been spent on - will as a result only of these later horrors - no doubt be worth lots of money.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 07:49 PM

Well written, Wolfgang.   My family, luckily, left Vienna in 1938 after the Anschluss.   I have to say the Germany has taken ---in later years, as you say---more responsiblity (for want of a better word) than Austria. Austria, I believe, still maintains that it was annexed by Germany (against the will)---hence, Anschluss--joining. Not quite the case.   More like---hey--buddy come on in.

You have opened up some memories for me---the Blitz in London ( I was there), a picture in the NY Times on the 50th anniversary of the Anschluss (parade with Adolf)---I did a double take since I was in a Nanny's arms and recalled it.

I appreciate the wonderful and insightful piece you posted. Interestingly, I have always felt that Germany has come to terms with its sordid past (took me a while as well) and yet things just as bad go on---be it Idi Amin (a while back), Darfur, Rwanda, Cambodia;etc;. Additionally, the U S has, I do not believe, truly come to terms with its own horror of slavery and lynchings.   

Sadly this little planet of ours harbors some horrible people and probably a minority--it seems--of people of peace and good will.

A few closing comments---your remarks about the changing attitudes and the blind eye turned by the Allies because of their animosity with USSR. Quite true---and then there was the race to grab the scientists who worked for the Nazis--think Von Braun (or as Don Adams says in a routing---Von Brauns Autobiography is titled---I Shoot For The Stars--Sometimes I Hit London).   Blatant hardball hypocrisy by both USSR and U S --and UK. I think the French stuck to Foi Grasse.

Finally, a few grammatical comments and/or corrections. In English the derogatory terms would be like this---say, Jewish Food--OK. JewFood-Not OK. Semantics are hard to translate but one does get the distinction and lately we have had a few politicians here who deny their bigotry and have made comments--not against Jews but African Americans and syaing that they did not know what a certain word meant.
It is a hard thing to always be PC---words change in their meaning.

There is a song by Kinky Friedman (now running for Governor of Texas) called "Ride Em Jewboy". At first glance one would think--oh oh thisis going to be bad news---not so---if one listens to the words it is a dead serious song about the Holocaust. The Holocaust, by the way, in my opinion, is horrible and yet not that far removed from the horrors of slavery here and elswhere.

Once again---I thank you for your insightful posting.

Bill Hahn

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

Link to a story about the auction referred to.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2375160,00.html

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:10 PM

It is an honour to read your words, Wolfgang. Thank you.

My ex-husband's family left Russian-occupied Germany just before my ex-mother-in-law was born. Her family changed their name from "Schleusser" to "Schlager" when they reached the US. Her brothers were all born there. My ex-father-in-law was also of German descent, family name of "Eisenach."

As my brother had been stationed there in the 60's while in the Army, I always found Germany of great interest. (I followed his travels on a map on my bedroom wall.) My family still treasures the slides we have of the pictures he took while stationed there. It is a beautiful country.

I remember reading every book I could get my hands on about the Nazis and WWII in Europe. I burnt out on them years ago. Now, I have heard from one who lived in the aftermath and I am grateful you have shared with us.

With respect,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:12 PM

Actually Churchill was a better painter. Remember what Mel Brooks wrote in The Producers----speaking of the Nazi character where the Nazi character says---"...ach, der fuhrer vas such a vunderful painter" and Bialistock replies something to the effect---"... I don't thinks so--Churchill could do 2 rooms in under an hour. That's a painter".

Ach---liebchen---Der Fuhrer hat bildern gemacht? --nur zimmers hab ich gedankt. Aber schone zimmers--und Churchill's ---ech!!

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Amos
Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:18 PM

Wolfgang:

Many thanks for this thoughtful and important article. I hope you will feel free to add to it. It casts light on an area I have always wondered about. I grew up in a similar vacuum on the other side, in New York. While history always paints the so-called victors as so-called angels, it was quite mysterious to me why I so rarely heard anyone discuss the war and events they were part of in it. I think they, also, were horrible stories not daring to be let out, regardless of side.

Warmest regards,


A

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:26 AM

I have read your account and explanation with great interest, Wolfgang, and I am fascinated to see the many ways that the language expresses the attitudes of the people at various stages. I have long thought so, but your examples help me to understand even more.

It is interesting that what I remember of school and 'images' of what the war was about generally dealt more with Japan than Germany, since it was Pearl Harbor that really got us into the war, and it was 'easier' to have negative feelings about people who didn't look so much like us.

   You mention 'Persilschein'....and I suspect that we found it easy to 'help' wash the remaining Germans clean...after all, it was just Hitler and the major Nazis who were really the problem...right? In fact, it has just been the last 7-8 years that we have seen quite a few television documentaries about the war that dwelt on the Nazis (instead of just battles) and on the Holocaust. Sadly, I look at newsreels of thousands of cheering people, giving the Nazi salute and marching for the 'glory' of Hitler & the Fatherland, and I suspect that no amount of laundry soap would have cleansed many of them. It is VERY difficult to comprehend why the Nazi ideals were not seen for what they were by more people......but it is easy to see why it was so little mentioned in the 50s and 60s.

Again....thank you for the thoughtful and insightful look at that society from the inside. I would like to see an entire book on the subject.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: eddie1
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:02 AM

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out
because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left
to speak out for me.

Pastor Martin Niemöller

I have often read these words and wondered – would I have had the courage to speak out? I'm rather ashamed of my deep down, real honest reply. Concentration camps were part of an up and running industry in Germany long.before the outbreak of WWII.

Thanks for your posting Wolfgang.

Eddie

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:20 AM

The generation that Wolfgang is part of did not have the choice - and do not know either if they would have been any better equipped to deal with those circumstances.

But in some ways they take the guilt and blame for the generation of German people who would appear to have avoided it (to some extent). Again due to difficult circumstances.

But this generation have to take both the guilt for the burden of the horrors and the guilt of the 'easy ride' back to a respectable nation.

I watch the TV scences and the bewilderment and their faces as the same generation of English 'football' thugs justify their rampages against a generation of German people who were not at all responsible, with offensive chants and salutes.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Paul Burke
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:33 AM

It wasn't just the older generation of Germans who held on to "unreconstructed" attitudes. In the 70s (maybe 1975 or 76) I travelled to Ireland on an overnight ferry from Holyhead. I got talking to other young people there, in particular a young German, a little older than me perhaps. As the talk went on, he became very indignant- I had mentioned the concentration camps and the Final solution: "No, nothing like that ever happened! It's all lying propoganda!" was how I remember what he said.

Perhaps the real culprit in all this is the Cold War, the Western allies needing support against the Soviets, and not being too picky about whence it came. Here's a question- was deNazification more or less rigorous in the East? It's there that the main support for the neoNazis comes from.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Partridge
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:58 AM

Thank you Wolfgang.

Something I've always wondered about in post war Germany, Did many of the Jews return? How did they function in a society that wanted them gone?

Pat x

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:26 AM

Well said Wolfgang, I salute you for that insightful post. I grew up singing kids songs about German soldiers crossing the Rhine, and one about doing rude things to one with a bayonet. If I remember them now it is with a nostalgia for the child that I was, and not for the songs that I and others sang, Remember in those days we also used to sing a silly patter song called the Darkie Sunday School, which Adam MacNaughtan still sings, but now it's the Glasgow Sunday School.
Language is insidious, and while we scoff at the PC brigade for their 'Language Politics' in declaring some words non-PC, and sometimes they do overdo it. Still it is good that these hateful words and expressions disappear from our mouths eventually, and even though it may be stopped only by lack of use rather than considered thought it's still better that they go.
Again thanks for the thought provoking post.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:31 AM

I had wondered the same thing about Jews in post-Inquisition Spain. This page traces the history of Jews in Spain and says there there is currently a small Jewish population in Spain. I read somewhere that before the Jews were expelled from Spain in 1492, they were required to wear yellow, six-pointed stars on their clothing. I thought that was a practice begun by the Nazis, but apparently not.

This page has information that should answer Pat's question:

The largest community in Germany is Berlin (10,000), followed by Frankfurt am Main (6,000) and Munich (5,000). There are 43,000 registered dues-paying members of the official Jewish community [of Germany].

Anybody know of information about the current Jewish populations in other areas where Jews were exterminated or deported? There were so many vibrant Jewish communities that were obliterated, some many centuries before the 1940's.

-Joe Offer-

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Jeanie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:19 AM

First of all, thank you Wolfgang for such an interesting post.

Joe, I can only answer briefly now (got to do some work !), but I have visited and spent some time in Erfurt (in the former East Germany)where there is now a flourishing Jewish community and synagogue (built in 1951), after the earlier synagogue was burned in the night of 9th November 1938 and many, many people were arrested and taken to nearby Buchenwald. I have a very interesting book in which Jewish and non-Jewish people have written their recollections of that time in Erfurt and have come to a reconciliation and understanding. Very moving stuff to read.

- jeanie

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,Shimrod
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:19 AM

Hi, Wolfgang,

I am an Englishman, now in his late 50s. Both of my grandfathers fought in, and survived, the 1st World War. Both of my parents lived through the 2nd World War. My father (who died in 2004 - just short of his 91st birthday) was in a reserved occupation so didn't see combat (for which I thank God - no-one should have to experience that unless absolutely necessary). So, to those two generations, Germany was 'The Enemy'. To be fair, I experienced little anti-German feeling at home but it was fairly all-pervasive in popular culture (comics, films etc.) while I was growing up.
As an adult I am very aware of the monstrous crimes committed by the Nazi regime but I am also aware that, although the scale may differ, other regimes, in other times and places, have been/are also capable of similar crimes.
One thing which always sickens me is that there were many other non-German nations (including Britain), in the 30s, who were well aware of what the Nazis were building in Germany but chose to do nothing about it. And, of course, appeasement is alive and well today as we see in the case of Darfur. I believe that, in the 1990s, Germany attempted to take the lead in opposing the murderous Balkan fascist, Milosevic. If other European nations - including my own - had not been so intent on appeasing Milosevic, recognising the independence of Croatia should have protected it from attack. Instead Milosevic was appeased, the Balkan war escalated and Germany was vilified for its actions.
I have visited Germany on several occasions, often talk to German people on holiday and have German friends. I find modern Germans to be polite, articulate and civilised people. I am convinced that Germany long ago atoned for its past and is now a great, leading European nation.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 08:11 AM

Wolfgang, I recognized your post for what it was early on, a cathartic posting of feelings, facts, history. I did one of these myself years ago on Mudcat. I remember asking myself, after I hit the submit button, why did you do that, Mick? It is a fascinating post, and I read it with the eyes of a man who lived through roughly the same time in the US. Thanks for the look inside this time through a different set of eyes.

One thing that I found interesting was the "sanitization" of the history you described. It struck me because a Protestant friend from the North of Ireland once spent a great deal of time convincing me that she had never know or been taught anything of the struggles, the Black and Tans, the repression and gerrymandering, and all that the Irish Catholic endured. It was a moment for me, as I realized just how important the telling of history is, and how it can be used to control the minds, the thoughts, the beliefs, of a people. One can see its effects in the Middle East today. History depends on who is doing the telling.

All the best,

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: wysiwyg
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 08:58 AM

Wolfgang, what a wonderful gift you have given us!

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Grab
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 09:59 AM

Mick, you're dead right there. Everything I know about British involvement in Ireland, I've learnt after school (and much of it as a direct result of talking with people here). Similarly, they don't tell you in schools that the British *invented* the concentration camp.

Wolfgang, I went over to Germany a couple of times with school exchanges, one before and one after the Wiedervereinigung. I was really shocked by the number of German kids my age saying "I hate Turks, they're getting houses given to them for free, etc". But you can hear the same all over the place - some bloke at a beer festival last weekend was saying exactly the same about illegal immigrants in Britain. What it seems to be is that they none of them have much contact with these people, and it's all too easy for them to talk hate in the abstract. Scares the crap out of me.

Graham.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: mack/misophist
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:49 AM

Note to Grab: It's a minor cavil, no grounds for boasting, but I believe the US Army invented the concentration camp.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:59 AM

So many nice words make me blush.

Thanks to all who have posted. I have read the accounts of your own experiences with great interest.

Just a few responses:

Mick, I sat for more than two minutes with my finger on the submit button, still undecided.

Pat, I don't really know how the returning (or surviving) Jews felt. I never dared to ask the few German Jews I have met. Some did never come back, some said they would never come back but did come back many years later. Perhaps the story of Ignatz Bubis is an indication of the ambivalence of the German Jews' feelings towards Germany. Ignatz Bubis was probably the best know German Jew after the war, a very successful business man, a politician, and the chairman of the central committee of the German Jews. He was even asked to become German president but declined the offer as "too early for a Jew". He lived all his life in Germany (mostly Frankfurt) but when he died he was buried in Israel.

Paul, I have never met a young German denying the holocaust, so this species of German must be rare which makes me glad. The GDR was perhaps a bit like Austria. West-Germany was the sucessor to Nazi Germany and the socialist Germany was by definition free from any guilt. But they had a short (and harsh) denazification campaign after the war.

The Neonazis are much stronger in East Germany. One theory is that the GDR's way of treating the Nazi time has contributed to that. But there are probably better explanations: Up to 60% without work and with no hope of change are a breeding ground for extremists. If the conditions in East Germany were as good as they are in West Germany, the number of Neonazis might be considerably smaller. The most interesting theory I have read goes like this: the better qualified East Germans go West and, in particular, the young women leave. There are far too few young women in East Germany and so the chances for the young males there to find a family are low. Under these conditions young males group together in macho gangs and the Neonazis offer them the opportunity to feel good and strong. But it's a shame that they exist.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:07 PM

Thank you, Wolfgang, for giving us a look into the past from your perspective.

In the 70s, for four years I went out with an emigrated German who had been captured at the age of 19 in France by the Americans and for the those four years I read everythng about pre-war Germany and the war years I could find in libraries, great stacks of books. At the end, there were still great gaps in my understanding. It was especially hard to find anything written by Jews, post-war, and it was difficult to find anything written by post-war Germans of any stripe. Your recounting of your experience helps fill in some gaps.

I don't understand what you are saying here: "West-Germany was the sucessor to Nazi Germany and the socialist Germany was by definition free from any guilt."

Since the division between the 'two' Germanies was made at the conclusion of the war, in what way could one say that either side was 'by definition free from any guilt'? Those in the East had certainly as enthusiastically supported Hitler and the Nazi government as those in the West.

Unless you are saying that tongue in cheek? I recognize the literalness of my brain. :)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:33 PM

England had it's own period of infamy in it's treatment of Jewry
http://ddickerson.igc.org/cliffords-tower.html

and Britain was the first to institute Concentration Camps during the Boer War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

I don't believ subsequent generations can take the blame for their forbears but neither should we forget........

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:34 PM

It was reputedly the British who invented the Concentration Camp during the Boer War 1899-1902.
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Dave (the ancient mariner)
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 01:03 PM

Many Nazis escaped prosecution in Germany at the end of the war. There is quite an interesting account of a group of Waffen SS who fought for the French as legionnaires in Vietnam. They were all former Partisanjagers (partisan hunters) known as the "Devils Guard" (ref: book of the same name by George Robert Elford ) In another thread I mentioned working with an Estonian man, who became a Stateless person, being the victim of enforced service with the Waffen SS.

I worked for a German shipping company once; and the ship I was on was dry docked in Bremen in 1976. Getting to know some of the workers quite well over a period of two weeks,I was invited for a drink with them at a special "old comrades" re-union. They were all former Nazis, and members of the Waffen SS. Of course many were simply just soldiers, and were not the Waffen SS who guarded the Concentration camps; but it was a disturbing experience I shall never forget.


Waidmanns Heil!

Yours, Aye. Dave

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 01:18 PM

Ebbie, if you reread Wolfgang's post, you will note that he explained that in East Germany, under the Communists, they had a purge of sorts and dealt with the former Nazi's early on. Hence the blamelessness, as opposed to the West where they gave the clean slate relatively easily.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 01:34 PM

People who go on and on about Nazi stuff that happened 60 or more years ago while not noticing what's going on right now in their own front yard and being done by their own governments right now are living in a fool's paradise.

Hitler is not our problem any more. Our present leaders are our problem. Our present system is our problem.

And most people obey them, don't they? That is your "patriotic duty", isn't it?

"I just followed orders. My country, right or wrong."

Most people do now do what most Germans did then. They obey orders from their superiors. As always. The penalties for not obeying are stringent. The benefits of obeying are to move up in the pecking order and be seen as a "good citizen".

Very little, if anything, has really changed. Countries go to war to secure vital resources and valuable land and to control markets. They go to war to build empires for themselves at others' expence. They pretend to have all kinds of other wonderful, idealistic reasons for doing it, but they lie. They use their largely innocent citizenry to do the killing of others who are also innocent. They pretend to be engaging in defensive actions when they blatantly and pre-emptively attack others without any real reason but to seek their own gain. Today's "good guy", today's "defender of freedom" will BE tomorrow's Hitler if he loses a great war. Wait and see, if you live long enough. If not, your children or their children will carry the burden...and possibly even be assigned some of the blame. Guilt by association.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ernest
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:13 PM

Mick, I am afraid you overlooked an important bit in Wolfgangs posting concerning East Germany: "West-Germany was the sucessor to Nazi Germany and the socialist Germany was by definition free from any guilt". This was East-Germanys position. Pure Propaganda.

East Germany also "whitewashed" Nazis - provided they were useful to them or turned their coats (again - as many members of the SA had fought on the communists side before 1933). And they used their denazification campaign to suppress non-communists and get hold of their property.

East Germany also never gave any compensation to Jewish people to speak of.

Hipocrisy exists in all political systems. It is one of the less admirable parts of the human character.

Has anyone mentioned Guenter Grass yet? ;0)

Like your posting, Wolfgang. Very reflective, as usual.

Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:50 PM

I really enjoyed that first post Wolfgang. Thank you very much.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:01 PM

Thank you for your post, Wolfgang. It was disturbing in places, but honest reflections are often disturbing.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: nutty
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:06 PM

Man's inhumanity to man.
Something to be remembered whenever we start to consider ourselves superior to other species on the planet.

Particularly as such inhumanity is invariably brought about by the effects of such matters as race, politics and religion, on a population that has never been taught to think for itself.

Thank you Wolfgang.. .. may you live your life in peace.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:12 PM

Thank you Wolfgang for this post, I echo all the positive comments the other have already made.

It strikes me that countries/societies, just like individuals, mature when they learn to say "sorry", in other words when they learn to recognise their own past faults and admit them publicly. In that sense, Germany is a much more mature country than Japan, Austria, Italy, France, Britain, and closer to my origins, Greece and Turkey, to name but a few. By the same standard, the US still has a long way to go too.

It takes time, and it's not an easy thing to do; but all the more valuable for that.

Thank you again.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:28 PM

Wolfgang's initial post is indeed honest and forthright. Well said, Wolfgang.

In reference to what you said, nutty - "a population that has never been taught to think for itself"

I believe that would accurately describe all populations in the world at present. Children are not taught to think for themselves. They are taught to believe what their parents believe and what their teachers and various leaders tell them. They are taught to accept an official, established view of reality and of past history. They are taught that their country and way of life are the best. They are taught to obey and conform. By the time they reach adulthood, those patterns are well set to be passed on to their children. Those few who are deeply rebellious by nature become marginalized (during adolescence and young adulthood), are seen as "losers", and usually end up on the wrong side of the law, where they are effectively separated forever from the governing apparatus...and are, in effect, at its mercy from then on.

That is why a government has little trouble finding citizenry to do its dirty work for it. They're used to doing what they are told, and they don't really figure they have any other good option in most cases.

"rules are rules"

What happened in Germany can, and does, happen anywhere. The only question is: when?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:31 PM

Ernest, I didn't miss that. Had you read the whole thread you will see that I am just responding to a question asked by Ebbie. I said nothing as to whether I bought into it, or made any comment about it.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ernest
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:45 PM

Apologies if I misunderstood you, Mick. Sounded like you bought the East German position to me.
Best
Ernest

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 03:51 PM

Every now and then the Mudcat throws up this kind of personal statement, that throws a light on some troubled aspect of the past or the present. I remember Big Mick's piece about being a soldier in Vietnam. Quite remarkable, and so is what Wolfgang has given.

I have often wondered how it must have been to grow up in Germany, with an older generation, including parents, who had been implicated in Nazism.

The crucial thing I have always tried to hold on to is to remember that there are no reasons for thinking that our own parents, or ourselves if we had been in that situation, would have kept ourselves free from the corruption. And the same goes for other crimes of history, such as slavery and its aftermath.

We can fantasize that we would have been among the "saving minority"; we would have escaped abroad to fight the Nazis, like Wilhelm Brandt, or helped run the Underground Railway in American slave times. And some people would have, but we have no right to assume that we would have been among them, and the historical record indicates that it is very unlikely that we would have been.

And the lesson to draw from that is to look at the world today, and try to see whether there are things happening for which the same applies, where future generations will look back at us with horror and disgust for what we tolerated and what we colluded in, and even took pride in.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,The Questioner
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:35 PM

There seem to be an awful lot of threads here at the moment about specifically Jewish issues. Is this statistically significant?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: bobad
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:39 PM

Why do you ask?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:44 PM

No worries, Ernest. I just wanted her to know where Wolfgang addressed it.

Yes, Kevin, I agree with much of your observations. I think that when we look back at a time, whether it was Wounded Knee, My Lai, Aushwitz, that we recognize that the perpetrators must be looked at from the perspective of their humanity. It is important that we not see them as monsters, as much as everyday people who did montrous acts. I believe that it is necessary to recognize that reality, and the sense of right and wrong, often is distorted in the crucible of the times. And finally, we must always attempt to honestly stick ourselves into those shoes and ask ourselves honestly what we would do. By ask ourselves, I mean we must sink into the innermost places of our mind, oblivious to those around us, and be brutally honest with ourselves.

This is one of the reasons I am so concerned with the fluid sense of what is right and wrong that I see in todays society. It is why I take on the folks that immorally download music, for example. It is why I take on young folks that seem to think something is wrong only if you are caught. It is why I take on folks that want to mitigate right and wrong, using alibi's like "I don't feel bad ripping off big corporations" whether it is music or anything else. I am not trapped in old ways, but neither should certain things be discarded just because they are old. I don't care whether your base is religious, or just living an ethical life, there are certain values that are timeless and are not subject to evolutionary thinking. One shouldn't steal. When one takes something that they know should be paid for, that is theft whether it is from BMG or Folk Legacy or an Independent Artist.

It is a sense of fluid morality that ultimately leads to things like Aushwitz, or Wounded Knee, or Rosewood, Florida. Ignoring sad pasts does the same thing.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 04:46 PM

My point exactly, McGrath. The vast majority of people in every society bend the same way the official wind is blowing at the time (specially when things seem to be going okay for them and their families)...and that doesn't make them bad people. It just makes them average people in an average state of awareness.

God help them when their country loses a great war...I mean a war where foreign armies/air forces come in at the end of it and totally smash and take over the place. That happened to Germany, Italy, and Japan. It can happen to others too.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:09 PM

The thing is, Mick, the people who commit the very worst crimes on behalf of a government (or a religion) most often are under the unshakeable impression that their victims are the real criminals and what they are doing to those so-called "criminals" is 100% legitimate defence of their country, their society, their moral traditions, and their freedom.

That certainly was the attitude of a great many Nazis, both high and low on the chain of command, when they arrested, incarcerated, brutalized and killed Jews, Gypsies, Communists, pacifists, and a great many other supposed "enemies of the Reich". Many years of virulent government and media propaganda had brought them to that understanding. They were duped and brainwashed.

Big Brother had told them over and over again that those people were bad, were deadly enemies of society, and they believed Big Brother. The same sort of thing goes on today, in a great many places. It goes on anywhere where a government primes its cops and its soldiers to kill, as a matter of fact. It's standard procedure. You dehumanize "the enemy", so that your young men in uniform will kill without hesitation when the time comes.

And if they don't, they are called cowards or traitors. That's pressure. Severe pressure. No wonder most people give in, deny their more human side, and just go along with the orders.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:22 PM

The amount and level of communication and sharing of thought that "Joe Average" now has via the internet is remarkable. Some of us think that Mudcat adds to that with an even closer tie of friendship even in this new, strange, cyber way. That is what has made discussions and statements such as are happening here in this thread now seem commonplace when in all fact they are not.

"So what the hell are you leading up to Spaw?"

I really don't know but I think it's this................

The good, the bad, and the ugly, that has happened during each of our tenures on this planet is now brought to us in copious and entirely unbelievable quantities. Although we could surely have had these thoughts before, most of us didn't. The life experiences of another are brought home to us and our own lives are reanalyzed with that added input many times over what we would have done before the net.

I'm sitting here, a 57 year old man in a tiny village in rural Ohio, learning about what another very similar but slightly different man from the other side of the world did and thought while growing up in the aftermath of perhaps the largest event of the 20th century. Although this was possible before if we all went to the right places, I can now experience and contemplate all of this in my own home and whenever I wish to do it.

Wolfie, as others have said, it was/is a great post. What fascinates me is the timeline and the comparison to my own childhood happening at the same time. I lived in a small town then too where, when I was 9 or 10 as Wolfgang was and playing in Germany, I was playing here. World War II was not so far away in say, 1958. This country was filled with ex-soldiers and Rosie's like my own parents whose lives were forever changed. My town was mainly of Italian and German (along with English) settling but it was mainly second or third generation who fought the war and never really considered themselves anything but "American" first. And as kids, we played Cowboys and Indians but we also played War. We kids weren't fighting the Russians yet.......No, we were playing Japs and Krauts and the plastic soldiers were made to look like American or German or Japanese soldiers!

I don't know how, but I'd forgotten that. I've thought about this all for a few days now and I don't have any memories of teachers or others having many kind words about Germany or Japan. We had a Fizzie in an aluminum tumbler and went out again on those hot summer days to fight the war of our fathers with bags of Tojos and Huns and little Audie Murphys....all cheaply available to us by that wonder of the 50's, plastic.

.........Sweet Jesus, how did I get here from there?

Wolfgang, I have enjoyed our cyber friendship and I want to thank you for yet another post that made me think......or whatever little I do that passes for it nowadays. I'm always fascinated by parallel lifetimes and now I can share with others from all over the world, even to old Bugsy in Western Oz.

Thanks Wolfie......and don't do it again.(:<))

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:35 PM

Wolgang: Again, my compliments on a wonderful and insightful piece.

   I am not sure what you meant by the following--which you wrote in your second post---:    The GDR was, perhaps, a bit like Austria .

   Not sure what that means.   I meant to say in my first note that Austria is known by that name in English but its native name is OSTREICH. Which makes my mentioning of the "voluntary" Anschluss--still denied to this day by that nation all the more logical since OSTREICH, as you know, translates to EAST REICH. And let us not forget that one of the ex- Secretary Generals of the UN was Waldheim of Austria---who it turned out hid his Nazi past.

   In my opinion the Germans are much more open to remembering the past and making ammends for it through laws they have promulgated. OSTREICH, to its credit, has, albeit reluctantly, paid much in reperations to victims of the time.

    A cousin of mine (now deceased) was enamored of the country and went back as often as she could. Even got her Austrian passport again. One evening at a party she gave her friend--the Austrian Consul General was in attendance ---a lovely man, I must say---asked me if I would like a passport and feel like I am returning home as my cousin felt.   I politely declined and pointed out that when your parents disown you and throw you out of the home your life has gone on and they are not needed or wanted anymore.

    The Consul General, as I said, is a very nice and sincere person who meant what he said in a heartfelt way. He later, at my request, appeared as a guest on my Radio station's Jewish radio program (not hosted by me then as it is now.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:57 PM

Jews were forced to wear red hats in venice in the days of shakespeare and shylock etc... not quite yellow stars but functionally the same thing ... and of course different rules applied.

They have been victimized and scapegoated in europe for hundreds of years so of course it was convenient for Germany's european enemies to be able to claim the moral high ground after the second world war and then magnanimously forgive the German layman for his part in the holocaust.

Those Jews who could not easily forgive and who could not get into america were conveniently packed off to palestine so that europe wouldn't have to face up to it's past and it's responsibilities.

The brits pushed the native palestinians off their land and generously "gave" it to europes jewish exiles.

And now the EU passes moral judgement on the politics of the middle east, where survivors of the holocaust were left to get over their pain on their own thanks very much surrounded by some very angry locals who wanted their farms and houses back.

It's not just germans that need to face up to europes unrelenting history of anti-semitism.

Oh and before anyone jumps to conclusions, I am an Irish catholic.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 05:59 PM

Yeah, I played with those same plastic soldiers, Spaw. Yanks, Germans, and Japanese. The Japanese guys were particularly fanatical looking, Banzai charging and screaming, and waving knives and swords and stuff. They also had sculpted glasses put on quite a few of them! You never saw glasses on the German or American soldiers. It reflected the general nasty image of the Japanese at the time as buck-toothed, bespectacled, snarling, sadistic little "monkey-men" that was being pushed in movies, comics, and TV in the 50's and early 60's. Those plastic soldiers were made by a company called Marx Brothers. You could buy a bag of 50 of them for maybe a buck or less. All the kids had them.

I was naturally interested in the war, because stuff about it was everywhere back then, and my dad had served in the British forces, driving a Stuart tank.

What I remember from grade school and high school was this tremendous amount of what truly was sheer hate propaganda, all designed to depict WWII Japanese and Germans as monsters. (The Italians were barely spoken of...) I never forgot that. I don't like hate propaganda, no matter which way it is aimed, and I don't like it being shoved down my throat by schools and media.

I don't understand why, when a war has already been totally won and the enemy utterly conquered, it must still be seen as necessary to teach a new generation of kids to hate the people who lost it. That's what was being done in those days. What good could that achieve? I consider it quite similar to what the German and Japanese propaganda spinners were doing on their side when things were going their way. It's the automatic assumption that "We're better than they are. We're good. They're evil."

I hear rhetoric like that from George Bush regularly. He imagines he is fighting a war against evil.

Such assumptions are dangerous, they're self-serving, they're blind, and they are untrue. They lead to future great evils committed by the very same people who think they are above that sort of iniquity.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Big Mick
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:10 PM

The thing is, Hawk, that was exactly my point. That what the whole diatribe about keeping in very close check with your true motives, and value system was about. Yours seems to think that there is no hope, I take a different view. As in developing a value system, spare, and as absolute as you can make it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: M.Ted
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:48 PM

There is a comment above to the effect that there are a lot of Jewish threads. I find this question disturbing.

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

They were murdered because they were Jews, However, fact that they were Jews is incidental to the fact that they were human beings. The great fiction of racism is that, somehow, the fact that someone is a Jew, an Armenian, a Ukranian, a Native American, a Hugenot, makes them less human.

When it is said that Six Million Jews were murdered, most people are not Jews--and it becomes a "Jewish Issue"-- terrible yes, but not "our" problem. But humans were murdered, our own flesh and blood--it was the most abominable crime in human history --Not just Jewish History, but all history--

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 06:49 PM

Little Hawk: Not Marx Brothers --the makers of those toys. Just The Marx Co. (Louis Marx if I recollect).   The Marx brothers brought us joy and and Louis brought children much joy as well---from electric trains (I had one) to many other toys.   

             You have heard of WWJD--my newly coined slogan---which fits in here so well--when could that happen---WWGS. What Would Groucho Say.   

             In your last posting I think you are missing a poing. Bush is what he is, and we all seem to agree. But your analogy to his comments of good v evil and relating it to the Germans and so on is flawed. For one thing, we have not won a war---a war that we are mistakenly involved in.   And it gets worse. You don't export democracy to people of a different culture that don't want it. That is a whole different discussion.

             Unless I misread you your statement about the Japanese and the Germans and their "spinning" was while the war was on--and we also did that. Once it ended things changed a bit and the Allied hypocrisy showed its head (after the Nurenmburg trials) because of the USSR/US (UK) conflict. See above post re: Von Braun and scientists.

             Frankly, having lived through the era and having to leave my homeland I can only refer you to my first posting in regard to the "propoganda" of the Allied nations. Let's face it---we had to win or you would not be able to write the things you have written. In fact you might have been served up as bacon somewhere---I mean that literally.

             As a sidelight on this. Recently an 86 yr old woman living in Queens, NYC was deported for lying on her visa application after the war---she was a bride of a U S soldier (who never knew her background). She was a guard at Treblinka. I guess Von Braun never lied--he just said "sure---I can build you a rocket."   Mengele, Eichman, and others---the Israelis got them.   We deport 86 yr old women because we won't have ex Nazis here---unless they can build a rocket.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ebbie
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 07:13 PM

"...you will note that he explained that in East Germany, under the "Communists, they had a purge of sorts and dealt with the former Nazi's early on" Big Mick, in response to Wolfgang saying that "West-Germany was the sucessor to Nazi Germany and the socialist Germany was by definition free from any guilt. But they had a short (and harsh) denazification campaign after the war."

I appreciate your effort, Mick, but imo it doesn't address my question. Presumably Communistic East Germany 'purged' Nazi officials and other obviously governmental types- but did they question or deal with the ordinary German, someone who went along to get along?

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?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: John on the Sunset Coast
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 05:02 PM

Little Hawk--In 1964 I was told if I voted for Goldwater, the war in Viet-Nam would be escolated. I did vote for Barry and we did escalate the war. I guess I should have voted for Lyndon. ;>)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 05:02 PM

Fox does exactly that. The Bush administration does that. There IS fear in ordinary Americans to oppose what their governmetn is doing, and with good cause. The worse their war gets, the deeper those fears will go.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 05:30 PM

John, in truth the USA had every intention of escalating that war regardless of who won the '64 election. I'm sure the Democrats knew that, but they did some convenient posturing as "moderates" to get themselves elected, that's all. They correctly read the public mood of the time. The Republicans might have turned out worse, but I don't necessarily think so. Both those parties stand for the same corporate/military/industrial backing interests, they just pretend to offer alternatives at election time. It's like a football game...flashy entertainment to delude the masses.

Likewise, the USA had every intention of remaining in Iraq and expanding its military presence in the Middle East, regardless of whether Kerry or Bush won the last election. These things are decided long before they ever happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:31 PM

LH: That last sentence is truly a sign of great cynicism.   As I said earlier we have to put things into the perspective of the time--

Goldwater at the time seemed quite the hard line Hawk compared to others. The sands of time have shifted things again and now, not in hindsight but by today's standards, seems the realist. His grandaughter has written a new bio on him

As to Kerry v Bush--well, as to staying in Iraq I think that there you have the problem of someone getting us into a fine mess (As Stan Laurel used to tell Oliver Hardy) and were Kerry elected--or anyone else--it was not feasable to just get out. The fat (not from Pork) was in the fire. It being so the decision to exit has to be thought out and evolved. Something that an administration refuses to acknowledge subterfuge and mistakes would be incapable of doing. As an earlier writer noted--from my favorite musical duo Gilbert & Sullivan---Things Are Seldom What They Seem.   

Actually Bush seems more like the PooBah character---if I say something is so it does not have to be in fact because my saying it makes it so and, therefore, it really does not have to be so since it is stated that it is. ( paraphrase from Mikado on the non-beheading of KoKo).

I heartily recommend all to watch this segment by Oberman ( if you have not seen it---and hopefully this link will work) that was sent to me by a person I trust and respect      

http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/ClintonInterview512K.mov

I guess this discussion has veered as most do from the original intent and which, I believe, I addressed with some historical and personal reminiscences. But--this thread like political sands shift.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:48 PM

"by today's standards" Which, of course, are the true and valid standards...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:07 PM

Bill Hahn:

Thank you, thank you.

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:19 PM

Yes, Bill, I am completely cynical about the American 2-party system. I have utterly no faith in it anymore whatsoever. If I were an American, I would despair of the situation at this point...and I would prepare for the worst.

(Certainly in 1964 Goldwater appeared to be an extremist, but appearances can be deceiving, as you said. Johnson appeared to be someone who would not expand the war in Vietnam. That appearance was equally deceiving.)

I think a corporate decision was made to go into Iraq quite some time ago, orchestrated by thinktanks like the PNAC. They first had to transform Saddam from being a friend and ally into being a monster. That was easily achieved. They then had to wait for (or arrange) a violent crisis that would so anger and alarm the American people that they would sanction unprovoked wars of aggression on small countries which had not themselves attacked America and could not do so even if they wanted to. That was achieved.

You bet I'm cynical. I'm living next door to the most aggressive empire building nation in the post-WWII world, a nation that attacks anyone it wants to whenever it wants to, regardless of world opinion on the matter, and I consider your elections to be utter nonsense arranged to give ordinary American citizens the very false impression that they still have a voice in Washington.

However, there are any number of other things in life I am not cynical about. It just depends what the subject is, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:34 PM

Bill, I watched the whole Oberman thing. Very, very good. I'm glad to see someone speak out like that. Good for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:47 PM

Being sceptical isn't the same as being cynical. If I'm sceptical it's because I think things are going to work out badly, or someone is worse than they claim to be, for example. Cynicism is when you want that to be true, and would resent it if it turned out things were better than you had predicted.

Nothing at all cynical about anything Little Hawk wrote there. Sceptical, yes, cynical, no.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:52 PM

I will not resent it in the least if things turn out to be better than I expect! ;-) By no means. I keep hoping things will work out somehow, and that the wars will end.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 05:55 PM

I'm an elderly man , also living in a tiny village,( like 'Spaw ?) and a soon to be septuagenarian( well a couple of years more).I was, of course, subjected to the particular propaganda to which Irish school children generally were, from the War years on until the 60s. It was a combination of anti- British and anti-German but all in a historic context. However that is incidental.
What I would really like would be some more insight from Wolfgang about how the Germans of his generation, and the older one, re acted and interacted, with the "occupying forces" of the Allied Armies in Germany after the War?
I am curious also about any difference between those relationships in Urban as opposed to small towns and rural places ? Was there any ?

Do you feel like giving further info Wolfgang?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:08 PM

Two excellent links emma B, surprised no one has remarked on them, I learned a lot from them.

From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:33 PM

England had it's own period of infamy in it's treatment of Jewry
http://ddickerson.igc.org/cliffords-tower.html

and Britain was the first to institute Concentration Camps during the Boer War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

I don't believ subsequent generations can take the blame for their forbears but neither should we forget........

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:20 PM

I disagree about definition of cynicism -

I would have said skepticism is cynicism without the bitterness, disaffectation and fatalism

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:28 PM

Quite possibly. I do feel fatalistic and somewhat bitter about what has happened to the political system in North America in the last few decades. I hold out no hope of its redemption....but that doesn't mean there is no hope. There may be.

I do not expect to see everything somehow work out before I die, needless to say. It never has before, so why would it this time?

It's only in movies and TV shows that everything wraps up neatly at the end of the show. This is real life, and real life is messy.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:28 PM

And I'd say that's another way of making the same distinction. So an elaboration rather than a disagreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:39 PM

"Cynicism is when you want that to be true, and would resent it if it turned out things were better than you had predicted."

Doesn't your post imply a willful preference for things to go wrong?

I think a cynic would be more of the view that there is no point in caring either way.

though as I write this I am considering the various ways that it can be used ... and I remain open minded ...

Because this is mudcat and we grow strong from this kind of stuff I am going to cut and paste a dictionary definition - there's probably more than one ...

"cyn‧i‧cal  /ˈsɪnɪkəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sin-i-kuhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

â€"adjective 1. like or characteristic of a cynic; distrusting or disparaging the motives of others.
2. showing contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality by one's actions, esp. by actions that exploit the scruples of others.
3. bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.
4. (initial capital letter) cynic (def. 5)."

Hmmm...

looks like we've each got half of the same sixpence.

"a cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:44 PM

People like it when you say stuff they agree with, and they praise you for it. They dislike it when you don't say stuff they agree with, and they question your thinking, your intelligence, and your character. There's really not much more to it than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:49 PM

I'm not sure whether to agree or disagree with you Little Hawk

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:50 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 08:34 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:24 AM

If we could only accept the 'little Hitler' that resides within all of us and were prepared to always challenge and never to tolerate or encourage the many 'little Hitlers' we see displayed in our daily lives - perhaps we will never again have to face the real thing and have to try and come to terms with the consequences?

For we don't always challenge and we do tolerate and encourage - mainly out of a wish to lead a quiet life - which is of course the reason no one ever gets to lead a quiet life.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:41 AM

Too many people do indeed carry on discussion in that way, Little Hawk.   But it's not the only way nor the best way.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:57 AM

I agree with Shambles on his last post:

I think part of growing and becoming mature is accepting that being human includes having questionable traits as well as good ones, and somehow trying to nurture oneself so they/we grow in a positive way. We need to understand and accept all of ourselves, and nurture the parts of ourselves that are growing unhealthily etc etc

... before this turns into full on psychobabble I'll make it relevant ...

I think that the hitlers of this world are those who don't accept the possibility of a little hitler inside them. They are those who will not see the damage they do and stick to their guns no matter what the consequences.

An unwise way of being.

______________

Also, yes it is true that too many people enter into debate to hear their own loyalties and prejudices confirmed by those who share the same views, and to defend them at all costs against anyone with different views.

It makes it very difficult for those such as yourself, McGrath, and myself to know whether discourse we enter into in good faith is actually meaningful or whether we are simply butting our heads against a brick mantra (whatever a brick mantra might be). It is often very difficult to know whether somebody is merely spouting their jargon or if they simply disagree and wish to subject their views and those of others to rigorous testing - especially as there are some (such as myself) who are quite simply passionate about the whole process.

I hope this post has generally been helpful to the thread and not just self indulgent.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 08:58 PM

In my view the phrase "little Hitler" is meaningless--unless by that you mean ego--or perhaps, actually, in psychological terms, id. And in that case the phrase is needlessly incendiary. For people who are otherwise aggressively anti-religion , some on this thread seem have an amazing insistence that others--not just they--should wear hairshirts.

It's certainly true, as McGrath points out, that none of us could predict with certainty how we would have behaved as Germans in the 3rd Reich.

But that all of us are "little Hitlers" is a bit much.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:15 PM

I agree with Shambles on this one. Everyone has a "little Hitler" inside...their own ego. How well they can control it determines how well they can relate to others and avoid acting in an aggressive, unscrupulous, dysfunctional manner.

McGrath - Agreed. I just mean that it's very common for people to do that, and it's the source of the needless acrimony on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:39 PM

Last time I heard something like this on Mudcat, it was the specious argument, made in dead earnest, that "We are all Martin Gibsons". We are neither all "Martin Gibson"s nor all Hitlers.

Some of us can control ourselves--some don't try--but some do.

As I said, that does not negate the point that we could not with certainty predict how we'd behave as Germans in the 3rd Reich.

If I had to guess, it would likely be those who are susceptible to propaganda--and especially those who don't recognize it-- who would be most likely compliant citizens in the 3rd Reich--and I think we have a good idea who they might be on the current political scene.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:42 PM

Ron, I'm just saying the tendency is in every human being to be thoughtless of the rights of others at times (specially when under great stress). The ego thinks of itself first, and others after that. That's where we get the word "egocentric" from. This is very noticeable in very young children, for example, but they learn to control it as they mature (hopefully).

Is that so hard to grasp? I'm not saying that it predominates in all of us, or that we can't control it and rise above it, I'm saying the tendency to be selfish and negative is there...and the process of gaining some maturity is to overcome those tendencies.

Hitler was a man who fell deeply into control of his darker impulses. We ALL have some darker impulses, and those are what I mean by "the little Hitler" within everyone. Merely their tendency to be destructive.

And I think that is what Roger is saying also, in all probability.

I'm not saying anyone IS a Hitler in any exclusive or all-embracing sense, I'm saying they have some negative tendencies in their makeup as well as some positive tendencies. Would you mind if I also say that we all have both a "little Hitler" and a "wondrous Angel", within us? That would be another way of putting it. It's a metaphor. Which one wins out in any given moment is the vital question.

You are taking issue with a semantic interpretation of my words and Shambles' words that is strictly your own, and has nothing really to do with what was meant by them, as far as I can see.

I am in no way talking about the third Reich, I'm talking about the potential for light and darkness that is within every human being ever born...and I'm calling the darkness by a metaphor "little Hitler". I could just as well call it "Little Al Capone", "Little Blackbeard", "little dictator", "little bully", "little devil" or anything else like that, but they don't seem to fit as effectively or carry the image as well as "little Hitler", that's all.

As Jesus is reputed to have said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." ( And not one stone will be cast, I can assure you! Because in every breast hides both the Angel and the Little Hitler.)

Oriental spiritual disciplines aim for the egoless state because it is the only way to completely eliminate the vicious side of human nature. In a given human generation on this planet, a mere handful of people reach that state. It is virtually unknown, in fact, but it does exist. I haven't achieved it, needless to say. I'm not even close. I doubt that anyone here on this forum is, judging by what I see here every day. (which, let me tell you, is not too encouraging...)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:47 PM

Just to clarify... that video of commentary on the Clinton interview was with Keith Olberman, of MSNBC - who nightly gives some pretty clear insight on events, as well as some humorous pokes at things.

I usually stop everything to watch him.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:49 PM

Yeah. Excellent video! He really says it straight out for a change, and we don't get much of that on the media, do we?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:51 PM

Ah, but consider the topic of the thread---and we have in fact speculated on how we would have behaved. You may well be correct that it's a question of semantics--but as you are no doubt aware-- the name Hitler is a red flag.

The argument also sounds perilously close to something the Left is constantly accused of--moral relativism.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:55 PM

Olberman had a similar piece on the 9/11 anniversary awhile back....same tone, just as well said. I'll see if I can find it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:00 PM

well, that was easy....searched on "Olberman + 9/11"

Listen to THIS one http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/#060911a

(got it from here, where they say in part,

" Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to task for comparing critics of the
Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. "

well, hmmm I feel like this is drifting and coopting Wolfgang's thread & topic. Maybe this should have its own thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:12 PM

Yes, I know, Ron. It was my impression that the topic had just taken an interesting new turn, however, and I was talking on the basis of that, not on the basis of what had gone before. I am speaking here as a philosopher, not a politician, and I am not all that interested in the endless, divisive, efforts of both the Right and the Left to each prove that the other is totally wrong about everything.

They are both deeply chauvinistic and pretentious in espousing such prejudicial attitudes toward one another, and they both tend toward absolutism when they do so.

I say that despite the fact that I am instinctively well on the Left. That does not blind me to the fact that the Left, as well as the Right, is fond of posturing grandly, and deluding itself about its own supposed moral purity.

And that? That is what I call the "little Hitler" within. The ego, in other words.

The definition of ego, in spiritual terms, is this: It's the one who thinks, "I am apart from all others. I'm alone. Everyone else is either an opportunity or a threat. I must find a way to get what I want and survive and WIN, and hopefully DOMINATE, because I am NUMERO UNO. I fear, I desire, I want, I cling to, I hate when I don't get what I'm after, and I fight for it."   That, in a nutshell, is what causes all the pain and trouble on this Earth. It can be found percolating busily in both the Right and the Left at any given time, which is why I'd much rather be a philosopher than a politician! ;-)

A philosopher is willing to confront his own darkness, see his own struggle reflected in all others, and attempt to heal it. A politician is not willing to do that...his business is divide and separate....to yell about someone else's darkness and to attack it...to conquer and plunder.

That's how we get into our wars. Mad raving egos, searching for supremacy.

It's also how we generate an awful lot of heat on this forum much of the time, and very little light.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:49 AM

If you clink on this linky you will find a list of what The Serial Bully is.

It easy to recognise a lot of the things listed in others. No so easy to recognise them in ourselves first. But hopefully we will not recognise all of the things on the list in ourselves......

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:26 AM

Ron - you seem to be admitting what you would claim to be denying.

"Some of us can control ourselves--some don't try--but some do"

What exactly are "some of us" controlling?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:14 PM

I've not read this thread for a couple of days for I wanted to read it at full length in a single 'session' and I have read now for about one hour. Sorry if I do not respond to all questions for I then would have to write a book as alanabit remarked. I'd rather respond to other themes in new threads (Ron, yes there is still a big East-West split; Dr. Norman Winstanley, I'd say that today there are more wrong prejudices against Roma in Germany than against Jews but I don't know about that specific case)

Ebbie, yes, all German soldiers wanted to surrender to the Western Allies and if my father wouldn't have led his unit against Allied orders (German units, only surrender to that army you have fought against) across the Elbe during the night and pretend having fought on the Western front I wouldn't exist.

Ebbie (once more) and Bill, my comparison of the GDR with Austria was a bit clumsy but both countries did steal away from responsibility. As McGrath has said, most Germans of that generation have been supporters of the Nazis and the three countries all had their share of murderers, supporters, and those who did not like what they saw but looked away. As Mick, Ernest (and someone else; Ron?) have said I have repeated communist propaganda mockingly.

M.Ted, you have used a very appropriate word: 'disturbing'. So let me use this word as a start for another shorter tale.
When I grew older (from 16 onwards, perhaps) I always found it 'disturbing' to live in this country. It took me a long time to find out why. It was the contrast between the murderous and bloody past and the happy and (at the first glance) innocent present. A clean country with nice people who are (mostly) friendly to foreigners. That perception just did not fit into the truth of the films about the Nazi time of which I have see each I could.

Those nice elderly people (which are now in their 80s or 90s) must have at least tolerated the violence against fellow Germans and other countries. I look into the mellow old faces and think "have you whipped a Jew to make him run faster", "have you reported a homosexual hoping to get his flat", "have you looked the other way when a train with doomed to die people begging for water came by". These are minor crimes in comparison to industrialised genocidal killing and burning. But whereas only a fairly small minority of Germans was involved in those grand scale crimes, the majority of them must have been involved in at least one of those "minor" crimes and this way have supported the muderous regime so it could last 12 years. Why didn't they withdraw the support to the Nazis at least after the Kristallnacht (a Nazi euphemism) which we now call in German with its real name: Pogromnacht.

I always found these contrasts disturbing. I now can accept that as something to live with and I can better live with it when the past is not swept under the rug. I go to my local supermarket and I see the small plaque telling the passer-bys that on this place in 1941 (exact date given) some three hundred Jews were rounded up to be deported to Theresienstadt and that after the war, only 17 of them were still alive. There are always fresh flowers on that spot.

I cycle to work and pass a medieval tower and when I stop I can read a plaque telling that the Gestapo has tortured prisoners in that tower. I think the present has to be permanently disturbed with reminders of this past lest we forget.

A German artist (Gunter Demnig) has started to place 'stumbling stones' in the towns. Not in a verbatim sense stumbling stones but little plaques in the pavement in front of the houses simply telling what has happened to the inhabitants of this house:

Picture of such a stumbling stone. It reads: Here lived Horst Lothar Koppel, born in 1924, deported in 1943 with the 29th transport to the East.

If you walk through a street with these plaques you will be surprised about the number of them. And then one can get a start of an understanding of the scale of the genocide.

The contrast between the past and the present still disturbs me but I accept it now as unavoidable and even helpful.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:22 PM

Wolfgang,

I don't know whether I am being presumptious on this oint or not, but I feel strongly compelled to make it none the less.

Just as it was our tragedy, it was also our sickness. Germany was where it's worst symptom grew.

If we continue to view it according to political institutions (state lines) nationality and race we will get no where, but be allowing the same disease to grow in us again.

We all as humans are capable of this kind of stuff and we all as humans live with the horror of it and we all as humans must learn from it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:42 PM

That is also my viewpoint on it, lox.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 06:36 PM

My feeling has been that there was a failure to admit and face up to the truth for a long time, both among Germans and among others. Perhaps that was how it had to be because the truth was so terrible. Maybe denial of involvement by the older generation and by those who needed to work with them was the only way of getting on with life and rebuilding society.

It must have been very painful for young people growing up in the way Wolfgang described - the "mellow faces" with a history behind them that no one dares to examine too closely. I think I would feel the same as he does when he writes "I can better live with it when the past is not swept under the rug". The stumbling stones idea is very moving, an inspired idea - reminding people individually about individuals.

And those of us who are not German should always remember that the fact that our past is not shadowed in the same way is not our doing. It is something to be grateful for, not something about which we have any right to feel smug.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 07:04 PM

Beautifully put McGrath,

I agree wholeheartedly, except in as much as our pasts are shadowed in similar ways, whether it be with regard to anti semitism, slavery, subduing the colonies or other spurious excuses for barbaric militarism.

Ultimately of course this serves to strengthen your point with regard to smugness.

Being Irish, one of my sources of national pride was that on the one hand we have never gone a conquering and on the other, we have never had slaves.

We butchered ourselves fairly comprehensively in the civil war, and the troubles up north hardly need referring to, but generally as a people we were always on the side of the underdog. We've never been bullies.

There is a certain smugness in that knowledge as one grows into a trendy young right on adult, but the reality is that now Ireland has a bit of cash at their disposal, and we have been required to open our doors to refugees and asylum seekers, we have suddenly become very defensive.

I have heard uncles and aunts, who I had previously seen through rose tinted specs, talking about "them" and how they "come here and bring their crime with them" etc.

The first step is to blame the face that don't fit for problems that have always been there and to pretend they are new ones that didn't exist before the arrival of jonny foreigner.

Alf Garnet'isms suddenly abound where having something in common with the downtrodden used to reign supreme.

You're doing great Wolfgang - we're all learning something.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:29 AM

Those little brass plaques, which Wolfgang mentioned, are in most streets of Cologne too. I will walk over some today. I would say that there is far more taking into account of the past than there was when I first got to know Germany at the end of the seventies.
The generation, which knew the war first hand, is now on the way to disappearing. The politicians, whose ideas were rooted in the experience of the post war years, has now almost gone too.
We have all heard of Germany's "economic miracle" of that time, but perhaps not enough about the "Wohlstand", which was perhaps Germany's most potent post war idea. In short, Germany felt that there should be a minimum standard of living, below which no one should fall. This would both guarantee a market, in which goods and services could be exchanged and it would also innoculate the population against the collapsed economy, which had made such a fertile breeding ground, for the extremists in the thirties.
One of my worries, is that the concensus behind the Wohlstand may be breaking down. That is possibly one of the factors behind the rise of the new extremist parties, especially in the East.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM

If you don't take proper care of your kids, you can't act all surprised when they start smashing the house up.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 04:26 PM

I forgot yesterday one question I wanted to respond to.

Beachcomber, I don't know what the the older generation thought, but I have never personally heard a bad word about the occupying (Western) armies. But I may have been too young to hear such remarks. The then adult Germans must have had some resentment between 1945 and 1948, because daily life was sometimes made a bit difficult (my father and my mother were in different zones and it was often s a bit difficult/forbidden to meet).

But in our language the "occupying forces" soon became the (more neutral) "Allies". Two things made a big (emotional) difference: (1) The care-parcels sent from 1946 on up to 1950(?) also to the German Europeans. (2) The Berlin airlift (1948/49) in which West-Berlin was supported by allied planes, called in German the "raisin bombers". 41 British and 31 Americans lost their lives to feed hungry West-Germans.

For us kids it never felt like an occupation, very different from Ireland and Iraq. One can only wonder if there had been a "sealift" with some British seaman losing their lives in 1845/48 to feed the starving Irish how much of a difference that might have made.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:29 PM

Wolfgang: Which brings us to 2 truly important events which, had we learned from history, would show us the way to a people is through constructive ideas and not subjugation. Lincoln knew it after the Civil War, MacArthur (with all his faults) knew it re: the Japanese, and, finally, the Berlin Airlift and Marshall Plan to re-construct the former enemies and hope for peace.   All positive and constructive actions that created a feeling of better (I won't say good) will.

          I think if we were to recall this history it might help in today's sad situation---in the Middle East.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

Yes - I saw a documentary recently (panorama or dispatches - I can't be sure) all about how the money that was intended to be used in the reconstruction of IRAQ was deliberately mispent before the Iraqi government came to power to make sure that only a tiny percentage of it was left for them to use.

Bush got to say "look how generous I am" while the institutionally racist mechanisms that were meant to put the relief programme into effect played a game, not dissimilar to those played in abu gharaib, where people were teased with what they desperately needed only to have it callously and criminally destroyed in front of their eyes.

There is something evil in the way that Iraq has been treated that is less reminiscent of tha America that instituted the Marshall plan than it is of the regime that the allies had toppled.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:46 PM

Precisely. Who else practiced the doctrine of "pre-emptive war" and used it to attack smaller countries that presented no real threat to the attacking power?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 06:54 PM

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.â€쳌
Ray Goforth

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 05:24 AM

Since I'm some years older than Wolfgang let me tell you some more about those years in question.
Wolfgang's pessimistic reports about his youth cannot stand without correction.
Many never had the chance to get a "Persilschein" because they were murdered in the camps before. Every two years my fraternity meets in a concentration camp to remember one of our brethren (may be you have heard of Paul Schneider , the "preacher of Buchenwald", a fervent opponent of Nazism).
The "Persilschein" was often given with good cause. A lot of Germans found themselves in the concentration camps on political grounds because they opposed the Nazi system in the open; others were sniffed out and caught. In my home town I knew two of them; one of them a tiler, a fellow fire fighter. He never told me why he was there - he wanted to forget. The other one was a communist who came back minus 1 eye.
This man attested the certificate of anti-Nazi activities for my grandfather. It could be proved by an article in the anti-Jewish hate paper "Der Stuermer" (=hotspur).
In bold letters the Nation could read what my grandfather had done:
When he saw some pupils in the school building where he taught mocking a passing Jew out of the windows of this ancient and proud school he rebuked them in harsh words, was denunciated, and kicked out of the school service without further payment. I think he was to well known to put him in the camps.
An old pupil of his told me how often they stopped their breath when he told them in class: "I won't have anything said against my Jewish companions at arms in the trenches."
My father had to join the SA to get admission to the final exams at University. He qualified but was not admitted to the necessary apprenticeship because he was such a bad Nazi. He was good enough to serve in the army and was killed in action as a young lieutenant two days before his 27th birthday, half a year before I was born.
It took a long time for me to learn that there might be fathers, and what they were.
So I often say in bitter irony: I am of the heroic age-group of 1943 - conceived before Stalingrad.

And now something about the occupying forces of the US Army since you have asked for it.

My first reminiscence is the big bombing of my home town by the USAF in March 1943 when I was just over 2 years old. I remember some short scenes before an in the air raid shelter.
My grandparents guarded me while my mother had to earn our living since a junior officer's pension was too meagre. They lived near the Ray Barracks (where Elvis later on served his time) and let a room to the girl friend of an American NCO who waited for his permit to marry her. He worked in the officers mess and every evening he brought something for me and my younger cousin. The first chocolate I ever ate was Hershey's. When playing in the street near the backside of the mess he or one of hie fellows often came out and handed us sweeties through the fence. God bless you, Sgt Tuohy.
When 7 years old I had an argument with an American boy which ended in a slight fist fight. He ran home crying and his father had nothing better to do than to call the MP. Did he take me for a werwolf, the silly bugger?
The care rations we received were handed out by the army from great trucks before the post office; another memory of the fine guys in the army.
The best the army ever did for the young people was the German Youth Association (GYA). In a big commandeered house they formed a club where we poor orphans could play, sing, and learn English. So we were off the streets and had a warm place to stay. Sometimes we were loaded on a big truck and driven through the sunny region, and in some barracks we were fed. Gorgeous times.
I can't remember that I ever felt bitter hunger; my mother worked as a house maid for officer families with children, and they saw that I was fed like their own.

My other grandfather had to look for subsistence, too, and so the first Jews I met as a boy were involved in the black market.
Experiences like Wolfgang's I never made at school. When we were old enough the problems of race and hate were taught extensively; we learned the whole sad history. Our teachers were mostly gentlemen not concerned with Nazi activities; the humanistic tradition of our school forbade it. The director (a former colleague of my grandfather) himself was kicked out of the service very soon by the Nazis, too, because he declined to divorce his wife, a half Jew (and sister of the communist mentioned above).
What I loathed grewing older in this republic was the changing of the algebraic signs before the Jews - what was the worst minus was now changed to the highest plus. Unreflected the conquest of parts of Palestine was now praised similar to the conquest of Poland. As an orphan who had seen a little bit of war and (still) missing his father dearly I couldn't help to feel sympathy with the disenfranchised.
That is what I learned at school and by my grandfather: A man's worth isn't defined by his race or nation, but only by his character and deeds.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 05:48 AM

Thanks for a magnificent post. It is these personal reminiscences, which give us the most insight into other generations.
I don't think what you wrote contradicts or detracts from what Wolfgang wrote in the slightest. Your views and your reactions to the tragedy are rooted in your own personal experience. How could they not be? Whenever I speak to or read a witness of those years, I always get a slightly different angle. I believe you grew up in South Germany, occupied by the Americans, which inevitably left you with slightly different impresssions to Wolfgang, growing up in the Northern British sector some years later.
All these memories help to fill out our impression of what happened and help us to go beyond sweeping statements and and glib assumptions. You sure can learn a lot here on Mudcat!

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 06:40 AM

What alanabit just said.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 07:49 AM

Some more thoughts: Where have all the Nazis gone? long time ago ...

Even the people failing the denazification returned after a while to average civil life, forgetting everything. With anger, fury and rage I think of a higher military judge who wrote the commentary to the anti-semitic laws in 1935, sentencing young desperate soldiers to death in the last days of the war, and ending as a respected secretary of state in the young republic. Argument: those were the days, and those were the laws. Such guys having mislead an entire young generation earned a lot of money afterwards, and the sufferers got nearly nothing!

Others started in big business, like the Support Organization of Former SS Men.

But locally their deeds were not forgotten. I heard a lot about Nazis in my home town, and I never did business with them afterwards. A gentleman keeps silent and retains himself.

Others repented sincerely; so I knew a teacher who organized meetings for students and other young people of all races and nations. His aim was that we got to know each other in all our heterogeneousness and to learn to live together in peace. So he made good for the sins of his youth "in the party."

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 08:28 PM

Pow!

It really is a privilege to read this kind personal commentary. It's value is quite simply immeasurable.

Thanks sincerely to both you and Wolfgang for prising my mind open another notch.
_____________


I watched a documentary about Hess and the Nuremberg trials in which he let the world in on the terrible "news" that The only reason the concentration camps could have happened was that (in short) the Jews had everyone hypnotized.

In other words, the jews were responsible for their own extermination.

You simply cannot take it for granted that reason will prevail.

Germans were ruled by these idiots ruthlessly. Hess was Hitlers deputy. Hitler himself was dependant on amphetamines which he took intravenously.

Kim Jong Il has the bomb.

What the f**k ...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

Refresh

Pity if this slipped away too soon

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:55 PM

I suppose, on the other hand, it's worth looking at what has happened in Iraq, where the Occupation was evidently instructed from Washington to purge everyone associated with the former regime, and the outcome has been disastrous.

There were other factors there - notably the speed with which the invasion crushed the opposing forces. There hadn't been time for the same degree of devastation and war weariness, which I imagine in Germany reduced the options andthe appetite for a continuing Iraq style "resistance".

But it is pretty generally agreed that the post invasion civil and miltary purge of Ba'ath suppoters - even nominal ones - has made things far worse than they otherwise would have been.

Maybe in that kind of situation you sometimes have to take a long spoon and sup with the devil. But I think you ought to be honest about what you are doing, with yourself and with the world. Even if the Occupation had to do that, a bit more honesty would have made it easier for a new generation to set the balance a bit straighter.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 12 Oct 06 - 12:04 AM

I'd like to add my appreciation for the first-hand testimonies of Wolfgang and Wilfried. It certainly does illustrate the danger of any blanket generalization.

Thanks again.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Oct 06 - 12:55 PM

Aside from their great intrinsic interest, these reminiscenses are also here to tell us about ourselves. I am grateful for the effort made to bring these events back to us.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Gulliver
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 01:29 AM

I just found this thread and found it very interesting as I spent 16 years in Germany, first studying then working (I'm Irish). I spent a lot of time researching German history from Bismark to the Weimar Republic in an effort to understand what went wrong with this country.

As Heinrich Heine wrote:
Denk' ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht.
(Thinking of Germany in the night,
I am robbed of sleep)

Some thoughts that kept me awake at night 20 years ago:

What made the Germans behave as they did during the war? Is there any real connection between today's Germany and that which dragged the continent into the second world war? Can it all happen again? Most Germans would say that too much had changed in Germany and the world to permit a return to the behaviour and views of the thirties. Extreme left-wingers, certain artists, some students, and many foreigners were for a time doubtful.

On the one hand, because of their history and geography, it is impossible to generalize about the Germans.

But I found it difficult to look at a map, or listen to a piece of Wagner's music, or think about the past without the memory of Hitler coming to mind. This mass-murderer stands athwart German history. But there was a time not so long ago when many if not most Germans were willing to regard him as the greatest German, when clergymen, university professors, writers, poets and painters looked up to him in awe as a hero who had come to save Germany, and were willing to accord him veneration and unquestioning obedience.

How was one to account for the capitulation of a country generally considered to be among the most cultivated in Europe to a man who was contemptuous of all the values of civilization?

Of course part of the problem were the economic, psychological, structural and legal defects of the Weimar Republic, which eroded its popular support, and the failure of the political leadership of the time to overcome these problems. Hitler, in contrast, was a political animal who moved fast and ruthlessly to take advantage of the mistakes made by political antagonists.

As regards Anti-semitism, this has been around in Europe since Roman times. But it can be argued that it reached new expression under Martin Luther, who asked: "What shall Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? Since they live among us and we know about their lying and blasphemy and cursing, we cannot tolerate them." He recommended "setting fire to their synagogues and schools and covering over what will not burn with earth so that no man will ever see a stone or cinder of them again", etc. Kristallnacht (the night in 1938 when Hitler ordered the destruction of the synogogues) was the answer to Luther's prayer.

I found it hard, impossible even, to forget and forgive the murders and destruction of the war, unparalleled in Europe since the dark ages, yet carried out by a well-educated, civilized race, and planned and orchestrated by some of the best educated and disciplined minds in Europe.

I still don't understand it...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 01:49 AM

Well, it doesn't all happen on one day. It creeps up on people by degrees, and they may wake up one morning (as a lot of German soldiers, officers, and civilians did, each in his or her own time) and realize with horror that they are irrevocably trapped in a corrupt national system, and it's too late now for them to undo what has been done or to escape it...or they may not wake up to that at all, in which case they will continue serving blindly right to the end, and believing blindly that what they are doing is not only right, not only good, it is the only thing that can be done.

Those who do wake up to the ugly reality tend to lose their enthusiasm, lose their fighting spirit, and they are castigated for it...shamed publicly...called "defeatists", "appeasers", "cowards", "weaklings", "failures", even "traitors". Some will be demoted. Some disciplined. A few executed.

The true believers who go on to the end are hunted by the victors after it's over and called "war criminals" (and some of them were just that, while some were not).

It could happen in any country, depending on the ruthlessness and cunning of its leaders, and depending on the time and general circumstances.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 08:04 AM

I confess that I did not read this thread until early this morning. As an African American who grew up in the North in the 1950s I have almost the same aversion to the subject of Nazi Germany as I do to the subject of African American slavery & lynchings. At different times in my adult life I have avoided reading about these subjects as it hurts too much.

When I was growing up I {and I'm convinced many if not most Black people I knew} made no distinction between White people from different ethnic groups. I {and I'm convinced most Black people I knew} considered Jewish people to be White {and yes I know now that there are some non-European Jewish people-but I'm sharing what I believed then-and actually what I believed up to my experiences at a Swedish Lutheran college when I saw first hand White on White {or White on Jewish prejudice}. Given my belief that Jewish people were White, I think that the core of my aversion to thinking about Nazi Germany was that I felt that if White people hated "their own people" and could commit such atrocities against their own people, then there is no depths to the hatred they felt and the cruelty they could commit against people like me who are non-White.

My point-one of my points anyway-is that it is cathartic to read threads such as this one. While I'd rather think "we are all one regardless of race, creed or color" thoughts, in my opinion, the reality is we aren't even halfway there yet.

I grew up in an all Black neighborhood of a New Jersey city {all Black with the exception of a few interracial families-White wife/Black husband}. My elementary school had a Black male principal but all the teachers were White. Everything was segregated-the schools, YMCAs/YWCAs, birlscouts, boyscouts, dance classes, summer day camps, and churches. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that pre-1960s there were few opportunities where Black people could meet and interact with White children, youth, and adults. With few exceptions {such as our Black doctor, Black principals, Black church ministers, and church deacons} White people were the authority figures. I saw them in person from afar. I read about them in textbooks, in magazines, and in newspapers. I saw them on television. And I judged them as better than me.

It was not until my junior high years {11-12 years old} that I had Black teachers. It was also not until junior high school that I had White classmates. Thankfully, the myth of White superiority began to crack for me when I found out that academically I could do as well or better than many White students in my classes.

Unlike Wilfried Schaum's comment that "When we were old enough the problems of race and hate were taught extensively; we learned the whole sad history.", I can't recall any discussion of race in any public schools that I attended.

My recollection was that there was very little interracial socialization that occurred after school hours. I remember in those years that I had only one White girl-Leslie {who "happened to be Jewish"} who I considered my friend. However, that friendship died when her mother 'allowed' me over her homeone time, but she wasn't allowed over mine. The reason Leslie gave me was that her mother was afraid for her safety in my neighborhood. That really hurt as it was an insult not just to me and my family but to my entire-safe-neighborhood.

I didn't plan to share any of these comments. I planned to just say "Wolfgang, thanks for this starting thread. I found it very interesting". But having started to write just that, I felt those words weren't enough. I felt that I had to face and to share why for so long I avoided opening and reading this thread.

Wolfgang, in your 04 Oct 06 - 05:14 PM post you wrote:

"When I grew older (from 16 onwards, perhaps) I always found it 'disturbing' to live in this country"

"The contrast between the past and the present still disturbs me but I accept it now as unavoidable and even helpful."

"I think the present has to be permanently disturbed with reminders of this past lest we forget."

-snip-

In contrast to your statements, I would say that though I now feel very comfortable about my racial identity, I am still disturbed about living in a country-indeed-in a world that still considers Black as "less than".

While I think "things" have improved, I know that institutional racism and personal racism is not just a thing of the past.

But thank goodness for Mudcat. It is threads like this one which help us get to know each other better.

That said, I continue to wish that there were more people of color on Mudcat who could share their stories and learn from the stories that folks share here. I am convinced that there are other Black people and other people of color who are interested in exchanging information & opinions about folk music, blues, folk culture, and numerous other topics that we talk about here-including this one.

Hopefully, those individuals will find Mudcat soon.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,thurg
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 09:09 AM

I'm sure all of us second that sentiment. It would be helpful all 'round.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 01:05 PM

Some folks here may be interested in this discussion I just found about race, ethnicity, and religion:

What is Your Race & Ethnicity - Poll - (Demographic Tuesdays)
by DrSteveB ;Tue Dec 05, 2006 at 04:01:14 AM PST

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/5/7114/08229

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 01:59 PM

So much of what you describe back then, Azizi, was just taken for granted. People didn't discuss it, because seemingly it had just "always been that way".

The small towns I grew up in and lived in in Ontario and New York during my youth were white. All-white. You virtually never saw a black person. The only place one tended to see black people or encounter them was in the larger urban centers...(like Syracuse, when I was living in central New York State, for example). The attitude was not good. Small-town white people would have been afraid to go into a black neighborhood and they just didn't. Period. Black people didn't tend to go into the white neighborhoods. The places one encountered those of different race were downtown areas, and people of different race didn't talk to each other...much. At least, put it this way, they didn't casually socialize. Not at all.

There was a lot of fear there, under the surface, but mostly it was just like 2 completely different worlds, and people simply took that for granted.

That's the situation I remember from when I was a kid and an adolescent. The one black person I knew at that time was Reynolds Winslow. He was a designer, and he worked for my father for a few years in his design office in the late 60's. Reynolds was a smart guy, very articulate, very well dressed, and good at his job. He had that neat sort of well-groomed look you see Sidney Poitier usually depicting in the movies he did in the 60's.

It wasn't until I moved to Toronto in '69 that I found myself in a situation where all different races of people were meeting and socializing together pretty freely. It certainly was different that way from small-town New York State.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:23 PM

Azizi: Your comments above are so well presented and taken.   Having left Austria in 1938 (as a 5 yr old toddler)my feelings over the years have taken a while to come to terms with what happened and the newer generations. I wrote about that above. So--won;t repeat.

Let me address your comment about the "white Jewish female friend" and the visits. That is to me such a sad tale---and one that I have heard before---sadly---while in High School. Among boys.   

There are a few films I would like to recommend if you have not seen them as yet. They address such topics in the most warm and entertaining way,

A Bronx Tale    --- Sort of a Tragi Comic West Side Story w/ De Niro

Liberty Heights----   Part of Baltimore pictures of Barry Levinson. Check the scene where the Black Doctor drives the white boy home after kicking him out of his house for visiting his daughter. The boy and daughter have a great relationship---and the boy's dad (Joe Montegna") truly bring the hypocrisy of relationships into it---in a tragi-comic (again that word) way.

Which brings me to my final comment. Since you gave a personal anecdote I will as well. As a child (from 9-15) I was fortunate to be able to attend the no longer existing Ethical Culture School Camp (summers) as a partial scholarship camper.   This was the 1940s and they made sure that there was a mix of all races, religions, and economic strata (hence the partial scholarship---there were full ones as well). Individual programs of your chosing, rotating meal seatings (to mingle with all ages and people), serve your table--no waiters, etc;   

My point is that if people will only allow their children the freedom to mix with others and not bring up the fears that abound today we all could live in a better world. If you wonder did I practice what I said I felt at ECSC---yes. I am not color blind (what a stupid expression)---but what matter is it. Frankly, I wish I had accomplished what some of the other campers did---both Black and White.   Two of the White ones became Bway Producers and the Black one that stands out in my mind became a Secty of the Army under LBJ and I still treasure our correspondence from that time.

Yes--one reads the papers and hears of these terrible neighborhboods. Yet, with some selectivity one also knows that your children have chosen friends they want to "hang" with. So, if you trust your child---black or white---yellow or green---and believe they make correct choices and are trustworthy then they should be given the freedom to visit and spend time with whomever they choose. To deny this is to create the attitude of paternelism (or Momism---have to be PC) that creates rebellion and, as well, a mistaken feeling of superiority that translates to inferiority to the other child.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:28 PM

Sorry--forgot to sign---hate this "Guest" business---if you have something to say---say it and identify yourself.   Kidnappers write anonymous notes---as do hate mongers



Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:30 PM

"if people will only allow their children the freedom to mix with others and not bring up the fears that abound today we all could live in a better world"

Exactly! What kept the blacks and whites divided into those 2 worlds I spoke of back then was mainly...they just didn't mix. And the separation made people afraid of each other, and they perpetuated it, and the fear went on. Children who are given the chance to mix freely with other races and cultures soon lose that fear of the unknown "other". It dissolves in the presence of the known. Knowledge, in other words, casts out fear.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 05 Dec 06 - 07:41 PM

well put!! LH   I think we are all preaching to the choir. Too bad. Human nature is not that kind.

Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 07:41 AM

Fwiw, I probably won't be posting to that thread again, as I didn't intend to and don't want to appear to be hijacking it with the topic of other folk's attitudes about Black people.

There've been at least a few discussions of race relations & race prejudice on Mudcat before. And there probably will be more such discussions in the future-not that I plan to start any...

But discussions about growing up in post World War II Germany are rare, and are much too important to be crowded out by a subject that-in my opinion-is only tangential to the thread's topic.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 08:39 AM

Azizi,

I appreciate your contribution. There's a book about growing up as a black boy in Nazi Germany:
Destined to Witness. Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, by Hans-Juergen Massaquoi.
I've read it without stopping for more than a meal.

Gulliver,

you write "I still don't understand it" and so feel I. In the Germans I know the mystic of this man and the feeling of being spellbound is completely gone. One common reaction to a video of Hitler (or Goebbels etc.) speaking in my generation is laughter. Perhaps we shouldn't, thinking of the several million dead. But this man is so absurd that we fail to understand how anyone in the early 1930s could not laugh about him. He now is the Hynkel he always was. Why only did history act so strange to let a person who under normal circumstances would have had the popularity of a soapbox orator at the edge of a parc act out his craziest fantasies?

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bert
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 10:43 AM

What made the Germans behave as they did during the war?

It is because they are people and people can be like that if they get uncontrolled power.

It can happen (and has happened) again.

Just a few examples...

The Roman Empire
Slavery in the South
Uganda under Idi Amin
Pol Pot
Iraq against the Kurds
Iran after the Islamic Revolution
China in the Cultural Revolution

And many others that I've overlooked.

You can see it starting every day in your own country when petty bureaucrats get a little more power than they can handle. It starts small and then gets out of hand if it is allowed to continue.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 06 Dec 06 - 02:19 PM

Right on, Bert.

Wolfgang - You're quite right that Hitler looks ridiculous now...but consider this: Many forms of popular entertainment that were all the rage in some past decade may also look or sound completely ridiculous now. Yet they were once taken quite seriously. It is the same in politics or anything else.

The things we take for granted now will probably look ridiculous to some future society.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 09 Dec 06 - 01:37 AM

Sorry, I do not have a sister whose choice I can disapprove of...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Dec 06 - 03:34 PM

Virtually all the footage of Hitler which I have seen are from after he had achieved power. And in pre-TV days I would imagine that relatively few of the minority of Germans who actually voted for him in 1932 had ever seen him in action, and there would have been various reasons they voted for the Nazis other than how Hitler looked.

Once in power there seems to be a process by which the role of leader lends a kind of aura, so that many people, even most people, no longer see ridiculous mannerisms of the leaders as ridiculous. And those mannerisms often become more exaggerated.

I'm thinking here of more modern examples - Margaret Thatcher or Dubya.

And in all such cases there were plenty of people outside the circle of admirers who never ceased to see the mannerisms as absurd. Of course in the case of Hitler I assume that if they were in Germany, and fortunate enough to still be at liberty, they would have kept quiet about it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:18 AM

Gulliver - The first two lines of Heine's poem are often quoted in the sense you put in it but originally it is a deep-drawn sigh of homesickness, not so much for the fatherland ("it can't decay") but for his mother ("she might die") and all his other friends long gone.

Azizi - I appreciated your contribution very much. Racism was one of the mainstreams of Nazi Germany. Not only the Jews were prosecuted, but other races, too, Gypsies, Slavs, and Negroes weren't held in high esteem. Example: During the Olympic Games in 1936 Hitler congratulated the winners with a handshake, but not Jesse Owens (for those who don't know him: he was a famous runner, and black).

Racism was still virulent in the post-war times. This stopped in the early fifties when the movie Toxi was shown. It is about a daughter of a white mother, dead, and a black father, transferred and never heard of. The girl, aged five, bearing out all resentiments finally wins the hearts of all people she meets. She is so nice, so cute - you could hear the tears drop in the audience. Seeing her fate people became aware what a nonsense racism is. (In the end her father comes back and holds her in his arms - under the christmas tree.)

It was said above that a common school for all races is the best way to fight racism. So it was in my country; the offspring of black and white marriages weren't discriminated. Later on, since l963, they were conscripted and fully accepted in the army. The first soldier in my old company to get the medal of merit was one of them. Fine guy.

McGrath - Hitler toured through the entire Nation during the election campaigns, and a lot of people had the chance to see him in action.
A late distant relative slobbered over "his steely eyes" she had looked into.
Opposite story: In my late grandfather's wallet I found a coloured image of Hitler. Good grief! My grandfather! But when I turned the image I read on the backside: "In these eyes you see the entire abyss of criminal intent." He must have used in those days for counterpropaganda.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:42 AM

Wolfgang, thanks posting information about the book "Destined to Witness. Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany", by Hans-Juergen Massaquoi.

I thought that name was familiar to me, and through the wonders of Google, found confirmantion that this is the same Hans-Juergen Massaquoi who was an editor with Ebony magazine {a monthly magazine with middle class African Americans as the focus population.

I'm going to take the liberty of quoting a long excerpt of this 4 page online article Black History and Germany 2 :

"The Nazis and the Black Holocaust
When Adolf Hitler came to power in 1932, the racist policies of the Nazis impacted other groups besides the Jews. The Nazis' racial purity laws also targeted gypsies (Roma), homosexuals, the mentally challenged, and blacks. Precisely how many Afro-Germans died in Nazi concentration camps is not known, but estimates put the figure at between 25,000 and 50,000. The relatively low numbers of blacks in Germany, their wide dispersal across the country, and the fact that the Nazis concentrated on the Jews were some factors that made it possible for many Afro-Germans to survive the war. One such survivor, who now lives in the U.S., published a book about his experiences as a black child growing up in Nazi Germany.

Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, the retired managing editor of Ebony magazine, was born in Hamburg to a Liberian father and a German mother in 1926. In his book, Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany, Massaquoi describes with stunning frankness how as a young boy he so badly wanted to fit into the Nazi culture that he had a babysitter sew a swastika on his sweater. He wore it to school only once before his mother removed it and tried to explain to him why he could not join the Hitler Youth. The German title of his book, Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger ("Negro, Negro, chimneysweep"), reflects one of the many taunts he heard as a young boy.

When the war came to Germany, Hans-Jürgen had more than the Nazis to worry about. Heavy Allied bombing forced him and his German mother Bertha Baetz to flee Hamburg. He attributes his survival to good luck and the help of his mother and German friends. In 1947 he went to Liberia before immigrating to the United States and joining the army as a paratrooper and later studying journalism at the University of Illinois. That led to his career at Ebony.

In Germany Massaquoi had avoided the tragic fate of many blacks during the Nazi era, but it was usually more difficult for adult blacks. The luckier ones were forcibly sterilized but allowed to live. Others were sent to concentration camps. Some Allied prisoners of war, including black French colonial soldiers and African Americans, were interned in Stalag-III-A at Luckenwalde near Berlin. In the summer of 1940 about 4,000 black POWs were sent to Luckenwalde. In 1941 300 of them were forced to act as extras in the German film Germanin (1943). Other black POWs also appeared in Quax in Afrika (1943, with Heinz Rühmann).

Speaking of movies, Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger, a German TV movie based on Massaquoi's book, is scheduled to air on German TV in fall 2006. Actress and producer Whoopi Goldberg, who owns the English-language rights to his book, has been trying to get Massaquoi's story made into a major motion picture for at least eight years, so far without success."

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 09:13 AM

Also, Wilfried Schaum, thank you posting information about the movie Toxi and the other personal experiences that you shared.

Is this movie dubbed in English?

Also, I agree that children of different races and ethnicities {in this context, I mean Latinos/Latinas} can help reduce prejudicial attitudes and misinformation. However, if the interracial school has a school board, an administration, faculty, and support staff {excluding the lunch ladies and janitors] who are White, and who have not acknowledged and worked through the Euro-centric and prejudicial attitudes that they grew up with, then attending an interracial school will not be a great experience for non-White children.

Also, if the curriculum and textbooks are still Euro-centric and short on accurate, indepth information about non-European nations and the contributions and history of non-White peoples, then in my opinion, the student population of the school being integrated doesn't matter very much.

Furthermore, because of a multiplicity of economic and psycho-social reasons children usually still have a segregated experience in school that are racially integrated but which place children in tracks of classes as a result of those students' results in placement tests.

Among these economic & psycho-social reasons was that schools then weren't integrated until junior high school [around 10 years old]and I don't have any doubt that the elementary schools attended by White students were academically better than the elementary schools attended by Black students. In addition, the White students in segregated schools had White teachers had role models, and did note have to work through issues of group inferiority...and there are a host of other advantages these White students had over the Black students they would encounter and compete academically with in junior high school and high school...

To demonstrate what I mean by integrated schools still being segregated, although my public high school [which had 3,000 students] was 50% African American, and about 50% White, because I did well in the academic placement test, my high school classes had only 2 other Black students out of thirty students total. These academic groupings were identified by some letter in the alphabet-though the highest academically achieving group wasn't the "A" group and the lowest wasn't "Z". However, the lowest academically group was all Black.

**

Again, thank you, Wilfried, Wolfgang, and others for your comments. It's good to know good people who ever and where ever they are.

Best wishes,

Azizi

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 09:25 AM

Ugh! In my haste to write this before leaving for a meeting, I left out a pertinent phrase in this sentence {and while I'm doing this, let me re-write it a bit}:

"Among the economic & psycho-social reasons for African American students doing poorly on required academic placement tests are these factors that I'm citing from my own experience: "

**

It's still not written well, but I hope you get the gist of what I'm trying to say.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:01 PM

We Didn't Know
Words and Music by Tom Paxton
We didn't know said the Burgomeister,
About the camps on the edge of town.
It was Hitler and his crew,
That tore the German nation down.
We saw the cattle cars it's true,
And maybe they carried a Jew or two.
They woke us up as they rattled through,
But what did you expect me to do?

[Cho:]
We didn't know at all,
We didn't see a thing.
You can't hold us to blame,
What could we do?
It was a terrible shame,
But we can't bear the blame.
Oh no, not us, we didn't know.

We didn't know said the congregation,
Singing a hymn in a church of white.
The Press was full lf lies about us,
Preacher told us we were right.
The outside agitators came.
They burned some churches and put the blame,
On decent southern people's names,
To set our colored people aflame.
And maybe some of our boys got hot,
And a couple of niggers and reds got shot,
They should have stayed where they belong,
And preacher would've told us if we'd done wrong.

[Cho:]

We didn't know said the puzzled voter,
Watching the President on TV.
I guess we've got to drop those bombs,
If we're gonna keep South Asia free.
The President's such a peaceful man,
I guess he's got some kind of plan.
They say we're torturing prisoners of war,
But I don't believe that stuff no more.
Torturing prisoners is a communist game,
And You can bet they're doing the same.
I wish this war was over and through,
But what do you expect me to do?

[Cho:]

Orders were orders.

Wither it be Germany, America, or any where else the normal cop out.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 13 Dec 06 - 08:04 PM

did you know that in Germany, that if you don't acepet a job while on the broo, they will send you to a brothel, where you might catch sexual illness.
Because Brothels and such like are legal in Germany.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 14 Dec 06 - 01:54 AM

Bloody nonsense (Tom's 2nd post of Dec 13)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 04:54 PM

Contents [hide]
1 Forms and extent of prostitution
2 History
3 Politics
4 Legal situation
5 High profile crimes and scandals
6 Sources and external links



[edit] Forms and extent of prostitution
Studies in the early 1990s estimated that about 150,000 - 500,000 women and some men work as prostitutes in Germany. The prostitutes' organization puts the number at 400,000, and this is the number typically quoted in the press today. From other studies, it is estimated that between 10% and 30% of the male adult population have had experiences with prostitutes.

Street prostitution. ('Straßenstrich') Regular street prostitution is often quite well organized and controlled by pimps. Some prostitutes have a nearby caravan, others use the customer's car, still others use hotel rooms. With the recent economic problems, in some large cities "wild" street prostitution has started to appear: areas where women work temporarily out of short-term financial need.

Eros centers. ('Bordell, Laufhaus') An eros center is a house or street ('Laufstraße') where women can rent small one-room apartments for some 80-150 Euro per day. They then solicit customers from the open door or from behind a window. Prices are set by the prostitutes; they start at 30-50 Euros for short-time sex. The money is not shared with the brothel owner. Security and meals are provided by the owner. The women may even live in their rooms, but most do not. Minors, and women not working in the eros center are not allowed to enter. Eros centers exist in almost all larger German cities. The most famous is the Herbertstraße near the Reeperbahn in Hamburg. The largest brothel in Europe is the eros center Pascha in Cologne, a 12 story building with some 120 rooms for rent and several bars.

Pascha brothel, Cologne, 2006Escort services. (Begleitagenturen) Escort services, where you hire a girl for "entertainment" or companionship - followed by sex - exist in Germany, but are not nearly as prevalent as in the U.S.

Bars. In bars, women try to induce men to buy expensive drinks along with the sexual services. Sex usually takes place in a separate but attached building. Prices are set by the bar owner, and the money is shared between the owner and the prostitute.

Apartment prostitution. (Wohnungspuffs) There are many of these advertised in the newspapers. Sometime run by a single women, sometimes by a group of roommates and sometimes as safehouses for traffickers.

Partytreffs and Pauschalclubs are a variation on partner-swapping swing clubs with paid prostitutes in attendance, as well as 'amateur' women and couples who get in without paying the flat-rate charge of about 80 to 120 euros that men pay, including food, drink and unlimited sex sessions, with the added twist that these are performed in the open in full view of all the guests.

FKK and Sauna Clubs the four to five-star establishments of the business, but not much more expensive, or sometimes even cheaper due to intense competition among the numerous clubs concentrated in North-Rhine-Westphalia (=NRW: Cologne, Duesseldorf) and Hesse (Frankfurt). These are brothels formatted after the typical German nudist resorts and public saunas that have existed from times immemorial as 'Frei-Koerper-Kultur-Anlage', 'Nacktstrand' and 'Badehaus'. As such the emphasis is more on wellness and relaxation than on 'nightlife': the establishments open before noon, everbody is naked and many offer park-like outdoor areas, swimming pools, whirlpools, saunas, therapeutic massage services, porno cinemas, dining rooms, private and public 'play rooms', bars ect. Both, clients and service providers pay an admission charge of from 35 to 65 euros, including use of all facilities, food and drinks (some do not allow alcohol or smoking). Prostitutes charge anywhere from 25 to 100 euro for a 20 to 60 minute pleasure session and get to keep it all. Proponents of legal prostitution hold this business model up as example for an ideal working environment for the women.


[edit] History
German prostitution was officially mentioned and lauded for the first time during the Council of Constance in the 12th century, was legalised and regulated in the 1920s to control venereal diseases (STDs). Prostitutes had to be registered with local health authorities and submit to regular STD tests.

During the Nazi era, street prostitutes were seen as degenerate and were often sent to concentration camps. Several of these camps, including Auschwitz, contained brothels, to reward wardens and cooperative inmates, and prostitutes were forced to work there.

After WW2, the country was divided into East Germany and West Germany. In East Germany, as in all countries of the Communist Eastern Block, prostitution was illegal and according to the official position it didn't exist. However there were high-class prostitutes working in the hotels of East Berlin and the other major cities, mainly targeting Western visitors; the Stasi employed some of these for spying purposes. -- Street walkers and female taxi drivers were available for the pleasure of visiting 'Wessies' or 'Westprinzen', too.

In West Germany, the registration and testing requirements remained in place but were handled quite differently in the various regions of the country. In Bavaria, in addition to scheduled STD check-ups regular HIV tests were required since 1987, but this was an exception. Many prostitutes did not submit to these tests, avoiding the registration. A study in 1992 found that only 2.5% of the tested prostitutes had a disease, a rate much lower than the one among comparable non-prostitutes. The compulsory registration and testing was abandoned in 2001. Since then, anonymous, free and voluntary health testing has been made available to everyone, including illegal immigrants. Many brothel operators require them.

Anything done in the "furtherance of prostitution" (Förderung der Prostitution) remained a crime until 2001, even after the extensive criminal law reforms of 1973. This put the operators of brothels in constant legal danger. Most brothels were therefore run as a bar with an attached but legally separate room rental. -- However, many municipalies built, ran and profited from high rise or townhouse-style high-rent Dirnenwohnheime (= whores' dormitories), to keep street prostitution and pimping under control. These are now mostly privatized and operate as Eros Centers. -- In 2001 a one page law sponsored by the Green Party was passed by parliament that made most aspects of prostitution and promoting it legal. Only pimping and trafficking remained illegal.


[edit] Politics
The coalition of Social Democrats and the Green Party that ruled until late 2005 attempted to improve the legal situation of prostitutes in the years 2000-2003. These efforts have been criticized as inadequate by prostitutes' organizations such as HYDRA, which lobby for full normality of the occupation and the elimination of all mention of prostitution from the legal code. The conservative parties in the Bundestag, while supporting the goal of giving prostitutes access to the social security and health care system, have opposed the new law because they want to retain the "offending good morals" status.

The churches run several support groups for prostitutes. These generally favor attempts to remove stigmatization and improve the legal situation of prostitutes, but they retain the long term goal of a world without prostitution and encourage all prostitutes to quit.

Alice Schwarzer and her branch of feminism rejects all prostitution as inherently oppressive and abusive; they favor a law like that in Sweden, where the ruling Social Democrats outlawed the buying of sexual services but not their selling.


[edit] Legal situation
Prostitution is legal in Germany, though it doesn't quite have the same status as a regular occupation. Income from prostitution is taxed at a slightly higher rate than income from normal occupations. Prostitutes even have to charge VAT for their services, to be paid to the tax office. In practice, prostitution is a cash business, and taxes are almost never paid and rarely enforced.

Since 2001 prostitutes and brothels are allowed to advertise. Many newspapers carry daily ads for brothels and for women working out of apartments. Many have websites on the Internet. In addition, sex shops sell magazines specializing in advertisements of prostitutes.

Early in 2005, it was reported that a woman refusing to take a job as a prostitute might have her unemployment benefits reduced or removed altogether [1]. A similar story appeared in mid-2003; a woman received a job offer through a private employment agency. In this case however, the agency apologized for the mistake, stating that a request for a prostitute would normally have been rejected, but the client mislead them, describing the position as "a female barkeeper" [2](German). To date, there have been no reported cases of women actually losing benefits in such a case.

Every city has the right to zone off certain areas where prostitution is not allowed (Sperrbezirk). The various cities handle this very differently. In Munich, street prostitution is forbidden almost everywhere within the city limits, in Berlin it is allowed everywhere, and Hamburg allows street prostitution near the Reeperbahn during certain times of the day. In most smaller cities, the immediate city center as well as residential areas are declared off-limits.

The only city in Germany with an explicit prostitution tax is Cologne. It was initiated early in 2004 by the city council ruled by a coalition of the conservative CDU and the leftist Greens. The sex tax applies to striptease, peep shows, porn cinemas, sex fairs, and prostitution. In the case of prostitution, the tax amounts to 150 euros per month and working prostitute, to be paid by brothel owners (the eros center Geestemünder Straße owned by the city is exempt). Containment of prostitution was one explicitly stated goal of the tax.

Foreign women from most countries can obtain a three-month tourist visa for Germany without problems. Many of them then work in prostitution. This is technically illegal, as the tourist visa does not include a work permit. MubIF


[edit] High profile crimes and scandals
There was a murder of six persons in a brothel in Frankfurt am Main in 1994. The Hungarian couple managing the place as well as four Russian prostitutes were strangled with electric cables. The case was resolved soon after: it was a robbery gone bad, carried out by the boyfriend of a woman who had worked there.

In 2003, Michael Friedman, popular TV talk show host and assistant chairman of the German Jewish community, became embroiled in an investigation of trafficking in women. He had been a client of several escort prostitutes from Eastern Europe who testified that he had repeatedly taken and offered cocaine. After receiving a fine for the drug charge, he resigned his posts.

Also in 2003, well-known artist and art professor Jörg Immendorff was caught in the luxury suite of a Düsseldorf hotel with seven prostitutes (and four more on their way) and some cocaine. He received 11 months on probation and a fine for the drug charges. He attempted to explain his actions by his "orientalism" and his terminal illness.

These cases were only deemed noteworthy because they involved murder and drug trafficking. Generally whore-mongering by celebrities and public figures is not viewed as very titillating by the German public and largely ignored by the media, the general attitude being: "So what, it's only sex...". On the contrary, followers of the German boulevard press will often find pictures of male and female celebrities (including foreign ones) posing happily with naked prostitutes in FKK clubs. Name pop bands have performed at the Cologne Pasha brothel's disco. All the major FKK-clubs have been 'exposed' in positive newspaper stories due to their effective public relations efforts.


[edit] Sources and external links
B. Leopold, E. Steffan, N. Paul: Dokumentation zur rechtlichen und sozialen Situation von Prostitutierten in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Schriftenreihe des Bundesministeriums für Frauen und Jugend, Band 15, 1993. (German)
HYDRA, support organization for prostitutes, also has the text of the new prostitution law
Scathing criticism of the new prostitution law, by Doña Carmen, a support group for foreign prostitutes working in Germany (German)
Feministinnen gegen Prostitution, criticism of the new prostitution law from a feminist perspective
Bundesverband Sexuelle Dienstleistung e.V., association of brothel operators.
Freiersein, information site for prostitution customers, run by prostitutes' support organizations. Has a section with "10 rules for fair play" outlining proper behavior of customers.
Reports on human trafficking, by the BKA, the German equivalent to the FBI, in German
Discussion forums on prostitution in Germany: 21orover.com (English), Römerforum (German), bw7.com (German), Rheinforum (German), OWLforum (German), Sachsenforum (German) World Sex Guide, International Sex Guide, Bordellcommunity (German), Hurenmagazin (German), http://www.bremersex.de/, Lusthaus.com (German), Verkehrsberichte-Forum(German)
Snopes Debunking the claim that "Women in Germany face the loss of unemployment benefits if they decline to accept work in brothels.".
Pascha brothel website for their houses in Cologne, Munich and Salzburg
Fkk Guide information, German-English glossary, prices and pictures of FKK brothels and other forms of legal prostitution in Germany, guided tours. (English)



v • d • eProstitution in Europe[hide]
Albania · Andorra · Armenia1 · Austria · Azerbaijan1 · Belarus · Belgium · Bosnia and Herzegovina · Bulgaria · Croatia · Cyprus1 · Czech Republic · Denmark · Estonia · Finland · France · Georgia1 · Germany · Greece · Hungary · Iceland · Ireland · Italy · Kazakhstan1 · Latvia · Liechtenstein · Lithuania · Luxembourg · Republic of Macedonia · Malta · Moldova · Monaco · Montenegro · Netherlands · Norway · Poland · Portugal · Romania · Russia1 · San Marino · Serbia · Slovakia · Slovenia · Spain · Sweden · Switzerland · Turkey1 · Ukraine · United Kingdom

Dependencies, autonomies and other territories
Abkhazia1 · Adjara1 · Åland · Akrotiri and Dhekelia · Crimea · Faroe Islands · Gibraltar · Guernsey · Isle of Man · Jersey · Nagorno-Karabakh1 · Nakhichevan1 · Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus1

1 Has significant territory in Asia.

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Categories: Prostitution by country | German society
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Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 04:55 PM

Early in 2005, it was reported that a woman refusing to take a job as a prostitute might have her unemployment benefits reduced or removed altogether [1]. A similar story appeared in mid-2003; a woman received a job offer through a private employment agency. In this case however, the agency apologized for the mistake, stating that a request for a prostitute would normally have been rejected, but the client mislead them, describing the position as "a female barkeeper" [2](German). To date, there have been no reported cases of women actually losing benefits in such a case.

OK.
but this also mean not yet.

I'll adnit that I'm wrong, however it doesn't mean that it could happen does it

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 04:56 PM

this is my last message.

goodbye.

PS
Don't reply to this by PM or anything else

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Lox
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 05:19 PM

??????????????

... erm ...

... hmmm ...

... right then ...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:21 PM

Just read this thread straight through, something I haven't done on a mudcat thread in a long time. Thanks to Wolfgang, Wilfried, Azizi, Ernest and all the others for a fascinating discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Lox
Date: 15 Dec 06 - 07:27 PM

hear hear

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 07:19 AM

This is definalty my last message

the reason is that some people out there don't listen they have their views and I have mine, and when I try and make peace with them they don't want to.

it's like banging your head against a brick wall.

so this is is really goodbye

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:52 AM

Volume XXV          Issue IX            September 2006
Last Trumpet Ministries, PO Box 806, Beaver Dam, WI 53916
Fax: [phone] Internet: http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org

A Global Population Under Antichrist Misguidance!

"For many deceivers are entered into the world, who confess not that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we receive a full reward. Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds."

II John 7-11
"Little children, it is the last time: and as ye have heard that antichrist shall come, even now are there many antichrists; whereby we know that it is the last time."

I John 2:18
"Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition."

II Thessalonians 2:3
In this issue of the Last Trumpet Newsletter, we will examine a spiritual condition that has swept across our world and around our globe in these last of the last days before the return of our gracious Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ. It is a sad fact that the entire world is currently under the misguidance of a strange and clandestine spirit that true and discerning Christians understand is the spirit of antichrist. This is especially true of the United States of America, where many people still blindly trust their leaders of church and state while these leaders are methodically bringing them to the very gates of death and hell.

The new world order has risen up almost unnoticed by the vast majority of the American people, and while words such as liberty and freedom remain in the vocabulary of citizens, these words have become shadows of the past in the reality of a new and different United States, which has been reduced to nothing more than a co-dependent unit of a new globalism concept and one-world government.

We have all seen, and have been seeing, the vast changes that have been taking place in our country. The discerning people have watched with shock and awe as government, religion, and society in general have been twisted and contorted into grotesque products of illuministic and antichrist design. This has happened for one basic reason, and that is because people did not care while it was happening. As the prophet Isaiah said in Isaiah 57:1, "The righteous perisheth, and no man layeth it to heart…." People have blindly trusted their leaders in government while they led them to a global interdependence and have destroyed the sovereignty of America. People blindly trusted their religious leaders as they transformed churches, places where spiritual battles are supposed to be fought, into societies of entertainment, foolishness, and compromise. People blindly trusted their medical doctors while they injected them with mercury, aluminum, and many other toxins in vaccines, which produced epidemics of autism, Alzheimer's disease, cancer, and numerous other deadly diseases.

Most people stood idly by and did nothing while seventy million babies were brutally butchered in the wombs of their mothers at the behest of the United States Supreme Court. This is the equivalent of 23% of our current United States population. That gaping hole that was left by our nation's program of mass murder is being filled by illegal aliens who have been brought in to be a managed herd of obedient workers in the new order. These people will be far more willing as stooges than those who were born in America and still remember how America used to be. These illegal aliens will also be victimized by the antichrist system in their new land as they breath the contaminated air from chem-trails, drink water laced with chlorine and fluoride, receive immunizations, and so on. They will find out also that the United States of America, the land of my birth and the land that I love, has become a killing floor of antichrist spirits and their human administrators.

When I consider this, I am reminded of the rock music group called The Guess Who, and their song from the late 1960's entitled "No Time." The entire song was written in witchcraft jargon, and the third verse, which would seem out of place to those who do not discern witchcraft jargon, consists of the following words: "No time for a gentle rain, no time for my watch and chain, no time for revolving doors, no time for the killing floor, no time for the killing floor; there's no time left for you, no time left for you."

If you are reading this and find it distressing, I thank God for it. There is hope for you! It is time for everyone to repent and seek the Saviour. He will forgive you and sustain you during these trying times. Most importantly, He will save your soul. Seek the Lord Jesus with all your heart! Do it now while there is still a little time!

The Crescendo of War!

Wars and rumors of war are constant at this time, which is another sign of the end of this present world. The wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan continue, and the war between the Israeli State and Islamic Hezbollah in Lebanon has been bitter and devastating! I pointed out in the August 2006 newsletter that the Moslems were outraged because the Israeli High Court approved the Gay Pride parade through the streets of Jerusalem. The parade was to retrace the steps where Jesus walked and culminate in a rally at the Temple Mount and Dome of the Rock Mosque. Not all of those in the Israeli government approved, but the majority did approve of the sodomite march, which would bring the spirits of Sodom into Jerusalem. Regarding this planned desecration, Moslem leader Sheik Ibrahim Sarsur said, "If they dare to approach the Temple Mount during the World Pride 2006 parade in Jerusalem – they will do so over our dead bodies." (1) Interestingly, Revelation 11:8 says, "And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified." Thus, Jerusalem would have the spirits of the accursed city of Sodom in it as an abomination of desolation. We must note that because of the fierceness of the war, the Gay Pride parade in Jerusalem was cancelled.

The occult timing of the recent war between the Israelis and Hezbollah is amazing. The hostilities began on July 12th, 2006, immediately following a full moon. July 12th, 2006, was also exactly thirty-six days after the day of 06/06/06, and the number thirty-six is the square of six. If all the numbers from one through thirty-six are added together, the total is 666, which is the number of the Beast! Thirteen days after the war began, representatives from various nations gathered in Rome, of all places, to discuss the war. (2) Rome is universally known as the city of seven hills, which correspond to the seven heads of the Beast. Revelation 17:9 clearly states, "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth." The seven hills of Rome are: Palatine, Aventine, Capitoline, Quirinal, Viminal, Esquiline, and Caelian.

This war between the Israelis and Hezbollah is a religious war, and the word "Hezbollah" means "work of God." We must remember that before World War II started, there was a war in Spain under Generalissimo Francisco Franco, who was armed by Hitler. This war was used to test the German weapons even as the Third Reich was planning to launch World War II. We now see another such testing as Iran supplies Hezbollah through Syria. As of August 8th, 2006, Hezbollah fired 3,333 rockets into the Israeli State. (3) The Israelis have responded forcefully and have declared that they will kill anything that moves, including women and children. They even intentionally attacked a United Nations' peace-keeping base and deliberately killed four United Nations' peacekeepers. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has denounced this action with great anger. (4)

On July 28th, 2006, the New York Times featured a story regarding the tide of Arab opinion turning in support of Hezbollah. (5) It appears that this recent war is welding all of the Moslem world against not only the State of Israel, but against the entire western world. An Australian newspaper recently published a story entitled "War on Europe, Al-Qaida Threat to Destroy Denmark, France, and Norway." (6) Iran recently warned the western world by declaring, "Ignore us at your peril!", and was outraged because they were not invited to the meetings in Rome regarding the war in Lebanon. (7) Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has also been rallying his people regarding the Islamic sacred day, which corresponds with August 22nd on our calendar. That day is the 27th day of Rajab, 1427. This day commemorates the night when the prophet Mohammad took his night flight on the winged horse Buraq, first to the farthest mosque, which is Jerusalem, and then to heaven and back. (Koran XVII.1). This is also the day that the United Nations set as a deadline for Iran's answer regarding its nuclear program. (8)

Elsewhere in the world, we find that Red China has announced that it must continue a massive military build-up because of current world instability. Red China already has the world's largest standing army. Red China also re-asserted its deep hatred for Japan because of atrocities during World War II. (9) The whole world seems to be festering, and nuclear arsenals are all being expanded. Remember the economic principle of production for use?

In the August 2006 issue of the Last Trumpet, I also mentioned the discovery of the largest oil field in the world in western Venezuela, containing an estimated 313 billion barrels of heavy crude oil, which is equal to half of all of the oil in the Middle East. Hugo Chavez of Venezuela knows full well that this is a luscious pie cooling in the window, and the oil manipulator will find a way to steal it. Here let it be noted that Chavez was in Russia on July 27th, 2006, purchasing jet fighters and helicopters from Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. Venezuela also purchased 100,000 Russian-made Kalashnikov assault rifles as the United States issued a protest. (10) With everything that is now going on in the world, it is interesting to note that Admiral Tim Keating, commander of NORAD and Northern Command, stated that the NORAD facility in Cheyenne Mountain, which is atomic blast-proof, is probably no longer needed and is therefore on stand-by status. Keating stated, "It is not likely that we will have a missile attack by Russia or China so we don't need the maintain Cheyenne Mountain in a 24/7 status. We can put it on warm stand-by." (11)

The Cruel Gimmick of Terrorism!

Terrorism is a very real problem, but we must understand that it is also a gimmick. Events of terror are orchestrated and choreographed by those who stand to gain the most from it. The Bush Administration has succeeded in reshaping the American way of life and getting people to surrender freedom and privacy, and it has dismantled the United States' Constitution. All of this was done by the threat of terror. It was the Illuminist Franklin D. Roosevelt who said, "In politics, nothing is by accident. If it happened, you can bet that we planned it that way." The threat of terror holds Americans in a suspended state of fear and submission.

The University of Wisconsin, my former employer, has a controversial professor that was recently the subject of a resolution signed by sixty-one state legislators who demanded his removal. The University, however, came to the defense of Dr. Kevin Barrett, defending his right to teach that the attacks on 9-11-01 were the work of the U.S. Government itself. Dr. Barrett has made a comprehensive study of the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon and says that the twin towers and building number 7 were brought down by bombs inside the buildings and not by the external hits of airliners. Furthermore, he states that the Pentagon was not hit by a plane but rather by a missile. Barrett also said, "I think a lot sooner than most people realize, 9/11 is going to blow wide open. The official report doesn't stand up to scrutiny – it's very simple." He added, "I am optimistic that 9/11 will ultimately be a catalyst for Americans to take back the Constitution. We have a great Constitution in this country, and it's been trashed and burned by this current administration, and not just this administration,…a lot of Democrats are equally responsible." (12)

The tragedy of the attacks on the World Trade Center has made the date of September 11th, 2001, a day of infamy, but we must understand whose infamy! Here let it be noted that the Federal Government gave the city of New York one billion dollars to be distributed to the families who lost loved ones and to the people who suffered injuries and had their lives ruined by the horrifying event. We have now learned that twenty million of those dollars have been spent on lawyers, hired by the city of New York to deny the claims of cops, firefighters, and others who were sickened and injured on that tragic day. The city has taken legal action against the injured, and eight thousand of these suffering people have been denied compensation. (13) Judgment Day is coming!

On August 9th, the day of the first full moon after the witches' high cross-quarter sabat of Lughnasaid, a plot was uncovered to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean as they traveled from London to New York. The plan was to use liquid explosives, which prompted a ban on bringing any kind of liquid or gel on any airplane. (14) Security levels were raised to orange and even to red in some areas. Countless thousands of people had to throw away liquids and gels of all kinds into large bins as lines at the airports were over nine hundred feet long. Massive numbers of armed guards were called in and long delays were common. (15) Governor Romney of Massachusetts activated the National Guard to Logan Airport in Boston. (16) Governor Schwartzenegger likewise called on the National Guard to patrol the airports in California. (17)

Just days before the terror plot was uncovered, it was announced that seventeen Egyptian college students, who landed at JFK International Airport and were on their way to Montana State University at Bozeman, Montana, were not all accounted for. Eleven students disappeared into thin air in New York. The visas of the eleven were revoked, and the FBI claims that they had been frantically searching for them. (18) Now they have been found and are in custody. The question that arises is: Were these students on an assignment that was other than collegiate and academic? If so, how many other terrorist units are waiting to strike? These are certainly days when much prayer is needed. The true remnant Christians must lift up their voices to the throne of the Almighty quickly!

The Creation in Distress!

These final days before the return of our Saviour to this troubled planet are also days of unusual and freak weather. Truly, the creation is under great distress and is groaning and travailing. Romans 8:22 warns us of this time as follows: "For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now."

The volcanoes are still waking up, and the earthquakes continue to happen throughout the world. There is a continual rumbling under the surface of the earth and pressure is building. Since the August issue of this newsletter, there have been hundreds of more significant earthquakes, but the news media doesn't say much about them. The U.S. Geological Survey publishes a list of these quakes continually. It has been noted that since the large earthquake and tsunami in December 2004 the Pacific Ocean has changed in its behavior. Rogue waves as high as 10-story buildings are appearing ten at a time from calm water. Scientists refer to these waves as "freak", and cannot explain what is happening. (19) I am reminded of Luke 21:25, which reads as follows: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring."

On August 10th, 2006, a super typhoon slammed into Red China, and brought devastation to a large area, sending one and one-half million people running from their homes. (20)

In the United States, record heat baked our nation and caused death and numerous problems. From California to Washington, D.C., the searing heat broke more than 2,300 records during the month of July, 2006! (21) Electrical demand for cooling was so great in California that rolling blackouts began to occur. The heat wave also left at least 25,000 cattle dead and also killed 700,000 birds. (22)

On the East coast, a power blackout in Queens, New York, left over 100,000 people without electricity during a time of searing heat. This also affected some of the terminals at La Guardia airport. With no refrigeration in the big city, the stench of rotting food was everywhere. Consolidated Edison stated that they could not find the cause of the power outage, and that there was no end in sight. (23)

In the mid-section of our country, St. Louis, Missouri, was also seared by intense heat exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit. One intense storm after another hit the area knocking out power and leaving 410,000 homes in the dark; without refrigeration with people suffering from the sweltering heat. (24) Emergency rooms at hospitals were jammed with people. Reports were also coming in nation-wide regarding highways that buckled from the intense heat.

In drought-stricken areas of Australia, water is so scarce that plans are being made to start drinking recycled sewage. The city of Toowoomba in Queensland is strongly considering this. (25) The Bible speaks of such a thing very plainly in II Kings 18:27 as being a great curse and reproach upon a people.

On April 13th, 2006, former President Bill Clinton made a speech in Chicago at a biotechnology conference and stated that 25% of all deaths world-wide are directly related to bad water or the lack of good water. (26)

Another problem that has arisen because of the intense heat and dryness are the many fires that have broken out all over the world. From the United States to Russia, from Indonesia to Spain, and on virtually every populated continent, a ring of fire has broken out. (27)

A recent UPI article arrested my attention regarding the destructive force of heat. The article stated that Red China is planning to test its experimental artificial sun on or near August 15th, 2006, at Hefei Island in East China's Anhui province. The nuclear fusion device is expected to generate such a gigantic plasma discharge that many scientists fear the great risks in such a project. (28) I am reminded of Revelation 16:8-9 which says, "And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire. And men were scorched with great heat, and blasphemed the name of God, which had power over these plagues: and they repented not to give him the glory."

America Under Antichrist Management!

The people of the United States are being continually used and manipulated as they are being prepared to become subjects of complete antichrist control. On August 8th, 2006, the company BP announced that they were forced to shut down the biggest oil field in the United States because of sixteen miles of bad pipe. (29) This would drive prices up from the already outrageous levels. BP president Bob Malone said that the pipeline would be closed down indefinitely and issued an apology, but meanwhile, record profits are being enjoyed, and our country reaches new levels of inflation. It is taking more dollars to buy the same things. It is the same old game of decreasing the supply and increasing the demand, and our oil man President, George W. Bush, will do nothing about it.

Is President Bush one of the many antichrists of the last days? It is interesting to note that when President Bush was first elected, he was asked how he liked being called "W" since that was what everyone had been calling him. His answer at the press conference was: "That's me W,W,W!" He said "W" three times. It is interesting to note that the equivalent letter to our English letter "W" is the 6th letter of both the Hebrew and archaic Greek alphabets. In other words, when President Bush said, "That's me, W,W,W, he was saying, "That's me, 666!" We must also take note of the fact that the Bible tells us in Revelation 13:18, "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six." Since the word "and" is not part of the number, we can add the letters of the number six hundred threescore six, and we find that the total is 23. The 23rd letter of our English alphabet is "W!" I am not saying that George W. Bush is the antichrist, but if he isn't, he will do until the real one comes along!

The forces of the antichrist "Big Brother" are constantly watching the unsuspecting people. It was recently reported that there are now thirty million video surveillance cameras in the United States, and our government is spending over one billion dollars per year to add more. (30) We have also learned that NASA has developed "droid" or "smart" satellites that can fly independently or in formation. Dr. David Miller of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Space Systems Laboratory said that it is like something out of Star Wars: "Where Luke is practicing the use of the Force with a floating droid." These nine-pound spheres are the size of bowling balls and are crammed with computers, sensors, and thrusters. They can zero-in anywhere. (31)

Not only are people being constantly watched, they are also falling under harsh and oppressive laws that violate the Constitution of the United States. One example is the Amnesty Immigration Bill #S.2611, which was recently approved by the United States Senate. If you have ever wondered why the U.S. Census forms have changed so much and ask so many personal questions about your home, number of rooms, square footage, and so on, we now have our answer. On May 26th, 2006, the Senate voted to require U.S. citizens to board illegal aliens in private homes! The legislation was introduced by Senator Ted Kennedy (D-Mass) and is modeled on the troop boarding practices employed in Boston during the 1770's. Under this plan, the Department of Housing and Urban Development will compile a database of U.S. housing including square footage, number of inhabitants, and location. Illegal aliens would be assigned to homes where the square footage per inhabitant exceeds the national average by 20% or more. Kennedy had the following to say about this new law: "Two problems faced by these immigrants are homelessness and racism. This bill will fix both. Instead of roaming the streets or crowding into ghetto apartments, immigrants would enjoy a secure roof over their heads. They'd be clean, well-rested, and more readily employable. They could also use the address when registering to vote. We are a wealthy country, and many Americans have a surplus of living space. Sharing that space with our brown brothers from Mexico would be both humane and enlightening. Bringing people together like this bill would help promote understanding and tolerance. Segregating immigrants in Latino ghettos is racist. Any critic of this bill is a racist!" (32)

I cannot help but wonder how many illegal immigrants the Kennedys will take into their vast land holdings and compounds. Senator Kennedy will no doubt be exempt from his own legislation for security reasons. I have seen the Kennedy compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, and it is heavily fenced and guarded.

A Sinful World, Gone Berserk!

The word berserk comes from Old Norse witchcraft. A berserker was a person who drank the blood of a bear under the light of a full moon under the northern circumpolar constellation of Ursa Major or the Great Bear. That person was said to go into a frenzy that took the form of unbridled lust for sex and blood. Thus, the word berserk became associated with one who is deranged or mad. In Jeremiah 51:7 we read as follows: "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand, that made all the earth drunken: the nations have drunken of her wine; therefore the nations are mad."

We live in a world that has incorporated witchcraft into every fiber of society, religion, and government. We must remember that witchcraft is not only rituals, spells, incantations, rope magic, and potions. First of all, Witchcraft is a way of thinking. If the occult Illuminists can get people to just think like witches, they can get them to do anything. That was the purpose of Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, The Narnia Chronicles, and so on. It is all about crystal balls, magic wands, and mythological creatures and so on. All of this is wrapped in a shroud of dualistic thought or the principle of the Tao. That principle of dualism teaches that there are two equal gods: one good and one evil. It further teaches that good and evil must not be destroyed but brought into balance because they need each other. In other words, there is good and bad witchcraft; and through legends, sagas, charms, potions, and spells, evil is brought to the same level with good to achieve balance. Remember that it was Satan who wanted to be like the Most High. It was Satan who convinced Eve that she could have both good and evil in her life and still live forever.

The sad fact is that most of the population of the world has gone through a methodical brain-washing that has made them spiritual invalids. We now live in a world where there is very little left of decency and character.

In the Netherlands, pedophiles are registering their own political party in order to further their agenda of legalized child pornography and bestiality and are attempting to lower the legal age of consent from sixteen to twelve. (33)

In Germany, where prostitution is legal, women who have lost their jobs must be willing to accept jobs as prostitutes or lose their unemployment benefits. Brothel owners have access to official data bases of those who have registered for unemployment benefits. The welfare laws of Germany require women under 55 who have been out of work for more than one year to take an available job, including those in the sex industry, or they will lose their benefits. The German government had considered making brothels an exception but ruled this out. (34)

The good news is that our Saviour is coming very soon and will bring every work into judgment. All evil will be destroyed, and the glorious new heaven and earth will appear. Every sign foretold by the prophets and by the Lord Jesus Christ himself are now coming to pass. Every day they are front and center and in your face. God help us to be ready for the great day of His appearing! Revelation 1:7 exhorts us as follows: "Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen."

In closing, I want to say thanks to all of you who support this end-time, prophetic ministry in so many ways. God bless you exceedingly is my sincere prayer. We continue to welcome your prayer requests. Our intercessors are ready to bring your requests to the throne of grace and will give each one personal attention. We know that all things are possible to them that believe.

I would like to remind everyone who accesses our website on the computer at www.lasttrumpetministries.org to remember to type in the suffix ".org" and not ".com." A third-party has bought the other suffix and is impersonating us by using our same name. Please help us pray about this. All will be well. Grace and peace be unto you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

David J. Meyer

Acknowledgements

01. TCV News, Jul. 27, 2006, by Jim Kouri, Jerusalem, Israel.
02. Financial Times, Jul. 26, 2006, by Roula Khalaf & Sharmila Devi, Jerusalem, Israel.
03. Associated Press, Aug. 9, 2006, Jerusalem, Israel.
04. New York Daily News, Jul. 26, 2006, by Michele Green & Dave Goldiner, Jerusalem, Israel.
05. New York Times, Jul. 28, 2006, by Neil MacFarquhar, Damascus, Syria.
06. MX News, May 12, 2006, by Sally Buzbee, Melbourne, Australia.
07. The Guardian, Jul. 26, 2006, by Simon Tisdall & Ewen MacAskill, London, England, UK.
08. Matt Drudge Report, Aug. 8, 2006, http://www.drudgereport.com/flash4.htm.
09. Reuters News Service, Jul. 26, 2006, Beijing, China.
10. Radio Free Europe, Jul. 27, 2006, by Claire Bigg, Moscow, Russia.
11. Denver Post, Jul. 27, 2006, by Bruce Finley, Denver, CO.
12. Channel3000.com, Jul. 22, 2006, by Adam Malecek, Madison, WI.
13. New York Daily News, by Joe Mahoney & Corky Siemaszko, New York, NY.
14. Daily Telegraph, Aug. 10, 2006, London, England.
15. Associated Press, Aug. 10, 2006, by Nathaniel Hernandez, Chicago, IL.
16. Associated Press, Aug. 10, 2006, by Brooke Donald, Boston, MA.
17. Los Angeles Daily News, Aug. 10, 2006, by Scott Lindlaw, San Francisco, CA.
18. New York Post, Aug. 8, 2006, by Dan Mangan, New York, NY.
19. MX News, Jul. 12, 2006, Melbourne, Australia.
20. Reuters News Service, Aug. 10, 2006, by Nir Elias, Fuzhou, China.
21. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration, Aug. 8, 2006, Washington, D.C.
22. AFP News, Jul. 27, 2006, Bakersfield, CA.
23. Associated Press, Jul. 22, 2006, by Verena Dobnik, New York, NY.
24. Associated Press, Jul 22, 2006, by Jim Salter, St. Louis, MO.
25. AFP News, Jul 24, 2006, Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia.
26. The Age, Apr. 13, 2006, by Martin Daly, Melbourne, Australia.
27. Associated Press, Jun. 25, 2006.
28. United Press International, Jul. 24, 2006, Beijing, China.
29. New York Times, Aug. 8, 2006, by Clifford Krauss & Jeremy W. Peters, New York, NY.
30. CNN News, Aug. 7, 2006, Niskayuna, NY.
31. United Press International, Jul. 11, 2006, Washington, D.C.
32. American Family Voice, Jul. 2006, by John Semmens. http://www.libertypost.org.
33. American Family Association Journal, Jul. 31, 2006.
34. Ibid.
http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 08:54 AM

In Germany, where prostitution is legal, women who have lost their jobs must be willing to accept jobs as prostitutes or lose their unemployment benefits. Brothel owners have access to official data bases of those who have registered for unemployment benefits. The welfare laws of Germany require women under 55 who have been out of work for more than one year to take an available job, including those in the sex industry, or they will lose their benefits. The German government had considered making brothels an exception but ruled this out. (34)

34. Ibid.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 10:28 AM

Do we take it that that last was Tom Hamilton's last message? Provisionally...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 01:19 PM

As you will not be posting to the thread or taking any more part in Mudcat Tom, there is probably no need for me to make this post. However, I was interested to read in your very long description of prostitution in Germany that Cologne's eleven storey "Eros Center", which I saw clearly from the train on the last occasion I came in that way from Neuss a few weeks ago, has now been transported three or four kilometres to Geestemünderstraße... In fact, that particular famous Cologne landmark is now known as "Pascha", although many Kölner refer to it by its former name. No comment on your arguments Tom. I just wanted to point out the perils of quoting wholesale from other websites.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 03:39 PM

OK

I'll keep posting on Mudcat however not on this thread

So Goodbye

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:09 PM

Good-bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: ard mhacha
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:30 PM

Tom Hamilton are you really leaving us, what a pity, think of all those poor unemployed ladies in Germany you could be helping, go fourth Tom.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:38 PM

Why should I bother, this is take the piss out of me is it?

aye go on have your wee jokes at my expence.

make me look a fool.

I was just puting my view across that's all

I remember this happened to me once before when certain mudcatters took the piss out of me and I didn't like it.

So Joe offer please could close this tread because certain mudcatters are taking the piss out of me.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:45 PM

People - let's not antagonize the man, please.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:50 PM

Thanks GUEST Meself

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:52 PM

at last some can understand the way I feel

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 04:57 PM

Tom do yourself a lot of good and get off this Site.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 05:02 PM

Tom - I know how easy it is to get wrapped up and wound up in some of these threads. Sometimes the best thing to do is to step away from it altogether for awhile, to go do something in the real world. It takes your mind off Mudcat. Then you wonder why you ever cared what someone here said to you. So what I would suggest is that if things people are saying on here are really annoying you, just stay away from it for a few days, do other things; then come back fresh.

Good luck!

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 05:10 PM

thanks I'll do that, Guest meself,

however before I go the Guest16 Dec 06 - 04:57 PM

i won't get off this site, I'll get off this thread but not this site.

because as you see unlike you I'm a member and I'm not afraid to tell people how I feel or even give my nanme unlike you.

But thanks guest meself.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 05:24 PM

Glad to be of service!

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Tom Hamilton frae Saltcoats Scotland
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 05:29 PM

Thanks again.

Tom

I'll do just that

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Azizi
Date: 16 Dec 06 - 05:41 PM

Here's an excerpt of an article about a play about post-holocaust Germany and Jewish people:

Israel Horovitz's Elbow Room
The award-winning playwright revives 1996 play and launches a new theater company.
Ted Merwin - Special To The Jewish Week (12/15/2006)

"Could Germany possibly do anything to redress the genocide perpetrated on the Jews during the Holocaust? In Israel Horovitz's award-winning 1996 play, "Lebensraum," now being revived in New York, the German chancellor makes a sudden, stunning announcement: Six million Jews from all over the world are invited to resettle in Germany.

The resulting violent controversy proves that German guilt is not so easily alleviated, nor can Jews easily resume their role in German society. Just three actors — T. Ryder Smith, Suli Holum and Ryan Young — perform all 80 characters in the piece, which include an unemployed dock worker from Massachusetts, a German minister and a couple of Israeli undercover agents who consider themselves to be the "policemen of the world's Jews." Anita Gates of the New York Times called the play "powerful and touching" when it first ran in New York.

"Lebensraum" directed by Jonathan Rest, is a kind of counter-factual play, on the lines of Philip Roth's novel "The Plot Against America." The comic drama takes its name from Hitler's insistence that the Germans needed "elbow room," and thus were entitled to expand the German homeland into Russia and other countries. Rest, who worked as a physician in Berkeley before deciding to make a career for himself in the theater, told The Jewish Week that the play "juxtaposes hilarious and horrific images," in order to get audiences thinking about the insidious virus of anti-Semitism...

Interviewed by telephone, Horovitz said that the idea for "Lebensraum" came during a trip to Germany, a country that he had long resisted visiting. When a Bonn production of his play "Park Your Car in Harvard Yard" cut a line in which a character talks about being a Yankee Jew, he asked the leading actress why. "It doesn't smell good to have Jews on stage in Germany," she told him matter-of-factly. Horovitz immediately decided that he needed to write about attitudes toward Jews in post-Holocaust Germany..."

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13405