B runhilde Pomsel says working as secretary to Joseph Goebbels was "just another job", and that those who say they would have stood up to the Nazis in her shoes are probably mistaken.
Ms Pomsel is, at 105, one of the few surviving people who regularly interacted with the Nazi inner circle during the Second World War.
She was in the bunker where Goebbels and Adolf Hitler committed suicide at the end of the war, making sure there was sufficient alcohol on hand to "retain the numbness".
In the three years prior, Ms Pomsel had sat just outside of Goebbels's personal office each day, asking him questions when necessary and keeping track of his phone calls.
B ut she says she was unaware of the mass atrocities being carried out by the regime she served.
“I know no one ever believes us nowadays – everyone thinks we knew everything. We knew nothing, it was all kept well secret," she told the Guardian in a new interview ahead of the release of a film about her life.
Ms Pomsel is unapologetic even as she recalls her work manipulating data about war time casualties and otherwise keeping the wheels spinning in the German propaganda machine.
“It is important for me, when I watch the film, to recognise that mirror image in which I can understand everything I’ve done wrong,” she says of A German Life, the upcoming documentary. “But really, I didn’t do anything other than type in Goebbels’ office.”
She was thrilled to take the job, she says, noting the generous salary and describing the beautiful surroundings at the propaganda ministry.
"It's the same for all things. Everything that is beautiful is also tainted.
Nothing is black and white, there is always a little bit of grey in everything."
Brumhilde Pomsel
in the film A German Life
Do you think you could bury the past when you reached that age?
Her quotes have the hint of rationalization.
Why? Do you really think a secretary had any idea of what was going on? Or that she should have sacrificed her life and her family for a Quiotic stand?
Maybe she didn't know everyday detail, but she surely knew that Jews were being put in concentration camps and dying there. I think she also knew that her boss was the propagandist for a monster.
I find it quite amazing that she would not have had any idea about the mass murders or the concentration camps. I do think she's correct that those who say they wouldn't have taken the job most likely would have. Not because they wanted to but maybe because the needed to.
It is sometimes said that the greatest need that human beings have, above the need for food or or work or sex, is the need to be right.
This woman is 105 and will take to the grave the thought that she "could not know" that the Nazis were evil.
I don't buy it.
"I don't buy it."
Nor do I.
I know nothing...great defense /s
When I went to Munich, I had to pass the ring road that went to Dachau. It was about a 1/2 mile from the city center. Yet there were Germans who claimed they smelled nothing coming from the crematoriums, which is impossible. Heck, I live 17 miles from the WTC and we had a fog of death over us for almost 3 days. Imagine if the burning never stopped? It never stopped in Dachau.
I think they risked their lives so their friends wouldn't have to go to a bad place, possibly be split apart as families. I honestly believe that people, as a whole, did not know for sure about the wholesale massacres, but if you care for your neighbors, you don't want them to go to a very bad place, a work camp, where the 'natural' death toll was startling, to say the least.
Did Corrie Ten Boom know exactly what was going on until she got there at Auschwitz? She quickly figured it out, but while she and her family were hiding people in her attic, did she KNOW? No, she did not. Read The Hiding Place.
The Germans knew what was going on, but remained silent After the war of curse they claimed they had no idea.
When American troops first liberated concentration camps, they were shocked. General Eisenhower, to his credit, insisted that it all be documented for posterity-- in still pictures and on film.
Exactly. There is no way possible that she didn't know. I do think she came close to admitting she knew something when she commented on the country being under a spell but I found it insulting to speak about her 5 years in prison not being a bed of roses when the contrast was millions of people murdered.
"General Eisenhower, to his credit, insisted that it all be documented for posterity-- in still pictures and on film."
And yet, there are still Holocaust deniers, and the brainless fools that believe them.
Band of Brothers documented that very well.
I was stationed with the US Army in Germany in 1959...I never met a German that knew a Nazi, was a Nazi or knew anything about the concentration camps...Amazing loss of memory.
I went to Dachau in 1959. I took photos and they have been in a box all these years and have only been out once.
Going to Dachau hit me hard on two different levels. One the genocide of the Jews, and the other was that Hitler studied what the US did to Indians and many accounts state that he followed their lead.
It is something that I will never forget.
”It is something that I will never forget.“
And it is those words "Never forget" that the deniers chip away at.
''Never forget'' it's not likely that I'll ever forget Buzz.
...Hitler studied what the US did to Indians and many accounts state that he followed their lead.
I for one would like to see the proof of this claim. outside of AIM sources.
I'm no holocaust denier, and there is an old lady, currently sitting in a nursing home suffering from Alzheimers. Her name is Edith, she married a service man in Heidelberg in 1949 name of Wayne. When he left the service she emigrated with him to America. and became a naturalized citizen in 1952.
She was born in German Silesia in 1924 She was 15 when the war started and 21 when it ended. She was living in Frankfurt. Working as a secretary to the local Gauliter.
She came under the Russian occupation in late 1944. I won't go into what the Russians did with young captured German women, what was done to her.
Except for this one thing. They herded large numbers of captured civilians together and forced marched them through the concentration camps. Forced them to look at the bodies being prepared for incineration. It was the first time she saw any of it, and she was horrified. 50 years later it would still bring tears to her eyes.
She escaped communist Germany in 1948, through Romania as a refugee, before they closed the borders. She met Wayne working at a USO recreation center as a waitress and introduced herself by spilling a bowl of soup all over his Class "A" uniform.
I do not know about Goebbels secretary, I find it hard to believe that she didn't know given her position.
But not all Germans knew. As much as you would like them to have.
In the '78 documentary "The World at War" there were many interviews done describing the "Euphoria" that came over the population of the county whenever Hitler spoke, or the nazi's were doing their celebrations. Edith recounted the same thing to me over 30 years ago.
Edith is still alive, the missus and I finally had to break down and place her, we could no longer take care of her.
References available upon request, if someone needs proof.
Not everyone knew.
Even though the news was not circulated then as it is today, I cannot imagine that the German population was oblivious of Kristallnacht, oblivious of the rounding up of Jews, oblivious of the anti-Jew posters, newspapers and radio broadcasts, unless they were deaf and blind. It was Goebbel's job to disseminate the hate literature, so even the story of the woman in this article doesn't smell too good.
I would venture to say that the woman of whom you speak was an exception rather than the rule.
For the people in the cities and large towns, I'm sure the propaganda eventually gave way to truth. But for the people in the country it wasn't realized until the end.
The propaganda ministry was specifically tasked with rationally explaining the forced deportation of so many people. as undesirables. some of the lies were that they were being relocated to "Humane" camps just to get them out of Germany proper. Even many Jews believed this for a while.
It was when they stopped receiving letters or never received letters from their loved ones, that the suspicions started. Eventually it was understood that you didn't cross the politicians cause you would be subject to arrest and relocation.
I would say that probably 60% of the German civilian population knew something by the end of the war. But, rest assuredly not the full extent. The surprising thing is that only about 20% of the German Army not not in the SS knew.
Many of them didn't have a clue what they were fighting for until they went home after the surrender and were forceably given tours of the camps......
There were a lot of suicides in the male German population for a while after the war. They could not bring themselves to face it. They had heard rumors, but they were so wild that they were difficult to believe and the officers would tell them that it wasn't true. (they didn't know themselves) Nobody could be so inhumane.
Until they saw it with their own eyes.
A lot of Germans did not know....
And that IS the truth of it.
It's nice to say today that they should have, that they should have checked it out. But in that system of government just asking the question could get you shot. (or sent to the relocation camps yourself as a political prisoner) All it took was one person having that happening to them, and no one would say or question anything after that.
PC with the force of law, and, bigoted administrators of the law run wild.
Don't think it cannot happen here.
"Don't think it cannot happen here."
An ominous thought.
It already has here in this very country, remember the tuskeegee experiment? the premise for the movie miss evers boys? that was government run and sanctioned , and wasn't found out until the study was moved out of the country to some centrasl American country , only then was it really publisized what was being done. and that was in the 60s and 70s it was found out. and that's not the only instance that can be cited.
and I would add that any AND every government looks into how previous governments in history handled things , another incident the Nazis looked at while formulating "the final solution " was the holocaust of Christians in turkey ( which the Turks still deny) before and during WW1, what was studied was the world reaction , or the will of the world community to take a stand.
people just suck sometimes and it diminishes us all, and all we can do it try to be better if not for humanity , but for ourselves but that is an individual position and choice, NOT for the collective.
Kinda like the Albanians in Serbia - or the Georgians in the Crimea.
The Serbian slaughter of Bosnian Muslims was a direct result of the UN standing by while it happened. It was a well known genocide.
Additionally the ''Rwanda genocide'' was well know to the world, yet nothing was done.
Collective or individual, it's seems to be easier to turn away than face the horrific events.
Now this I can agree with.... Factual and true.....
Additionally the ''Rwanda genocide'' was well know to the world, yet nothing was done.
Actually a ot of this sort of ting goes on quite frequently. For exmple, the situation in Syria is horrendous-- on a YUGE scale--- but we hardly hear about it.
And this just happened (Monday) in Africa-- no one really seems to care:
South Sudan Troops Raped, Beat Foreigners as U.N. Force Ignored Calls for Help
NAIROBI, Kenya — The soldier pointed his AK-47 at the female aid worker and gave her a choice.
"Either you have sex with me, or we make every man here rape you and then we shoot you in the head," she remembers him saying.
She didn't really have a choice. By the end of the evening, she had been raped by 15 South Sudanese soldiers.
On July 11, South Sudanese troops, fresh from winning a battle in the capital, Juba, over opposition forces , went on a nearly four-hour rampage through a residential compound popular with foreigners, in one of the worst targeted attacks on aid workers in South Sudan's three-year civil war.
They shot dead a local journalist while forcing the foreigners to watch, raped several foreign women, singled out Americans, beat and robbed people and carried out mock executions, several witnesses told The Associated Press.
For hours throughout the assault, the U.N. peacekeeping force stationed less than a mile away refused to respond to desperate calls for help. Neither did embassies, including the U.S. Embassy.
(Read it all)
I guess you missed this. But no concern, so did almost everybody else - as if they cared.
At the risk of further derailing this topic, why do foreign aid organizations send females into war zones where rape of civilians is rampant and then complain that they were raped? Women may want to have gender neutral opportunity but rape is discriminatory.
The civil war in South Sudan has reignited and it's unclear to me what the UN peacekeepers are supposed to be doing if there's no peace to keep. If these are actually South Sudanese government troops on a rampage (and not just a group in stolen uniforms), then UN peacekeepers shooting government troops could cause government troops to view the UN as taking sides in the civil war and start shooting indiscriminately into UN peacekeeping compounds in retaliation.
South Sudan is spiraling out of control and these rampages against civilians are increasing so, if somebody is going to do something useful, it may require actual military intervention rather than simply answering a 911 call every now and then like the police department. Alternatively, the UN may have to withdraw until an actual ceasefire is obtained between warring parties. I'll wait and see what Obama has to say or better yet what the republican ignoramus and his incompetent lying democratic opponent have to add.
''...Hitler studied what the US did to Indians and many accounts state that he followed their lead.
I for one would like to see the proof of this claim. outside of AIM sources.
The proof is in 1st comment below. Whether you believe AIM is of no consequence to me. Your bias is palatable.
Additionally your comment is nothing but guesswork. 60% knew, really and you know this how?
''But not all Germans knew. As much as you would like them to have.''
I took special interest in that line from your comment. So you believe that I would want to have all Germans know of the horrors that the Nazi's committed. Your comment is bizarre at best, and an outright lie.
That is even low for you NWM, and that's getting really low.
I admit is was a guestimation, but it comes from reading the oral histories as recorded form the German citizens after the war.
At the start very few knew what the ultimate outcome would be all they understood was the propaganda. what the government was telling them was going on. but as the war continued, and the evidence became overwhelming and they could see it with before them, the slave labor, the shootings in the street, the citizens especially around the camps began to deduce what was transpiring. only by then it was too late to do or say anything about it unless they wanted to be one of those people getting killed.
So yes it is a guestimation but one based upon fact.
A LOW as you put it.
You are entitled to your opinion. But such opinion as relates to facts, belies the bias in the statement.
''You are entitled to your opinion. But such opinion as relates to facts, belies the bias in the statement.''
Of course the same can be said of your opinion, NWM.
''But not all Germans knew. As much as you would like them to have.'' That was the comment that I was referring to, as LOW....Which you well knew.
I think 1st, Kavika, and NWM are all right. Hitler was not an intellectual or even a good student. He was smart but not book smart and his best subject was art. Once he consolidated power within Germany, he decided to move to the conquest of Europe. The Jewish problem was probably something that didn't capture much of his attention at the time because the population being dealt with were little more than vermin to him and conquering Europe was a dangerous gamble. He wanted the Jews out of Germany and I think NWM is clearly right that his initial goal was a population transfer and/or confinement, not extermination.
Hitler wasn't all that educated (just high school) but he was smart enough to look for examples of population transfers as rough guides. Kavika and 1st are probably right that he looked to the obvious example of how the Indians were handled. He would have also looked at South Africa. To me, the simplest thing to do was for him to give these examples to Himmler and tell him that the Jews will be moved and you figure out what to do with them while I handle the war. Himmler would be best advised to handle as much of it as possible on his own without involving or annoying Hitler. When the plan turned to extermination, this was kept secret. Why? I think it would have given the US a reason to enter the war prematurely before he could deal with Stalin. As it stands, the US only entered the war when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor.
The Jewish problem was probably something that didn't capture much of his attention at the time because the population being dealt with were little more than vermin to him and conquering Europe was a dangerous gamble. He wanted the Jews out of Germany and I think NWM is clearly right that his initial goal was a population transfer and/or confinement, not extermination.
Totally false. That's an assumption on your art-- with no basis in fact. In fact, quite the opposite was true:
Hitler is often depicted as the prototypical totalitarian—a man who believed in the superiority of the German state, a German nationalist to the extreme. But according to Snyder, this depiction is deeply flawed. Rather, Hitler was a “racial anarchist”—a man for whom states were transitory, laws meaningless, ethics a facade. “There is in fact no way of thinking about the world, says Hitler, which allows us to see human beings as human beings. Any idea which allows us to see each other as human beings … come[s] from Jews,” Snyder told me in an interview. As Snyder sees it, Hitler believed the only way for the world to revert to its natural order—that of brutal racial competition—was to eradicate the Jews.
(Link)
The Jewish problem was probably something that didn't capture much of his attention at the time because the population being dealt with were little more than vermin to him and conquering Europe was a dangerous gamble. He wanted the Jews out of Germany and I think NWM is clearly right that his initial goal was a population transfer and/or confinement, not extermination.
Totally false. That's an assumption on your art-- with no basis in fact. In fact, quite the opposite was true:
Hitler is often depicted as the prototypical totalitarian—a man who believed in the superiority of the German state, a German nationalist to the extreme. But according to Snyder, this depiction is deeply flawed. Rather, Hitler was a “racial anarchist”—a man for whom states were transitory, laws meaningless, ethics a facade. “There is in fact no way of thinking about the world, says Hitler, which allows us to see human beings as human beings. Any idea which allows us to see each other as human beings … come[s] from Jews,” Snyder told me in an interview. As Snyder sees it, Hitler believed the only way for the world to revert to its natural order—that of brutal racial competition—was to eradicate the Jews.
Uh no, you're the one using an opinion unsupported by fact. What you're quoting is Snyder's "opinion" of Hitler to establish that the Final Solution was the intent all along. The facts show just the opposite. The Nazi solution to the Jewish problem was initially to expel Jews from Germany. They tried to send Polish Jews back to Poland. Poland blocked it. They wanted send Jews to Palestine and England blocked it. Then they floated the (stupid) idea of expelling the Jews to the island Madagascar but France was not receptive. The US? Nope, we didn't jump at taking them either. Goring at one point reported that Hiller, himself, railed against the west saying in frustration "Why are you always talking about the Jews? Take them!"
As Hitler expanded the Reich through conquest, simply expelling the Jews from Germany was not enough because the Nazis wanted no Jews inside the Reich. Simultaneously, although other countries were increasingly critical of Nazi persecution of Jews, they were also increasingly unwilling to take the Jews the Nazis didn't want. Emigration slowed. Jews who had been removed from Germany and elsewhere were collecting in Polish Ghettos and the problem was becoming unmanageable. At some point around 1941, the Nazis simply gave up on expulsion and turned to extermination. Crudely done at first and later much more methodically.
So what apparently happened is that the Nazis made a determination that Jews cannot live in the Reich. Western powers essentially decided that German Jews will not live anywhere else (by refusing to take them) and the Nazis cynically concluded, fine, then the Jews shall not live at all. The idea that Hitler had extermination in mind from the beginning masks the role that other powers played in seriously miscalculating how a psychopath would react to them trying to force him into a humane course of action.
Read more in the link below.
1ofmany,
Your link came from the Institute of Historical Review. Here is what Wiki had to say about them:
The Institute for Historical Review ( IHR ), founded in 1978, is an organization primarily devoted to publishing and promoting books and essays described by critics as pseudo-historical that attack the mainstream historical consensus concerning the Nazi genocide of Jews. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] It is considered by many scholars as the center of the international Holocaust denial movement. [2] [7] [8] IHR is widely regarded as antisemitic and as having links to neo-Nazi organizations. The Institute published the Journal of Historical Review until 2002, but now disseminates its materials through its website and via email. The Institute is affiliated with the Legion for the Survival of Freedom and Noontide Press . [9]
You need to find better sources.
Your link came from the Institute of Historical Review. Here is what Wiki had to say about them:
The Institute for Historical Review ( IHR ), founded in 1978, is an organization primarily devoted to publishing and promoting books and essays described by critics as pseudo-historical that attack the mainstream historical consensus concerning the Nazi genocide of Jews. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] It is considered by many scholars as the center of the international Holocaust denial movement. [2] [7] [8] IHR is widely regarded as antisemitic and as having links to neo-Nazi organizations. The Institute published the Journal of Historical Review until 2002, but now disseminates its materials through its website and via email. The Institute is affiliated with the Legion for the Survival of Freedom and Noontide Press . [9]
You need to find better sources.
Pierre --
Your rebuttal is a classic example of a logical fallacy in that it attempts to rebut a position solely by attacking the motive of the person making it rather than the argument itself. The linked article does not deny the existence of the holocaust at all nor does it contain anything anti-Semitic at all. It simply takes a position and documents it. If you recall, Netanyahu took a similar position last year to the extent that he said Hitler initially intended to expel the Jews, not exterminate them. And I assume that he is neither denying the holocaust nor anti-Semitic. There are other sources that say the same thing. If you want to post an actual rebuttal as an argument, rather than a logical fallacy, then I'll read it.
1 by himself ,
You seem to be obsessed with the Jews . But the history of German holocaust is also about other groups : Gypsies , homosexuals and even some from Poland . How do you explain their holocaust ?
What was planned and what actually happened is really not the question.
The fact is that 6 million Jews were slaughtered. That is a fact that is undeniable.
It stated in 1939 with the Jews being forced into ghettos and sealed in, dying from disease and starvation.
That is also a fact. The slaughter continued until 1945, that is also a fact.
Hitler also slaughtered Roma, gays, mentally impaired, the physically impaired. That is also a fact.
If you want to run in circles about intent carry on. It's the end result that is a concrete fact.
The fact is that 6 million Jews were slaughtered. That is a fact that is undeniable
Well, 1ofmany still continues to believe that the massacre of 6 million Jews wasn't intentional. Hitler never actually intended to do it, really! it was just...an accident. All 6 million...
Plus the other groups you mentioned-- no, not intentional. All just one big accident. (Which is why I've always wondered-- why is it that Germans are such careless folks-- accidentally massacring millions of people.."accidents" that happened over a period of several year...?)/
You seem to be obsessed with the Jews . But the history of German holocaust is also about other groups : Gypsies , homosexuals and even some from Poland . How do you explain their holocaust.
All I did was make a point. The obsession came from the other direction. What's to explain? Death camps didn't start until 1942. Before that, concentration camps were for forced labor of undesirables. So Hitler used those he didn't like as forced labor and later decided to add the option of destroying those he couldn't use.
and later decided to add the option of destroying those he couldn't use.
You great compassion fr your fellow man is greatly...underwhelming!
Couldn't use their labour...so he casually added to option....of massacring 8 million Jews (Plus several million of other "racially inferior" groups). Because, after all, he didn't need their labour....
Hmmmm.... have you thought of suggesting that to Obama..".adding the option"..of slaughtering American workers-- citizens-- who are unemployed...(since they're unemployed, obviously employers feel their work isn't needed).
Your rebuttal is a classic example of a logical fallacy in that it attempts to rebut a position solely by attacking the motive of the person making it rather than the argument itself.
Show me where I attacked you. I attacked the source. It is well cited that this organization is not only anti semitic but also holocaust deniers.
The linked article does not deny the existence of the holocaust at all nor does it contain anything anti-Semitic at all. It simply takes a position and documents it.
No, it invents a history that never happened. And the bottom line is that 12 million people were exterminated, including 6 million Jews.
If you recall, Netanyahu took a similar position last year to the extent that he said Hitler initially intended to expel the Jews, not exterminate them.
First of all, I don't recall that. Second, I don't give a rats ass what Netanyahu thinks, since I have no respect for the man. And still, that has nothing to do with this women and what the Nazis did.
Your rebuttal is a classic example of a logical fallacy in that it attempts to rebut a position solely by attacking the motive of the person making it rather than the argument itself.
Show me where I attacked you. I attacked the source. It is well cited that this organization is not only anti semitic but also holocaust deniers.
I didn't say that you attacked me. Attacking the source (i.e. the organization) is the logical fallacy because it doesn't rebut anything in the article at all but rather attacks the group/person who wrote it.
The linked article does not deny the existence of the holocaust at all nor does it contain anything anti-Semitic at all. It simply takes a position and documents it.
No, it invents a history that never happened. And the bottom line is that 12 million people were exterminated, including 6 million Jews.
And you haven't pointed out a single thing in the article that is historically inaccurate or an invention. If you and others want to limit your understanding of the event to the bottom line, then that's your choice and perfectly fine by me. I, however, wish to dig deeper and based my original comment on that -- the response (by Krishna, not you) was that I had no basis for my view so I posted the article which you then attacked (not me personally but the article) based on a logical fallacy.
If you recall, Netanyahu took a similar position last year to the extent that he said Hitler initially intended to expel the Jews, not exterminate them.
First of all, I don't recall that. Second, I don't give a rats ass what Netanyahu thinks, since I have no respect for the man. And still, that has nothing to do with this women and what the Nazis did.
Once you read it, the wind goes out of that anti-Semitic balloon (unless you think Netanyahu is an anti-Semite or too stupid to have an opinion on history or both). I have no respect for Netanyahu either (and disagree with him on many things) but that doesn't make everything he says false just because he said it. As for bringing up Netanyahu, I wouldn't have brought him up at all if you hadn't dismissed an article out of hand as likely anti-Semitic without recognizing that Netanyahu (who is not anti-Semitic) came to a similar conclusion himself.
I didn't say that you attacked me. Attacking the source (i.e. the organization) is the logical fallacy because it doesn't rebut anything in the article at all but rather attacks the group/person who wrote it.
The source has an agenda and is not interested in actual facts. True historians care about the facts. You can not disprove something that never happened. You can only prove what HAS happened. So anyone with a curious mind can find out what did happen. What you quoted from that site, never happened.
Once you read it, the wind goes out of that anti-Semitic balloon (unless you think Netanyahu is an anti-Semite or too stupid to have an opinion on history or both).
Please present it. And just because it came out of another Jews mouth, doesn't make it right.
Once you read it, the wind goes out of that anti-Semitic balloon (unless you think Netanyahu is an anti-Semite or too stupid to have an opinion on history or both).
Please present it. And just because it came out of another Jews mouth, doesn't make it right.
Out of his mouth. To be clear, I'm not saying it's "right" because he said it or that he's right in saying that an Arab sparked the holocaust by giving the idea to Hitler or that I like him or anything of the sort. My sole use of his statement is to rebut the notion that it's anti-Semitic, per se, to claim that the Nazis originally intended to expel the Jews rather than exterminate them. That's all.
. Second, I don't give a rats ass what Netanyahu thinks
And yet, shortly after you said that-- you posted a video of Netanyahu speaking. Do you often post videos of people expressing their views-- when you don't "Give a rat's ass what those people think?"
LOL!
You are fooling no one 1ofmany . . . your credibility is rapidly sinking by the moment..
. Second, I don't give a rats ass what Netanyahu thinks
And yet, shortly after you said that-- you posted a video of Netanyahu speaking. Do you often post videos of people expressing their views-- when you don't "Give a rat's ass what those people think?"
LOL!
The "rat's ass" comment is Pierre's not mine.
You are fooling no one 1ofmany . . . your credibility is rapidly sinking by the moment..
Why would I waste my time trying to fool you when you obviously can do that all by yourself? As for my credibility, if it were to sink, I'd still be able to see quite clearly over your head.
1. Netanyahu is not a historian
2. Netanyahu is wrong about his take on history to prove his agenda, which is that the Arabs never wanted Jews in that region.
3. Netanyahu has an agenda which is a different than the one that then The Institute for Historical Review ( IHR ), founded in 1978, is an organization primarily devoted to publishing and promoting books and essays described by critics as pseudo-historical that attack the mainstream historical consensus concerning the Nazi genocide of Jews. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] It is considered by many scholars as the center of the international Holocaust denial movement. [2] [7] [8] IHR is widely regarded as antisemitic and as having links to neo-Nazi organizations. The Institute published the Journal of Historical Review until 2002, but now disseminates its materials through its website and via email. The Institute is affiliated with the Legion for the Survival of Freedom and Noontide Press . [9]
1. Netanyahu is not a historian
The question was whether Hitler originally intended to expel or exterminate the Jews. Historians are not in agreement on this point and he can choose which one to believe just like you do. Again, my sole reason for using him is to rebut any notion that picking the expulsion side is not ipso facto anti-Semitic since Netanyahu came to the same conclusion and he is a Jew.
2. Netanyahu is wrong about his take on history to prove his agenda, which is that the Arabs never wanted Jews in that region.
He is wrong in his agenda but not demonstrably wrong on the point that Hitler did not intend to exterminate the Jews.
3. Netanyahu has an agenda which is a different than the one that then The Institute for Historical Review ( IHR ), founded in 1978, is an organization primarily devoted to publishing and promoting books and essays described by critics as pseudo-historical that attack the mainstream historical consensus concerning the Nazi genocide of Jews. [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] It is considered by many scholars as the center of the international Holocaust denial movement. [2] [7] [8] IHR is widely regarded as antisemitic and as having links to neo-Nazi organizations. The Institute published the Journal of Historical Review until 2002, but now disseminates its materials through its website and via email. The Institute is affiliated with the Legion for the Survival of Freedom and Noontide Press . [9]
His position is the same as IHR in that he said Hitler intended to expel the Jews not exterminate them. Since you have repeated your position on the agenda of IHR, I'll repeat mine that attacking the source (the article, not me) as a rebuttal is a logical fallacy. It does not become logical by attacking it again. Find fault with the information in the article if you can but I really don't care what the IHR's agenda is if the information is accurate. It's not inaccurate simply because they say it.
IHR is widely regarded as antisemitic and as having links to neo-Nazi organizations...
You need to find better sources.
"Better Sources"? That's an undetstatement. What he needs to find are sources that aren't blatantly bigoted Not sources whose sole purpose is to spread hatred and bigotry. (That would be good idea...for starters).
What difference does it make exactly when Hitler decided to kill all the Jews?
The SS was committing genocide in Russia from mid 1941. Jews were among those targeted for a bullet in the back of the head or lined up next to a road and mowed down with machine gun fire. The gas chambers were merely a procedural and "technological" advancement.
I don't know when Hitler himself decided to kill all the Jewish people. But, officially, wasn't there a paper called The Wanasee Protocol that officially made it a part of the German government's agenda? Seems to me that a meeting between Himmler and a bunch of other functionaries took place, and came up with the plan. Dutifully, in their obsession with paperwork, they wrote it all down and labeled it Top Secret.
But, I have no idea when Hitler made the decision himself. It seems to me that the tried to make them so uncomfortable that they would leave, but they had no place to go. Even here. Our own government, under the immigration head, whose name escapes me, had a list of HUGE requirements, including a letter that vouched for the character of the Jewish person-- an official government letter. Which no Jewish person could get from the government who was painting them all as crooks and liars, etc. Sumner Welles. That's who it was, I think, Sumner Welles...
I don't know when Hitler himself decided to kill all the Jewish people.
Here's some information from the U.S. Holocaust Museum that may be relevant:
Under the rule of Adolf Hitler, the persecution and segregation of Jews was implemented in stages. After the Nazi party achieved power in Germany in 1933, its state-sponsored racism led to anti-Jewish legislation, economic boycotts, and the violence of the Kristallnacht ("Night of Broken Glass") pogroms, all of which aimed to systematically isolate Jews from society and drive them out of the country.
After the September 1939 German invasion of Poland (the beginning of World War II ), anti-Jewish policy escalated to the imprisonment and eventual murder of European Jewry. The Nazis first established ghettos (enclosed areas designed to isolate and control the Jews) in the Generalgouvernement (a territory in central and eastern Poland overseen by a German civilian government) and the Warthegau (an area of western Poland annexed to Germany). Polish and western European Jews were deported to these ghettos where they lived in overcrowded and unsanitary conditions with inadequate food.
After the June 1941 German invasion of the Soviet Union , SS and police units (acting as mobile killing units ) began massive killing operations aimed at entire Jewish communities. By autumn 1941, the SS and police introduced mobile gas vans. These paneled trucks had exhaust pipes reconfigured to pump poisonous carbon monoxide gas into sealed spaces, killing those locked within. They were designed to complement ongoing shooting operations.
In the autumn of 1941, SS chief Heinrich Himmler assigned German General Odilo Globocnik (SS and police leader for the Lublin District) with the implementation of a plan to systematically murder the Jews of the Generalgouvernement. The code name Operation Reinhard was eventually given to this plan, named after Heydrich (who was assassinated by Czech partisans in May 1942). As part of Operation Reinhard, Nazi leaders established three killing centers in Poland— Belzec , Sobibor , and Treblinka —with the sole purpose of the mass murder of Jews.
So it would seem the idea started fairly early on, and progressed in stages.
Six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust —two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II.
Two thirds of European Jews were killed before WWII even started!
I have read this. The Germans decided that it was too hard on the troops to line everyone up in front of trenches and shoot them, then go back and shoot any heaving bodies in the trenches... (This thought makes me utterly ill.) However, after Kristalnacht, when the Jewish people were trying to leave, and no one would take them, he decided to rid himself of the "problem". Even the Jewish people themselves had no idea what their ultimate fate would be-- it was inconceivable to a WWI veteran that his country would kill him. (I agree that it is inconceivable!)
Einsatzkruppen, I think was its name. Depending on where you were, you were either going to be shot in front of a trench, mostly in the eastern European theater, or sent to a 'camp', behind the lines...
Here is a map of all the concentration camps in WWII. There are some in France, Italy, Holland, and then the greatest number are in Eastern Europe.
The Germans decided that it was too hard on the troops to line everyone up in front of trenches and shoot them, then go back and shoot any heaving bodies in the trenches..
Even hard hearted SS troopers were becoming physically and mentally ill from carrying out the orders to massacre tens of thousands of defenseless people in Russia and eastern Europe. That is when they set out on a plan to kill the Jews and other undesirables with chemicals.
Two thirds of European Jews were killed before WWII even started!
This is what I talk about when I point out extrapolation of fact into falsity.
the original statement is thus....
Six million Jewish men, women, and children were killed during the Holocaust—two-thirds of the Jews living in Europe before World War II.
It was estimated that there were 9 million Jews living in Europe prior to WWII The holocaust killed 6 million of them by the time it was DONE.
Most of the killing took place between 1941-45, with the commencement of GENERALPLAN OST in which Himmler and Heydrich was given the task of eliminating the occupants of the captured areas, they formed three Einsatzgruppen under SS command to eliminate the populations. along with this they included the Jews in the extermination plan. Which had been in planning since the early summer of '41 (they were building the extermination camps and the gas chambers and ovens at this time, after learning that machine guns and bulldozing mass graves was not going to get the job done.)
Here's a quote...
Following an anticipated victory over the USSR by Nazi Germany in 1941, the SS (assisted by military and civilian authorities) intended to depopulate the regions listed above through the use of mass deportations and the physical liquidation of some parts of the indigenous population. Those who had been uprooted would be forced across the Ural Mountains into western Siberia. Still others would be disposed of using mass killing methods perfected by the SS during the slaughter of European Jewry. For reasons that remain unclear, SS planners included in the GPO provisions for the expulsion of all of Europe's Jews from the German sphere of influence, even though the regime had begun deliberately murdering Jews en masse in late summer 1941. The Slavs and Jews expelled from the "new German East" would then be prevented from returning west by the creation of a fortified borderland that stretched from the Arctic Sea to Astrakhan in the Caucasus.
Your statement is a twisting of known proven fact. And show that you are neither a scholar of history nor care to do any simple research to establish the truth of a point.
Therefore leading you to even farther and farther extrapolations that take all and any credibility away from anything you have to say.
Want to go further?
Excuse me, my memory is slipping it was 4 Einsatzgruppen .
Taken from Operation Barbarossa: biggest military adventure history
Quote:
And there was a still-darker secret Hitler hid even from his generals, aside for a few vague allusions: the planned murder of all of Europe’s Jews, beginning with roughly three million Polish Jews, 900,000 Ukrainian Jews, and 600,000 Belorussian Jews. In his fevered imagination Hitler lumped together poor Jewish peasants, Communist party officials, and anti-German partisans in a single, malignant conspiracy that had to be “exterminated.”
Some of the officers objected to the “Commissar Order” and atrocities against civilians on grounds of honor; Field Marshal Erich von Manstein “told the commander of the Army Group under which I served at that time… that I could not carry out such an order, which was against the honor of a soldier.” But Hitler, anticipating the qualms of his professional soldiers, gave them an easy out: much of the dirty work of hunting partisans and murdering Jews would be left to about 3,000 retired policemen and petty thugs, operating as four roving SS death squads euphemistically termed Einsatzgruppen (“Special Action Groups”).
It was under these orders that Field Marshal Guderian ordered the exact reverse and was canned for it.
All of this is well known history, clearly established and factually proven.
Your extrapolations are BUNK to put it mildly.
Thanks for correcting my memory, too!
"When the plan turned to extermination, this was kept secret. Why? I think it would have given the US a reason to enter the war prematurely before he could deal with Stalin."
What made you think that would have prompted the US to enter the war? If they ignored the plight of the relatively few Jews on the SS St. Louis, why would they even give a shit?
Actually, US Governmental policy at the time was to only grant admittance to the best and brightest, the scientists artists the jewels, so to speak, of German society.
The average common Jew was rejected/turned away/refused admittance wholesale.
And that WAS the clear stated policy of the Roosevelt Administration.
A crime in and of itself if you ask me.
The US would not have entered the war for that reason.
Important article actually. What about our own kids and grandkids, when they ask, "do you remember when rump became the CEO of Amerika"?
Not cool. Keep your partisan politics out of this.
Not cool. Keep your partisan politics out of this.
Correct. Partisan politics do not belong on NT!
And while you yourself Cerenkov, set a good example by not indulging in any partisan politics at all here-- unfortunately some others here are not as wise as you in this regard!
You are setting a good example-- keep up the good work!
I don't like Trump at all and think him a xenophobic protectionist demagogue but I don't think he'd be anything like Hitler. I don't think he'd try to become dictator for life or exterminate a portion of the population. As to the article, the central woman in the story probably didn't know the full extent of what was going on but likely knew more than she admitted to. Lastly, I think NWM is on the right track as to the number of Germans who knew what and when they knew it.
I agree with Dowser that it's surprising that anybody knew anything under these circumstances. Germany was a police state. All media was controlled by the government and it incessantly ran all sorts of propaganda to discourage anybody from believing anything said by the enemy. There was no internet, no TV. Certainly, nobody could imagine that the state was running a death machine that exterminated people by the millions. And the few that knew anything best kept their mouths shut because spreading negative gossip about the NAZIs could get you arrested.
Although there were labor camps inside Germany, the death camps were outside Germany and mostly in Poland. So most never had the opportunity to even pass by a death camp. The camps were administered by the SS under Himmler, a near psychopath. SS soldiers were the most fanatical soldiers of the Reich and would have said nothing to anyone if told that it was their duty not to speak.
The one place where killing Jews would be seen by others and talked about is if SS attachments to the army killed Jews in mass executions (which they sometimes did). Some of the regular soldiers probably told their families about what they had seen but those would have been isolated incidents not death camps.
Remember that Germany was as sophisticated a society as ours. So imagine if Trump became our dictator (it's just a hypothetical, not a prediction) and shut down all sources of information outside government control (that's possible in my hypothetical). He establishes a secret police force under his control. Congress is effectively dissolved and he declares that the court's jurisdiction no longer extends to anything he does. The courts object and he threatens to imprison the judges so they shut up. He then declares that he will deport all illegal aliens and uses the secret police to begin rounding them up. Many say good. Meanwhile, he simultaneously engages in a propaganda campaign to keep us lulled into thinking that everything is going just as he says it is. But instead of deporting illegal aliens to live somewhere else, he secretly sends them to a death camp inside Mexico operated by a separate organization of paramilitary loons outside of military control and answerable only to him. The death camp operators are assigned indefinitely and are not permitted to leave Mexico nor can they communicate outside the camp except by letter, after it is read and approved by the camp commander. People are encouraged to inform on each on other for the good of the state and they begin doing it to curry favor with the secret police. If you ask questions or disclose government secrets, somebody drops a dime on you and you and your family are arrested. So how the hell would anyone actually know what's happening in Mexico?
I would think over 95% of us would be in the dark and I think the same was true in Germany. There was simply no way for people to know and no incentive to find out.
Although there were labor camps inside Germany, the death camps were outside Germany and mostly in Poland. So most never had the opportunity to even pass by a death camp. The camps were administered by the SS under Himmler, a near psychopath. SS soldiers were the most fanatical soldiers of the Reich and would have said nothing to anyone if told that it was their duty not to speak.
Wrong. While most of the death camps were located out of Germany, the forced labor camps within Germany, like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc, ran crematoriums for those who they worked to death. This is well documented. The photos are easy to find on the internet.
To add to this Perrie, there were also gallows at Dachau. I took photos of them in 1959.
"To add to this Perrie, there were also gallows at Dachau. I took photos of them in 1959."
Don't let 1ofMany see that, Kavika. Gallows are not used to kill people who have been worked to death. They're used to kill people who are alive. He thinks extermination did not take place in the "forced labour" camps in Germany.
Wrong. While most of the death camps were located out of Germany, the forced labor camps within Germany, like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc, ran crematoriums for those who they worked to death. This is well documented. The photos are easy to find on the internet.
Of course he's wrong! )And what makes his comments even so bizarre is that the facts are easily available on the 'net).
Which raises an interesting question-- why do people frequently make such stupid comments like that?
1.Is it just a case of extreme laziness (saying the first thing thatv pops into their head-- even though they know so little about the topic being discussed?). Or--
2. Is it that they have such a strong (& biased!) political agenda, and will post anything that supports their agenda-- even if its a blatant lie? Or--
3. Perhaps in some cases they just aren't all that intelligent (to put it mildly!!!).
Unfortunately that sort of "shooting off at the mouth" without thinking isn all too common online-- and is one of the major reasons why so many online discussions are just . . . so f*ckin' dumb!
Yuk.
From what I have read, the Nazis knew that they couldn't hide the smell, so they told the people in the towns nearby 1/2 of the truth-- that it was crematoriums that were dealing with those who had naturally died. So they felt like they knew, but had no idea the conditions there, other than they were bad conditions. But they were concentration camps, the conditions weren't supposed to be good. I don't remember reading that the people nearby had any real idea of what was really going on...
Suspicions aside, I can't imagine grasping the truth and still having to live there, under a government when even your wildest whisper could land you in a camp with bad conditions... Who wants to believe, as a patriot, that your government is killing people on such a large scale? Who wouldn't willingly swallow any lie, to feel good about their country, especially when it is dangerous to feel badly?
I'm not apologizing for them, but I am thinking if I were in their position, what would I do? How could anything I could do stop the massacre? No matter how sympathetic or intuitive or well-meaning I am, what could I have done? Join them in the concentration camp? MANY religious leaders, average citizens, and famous people were there for just condemning the actions of a few instances. Only when they got to the concentration camp, did they know the entire story-- and even then, they only knew the major parts of the story that they could see with their own eyes...
Unfortunately that sort of "shooting off at the mouth" without thinking isn all too common online-- and is one of the major reasons why so many online discussions are just . . . so f*ckin' dumb!
I think shooting one's mouth off without thinking should be an Olympic sport. Your serial dumbass comments could earn you a gold medal without breaking a sweat.
Although there were labor camps inside Germany, the death camps were outside Germany and mostly in Poland. So most never had the opportunity to even pass by a death camp. The camps were administered by the SS under Himmler, a near psychopath. SS soldiers were the most fanatical soldiers of the Reich and would have said nothing to anyone if told that it was their duty not to speak.
Wrong. While most of the death camps were located out of Germany, the forced labor camps within Germany, like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc, ran crematoriums for those who they worked to death. This is well documented.
I was referring to camps whose sole purpose was extermination not forced labor and my language above makes that clear. The issue, if you recall, was whether the Germans were aware of the extermination camps. The distinction between forced labor and extermination camps is obvious. Germans knew there were forced labor camps. Pointing out that forced labor camps existed in Germany (something that was not in dispute) does not mean that Germans were aware of extermination camps outside Germany.
And I pointed out the proximity of Munich to Dachau. I even gave a map. It is well documented that the people of Munich could smell the crematoriums. They would have to be stupid not to know they were burning bodies non stop. There were also accounts of Germans who actually sheltered Jews because they knew what was going on.
As for the issue about this women, of course she knew. She typed up the orders. She was there upon Hitler's death. This was a well vetted secretary to the most powerful man in Nazi Germany and only the most trusted people got those positions.
There was a factual movie called "The Inner Circle" about Stalin's film projectionist. He was well vetted, too and he knew everything that was going on with Stalin and his most trusted advisors. Stalin was no different than Hitler in that way.
While I certainly agree with your statement, let me add another question: Could Bill Clinton's secretary have stopped the affair with he and Monica Lewinsky? Ha!
Could Bill Clinton's secretary have stopped the affair with he and Monica Lewinsky?
Yes-- of course she could've. By leaking the story to the press!
That would certainly have stopped it immediately!!!
But we have a free press... And she would have lost her job, immediately. Very different set of circumstances....
While I certainly agree with your statement, let me add another question: Could Bill Clinton's secretary have stopped the affair with he and Monica Lewinsky? Ha!
Hillary must have smelled the truth and chose not to do anything. Bill's secretary must have known because secretaries know everything.
I'd bet she knew... But what could she have done? Going to the press meant more work for her, and the contempt of Hilary... She probably didn't want to stir the pot. After all, there is a long tradition of mistresses in the WH.
And I pointed out the proximity of Munich to Dachau. I even gave a map. It is well documented that the people of Munich could smell the crematoriums. They would have to be stupid not to know they were burning bodies non stop. There were also accounts of Germans who actually sheltered Jews because they knew what was going on.
First of all, I don't know what burning bodies smell like and, if I did, I wouldn't be able to distinguish a forced labor camp from a death camp base don smell. If you were in Munich perhaps you could have run through the country like a town crier making those further away aware of what you had determined purely through smell . . . that the labor camp was now an extermination camp. So how do you think Germans knew what you think is so obvious? Mail? Telephone? Bus tour? Smoke signals?
As for the issue about this women, of course she knew. She typed up the orders. She was there upon Hitler's death. This was a well vetted secretary to the most powerful man in Nazi Germany and only the most trusted people got those positions.
You have absolutely no idea what orders she typed. They could have been purely propaganda statements or inventory requests or taking messages or anything secretaries do.
There was a factual movie called "The Inner Circle" about Stalin's film projectionist. He was well vetted, too and he knew everything that was going on with Stalin and his most trusted advisors. Stalin was no different than Hitler in that way.
This is entirely speculative. Just because Stalin trusted someone (and he was actually known for not trusting anybody) doesn't mean that Goebbels trusted his secretary to be anything other than a secretary. Honestly, why would a 105 year old woman give a shit what anybody thinks of her?
First of all, I don't know what burning bodies smell like and, if I did, I wouldn't be able to distinguish a forced labor camp from a death camp base don smell.
Gee, an odd smell permeates the air for 12 years and no one asked a question?
From NPR:
He says they talked with British POWs but no U.S. ones. German civilians in the area also said they had no idea what the concentration camp really was. Burns was incredulous.
"We thought they should at least have smelled the crematorium," he says, adding he has found out since that "crematoriums don't emit the same smell as people killed in combat."
The smell is also something seared into his and his twin brother Howard's memory, says Hilbert Margol. They, like Burns, were with the 42nd Infantry Division.
Their unit's objective on April 29, 1945, was Munich, when they were ordered to pull over to the side of the road, set up their howitzers and fire a few rounds in the city's direction, Margol says.
Suddenly, "everyone noticed a strange odor in the air, a very strong odor," he recalls. "One of our jeep drivers came by and said it must be a chemical factory."
But his brother said it smelled more like when his mother would hold freshly killed chicken over the gas flame in the kitchen to burn off the pinfeathers. The twins decided to go into the woods to investigate.
"The first thing we saw was a line of railway boxcars," he says. "We looked in one of the boxcars and there were just bodies strewn around inside."
They took pictures of the horrors they saw, some of which now hang in the U.S. Holocaust Museum. But Margol says it took years for the gravity of what had happened at concentration camps like Dachau under the Nazi regime to sink in.
If you were in Munich perhaps you could have run through the country like a town crier making those further away aware of what you had determined purely through smell . . . that the labor camp was now an extermination camp. So how do you think Germans knew what you think is so obvious? Mail? Telephone? Bus tour? Smoke signals?
OK so the camp is about 1/2 a mile out of the city center and you think that the town's people had no idea of what was going on? I mean no one would be curious enough to go and investigate. People investigate for just an odd smell in the air. Talk about making excuses.
First of all, I don't know what burning bodies smell like and, if I did, I wouldn't be able to distinguish a forced labor camp from a death camp base don smell.
Gee, an odd smell permeates the air for 12 years and no one asked a question?
How silly of them. If you live in a police state next to a concentration camp, it makes perfect sense to skip over there past the keep out signs and barbed wire and ask the kindly armed SS guards if they could please tell you what's that odd odor. Or don't bother the guards and snoop around and see if they can drop you with one shot. Or call Himmler on the phone and ask if he has a few minutes to answer some questions about the camp. Maybe file a Freedom of Information request or call the health department.
German civilians had no idea what the concentration camp really was. Burns was incredulous.
Our government always explains to our citizens what goes on in secret facilities so I really don't understand why a Nazi police state wouldn't be open about it too.
We thought they should at least have smelled the crematorium, he says, adding that he has found out since that crematoriums don't emit the same smell as people killed in combat.
Well I guess if they had known beforehand what he found out afterward, then they could have come to the inexorable conclusion there was a crematorium on the site and it's only possible purpose was to exterminate the entire Jewish population of Europe.
Suddenly, everyone noticed a strange odor in the air, a very strong odor . . . One of our jeep drivers came by and said it must be a chemical factory. But his brother said it smelled more like when his mother would hold freshly killed chicken over a gas flame in the kitchen to burn off the pinfeathers.
Well if one thought it was a chemical factory and the other thought it smelled like burning pinfeathers off a chicken, then the only possibly conclusion that the German civilians could come to was that it was a death camp used for genocide of the entire population of Europe. Perfectly logical.
We looked in one of the boxcars and there were just bodies strewn around inside.
And because they looked around a concentration camp, it's perfectly reasonable to expect the townspeople to do the same and risk being shot. Plus, if they saw dead bodies in a boxcar, then they couldn't possibly conclude anything other than this was part of the genocide of 12 million people. We know it now so they must have known it then because foresight, like hindsight, is 20/20.
If you were in Munich perhaps you could have run through the country like a town crier making those further away aware of what you had determined purely through smell . . . that the labor camp was now an extermination camp. So how do you think Germans knew what you think is so obvious? Mail? Telephone? Bus tour? Smoke signals?
OK so the camp is about 1/2 a mile out of the city center and you think that the town's people had no idea of what was going on? I mean no one would be curious enough to go and investigate.
Sure why not. It's only a Nazi concentration camp not much different than a carnival. The guards welcome towns people to mosey on over and check it out. After the guards give them a tour and answer questions, then the people can just go home and tell everybody what they learned.
I was referring to camps whose sole purpose was extermination not forced labor and my language above makes that clear. The issue, if you recall, was whether the Germans were aware of the extermination camps. The distinction between forced labor and extermination camps is obvious. Germans knew there were forced labor camps. Pointing out that forced labor camps existed in Germany (something that was not in dispute) does not mean that Germans were aware of extermination camps outside Germany.
The information that Perrie just provided makes its quite clear that they were aware of it.
DUH!
There's an olde saying-- sage advice that you may find useful:
If you're in a hole . . . stop digging!
The information that Perrie just provided makes its quite clear that they were aware of it.
DUH!
There's an olde saying-- sage advice that you may find useful:
If you're in a hole . . . stop digging!
DUH yourself. That information establishes no such thing as I stated . . . but then again, I assume you're not saying that because some German civilian somewhere may have known that means most Germans everywhere knew or that forced labor camps and extermination camps are interchangeable terms.
Because everyone knows that forced labor is OK, right?
And for the record, every one of those camps had a crematorium and eventually turned into a death camp.
Because everyone knows that forced labor is OK, right?
Both are bad but still not the same.
And for the record, every one of those camps had a crematorium and eventually turned into a death camp.
Having a crematorium does not make it an extermination camp. As you yourself noted, the extermination camps were outside Germany. If you want to believe they were inside Germany, then we just disagree.
Yes, there is a HUGE difference between a camp that works people to death and one that specifically just kills them.
Yes, there is a HUGE difference between a camp that works people to death and one that specifically just kills them.
Of course they're different. Even an imbecile, if given the choice of camp placement, would pick a labor camp over an extermination camp. One is the chance to possibly live through the experience; the other is certain death. But I guess that they're some here whose hand I'd have to grab and say "no stupid, don't pick the extermination camp."
Do you think they were given a choice?
My comment obviously required an s/.
The office in which she worked was the office of Nazi propaganda. Would that not be the office that would instruct the general public not to attempt to hide or assist the Jews, or they would join them? Please don't trifle with my intelligence to say that the general public was not aware of that. Even a secretary would not have been ignorant of the manner in which Jews were treated even before the war, and so much worse during it. Perhaps she was not aware of the death camps, but if she thought the work camps were a kind of Disneyland, then I doubt she had the intelligence to be a typist.
Do you think they were given a choice?
My comment obviously required an s/.
My comment was phrased in the subjunctive mood. That means it suggests a condition contrary to fact and is obviously sarcaism. I didn't think an s/ was required for reasonably intelligent people. Now, intelligent people know that labor camps and extermination camps were not the same simply because they both have crematoriums. I was simply saying that, if one could choose (which they couldn't), then no one would be stupid enough to pick an extermination camp.
The office in which she worked was the office of Nazi propaganda. Would that not be the office that would instruct the general public not to attempt to hide or assist the Jews, or they would join them.
Join them in a concentration camp, which could be just a labor camp not an extermination camp since the two are different.
Please don't trifle with my intelligence to say that the general public was not aware of that.
Since you have already recognized the difference between the two camps, your intelligence should tell you that being aware of concentration camps used for forced labor is not ipso facto knowledge of the existence of an extermination camp (a point you recognize below).
Even a secretary would not have been ignorant of the manner in which Jews were treated even before the war, and so much worse during it. Perhaps she was not aware of the death camps, but if she thought the work camps were a kind of Disneyland, then I doubt she had the intelligence to be a typist.
I have no idea what you're debating. Nobody has remotely suggested that anyone was ever under the illusion that a concentration camp was anything other than an awful prison. Everybody in Germany knew that and this woman has never said anything to the contrary. That, however, does not mean that everybody in Germany, in general, or this woman, in particlar, knew some concentration camps were being used for extermination. She still wouldn't have to know it even if she worked for Goebbels. Why? Because he doesn't have to share state secrets with her any more than I have to share with my secretary the substance of discussions in executive sessions or anything else I don't want her to know. It's really easy or did you write into your secretary's job description that she is entitled to know everything you do?
The title of this article is "We knew nothing." THAT is the statement that I do not believe. Forget the difference between death camps and concentration camps and forced labour (slavery) camps. There is no way that ANY German could have known "NOTHING!!!!".
The title of this article is "We knew nothing." THAT is the statement that I do not believe. Forget the difference between death camps and concentration camps and forced labour (slavery) camps. There is no way that ANY German could have known "NOTHING!!!!"
You have to read it all, not just the title. In the link, she's clearly referring to the Holocaust which was the result of extermination camps. There were two types of concentration camps: one for forced labor; the other for extermination. The forced labor camps were common knowledge and nobody can argue that they didn't know about them. The extermination camps were kept secret. What is at issue is whether she was aware that some of the concentration camps were extermination camps. I don't know whether she was aware or not but Goebbels could conceivably act as minister of propaganda without ever mentioning (to her) extermination camps that were under control of the SS, not him.
"Germans knew there were forced labor camps. Pointing out that forced labor camps existed in Germany (something that was not in dispute) does not mean that Germans were aware of extermination camps outside Germany."
And I suppose the common German folk were okay with that.
I think the fear of the forced labor camps was one thing that kept many silent about it. Ask no questions, believe what is put before you. As long as it happens to "other people" your life is safe... relatively speaking.
Although there were labor camps inside Germany, the death camps were outside Germany and mostly in Poland. So most never had the opportunity to even pass by a death camp. The camps were administered by the SS under Himmler, a near psychopath. SS soldiers were the most fanatical soldiers of the Reich and would have said nothing to anyone if told that it was their duty not to speak.
Wrong. While most of the death camps were located out of Germany, the forced labor camps within Germany, like Dachau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, etc, ran crematoriums for those who they worked to death. This is well documented. The photos are easy to find on the internet.
Its really no use Perrie. Every time someone publishes facts that clearly refute one of 1ofmany's lies, he changes the subject-- and comes up with some other bizarre (& totally false) theory. Whatever his agenda is, he's obviously obsessed with trying to promote his warped theories-- the truth be damned!
Its really no use Perrie. Every time someone publishes facts that clearly refute one of 1ofmany's lies, he changes the subject-- and comes up with some other bizarre (& totally false) theory. Whatever his agenda is, he's obviously obsessed with trying to promote his warped theories-- the truth be damned!
You can parade your opinion as irrefutable fact all you like but it's still just your dumbass opinion. Nothing more.
Krishna - are you really trying to take over the FP as the expert. You've got comments everywhere and you keep saying the same thing.
The fact that even today that she says she was just doing a job doesn't forgive the atrocities of the office, she seems pretty cold about this and rationalizes it (probably to keep her own sanity intact).
In 1988 while on vacation in Germany, I was on a Bus Tour and part of the tour was to go to Dachau, the German tour guide tried to talk us into going somewhere else that he thought would be better, but the passengers disagreed. It was the most solemn place I have ever been in my life. To this day when I think about it, I feel the weight of history.
So what? The lady is 105 years old - she was a secretary to Goebbels and typed, filed, answered the phone, got him coffee - things that secretaries did for their bosses in those days. Are they wanting to put her on trial for the deaths of the prisoners - to make HER pay for the atrocities done to the Jewish population? Bullshit. She was not a decision maker and had absolutely no control over who died and who didn't.
NWM - No, it is NOT from AIM - it is factual history.
From the Jewish Journal -
Hitler’s Inspiration and Guide: The Native American Holocaust -
As Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Toland, notes in his book Adolf Hitler (pg. 202):
Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.
He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government's forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination.
Ugly Precursor to Auschwitz: Hitler Said to Have Been Inspired by U.S. Indian Reservation System
Read more atThe idea of a prison camp – specifically Auschwitz, in Oświęcim, Poland – where Hitler's soldiers would shoot, hang, poison, mutilate and starve men, women and children en mass was not an idea Hitler, the bigot, came up with on his own. In fact, the Pulitzer-Prize winning biographer John Toland wrote that Hitler was inspired in part by the Indian reservation system – a creation of the United States.
“Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history,” Toland wrote in his book, Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography. “He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.”
I don't see anyone calling for her to be tried. convicted, imprisoned in this discussion.
1st, no one called for her to be tried for war crimes. She can rationalize all she wants, the fact remains that her position was one that should have been aware of the camps and the treatment of Jewish people.
1st, no one called for her to be tried for war crimes. She can rationalize all she wants, the fact remains that her position was one that should have been aware of the camps and the treatment of Jewish people.
But that's the point with which 1st degrees. It's precisely because she was just a secretary that she didn't have to know what was going on. She may not be rationalizing at all but rather simply stating that she did her job and didn't know (or want to know) anything beyond that.
Did you actually read your link?
It actually quotes the only source for this outside AIM...
John Toland in his book "Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography" released in 1991, which happens to coincide with the first mentions anywhere about Indian Genocide and equating the holocaust with the Indian wars.
And he mentions it on page 202, at least that is the page in my copy and the page quoted on your Jewish site link....
Here is the relevant passage... (from the site you linked to)
As Pulitzer Prize-winning author, John Toland, notes in his book Adolf Hitler (pg. 202):
Hitler's concept of concentration camps as well as the practicality of genocide owed much, so he claimed, to his studies of English and United States history. He admired the camps for Boer prisoners in South Africa and for the Indians in the wild west; and often praised to his inner circle the efficiency of America's extermination—by starvation and uneven combat—of the red savages who could not be tamed by captivity.
He was very interested in the way the Indian population had rapidly declined due to epidemics and starvation when the United States government forced them to live on the reservations. He thought the American government's forced migrations of the Indians over great distances to barren reservation land was a deliberate policy of extermination. Just how much Hitler took from the American example of the destruction of the Indian nations is hard to say; however, frightening parallels can be drawn. For some time Hitler considered deporting the Jews to a large 'reservation' in the Lubin area where their numbers would be reduced through starvation and disease.
He did not say it was fact, and in my copy of the book amongst the copious footnotes and references in the bibliography, there isn't one single source to any fact document or witness testifying to this interest of Hitlers in the quote genocide of the Indians.
His use of the term "Frightening parallels"? He's making a correlation, which is an opinion. Something good historians don't usually do. This lessens the credibility of the book on most historians lists. It is a rare and strange opinion showing up in his book. NOWHERE DOES IT GIVE THE SOURCE! Which is a trademark of Mr Toland's works. (the source bibliography on "The Rising Sun" ran to 400 pages).
Also this is NEVER mentioned in Mr Shirer's work, or Mr Speer's work. Which are the definitive works on the Third Reich. (I checked my copies to make sure) In fact, before his death, in an interview in 1980, Mr Speer was directly asked to make this correlation, which he refused to do. If someone in Hitlers inner circle, and as minister of production and transportation was responsible for getting the trains moving on time and with full loads he would know... (spoke and worked along side Hitler for over 19 years on almost a daily basis)
He rejected the thought as ridiculous.
The fact that is shows up on a liberal Jewish Blog is not unusual and is the ONLY Jewish site where it does. Specifically quoting Mr Toland's opinion as fact. Nowhere else does this one little passage get quoted as fact in any historical research.
Except on Indian Country News Today. AIM's journalism mouthpiece quoting the same passage does not lend the opinion any more credence or make it any more valid.
Like I said any credible source that does show the factual basis for the claim.
Haven't got there yet. And yes I agree that there are some stunning correlations between the Armenian Genocide and the Indian Wars and the Jewish Genocide. there is no fact evidence available to definitively prove that Hitler planned anything along the lines of either historical event. In fact what historical facts there are and have been elicited on this subject, run in the other direction to disprove such claim.
The site goes on to discuss said parallels, and leaves any basis in fact behind...
Still waiting on proof.....
And a Liberal Jewish political blog and AIM doesn't cut it. For me or any other serious historian out there.
John Toland in his book "Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography" released in 1991, which happens to coincide with the first mentions anywhere about Indian Genocide and equating the holocaust with the Indian wars.
Toland's biography of Hitler originally came out in 1976.
Really? according to Barnes and Nobel and Amazon it was released December 28th 1991 .
This also conforms to my local libraries ISBN database for this particular book.
Don't know what book your talking about, but it isn't the one we are talking about.
Adolph Hitler Vol I and II by Toland, published 1976
You can find it on Amazon.
That is not the book we are discussing. we are discussing one passage in the book "Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography" and in fact is not the same book.
I provided B&H links to the book being cited by the author and quoted on both the sites 1st posted.
Here is AMAZON'S page to the cited reference
The book you are citing....
Adolf Hitler, Volumes I & II Hardcover – 1976 by John Toland
Does not address this subject at all. In fact states no opinions at all, (at least in my copy of it) just a factual recounting of known provable facts and personal histories of people involved. (with extensive bibliography as impressive as "The Rising Sun" is)
It is what makes Mr Toland's departure for his usual straight historical aspect writing strange in his newer book.
A definitive departure from his usual renowned historical accuracy.
I read John Toland's biography of Hitler in the mid-late 1970's.
I don't think he wrote two different 1000 page biographies of Hitler.
Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography , 1976, ISBN 0-385-42053-6 .
Now you see, under subsequent investigation, reveals that you right!
The two books are almost the same.
Except the 1991 release is an edited reissue under a new name as a single book with a new publisher rather than the original issue as two volumes. This is why it has two different ISBN's Cause the book catalogers show them as two different books.
The page in question, in the original book does not contain the questioned passage.
It was edited by Toland. Which is his right I suppose.
Still no factual source proof.
The page in question, in the original book does not contain the questioned passage.
Are you trying to say that you have copies of both editions of the book in your hands right now?
And a paperback edition is not going to show a specific section of text on the same page number as the hardcover edition.
No, I don't have both in front of me, my two volume original is in storage. (not enough shelf space unfortunately)
I don't remember such a passage being in there. My memory is pretty good, but if you want I'll go dig it out and compare the two if you like..
You will have to give me a couple of days....
I don't think you should go to all that trouble.
Really? according to Barnes and Nobel and Amazon it was released December 28th 1991 .
According to Amazon, the 1991 edition was a paperback re-release.
That was the title of ONE of his books John
Hitler: The Pictorial Documentary of His Life
Nov 1978
Hitler (Wordsworth Collection)
Jul 1998
Neither do your ramblings and multi-postings. You have and have admitted an extreme bias towards AIM. During previous discussions, you could tell/list/mark no direct correlation to their activities and your disdain, nor could you post/provide/prove any personal involvement to cause such disdain.
Hitler Quotes About the Genocide and Removal of the American Indian
" There is only one task: Germanization through the introduction of Germans [to the area] and to treat the original inhabitants like Indians. … I intend to stay this course with ice-cold determination. I feel myself to be the executor of the will of History. What people think of me at present is all of no consequence. Never have I heard a German who has bread to eat express concern that the ground where the grain was grown had to be conquered by the sword. We eat Canadian wheat and never think of the Indians [ 2] ."
Also, from "another" bias Israeli source -
"I further had no idea that one of the greatest admirers of the American Cowboy was an Austrian-German by the name of Adolf Hitler. In fact, Hitler was not only an admirer of the Cowboy, he was a consummate student of the genocide of Native Americans. Adolf Hitler would draw on the lessons learned in America to design the trains and the concentration camps that would lead to the butcher of millions of Jews as well as homosexuals, gypsies and other undesirables of the nascent Nazi Empire.
In an eye-opening article by Lia Mandelbaum, entitled Hitler’s Inspiration and Guide: The Native American Holocaust , the encouragement for the expediency of Hitler’s Final Solution is outlined in frightening detail. The article concentrates on both the 1864 relocation of the Navajos and the Mescalero Apaches in a camp called Bosque Redondo, a isolated and forsaken patch of New Mexico territory. During the 300 mile walk, hundreds died and thousands more found their demise in the camp itself – men, women and children.
This story is recounted in the 1985 documentary, Broken Rainbow . It is also told that Adolf Hitler studied the plans of the Bosque Redondo in order to design the Nazi concentration camps."
- another Jewish perspective.
You keep quoting the same article author, the ONLY writer, not a historian, a journalist, claiming that it proves the thesis.
WITHOUT PROVIDING ANY FACT!
Mere repetition does not make veracity.
Opinions are not facts.
Correlation is not causation.
IF you come up with verifiable facts my position WILL CHANGE, I am open to FACTS, not OPINIONS on this subject.
Let me know when you get some.
In Hitler's own words - 17 October 1941, Hitler Monologue, Führer Headquarters, in Madajczyk, Generalny, pp. 69-70.
“The [eastern] region must lose the character of the Asiatic steppe, it must be Europeanized! It is for this purpose that we are building great highways to the southern tip of the Crime and to the Caucasus. German cities established along these roadways will stretch like a string of pearls, and around these will be German settlements. The two or three million people we need [for this program] can be found quicker than we think. We will take them from Germany, the Scandinavian lands, Western Europe, and America. Chances are that I will not live to see this, but in twenty years twenty million people will inhabit this territory. In three hundred years we will have a blossoming parkland of extraordinary beauty!
As for the people indigenous to the area, we will be sure to select those [of importance]. We will remove the destructive Jews entirely. … We will not enter Russian cities, they must die out completely.
There is only one task: Germanization through the introduction of Germans [to the area] and to treat the original inhabitants like Indians. … I intend to stay this course with ice-cold determination. I feel myself to be the executor of the will of History. What people think of me at present is all of no consequence. Never have I heard a German who has bread to eat express concern that the ground where the grain was grown had to be conquered by the sword. We eat Canadian wheat and never think of the Indians.”
And this source - Frank Parrella, “Lebensraum and Manifest Destiny: A Comparative Study in the Justification of Expansionism” (MA Thesis: Georgetown University, 1950). An adequate comparative treatment of the similarities and contrasts between the Lebensraum-based foreign policy of Nazi Germany and the American policy of Manifest Destiny.
NWM, you are not a historian - you just like to think of yourself as one. I prefer to read from PUBLISHED authors, not fairy-tale ones on NT/NV.
Well thank you for that.
I will research and get back to you....
You have a link to the whole document?
Well preliminary research on worldcat shows a number of sources for materials on this subject....
Which lead me to this...
Acts of Rebellion: The Ward Churchill Reader , and more important its bibliography...
It's a shame that Toland didn't include this in his bibliography....
Will come back to this later once I've done reading.
Thank you very much 1st.
Not being obstinate, but I prefer facts to supposition, even if the supposition is based upon facts I want to see the facts...
Ward Churchill??????? You mean the wannabee Cherokee who was sued and fired by the Univ of Colorado for claiming to be Native and who published plagiarized articles/books???
Jeeezzzz dude - and you claim you do research????
Ward Churchill, are you kidding. The phony Indian that was disgraced over his so called ''works''..
LMAO, great source.
I don't give one FUCK about Ward Churchill, or his bigoted bullshite opinions, I do give a fuck about the source documents he listed in his bibliography.
Primary source documents.
Like I said, looking for the source not more bigoted bullshite....
But then you guys want to act like you actually did something worthwhile.
Hate knows no boundaries.
''Hate knows no boundaries.'' Exactly NWM, and you are the perfect example, and spare me your phony outrage.
'Scuse me NWM - as an Attorney for Federal Indian Law, I know DAMN WELL how important primary sources are - AND the extreme importance of secondary sources.
Back off and discuss the topic John posted. Your personal crap shouldn't be posted here and I've already apologized to John for allowing it to go totally off grid.
Listed above - learn to read "historian".
Excuse me, you want respect you need to earn it.
Rather than take the opportunity to actually reveal relevant fact and allow a knowledgeable person to come to his own conclusion. You prefer to insult?
Was that your point all along?
Why bother at this point.
For someone who claims to want to educate and reveal the truth, you sure do put a lot of animus into the discussion.
I will read the material and probably add it to my collection.
But you took a opportunity to build a consensus and expand everyone's knowledge, and threw it out the window. You turned it into a opportunity to disparage someone you view as beneath you.
I'm happy for you.
I hope you enjoy your juvenile sense of satisfaction.
So Liberal Jews and Native Americans can't be fair or accurate, NWM John Toland won the Pulitzer Prize for ''The Rising Sun''...and he is a historian too boot.
Yes he wrote the definitive history of the Pacific War no doubt, every statement and position discussed has a factual provable source.
And yes he won a Pulitzer. And yes he is a great historical writer.
All of that and a box of cherries. does not gain him any more credence than any other writer. He still has to have FACTS to back up his extrapolations.
And in this case he has none. At least he didn't list any sources of fact. Which along with his easy reading style is a hallmark of his writings. Easy reading with solid substance.
Who cares if he made one little slip on the substance side, allowed opinion to interject itself.
Book is still a great read. For the factual information it does contain.
But one should still be able to separate fact from opinion. Even if opinion Is surrounded by fact, it is still an unsubstantiated opinion.
I still want to see the source.
You have a perfect opportunity to change my position just provide the source.
I'll take John Toland's writing over your opinion, NWM...Since he is a proven entity.
You can put your spin to that since you are a self proclaimed historian.
you can have the last word.
Just as a side note, I've read a whole bunch of books about this, and Herman Wouk, who is a novelist, said the same thing... As did William Shirer, in the Rise and Fall of the 3rd Reich. I have over 75 books about WWII, and if they mention this, they also agree...
But, I'm a geologist, not a history major. And they keep changing the name of the fossils, etc. And find new things every day, so what do I know? Dinosaurs had feathers. Who'd a thunk it?
Dowser- I believe I read, some time ago, that some scientists believe birds actually evolved from dinosaurs. Is that true? (I think they partly based this on their bone structure-- similar in birds and dinosaurs..???).
Oh yes! The fossil record shows early birds of the Mesozoic and their subsequent evolution into the birds we know today. The key bone is the fulcrum, I think, or the wish bone-- a lot of the dinosaurs had fulcrums, (if I have that word right).
Now, they are finding imprints of the feathers in the fine sediments in China and Germany. In some cases, they are finding evidence from DNA pieces that even suggest color.
So, yes, all the birds that fly around today are the descendants of dinosaurs. Warm-blooded dinosaurs.
I think it's completely ridiculous to assume that a mere secretary working for Goebbels in the ministry of propaganda knew what the SS was doing in prison camps under the authority of Heinrich Himmler. NAZI Germany was a secretive police state that carefully controlled what the public knew and the heads of the police state were often keeping secrets from each other. A secretary would not have necessarily been in the classified information loop at all; she just types whatever she is given and what she was given did not have to contain the equivalent of top secret information. Even if she had access to some information as she typed it, the information could look like puzzle pieces to her and she would have no idea what it meant. For instance, she could be told to type something that includes the line "my fuhrer, things are proceeding according to schedule and the vermin have been removed." Is she supposed to know that it's a reference to Jews being exterminated in a concentration camp? Does it mean that Jews have been removed from a town and deported? Does it even refer to Jews at all or is referencing some other group? Could it be a reference to Russian troops? She doesn't need any of these answers to type.
I carry out my business everyday without telling my secretary anything other than what I think she needs to know and she has no way of finding it out otherwise unless I tell her. It's really quite simple. I suspect the reason this woman got her job and kept it is because she had the sense to keep her nose where it belonged. No woman in her right mind would be asking questions and snooping around about what was going on in a concentration camp (that is completely outside the ministry) unless she wanted to be accused of spying and sent to a camp herself.
I think it's completely ridiculous to assume that a mere secretary working for Goebbels in the ministry of propaganda knew what the SS was doing in prison camps under the authority of Heinrich Himmler
When American troops first entered areas nearby, they were almost overwhelmed by the smell.At first they couldn't imagine what caused it....
The German citizens knew-- there's no doubt about it.
When American troops first entered areas nearby, they were almost overwhelmed by the smell.At first they couldn't imagine what caused it....
The death camps were outside Germany. If the American troops didn't know what caused the smell until they entered the camps, the Germans living nearby wouldn't be sure what caused the smell either since the camps were off limits to them.
Many of the Jews, themselves, didn't know, until the evidence smuggled out of Auschwitz became overwhelming. Plus, people, as a whole, I think, have the will to not believe. The stories were so horrible, they couldn't believe them. Their neighbors were rounded up and vanished. Only until the end of the war, were their fates known.
Take a totalitarian regime, which none of us can imagine, and schools that teach school children to spy and report on their parents, and the official information that was being produced and distributed, etc., and it's a wonder any one knew.
I did not know about the Tuskegee awful studies, nor learn about the horrible things done to black men in Central America, until much later, after the fact. I'm not excusing the German people, but how COULD they know the full extent of the horror? It was a dangerous, well-kept secret. To even ask a question was dangerous.
I've given this a lot of thought, about where I could hide a family in my house-- certainly not in the attic. Maybe in the basement? Maybe excavate a hiding place in the dirt up under the garage? IF I could figure out how, would I do it? I hope so, but at the risk of my family's lives, I don't know. If I lived by myself, it would be easier... A no brainer. I could be killed, but if it would save other's lives, worth it. Just don't take my son's life, nor my husband's life, too.
How can the German people live with this guilt? Their only way is to recall what they knew at the time, imagine what they could have done, and realize the futility of any action they could take, knowing it would have put their own lives and those of their family, at a HUGE risk. Would anything this woman could have done, have made any change in the outcome? No. All she could do was quit her well-paying job. And that would have led to branding as a "sympathizer" to the others by her government, and could have easily put her life at risk.
I mean, I hope I would have had the courage to do the right thing, I hope I will have, if it comes to that, but I can surely see how not knowing the whole truth, allowed people to stand back and let whatever happened happen. Especially if taking any kind of action would result in a visit from the Gestapo.
I agree Dowser. It's easy in hindsight for us to say what she knew or could have done without ever having lived a day in a police state or walked a day in her shoes. It's important to note that Hitler started off as a national hero and made the cover of Time magazine. He hosted the Olympic Games to show off the marvels of a revitalized Germany. By the time ordinary people came to suspect that they were in the grasp of a modern Caligula, it was too late. In a way, this woman was a just another helpless cog in the wheel of a police state and, absent some evidence to the contrary, I'll assume that she did the best she could to survive under the circumstances. There's a saying that "it's better to sit at the devil's feet than stand in his path." Most of us would not stand in the devil's path if doing so were so inconsequential that he would have smashed us without ever having noticed we were there.
Excellent point and probably the truth of the matter. One I happen to agree with...
She may have known, she probably had some understanding of what was happening, but no actual knowledge and probably avoided acquiring any.
But in some people guilt by association is powerful justification...
Exactly Marsha, I couldn't have said it any better myself.
One cannot rationalize what should have happened, compared to what actually happened.
In her position how could she not have known, so her recitation of unknowingness rings hollow. As did Hitlers secretary, Traudl Junge's denials ring hollow.
But for the average German citizen? Highly doubtful that they knew the complete story.
What could she have done about it, too? Nothing. To do ANYTHING would have put her into a concentration camp, if not shot, immediately.
I think she's suffered enough. Who knows how many times she was raped by the Russians... I'm assuming she was raped-- just about all the women were.
One thing that clearly comes across from this woman is her ability to stand in the center of a storm and weather it. From her perspective, she was a nobody who was thrust into her position through no effort of her own. As a woman raised in a Prussian household, she did what she was told without question and that obedience was likely the reason that she was trusted. If she was told not to look at something, then she didn't because her devotion to duty was greater than her curiosity.
She says she did nothing wrong and has no intention of accepting guilt at this point in her life for the wrongdoing of others. She has been to heights few are around to talk about with a concomitant fall. She was, herself, ultimately imprisoned by the Russians in one of the very camps of which she says she had no knowledge. One of her duties was to exaggerate rapes of German women by Russian troops yet she, herself, may have ultimately been raped by them. She is now actually blind, when she may have been willfully blind before. If she's guilty of anything, then it sounds to me like karma has already made her pay for it. So I agree with Dowser that she has suffered enough.
Just putting this further in perspective, she basically was offered a job that is the near equivalent of working in the White House as Obama's secretary. She couldn't actually refuse in a police state and she wouldn't want to if it paid several times any salary she could get elsewhere. She sounds like many other people who have no interest in politics; it was just a damn good opportunity for her.
Goebbel was the only real intellectual of the lot. He was a propagandist and a master spinner. He thought the Third Reich would rule the world and probably paid no more attention to the nobody who did his typing than he did to the typewriter on which she typed. She was merely useful. The irony is that the last person he saw everyday at work is the last person alive to put a personal spin on the master spinner.
John - I'm sorry your thread has gone downhill. Neither Kavika nor I intended for it to get so out of hand. Can't apologize for NWM - haven't been able to think of one for him yet
Ditto
You do not need to apologize for me, I am quite capable of doing it myself.
And when I have read the source material you so kindly pointed out, (finally) I may change my opinion depending on what the primary documents reveal.
But not until.
I will say this, you really went overboard this time first, it had to be difficult finding such information.
I'm sure it took a while.
I will again thank you for the effort you put into that search, very obscure references, and ignore the insults.
Have a nice day.
And BTW you might want to notice that when John was proven right on the book having two editions I acknowledged it, and gave him his props/respect for it.
It's called being gracious, something you guys might want to explore.
You would get a lot more respect that way instead of making it about personalities. And no historian worth his salt accepts anything without research and proof.
You provided one document that lead me to at least three more, even if the source of the lead is dubious the source documents are not.
That is what I asked for.
Again thank you for providing it.
No problem, but you really need to stay away from ANYTHING Ward Churchill has posted/written as they have all been proven to be lies.
I'm well aware of Ward Churchill and his bogus claims, I bought and read his book quite a while ago and a lot of his claims stretch the bound of truth on their face as to be not credible. I gave the book away when I was done with it never having finished it. I never even thought to look at his sources cause his claims were so bogus as to render them meaningless. (or at least I thought at that time, the fact that he used credible sources for his tripe makes what he did even worse)
It was a shock to see the reference you posted listed as one of his sources. Makes his writing even more amazing for the length he obviously went to twist the truth.
On this thing we are in complete agreement, Ward Churchill is no historian, he is a charlatan of the first magnitude. He damaged the narrative immensely which we are still recovering from.
I do not seek a political paradigm or explanation for what transpired. I look for the truth no matter where it lies.
And I will defend that truth with every ability at my disposal. No matter what it says.
I'm sorry if my hard inquiries upsets anyone, it is not meant to, it is meant to get at the facts. So people like Ward Churchill can never damage the narrative again.
All sides have their rights and wrongs, no side is perfect.
And all sides need to wear them...
Thank you, at least we can agree on something.
Yeah, I saw that reference also and had to take a serious laughing break or else spit tea all over the 'puter.
He got what he deserved - but not enough.
Agree.
Though she witnessed Goebbels’s “total war” speech of 1943, just after the German defeat at Stalingrad, in which he called for “a war more total and radical than anything that we can even imagine today,” Ms. Pomsel said she “didn’t even realize what the speech was all about.”
“I just didn’t listen,” she said in the interview in Munich. “Because it didn’t interest me. That was a stupidity within me, I know this now.”
PhotoAfter her incarceration, Ms. Pomsel worked in German broadcasting until retiring in 1971.
She said in the interview that she never had access to information about Nazi war crimes or mass killings, and that she learned of the gas chambers and crematories only after her release.
“We knew that Buchenwald existed,” she said, but believed it was a correctional facility. “We knew it as a camp. We knew Jews went there.”
“I witnessed the deportation of Jews from Berlin,” she said, “but it was explained to us that in the East there was a flood of refugees from what would become Yugoslavia and so on, and that they were coming into Germany. They were abandoning their farms, their fields, which must be maintained. And then the Jews would come!”
In “A German Life,” Ms. Pomsel appears against a black background in extreme close-up. Interview footage is interspersed with quotations from Goebbels as well as archival material, much of it previously unreleased, from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington and the Steven Spielberg Film and Video Archive .
Ms. Pomsel struggles to describe her responsibility. “No, I wouldn’t see myself as being guilty,” she says at one point in the film. “Unless you end up blaming the entire German population for ultimately enabling that government to take control. That was all of us. Including me.”
Yet she admits to “a bit of a guilty conscience,” and laments “indifference and shortsightedness.” She questions her upbringing, “this Prussian something to follow the rules but, at the same time, to also cheat a bit, to lie or put the blame on someone else.”
Excellent John.
Proves my point well....
Not all knew, and many were propagandized away from the reality. But the truth is they should all feel some guilt, for exactly the reasons she states.
They in their blindness and ideals that they should obey all appointed authority, allowed it to happen.
As Americans it is incumbent on us as citizens to see that it doesn't happen here.
That is what we must never forget.
Not all knew.
Most, if not all Germans did know. There's little doubt about it.
I don't know what the woman knew. My feeling is that she knew something about the Jews all disappearing. She says that she thought they were taken to "correctional" facilities. Right. She knew something, as vague as it may have been.
Yet she admits to “a bit of a guilty conscience,”
If she did nothing wrong...why does she feel so guilty?
(Generally speaking, people who take some actions that they know are not wrong...do not have a guilty conscience about it...! Eh?)
Maybe she voted for Hitler? Back when they had elections?
If she did nothing wrong...why does she feel so guilty
Some people feel a collective guilt over slavery but did not personally do anything wrong.
Not all knew.
Most, if not all Germans did know. There's little doubt about it.
I think, by the end of the war, most knew something terrible was happening, but I don't think they knew the full extent until the concentration camps were open for public view.
If you live under a totalitarian government, you aren't supposed to know, or even guess. It is risking your life to ask anyone, anything, and everyone spied on each other. You may talk about it at home, but not in front of your children, for sure. And, of course, they believed in the lies put out by the propaganda machine... Up to the very last days.
Dowser -- Your point is a good one. I think few people in a free society truly appreciate living in a nightmare police state like Nazi Germany. The Gestapo had unlimited authority to arrest people for any reason with no judicial review or administrative appeal. People simply disappeared and no explanations were given. They were often never seen again (which wouldn't necessarily be unusual if they got a lengthy sentence). Nobody asked questions for fear that the Gestapo would be at their door next. On top of the fact that anybody could disappear, the fate of Jews would be at best unclear. The Nazis used forced emigration, confinement to ghettos, concentration camps for forced labor, and secret extermination camps. People did not know the fate of anyone arrested, let alone the fate of Jews. And I don't think the average person would assume that the government (crazy as it was) would actually turn to genocide (this only seems realistic to us because of hindsight).
But I look at it like this. If we had a Gestapo who could arrest people for any reason and sentence them to any length of time in a gulag (that allows no visitors) and the gulag could be anywhere, how on earth would I know whether anybody was dead or alive or what happened to a particular group of people when nobody comes back anyway and nobody will tell me anything? All media is state controlled and filled with propaganda. For people who think the average German in a police state like this would know something, I want them to explain (without insults) how you get information in an information blackout like this without being arrested?
Listening to the BBC was punishable by death, by the way. So, no one dared to listen-- except for the Jews in the ghettos, who smuggled in pieces of radios. In Holland, they smuggled in radios to use in their attics to listen to the Free Netherland broadcasts from Britain, but again, the punishment was death-- so very few could smuggle in a radio, OR could dare to listen to it. Only resistance fighters had access to the smuggled radios, to listen for signals from their leaders in Britain.
I don't think we have any idea what it was like to live under the Nazis, even though you may have had bad suspicions, nothing was ever confirmed, and in your worst dreams, who could imagine what really happened-- and it being government sanctioned and directed! NO wonder so many of the regular army committed suicide after the war, and they found out what they were fighting for. After all, many many of them thought of themselves as good Christians.
It went against the honor of a German Officer, which had been drilled into their heads since the mid 1880s. After the war, when the concentration camps became well known about, so many killed themselves because they could not accept the guilt that they had fought for such a regime.
We live in a free country. We have no idea what it's like to live in a country where your every action is spied upon, and may result in a visit from the Gestapo. People disappeared all the time-- and they didn't have to criticize, they just had to question. If you want a good book about what it was like for regular people, Miep Gies Remembers is a good book. I can't read that one any more, either... It makes me want to start saving soap, bits of thread, etc. That book, too, gives me nightmares. Note: I score very high on the scale of empathetic readers. Meaning, I take it to heart too much, and believe that it's happening to me, while I read the book...
But it was never the intent to kill the Jews.
I'm glad someone finally set the record straight. Thank yu for posting that!
True-- 6 million Jews were brutally murdered-- many tortured or forced to take part in sadistic "medical experiments". (And many more other groups as well-- but that's bit off topic).
However even though 6 million were murdered, that was never intended . No-- it was all. .an accident!
After all, let's face it. it wasn't intentional-- accidents happen!!!
/s
All your doing is revealing that you really haven't a clue as to what actually, factually happened.
So, your making extrapolations from ZERO knowledge obviously based upon emotions. (or internet searches, which afford no real scholarship at all)
Which also means aside from emotional rantings, you really have nothing to offer the discussion this has evolved into.
Not that that is going to stop you. Such never does.
But it does reveal the juvenile desire of being seen as intelligent while exposing to the educated adults, that you really aren't.
Thank you for that.
All your doing is revealing that you really haven't a clue as to what actually, factually happened.
So, your making extrapolations from ZERO knowledge obviously based upon emotions. (or internet searches, which afford no real scholarship at all)
And what are your "extrapolations" based on Egilman? (This is a serious question-- I'd really like to know).
you really have nothing to offer the discussion this has evolved into.
That is totally false. But again-- I'm curious-- what are you basing that (false) assumption on?
Because I'm discussing facts, your expoundings do not mesh with the facts. In fact your expoundings are so far from fact to be incredulous.
They can only be extrapolations of what you "think" you know. Or better put extrapolations of extrapolations.
Much like third hand heresay. The more you write the farther and farther you get away from known proven fact.
But then I'm pretty sure you haven't done any real research.
It shows in your statements.
Because I'm discussing facts, your expoundings do not mesh with the facts. In fact your expoundings are so far from fact to be incredulous.
What kind of an argument is that? its merely an opinion. It doesn't prove anything.
In fact-- I could say the same thing back to you: That's it's I who is discussing facts. That your expoundings do not mesh with facts. And that, in fact, its your expoundings are so far from fact to be incredulous!
But I won't go there. Why? Because you merely made accusations-- with nothing to back themup. There's nothing you just said that I couldn't say back to you. But if I do what you did-- make claims without anything to back them up-- it would be meaningless.
Because in both cases, they are merely accusations. Its on the level of two siblings fighting:
--Ma, he hit me first.
-Ma, she's lying -- she hit me first.
-You're lying!
No-- you're lying.
And so on. Accusations-- with nothing to back them up.
So let's start with a sensible question. You claim you know the facts and I don't. But you don't back that up. So I don't believe your "facts"have any merit.
Of course I could be wrong. So let me ask you-- where did you get your information-- that you claim is factual? What's your source? (Or did it just conveniently disappear?)
They can only be extrapolations of what you "think" you know.
That's an assumption on your part.
How do you know what I do or do not know?
What makes you think you know what I know-- and perhaps more importantly, how do you even know where I got the information from?
Much like third hand heresay. The more you write the farther and farther you get away from known proven fact.
Are your "known facts" proven? They sound like third hand hearsay to me! Am I wrong? Then by all means, divulge the source(s) of your information! (unless you suddenly decide its mysteriously "dippeared into thin air").
But then I'm pretty sure you haven't done any real research.
Well, OK then-- rather than you being "pretty sure" (based om mere guesswork) let me tell you the facts-- I've done lots of research. And its really, really--very real! More real than what you've done.
So then-- you keep avoiding my question-- what is the source of your information? The source of what you imagine might be the actual "facts"?
That's your typical response, the circle jerk.
You have no basis so you accuse the other side of having none either. in that way you can avoid the point and deflect away from the truth of the issue and bury it in non-sensical argument.
Check the links below, ( here ) that is the first source reference from 1st Warrior, Hitlers own words. (officially transcribed by someone who was actually there when he spoke them)
The second reference he gave me was this one....
Frank Parrella, “Lebensraum and Manifest Destiny: A Comparative Study in the Justification of Expansionism” (MA Thesis: Georgetown University, 1950).
Which was Mr Parrella's masters thesis and is cited in a number of secondary works as a source.
Click the link, as you can see it is only available from the USCB library as 124 photocopied pages.
This is the second primary source. And when I receive my copy, (I ordered it from the library) I will be looking for his sources.
It is called actual research.
You should learn to do some.
Yes, that's right. Killing the Jews was just a big mistake. The Nazis really intended to kill the squirrels, and when they saw those earlocks they mistook the Jews for squirrels, and killed them. In fact they loaded them up in boxcars to ship to the squirrel extermination centers - you know Auschwitz, Bergen-Belsen and all those other squirrel extermination centers. The Nazis were actually really nice people, trying to get rid of vermin.
Based on the Wannasee Protocol , they had every intention of killing every man, woman, and child of Jewish birth, or relation. But that took place in 1942. In 1941, in the conquered territories of Eastern Europe, it was already going on. The Protocol just made it official that all of the departments of the government would cooperate.
Buzz, I have grieved for this most of my life-- from when I first learned about it. Words are inadequate to express my sorrow and despair. I'm so sad for you, my dear friend.
I've tried to tell them sweets, but it seems they do not want to hear it.
The Systematic Mass Killing didn't start till 1941. And it was Himmler and Heydrich's idea. Originally intended to eliminate the populations of the conquered territories to the east for re-population. H & H Included the Jews in Generalplan east almost on a whim.
Not that Hitler didn't want the Jews gone, He did, but he didn't conceive of the methods.
Sorry if that seems wrong to you Buzz, but Hitler expected the Jew to die off by attrition through very poor treatment and segregation, after they were used up by the Reich.
That is the sad truth of it.
What is even sadder, is when they started killing in earnest they accomplished what they did in only four years.
That is what makes it so heinous and why we should never forget.....
And that is what is lost on many who think they were mass killing all along....
They weren't
The sheer scale is lost to them...
I've never read anything, anywhere, that says the general population knew what was really going on. In fact, great pains were taken not to allow anyone to know about The Wannasee Protocol or what it entailed. Or the Einsatzgruppen. Or anything about what happened to the people sent to the camps.
There is a book, they made a TV movie about it, Fatherland , starring Rutger Hauer and the Georgie Girl, (whose name escapes me this moment-- Lynn Redgrave?), about how we lost the war, and Germany was still fighting on the Eastern Front in 1961. It was a great movie-- All the Jewish People, Gypsies, etc., were gone. Those born with deformities were killed at birth. All the LGBT community had been rounded up by the Gestapo and killed. The mentally ill were taken by the Gestapo and died of "pneumonia". Available on YouTube . In this case, yes, fictional, but based on the fact that Germany had every intention of hiding it from the world-- they were still keeping it a secret in 1961. I'm going to have to watch it again. It gave me the absolute creeps the first time I watched it, and I'm a real fan of Rutger Hauer.
I haven't either, and I have family members that lived there grew up through it and survived the Russian terror/enslavement afterwards. (which is seldom talked about and when it is, a lot of the discussion reverts to justified punishment)
Such treatment of a people is NEVER justified!!!
Man by his nature is a judgemental inhumane beast. being civil and decent to one another is a choice.
That is also lost on many people. (as amply demonstrated here from time to time)
But except for further discussion with First on the limited subject we were at odds about, (not so much anymore) I'm done with this conversation.
No one can help the blind if they choose not to see.
Love ya girl, always...
NWM
Love you, too!!! Always!
Dowser -- For a geologist, you certainly are well read on this historical period.
50+ books. I've read them all. From historical tomes to novels. It was a 'hobby', so to speak.
From what I've read, even FDR didn't know exactly what was going on. He knew the conditions in the work camps were terrible, but he had no idea of the extermination camps.
Military intelligence knew about the work camps, that had disposal facilities to dispose of the dead slaves. Bergen-Belsen, Soldau, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mittelbau-Dora-Nordhausen, Mauthausen-Gusen and over 50 more scattered all over Europe. These were the camps that even Germans that did know something knew about.
What they didn't know about were the specific holding/extermination camps, where the only work was the disposal of large quantities of bodies of which there were six camps solely devoted to extermination, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Sobibor, and Treblinka.
They didn't find about about those until the troops actually entered them and the engineers and medical personal deduced their purpose.
I think, that FDR never knew-- that he died before Ike's troops over ran the camps and made them public. I'm not sure about that, but that is what I think I read... I've read some of these books multiple times, and I get mixed up on the timing of things, at times... Nothing new-- it's been a long time since I read them.
I think, that FDR never knew-- that he died before Ike's troops over ran the camps and made them public.
The US entered World War II in December 1941, after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. By then, Hitler was already at war with Russia. The extermination camps began in March 1942. We had spies and, although there's no definitive proof, quite a bit of speculation that FDR knew Hitler had turned to genocide.
From Hitler's perspective, it didn't matter what FDR thought about the Jews because (by 1942) he's already in a two front war and he's gambled everything. If he wins, he has total victory and no need to explain anything to anybody. If he loses, he's already committed enough atrocities to get him hanged and they can't hang him twice for exterminating the Jews.
From FDR's perspective, even if he knew about the death camps, the only way to put an end to genocide would be to defeat Hitler.
The only way to stop it was to win the war, and defeat Germany... I read somewhere, (can't remember which book), that the details of the camps were known, or guessed at, but kept from the President. He would have lost sleep at night, and for a man with his health, and burdens, he couldn't afford to lose sleep. So he knew something awful was happening, but not all the details.
Information was smuggled out-- at HUGE risk-- but many of our own intelligence community could not believe what they were seeing with their own eyes-- and called it "unsubstantiated". Who could have dreamed up such horror? In our wildest dreams, it was so beyond the pale, as to be beyond belief.
So, while I think he knew about the forced labor camps, there was a protective ring around him-- maybe rumors reached him of the extermination camps, but not cold, hard, accepted facts, and he didn't know the extent of the horror. Again, he had to win the war. That was the only way to stop it.
Thank God we did.
If the American intelligence community didn't know about or couldn't confirm death camps, then the German people would know much less, if anything at all, because they had no access to information. As you noted, there were informants everywhere, even in one's own family. If you were overheard passing a rumor about death camps, you and your entire family could be arrested. The Gestapo would beat you up until you tell them where you got this information and beat that person and the next and the next until they traced it back to the original leak. Everybody in the chain would disappear.This is a socety where you ask no questions and, if somebody says something that's not completely innocuous or complementary to the Reich, then you put your hands over your ears and walk away quickly before the Gestapo shows up. How could anybody know anything in a place like this?
Dowser -- For a geologist, you certainly are well read on this historical period.
@ Dowser: "I'm so sad for you, my dear friend."
No need to be sad for me, dear friend. I lost nobody during WWII. My concern is not the past, but the present, due to the primitive savages who have taken over from Hitler and Himmel.
I'm glad, Buzz. But, as Kavika says, we are all related. So I see them as my brothers and sisters, too.
Take care, dear Buzz!
Nothing wrong with you're adhering to John Donne's philosophy: "Never seek for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee." and "No man is an island, but a part of the main."
Correction, I did have a family loss in WWII. I had a second cousin who was a fighter pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force who was shot down over Europe and died in the war.
Sorry to hear it, dear Buzz!
I didn't lose anyone directly, but there are many who were in my parent's school, that were killed. I can't help but look at their yearbooks and wonder what kind of people they were, and what they could have contributed to society. My grandparents were too old to fight in the war, and my parents too young. So many sad stories!!! Grandpa was a telegraph operator at the railroad, and received the death messages from the military, so he knew, first hand, who was killed. He had a really hard time with that.
No need to be sad for me, dear friend. I lost nobody during WWII. My concern is not the past, but the present, due to the primitive savages who have taken over from Hitler and Himmel.
In the past, you labeled it anti-Semitic, per se, to compare Israel's behavior to the Nazis. Yet you post a picture of two dead men to suggest that current Arabs are savages and the heir to Hitler and Himmler. And you think one comparison is perfectly ok but the other is not. Food for thought and a meal I'll serve at another time.
NWM - Very welcome - the read will be worth it.
BTW, if you were to "join" (free) , you can access the entire document on line and read it.
Thank you, looking for it now, I had to re-register, my old login doesn't work anymore. (been a few years since I've had reason to access jstor....)
For some reason it is not allowing me to access it....
Keeps giving me page does not exist....
For some reason it is not allowing me to access it....
Keeps giving me page does not exist....
How convenient, LOL!
How convenient, LOL!
Why did I figure you would go there?
The first source document that 1st Warrior gave me was one of Hitlers Monologues. The December 17th evening Monologue from 1941.
Here is is....
December 17th Monologue
Pdf, pgs 68-69.
You might want to try some real research, it would do you good.
But thank you for illustrating the assumptions you make on a regular basis to insult people who are smarter/more educated than you......
And proving my point.
Have a nice day.
You might want to try some real research, it would do you good.
There you go again.
Egilman-- what makes you assume I haven't done "real" research? What makes you think you know what sort of research I've done?
But thank you for illustrating the assumptions you make on a regular basis to insult people who are smarter/more educated than you...
You know how well educated you are of course-- but you haven't the slightest idea how educated I may or may not be. Nor what type of education that was. Nor how much I had. You are making a lot of assumptions about me...which are all really guesswork. And i will tell you they are false.
Do you know what I actually know (or do not know) about the Holocaust? And how I know it? Of course you do not. And you won' know unless you suddenly become psychic (highly unlikely!)--- or-- until I actually tell you.
Do you know what I actually know (or do not know) about the Holocaust? And how I know it? Of course you do not. And you won' know unless you suddenly become psychic (highly unlikely!)--- or-- until I actually tell you.
What you know about this 105 year old woman wouldn't fill a thimble yet you didn't hesitate to read her mind and pontificate on what she knew 75 years ago.
Well from what your typing here, you are showing me that you actually don't know much about it on the basis of fact.
Your attempts to deflect from the actual facts I'm posting into a personal attack upon me is proof of that.
Well from what your typing here, you are showing me that you actually don't know much about it on the basis of fact.
Ah--- but I do. I know much more than you do.
I question whether what you've referenced is true. (I not accusing you of lying, but rather believing whatl ooks like good evidence). So how do I know?, it seems you are falsely assuming i also researched some stuff on the Internet and came to faulty conclusions.
A lot of what you read on the Internet-- and even in books from seemingly reputable authors, is false. Of course some is a result of authors deliberately trying to deceive. But there are other reasons.
For example, even some intelligent journalists and researchers make assumptions-- often without realizing it. So based on what they know, they "fill in the blanks'. Sometimes with false information,but sometimes they just add stuff that makes sense based on what they already know.. And of course politicians with an agenda lie-- a lot. (based on my experience, politicians, lawyers [except for Buzz :-] and people in the academic world are often the worst.
That reminds me of what the brutal terrorist leader Yaisser Arafat said when asked if he ever lied:
If I would kill for my cause, why would I not also lie for it?
i have always been a skeptic-- my "moot" if there were one would be-- "Question everything". (I'm pretty good at it, but occasionally slip up).
Anyway, knowing what I know about Nazi Germany, much of what you've said is not true. its hard for us to imagine what it was like, even realizing about it
But you can do lots of research-- and often get what is the generally accepted picture of how things were-- until new data comes to light. But there are better sources-- much better.
Really?
Better than my own private collection?
Trot your sources out. I will look at them.
But, when you make a statement such as "6 million Jews were exterminated BEFORE WWII even began"
Calls your knowledge into question.
Perception is a lot of the differences in discussion here. Take One of Many's position vis-a-vis Perries position.
In reality they are both correct. The whole system was a system of extermination, therefore all activities/facilities were aimed and devised to the ultimate end. No matter what they were specifically designated as. One of Many's statement that there were no extermination camps in Germany proper is also correct, as a matter of established fact.
There were 11 camps (out of 63) designated within the system as "Extermination" camps all outside Germany. Does that meant they didn't have ovens and exterminations at other camps that were not designated as "Extermination" camps? no.
So both of them are correct in their positions. Which is why I stayed out of the conversation.
AS far as people extrapolating truth from fact, you will find no more cynic than I.
But that being said, if you want the title of the most knowledgeable on NT about it, you can have it.
Pointless title as it is. I have no ego to swath.
But understand one thing. You cannot build a reputation of being knowledgeable without being challenged in said knowledge.
You have better sources, which is what you seem to be claiming you have, better than the established facts, better than the evidence collected by those that were there, better than that which was recorded as it was happening, by those that actually did it, trot them out for examination. Lets see if they hold up to known facts of those that did archive the proveable record.
CAUSE I WILL DO THE EXAMINATION OF SAID FACTS/SOURCES.
Unless your afraid to.
But your the acknowledged expert on these subjects and everyone who has come before falls short.
Congratulations.
I'm happy for ya.
For some reason it is not allowing me to access it....
That does happen from time to time Krish. I don't think that NWM was trying to avoid anything....
BTW if that happens check your addy... Sometimes the link will have a small flaw that can be corrected.
community /discussion/25173/#cm390473
If it says something other than community, plug in community and the link will work.
Just do the - that will get you into the entry page and then you can go from there.
Thank you 1st, I've got in and found it very interesting reading.
I may not come to the same conclusions you may have, or the author may have. But it has been educational. and yes my opinions have changed somewhat.
I'de like to have that conversation at some point, but not here.
John,
Oh the IRONY! I think it is hilarious you posted this. Out of everyone I know you would be the first to STFU and do whatever the BO admin told you to regardless of what they told you to do. You would eat whatever crap they fed you and say the same thing "why I just believed them and had no idea they were liars, criminals and murderers".
This is what happens when you are partisan hack that blindly follows dude.
Comment removed for CoC violation [ph]
Truth hurt much pal?