How Much did the Germans Know?

It's probably history's best example of the nuts running the asylum. Hitler was more of the neo-Darwin, survival of the fittest, Jew-hating sector, but Himmler made things way more extreme as his influence grew. He was the one who wanted to revert to ancient Pagan Germanic ways, mythology,taking myths and legends and believing them as fact and policy like the myth of the Aryan race, persecuting gays (Hitler was indifferent to gays until Himmler was more influential, look at Rohm), going after religion intensely and eventually destroying, more than Hitler wanted to at least for political reasons. Hitler believe the Catholic church was a good institution as long as they stayed in line with the state, even though he wanted to weed them out.

 

I agree. Hitler tolerated Christianity in its many forms but if the Reich continued it would certainly been phased out. Though, which poses another question. Would this have been possible?

IMO, I think this would of been his undoing.

 

Just look at Russia after decades of religious repression during the Communist era. It has been cited that two thirds of Russians regard themselves as Russian Orthodox Christians. Religion is insidious and manages to survive, no matter what.

 

Absolutely. It stands to reason that even if Germany won the war, and HItler decided to slowly weed out organized religion, that he would have hit a wall. It was clear as he was coming into power that in order to receive support and status of his party, this was a necessary caveat. I remember reading many accounts (I think it was Gitta Sereny in particular) that focused on Hitler's belief on how the majority of Germans at the the time being Christian (mostly the Protestants) would hinder his ability to rule.

 

Hitler's propaganda in the run up to power and just after he took over read like the Bush/Cheney ticket. He claimed to be the savior the the European Christian civilization and freedom against the godless Bolsheviks. Substitute Bolsheviks with Jihadists, and European with American values or what have you. Its funny that fighting for freedom was all over the Nazis propaganda, yet they suppressed their own people and every country they occupied.

 

I am not saying that they were camps, but with the T4 program, it seems they made institutions like camps with the kind of hell that was made in these institutions.

Tamino said: "Only the idiots thought the concentration camps were mental institutions, but they were exterminated first."
I hope I don't make myself look like one by saying what I said :unsure:

 

There were plenty of separate institutions for the "mentally" ill and physically disabled. There were a myriad of camps/institutions set up for separate goals, as the T4 program. I think the overall point is is that regardless, the umbrella they were working under was the cleansing of "undesirables" and purifying the race and all those ideologies that oppose it. The Nazis were just masters at the many ways to horrifically treat human beings. They tried to create a one size fits all science to gel with their beliefs.

 

But ofcourse not. I really value highly your opinions. I have been talking about the entire population of the Reich, not only the Germans.

 

The Jews were openly attacked all around the Europe since the late 19th century or before. Now who is throwing the first stone??

 

My impression is that by the late 19th century open attacks were less common at least in Western Europe and Scandinavia. Certainly there was still discrimination. Am I wrong in this?

 

You aren't wrong at all. Antisemitism existed before but it has evolved. Initially, the un-Christianity of the Jews was the main excuse for it. But at the end of 19th century it has changed into more malign form. Paradoxically, the beginning of modern aggressive German antisemitism coincides with the beginning of increased conversion and assimilation of Jews into German society. Just like they feared from Jews blending with the German nation.

Adolf Stocker is the father of modern German antisemitism. The most notable among venomous antisemites was Hitler's countryman Georg Schönerer from Waldviertel, Austria. Nazis had just to escalate antisemitism to it's ultimate, elliminationist form. It was there, very deep in German tradition.

I wonder why people still re-iterate in disbelief: "How this could have happened in so cultured nation". The answer is tragically simple: antisemitism was one of main ingredients of German culture, untill the end of 20th century.

Now, what the word "culture" really means?

 

Just got a copy of the Atlantic delivered. Cover story is about the current antisemitism in Europe. Interesting article.

 

586 BC, Babylon destroyed the temple in Jerusalem, and captured Judea and 10,000 Jewish families.

In 19 AD, Roman Emperor Tiberius expels Jews from Rome. Expulsion is reported by the Roman historical writers Suetonius, Josephus, and Cassius Dio.

From 37 AD to 41 AD, thousands of Jews were killed by mobs in Alexandria (Egypt), as recounted by Philo of Alexandria in Flaccus.

In 451 AD Sassanid ruler Yazdegerd II of Persia's decree abolishes the Sabbath and orders executions of Jewish leaders, including the Exilarch Mar Nuna.

In 1033, following their conquest of the city from the Maghrawa tribe, the forces of Tamim chief of the Zenata Berber Banu Ifran tribe, perpetrated a massacre of Jews in Fez, Morocco.

The 1066 Granada massacre took place on 30 December 1066 when a Muslim mob stormed the royal palace in Granada, which was at that time in Muslim-ruled al-Andalus, assassinated the Jewish vizier Joseph ibn Naghrela and massacred many of the Jewish population of the city.

The Worms massacre refers to the murder of 800 Jews of Worms, Germany, at the hands of crusaders headed by Count Emicho during May 1096.
The massacre at Worms was one of number of attacks against Jewish communities perpetrated during the First Crusade (1096–1099). Followers of Count Emicho arrived at Worms on May 18, 1096. Soon after a rumour spread that the Jews had drowned a Christian and used contaminated water to poison the town’s wells. The local populace later joined forces with Emicho and launched a savage attack on the town’s Jews. Every Jew that was captured was slain. Bishop Adalbert intervened and allowed his palace to serve as a refuge, but eight days later the mob broke in and slaughtered those seeking asylum there.

Immediately after the coronation of Philip Augustus on 14 March 1181, the King ordered the Jews arrested on a Saturday, in all their synagogues, and despoiled of their money and their investments. In the following April 1182, he published an edict of expulsion, but according the Jews a delay of three months for the sale of their personal property. Immovable property, however, such as houses, fields, vines, barns, and wine-presses, he confiscated. The Jews attempted to win over the nobles to their side, but in vain. In July they were compelled to leave the royal domains of France (and not the whole kingdom); their synagogues were converted into churches.

On March 16th, 1190 a wave of anti-Semitic riots culminated in the massacre of an estimated 150 Jews – the entire Jewish community of York, England – who had taken refuge in the royal castle where Clifford’s Tower now stands. The chronicler William of Newburgh described the rioters as York acting “without any scruple of Christian conscientiousness” in wiping out the Jewish community.

The 1321 leper scare (also known as the lepers' plot) was an alleged conspiracy of French lepers to spread their disease by contaminating well water with their powders and poisons. Lepers were the most abused people during the Middle Ages according to the American Jewish historian Solomon Grayzel; they were thrown out of settlements and treated as wild animals due to the widespread belief that the disease was highly contagious. Jews and Muslims were said to be implicated in the plot, providing an excuse for local authorities to attack both Jewish and leper communities. The hysteria quickly spread to the neighbouring realms, most notably to the Kingdom of Aragon.

As the plague swept across Europe in the mid-14th century, annihilating nearly half the population, Jews were taken as scapegoats, in part because better hygiene among Jewish communities and isolation in the ghettos meant in some places that Jews were less affected. Accusations spread that Jews had caused the disease by deliberately poisoning wells.
The first massacres directly related to the plague took place in April 1348 in Toulon, France, where the Jewish quarter was sacked, and forty Jews were murdered in their homes, then in Barcelona. In 1349, massacres and persecution spread across Europe, including the Erfurt massacre (1349), the Basel massacre, massacres in Aragon, and Flanders. 900 Jews were burnt alive on 14 February 1349 in the "Valentine's Day" Strasbourg massacre, where the plague had not yet affected the city. Many hundreds of Jewish communities were destroyed in this period. Of the 510 Jewish communities so destroyed in this period, some killed themselves to avoid the persecutions.

On 15 August 1474, the Christian community of Modica wreaked a brutal havoc on the Jewish dwellers of Cartellone, the so-called "Strage dell'Assunta". This episode has been the first and most horrible antisemitic massacre to the detriment of the Sicilian Israelites. During the evening of Assumption's Day, with a single collective raptus numberless citizens (fomented by fanatic Catholic preachers) slaughtered about 360 innocents causing a total and fierce devastation in La Giudecca. The incitement that echoed through the streets was: "Hurrah for Mary! Death to the Jews!" (Viva Maria! Morte ai Giudei!).

1517 Hebron attacks occurred in the final phases of the 1513-17 Ottoman–Mamluk War, when Turkish Ottomans had ousted the Mamluks and taken Palestine. The massacre targeted the Jewish population of the city and is also referred as pogrom.

The Hep-Hep riots from August to October 1819 were pogroms against German Jews, beginning in the Kingdom of Bavaria, during the period of Jewish emancipation in the German Confederation. The antisemitic communal violence began on August 2, 1819 in Würzburg and soon reached the outer regions of the German Confederation. Many Jews were killed and much Jewish property was destroyed.

The 1834 Hebron massacre occurred on 24 July 1834, when forces loyal to Ibrahim Pasha attacked the city of Hebron to crush the Peasants' Revolt. Egyptian soldiers subjected Hebron's inhabitants to violence following the fall of the city. Although the Jews had not participated in the uprising and despite Ibrahim Pasha's assurances that the Jewish quarter would be left unharmed, Hebronite Jews were attacked. In one incident, five young Jewish girls were raped and murdered. The Jews of Hebron later referred to the events as a Yagma el Gabireh ("great destruction").

The 1838 Druze attack on Safed began on July 5, 1838 during the Druze revolt against the rule of Ibrahim Pasha of Egypt. Tensions had mounted as the Druze captured an Egyptian garrison outside of Safed. The local Safed militia of several hundred was heavily outnumbered by the Druze, and the city was gripped in despair as the militia eventually abandoned the city and the Druze rebels entered the city on July 5. The Druze rebels descended on the Jewish quarter of Safed and, in scenes reminiscent of the Safed plunder four years earlier, spent three days attacking Jews, plundering their homes and desecrating their synagogues.Some Jews ended up leaving the town, moving south to Jerusalem and Acre.




Not just Europe. Not just 19th century onward. But since time immemorial. Globally. Whenever you needed a scapegoat, they were there. If you want to blame someone for the plague, seize property, pin a rebellion on someone, or just need to have a reason to be violent like Count Emicho, blame a Jew.

@Tamino
I don't think the reason was their religion. Their religion was an excuse. It made them easy to victimise. Had they not existed, it would've been some other minority group

 

Well they weren't only an obvious minority but they did tend to do fairly well economically as well. Thus envy and greed came into play as well.

I seem to recall the Jews being evicted from England, was that under John or a latter King?

 

First: you wrote a great post mate.
You're right and that's exactly what I was saying too:

But people are strange: they mix up reasons and excuses, deliberately or not.

 

Isn't it amazing what a little knowledge could do for people.

 

King Edward I.

Worse, England, in 1219, was the first European nation to require the Jewish people to wear an identifying badge.
https://books.google.com/books?id=9crab0cHypwC&pg=PA209&lpg=PA209&dq=1218,+England+became+the+first+European+nation+to+require+Jews+to+wear+a+badge&source=bl&ots=GQRpllcsrz&sig=uEPIR71u4dgp20gFapk8vKtlkJM&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YpwZVaHhDoiagwSE54HgBw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAg#v=onepage&q=1218%2C%20England%20became%20the%20first%20European%20nation%20to%20require%20Jews%20to%20wear%20a%20badge&f=false

 

Indeed, but people sometimes deliberatly choose ignorance and refuse to be rational.

 

I am not at all sure the mass of the population "knew", they certainly knew deportations were being done, the rounding up of the Jews could not pass unnoticed, but mass deportation is not extermination.
The attempt by the Nazi leadership to keep death camps themselves secret, or at least at the "unconfirmed rumour" level could well have worked. You need to get inside the camp, or at least close enough to it to notice the numbers going in far exceed the camp capacity, to realize what is truly happening inside it, and most extermination camps were located outside 1939 Germany borders so it's reasonable for people with knowledge of what was happening in the camps inside Germany to expect the same was happening in the others.

Concentration camps were in existence for years before some were turned into extermination camps, which also makes it hard to realize "something else and much worse is now happening".

One element that makes me believe the true nature of the camps was not common knowledge is how little resistance to deportation the Jews themselves put up, had they been sure of what was awaiting them one would expect episodes like the Warsaw ghetto to be the rule rather than the exception.

A lot of Jews fled the axis countries long before the first extermination camp was established, you don't run away with just the clothes on your back and the few valuables you can carry with you without good motivation, so the threat was clear, but probably the extremes to which the Nazis would eventually go were not

 

The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has discussions of Nazi propaganda. In the Search block, search "propaganda". "6 Nazi Propaganda" discusses Nazi anti-Jewish propaganda and how propaganda was used to deceive the people, particularly the Jews, about "The Final Solution"

"compelled prisoners ........to send postcards stating that they were being treated well and living in good conditions." in 1944 "produced a film ...... as a demonstration of the benevolent treatment the Jewish 'residents' of Theresienstadt supposedly enjoyed".

http://www.ushmm.org/