How Much did the Germans Know?

You make an interesting point here. Throughout my reading and research, it was undeniable in certain regions that Germans and other inhabitants, especially in Eastern Europe, were well aware of atrocities. You can certainly see, from the outset of the Nuremberg Laws (and other rampant pre-existing antisemitism), the German people could see the writing on the wall. The Jewish people who left Europe certainly felt the tidal wave coming and had to endure hardship after hardship before leaving. I find myself believing it was all a matter of the German people in who you knew, where you were located and how antisemitic you were.

 

Without the Zyklon B they could not have made such huge numbers. Big numbers yes but huge, I think not.

 

No one will ever persuade me, that as whole, the German populace did not "know". They can only only claim to have not understood that 1+1=2, but they are thereby declaring themselves imbellic. No, perhaps they didn't have any single definitive proof, and therefore willing ignored evidence as rumours and inuendo.

Consider the amount of train traffic required to shunt all these people around. The callousness with which this human cargo was treated from the outset, whether in freezing winter conditions or stifling summer heat, by all near the train stations. In 1940's the trainstations were more important than they are today. Anyone passing by or passed by these packed cargo trains will have realised that no enjoyable fate awaited in Theresienstadt.

The willing brutality against Jews as they were being rounded up. Even by "onlookers".

It's pointless for them to deny knowledge of details about the death camps, when the entire attitude towards Jewdom was one of severe degradation, humiliation, enforced slavery and yes, annihilation. In that context, it is pointless to point at the Zyklon B containers and mutter "But I didn't know!" Because, well before Zyklon B, I don't give a crap about your excuses for your inhumane treatment of individuals. WIth all the evidence from the secret recordings of captured officers, the huge amount of train transports across the Reich carrying wagonloads crammed full of undesireables, The number of functionaries that had to be involved at so many levels in order to achieve this, from trainstation and railway personnel, to police officers (and not just Gestapo, but even foreign police) facilitating the "resettlement". Not just police, but companies employing slave labour in atrocious conditions, and with the SS openly bragging to those employers that the jews were to be worked as brutally as needed, because there was plenty more to replace those that died.

Under these circumstances, no adult German living during 1941-1945, can claim ignorance of the holocaust. Because the preconditions and prerequisite attitudes of people in order to implement this on this scale are so freaking huge, the particulars of one case or camp are dwarfed by the collective complicity required.

 

No one "did not know", no one was innocent!

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/books/up-in-smoke-goes-the-lie-that-the-holocaust-was-a-big-secret/203103.article

http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard

http://www.nytimes.com/books/00/02/20/reviews/000220.20gewent.html

 

Quite the contrary – the most of murders have been committed by other, more barbaric methods – with direct personal involvement of perpetrators. There are much more than "just" six million of victims and victims were belonging to many other ethnicities involved in the final solution. By treating victims selectively, Holocaust deniers reduce the numbers: from tens of millions to "just" six million. Just add Poles, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Russians, Ruthenians... Just add-up the numbers and you will see the problem more clearly.

It is not technology that increased the number of murders. Tragically large number of victims is a consequence of willingness to participate the mass murder by the ordinary citizens and a large number of "ordinary" Germans involved in a crime. The Zyklon-B claimed the lives of "just" roughly one million people in gas chambers installed in extermination camps. Everything else was hand-work of ordinary German citizens.

The numbers themselves are accusing the "ordinary" citizens of the Reich.

 

I just read the third (New York Times) article. It does not support your conclusion, indeed it refutes it.

 

Also, if you read the first article...You would know that the authors' positions were that between 1/3 and 1/2 of the Germans "knew" what was happening

Hmmm...third to a half "knew"...That is a far cry from "No one "did not know", no one was innocent!"

 

Well, once third to half knew, how the secret could have been held from spreading further?
This is something like virginity. Is there something like 30% virgin?

EDIT: Well, a 40 year-old virgin is still a possibility, but partial virgin sounds a bit odd to me.

 

And some of those who either knew or strongly suspected helped or tried to help the Jews and other prosecuted groups escape. That's sufficient to qualify as "not guilty" IMO although I'm not sure I would use the word innocnet as they went into it knowing what could happen to them as well as those they were helping.

 

Actually, it is more like Whisper Down the Line/Lane.

You know...That game where you whisper something to one person, then they whisper it to the next person - wash, rinse, repeat. They, you see how far off base what the last person heard was to the original sentence. You get some pretty outrageous stuff...

So what one German "whispered" to another German, who "whispered" to another German. who "whispered" to another German....Well, you have to wonder what the Germans actually "knew."

Partial Virgins? Would that be a "Born again virgin"...Like the "Born again Christian"?

 

No they did not whisper, they talked quite openly and very straightforward, until they realized that the war will be lost. Again, my home-town was within the Reich, then. Even Hitler visited my town during the occupation.I know everything I need to know about the subject of this tread. I don't need "logical" explanations. I know the facts from the first hand: my relatives, neighbors, people who lived in the Reich. From people taken as forced laborers, from people who had to work in German factories.

Hitler visited my home town:

 

My parents were born in the late 20ies and i asked them, what they thought about the Jews, which had disappeared. Not much!
During the war, there were so many duties, difficulties in daily life, the Nazis kept the youth "busy", there was no "room" to think about minorities. Sure, they did know that they were treated badly, but the main concern was the faith of the soldiers. And to survive the air war.

 

In my opinion it's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight "how could they not know", "the German people knew everything", etc but that's a fault of ours in knowing what we know today. Living it with state imposed smoke screens, propaganda, with limited access to information unlike today, it's easy to see how most didn't know the full story. They saw a lot of things. While we're able to see the connections and know the outcomes (like with seeing neighbors being deported and not returning), we can't assume they inferred the same as us. We know what the outcomes of deportation was. It's easy to say "if we can see it why couldn't they, they had to have known" even though that isn't necessarily the reality of it. There were rumors sure, but who would have thought such rumors would turn out to have a truth it? I'm sure some thought after rumors "no way can that be true, it sounds too crazy to be true." We do underestimate the propaganda and information machine of the Nazi's. We can't fathom that much information being controlled today. That's why it's hard for some to "get" how much was not known. Even those who saw atrocities may not have been able to make sense of it and understand and comprehend it like we are today with the benefit of hindsight. Looking at it from an outsider looking in and saying "why can't they see this" isn't the way to look at it.

 

you have a good point......I would think 'some' people were tricked, fooled, and/or did not want to believe....but seems like the operations were so big, with many sites, that it could not have been kept totally secret from a good number of people

 

Propaganda did have a profound effect on the German people. I agree and always will believe that the rise of National Socialism was as much derived from propaganda as it was a failure of the preceding political system. Indoctinating the masses was just another component of a German nation that was a hot bed of hate, violence and frustration. However, to your point, more people were aware then was let on. Many were naive into thinking that people outside their door who being brutally beaten by the SA and "relocated" was just a passing phase. Regardless of whether German civilians knew the extent of the Holocaust is up for debate, but antisemitic feelings were a constant plague through Europe at this time and centuries before. Hitler's brand of politics, especially in the beginning of his campaign, made no qualms about his hate for the Jewish people. The 25 point program adopted in 1920 made their intentions quite clear. The extent of the hate was a bit of a cloud in the beginning stages, but it was clear by the numerous laws passed leading up to the Nuremberg Laws in 1935 what the overarching goal of the Nazi regime. Hindsight is 20/20, but to believe the German people didn't see the writing on the wall for their Jewish neighbors is not feasible.

 

The tide was flowing in only one direction. Even if those Germans, who knew what was happening around them, believed that the antisemitic behavior of the governing bodies was immoral, raising a voice in defense was strictly not happening. For those that opposed, the options were quite clear, but as Lou mentioned above, many were reaping the benefits of the stripping of Jewish rights.

 

It's not a matter of "how could they not know", it's a matter of credularity being strained beyond breaking point, when they deny knowing. If a group of people after the fact, wish not to know how much they actually knew when it all happened, they will happily deny knowing anything of the matter. Which is exactly what they did. The stench of death surrounding the camps was such that it was impossible to deny. As noted by the British when liberating the Concentration Camps in Northern Germany; it was distinctly noticeable for several kilometers before even entering the camps. True, the collapse of Germany in that Spring did nothing to improve their conditions. Yet people still worked, and travelled around, traded and bartered. Such was the vast effort to combat the Allies, penetrating as the Nazis did every level of German life, it is impossible for people to have been unaware of the plight of the Jews. From the starving work parties in Factories near (not in) the Camps, to the random brutality meted out in plain sight, and the massive railway undertaking of transporting so many Jews in cattlecars across Europe. Remember they were sucking in labour of all kinds (voluntary, and forced), into the Reich. So the German people weren't just sitting around in their Alpine villages, awaiting harvest time. With horrors being committed across occupied Europe, and being committed by Wehrmacht soldiers, Soldiers that went home on leave. Soldiers that even in captivity are recorded discussing their atrocities.

You can't eradicate 6 million civilians and not have witnesses talking about it. They might elect to not think about it, because there is nothing they could do to prevent or change things, or they didn't want to put their own loved ones in danger. But they shouldn't wander around pretending they "didn't know". Because with the prevailing attitudes of the day, with the speeches made by the leaders of Germany, with the examples seen on the streets, with the sheer amount and persistence of rumours, only the truly imbecellic can claim to have not known, and I respect their intelligence more than that.

They only offer the excuse, "We didn'tknow", in the context of that they didn't have explicit, photographic/documentary proof of the very worst atrocities, which to me, is completely irrelevant. They knew the race laws existed, they knew the majority of Jews fled Germany, they happily acquired Jewish properties, the Industrilists happily utilized Jewish labour for the pittance they paid the SS. They watched as Jews were packed as sardines into cattlecars in stifling heat, and freezing cold. Anywhere there was a Jewish ghetto, there were starving Jews dying in masses. There was little misconception as to their ultimate fate. Even such that children would tease Jews about their impending doom as they were being taken away to the train stations.

 

yes, ..it was dynamic, with many factors involved....I think you have brought up some key points, especially the ''tide''..and there were a number of Germans,etc that did not like the Jews, and couldn't care less

 

Sorry about this folks but I am weak!!

This is the most abject thing I came across on the internet until now! Do you want us to feel sorry for your parents?"Not much!" We are really a bunch of nitpickers to care about a few million Jews that did not survive Adolf's holiday camps aren't we!?! "The youth was to busy"...no shit.... too much homework or what? "And to survive the air war", please do a research and tell me how many people were directly affected by the air wa and who started it and who wanted to "DER TOTALE KRIEG"???? And who did commit the Shoah? The NAZIS did and you Germans were no victims of the NAZIS, they did not drop from space, GERMANY was the NAZIS and GERMANY gassed the Jews, not just Adolf and a few cronies! Sorry, and I don't give a rats arse if I am banned form this place, but you are the biggest "fucktard" I ever came across on the www.