How Much did the Germans Know?

What goes around.

 

The Russians also moved to Finnish homes of 420.000 people (or abt 12 % of the population) in 1940 and again from 1944 onwards.

 

... comes around.

After this short but inevitable detour, let me ask again:

How much did the Germans know? Did the Germans really think that "their Jews" will be relocated to the newly constituted Soviet Socialist Republic of Israel, somewhere behind the Urals? Or they knew every dirty detail?

There is a book entitled:

Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust by Daniel Goldhagen (1996)

The book states very clearly that: "The vast majority of ordinary Germans were as the title indicates "willing executioners" in the Holocaust because of a unique and virulent "eliminationist antisemitism" in the German political culture, which had developed in the preceding centuries."

This is rather bold statement elaborated by a class-A scientist. The book itself was rewarded by the American Political Science Association's 1994 Gabriel A. Almond Award in comparative politics, and the Democracy Prize of the Journal for German and International Politics.

We simply cannot ignore that and create new ad hoc theories to support claims that "the Germans really didn't know" or that there is some psychological catch that defends human conscience from the unpleasant truth.

[SARCASTIC MODE ON]
The truth is indeed unpleasant, modestly speaking. But what is the reason for such mass occurrence of selective amnesia among the Germans after the war was lost.
[SARCASTIC MODE OFF]

 

In my country as well things were done pretty much openly. The sinagogh 15 meters from the main square was immediately destroyed, Jews were evicted from their homes and taken away in broad daylight, and no body talked about resettlement or anything. Some ethnic minorities were dealt in the similar way.
Actually I have a true story to share. My grand grandmother Marta owned a restaurant in a small town in Croatia before and during the war. One day a group of ustase kvisling soldiers walked in escorting a group of Jews from Bosnia probably on their way to Jasenovac death camp. The leader of group was beating one of the Jews who fell and was further kicked on the floor in front of all. Marta bravely but recklessly shouted to him that it was her restaurant, that there will be no beating here and to get out. Commander was stupefied for a moment than reached for his gun and shot at her. Fortunately he missed and the staff somehow managed to get her out quickly through the back door. That was how much fascists were concerned if people saw them or what they were thinking about it. They left that bullet in the wall as a reminder to that day.

 

Please Karjala and Tamino no Finland/ soviet Union match in this thread. it is off topic.

 

Don't worry Skip. I'm keeping strictly far away from anything north from Kiev. For safety reasons. And thank you for your intervention. Happy holidays.

 

As I already wrote before, surely many Germans must have known, also many of those who now claim not to have known. Did all/the majority of Germans know the hole truth about the final solution? I am not that sure. Was it possible in Germany not to know that millions were murdered? I still think it was, since it did not make any sense - unlike the official version of labour camps. After all it is very human behaviour to believe what is the most believable - even against some contrary evidence.

And although I'm sure the book of Daniel Goldhagen has lots of valid and correct information maybe some other sources might be needed for conclusions. There's a possibility that he might have (too) personal links to the subject.

And even though the atrocities were often made openly elsewhere it still didn't mean, that all the Germans in Germany knew about them. We still need to understand, that the world was different then: no open media, no internet, everything being censored. Think of today's North Korea.

 

yes, good points....Cambodia comes to mind, where they moved ''everyone'' out of the cities!!!!! I'm sure there were similarities in Rwanda [which was a lot less ''secret'' ]

 

Looking at this map what seems clear is that true Death Camps were generally kept outside Germany proper. Granted any Concentration camp was a dire sentence, but sending people away did not automatically mean a death sentence to the casual observer. Further there were great stretches of the Reich where no camps existed.

What most Germans would actually see with their own eyes is people being kept under harsh conditions and being transported to distant and unknown locations. Without question this alone would constitute a crime against humanity, but to a nation at war, seemingly with everyone, the fate of a group of people they had no great affection for would not be the average German's top priority. With empty bellies, dead servicemen and ruined cities any sympathy would be muted.

Looking at it from a different perspective, The Soviet Union was a totalitarian police state as Nazi Germany was. It is estimated that Soviet Russia killed far more of its innocents over its life than Nazi Germany did. So did every Soviet citizen know about all the Ukrainian's who were starved to death, how many went to Gulag's or how many were disappeared by the NKVD/KGB? Certainly they knew something, but how much of the total?

We in the west have always lived in a society with a free press, we have never known true censorship or time where the only truth is the one the government told us it was.

 

But of course. The Nazis built the death camps to keep their Jews safe from horrors of the war.

 

With the beginning of the euthanasia programme, IMO the beginning of the Holocaust, which set the wheels in motion, I tend to believe nothing but the majority of the population knew. I've posted a few times on this thread and looked throughout my library as the question the OP got me thinking, the idea of "resettlement" was common knowledge as evidenced in the growing resentment of Jews throughout Europe, especially evident in Germany and Austria. They were not all personally involved, but they knew.

 

I think Pastor Martin Niemöller said it best about the German attitude but unfortunately I cannot put the quote here for some reason. You find it in the net " First they came for the socialists etc... ". Also check about his life.

 

Political apathy in the 3rd Reich?

But can we describe the attitude of German population as the absolute absence of interest or as the extreme devotionton to the ideas behind the actual policy of the Nazi state? Sure, it was extremist, but at which extreme of personal involvement?

 

The nazis started in the 1930´s by killing all the people in the asylums and practically all the disabled people in Germany alone. Also they killed all the subhumans and aristocracy in the occupied countries in the East like Poland and USSR. The program was to make pure Aryan people. Funnily enough the USSR killed all the aristocracy in Poland like teachers and artists, and gave the name lists on those people to Germans in the German controlled area. In 1952 before dying Stalin prepared a program to send the Jews to Gulags also known as the " Jewish doctors plot" which according to Stalin was aiming to kill him. Holocaust was awful but the Germans put everyone "different" to the camps. The fastest way to die in the camp was to wear a pink star meaning you were a Jew and homosexual. That was practically minutes unless you were sent to death with others. On the subject of true belief I point to the fact that Himmler told Eichmann in autumn 1944 not to send the Hungarian Jews to camps because he knew the was was lost. He did not believe thus in the true destruction program himself either. And Eichman in the early 1960´s said he only followed orders. Actually he did not.

 

Once a nation starts burning books, it is doomed. This is where totalitarianism shows it's face. Then when the indoctrination is accepted, the next step is to get rid of those who do not fit in with the creed. Some nasty incidents may happen in public but the real brutality begins in as a clandestine manner as possible as the government knows that mass slaughter in the streets would be a step too far. Many people cannot help but know and the majority may suspect the truth but society by then has become a spent force with no resistance. Best to shut your mouth and hope to hell that your enthusiasm for Nazi ideals is rewarded. The tables are turned and your mouth is still shut. You accept no responsibility as you were mislead, bullied, ignorant of atrocities etc. You however, would have relished and welcomed a glorious Third Reich. You did not think for yourselves.

 

yes, I think it is a common human trait, to ''shut your mouth''<>don't get involved, or you might be ''involved'' involuntarily

 

The adminstrators within the railways certainly knew, as did the train drivers and attendants. The Gestapo knew. All branches of the SS knew. Those serving in the armed forces knew.

A railway account in 1942 reported that:
"Without the involvement of the railway it would not have been possible to take the decision to carry out the final solution."

Exact details of all who travelled on the railways to the concentration camps included their name, first name, marital status, date of birth and address. The SS paid the railway for all the transportation:
"For the transportation of 960 persons on 22.4.42 with the DA52 from Düsseldorf - Deren station to Izbica. 28,320 Reichsmark."

Heiner Lichtenstein, a writer detailed how financial considerations played a considerable role in encouraging SS and railway co-operation:
"The railway also could use wagons not fit for the transport of troops or war materials."

The railway authorities were not concerned if the trains broke down on route because the railway was still making an income from trains and carriages that they would normally have scrapped. Many diaries exist of appalling journeys undertaken by Jews and other prisoners being moved to concentration camps. Journeys took days as the trains were often put in sidings to let other traffic on the railways have priority. One description of a journey from Dachau near München to Auschwitz was interrupted by an enforced stop in Dresden:
"We were led over busy platforms. In our prisoner's clothing we are conspicuous to everyone. I look at the faces of the passers-by, try to read their thoughts. I find no sympathetic gaze. They look at us as if we are criminals. Are all Germans on the side of the SS?"

Each Jew being transported had to pay the Gestapo 65RM and hand over all their valuables including the key and address of their home in an envelope. They were instructed:
"...to leave the rooms of the house in a clean condition; to take care that water, gas and electric lights are switched off."

 

GS, excellent point. During Sereny ' s interviews, she interviewed a couple Polish Home Army combatants who were under the guise of rail workers. They would count the numbers on the train which the Ukrainian guards would be required to post the number of occupants. Afterward they would report back the horrific amount to their superiors. The information chain was very strong.

 

Also the existence of the camps was known by the Allied if I recall correctly by 1942-43. Bombing of the areas was brought up but was not planned further. Why not make a poster propaganda campaign or say that there will be unconditional terms to war because the Germans kill innocent people by the million, not because they started the war?

The SS and men who took part in the killings were forbid to take photos or take these home with them, not sure if they were told not to talk about it. If the nazis considered this
just a killing of the "poisoneus snake" forbidding telling of the actions to the home front seems weird "in a sense". Anyway the killings were considered morally destructive to the soldiers
why they turned into using gas.

Hitler may have had some "inspiration" of the Armenian genocide ca 1916-17 as he occasionally referred to this before war and laughed that nobody cared about it and will not care what happens to the Jews.

 

The numbers of German people that we know that unequivocally knew, and cannot even in the most generous sense be excused as merely "should bloody well have known, but at the very least they should've suspected" is numbered in the millions.

Which sort of beggars the statement that no one was talking about it. It can never really be "secret" when millions know about it.

We also have photos taken by ordinary people witnessing the events, in spite of orders forbidding photos of the scenes. Those committing the atrocities didn't think they were ever going to be called to account.

And to suggest that the millions of serving in the armed services did not know or understand is ludicrous, as the taped conversations of German Officer PoWs has clearly shown:

"With astounding insouciance, often punctuated with laughter, they recount crimes they have either witnessed without protest or carried out, ranging from the mass gassing of Jews and gang rapes to individual killings: a Dane shot dead over a trivial quarrel on a tram; a Frenchman gunned down because the killer needed his bicycle. One or two voices feebly protest that such crimes are not the actions of ‘honourable soldiers’ but they are a distinct minority."
http://www.historytoday.com/blog/2013/02/secret-second-world-war-tapes-german-pows




"Aside from the depravity of individuals, the transcripts reveal that which the war generation, and in many ways the one that followed it, tried to deny: direct knowledge of the extermination programme of the Jews."
"The authors record how the transcribers of these conversations were told to brace themselves for 'terrible things.' They said; 'The extermination of the Jews was known in the world of the soldier far more than recent investigations of the topic have suggested.' "
"Because of access to these recordings, no-one can now claim their's was false testimony given under duress; these are the words of soldiers at ease, unaware of the silent recording gizmos capturing their every damning word."

"Then one day they listened into a conversation that revealed why killing children was such a problem; it was because they wouldn't keep still.
The recordings also picked up on another theme - 'execution tourism.'
It turned out that many German soldiers serving in Russia or Poland sought out either friends or contacts in the S.S. murder squads and made appointments to go along to witness what was done.

The splendidly named General Edwin Graf von Rothkirch und Trach explained to a fellow inmate; 'I knew an S.S. leader in Kutno, Poland, and we chatted about this and that and he said; 'God, when you want to film something, why didn't you say so?
'I mean, timewise, it doesn't matter. We shoot them in the mornings, but if that is inconvenient, we have others that we can always shoot in the afternoon.'
'Murder by appointment, as if it were a Thomas Cook tour,' said one German critic.
Lieutenant Mueller-Riezenburg, in a transcript made on Christmas Day 1943, said; 'The S.S. invited us over for a Jew-shoot. The whole troop went off with their weapons and joined in. Everyone was allowed to pick which one they wanted to shoot.'"


http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204160/Darkest-atrocities-Nazis-laid-bare-secretly-recorded-conversations-German-prisoners-war.html