Hi,
I was wondering, does nayone know how much did the regular, Christian German people know about concentration camps? Was it something spoken about in newspapers and such, or was it all kept silent?
Thanks
it was certainly NOT spoken about in the german press at the time...in fact, the nazis went to extreme lengths to veil the extermination of the jews in complete secrecy, even speaking euphemistically about the killings in official documents and public addresses...goebbels and his propaganda machine did their best to fool the free world through staged newsreels and international red cross visits to such places as theresienstadt, the infamous czech "ghetto"...for those reasons, i do not believe there was widespread awareness amongst the german public of the jewish holocaust...i believe that locals who lived and worked near the individual camps MUST have known, but otherwise germans were kept in the dark, just as most of the rest of the world was during the 1940's
chris
http://holokauston.wordpress.com
I am in no way trying to make excuses for the German populace of the time, but whether they knew or not, what could they do about it? Even today, a great many Americans are vehemently opposed to what is going on in Guantanamo, but the government tries to keep people in the dark. At least Americans can protest about it. In Nazi Germany, what could people who knew possibly have done about it? I don't think anyone needs me to explain what would have happened to people who protested.
In an interview with Traudl Junge, one of Hitlers closest secretaries, in The World at War, she said that one time when the secretaries had been invited to Hitler's home in Berchtesgaden, one of them actually confronted Hitler. She told him that she had witnessed the mistreatment of the Jews at a railroad station and asked him if he knew about it and if he approved. Hitler became visibly angry at the question, but did not verbally respond. He simply went into his house and ignored the question. That secretary was not fired, but she was never again allowed to come to Berchtesgaden. Luckily for her, that's all that happened, according to Junge.
[deleted]
"i believe that locals who lived and worked near the individual camps MUST have known"
well they did know, many items looted from the victims would be sold to the locals. one could pretend not to know where they came from for only so long.
...i believe that locals who lived and worked near the individual camps MUST have known
Écrasez l'Infâmeshare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CovDmvnKVBg
thuSSy wrote:
"In school, we learned that “extermination camps” were outside Germany proper."
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Lets check.
Bergen-Belsen - location - Germany
Sachsenhausen - location - Germany
Buchenwald - location - Germany
Ravensbrück - location - Germany
Flossenbürg - location - Germany
Dachau - location - Germany
Neuengamme - location - Germany
Mittelbau-Dora - location - Germany
Bernburg - location - Germany
Kaufering/Landsberg - location - Germany
Now thuSSy will argue how many of them were "labor camps" or just "transit camps" or how many of them are not in post-war German borders.
The hundreds of thousands who died in these camps are just as dead.
The end result is that the Germans knew.
Those were concentration camps. While people were murdered or died in concentration camps, that wasn’t their primary purpose. The extermination camps refer to places like Treblinka, Sobibor, Belzec, and later Auschwitz. These camps were in Poland and they were designed specifically to exterminate people immediately upon arrival
shareI have a aunt who grew up in Germany (been in America since 1948). She has only talked about it just ONCE...very pain memories.
No, she did NOT know about it. I'm not sure if it was because she was too young (she was in her teens) or just plain ignorance.
As she was Catholic, she wouldn't have been that safe herself.
I have a aunt who grew up in Germany (been in America since 1948). She has only talked about it just ONCE...very pain memories.
No, she did NOT know about it. I'm not sure if it was because she was too young (she was in her teens) or just plain ignorance.
As she was Catholic, she wouldn't have been that safe herself.
The Ides... are Upon us.share
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rc-yg04rVw4
Therefore, for instance, child rapists were put behind bars, instead of running around freely as they do today.
Child rapists were rewarded with a commission in the SS.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oskar_Dirlewanger
That is nonsense. As early as 1942 BBC and many other news outlets were reporting what was happening in concentration camps. And word of mouth spread news of what was going on as well. The german public mostly knew about it and did not care less - ditto other countries as well. Do your research.
sharepeople knew about the concentration camps, yes. but most civilians believed them as detention camps, an extention of the prisons. civilians did not know about the exterminations, disease, death by labor, et al. they were not aware of the atrocities and the horror that went on inside because they werent allowed inside. and those that did were taken to places like Theresienstaadt, or the Auschwitz I, places where conditions appeared better. but places like Auschwitz II, civilians were never taken there.
shareMy German teacher visited Germany & Austria all summer,
each summer from 1955-1980. He said that, after months
& years of cultivating trust, his German friends would
confide things like, "We didn't KNOW (about the actual
genocide), but we surely SUSPECTED!"
No ordinary civilian knew of the exact circumstances in the concentration camps, but everyone (not just in Germany but in Europe in general) knew that Jews were systematically transported SOMEWHERE, away from their homes, and considering how Hitler spoke of Jews as far back as in "Mein kamf," it should have been quite obvious that good intentions were not involved in any way, though I suppose most civilians may not have imagined a systematic execution of people. Gosh, I get physically ill thinking that this happened only 70 years ago (or that it happened at all).
shareSorry but you are kidding yourself. THEY KNEW. I know of way too many non-Jews who lived through it and they ALL KNEW. Partly through word of mouth but also thru BBC and the fact that SO MANY items came back from camps into the homes of Nazis and other citizens. DO YOU HONESTLY think millions of people can be dragged from their homes, beaten in the streets and made to suffer, and no one knew what was in store/happening to them? Give me a break.
shareImagine the time, when deportations start and what hapened to Germany these days. Most of the men were fighting at the fronts ... so how could they think about what happen to jews in the European East at the same time? Even the civilians were under bomb fire for weeks and month and must be afraid of their own lifes. Would you think about what happened to your former jewish neighbours that dissapeard, if you fight for your own life and lose your own brothers and sisters, fathers, mothers, friends and children in war?
The Holocaust was a top secret plan, cause the Nazis wold have known that other wise it would have come to many riots ... even most oft the jews did not know that they really would die in the death camps ... they lied to the jews to the last second ... letting them go naked in the cabins to let them think they will get a shower ...
i am german and i spoke to hundereds of former german soldiers and civilians .. and believe me noone knews about ...most of the germans never had known or seen or talked to a jew ... in germany before the holocaust (you say shoa today) only 250.000 jews lived here ... an nearly all in big citys like Berlin and Nürnberg .. more than 5 Million of murdered jews came from Poland .. so do you ask, if the polish had known it? My own grandfather were fighting in Poland, Norway and France and get into French prisonship for 2 years .. day to day his comrads died there ... he told me horrible stories ... no one in these situation would hink about the tragedy of the Jewish ... all the shame came after war ...and we suffer from that in the third and fourt generation after war .. not letting ourselve be proud of our country ... it sounds like a crime if you would say that ... no politician would do it ... the shame is everywhere .. even 70 years after and how can you blame children of today for the crimes of a few hundred *beep* in Thrird Reich?
I guess a few thousend Nazis knew about what happened, not all .. and nearly none of the civilians, confroted with own problems in war ... not gettig informations from other countries, hearing Goebbels Propaganda day for day ....
Only watch the shocked faces of germans who were forced to go through the camps after war ... no, they really have not known ... ...
btw a very good movie, also to learn about history ... but some things really are not realistic shown .. such as the fights in the Ghetto of Warsaw .. you only see 5-6 men in two windows fighting against hundreds of SS Soldiers .. if so, one shot of a tank would have been enough to end it in a few minutes ... it is true they really dont have many weapons .. but they had a well organised partisan war for weeks!!
Sorry for my English!!
Hardi
Hardi,
Bergen-Belsen - location - Germany
Sachsenhausen - location - Germany
Buchenwald - location - Germany
Ravensbrück - location - Germany
Flossenbürg - location - Germany
Dachau - location - Germany
Neuengamme - location - Germany
Mittelbau-Dora - location - Germany
Bernburg - location - Germany
Kaufering/Landsberg - location - Germany
The attempted annihilation of Europes Jewish population was not committed by "a few hundred *beep*".
The Holocaust was an industry involving transportation, construction, and industry. From clerks, guards, train schedulers and employees of German companies producing poison gas. Its involved tens of thousands of people.
[deleted]
[deleted]
They knew, they just didn't care. As long as the Holocaust was happening to someone else and not them, they could afford to turn a blind eye to what was happening all around them; the roads to the crematoria were paved with indifference (paraphrasing Ian Kershaw).
shareKershaw said the road to Auschwitz, not the crematoria, i only point it out because you do not give credit to where you took the line from.
shareDone and done. I certainly didn't intend to misquote or plagerize Mr. Kershaw, as I do not get paid to do this, just as I didn't expect such academic rigour to be applied to a forum that is supposed to be 'relaxed' and 'friendly'. Are we relaxed, now? Are we feeling friendly? Grand. Now we can get on with disussing a thirty-six-year-old TV miniseries about the Holocaust.
I felt that Gerald Green's teleplay suggests that all Germans lived in a state of self-inflicted ignorance (I even thought I heard Josef Weiss say 'It won't happen to us', or words to that effect, somewhere in episode 1 or 2), that everybody knew, and yet didn't know, and didn't want to know. Perhaps this was something with which Elie Wiesel took umbrage, in his criticism of the series. For myself, I don't remember the criticism. Admittedly, 1978 was a simpler time, in which metaphorical curtains separated the Good Guys from the Bad Guys, genocide was something that only happened to white people, and Swiss bankers were felt to be the sort to whom you could trust your teeth in an emergency. Times change.
Damn, passive-aggressive much? Take a pill, i worded it as gently as i could, not all comments are made against you, there is no need to take personal offence.
shareInteresting. Picking nits all over the Internet, yet I'm the one who's passive-aggressive. For more on your philosophy concerning pharmaceuticals, I suggest viewing 'THX 1138'(1971), or 'The Trip'(1967), and leave discussing television shows about the Holocaust to more forebearing posters.
sharePerhaps people thought it best not to enquire too.closely for their own sake.
shareMy mother was stationed in Germany after the War. Time and again she heard, "No we were not Nazis. There were some people who lived down the street who were, but they're gone." No one knew anything, heard anything, smelled anything.
Not that they would admit.