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The question of Germany and the Germans has to feature prominently in any discussion of World War II. Countless questions have been asked by historians. Why didn't the German people resist Hitler and the NAZIs? Just how did it transpire that one of the most civilized of European countries, the land of Goethe and Schiller, Beethoven and Brahms, could have started two world wars--the second almost single handely. Why after the horrors of World War I which had fundamentally affected European thinking about nationalism and war did Germany embrace a demigoge committed to War. How could the Germans so passionately have followed the most evil of all historical monsters, Adolf Hitler and so eagerly embrace militarism and racism that would have returned Europe to a new Dark Age of unimagined barbarity? How could so many Germans gave participated in the killing of so many innocent civilians, most of whom were non-combatant women and children. Even more unsettling is how the Germans could have embraced and idolized Adolf Hiter, the mastermind mind of such unspeakable horror so fervently. These question will perhaps never be fully answered. Several historians have addressed this subject with varying levels of success.
Probably no other country has had so many films made about it by foreign film makers as Germany. Given the importance of Hollywood, popular images of Germans are in large measure influenced by these foreign depictions. This is perhaps difficult for Americans to understans as almost all important American images come from American-made television and movie programing. Many of those film focus on the NAZI and World War II film. HBC is struck by the lack of realism in these films. Many films, especially films made before the end of the War did not begin to display the true horror of what went on in Germany or the occupied countries. Many of the depictions of Germans in these films are perhaps understandably unflatering charactures. Relatively few films have sought to show German characters as real people. HBC has wondered how Germans viewing World War II films view the scenes of American and British tanks entering German towns and villages. Most Germans would today at least intelectually say that they were liberated from the NAZI tyrany as much as the occupied countries. (The experience was different in the areas occupied by the Red Army.) We are curious, however, if the emotional reaction is perhaps not different from the intelectual reaction.
One issue that emerged during World War II was whether the German nation and people were inherently warlike. There were even discussion of turning Germany into a pastoral nation so the country could never again start another war. Many questions about the Germans and World War II are difficult to answer. One is not. There is no doubt that the vast majority of the German people did not want another War. Even the Wehrmacht did not want war. Accounts suggest that before Primeminister Chamberlain abjectly caved into Hitler's demands at Munich that the Wehrmact was posed to arrest Hitler. Historians report Hitler's frustration after Munich when the public reaction was that war had been averted rather than Germany had triumphed. It is not possible to quantify popular opposition to war, but there is no dobt it was the case. The best proof of this is Adolf Hitler himself--perhaps the most astute German politican of the 20th century. Hitler knew that the German people were afraid of another War. Thus he never advocated war. He advocated steps that meant war like lebensraum in the East, but he never came out and advocated war. The massive NAZI rearmament program was presented as necessary to prevent war. And when the Wehrmcht invaded Poland launching the War, a mock Polish invasion was staged. Hitler although invading or forcing most of Europe into invasion, only actually declared war on one country--the United States. After the War began he repeatedly blamed in on others, mostly the Jews and Bolshevicks, but also British imperialists and American capitalists who he imagined were controlled by the Jews. Even in his final writings in the bunker, he never accepted resoponsibility for the War. This is not to say that there were not some Germans who wanted war, but they were a small minority. A much larger number wanted goals which could only be achieved by war or who wanted national prestige achieved through military power. But it is very clear that most Germans did not want war.
If it is true that the German people did not want war, how could Hitler have become such a reveredleader? This is a more complicated question to answer. No one reading Mein Kampf with any reflection can doubt that Hitler meant war. And this was also clear in his speeches. Renouncing the Versailles Treaty and annexing areas in neigboring countries with German populatioin, nit to mention seizing Lebensraum in the East, obviously meant war. Yet Hitler repeatedly refrained from advocating war. Many believed that he was postering and did not mean what he wrote and said. Before Hitler seized power there were plenty of warnings that he would lead Germany to another war, but many Germs dismissed those warmings.
The German industrialists and military figures who supported him had goals in mind other than war, namely supressing the Socialuists ad Communists or restoring the military to a position of influence. Germany affected by the Depression wanted a change of leadership.
Most Germans readily admitted their country's responsibility for the War and ther honredous acts of the NAZI regime. The primary crime was waging aggressive war. But many countries in the past had done this. What set the NAZIs apart historically were what horrendous crimes they committed once they occupied a country. Accounts from German concentration camps defy belief. The Holocaust perpetrated against Jews and other groups targeted by the NAZIs is perhaps the best known NAZI crime. Less well known were the crimes against other groups such as the Slavs and the apocalitic NAZI vision in the East, a vision that they began to implement in Poland. There was also the NAZI slave labor program as well as the mistreatement of POWs, especially Polish and Soviet POWS. Almost unknown today is the Lebernsorn program of kidnapping children for Germinization. Many of the horrors perpetrated in the captive nations were outgrowth of programs in Germany associated with eugenics that involved or sterilizing mentally and handicapped children.
The question of how much the average German knew about the Holocast and to what extent they were complicit in it is a much debated topic. It is one that few Germans have wanted to discuss. An American historian, Daniel Goldhagen has raised the issue and maintains that there was wide knowledge and that a kind of willing comoplicity. His books speaking engagements have attracted considerable interest, but many Germans are deeply resentful at him for raising the issue. There are some obvious facts. Most of the actual killing was done in Poland, the Soviet Union, and other Eastern Euroopean countries. In Poland where the death camps were located, most of the killing was done behind barbed wire where the SS carried out the murders without public scrutiny. Many of the Jews that arrived had no idea as to the fate that awaited them. Others while they did not know the details had few illusions about the NAZIs. NAZI controlled media in Germany never published accounts of the killings. Even the Allied propaganda did not provide details on the Holocaust and what claims were mentioned were dismissed by many Germans as war propaganda. (The Allies, especially the British, had during World War I fabricated many lurid accounts of German attricities, specially in Belgium.) While all this is true. There are other clear facts suggesting that many Germans knew. Public statements by Hitler, Goebbels, and other NAZIs while not specific made it very clear as to the regimes plans for the Jews. The NAZI Stromtroopers (SA) and Hitler Youth had songs and chants with the words, "Death to the Jews". The NAZI pogrom of Kristallnacht was conducted in Germany in the full view of the German people. While the actual number of deaths were minimal compared to the later killings, there were killings and vicius beatings carried out in publiv view. After the War began, not only the SS but Wehrmacht units were involved in mass roundups and killings of Jews. Many must have talked about their experiences in the East. Jews were used as slave labor by large numbers of German companies and employees there would have been exposed to what was happening. The German railway system organized thetransport of large numbers of Jews east. Many would have know about where they were being transported and the fate that awaited them. The subject is difficult to reserach, because interviews with Germans living at the time cannot be taken at face value. Many Germans benefitted by the NAZI anti-Jewing campaign in the 1930s. Many got jobs that the Jews were dismissed from. Many got homes, shops, and other property that was stollen from the Jews. Many participated in small ways such as avoiding Jewish shoops and ignoring or reporting on Jewish neighbors. School children ostraicized or even physically asaulted their Jewish school mates. These are painful memories that few Germans want to admit and most want to forget.
Haffner, Sebastian. Defying Hitler.
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