Have you ever met any WWII Nazi?

I see this subject has kind of been broached in another post and since I didn't want to hijack that thread I started this one.

I have known one fellow who was a Nazi. I may of met others but perhaps I didn't know them well enough or they kept this information to themselves.

But Fritz (or Freddie) was a character. He was wounded 3 times in the Russian front and sent back. He said it was pretty bad and they had to sleep sitting up in the trenches they had dug in the snow. Freddie was real happy to be in Canada and figured we had her made. Freddie was a welder and a good guy as a partner. But Freddie had some bad habits too, he didn't have any teeth and used to like lard sandwiches and he used to talk with his mouth open. This wasn't a pretty sight in the lunchroom. Freddie told me that he thought Adolf Hitler was a great man and rescued Germany. I knew Freddie for quite a few years but never realized just how much of a Nazi he was until after the birth of our third child, a girl we named Sarah. Fred asked me why we gave her a Jew name. After that I didn't have much to do with Freddie although it wasn't some kind of yelling match over her name. I just had to wonder what kind of man he really was. Very nice guy on the outside, always laughing and ready to help anyone. But the Jewish thing was twisted in his mind and I don't think he could help it.

But it goes to show you that people can be a lot of things. I guess maybe the dyed in the wool Nazi's might of been great parents, neighbours and the like but somehow their minds were twisted to the point that they could put children into gas chambers and ovens.

Any one else know a real Nazi?

KTK

 

I remember a guy who lived in a small town in France . He was quite a mystery , the elder people told me he came to France as a refugee from Hungary in 1945, supposedly fleeing the Soviets. He never really mentionned his past and wasn't really bothered about it too because he was not German, but there were suspicions about his past until he died, never any proof. He sometimes had racist freudian slips that left no doubt about his political inclinations and he admired Horty.

 

Virtually everyone in Germany during the Hitler regime were Nazis.

When you use the term, are you referring to member of Germany's armed forces or any German from the era?

 

That is a bit of an oversimplification there Steve P., some people were card carrying memebers of the party, and full fledged belivers in the policy of the party, some carried the card only and weren't any more or less Nazi than a non-card carrying person. It was a requirement for employment. And while Patton was wrong in his comparing the NSDAP to the Democrats or the Republicans, he was sort of right in that carrying a Nazi card didn't make a person a Nazi (big N) in their core.

And the number of full fledged NSDAP members in the armed forces is also a bit of a quagmire, only the SS would be considered a full boat Nazi military organization, the Abwehr wasn't filled with card carrying Nazis on the intelligence side, but the SD, Gestapo, and Kripo probably was.

I read somewhere the ratio of Nazi to non-Nazi members of the Heer, Kriegsmarine, and Luftwaffe somewhere but I don't remember the percentages.

In high school, my best friend's Mom was a war-bride who was brought back to Montana by her husband, and a nicer lady than Gertrude you wouldn't want to meet. The fact that she was a clerk typist at the Buchenwald KZ, and had to join the party to get the job doesn't and didn't make her a Nazi. It did "legally", but not in reality. Her mother had died in childbirth when she was a young girl, her father was a disabled WW1 veteran, and she had to go to work to support her family.

Becoming a "Nazi" to make a living and feed your family of four isn't a political statement. Nor taint to my mind. She was just a great old gal, who could cook like nobody you ever saw, and the lady we trusted our son with when we needed a baby-sitter. The only thing bad about that was she would spoil the little bugger with sweets and sticky buns!

 

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No, I believe estimates put Nazi membership at just under 10% of the German population at its peak. The politically and historically correct version of a Nazi is someone who was a member of the Nazi party.

Being a member of the Wehrmacht and the Nazi Party was actually outlawed until the 40s when the party needed to boost numbers. The Gestapo would also force people into the party in return for things like the right to continue running a store.

 

Steve, I am refering to those who believed in their hearts that the core values of the Nazis were right, even after the war and the crimes of the Nazis were exposed for all to see.

People can belong to different political organizations through out their lives. Churchill himself swapped sides as he read which way the political winds were blowing.

There are those today born long after WWII here in North America who are true Nazis. Where I am sure that there were many in Germany who joined the party for other reasons than a belief in the Nazi doctrine and those who may of believed but as things went wrong they changed their minds.

KTK

 

I worked with a brilliant thermal engineer who had been in the Hitler Jugend. He was a drummer for his HJ group. He admitted he was swept up into the HJ movement and actually enjoyed it until the bombs began to fall. I don't recall where in Germany he was raised, but he eventually became an American citizen with very high security clearances.

 

Why? / What for factory.

 

Please read the topic title , there were Nazis in most countries and let us not confuse Germans and Nazis AGAIN -Please- .
I gave the example of an Hungarian, I could have mentionned a Frenchman, an Austrian , an American or an Ukranian. It's not a matter of nationality.

 

yes, and sad to say that several are still alive

 

I think your stereotyping a little here. Eveyone lived under a nazi regime but it doesn't mean they followed the hatred beliefs. What choice did the German people have then.. either live under the nazis or die in a concentration camp.

majority had their sons at war.. They had no choice but to support their troops.

And of course there were those who were nazi followers and believers. But they don't represent a whole nation and it's people..

 

While what you say is factually correct, the truth is that all Germans who were not declared enemies of the state, were complicit in the Nazi regime crimes.

Who filled out the Wehrmacht? Who designed and built the weapons and fortifications? WHo made the clothes that the soldiers wore? Who produced the food that fed the Heer? Who celebrated the early conquests? And so on.

The Nazis' simply could not accomplish what they did without the assistence of a great majority of the German people. Anyone who tries to argue that they do not share a portion of the guilt has obviously not thought through what it takes to create, man, and maintain an army and empire.

Just as we Americans are complicit in our nations' crimes, so too were Germans of that era.

Arguing over whether they were Nazis misses the point. They aided and abetted the Nazis' in their drive for world domination. There is no way of getting around that.

 

Yes, I know a bonafide WWII Nazi and he was someone who still believed those beliefs when I met him in person back about 10 years ago. He did not go around strutting his beliefs to anyone, and he respected those who hated any and everything to do with the nazis. This man was a Belgian Nazi. This man never committed any war crimes cept something his Platoon Sergeant felt was awar crime-and that was that he got drunk on duty and slept through both of his duty watches. This man served on the Eastern Front-the Leningrad Front to be exact. Also, he was a very brave soldier and was a Knights Cross Recipient in the Waffen SS.

Also, I cant remember where I got this info from but, during WWII it was estimated that only 4 million Germans were nazis out of a population of about 80 million. That certainly is NOT the vast majority of the Countries population.

 

Also, I cant remember where I got this info from but, during WWII it was estimated that only 4 million Germans were nazis out of a population of about 80 million. That certainly is NOT the vast majority of the Countries population.[/QUOTE]


C;
Here is a warning from WWII history-how a tiny minority of determined fanatics can impose absolute power over a society. Whether they are leftist fanatics, rightists, or something in between-beware the ideologue!
JeffinMNUSA

 

Thats like calling a Democrat a Republican because the President is a Republican and the Democrat pays his taxes and abides by the law. The Germany army existed prior to the Nazis taken power, and just like every citizen in the world, you comply with the government of your country.

I disagree GREATLY with a lot of what Obama-llama has said and done, but I don't really have a choice in the matter do I? I can't be held responsible for his actions. Nor can the German people - most of them did not know what was going on, they answered the call of Germany - not Nazism - and did what anyone else would have done in their situation.

It is quite simply ignorant calling all Germans 'Nazis' and blaming them for everything. There are certainly a lot of Nazis in the world (Russia has the largest population of them) and there always will be. Dwindling numbers of WWII vets means that, in all likelyhood, there are perhaps only a few dozen Nazi WWII Vets left alive.

 

Just as we Americans are complicit in our nation's crimes???? An individual is complicit in a crime if he/she is aware of its occurrence and has the ability to report the crime, but fails to do so. ... Are you saying that all Americans are aware of what our leaders are doing?

On that note, not all Germans or those who were fighting on Germany's side were aware of what really was going on in the concentrations camps. They were aware of the existence of those camps but not what was going on. So you are saying that those living in Germany proper were totally aware of what was going on at Auschwitz in Poland?

Do you forget that Nazi Germany was a police state and as such the people were fed only what the leadership wanted them to have? Have you forgotten that there were people outside of Germany that willingly fought for Germany? So you are saying that they also knew what was happening and are therefore guilty. WRONG!

Europeans bought the propaganda that Hitler fed them. Heck, you had the Prince of Wales and Charles Lindberg promoting what they had accomplished. Are they complicit as well?

What is going on in Iraq and Afghanistan, the American people are against. Yet people still go to the factories turning out new weapons to be used over there. People are still signing up in the military. Are you saying that we should just stop? Stop and then what? How will those people feed and shelter their families.

We may not like what our government is doing and most of the time there is nothing that we can do about it without risking our lives. All that can be done is to go about our business and do the best we can. That is what the everyday average German did back then only living under a much worse government. Would you do different?