Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[Errata]

Certainly there is no doubt than many Great Minds were anti-semitic. And it doesn't mean they were not great minds, just that they were human. The thing about prejudice is that it is a necessary human function. We don't have the time to get to know every single person we person we encounter and judge them on their own merits. So we prejudge. Sometimes its about race, sometimes about religion, sometimes about economic status. I grew up well off, and went to a small private school where everyone was equally well off. When I got out of school I had the WORST time trying to break my preconceived notions of lower income people. I did it, but not without quite a bit of pain caused to some of my dearest friends.

So some people don't like Jews. I'm actually pretty okay with that. I view it as their problem and not mine. And we are somewhat... other. We are clannish, we are literally on a different schedule than the world around us. I'm sure any number of things seem mysterious, and we are an excellent target. There are stereotypes that have lived for many hundreds of years that have never been true, but since we are something of a blank slate people believe them to this day. We don't give people any reason to believe those stereotypes are true, but we don't give them any reason to doubt them either. And something that pisses people off to no end is when you don't need their approval. And we don't.

England threw out the Jews in the 1400s. So did Spain. And today that actually seems pretty humane. We land on our feet, so if not England or Spain we'll set up elsewhere. How strange is it that England throwing us out seems like the kinder gentler method? I mean, they didn't burn us to death in our own villages or on a stake, they didn't torture us like the inquisition, they didn't put us in death camps... why England was positively friendly in their anti semitism. And to be honest, when we look at our history, we see the expulsion of Jews from any number of countries as... relatively benign.

So not being liked is something that's sort of been going on for 2000 years, and at this point, what are you gonna do? It is the conscious decision to start physically separating races that crosses the line. The desire to mark Jews for identification, to "expose" them to the rest of the populace is based on an intense fear that some Jews are "passing". Its still a problem to this day, and the single issue I personally have gotten the most grief over. I think the fear is that we are going to pass as Christian, marry their sons and daughters and then... I've actually never figured out what they think is going to happen then, but it's bad.

The sorting of humans has never led to anything good. "Whites only" did not work in the US. Japanese internment camps were not good. Nazi camps were even less good. Expulsions, ghettos, feudalism, slavery, caste systems, none of these things benefit humanity. It's the first sign that something is about to go cataclysmically wrong. And we knew that before the Nazis ever came to power. Separation did not end well for the Native Americans. Nor for Southern blacks. Nor did it work for British royalty, who got a Magna Carta shoved in their face. It was not benefiting the Irish, it didn't work out well in the Pale (Irish or Russian). It didn't go well for the Jews during the Pogroms, nor for the Maori in Australia. So I sort of have no patience for people who say things like "How could we know that was going to happen?". You know because theoretically you've opened a history book at some point in your life.

People who don't like Jews and people who are afraid of Jews, thats fine. The feeling is mutual. Its when the sorting starts that the line is crossed. Personal preference is one thing, and I can't argue with it. Turning that personal preference into policy guarantees that you are about to do something that, if you are human, you are going to seriously regret.

[Errata]

On a historical note, there actually is a reason that so many Jews were pawnbrokers, money lenders, bankers, jewelers, etc. Many countries (including England) passed laws in the dark ages/middle ages barring Jews from entering occupations in which their products would either touch a Christian body, or be consumed by a Christian. Kosher butchers survived because no Christian would buy from them, and a very few bakers. No tailors, no apothecaries, no barbers, no cobblers, nothing that could taint a Christian. Which left handling metal and money. Most jewelers during this time did not actually make jewelery. They broke down pieces, converting them into saleable gold and gems. Pawnbrokers dealt with items already made, and moneylenders and bankers dealt with coin. Those laws persisted until knowledge of any other trade essentially died out. Which is why in Victorian London, the Jewish tailors and cobblers, etc. that lived in the city were almost all Russian or Polish, where those laws didn't exist.

[Phil H]

England threw out the Jews in the 1400s. So did Spain. And today that actually seems pretty humane. We land on our feet, so if not England or Spain we'll set up elsewhere. How strange is it that England throwing us out seems like the kinder gentler method? I mean, they didn't burn us to death in our own villages or on a stake, they didn't torture us like the inquisition, they didn't put us in death camps... why England was positively friendly in their anti semitism. And to be honest, when we look at our history, we see the expulsion of Jews from any number of countries as... relatively benign.

England cannot claim innocency.

In my home town, Lincoln, there still exists the base of a monument erected in around 1200 (I think) to "Little St Hugh". (The great builder of the cathedral was St hugh of Avalon.

Little St hugh was claimed to have been murdered as part of their rituals by local Jews (Lincoln had a large Jewish community and early stone houses called "The Jews House", attached to what may have been a synagogue, and "Aaron the Jew's House" can still be seen). The whole thing was almost certainly an excuse for a pogrom against wealthy members of the community. Many were killed on false evidence and the child made into a martyr.

Not a happy story or an incident for the city to be proud of.

Phil

[Robert]

I also seem to remember an incident where some Jews booked a passage out of England, only to be dumped on an island about to submerge.

Intellectuals are often shallow creatures and go with the fashion. They preen themselves that they are setting the fashion, but most of them just follow. I think Secretary Stimson told a story of how he was invited to a 1930s dinner party, to be greeted by his hostess with the question, "Now, which are you - a fascist or a communist?" To which he replied, "Madam, I am actually a democrat." Unfortunately democrats have to actually use their brains and this is a big turnoff for many intellectuals.

[Adam Went]

The points regarding the innocence, or lack thereof, of other countries in regards to racial vilifications, especially in regards to the Jews, leads back to the very point we were discussing not long ago - that it is all well and good to punish perpetrators of these horrendous crimes, but it doesn't stop with them. Just because they lost the war doesn't mean they were the only ones to commit war crimes. Just because they waged a personal war against the Jewish population doesn't mean that there weren't other countries or other circumstances which didn't exactly aid their ability to find asylum. The Jews had no home country in the 1930's, which is exactly why you found them everywhere across europe - Polish Jews, Austrian Jews, Hungarian Jews, French Jews, etc etc - and that as the Germans conquered each country they made it their mission to eradicate, or at least tred down, the Jewish population. The lack of assistance and international co-operation certainly did not aid the situation.

But then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think it's important to note that few would have understood the full horrors of these "work camps" until after it was far too late and they had been "liberated".

Cheers,
Adam.

[Phil H]

But then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think it's important to note that few would have understood the full horrors of these "work camps" until after it was far too late and they had been "liberated".

A very perceptive point, I think, Adam.

Did anyone, before 9/11, anticipate that anyone would fly passenger aircraft full of passengers into world famous buildings? Small planes: maybe - I think that had happened before - but such a landmark, and two?

Afterwards, it becomes a sort of conventional wisdom that it can happen, and you can never quite find again the mental state that existed before.

I don't think anyone anticipated the death camps of the Reich - there had been concentration caps for "dissidents" (communists, trades unionists etc) since 1933, but though conditions were harsh they were not usually fatal. It was all broadly "acceptable" if not quite what the democracies were used to at home.

Genocide on the scale of the holocaust was pretty much unheard of in Europe in the 30s. Stalin killed an awful lot of coulaks in the 20s, and there were purges, but on a relatively small scale. (Hitler's Night of the Long Knives killed a few hundred, for instance). But where was any precedent for millions being killed - I think that is why many Jews failed to flee Germany - they did not realise that the stakes had been raised from brutality to death.

Abroad, Leopold of the Belgians did some pretty horrific things in the then Belgian Congo (a personal rather than an imperial possession), but you have to go back to the ancient world, or medieval times (Huns, Mongols, 1st Crusade) to find anything remotely similar.

Since the War, of course, we have had Cambodia, Rwanda and other horrors.

The Nazis also kept their actions under wraps. Anyone who has seen the terrific TV play, "The Conference" will recognise how euphemisms were used if possible. I doubt many ordinary Germans, except those near camps, knew much - although I'd be surprised if there were not rumours.

To conclude, a good post Adam, thank you.

Phil

[Errata]

The points regarding the innocence, or lack thereof, of other countries in regards to racial vilifications, especially in regards to the Jews, leads back to the very point we were discussing not long ago - that it is all well and good to punish perpetrators of these horrendous crimes, but it doesn't stop with them. Just because they lost the war doesn't mean they were the only ones to commit war crimes. Just because they waged a personal war against the Jewish population doesn't mean that there weren't other countries or other circumstances which didn't exactly aid their ability to find asylum. The Jews had no home country in the 1930's, which is exactly why you found them everywhere across europe - Polish Jews, Austrian Jews, Hungarian Jews, French Jews, etc etc - and that as the Germans conquered each country they made it their mission to eradicate, or at least tred down, the Jewish population. The lack of assistance and international co-operation certainly did not aid the situation.

But then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think it's important to note that few would have understood the full horrors of these "work camps" until after it was far too late and they had been "liberated".

Cheers,
Adam.

On your first point I agree with you wholeheartedly. Which is why I firmly believe that its a "hearts and minds" campaign. And I am a HUGE fan of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission model of conflict resolution and the Forgiveness Project. To me these two ideas are far more important than any war crimes tribunal.

[Mayerling]

England threw out the Jews in the 1400s. So did Spain. And today that actually seems pretty humane. We land on our feet, so if not England or Spain we'll set up elsewhere. How strange is it that England throwing us out seems like the kinder gentler method? I mean, they didn't burn us to death in our own villages or on a stake, they didn't torture us like the inquisition, they didn't put us in death camps... why England was positively friendly in their anti semitism. And to be honest, when we look at our history, we see the expulsion of Jews from any number of countries as... relatively benign.

England cannot claim innocency.

In my home town, Lincoln, there still exists the base of a monument erected in around 1200 (I think) to "Little St Hugh". (The great builder of the cathedral was St hugh of Avalon.

Little St hugh was claimed to have been murdered as part of their rituals by local Jews (Lincoln had a large Jewish community and early stone houses called "The Jews House", attached to what may have been a synagogue, and "Aaron the Jew's House" can still be seen). The whole thing was almost certainly an excuse for a pogrom against wealthy members of the community. Many were killed on false evidence and the child made into a martyr.

Not a happy story or an incident for the city to be proud of.

Phil

Hi Phil,

The story (I believe) was used by Geoffrey Chaucer for one of his CANTERBURY TALES.

Jeff

[Mayerling]

But then again, hindsight is a wonderful thing and I think it's important to note that few would have understood the full horrors of these "work camps" until after it was far too late and they had been "liberated".

A very perceptive point, I think, Adam.


Abroad, Leopold of the Belgians did some pretty horrific things in the then Belgian Congo (a personal rather than an imperial possession), but you have to go back to the ancient world, or medieval times (Huns, Mongols, 1st Crusade) to find anything remotely similar.


To conclude, a good post Adam, thank you.

Phil

Hello again Phil and Adam,

The "Congo Cruelties" were the first major atrocity story of the 20th Century and did have effects when revealed. If I may suggest, read Neal Aschenbach's old biography THE KING INCORPORATED about Leopold II, who was smart but totally devoid of any human feeling when his own welfare was involved. Leopold, unlike most 19th Century monarchs, studied the developement of empires at that time. Belgium was a third rate political power, and due to that Leopold was able to convince groups that were actually benevolent societies that the lands in Africa should be given to him personally - not to Belgium, but certainly not to those biggie powers (England, France, and Germany) because as a personal shepherd to the local people of those lands, Leopold said he'd care for them. He ended up with personal ownership of the entire Belgium Congo (which today is three states). He was very happy - because of all the natural resources like rubber, gold, silver, etc. He had an able lieutenant, Henry Morton Stanley, to administer the colony. This included giving tribes specific goals of material they were to deliver by the end of the year. To keep everyone in line and set examples, men, women, and children were mutilated (there hands, arms, or legs ere cut off) for not reachng the goals. It was a blueprint for atrocities elsewhere during the 20th Century. The first man to reveal the story was the Italian explorer Count De Brazza, but despite documenting some of it few believed him (Leopold knew how to bribe the press). Eventually the work of Edmund Morel, and the unfortunate Roger Casement really revealed the truth. Stunned the Belgium government forced Leopold to turn his private empire to them. Only then did it become the Belgium Congo. Leopold died in 1909, worth 900 million dollars (making him one of the richest men in the world). It is interesting to note that Leopoldville and Stanleyville had their names changed when the Congo got it's independence. But the city of Brazzaville remains named that way to this day in honor of the explorer who tried to help them.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Phil, Errata, Jeff:

First of all i'd like to thank you very much for your comments, i'm pleased to see that we seem to be in relative agreement on at least one point.

What you say there Phil is exactly why it's vital that we learn lessons from history so the same thing can never be allowed to be repeated. Jeff offers up some interesting examples of other atrocities, but the truth is that nobody in Europe, or the world for that matter, in living memory, could comprehend something on the scale of Auschwitz. An extermination camp specifically designed so that up to 10,000 people per day could be liquidated if those at the helm deemed it suitable to do so. The whole process that the prisoners went through there - those who were not immediately exterminated having to go through slave labour, starvation and diseases. It's hard enough to comprehend now, even knowing what we know and having seen what we've seen, and some people are still in denial that it ever could have happened - imagine what it must have been like for an average citizen in the 1930's.

And Auschwitz was just one camp. There were dozens, if not hundreds, of similar institutions spread across Europe - all with slightly different methods but all with the same ultimate aim.

Most German civilians, and even soldiers, hum a very similar tune to one another in regards to the atrocities that were happening on the doorstep. It's usually along the lines of "We heard rumours from time to time, but didn't believe it."

The camps were liberated eventually but by then it was, as we've said, too late. The damage had been done and millions were dead. It was in about 1935 that action needed to be taken when things started turning a bit sour in Europe, not 1945.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Phil H]

Am I right in thinking that Leopold of the Belgians was once a JtR suspect?

On a separate point about the "death camps" - it is ironic in a way that the formalised process which they embodied was introduced for efficiency!

The other methods - shooting, gassing in vans etc were too slow, used up resources (bullets) and had a bad effect on the morale of the military personnel involved. Himmler, I seem to recall, was physically sick when he witnessed a mass executtion.

I think we also must not forget that it was not only Jews who suffered in these camps and in these ways - gypsies/romanies; the mentally and physically challenged (even if Aryan!); homosexuals, communists - almost anyone who could be regarded as an outsider.

Has anyone seen the film "It Happened Here" famous in its day? It was made by Kevin brownlow as an amateur piece but got a proper distribution in the 60s. It is available on dvd. It paints a picture of like in an Engalnd successfully invaded an occupied by the Germans. The key character is a female nurse and she is working in a hospital, late in the film, where all the patients disappear over night - removed to be killed. Its a very powerful piece.

One of the most controversial aspects of the film (at the time) was a discussion involving genuine fascists.

Its an amazing film and some of you might be interested in acquiring it. It sticks in the mind.

Phil

[Mayerling]

Am I right in thinking that Leopold of the Belgians was once a JtR suspect?

On a separate point about the "death camps" - it is ironic in a way that the formalised process which they embodied was introduced for efficiency!

The other methods - shooting, gassing in vans etc were too slow, used up resources (bullets) and had a bad effect on the morale of the military personnel involved. Himmler, I seem to recall, was physically sick when he witnessed a mass executtion.

I think we also must not forget that it was not only Jews who suffered in these camps and in these ways - gypsies/romanies; the mentally and physically challenged (even if Aryan!); homosexuals, communists - almost anyone who could be regarded as an outsider.

Has anyone seen the film "It Happened Here" famous in its day? It was made by Kevin brownlow as an amateur piece but got a proper distribution in the 60s. It is available on dvd. It paints a picture of like in an Engalnd successfully invaded an occupied by the Germans. The key character is a female nurse and she is working in a hospital, late in the film, where all the patients disappear over night - removed to be killed. Its a very powerful piece.

One of the most controversial aspects of the film (at the time) was a discussion involving genuine fascists.

Its an amazing film and some of you might be interested in acquiring it. It sticks in the mind.

Phil

Hi Phil,

I have heard of IT HAPPENED HERE. It was never brought over to the U.S. (I believe) to be shown here. Recently there was a novel by Philip Roth that suggests Chales Lindbergh becoming President as a Republican in 1941 (defeating FDR seeking his third term). Lindbergh appoints Henry Ford Secretary of the Interior, and he puts the Jews into camps, but the purpose is to force them to become farmers (he figures that the Jews will be better citizens if they are not in commerce). The U.S. does not support England in1941, but the public turns slowly against Lindbergh's administration, and the Democrats return to power in 1945. I can't recall the name of the novel.

There is also a movie made in England called WENT HE DAY WELL, about how a fifth column of disguised Germans try to take over a strategic village as the first step in the invasion of England. It was made in the early 1940s.

Jeff

[Phil H]

"Went the Day Well" is very good - I have a copy. If you have seen "The Eagle has Landed" that is almost a re-make of the earlier film.

Phil

[Adam Went]

Phil:

Yep, it's true. Belgian Royalty, particularly Leopold, has been mentioned as a potential JTR suspect in the past. Nothing to it, of course, but it's a fantasists delight, as with Prince Albert Victor and the like back in the homeland.

As for the camps, the testimony of Rudolf Hoess post-war (that is Hoess the Auschwitz commandant, not to be confused with Rudolf Hess the former Hitler deputy) in relation to the "processing" abilities of his camps and the techniques they used is truly horrifying reading. Hard to comprehend.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Phil H]

This thread is really fascinating - I wish more of the Ripper-related threads could be as engaging and provoke this level of debate!

Last night (inspired by this discussion) I took down from my shelves a couple of books that I bought some time ago, but have yet to read:

Hitler's Willing Executioners (Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust) by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen (p/b 1998)

The Origins of the Final Solution (Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy 39-45) by Christoper R Browning (p/b 2004)

I will now put these higher up my to read list.

Phil