This is yet another book that is misleading if one goes by the title and cover, expecting another memoir of a child survivor of holocaust; and its not just thst one might be a trifle misled by these, but also that, if one has been reading such memoirs, one is offrered further series of books they claim are along the line, which then turn out often different - some were novels based on the era, which was ok, but some were novels about survivors who were mainstream Germans, not victims of holocaust or those that opposed the regime or were thrown in camps.
Books about travails of others are ok too, except that, when it comes to ordinary Germans and their travails due to losing the war, it seems like a clamour for a share of the sympathy pie. One may question if they'd not have been only too happy to share in the loot as long as Germany kept invading, occupying, enslaving and looting others. They often claim they were not only not Nazi but completely unaware of what Jews or similar others were put through, and were horrified and disgusted. While that's not unlikely, it's hard to believe that nobody thought anything about neighbourhood being ethnically cleansed, despite Kristallnacht and subsequent propaganda.
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This book at the beginning seems like nothing so ,such as a series of quotes from the famous work of William Shirer, Rise And Fall of The Third Reich. Until he tells about a student in a German public school, Bernt Engelmann, who saw the Nazi flag raised by a janitor who refused to take it down when ordered by a teacher, and subsequently saw a teacher suspended for taking that flag down despite most students cheering that teacher, because some Nazi students complained. All this, before they came to power.
"His father was a staunch believer in democracy, his mother had offered practical assistance to the ‘victims of an obviously inhuman policy’ and his grandfather, a trade unionist, Social Democrat and confirmed pacifist, had advised the boy to join a Socialist Workers’ youth group. Bernt’s paternal grandmother also instilled in him a distrust of sabre-rattling militarism and the conservative aristocracy who, she said, regarded the top government posts as their birthright. But it was only when Bernt witnessed the public burning of books written by authors that he had read and admired that he realized that the Nazis were the enemies of educated, free-thinking people such as himself.
"Later, as a young man during the war, he joined a resistance group but was arrested by the Gestapo and interned in Flossenbürg and Dachau concentration camps. After Germany’s capitulation, he became an eminent investigative journalist and returned to Berlin, where he interviewed many of the people with whom he’d grown up during the 1930s. He was shocked to discover that several of his former friends had highly selective memories of that period and that more than a few attributed their participation in the Hitler Youth to nothing more than ‘youthful idealism’."
But with such interludes of personal experiences and memories of various people notwithstanding, the book does seem to be holding onto a thesis of how ordinary Germans were simply short sighted and selfish, not evil; that, with the usual complaints about unfairness of Versailles treaty, and the not too subtle insinuation about how it was really allies who were thereby responsible for driving Germany into arms of nazis, with suitable quotes from Shirer and others, seems to be what the book is about.
If so, one may question why one would need to read it if one is familiar with the Shirer work.
................................................................................................
"A limit was introduced, however, for female students enrolling in university, amounting to no more than 10 per cent of the total.
"Hitler had prohibited women from taking an active role in politics and the professions, although he permitted them to work as unpaid activists drumming up support for the party and caring for its underprivileged members. Their natural place in the National Socialist state was to be selfless mothers of blond, blue-eyed Aryan babies, a role encapsulated in the party slogan Kinder, Küche und Kirche [Children, Kitchen and Church]."
"As for unmarried single women, they were regarded as second-class citizens or Staatsangehöriger [subjects of the state], and afforded the same legal status as Jews and mentally disabled people. And yet, a significant proportion of Hitler’s most ardent supporters were women, although it is a myth that they voted in greater numbers for the Nazis than for rival parties."
Yet there were thousands of women members of Nazi party, devoted followers.
"Every free moment they could spare would be devoted to party projects of one sort or another and their only recognition would be a front seat at various local events, or perhaps the honour of presenting a bouquet to party officials, maybe even the Führer himself. These women, by all accounts, rarely complained and also remained staunchly loyal even after they were forced to face the horrors perpetrated by the regime.
"More often than not they would blame Heinrich Himmler or other Nazi leaders but rarely Hitler, whom they believed shared their concern for the welfare of the German people. They dismissed the rumours regarding the extermination camps and atrocities committed by the SS in the conquered territories as malicious gossip. At party meetings they swallowed the official line – that the concentration camps had been built to imprison criminals, profiteers and other undesirable individuals who would be taught discipline and re-educated. The newspapers regularly reported details of those who had been arrested and what crime they had committed against the state to merit their subsequent internment, or execution. This made a mockery of their claim after the war that they knew nothing of what took place at camps within Germany, such as Dachau near Munich and Ravensbrück, north of Berlin. Such measures were generally considered necessary and it was understood that the inmates deserved to be dealt with severely. To enforce the impression that only habitual offenders were imprisoned in camps within Germany, the press printed photographs of individuals specially selected for their ‘repulsive’ appearance.
"It was in the regime’s interest to publicize the existence of the camps to act as a deterrent and this gave rise to the saying, ‘Hush! Watch out! You don’t want to end up in a concentration camp.’"
Peter Drucker, a young faculty member at Frankfurt University, hoped to remain at his post, but was shocked by what he witnessed at the meeting.
"‘Frankfurt was the first university the Nazis tackled, precisely because it was the most self-confidently liberal of major German universities, with a faculty that prided itself on its allegiance to scholarship, freedom of conscience and democracy. The Nazis therefore knew that control of Frankfurt University would mean control of German academia. And so did everyone at the university. Above all, Frankfurt had a science faculty distinguished both by its scholarship and by its liberal convictions; and outstanding among the Frankfurt scientists was a biochemist–physiologist of Nobel-Prize calibre and impeccable liberal credentials.’"
"‘The new Nazi commissar wasted no time on the amenities. He immediately announced that Jews would be forbidden to enter university premises and would be dismissed without salary on March 15; this was something no one had thought possible despite the Nazis’ loud anti-Semitism. Then he launched into a tirade of abuse, filth, and four-letter words such as had been heard rarely even in the barracks and never before in academia. He pointed his finger at one department chairman after another and said, “You either do what I tell you or we’ll put you into a concentration camp.” There was silence when he finished; everybody waited for the distinguished biochemist–physiologist. The great liberal got up, cleared his throat, and said, “Very interesting, Mr Commissar, and in some respects very illuminating: but one point I didn’t get too clearly. Will there be more money for research in physiology?” The meeting broke up shortly thereafter with the commissar assuring the scholars that indeed there would be plenty of money for “racially pure science”. A few of the professors had the courage to walk out with their Jewish colleagues, but most kept a safe distance from these men who only a few hours earlier had been their close friends. I went out sick unto death – and I knew that I was going to leave Germany within forty-eight hours.’"
"A limit was introduced, however, for female students enrolling in university, amounting to no more than 10 per cent of the total.
"Hitler had prohibited women from taking an active role in politics and the professions, although he permitted them to work as unpaid activists drumming up support for the party and caring for its underprivileged members. Their natural place in the National Socialist state was to be selfless mothers of blond, blue-eyed Aryan babies, a role encapsulated in the party slogan Kinder, Küche und Kirche [Children, Kitchen and Church]."
"As for unmarried single women, they were regarded as second-class citizens or Staatsangehöriger [subjects of the state], and afforded the same legal status as Jews and mentally disabled people. And yet, a significant proportion of Hitler’s most ardent supporters were women, although it is a myth that they voted in greater numbers for the Nazis than for rival parties."
Yet there were thousands of women members of Nazi party, devoted followers.
"Every free moment they could spare would be devoted to party projects of one sort or another and their only recognition would be a front seat at various local events, or perhaps the honour of presenting a bouquet to party officials, maybe even the Führer himself. These women, by all accounts, rarely complained and also remained staunchly loyal even after they were forced to face the horrors perpetrated by the regime.
"More often than not they would blame Heinrich Himmler or other Nazi leaders but rarely Hitler, whom they believed shared their concern for the welfare of the German people. They dismissed the rumours regarding the extermination camps and atrocities committed by the SS in the conquered territories as malicious gossip. At party meetings they swallowed the official line – that the concentration camps had been built to imprison criminals, profiteers and other undesirable individuals who would be taught discipline and re-educated. The newspapers regularly reported details of those who had been arrested and what crime they had committed against the state to merit their subsequent internment, or execution. This made a mockery of their claim after the war that they knew nothing of what took place at camps within Germany, such as Dachau near Munich and Ravensbrück, north of Berlin. Such measures were generally considered necessary and it was understood that the inmates deserved to be dealt with severely. To enforce the impression that only habitual offenders were imprisoned in camps within Germany, the press printed photographs of individuals specially selected for their ‘repulsive’ appearance.
"It was in the regime’s interest to publicize the existence of the camps to act as a deterrent and this gave rise to the saying, ‘Hush! Watch out! You don’t want to end up in a concentration camp.’"
................................................................................................
Peter Drucker, a young faculty member at Frankfurt University, hoped to remain at his post, but was shocked by what he witnessed at the meeting.
"‘Frankfurt was the first university the Nazis tackled, precisely because it was the most self-confidently liberal of major German universities, with a faculty that prided itself on its allegiance to scholarship, freedom of conscience and democracy. The Nazis therefore knew that control of Frankfurt University would mean control of German academia. And so did everyone at the university. Above all, Frankfurt had a science faculty distinguished both by its scholarship and by its liberal convictions; and outstanding among the Frankfurt scientists was a biochemist–physiologist of Nobel-Prize calibre and impeccable liberal credentials.’"
"‘The new Nazi commissar wasted no time on the amenities. He immediately announced that Jews would be forbidden to enter university premises and would be dismissed without salary on March 15; this was something no one had thought possible despite the Nazis’ loud anti-Semitism. Then he launched into a tirade of abuse, filth, and four-letter words such as had been heard rarely even in the barracks and never before in academia. He pointed his finger at one department chairman after another and said, “You either do what I tell you or we’ll put you into a concentration camp.” There was silence when he finished; everybody waited for the distinguished biochemist–physiologist. The great liberal got up, cleared his throat, and said, “Very interesting, Mr Commissar, and in some respects very illuminating: but one point I didn’t get too clearly. Will there be more money for research in physiology?” The meeting broke up shortly thereafter with the commissar assuring the scholars that indeed there would be plenty of money for “racially pure science”. A few of the professors had the courage to walk out with their Jewish colleagues, but most kept a safe distance from these men who only a few hours earlier had been their close friends. I went out sick unto death – and I knew that I was going to leave Germany within forty-eight hours.’"
................................................................................................
"Manual labourers and white-collar workers were also acutely aware that their wages declined steadily during the Nazi era, while income from factory ownership and investment rose. Workers found themselves putting in longer hours and working faster to meet production targets in the hope of receiving an increase in wages.
"While the Nazi leadership declared their solidarity with the people, they enacted laws that bound workers to a form of medieval serfdom. Under the Law for the Organization of National Labour (passed in 1934), for example, industry regressed to a feudal system with employees reduced to the status of servants. If an employer didn’t want an employee to leave, they could refuse to hand over the documents that were required whenever someone began a new job.
"The regime attempted to appease the workers and get the most out of them by initiating a programme they called Kraft durch Freude [strength through joy], which offered incentives to productivity in the form of holidays and state-subsidized leisure activities. By 1937 almost 38.5 million Germans had participated in these state-sponsored leisure activities, which included symphony concerts, theatre performances, cruises to Scandinavia and Spain and breaks to the German countryside.’
"It all sounded too good to be true and it was. The beneficiaries of these bonuses were often the highly skilled workers, administrative staff and management.
"One branch of Robert Ley’s organization promoted the building of leisure facilities and canteens in factories and offices, which employees were shocked to learn they would have to build and pay for themselves.
"But the most cynical strategy was the offer of a Volkswagen car, which workers paid for over several years but that was never produced. Every employee who signed up for the scheme had 5 marks a month deducted from his or her wage packet in addition to taxes and compulsory contributions to Nazi welfare organizations. After three-quarters of the price had been paid, the employee would receive a voucher with an order number. They were never told, however, that the factory built to assemble the cars had been converted for the production of munitions."
"On 10 May 1933, students in Berlin and other major German cities organized the public burning of books deemed to be ‘un-German’. These included titles by Thomas Mann, H.G. Wells, Jack London, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein and the blind American author and political activist Helen Keller. Propaganda minister Josef Goebbels had incited the students of Berlin with a rabble-rousing speech that betrayed the real reason for this act of intellectual vandalism: the Nazis feared anything that encouraged the masses to think for themselves and to question the validity of whatever they were told."
"A hundred years earlier the German–Jewish poet Heinrich Heine had written, ‘Where one burns books, human beings will inevitably follow.’"
"History was literally rewritten to emphasize the positive aspects of German nationalism and to apportion blame for the defeat of 1918 to the convenient scapegoats – the vindictive Allied victors and the Jews.
"The subject of racial purity pervaded practically every subject from biology to geography, with emphasis on the need for Lebensraum [living space for the German people]."
"Manual labourers and white-collar workers were also acutely aware that their wages declined steadily during the Nazi era, while income from factory ownership and investment rose. Workers found themselves putting in longer hours and working faster to meet production targets in the hope of receiving an increase in wages.
"While the Nazi leadership declared their solidarity with the people, they enacted laws that bound workers to a form of medieval serfdom. Under the Law for the Organization of National Labour (passed in 1934), for example, industry regressed to a feudal system with employees reduced to the status of servants. If an employer didn’t want an employee to leave, they could refuse to hand over the documents that were required whenever someone began a new job.
"The regime attempted to appease the workers and get the most out of them by initiating a programme they called Kraft durch Freude [strength through joy], which offered incentives to productivity in the form of holidays and state-subsidized leisure activities. By 1937 almost 38.5 million Germans had participated in these state-sponsored leisure activities, which included symphony concerts, theatre performances, cruises to Scandinavia and Spain and breaks to the German countryside.’
"It all sounded too good to be true and it was. The beneficiaries of these bonuses were often the highly skilled workers, administrative staff and management.
"One branch of Robert Ley’s organization promoted the building of leisure facilities and canteens in factories and offices, which employees were shocked to learn they would have to build and pay for themselves.
"But the most cynical strategy was the offer of a Volkswagen car, which workers paid for over several years but that was never produced. Every employee who signed up for the scheme had 5 marks a month deducted from his or her wage packet in addition to taxes and compulsory contributions to Nazi welfare organizations. After three-quarters of the price had been paid, the employee would receive a voucher with an order number. They were never told, however, that the factory built to assemble the cars had been converted for the production of munitions."
................................................................................................
"On 10 May 1933, students in Berlin and other major German cities organized the public burning of books deemed to be ‘un-German’. These included titles by Thomas Mann, H.G. Wells, Jack London, Sigmund Freud, Albert Einstein and the blind American author and political activist Helen Keller. Propaganda minister Josef Goebbels had incited the students of Berlin with a rabble-rousing speech that betrayed the real reason for this act of intellectual vandalism: the Nazis feared anything that encouraged the masses to think for themselves and to question the validity of whatever they were told."
"A hundred years earlier the German–Jewish poet Heinrich Heine had written, ‘Where one burns books, human beings will inevitably follow.’"
................................................................................................
"History was literally rewritten to emphasize the positive aspects of German nationalism and to apportion blame for the defeat of 1918 to the convenient scapegoats – the vindictive Allied victors and the Jews.
"The subject of racial purity pervaded practically every subject from biology to geography, with emphasis on the need for Lebensraum [living space for the German people]."
................................................................................................
"Susan remembered being woken that night by shouting and screaming as eight young storm troopers burst into the family home and began to vandalize everything in sight. They locked their parents in a bathroom then attacked Susan and her younger sister. The girls were dragged out of bed and Susan’s nightgown was ripped to shreds. Her parents could be heard shouting and crying but were unable to intervene. Then the SA thugs ordered Susan to get dressed, but as she opened the wardrobe they pulled it down on top of her and left, assuming they had killed her. Fortunately, it had fallen onto an overturned table, which left just enough room for the terrified teenager to crawl out and comfort her sister, who had shielded herself with blankets now covered with broken mirror glass.
"The next day the family cleared up the wreckage of their apartment with the help of an elderly maid who admitted she was a staunch admirer of Hitler and who could not believe that he had sanctioned such wanton destruction.
"Later that morning Susan took her bicycle to visit family friends to see if they were all right – no one dared use the phone for fear that it was being tapped by the Gestapo. All had suffered traumatic experiences the previous night. Now they urged each other to leave the city as the notorious Jew-baiter Julius Streicher was organizing a mass rally for that evening at which it was feared he would call for more attacks on the Jews of Nuremberg. The Oppenheimer family decided to drive to the British consulate in Munich but they were stopped soon after they reached the city, their father was arrested and the car confiscated. When their mother enquired when she might see her husband again she was told that they would be sent his ashes. As Susan later learned, her father was already on his way to Dachau."
"Judy’s father had lost his business, a small factory producing household goods, after the Nazis seized it. One day she returned home from school to find the door open and her parents gone. A neighbour told her they had been taken by the Gestapo and she would be arrested if she remained. Showing great presence of mind, she took her passport, some money that her mother had hidden for emergencies and a small suitcase and joined a Kindertransport taking unaccompanied children to safety in Britain.
"Without a guarantor to sponsor her and meet her at the other end of her journey, she was taking an enormous risk. But after she arrived at the station and was approached by weeping mothers begging her to look after their young children, she had the bright idea of buying a nurse’s costume from a fancy-dress shop and posing as a nurse. It was an idea that saved her life."
"If the family was anti-Nazi, odds were the child would be. That’s a big reason the Nazis wanted to undermine the family.’"
"Susan remembered being woken that night by shouting and screaming as eight young storm troopers burst into the family home and began to vandalize everything in sight. They locked their parents in a bathroom then attacked Susan and her younger sister. The girls were dragged out of bed and Susan’s nightgown was ripped to shreds. Her parents could be heard shouting and crying but were unable to intervene. Then the SA thugs ordered Susan to get dressed, but as she opened the wardrobe they pulled it down on top of her and left, assuming they had killed her. Fortunately, it had fallen onto an overturned table, which left just enough room for the terrified teenager to crawl out and comfort her sister, who had shielded herself with blankets now covered with broken mirror glass.
"The next day the family cleared up the wreckage of their apartment with the help of an elderly maid who admitted she was a staunch admirer of Hitler and who could not believe that he had sanctioned such wanton destruction.
"Later that morning Susan took her bicycle to visit family friends to see if they were all right – no one dared use the phone for fear that it was being tapped by the Gestapo. All had suffered traumatic experiences the previous night. Now they urged each other to leave the city as the notorious Jew-baiter Julius Streicher was organizing a mass rally for that evening at which it was feared he would call for more attacks on the Jews of Nuremberg. The Oppenheimer family decided to drive to the British consulate in Munich but they were stopped soon after they reached the city, their father was arrested and the car confiscated. When their mother enquired when she might see her husband again she was told that they would be sent his ashes. As Susan later learned, her father was already on his way to Dachau."
"Judy’s father had lost his business, a small factory producing household goods, after the Nazis seized it. One day she returned home from school to find the door open and her parents gone. A neighbour told her they had been taken by the Gestapo and she would be arrested if she remained. Showing great presence of mind, she took her passport, some money that her mother had hidden for emergencies and a small suitcase and joined a Kindertransport taking unaccompanied children to safety in Britain.
"Without a guarantor to sponsor her and meet her at the other end of her journey, she was taking an enormous risk. But after she arrived at the station and was approached by weeping mothers begging her to look after their young children, she had the bright idea of buying a nurse’s costume from a fancy-dress shop and posing as a nurse. It was an idea that saved her life."
................................................................................................
"If the family was anti-Nazi, odds were the child would be. That’s a big reason the Nazis wanted to undermine the family.’"
................................................................................................
"In Hamburg, ballot papers for the national plebiscite on Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland had been numbered in invisible ink and those who voted against were subsequently arrested. Knowing this, trainee lawyer Peter Bielenberg volunteered to assist with the count in his district of Berlin later that same year – in a vote called to approve more of the party’s policies – and was elated to see that many had voted ‘no’. But the next morning the newspapers declared a unanimous vote in the party’s favour, confirming what every free-thinking German had feared: the opposition had been effectively silenced and more severe measures would need to be taken to remove the dictator."
"Although there was never the possibility that a love of jazz might form the foundation for a real resistance movement, the authorities were alarmed to learn that the freeform dance routines included overtly provocative gestures such as a version of the Hitler salute incorporating Churchill’s ‘V’ for Victory sign. Mocking the Sieg Heil salute was prohibited by law, so doing so even behind closed doors was a violation punishable by imprisonment. And being under the age of legal responsibility was no defence. In October 1942, 17-year-old Helmuth Hübener became the youngest of 16,500 people to be beheaded by guillotine during the Hitler years. His crime was distributing anti-war leaflets based on BBC broadcasts.
"But the threat of such grim retribution did not appear to dampen the enthusiasm of the swing kids. Other seemingly innocent phrases in English or Yiddish were sprinkled into casual conversation to identify a fellow swing fan (‘Swing Heil’ being the most common greeting or parting phrase) or to provoke outrage from eavesdroppers and passers-by.
"In 1940 the authorities attempted to crack down on the movement by installing a curfew on under-18s, but it proved almost impossible to enforce as they routinely used counterfeit identity papers to gain entrance to the clubs, bars and dance halls. Even without such papers, it was difficult to determine their true age due to their adult attire and the girls’ heavy use of make-up."
................................................................................................
"Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi was a talented saxophonist whose musicianship would save himself and his mother from starvation after the war when he found employment playing for American merchant seamen in Hamburg clubs. But during the Hitler years, Massaquoi had the unique experience of being one of the few black German children growing up in the Third Reich."
Having read Destined To Witness, his autobiography or his account of those years in his words, the impression one retains decades later is his repeatedly telling about the many schoolmates and others who defended him against bullies, telling them to not bother him, that he was as German as anybody else amonst them.
And his pride in achievements of black athletes at the Olympics is, of course, the other thing one recalls from the account.
"In Hamburg, ballot papers for the national plebiscite on Germany’s reoccupation of the Rhineland had been numbered in invisible ink and those who voted against were subsequently arrested. Knowing this, trainee lawyer Peter Bielenberg volunteered to assist with the count in his district of Berlin later that same year – in a vote called to approve more of the party’s policies – and was elated to see that many had voted ‘no’. But the next morning the newspapers declared a unanimous vote in the party’s favour, confirming what every free-thinking German had feared: the opposition had been effectively silenced and more severe measures would need to be taken to remove the dictator."
................................................................................................
"Although there was never the possibility that a love of jazz might form the foundation for a real resistance movement, the authorities were alarmed to learn that the freeform dance routines included overtly provocative gestures such as a version of the Hitler salute incorporating Churchill’s ‘V’ for Victory sign. Mocking the Sieg Heil salute was prohibited by law, so doing so even behind closed doors was a violation punishable by imprisonment. And being under the age of legal responsibility was no defence. In October 1942, 17-year-old Helmuth Hübener became the youngest of 16,500 people to be beheaded by guillotine during the Hitler years. His crime was distributing anti-war leaflets based on BBC broadcasts.
"But the threat of such grim retribution did not appear to dampen the enthusiasm of the swing kids. Other seemingly innocent phrases in English or Yiddish were sprinkled into casual conversation to identify a fellow swing fan (‘Swing Heil’ being the most common greeting or parting phrase) or to provoke outrage from eavesdroppers and passers-by.
"In 1940 the authorities attempted to crack down on the movement by installing a curfew on under-18s, but it proved almost impossible to enforce as they routinely used counterfeit identity papers to gain entrance to the clubs, bars and dance halls. Even without such papers, it was difficult to determine their true age due to their adult attire and the girls’ heavy use of make-up."
................................................................................................
"Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi was a talented saxophonist whose musicianship would save himself and his mother from starvation after the war when he found employment playing for American merchant seamen in Hamburg clubs. But during the Hitler years, Massaquoi had the unique experience of being one of the few black German children growing up in the Third Reich."
Having read Destined To Witness, his autobiography or his account of those years in his words, the impression one retains decades later is his repeatedly telling about the many schoolmates and others who defended him against bullies, telling them to not bother him, that he was as German as anybody else amonst them.
And his pride in achievements of black athletes at the Olympics is, of course, the other thing one recalls from the account.
................................................................................................
"Berlin housewife Emmi Bonhoefer was contemptuous of those who denied all knowledge of the dictatorship’s persecution of the Jews and other minorities:
"‘Of course in ‘38 when the synagogues were burning everybody knew what was going on. I remember my brother in law told me that he went to his office by train the morning after Kristallnacht and between the stations of Zarienplatz and zoological gardens there was a Jewish synagogue on fire and he murmured, “That’s a shame on our culture.” Right away a gentleman sitting opposite him turned his lapel and showed his party badge and produced his papers showing he was Gestapo. My brother in law had to show his papers and give his address and was ordered to come to the party office next morning at 9 o’clock. He was questioned and had to explain what he had meant by that remark. He tried to talk himself out of it but his punishment was that he had to arrange and distribute the ration cards for the area at the beginning of every month. And he did this for seven years until the end of the war. The family had to arrange the cards for each category of the population, workers, children etc. but he was not permitted to have a helper. He had to go alone. That was how they broke the back of the people.’"
"Professor Tubach, a former member of the Hitler Youth who came to despise the Nazis and after the war coauthored AN UNCOMMON FRIENDSHIP with a Holocaust survivor, interviewed a woman who had witnessed the aftermath of Kristallnacht from the safety of her classroom. She recalled that her teacher had interrupted his class to take the pupils outside to see a burning synagogue ringed with SA thugs who prevented the fire brigade from intervening. No comment was made during or after the unscheduled outing, which can be interpreted as either shameful indifference or a general feeling that the Jews had finally got what they deserved."
"Berlin housewife Emmi Bonhoefer was contemptuous of those who denied all knowledge of the dictatorship’s persecution of the Jews and other minorities:
"‘Of course in ‘38 when the synagogues were burning everybody knew what was going on. I remember my brother in law told me that he went to his office by train the morning after Kristallnacht and between the stations of Zarienplatz and zoological gardens there was a Jewish synagogue on fire and he murmured, “That’s a shame on our culture.” Right away a gentleman sitting opposite him turned his lapel and showed his party badge and produced his papers showing he was Gestapo. My brother in law had to show his papers and give his address and was ordered to come to the party office next morning at 9 o’clock. He was questioned and had to explain what he had meant by that remark. He tried to talk himself out of it but his punishment was that he had to arrange and distribute the ration cards for the area at the beginning of every month. And he did this for seven years until the end of the war. The family had to arrange the cards for each category of the population, workers, children etc. but he was not permitted to have a helper. He had to go alone. That was how they broke the back of the people.’"
................................................................................................
"Professor Tubach, a former member of the Hitler Youth who came to despise the Nazis and after the war coauthored AN UNCOMMON FRIENDSHIP with a Holocaust survivor, interviewed a woman who had witnessed the aftermath of Kristallnacht from the safety of her classroom. She recalled that her teacher had interrupted his class to take the pupils outside to see a burning synagogue ringed with SA thugs who prevented the fire brigade from intervening. No comment was made during or after the unscheduled outing, which can be interpreted as either shameful indifference or a general feeling that the Jews had finally got what they deserved."
................................................................................................
"For the ordinary German, the Second World War did not begin with the hellish screaming of Stuka dive bombers and ground-shaking explosions, as it did for the civilians of Warsaw and Krakow. There were no air-raid drills or blackouts as there were in Britain, or panic buying of essential foodstuffs and petrol as there was in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Instead, the first sign that Germany was now engaged in an international conflict came with the severing of all communication with the outside world. From the afternoon of 1 September 1939, no phone calls could be made outside of the Reich. Operators were instructed to inform callers that they were unable to connect them, but that normal service would be resumed as soon as possible.
"The wireless was now people’s primary source of information and all broadcasts had to be approved by Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. Consequently, the tone of the first news announcements on the eve of war was one of resignation and resolve. It was ‘regrettable’ that events had come to this, but the leadership had a ‘clear conscience’. The German people had a right to Lebensraum [living space]:
"‘We have done all that any country could do to establish peace.’
"Few who listened to the news on that mild autumn evening would have questioned that right. For more than a year the population of Germany and its Axis allies had been conditioned to believe that they were the victims of the vindictive Allied powers who had imposed punitive reparations after Germany’s defeat in the First World War and who had occupied territory that the Führer had declared to be sacred soil. The invasion of Poland was not an act of aggression, they were told, but merely Germany exercising its authority to ‘liberate’ German nationals from the occupied territories and to cleanse Europe of ‘inferior races’ so that Eastern Europe could be Aryanized."
"Shortages, longer working hours and drives for more productivity were largely tolerated while the German armed forces were advancing across Western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa and Russia. Imminent victory then seemed assured, but from the winter of 1942 the mood at home became considerably less optimistic.
"Hope of a swift victory evaporated after the shocking defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps at the second battle of El Alamein in November 1942. Soon after, German civilians were informed of the fate facing the once invincible Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and asked to make further sacrifices to provide winter clothing for the Sixth Army besieged at Stalingrad.
"News of their ignominious surrender in February 1943 was all the more demoralizing because it had followed assurances from the Ministry of Propaganda that the Soviet forces had been on the verge of collapse. But although these reversals had a significant impact on morale, it was the intensity of the Allied bombing raids on German cities that brought the gravity of the situation home to the civilian population. Each month brought more bad news that even Goebbels was hard pressed to deny, or to present as a strategic withdrawal. When news of the loss of more than 40 U-boats in May of 1943 forced Admiral Dönitz to withdraw his ‘wolfpacks’ from the Battle of the Atlantic, every German knew it meant that the Allied convoys would be largely unmolested from now on while their own supply ships would be at the mercy of Allied warships and fighters.
"By war’s end, many adults were reduced to eating horsemeat, if they were lucky enough to find it, but even starvation and the threat of being besieged on all sides failed to shake some diehard Nazis. The mood inside Hitler’s Germany was grim but determined. It was summed up by a slogan that was being scrawled on the walls of bombed-out buildings throughout the country:
"‘Enjoy the war. Peace will be hell.’"
"For the ordinary German, the Second World War did not begin with the hellish screaming of Stuka dive bombers and ground-shaking explosions, as it did for the civilians of Warsaw and Krakow. There were no air-raid drills or blackouts as there were in Britain, or panic buying of essential foodstuffs and petrol as there was in France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Instead, the first sign that Germany was now engaged in an international conflict came with the severing of all communication with the outside world. From the afternoon of 1 September 1939, no phone calls could be made outside of the Reich. Operators were instructed to inform callers that they were unable to connect them, but that normal service would be resumed as soon as possible.
"The wireless was now people’s primary source of information and all broadcasts had to be approved by Goebbels’ Ministry of Propaganda and Public Enlightenment. Consequently, the tone of the first news announcements on the eve of war was one of resignation and resolve. It was ‘regrettable’ that events had come to this, but the leadership had a ‘clear conscience’. The German people had a right to Lebensraum [living space]:
"‘We have done all that any country could do to establish peace.’
"Few who listened to the news on that mild autumn evening would have questioned that right. For more than a year the population of Germany and its Axis allies had been conditioned to believe that they were the victims of the vindictive Allied powers who had imposed punitive reparations after Germany’s defeat in the First World War and who had occupied territory that the Führer had declared to be sacred soil. The invasion of Poland was not an act of aggression, they were told, but merely Germany exercising its authority to ‘liberate’ German nationals from the occupied territories and to cleanse Europe of ‘inferior races’ so that Eastern Europe could be Aryanized."
................................................................................................
"Shortages, longer working hours and drives for more productivity were largely tolerated while the German armed forces were advancing across Western Europe, the Balkans, North Africa and Russia. Imminent victory then seemed assured, but from the winter of 1942 the mood at home became considerably less optimistic.
"Hope of a swift victory evaporated after the shocking defeat of Rommel’s Afrika Korps at the second battle of El Alamein in November 1942. Soon after, German civilians were informed of the fate facing the once invincible Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front and asked to make further sacrifices to provide winter clothing for the Sixth Army besieged at Stalingrad.
"News of their ignominious surrender in February 1943 was all the more demoralizing because it had followed assurances from the Ministry of Propaganda that the Soviet forces had been on the verge of collapse. But although these reversals had a significant impact on morale, it was the intensity of the Allied bombing raids on German cities that brought the gravity of the situation home to the civilian population. Each month brought more bad news that even Goebbels was hard pressed to deny, or to present as a strategic withdrawal. When news of the loss of more than 40 U-boats in May of 1943 forced Admiral Dönitz to withdraw his ‘wolfpacks’ from the Battle of the Atlantic, every German knew it meant that the Allied convoys would be largely unmolested from now on while their own supply ships would be at the mercy of Allied warships and fighters.
"By war’s end, many adults were reduced to eating horsemeat, if they were lucky enough to find it, but even starvation and the threat of being besieged on all sides failed to shake some diehard Nazis. The mood inside Hitler’s Germany was grim but determined. It was summed up by a slogan that was being scrawled on the walls of bombed-out buildings throughout the country:
"‘Enjoy the war. Peace will be hell.’"
................................................................................................
"In June 1942, 20-year-old Berliner Cioma Schönhaus escaped deportation to a concentration camp because he was more valuable to the Reich as a skilled worker in one of their munitions factories. His parents and family were sent to their deaths at Majdanek extermination camp near Lublin, and Cioma was left to fend for himself."
"A German acquaintance had told the boy, ‘It is irresponsible to pull away from the evacuation. All Jews must suffer together. All must go together. One has to obey and do what the authorities request.’ Cioma’s reply was, ‘They can kiss my ass. I won’t let myself get caught. I want to be free.’
"Remarkably, in the very centre of Hitler’s web, he chanced upon Germans who were willing to risk their lives to help an ‘enemy of the state’. The factory foreman told him how to sabotage the machine-gun barrels that he was filing and a former government minister offered to supply him with false identity papers when it became necessary for him to disappear into the underground community of escaped Jews and other ‘undesirables’ living in the sewers and deserted buildings of the capital.
"There Cioma survived working as a document forger, using the skills he had learned at art school to alter identity cards and passbooks for fellow ‘submarines’. He also created multiple identities for himself so that he could live in a number of apartments unmolested by the Gestapo and occasionally eat in expensive restaurants that were off-limits to Jews. These included the Kaiserhof, a favourite restaurant of Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels. So he was frequently in the midst of Nazi officials – indeed, where better to hide than among the very people looking for him? He admits it gave him an adrenaline rush to defy his tormentors in this way and it became addictive."
"It was only when the former government minister Herr Kaufmann offered to supply him with false identity papers that Cioma decided his incredible run of luck may have been about to run out. On 6 September 1943 he packed a rucksack and pedalled across Berlin on his bike on the long ride towards the Swiss border, a copy of a book by Dr Goebbels in his rucksack in case he was stopped and questioned. A forged service record enabled him to stay in hotels and eat in cafés without attracting the attention of the authorities. He attributes his incredible good fortune to the fact that he remained unsentimental:
"‘When you are sad, it is like having a stone around your neck and you can no longer take action. You are lost.’"
"As late as spring 1944, the German press continued to proclaim victory in two-inch-high headlines. When they finally acknowledged that their troops were making steady progress on the Eastern Front despite difficult circumstances, only the most staunch believer in the invincibility of the master race could fail to interpret it as an admission that the Russian campaign was not proceeding according to plan.
"Soon every retreat became a strategic withdrawal. But the true picture of what was occurring inside Germany was to be found in the inside pages of the Völkischer Beobachter and its regional rivals. The implacable discipline that held Germany together under the supreme will of the Führer was beginning to crack. The unpalatable facts were to be read in the reports of the latest ‘criminal’ to be found guilty and summarily executed after a phoney trial for undermining the morale of the people. Invariably their ‘crime’ was inconsequential – minor theft of provisions or violation of a blackout regulation.
"The message was clear: disloyalty was punishable by death.
"The very thought of defeat was treasonable. And yet an increasing number of sons, brothers and fathers were coming home on leave to tell their families what they had witnessed in the east. Care-worn and weary, more than one had warned that the Russians would not be merciful after what their people had suffered under the advancing German army."
"In June 1942, 20-year-old Berliner Cioma Schönhaus escaped deportation to a concentration camp because he was more valuable to the Reich as a skilled worker in one of their munitions factories. His parents and family were sent to their deaths at Majdanek extermination camp near Lublin, and Cioma was left to fend for himself."
"A German acquaintance had told the boy, ‘It is irresponsible to pull away from the evacuation. All Jews must suffer together. All must go together. One has to obey and do what the authorities request.’ Cioma’s reply was, ‘They can kiss my ass. I won’t let myself get caught. I want to be free.’
"Remarkably, in the very centre of Hitler’s web, he chanced upon Germans who were willing to risk their lives to help an ‘enemy of the state’. The factory foreman told him how to sabotage the machine-gun barrels that he was filing and a former government minister offered to supply him with false identity papers when it became necessary for him to disappear into the underground community of escaped Jews and other ‘undesirables’ living in the sewers and deserted buildings of the capital.
"There Cioma survived working as a document forger, using the skills he had learned at art school to alter identity cards and passbooks for fellow ‘submarines’. He also created multiple identities for himself so that he could live in a number of apartments unmolested by the Gestapo and occasionally eat in expensive restaurants that were off-limits to Jews. These included the Kaiserhof, a favourite restaurant of Hitler, Himmler and Goebbels. So he was frequently in the midst of Nazi officials – indeed, where better to hide than among the very people looking for him? He admits it gave him an adrenaline rush to defy his tormentors in this way and it became addictive."
"It was only when the former government minister Herr Kaufmann offered to supply him with false identity papers that Cioma decided his incredible run of luck may have been about to run out. On 6 September 1943 he packed a rucksack and pedalled across Berlin on his bike on the long ride towards the Swiss border, a copy of a book by Dr Goebbels in his rucksack in case he was stopped and questioned. A forged service record enabled him to stay in hotels and eat in cafés without attracting the attention of the authorities. He attributes his incredible good fortune to the fact that he remained unsentimental:
"‘When you are sad, it is like having a stone around your neck and you can no longer take action. You are lost.’"
................................................................................................
"As late as spring 1944, the German press continued to proclaim victory in two-inch-high headlines. When they finally acknowledged that their troops were making steady progress on the Eastern Front despite difficult circumstances, only the most staunch believer in the invincibility of the master race could fail to interpret it as an admission that the Russian campaign was not proceeding according to plan.
"Soon every retreat became a strategic withdrawal. But the true picture of what was occurring inside Germany was to be found in the inside pages of the Völkischer Beobachter and its regional rivals. The implacable discipline that held Germany together under the supreme will of the Führer was beginning to crack. The unpalatable facts were to be read in the reports of the latest ‘criminal’ to be found guilty and summarily executed after a phoney trial for undermining the morale of the people. Invariably their ‘crime’ was inconsequential – minor theft of provisions or violation of a blackout regulation.
"The message was clear: disloyalty was punishable by death.
"The very thought of defeat was treasonable. And yet an increasing number of sons, brothers and fathers were coming home on leave to tell their families what they had witnessed in the east. Care-worn and weary, more than one had warned that the Russians would not be merciful after what their people had suffered under the advancing German army."
................................................................................................
Chapter six, about Eycke Strickland, Renata Zerner and Anneliese Heider, is worth quoting in entirety. Unfortunately the publisher's limit expired before this.
Chapter six, about Eycke Strickland, Renata Zerner and Anneliese Heider, is worth quoting in entirety. Unfortunately the publisher's limit expired before this.
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February 16, 2020 - February 17, 2020.
ISBN: 9781784281236
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February 16, 2020 - February 17, 2020.
ISBN: 9781784281236
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