Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[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

[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

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[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

[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.

[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.

[Phil H]

I have quoted my personal experience - my grandmother's views - before now.

I think that for many people, anti-semiticism was not a hatred of the jews or a dislike. rather it was a feeling that they were separate, not part of wider society, and often perceived as successful and as preying on others (as pawnbrokers, bankers, lawyers etc). This went back a long way.

So in the UK people might have Jewish friends and like them, but still perceived them as "different" and separate.

In a period far less minded to be diverse and equal, the tendency of jews to live in their own communities (Golders green was, as I recall it, synonymous with a Jewish community in London), in some cases to dress differently, and certainly their dietary habits and also social conventions (circumcision?) may have affected perceptions.

Don't forget that in Britain until the 70s many country towns had few coloured faces, few foreign restaurants. The generation brought up while there was an empire - certainly up to 1914 (and that generation lived on even into the 80s) - tended to look down on all non-British people, but most of all on those who had skins of a different colour or kept themselves apart.

I am not trying to excuse, just to explain.

Phil

[Mayerling]

Many people live with many things - in my experience.


Did Moseley's followers in 1930s britain, often anti-semitic in the way of the times, regret their stance after 1945? Or did they just say "that was then:this is now"?

I have no answers, only questions.

Phil

Hi Phil, Adam, and Errata,

Anti-Semitism was so endemic all over the globe in the years before (AND AFTER) World War II that I get a very disheartening feeling about the subject when thinking about it, the Holacaust, the creation Israel, and the present day. It is a complex mess (to put it mildly).

Best thing is a sample of the problem through some noteworthy Englishman.

G. K. Chesterton
Hilaire Belloc
Israel Zangwell
Winston Churchill,
Eric Blair,
Oswald Mosley
Ernst Bevin.

Cross section of the literary and political worlds of the day. Chesterton and Belloc were totally outspoken anti-Semites in their writings. To be fair to both men they were outward spokespersons for Roman Catholicism, and so they would have an axe to grind against the Jews. There is a passage in Chesterton's MANALIVE dealing with a character named Gould who is Jewish, and who giggles a lot. Chesterton makes the comment that in the smirk and giggle of Mr. Gould can be found the cause of many a Russian pogram. When I first read that passage I wished a living Chesterton was in my home so I could kick his teeth down his throat and giggle while doing so.
Belloc blame the Boar War on Jewish gold mine and diamond mine Rand millionaires, and wrote a particularly nasty poem about the issue usng the names of every Jewish millionaire as though they were among the slain heroes of the war. In 1912 both men (with G. K.'s brother Cecil) found proof of a financial scandal involving the government's leading figures wih Marconi Wireless Stock. Lloyd Geoge was heavily involved. But the kept aiming at the Jewish members of the Asquith Government, especially the Attorney General Sir Rufus Isaacs. This was typical of both men.

A strange thing happened in the 1930s. Chesterton actually advocated that Jews wear special clothing that seperated them from the non-Jews in British society, and even pushed for Jews returning to Palestine. Of course he did not support the latter for a good reason, he just wanted them out of Britain. But all of a sudden he began to notice what the Germans were doing under Hitler towards the Jews. It did not sit well with him. They were carrying things too far towards violence. Chesterton became one of the most outspoken critics of the Nazis policies (much to the surprise of Belloc) in that period until he died in 1936. Oddly enough, his friend George Bernard Shaw was still apologizing for Hitler's policies (he felt that Hitler would gradually get rid of them) and wrote an obnoxious play called GENEVA defending right and left wing dictatorships of the day.

Belloc lived until 1950. There is no evidence that he ever changed at all towards his feelings about the Jews, even after the facts about the camps came out. I suspect he probably thought everyone of those five or six million Jews who died, including children and babies, had it coming.

Israel Zangwell was a better known writer to the people of that day, and he wrote of Jewish immigrants and ghetto life in modern London and America, coining the phrase, "the Melting Pot". He supported Zionism when it began but became disenchanted with it in the 1930s. The apperance of different poliical stipes and parties made him tired of it. He wrote an essay, "Watchman, what of the night?" which showed the contempt he had developed, and he denounced Zionism from then on.

Churchill is fascinating. On a personal level (like many people) he did have Jewish friends, and he certainly was better informed about the camps. But he could lash out - in 1920 he warned the Jews not to try any schemes for world comquest (Churchill read the initial reports aout the Protocols of Zion, and believed them). As far as I know he never apologized for that. In 1944 the British High Commissioner to Egypt, Walter Guiness, Lord Moyne, was assassinated by two members of the Jewish terrorist group "the Stern Gang". It was not an action countenanced by the Jewish Zionist organization that was headed by Dr. Chaim Weitzman. Churchill was a friend of Lord Moyne. He had Weitzman come to see him and gave him a threatening tongue lashing about the assassination and not knowing who the Jews' friends were. Weitzman tried to explain it was not his plan, but Churchill just walked out on him. Later Churchill would again give lip service to the plight of the Jews and Palestine, but the achievement of independence occurred during the Labour Administration of Clement Attlee.

Atlee and his foreign minister Bevin had a hard time with Palestine - Israel. Just as the Jews had been big in the Liberal Party in Asquith's day, they were now big in the Labour Party of Atlee's day. But Bevin was trying to be even-handed to Jews and Arabs. Like Lord Moyne he did not open up the area for Jewish refugees to legally poor in. This led to hard feelings, and certain "camps" that were set up for Jewish refugees were renamed "Bevingrad".

Eric Blair remains one of the great British writers as George Orwell. Many regard him as a liberal. That is not true. He was a skeptic and an analysist of facts. He hated all "isms" (which would include "Liberalism"). While his writings don't have the disfiguring anti-Semitic comments or characters of Chesterton, Belloc, Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, or even Agatha Christie, he could in his personal writing say things. He reported a conversation to the authorities that he heard in 1948 and one of the speakers was the comedian and actor and director Charlie Chaplin. Chaplin as a left winger (no doubt about that) but Blair found his comments typical for a Jew to utter. Problem was that Charlie was not Jewish. (His parents were both Anglicans - his half-brother Sidney had a Jewish mother, and he was Jewish, not Charlie).

Finally we have Sir Oswald. I saw him on television in the late 1960s on William Buckley's talk show. Buckley was discussing British policies and economics with Sir Oswald, and did try to draw out of him a discussion of his stand regarding the anti-Semiism. Sir Oswald gently deflected the issue again and again, basically saying it was something he could not control. That his sister-in-law had been a member of Hitler's entourage in the late 1930s and shot herself in protest to the war did not get discussed. It was so old hat now to bring all that up in the late 1960s. From what I have heard, when Sir Oswald and his intimates were drinking (and drunk) at dinner, the anti-Semitic comments and "jokes" resounded against the walls. So he certainly never really cared.

As I said, it is very disheartening.

Jeff

[Adam Went]

Errata:

Very well said. You're exactly right about the need to learn lessons from what's happened in the past.

I would say that, generally speaking, the humble German soldier would feel much more remorse and regret than the high ranking official - because the latter knew what was going on and allowed themselves to be a part of it, whereas the former often didn't have a choice in the matter or didn't know the full extent of the atrocities that were being carried out by the same countrymen who they were fighting and dying for on the field. It's not true at all that every German, soldier, civilian, whoever, knew about Auschwitz and the dozen of other horror houses like it and the extent of what was going on inside their gates. And when all is said and done it's the Holocaust that the Nazis are remembered as being the most evil for.

"My Father's Keeper" by Stephan Libert is a really good read for interviews with the children of the high ranking Nazi officials, their thoughts and what became of them. And I can only mention again the book "A Child Of Hitler" by Alfons Heck for a really good insight into how a young German could be brainwashed into believing in Nazi greatness and commiting nasty deeds in that name, and the remorse that followed years afterwards.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

Thank you all for your kind words about my friend. I cannot assuage his guilt, but I'm hoping that we can channel it into something positive.

Genuine regret is all I can ask for, no matter who has harmed, or been harmed. And I don't care if it takes 50 years to get there, as long as they get there. Monsters exist in the world, as we all know simply by being a member of casebook. Monsters aren't sorry, they're sorry they got caught. Victimizing someone is easy. And being a victim is easy, morally speaking. The hardest thing in the world to do is to stop rationalizing, realize what it is you have done, accept responsibility and express remorse. And live with the consequences. The consequences may be as severe as a death sentence, or as little as recognize the evil you are capable of. And in so many ways death is cleaner and simpler.

There are a few types that I admire in a very weird way. The first in genuinely remorseful ex Nazis, because there will never again be a time when they can escape the terrible pain they caused. And they didn't take the easy route of rationalization. Someone who survived the camps lives with terrible pain, bt they know it isn't their fault. Ex Nazis know that it IS their fault. And to be honest, if I had to choose between the two I would be the camp survivor in a heartbeat, because I don't know how I could handle what a reformed Nazi had to handle. The second is the child molester who begs to be kept in prison. And it happens on a not too infrequent basis. They know they are causing harm, they don't know if they can stop, and they are unwilling to even accept freedom if it means they could harm another child. Clearly there is nothing to admire about a child molester, but when someone begs you not to let them go free a: you should probably do what they ask and b: they are putting the welfare of their potential victims ahead of their own. And that's actually something not many other types of criminals are capable of. Someone who is more afraid of hurting a child than they are afraid of prison (especially given what happens to child molesters in prison) is salvaging their humanity. And I always admire that.

I know why the Nazis did what they did. They in fact were under far more adverse conditions than the test subjects of Stanley Milgram, and those test subjects "killed" and "tortured" a whole lot of people based simply on the say so of a guy in a lab coat. We know how this can happen. We know how victims can recover. But we need to know that perpetrators can recover as well. We need to know how Nazis got their humanity back, how they let go of preconceived notions, how they got back to thinking for themselves, got back to feeling, got back to humanity. We wanted to think we could stop another genocide ever happening again and we were wrong. It's still happening. I think that's because the key to this was never finding out how it started, they key was always finding out how it ends. Reformed Nazis are what can happen in Bosnia, Rwanda, the Sudan, etc. We just need to know how they did it, and how they live with it, and maybe we can accelerate the process to save what is left of these persecuted cultures.

[Adam Went]

Errata:

More interesting thoughts.
I think that a lot must depend on whether the remorse/regret is genuine or not. I don't think anybody should underestimate the power of brainwashing and propaganda that was drilled into the heads of would-be German soldiers in the 30's. So they might have regretted it decades later, but by then it was too late, at the time they still believed in the Nazi ideals.

So there is the kind of remorse like when you got dragged into the Principal's office in school and made to apologise to another student for harming them in some way - despite the fact that 99% of the time you weren't actually sorry, but were just saying it to avoid any further trouble. In Nuremberg, Albert Speer was the serial apologist. Despite the fact that he used slave labour prisoners in order to build his armaments machine and keep it turning, and being a leading Nazi who surely would have been aware of the concentration camp atrocities, this behaviour after the war almost certainly saved his neck, and in fact saw him sentenced to 20 years.

On the other hand, there are those who would be genuinely sorry, in which case they have to live the rest of their lives knowing what they had done to those innocents in the Nazi name.

Errata, I hope your friend does find a way around that in time, must be a horrible situation to have to deal with.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Robert]

Errata, I do not know the circumstances of your friend, but I hope he somehow obtains some kind of release. It isn't within your power to forgive him, because he didn't do those things to you. But I hope that you can give him hope.