Concentration camps - pilots knowledge

Here is an interesting comment from a Stuka pilot, ( Hermann Neumann ), regarding concentration camps.I realize this topic has been covered here in the past. Not trying to reignite flames, but rather to offer a view from a person that was there.


MH: Were you aware of the concentration camps?

Neumann: Oh yes, we know about them. But the really bad things did not start until way into the war. We did not know what was really going on in them. Our understanding was that the camps were being used to isolate dangerous people

 

I am sure most of the Germans in the Luftwaffe(Air Force) did not approve of the concentration camps once they found out about them, as for the Heer(Army) and Kriegsmarine(Navy). They were not Nazis. The fact that they weren't is the biggest misconception in WWII. They were average people called to serve their country just like Russian, American, and British soldiers.

 

This also was from same article. Interesting pre war tension.


Military History: Where in Germany are you from?

Neumann: I was born in 1922 in the Sudetenland, which became part of Czechoslovakia when that republic was created in 1919. We lived in a little town called Romerstadt in peace with the Czechs until about 1937; then things changed. In our town of about 5,000 people they put about 50 secret policemen. They started putting Germans in camps from which some never returned. We were very happy when the German army came in October 10, 1938. For us it was very personal. One man who was a professor at our high school and wrote for a German cultural magazine, with a specialty of gardening, was arrested with his two sons. They were only given rotten cabbage leaves to eat, so he had to run to the toilet. On his third trip to the toilet the guards, who were no military but civilians, clubbed him to death in from of his two sons

 

It must have been difficult for many German soldiers once word had filtered through what was really happening in these camps, hard to believe even. I think it was rare to find an ordinary soldier who supported such things, but even so many were tared with the same brush, or questioned as to how they could have continued fighting for Germany, like they had a choice.

I always find it fascinating to read the words of those who lived through WWII, whoever they were, but perhaps even more so from an ordinary German soldiers POV as, living in the UK, a voice like this is not heard as often.

 

From what I gather from reading and talking to older people, anti-Jewish feelings were strong in all of Europe and the US during that time frame and earlier. I heard that in many families that if someone married a Jewish person the rest would not have anything to do with them. Since this is not the case today in my experience, it is hard for todays generation to understand this.

I can understand how many Germans would not know what went on in the camps. Look at the reports of abuse in the camps the Us has in Cuba and other places. No one was aware of this until it leaked out into the media. It would be like saying all Us citizens were responsible for this abuse when it was only done by a limited few in the camps and overlooked by the chain of command.

 

One of the most horrible crimes of the 20th century is as well the murder of the Armenian people.

http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html

It is claimed that Hitler once said: "Nobody reacted to that so nobody will react to whatI am about to do!"

It is sad to see how many bloodbaths one can find in human history really...Idi Ami, Red Khmers, Hitler etc etc

 

Add to your list the Whotos and Tootsies a few years back. That polished off a few million. ( Sorry I can't spell but I guess you know who I am talking about)

 

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Different war, but interesting & somewhat related article


See website: "Germany's Jewish Knights of the Air"
URL http://people.sinclair.edu/thomasmartin/knights/

 

That is an interesting site Chromeboomerang.
In the photograph of Jasta 40 at the officers club, what kind of guns are those pointed at the squadron leader? They look huge. Flare guns perhaps.

 

Indeed, they are the standard German flare pistol of WW1 : -

http://www.kaisersbunker.com/feldgrau/equipment/fge14.htm

 

Thanks Martin. Can you get me one for next Christmas?? My birthday is coming up, how about a ticket to the Cream reunion ?