Hitler, the Nazis and World War Two etc etc

[Phil H]

Many people live with many things - in my experience.

War experience itself can be pretty nasty - as can something like working in the police or fire service.

I guess you could say to yourself - I had no option but to do it. It wasn't my fault etc etc. That was then, this is now. Even in Germany after 1945, re-inventing yourself.

Of course, some people are to blame, but many must have been caught up in a nightmare that they did not understand.

Not all people are deeply self-refective or well educated/intellectual. Many poorer, working class, under-priveleged people seem to respond to stimuli, peer pressure and views or basic prejudice. Did the people who protested in Portsmouth UK some years back against a doctor dealing with children (paediatrician) because they thought he/she was a paedophile guilty, or did they just go along with others? Do they regret what they did or just not think about it?

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

[Robert]

I can see how someone could (self-deceivingly) come to think, "It wasn't me who did all that - I was a different person in those days." But this is a luxury that the victims didn't have. My mother knew a woman who had been in the camps, and every time the documentary makers asked her to appear in one of their programmes, she agreed, despite the awful nightmares that were the inevitable accompaniment, because she felt that she ought to, that she ought to tell the story.

I have no answers either.

[Adam Went]

Phil H:

I think what you say is very interesting and thought-provoking. Certainly many officers who were tried for war crimes used the old "I was just following orders" defence, and in many cases this would simply have been an excuse for their own sadistic tendencies - however, the way the Nazi regime worked, was that if they had refused to carry out the orders of their senior officers (especially if they were in or associated with the SS/Gestapo/Einsatzgruppe) they would have almost certainly been shot themselves ("shoot or be shot"), and then their families - wives, children, mothers, siblings - would have been next.

Look at Klaus Von Stauffenberg, the failed plotter on Hitler's life from July 20, 1944. He and several of his fellow conspirators were executed very soon afterwards - and then family members began being arrested and interrogated.

It sends shivers down the spine to think of what was done to the Goebbels children in the final hours of Berlin simply for their having the misfortune to be born to those particular parents.....though that is a slightly different issue, it shows the extent that some were willing to go to.

So in short, those who showed their own personal willingness and desire to commit cruelty are the worst sort of war criminals who should be dealt with in the most harsh manner, but those smaller man who Phil refers to who did what they were told for no reason other than to protect themselves and their family members, makes it a somewhat more tricky issue.

Cheers,
Adam.

[Errata]

Are they really only doing things out of self-preservation if they never take responsibility for their actions, or express regret? Many Nazis did take responsibility for what they did, even though it could result in prosecution. And that in a way in more precious that facing justice for their wartime activities. But those who say "I am not to blame for things I did when I was under threat, and therefore I don't have to apologize" have a serious disconnect with reality. Even if you are forced to commit an evil act, you are responsible for it. And it's completely understandable that a person would be unwilling to sacrifice their family, but they had a choice. A terrible choice, but a choice. And you have to own that choice. Every choice you make, whether joyfully welcomed or dreaded and unfair, it's your choice, and it's your responsibility.

There are any number of things I would rather get shot in the head than do, and I would rather my family also get shot in the head than do. If you tell me I have to have sex with a child or me and my family die, my family would take the bullet gladly. Hopefully. Because theyre taking that bullet. But in the end, I can choose to be responsible for harming a child, or I could choose someone else being responsible for the death of my family. The death of my family would not be my fault, but I would have to learn to live without them. If I decide that having my family still available to me is more important than my morals and the life of a child, then I have to live with that. And If I can't take responsibility for that choice, then I shouldn't make that choice.

[Heinrich]

...
Even if you are forced to commit an evil act, you are responsible for it. ...

This statement is self-contradictory. If a person is forced to do something then their consent, by definition, is absent.
On the other hand, the Germans and Austrians who systematically murdered civilians did not have to be compelled to do so as they were, generally speaking, willing killers. Prejudice does this to people.

[Errata]

This statement is self-contradictory. If a person is forced to do something then their consent, by definition, is absent.
On the other hand, the Germans and Austrians who systematically murdered civilians did not have to be compelled to do so as they were, generally speaking, willing killers. Prejudice does this to people.

Perhaps forced is the wrong word. "While under threat" is probably better. I mean, lets face it, it is impossible to force someone to kill or to torture. I mean, even if a few guys pile on and force your limbs to move in a marionette type fashion, thats still them doing the deed, not you. No, a few of these guys just got a crappy choice to make, and they made it.

And even if they were forced... I mean, I once had a branch fall on my car and it knocked me into another car. Barring psychic powers there was no way for me to avoid what happened, but I apologized to the guy. I felt bad about it. Even though I had no choice, and no culpability, I felt guilt. I was concerned for his welfare. I apologized. I think most of us would. Because there's a way to be a person.

I know some people were under threat. I know some people were young and stupid, or willfully blind. I know some people got caught up, or were a product of their upbringing. I understand that. I know that those things don't make them evil. But it doesn't absolve them either. You be a man, you stand up and you say "I did terrible terrible things. And I thought I had a reason, but in the end people suffered intensely because of my actions, and these people did not deserve to suffer. And I am profoundly sorry for what I did."

And if you mean it, then I'm fine you. I can't speak to whether or not you also have to answer to a court of law, but for the most part sincere regret is enough for me.

[Phil H]

Kinng family members because someone has refused an order is one thing - but the nazi regime was capable of inhuman torture - the July plotters, including a Field Marshal were humiliated publicly then hung using piano wire!!

Look at the documentary "The Nazis: A Warning from History" sometime - its on dvd. One ordinary woman is forced to confront the fact that she went to the Gestapo to denounce a neighbour - she wasn't forced, she wasn't approached, she volunteered. Why? because the neighbour was an outsider, perhaps a lesbian - she didn't fit in.

Many of the Nazi murders were against groups who had been persistently characterised as "outsiders"; as sub-human etc etc. So they played on prejudice and natural tendencies.

And the perpetrators? Not in the main intellectuals, but ordinary working class, poorly educated lads - the sort who no doubt had joined the SA; or in Britain, Moseley's fascists; or in France, Action Francais. These were not people, in the main, capable to taking moral stands against authority - and for what.

With infinite respect, heinrich, saying now what you MIGHT do in certain circumstances, and predicting what others might do: when that event has not occured, is not evidence. I respect very much the strength of your feelings and I am sure you are sincere - but we cannot know how you would react in the ultimate circumstances. The people we are talking about had to face the question, no dodging.

I believe the mass shootings in Russia had to be stopped because of the moral effect on the men who carried them out - hence the development of gas.

Look at eugenics - many of the practices introduced in Nazi Germany had been put into effect in some US states, even before 1933. Doctors actually thought killing disabled or incurably sick children humane and a socially resonsible thing to do - resources could be used elsewhere to better effect.

Ever heard of the philospohy of "Utilitarianism"? (Bentham and JS Mill.) Its basis tenet is "the greatest good of the greatest number". Perverted that can be an argumenht for getting rid of minorities and those seen as parasites, or undesirable.

the Nazi's spent the period 1925ish -1939 whipping up such fears, based on an already divided nation (divided against communists or jews or someone/thing else).

Finally, for now, the Russians got around the moral element in atrocity by using Euopean/Slav troops in the east, and Mongol/Sino-ethnic troops in the west. Divide and conquer.

I'm not trying to apologise for war criminals and mass murderers, believe me. But I do think we have to be clear in our understanding.

Phil

[Errata]

How can you be a human if you don't feel bad for causing others pain? And people sometimes lose their humanity along the way in a war, but but they won't find their humanity again afterwards until they feel responsibility or guilt for their previous actions, and apologise or seek to make amends.

I have a friend who is going through a terrible time right now because of things he did when he was deployed in Iraq. He killed kids. Some on purpose, some on accident. And it isn't a war crime because of the circumstances, but he is really struggling with it, because he can't apologise. There's no one from which to ask forgiveness, and even if there was, he can't talk about the specifics of any of his missions for a few more years. And he's a dear friend and I hate watching him suffer, but I am proud of the fact that he man enough to suffer over what happened. If he could easily dismiss it, he wouldn't be worth knowing. He should feel bad. And I can forgive him, but it's not my forgiveness he needs.

[Phil H]

Isn't and wasn't that the purpose of religeon?

Whether one is religious or not, many of the "processes" of conventional (and some unorthodox) faiths has been to deal with situations like this. Meditation in the east, confession in the catholic church, communion direct with God for many of the protestant faiths.

I don't know whether yyou friends has a faith or not, and how helpful that has been.

I think one of the problems in modern britain is that youth often has no interior structure of thought, no frame of reference for dealing with these things - same reason they cannot stand silence. They can neither pray nor meditate - have no understanding of what is often called "soul", and thus must bear all the issues of life on their own shoulders.

Scorn it or not but the churches and faiths have often been very good at bringing comfort and solace tothose in spiritual agony.

Phil

[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.

[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.

[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:

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.

[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

[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