Have you ever met any WWII Nazi?

Interesting turn to the post guys thanks for taking it.

This got me thinking just how much responsibility should the German people shoulder and what pay back is required? Has it already been paid?

Unfortunately many of our patriots from that generation have passed on and so have many of the German patriots.

I have known many German people and yet very few Nazis, only the one I mentioned in the first post and from reading the other posts not many people have actually known many.

Where does our responsibilty as human beings end? Is it when our losing leaders have all been executed? Do we as a people continue to pay for generations? Is it when the generation alive during the time in questions dies?

KTK

 

Hi,

i am living since a long time with the word "NAZI"over here. We learned at school that Nazi´s were bad criminals ( which is completely correct for the real ones ) and we were told that we´ll be guilty forever on the absolutley inhumanst crime that happened at the Third Reich. As a schoolkid i believed this and some of the jewish people told/telling us this every year. Now i am older and i read a lot of this stuff. I dont feel guilty and i never will be it. I am far away from beeing a Nazi or to deal with them. But in my opinion are only those people guilty that were responsible for this crimes. We payed an astronomical amount of money for the victims of Auschwitz,Sobibor, Treblinka and so on. Thats OK , no problem. Now it is ours to remember the Holocaust and to do our best,that this won´t happen again and we can live peaceful with the descendants of the victims from this horrible time. It is sad to hear that some guys are still living in the believe that all German people between 1938 and 1945 were Nazi´s.I would be curios to hear from the same guys if they believe that all of the Russians were GRU or NKWD or Communist Partymembers during the Stalin era where more than 19 million people were killed by this ex-farmer. I hope that nobody will be offended by this post. It was never meant so.

Regards

Ulrich

 

I was born in 1940, in Selma, AL, US, a small city of 28,000 but it had a fairly large pilot training base that sent many aviators to the war. I grew up with many many veterans , one a B-17 pilot next door who never got over the war or it's exhilaration. When I was in college and came home on weekends the base was training young German pilot for their new air force. A few older German officers accompanied them and several had been in the war. We had a rather large farm and let Air Force personal keep their horses with us or were happy to let them ride ours. I remember two of the German officers coming out with their American friends and relished a chance to ride. Most of the talk was about horses, current planes, but occasionally the late war . The bond of being fliers easily transcended earlier circumstances though many had lost a considerable number of comrades. One Christmas, about 1960, they gathered at a local restaurant and sang Christmas carols in German and English and toasted each other, the fatherland and us. A moving event. National Socialism never came up with any of them. However a large lumber company had a German intern who visited our land to cruise timber who was a totally unrepentant Nazi and ex SS sergeant. It was eye opening to hear him and the contrast to the former Luftwaffe pilots was beyond extreme. I had a Jewish aunt and a girl friend whose grandmother had survived the camps , with her serial number tattoo. I guess his indoctrination was complete and permanent. It made a lasting impression on me but certainly not an anti-German one. those young fliers and their officers showed me that people can be good and bad under differing circumstances.

Years later I taught in a university with a former resident of Dresden who serviced in a youth corp there at 13-14 and was extremely anti-semitic. He felt we should have fought with the Nazi's , not against. I was very fortunate to have taken many architecture students on studies abroad programs and I always took them to at least one concentration/ death camp to demonstrate the spectrum of human behavior. Many American parents objected saying it was too horrible, as if a brief visit was too terrible to contemplate. Unbelievable.

For the last 8-10 years I have collected 1950-1960 German precision match air rifles. many made by Carl Walther or Anschutz. I have made many great friends in Germany and we often discuss the war in which many of us directly or indirectly experienced. I grew up with many friends who had lost their fathers or had them seriously maimed.
I cannot remotely believe that being a Nazi was was supported by most Germans. Circumstances can cause people to do evil and now to us strange things. My direct ancestors wanting land in Alabama made thousands of Native Americans live in Oklahoma and fully supported slavery. I do not equate these acts with the horrors of being a true Nazi, only to illustrate my ancestors were "normal" hard working Americans in their time.

Yes, I have known one true Nazi and one who would have been if a bit older and still is in his black heart. But I know scores of truly wonderful Germans. One recently took his children to Dachau . This world is never as simple as some see it.
Kindly,

Gaines

 

maybe one needs to be brave enough to open the locked closet and look inside. wonder just how many brethern here over so many years this web-iste has been in existance have had a serious search into your own background(s) - familie of origin. you may be surprised I was back in the 1960's. As I had sever men/women from both sides of the fence. Still Familie and during Wars evil time different viewpoints or at least viewpoints tainted by a mad-man and his regime. fortunately my German side never "bought" into the Nazi idealic behaviour, but they sure died for a fool

 

Guinner,

You bring up a very good point and that is how long must the children pay for the sins of their fathers.

If you believe some of the native Indians around here our debt will never be erased and the sin will stain all future generations.

Me I think it ends with the person who comitted the crime.

KTK

 

Hi Ulrich, right on and I fully agree with every word. It not only makes me sick but ticks me off everytime i see someone make such a blanket statement about all Germans being nazis. Ive told those folks many times over at how wrong they are and someof them really began to see the thruth and that what I said was right. However, some ar so narrow-minded that no matter how much proof you show them no matte how much time you spend telling them the truth, they either refue to see the truth-or are just plain stupid. I still meet those kinds on occasion here.

 

Good morning,

@ Erich,

that was also a mad thing on the Nazi´s. A lot of senseless losses for their weird ideas of a " Herrenvolk" and " Lebensraum" -politic. Sorry for your family losses.

@ Ken,

i fully agree with your point of view! How guilty can a baby be that was born at this time?

@ Carl,

Thank you for your good words. Sometimes they don´t understand that we had different groups of Nazi´s. One were Nazi´s with heart and soul others wer Nazi´s for the reason to find or have an job which couldn´t work without beeing in the NSDAP the same for the kids to get an high school grade and we had Nazi´s out of people that are " Mitlaeufer" the ones that are always with the leading persons no matter which party or politic they have.

Regards

Ulrich

 

Hi Ulrich, exactamundo on this. I have had to explain what you say above-so many many times to people who either really are blind? or just don't care.

 

Hi Carl,

Thank You! Don´t worrie, we have the same problems over here too.

Take care

Ulrich

 

In the 1980's I worked with a very old Lithuanian man who served with the German army in WW2, I don't know how far his NAZI thoughts went and I do not know what Regts or what ever he served in. He said he would rather fight the Russians Communists and get them out of his country, he then planned if this ever occurred to then take up arms against the Germans and try and clear them out of his country. He wanted his country to be free from outsiders, however as i wrote what his poltical ideals were at the time are a mystrey to me.

 

Hi,

i am living since a long time with the word "NAZI"over here. We learned at school that Nazi´s were bad criminals ( which is completely correct for the real ones ) and we were told that we´ll be guilty forever on the absolutley inhumanst crime that happened at the Third Reich. As a schoolkid i believed this and some of the jewish people told/telling us this every year. Now i am older and i read a lot of this stuff. I dont feel guilty and i never will be it. I am far away from beeing a Nazi or to deal with them. But in my opinion are only those people guilty that were responsible for this crimes. We payed an astronomical amount of money for the victims of Auschwitz,Sobibor, Treblinka and so on. Thats OK , no problem. Now it is ours to remember the Holocaust and to do our best,that this won´t happen again and we can live peaceful with the descendants of the victims from this horrible time. It is sad to hear that some guys are still living in the believe that all German people between 1938 and 1945 were Nazi´s.I would be curios to hear from the same guys if they believe that all of the Russians were GRU or NKWD or Communist Partymembers during the Stalin era where more than 19 million people were killed by this ex-farmer. I hope that nobody will be offended by this post. It was never meant so.

Regards

Ulrich

Ulrich;
Excellent post! Guilt? A game con men play! Hitler's seizure of power was a freak occurance that would have never happened but for an unhappy series of situations. But once the totalitarian mechanisms were in place the only choice sane Germans had was to march along or be killed. It could and still can happen anywhere. Beware peoples of the world!

 

Jeff,

thanks a lot for your opinion! It is good to know that there are people like you that can divide the good ones from the bad ones.

Regards

Ulrich

 

Ulrich yes you can imagine what it is like when you have relatives from both sides frowning at each other for things done in Germany/France/Russia. It is so long ago actually an age but at least we speak to one another even with mis-understandings. Now if only my German side felt free enough to talk openly of all things with me, it has been hard to find out what really happened to 3 who served on the Ost front in the Heer, one of them came home from a Gulag and died en-route back to Germany.

 

Erich,

did you ever tried to find out what happened to your relatives by asking the WASt?
It takes a long time ( 10 months in my case ) but if there is any information they will know.
Some families are making a secret out of the things that happened to their relatives and are afriad to talk about for the reason that somebody couldt say that her Pa or Grandpa was a murder or such weird sh$$. I hope that you will get the information that you want to know.

All the best

Ulrich

 

Ulrich I have not contacted WASt about the relatives in the army only 1 that was a pilot in the LW of which they gave me much on him, another pilot there was nothing so far but he survived the war and was killed in an accident.

I really need to sit down again and look into the guys that served in the Heer and their service records to make this easier for me and WASt or even the Volksbund which sometimes has different info than the organization at WASt. with few volunteers yes it seems to take forever, but one must be patient. you laready know this of course.

E ~

 

Erich,

this seems often like a puzzle to me. A puzzle with an unknown number of pieces and sometimes i miss some pieces. I wish you good luck to find the missing pieces in your puzzle!

Best Regards

Ulrich

 

Lots of people back then would be considered racists by today's standards, so that doesn't say much. My grandfather is a Social Democrat, and he's not exactly very politically correct in his choice of words. And as for Horthy, he's more comparable to Franco than Hitler or Mussolini. He was basically a Conservative that came to power to save his nation from the Communists.

 

Hi Ulrich, between us and the rest here, I think we have a good chance at changing a few peoples misguided thoughts and opinions.