*** Germany World War II -- the German people








The German People and World War II

Hitler German people
Figure 1.--Germany after the NAZI take over in 1933 seems a nation mesmorized by Hitler and the NAZIs. No group was more vulnerable than the youth of Germany. And no group suffered more. In the final year of the War, youths like this boy were called on to defend the Reich. Most could not believe that Germany could be defeated.

About a third of the German people supported Hitler and the NAZIs at the time President Hidenberg handed the Chancelorship over to Hitler (January 1933). A good portion of his support came from people who were adversely affected by the Depression, but did not share his pathological obsession with the Jews or in particular his desire for another War. 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.

Germany

The one question that dominates when Americans and Brits look at World War II is how could the German people come under the influence of such an evil non-entity as Adolf Hitler. Germany was not just any country. It was nation of high culture. The land of Schiller, Bethoven, and Bach. It was a nation of scholars and scientists--the scientifically most advanced nation in the world. Germans were one of the best educated people on earth, if not the best. It has to be stressed that Hitler did not articulate any of the atroicities for which he is now known to the German peoople. A read of merin Kampf makes war virtunally and genocide unavoidable, but it is not clearly stated.

Shift in Public Support

About a third of the German people supported Hitler and the NAZIs at the time President Hidenberg handed the Chancelorship over to Hitler (January 1933). A good portion of his support came from people who were adversely affected by the Depression, but did not share his pathological obsession with the Jews or in particular his desire for another War. Through careful management of the news, and economic policies that were not well understood, Hitler steaily grew in popularity. Regaining the Saar and remilitarized the Rhineland alo helped as well as he Austrian Anschluss and peacefully obtaining the Sudetenland. All without war. Thus on the eve of World War II, Hitler was a very popular figure and could have won a free election, or at least as free as can be with NAZI control of the media. He still had to desguise his march yoward war. Most Germans still did not want another war, espdecilly older Germnns.The quick victories and relatively low casualties caped by the fall of France (June 1940) cemented Hitler's hold on the German people. One historian describes the unprecedented achievements. "[The] first-forty one weeks of World War Two constituted in essence the last European war, a war veey rapidly won by Germany. It had taken Napoleon five years to become master of Europe, with battle of Austerlitz in 1805. It tool Hitler 9 months, his troops, in June 14, 1940, marched past the Arc de Triomphe that Napoleon had put up in Paris to commemorate that battle." 【Stone】 We think the fall of France was the turning point (June 1940). This convinced countless Germans that Hitler was right. He had achieved the unthinkable. And done it ar remarably low ciost in blood and trasure. Hitler had achieved what the Kaiser failed to achieve and without the huge effort and bloosshed of World War I. With the victory over France and driving Britain off the Continent, Hitler and the German people were inextricably linked. A linkge which would not end until Hitler put a bullet in his head and German cities were reduced to vast mountins of rubble. It shoulxd vbe added not all Germans immediately changes their minds. Many did. Others commtted suiside. Many others thought that Germany had been ovewheakmed by the massive Alied coalition, but had not been wrong. Only over times with many Germans come to term with their country's past. Here a major steps in this process was the Berlin Air Lift (1948) and the German Economic Miracle (1950s).

Wehrmacht Brake

It is possible that the Wehrmacht could have blocked another war, but this can be overstated. The Wehrmacht was not a NAZI agency, but it had been throughly won over by 1939. After the Enabling Acts (February 1933) and the imposition of a NAZI police state, Germany was in Hitler's hands. The only possible threat to Hitler was the Wehrmact. Wehrmacht officers would not allowed to join political parties. As Wehrmascht officers almost by definition were nationalists. About a third of Germns voted fir Hittle. It is is likely tht a hiher proportin of officers had NAZI sympzthies. And Hitler's policy of rearmament asn rejection of the Versailles Treaty, won over many others. There certain were officers that opposed the NAZIs, but the idea that the Wehrmacht could have deposed Hitler give the support for him within the officer corps had to be taken with considerable caution. There is considerable support for the proposition that even the Wehrmacht did not want another vwar. Accounts suggest that before Prime-minister Chamberlain abjectly caved into Hitler's demands at Munich (Sptember 1938), that the Wehrmact leadership was posed to arrest Hitler. There is considerable histoirical debate on this issue. It is clear, however, that it was not the Whermacht pressing for war, but Hitler himself. The Whermacht leadership certainly wanted the Versailles Treaty over turned, rearmament, and the return of the lost territory. The military leadership, however, may not want another war. This is until the great triumph in the West (June 1940). The military leadershio may not have believed that Germany had the capability to prevail in another great war. It was Hitler that dragged the German military perhaos reluctantly into the war. And the early victories just increased his support within the Wehrmacht. Tisc support only began to wain when the victories turned into disaterous defeats. But the Wehrmacht like the Grman peole would follow Hitler into the abyss.

Depictions of Germans

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.

The Germans and War

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.

Public Ignoring Facts

If it is true that the German people did not want war, how could Hitler have become such a revered leader? 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 first areas in neigboring countries with German population and then beginning with Czechoslovakia, territories with non-German populations. This should not have been a surprise. Hitler in Mein Kampf discussed the need for Lebensraum in the East. This meant the Soviet Union. And the only way to seize Soviet territory for Lebensraum was war. Yet Hitler repeatedly refrained from publically advocating war. Many as a result deluded themselves 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. And the Allies (British and French) deluded themselves in thinking that he could be appeased with the return of territories populated with ethnic Germans. The German industrialists and military figures who supported him had goals in mind other than war, namely supressing the Socialuists and Communists or restoring the military to a position of influence. Germany affected by the Depression wanted a change of leadership. And Hitler was the obvious choice.

Messianic Leadership

An even more difficult question to answer is what the Germans saw in Hitler. Americans and Brits lestening to Hitler's speeches are repelled and have a difficult time understanding how the this frenzied politican could have moved a great nation. We can understand how some of the nationalist issues resonated (war guilt, loss of territory, Germans left in foreign countries, military restrictions, and repriations). What is more difficult to understand is why Hitler captured the hearts of so many Germans. There is no doubt that he did. This is probably a question that only the Germans themselves can answer. One German author who has made an important effort to address this question is Sebastian Haffner. Haffner grew up in Germany during the inter-war era. He fled Germany in 1938 when he was 27. He decribed his efforts to resist the NAZIS as "... a duel between two very unqual adversaries: an exceedingly powerful, formidable, and ruthless state and an insignificant unknown private individual". Haffner is not easy on the Germans. He tells us, "At the momnt of truth when other nations rise spontaneously to the occasion, the Germans collectively and limply collapsed". [Haffner] And the Germans continue to follow Hitler even after the country physically collapsed around them. Even though the War was lost by 1943, the Germans continued to support Hitler and the NAZIs. There was no national uprising. Almost earily, Germany began to change only after Hitler's death in Berlin was reoorted. It was almost as if magically his grasp on Germany was released.

NAZI War Crimes

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.

Knowledge and Complicity

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.

Sources

Haffner, Sebastian. Defying Hitler.

Stone, Rhode. "A childhood strafed by war," The Washington Post (May 28, 2004, p. W11.






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Created: 3:50 AM 10/29/2004
Last updated: 6:45 PM 5/23/2023