Why Germans Supported Hitler

intangible child · 07-24-2007, 12:30 AM

-It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature?

Standing against the Nazi tide was a remarkable group of young people known as the White Rose. Led by Hans and Sophie Scholl, a German brother and sister who were students at the University of Munich, the White Rose consisted of college students and a college professor who risked their lives to circulate anti-government pamphlets in the midst of World War II. Their arrest and trial was depicted in the German movie Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, which was recently released on DVD in the United States.

Of all the essays on liberty I have written in the past 20 years, my favorite is “The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent”, which I am pleased to say was later reprinted in Voices of the Holocaust, an anthology on the Holocaust for high-school students. The story of the White Rose is the most remarkable case of courage I have ever come across. It even inspired me to visit the University of Munich a few years ago, where portions of the White Rose pamphlets have been permanently enshrined on bricks laid into a plaza at the entrance to the school.
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle18061.htm

The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent

The date was February 22, 1943. Hans Scholl and his sister Sophie, along with their best friend, Christoph Probst, were scheduled to be executed by Nazi officials that afternoon. The prison guards were so impressed with the calm and bravery of the prisoners in the face of impending death that they violated regulations by permitting them to meet together one last time. Hans, a medical student at the University of Munich, was 24. Sophie, a student, was 21. Christoph, a medical student, was 22.

This is the story of The White Rose. It is a lesson in dissent. It is a tale of courage--of principle--of honor. It is detailed in three books: The White Rose (1970) by Inge Scholl, A Noble Treason (1979) by Richard Hanser, and An Honourable Defeat (1994) by Anton Gill.

Hans and Sophie Scholl were German teenagers in the 1930s. Like other young Germans, they enthusiastically joined the Hitler Youth. They believed that Adolf Hitler was leading Germany and the German people back to greatness.

Their parents were not so enthusiastic. Their father--Robert Scholl--told his children that Hitler and the Nazis were leading Germany down a road of destruction. Later--in 1942--he would serve time in a Nazi prison for telling his secretary: "The war! It is already lost. This Hitler is God's scourge on mankind, and if the war doesn't end soon the Russians will be sitting in Berlin."

Gradually, Hans and Sophie began realizing that their father was right. They concluded that, in the name of freedom and the greater good of the German nation, Hitler and the Nazis were enslaving and destroying the German people.

They also knew that open dissent was impossible in Nazi Germany, especially after the start of World War II. Most Germans took the traditional position-that once war breaks out, it is the duty of the citizen to support the troops by supporting the government.

But Hans and Sophie Scholl believed differently. They believed that it was the duty of a citizen, even in times of war, to stand up against an evil regime, especially when it is sending hundreds of thousands of its citizens to their deaths.

The Scholl siblings began sharing their feelings with a few of their friends--Christoph Probst, Alexander Schmorell, Willi Graf--as well as with Kurt Huber, their psychology and philosophy professor.
The White Rose: A Lesson in Dissent

knot_e_lady · 07-24-2007, 10:32 AM

Ever heard of the Purple Triangle?

I hadn't either, until I met my husband.

Next time someone feels compelled to make fun of Jehovah's Witnesses when they knock on your door, perhaps you should remember this:

http://www.baycrest.org/Spring%202001/article12.htm

The Gestapo and Criminal Police assigned special units to hunt down Witnesses and destroy the religion. Despite a nationwide sweep that netted thousands in August 1936, members continued to meet in secret and to carry on their ministry work underground. Two daring protest campaigns in December 1936 and June 1937 shocked Nazi officials, as the Witnesses blanketed the country with leaflets detailing the regime's human rights abuses. "During the whole length of the Nazi era in Germany, no other resistance organization took comparable initiatives," wrote German scholar Dr. Elke Imberger. The repressive Nazi measures in part caused the Witnesses' stance to take on the character of resistance, albeit nonpolitical and nonviolent.
By 1938, Nazi prisons and camps held about 6,000 Witnesses, about 5 to 10 percent of the total prewar camp population. Concurrent with the travails of the Witnesses, the Jewish community was feeling the ever-intensifying heat of Nazi terror. The plight of the Jews did not escape the sympathetic attention of the Witnesses, both in Germany and abroad. One month prior to Kristallnacht, Watch Tower Society president J. F. Rutherford voiced outrage in an international radio broadcast, saying: "The Devil has put his representative Hitler in control, a man who is of unsound mind, cruel, malicious and ruthless . . . He cruelly persecutes the Jews because they were once Jehovah's covenant people and bore the name of Jehovah, and because Christ Jesus was a Jew."
Witness literature became an instrument of spiritual resistance, exposing the criminal actions of the Nazi regime and its murderous antisemitic agenda. Witness prisoners wrote secret reports of camp conditions. These were smuggled out and printed in the Witness journals The Watchtower and Consolation (forerunner of Awake!). The 1938 Witness book Crusade Against Christianity contained diagrams of the camps Sachsenhausen and Esterwegen. Consolation of May 4, 1938, said, "History never recorded a more systematic, efficient, devilish obliteration of Jews than at present in Germany." Following the November pogrom, Consolation asked, "How can one remain silent?"
Chilling descriptions of the attack on European Jewry appeared frequently in Witness publications. Hundreds of column inches detailed and decried the destruction of the Jews' religious, social, and economic life, and ultimately, the physical annihilation of the Jews.
During and after Kristallnacht, according to historian Anton Gill, German Witnesses showed themselves "especially courageous," sheltering and protecting Jewish neighbors. In July 1939 the New York Yiddish daily Der Tog reported about Jehovah's Witnesses, "There were numerous cases in Danzig where members of the same religious sect have defended Jews against attacks by Nazis, or when these sincere women of the common people intentionally patronized Jewish stores just when Hitlerites picketed those Jewish shops. Only a half a year ago, when like a plague all kinds of food stores began to post the well-known signs 'Juden unerwünscht' (Jews not wanted), the same German women regarded it as a sacred duty to provide their Jewish neighbors or mere acquaintances with food or milk without asking anything in return."
The book Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938, reports that 300-400 Witness inmates in Buchenwald shared their bread rations with some of the 2,250 Jews brought to the camp in 1938. One Buchenwald survivor told how Witnesses gave their bread to Jewish prisoners and went without food themselves for up to four days.

nuttyjoe · 07-24-2007, 08:28 PM

What these two posts reinforce in me is that we have no right whatsoever to repress the religion of another, or to force our religious beliefs upon another.I'm not of the Jehovah's Witness religion, but I do know that they are looked upon with disdain by mainstream America. Do we not guarantee freedom of religion for our citizens? Why do we refuse to accept that which we do not originate or understand? Has hypocrisy affected us to this extreme level? There are people in our society (and even this forum) that are members of the Nation of Islam. Can we stop the harping about 9/11, terrorism, The Radical 1960's, and just understand that unless anyone can prove another to have commited crimes, there really is no reason to not allow the religious freedoms guaranteed us as American citizens, and to accept those of everyone else-regardless of thier beliefs. I know this is not the case in many countries where religion is defined by the existing government, but we should be better than that in America.

intangible child · 07-25-2007, 03:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by knot_e_lady

Ever heard of the Purple Triangle?

I hadn't either, until I met my husband.

Next time someone feels compelled to make fun of Jehovah's Witnesses when they knock on your door, perhaps you should remember this:

Purple Triangles-A Story of Spiritual Resistance

The Gestapo and Criminal Police assigned special units to hunt down Witnesses and destroy the religion. Despite a nationwide sweep that netted thousands in August 1936, members continued to meet in secret and to carry on their ministry work underground. Two daring protest campaigns in December 1936 and June 1937 shocked Nazi officials, as the Witnesses blanketed the country with leaflets detailing the regime's human rights abuses. "During the whole length of the Nazi era in Germany, no other resistance organization took comparable initiatives," wrote German scholar Dr. Elke Imberger. The repressive Nazi measures in part caused the Witnesses' stance to take on the character of resistance, albeit nonpolitical and nonviolent.
By 1938, Nazi prisons and camps held about 6,000 Witnesses, about 5 to 10 percent of the total prewar camp population. Concurrent with the travails of the Witnesses, the Jewish community was feeling the ever-intensifying heat of Nazi terror. The plight of the Jews did not escape the sympathetic attention of the Witnesses, both in Germany and abroad. One month prior to Kristallnacht, Watch Tower Society president J. F. Rutherford voiced outrage in an international radio broadcast, saying: "The Devil has put his representative Hitler in control, a man who is of unsound mind, cruel, malicious and ruthless . . . He cruelly persecutes the Jews because they were once Jehovah's covenant people and bore the name of Jehovah, and because Christ Jesus was a Jew."
Witness literature became an instrument of spiritual resistance, exposing the criminal actions of the Nazi regime and its murderous antisemitic agenda. Witness prisoners wrote secret reports of camp conditions. These were smuggled out and printed in the Witness journals The Watchtower and Consolation (forerunner of Awake!). The 1938 Witness book Crusade Against Christianity contained diagrams of the camps Sachsenhausen and Esterwegen. Consolation of May 4, 1938, said, "History never recorded a more systematic, efficient, devilish obliteration of Jews than at present in Germany." Following the November pogrom, Consolation asked, "How can one remain silent?"
Chilling descriptions of the attack on European Jewry appeared frequently in Witness publications. Hundreds of column inches detailed and decried the destruction of the Jews' religious, social, and economic life, and ultimately, the physical annihilation of the Jews.
During and after Kristallnacht, according to historian Anton Gill, German Witnesses showed themselves "especially courageous," sheltering and protecting Jewish neighbors. In July 1939 the New York Yiddish daily Der Tog reported about Jehovah's Witnesses, "There were numerous cases in Danzig where members of the same religious sect have defended Jews against attacks by Nazis, or when these sincere women of the common people intentionally patronized Jewish stores just when Hitlerites picketed those Jewish shops. Only a half a year ago, when like a plague all kinds of food stores began to post the well-known signs 'Juden unerwünscht' (Jews not wanted), the same German women regarded it as a sacred duty to provide their Jewish neighbors or mere acquaintances with food or milk without asking anything in return."
The book Crystal Night: 9-10 November 1938, reports that 300-400 Witness inmates in Buchenwald shared their bread rations with some of the 2,250 Jews brought to the camp in 1938. One Buchenwald survivor told how Witnesses gave their bread to Jewish prisoners and went without food themselves for up to four days.

Interesting! And while people were fighting the monster rising, Prescott Bush had a bit of trouble back in the 1940s. While American soldiers were fighting the Nazis in WWII, a few of the companies Prescott managed were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act because they were fronts for Nazi Industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a financier of Hitler's Third Reich.
FOXNews.com - Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

Bush Family Values Photo Album

knot_e_lady · 07-25-2007, 03:26 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by intangible child

Interesting! And while people were fighting the monster rising, Prescott Bush had a bit of trouble back in the 1940s. While American soldiers were fighting the Nazis in WWII, a few of the companies Prescott managed were seized under the Trading with the Enemy Act because they were fronts for Nazi Industrialist Fritz Thyssen, a financier of Hitler's Third Reich.
FOXNews.com - Documents: Bush's Grandfather Directed Bank Tied to Man Who Funded Hitler - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

Bush Family Values Photo Album

Uh, you are just now learning this?

Tell us something we didn't already know.

mytmouse57 · 08-16-2007, 01:37 PM

[quote=intangible child;124013]-It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature?
/quote]

Short answer? Hitler made the trains run on time.

Past that -- not all Germans were fully aware of just how monsterous the regime was. All they knew was Germany was back on her feet. And early on in the war, at least, kicking some serious ass.

And by the time many did realize how horrible it was, and how badly things were going for Germany, it was too late. By then, it was a matter of getting your ass westward, so your chances were better to be able to surrender to the Americans, rather than be captured by and suffer the wrath of the Russians.

And there was dissent from other sectors. Some of Hitler's top commanders tried to have him killed. Erwin Rommel, probably Germany's best military commander at the time, was involved in the plot to kill Hitler and ended up dying as a result.

nuttyjoe · 08-16-2007, 09:58 PM

[quote=mytmouse57;129681]

Quote:

Originally Posted by intangible child

-It has long intrigued me why the German people supported Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime. After all, every schoolchild in America is taught that Hitler and his Nazi cohorts were the very epitome of evil. How could ordinary German citizens support people who were so obviously monstrous in nature?
/quote]

Short answer? Hitler made the trains run on time.

Past that -- not all Germans were fully aware of just how monsterous the regime was. All they knew was Germany was back on her feet. And early on in the war, at least, kicking some serious ass.

And by the time many did realize how horrible it was, and how badly things were going for Germany, it was too late. By then, it was a matter of getting your ass westward, so your chances were better to be able to surrender to the Americans, rather than be captured by and suffer the wrath of the Russians.

And there was dissent from other sectors. Some of Hitler's top commanders tried to have him killed. Erwin Rommel, probably Germany's best military commander at the time, was involved in the plot to kill Hitler and ended up dying as a result.

You are correct, Mouse. Sad as it is to say; but probably no other political leader in history was able to get his country back on their feet as quickly as Hitler postwar. I seriously doubt anyone will.
I do disagree with your assessment of Rommel, though. He was highly thought of, sure, but he was mostly a tactician- a commander whom had the uncanny ability to "feel" an opponent's weakness and then quickly punish it. Rommel was sought after by the miltary conspiritors of the bomb plot against Hitler simply because he was popular with the public. If I were to offer a choice; I would probably suggest that Erich von Manstein was the best of all the German commanders. After all, it was actually his plan that was adopted that flanked the Maginot Line and switched the thrust of the German attack(and the bulk of the armored forces) southwards through the impassable Ardennes Forest. Hitler claimed credit for this, but it was von Manstein whom actually came up with the idea. The original plan was von Sclieffen's idea to violate Belgian neutrality and attack the Maginot Line head-on.

mytmouse57 · 08-20-2007, 12:15 PM

Well, we can all be thankful Hitler was too stupid to listen to his generals.

Otherwise, the Germans probably would have won that war.

knot_e_lady · 08-20-2007, 12:19 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mytmouse57

Well, we can all be thankful Hitler was too stupid to listen to his generals.

Otherwise, the Germans probably would have won that war.

Hitler wasn't stupid. He was crazy.

mytmouse57 · 08-20-2007, 04:08 PM

Yes, but he made monumentaly stupid decisions when it came to running the war. Of course, you are right, it wasn't the "duh" type of stupidity. It was the type of stupidity that arose from a severe case of megalomania.

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