Holocaust

[abenja1]

All of the Holocaust books should be in the "Fiction" section of the library.

Anyone with the name Sunni Man should be put into the "Idiot" section of a human databse.

 

[a_unique_person]

Oh, please educate us about the difference between Germans, Humans and Caucasians when it comes to genocide -aka- Holocaust...

They are no different.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2008/06/28/1214472835128.html

'IS IT possible for a photograph to change the world?" muses Errol Morris at the beginning of Standard Operating Procedure, his film about the soldiers convicted of torturing prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It is four years since those photographs of near-naked men with bags over their heads — one on the end of a leash, one standing on a box with wires attached to him — were released into the world, but nobody who saw them will forget them easily. They were brutal and sordid. Those photographs, says Morris, "changed the war in Iraq and changed America's image of itself".

 

[Oliver]

Presumably you mean that it could happen to anybody, and that genocide is not unique to Germans. True enough, but in this case the holocaust in question is not being discussed in the abstract, but as a particular event that occurred. Since the holocaust in question was perpetrated by Germans, it does not seem particularly odd or eye-rollingly inappropriate for an author to discuss how the relevant Germans came to accept and participate in it.

It may be true that the factors that lead people to accept and participate in genocide are universal, but the instances of genocide are not. To dismiss the idea of discussing them at the particular level seems short-sighted. Of course, the book in question may or may not be any good - I haven't read it - but I don't see why that should disqualify the idea of analyzing the holocaust in context.

Well - but then I should add that Hitler grew up under an openly anti-semitic regime in Austria, that while rumors existed, most of Germanies Public didn't see what's actually happening in their name and that Jewish People surely weren't the only target for the Nazis.

So I assume it's rather a "Conservatives -vs- Liberals" issue. Liberals are more tolerant by their very mental nature.

 

[gtc]

The Holocaust began around 1970.

Before that there was no reference to it in any dictionary or encyclopedia.

The Dictionary in Microsoft Word didn't recognise the word internet until around the turn of the century. It didn't mean that it didn't exist.

 

[bruto]

Well - but then I should add that Hitler grew up under an openly anti-semitic regime in Austria, that while rumors existed, most of Germanies Public didn't see what's actually happening in their name and that Jewish People surely weren't the only target for the Nazis.

So I assume it's rather a "Conservatives -vs- Liberals" issue. Liberals are more tolerant by their very mental nature.

I'm not sure why what you say, true or not, is relevant to the question of whether or not a study of the factors that led to the acceptance of, and participation in, Nazi policies by the Germans should discuss the Germans. This is true even if others participated, and even if Hitler was born in Austria, and even if he and his henchmen borrowed their ideas from somewhere else. Other studies of other things might well refer to other subjects, but if the book is about what the Germans did, then I don't see why its subjects would not be the Germans! My argument is not to the question of whether or not the book is any good or its conclusions and arguments good or bad, but whether or not it is ridiculous (as you implied) to discuss the Germans when discussing the holocaust. The conservative/liberal issue makes no sense at all to me in this context.

 

[ddt]

Well - but then I should add that Hitler grew up under an openly anti-semitic regime in Austria, that while rumors existed, most of Germanies Public didn't see what's actually happening in their name and that Jewish People surely weren't the only target for the Nazis.

IIRC, Goldhagen's book tried somehow to prove that Germans were inherently more evil than others, and it has been heavily criticized for it - that is a ludicrous idea. But I haven't read the book (yet).

There may of course have been some traits in German culture, like stronger obedience to superiors than in other Western European countries, that have somewhat eased the Nazi's goals. But overall, the Nazis have tried to keep the Endlösung out of the sight of the common German, as Himmler also said in his Poznan speech (see my previous post). That is, enough out of sight that who wanted to close their eyes could close their eyes and their minds as to the fate of their fellow citizens who happened to be Jewish.

On the other hand, those common soldiers who were drafted into participating were quite carefully immersed into a gradual dehumanizing of their (future) victims.

As to Austria: There was no openly anti-semitic government. There was quite open anti-semitism in Vienna at the time that Hitler tried to get into art school there, though, and some of his most fanatic followers were from Austria. There was a reason that the top Nazis in Holland, one of the few countries without an anti-semitic tradition to speak of, were Austrians.

As to other victims: yes, the Nazis persecuted and murdered many other people. Communists, socialists, Jehova witnesses, parts of the clergy ("Bekennende Kirche"), Roma and Sinti (aka gypsies), Slavs. Next to the 3 million Jewish Poles, also 3 million non-Jewish Poles were murdered, everyone who was considered an "intellectual", which boiled down to having a high school diploma. Yes, they're often forgotten, and the term "Holocaust" is mostly only applied to the Endlösung of the Jews. But what's your point?

So I assume it's rather a "Conservatives -vs- Liberals" issue. Liberals are more tolerant by their very mental nature.

I don't see the relevance to the rest of your post. Could you expand?

 

[SDC]

Well - but then I should add that Hitler grew up under an openly anti-semitic regime in Austria, that while rumors existed, most of Germanies Public didn't see what's actually happening in their name and that Jewish People surely weren't the only target for the Nazis.

So I assume it's rather a "Conservatives -vs- Liberals" issue. Liberals are more tolerant by their very mental nature.

Don't do this, Oliver. Don't go there. (The bolded part.) Germany as a whole was deeply involved in the Holocaust.

ETA: by which I mean, don't do this damage to what is left of your reputation around here. You are certainly entitled to say anything you like.

 

[Nick Terry]

Postwar, 60% of the German population admitted to knowing something of what was going on.

For this and much more detail, read the excellent recent work by Bernward Doerner, Die Deutschen und der Holocaust, which covers just about every angle of the 'what did they know' question. That certainly goes for German-speakers like Oliver.

 

[-=Vagrant=-]

Hitler's Willing Executioners by Daniel Goldhagen is a good one. It examines the reasons ordinary Germans would do the things they did.

Seconded. I'm reading it now. Its a real eye-opener on how many levels the German society was antisemitic.

 

[mrbaracuda]

"The Night of Broken Glass" [...] was the first instance of large-scale, state-sponsored anti-Semitic violence.

Your evidence? It's the first time I hear about it being a state-sponsored event. The recommended book I am reading does not concur; quite the opposite: since the property destroyed and stolen had to be compensated for by German insurance firms it was a heavy burden on them. I remember the book quoting Göbbels saying that the windows which were destroyed were also part of the Reich.

The NSDAP turnt a blind eye to it if anything and made their dislike for these spontanteous actions clear, especially the industrials. The party and industrials weren't at all happy about uncontrollable situations like this and were in favour of a controlled approach on how to handle the Jews.

The only thing that could fall under the state-sponsored category is that they didn't pursue murder of Jews much, although they pursued rapists, which is an interesting nuance to note.

They also seem to have muzzled Göbbels quite a fair bit, who is made out to be the one mainly responsible for this culmination as part of a power grab.

When do historians consider the Holocaust to have begun. I have seen 1933 and 1939 given as dates - while staying with the generally accepted figure of 5.7 million deaths

Depends on whether or not you want to include the preparations, ie the laws targeting Jews, which started as early as 1933 if I am not mistaken.

 

[Chaos]

Your evidence? It's the first time I hear about it being a state-sponsored event. The recommended book I am reading does not concur; quite the opposite: since the property destroyed and stolen had to be compensated for by German insurance firms it was a heavy burden on them. I remember the book quoting Göbbels saying that the windows which were destroyed were also part of the Reich.*snip*

In 1990, on their 100th anniversary, German insurance company Allianz (you´ve probably heard of them) hired a historian to write an account of their involvement in and conduct during the Nazi regime (Allianz was already known, among other things, to have insured several forced labour concentration camps). I read that account a couple of years ago; IIRC on the Reichskristallnacht and insurances it said more or less the following:

Insurance companies initally refused to pay any damages, as building and household insurance generally excluded damage caused by internal unrest, which the Reichskristallnacht was (or would be if it had been spontaneous).
However, the Nazi powers-that-be (I don´t recall who exactly) expressly forbade this, stating that in the Third Reich, there was by definition no internal unrest - in fact the jews, they said, had been the target of "the elemental force of the people´s fury" ("elementarer Volkszorn" I think was the term they used), and thus was covered by the clause concerning elemental damages (which IIRC usually covers flooding, landslides, avalances and such).
Due to this, insurances were forced to pay all damages of people who had bought coverage for elemental damage - and in case of their jewish customers, those payments were immediately confiscated to pay the fines imposed on the jews for "causing" the Reichskristallnacht.

So, insurance bottom line is: those non-jews smart enough to take elemental damage coverage didn´t suffer financial damage from the Reichskristallnacht, the Nazis soaked those jews who had such coverage, and insurance companies paid for it. But don´t cry for insurance companies - Allianz, at least, made good money cheaply buying "aryanized" property throughout the Nazi regime.

 

[mrbaracuda]

Yea that's also covered. Even the term Volkszorn I think. Can't remember it being a case of natural disaster though.

 

[ddt]

Your evidence? It's the first time I hear about it being a state-sponsored event.

I haven't heard other than that it wasn't only state-sponsored but state-initiated. The German wiki page mentions:

Die Täter waren Angehörige von SA und SS. Sie traten in Zivilkleidung auf, um wie normale Bürger zu wirken und die übrige Bevölkerung zum „Volkszorn” wegen des Attentats in Paris aufzuhetzen

In English: The perpetrators were SA and SS men. They wore civil clothes in order to pose as normal citizens and to incite the rest of the population into "Volkszorn" for the assassination in Paris.

I'm sure others will be able to quote real authoritative sources

The only thing that could fall under the state-sponsored category is that they didn't pursue murder of Jews much, although they pursued rapists, which is an interesting nuance to note.

That's logical. The Nazis pursued a policy of racial segregation. You don't want to have some half-Jews as result of such a pogrom, do you?

 

[Oliver]

As to Austria: There was no openly anti-semitic government.

Let me rephrase that:

Lueger was known for his antisemitism and was an admirer of Édouard Drumont. Decades later, Adolf Hitler saw him as an inspiration for his own virulent hatred of anything Jewish. Lueger advocated racist policies against all non-German speaking minorities in Austria-Hungary. Léon Poliakov wrote in The History of Anti-Semitism:

It soon became apparent that especially in Vienna any political group that wanted to appeal to the artisans had no chance of success without an anti-Semitic platform. [...] It was at that time that a well-known phrase was coined in Vienna: "Anti-Semitism is the socialism of fools." The situation was exploited by the Catholic politician Karl Lueger, the leader of Austrian Christian-Social party with a program identical to that of the Berlin party of the same name led by Pastor Stoeker. In 1887, Lueger raised the banner of anti-Semitism. [...] However the enthusiastic tribute that Hitler paid him in Mein Kampf does not seem justified, for the Jews did not suffer under his administration.[1] *snip*
​

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_Lueger#Lueger_and_antisemitism

​

 

[Oliver]

Added for the German-skeaking readers:

Während seiner Zeit in Wien begann er sich immer mehr für die Politik zu interessieren und er bewunderte den Oberbürgermeister Wiens Dr. Lueger und seine Christlich Soziale Partei genauso wie das nationalistische Programm des Georg Ritter von Schönerer. Die beiden waren außerdem wie Hitler überzeugte Antisemiten (Judenhasser). Nach fünf Jahren verließ er die Reichshauptstadt weil ihm das Völkergemisch aus Tschechen, Polen, Ungarn, Ruthenen, Serben, Kroaten und Juden zuwider wurde. Der Gedanke daran für dieses Land einmal kämpfen zu müssen ließ es ihm ratsam erscheinen Wien zu verlassen und nach München zu gehen.

http://www.abipur.de/hausaufgaben/neu/detail/stat/231851218.html

 

[SDC]

If I recall correctly, Lueger is most famous (nowadays) for the statement that he would decide who was a Jew. This meant that he, as Mayor of Vienna, would decide who would be the target of anti-semitism.

However, last I checked, Vienna was not the entire Habsburg Empire. Look at a map. And the emperor (Franz Josef) refused to acknowledge Lueger for many years over the issue of anti-semitism. Not that the emperor was a liberal; but he had his own favorite Jews.

Look, what is the point here? Yes, there was a lot of popular and political anti-semitism in the Habsburg Empire, where Hitler was born and raised. But it was pretty endemic throughout Europe. Is Oliver trying to say the Austrians did it, but not the Germans? I'm a little puzzled. I can only assume that Oliver is trying to pretend, counter to Nick Terry's fact-based post above, the Germans were unaware of the Holocaust, mostly.

Eh? Is that the point? Is there a point?

 

[Oliver]

If I recall correctly, Lueger is most famous (nowadays) for the statement that he would decide who was a Jew. This meant that he, as Mayor of Vienna, would decide who would be the target of anti-semitism.

However, last I checked, Vienna was not the entire Habsburg Empire. Look at a map. And the emperor (Franz Josef) refused to acknowledge Lueger for many years over the issue of anti-semitism. Not that the emperor was a liberal; but he had his own favorite Jews.

Look, what is the point here? Yes, there was a lot of popular and political anti-semitism in the Habsburg Empire, where Hitler was born and raised. But it was pretty endemic throughout Europe. Is Oliver trying to say the Austrians did it, but not the Germans? I'm a little puzzled. I can only assume that Oliver is trying to pretend, counter to Nick Terry's fact-based post above, the Germans were unaware of the Holocaust, mostly.

Eh? Is that the point? Is there a point?

Nope. While Anti-Semitism was popular throughout Europe during this time, Hitler most probably got it from local Anti-Semitism, namely Austrian Press and Politics. ... Caucasians, so to speak ...

 

[SDC]

Well, that's just a historical truism; Hitler learned his anti-semitism in prewar Vienna, in a time when open political anti-semitism was gaining increased strength throughout Europe. No points for knowing that, or one point at most.

 

[Oliver]

Well, that's just a historical truism; Hitler learned his anti-semitism in prewar Vienna, in a time when open political anti-semitism was gaining increased strength throughout Europe. No points for knowing that, or one point at most.

Unfortunately - it isn't well known that Austrian History mainly coined Hitlers agenda. Being German, I acknowledged that quite some time after I left school were they didn't tell anything about Anti-Semitism outside Germany in the early "nineteen hundreds"...

And it wasn't meant as "a point for me" - it was meant to mention it for those who didn't know this as well.

 

[mrbaracuda]

I haven't heard other than that it wasn't only state-sponsored but state-initiated.

I'm sure others will be able to quote real authoritative sources

Hm, I had a look at the German Museum of History's website and their "Lebendiges Museum Online", LEMO ("Living Online Museum") and it's not very clear. It mentions leaders of the NSDAP were celebrating the anniversary of the Hitler-Putsch in Munich and the article written by a contemporary witness, a journalist living in Berlin, says the directive for the pogrom came from Göbbels, so it seems it supports my notion and comes down to the definition of state (sponsored) and whether or not Göbbels had a run for power by initiating the pogrom without the others (Hitler, Göring, Himmler) agreeing or even knowing. The use of, or that it was a majority of SA-men alone and Göbbels inciting them to do so does not mean to me it was state sponsored; with the aforementioned outcome described by me I'd rather say it was state sanctioned, but not actively supported. Hm, tough one. ddt, know where I could listen to speeches by Göbbels; preferrably the one before the 9th/10th?

Oh, links: http://www.dhm.de/lemo/forum/kollektives_gedaechtnis/070/index.html http://www.dhm.de/lemo/html/nazi/antisemitismus/kristallnacht/index.html