Posted on 12/02/2012 3:00:20 PM PST by nickcarraway
‘Hitler’s Children,’ a Documentary About Guilt by Blood
Quiet, simple and soaked in sorrow, “Hitler’s Children” takes a stripped-down approach to an emotionally sophisticated subject.
Tracking down five descendants of some of Hitler’s closest accomplices, the director, Chanoch Ze’evi, encourages them to talk about how their lineage has affected their lives. The coping mechanisms vary, but the shame and nagging guilt are shared. Monika Hertwig recalls the panic attack she suffered when a viewing of “Schindler’s List” revealed the full monstrosity of her father, Amon Goeth. For Bettina Goering, the great-niece of Hermann Goering, a kind of peace has been achieved by living off the grid in New Mexico and undergoing sterilization. “I cut the line,” she says with pained finality.
(Excerpt) Read more at movies.nytimes.com ...
“most Germans after the war claimed to not know...”
That is an excellent point. It could be possible given the state run media at the time. But more than likely the denial stems from being unable to admit one let these atrocities happen with a clear conscience.
As far as the original article goes, if I were a child of one of these people, I don’t think I would assume guilt. But it would affect how I viewed my parent. No doubt there are atrocities in every war...but fighting in a war vs being a death camp overlord is some how different to me.
This story is about exonerating liberals for voting obama. It’s psych ops and the guilty must be assuaged.
There’s a version on Netflix called “Inheritance.”
As you say, it’s interesting, but tough to watch.
Thought I’d pass along.
bump
Bettina Goering is a nut. She practically suggests that Nazi beliefs are inherited by sterilizing herself. What a pompous noob.
It makes no sense to me, BTW.
I worked in the same office with the granddaughter of Herman Gehring. her family had changed the spelling of their name. she said it was just something she had to deal with in life
Too bad there are many who believe we are still accountable to slavery.
Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton used American taxpayer money, personnel, equipment and facilities to wage war and overthrow the governments of Libya and Egypt. They have been attempting the same in Syria. There are some bad actors who have died because of this. There are also innocent people who have died because of this. Now, I’m an American, and if I can see an American interest in waging a war, well, I can live with that. But Libya, Egypt and Syria? And if there has been an American interest, Obama and Hillary haven’t even tried to explain it. Starting wars without an American interest is murder. Ask Chelsea Clinton what it’s like to have monsters for parents.
Himmler had four daughters.
I bet she voted for obama, never realizing the irony.
Righto.
When do we get the movie about the guilt of the descendants of the commies who killed 100M+, as opposed to the 12M to 18M killed by the Nazis?
Every German who ever said "I didn't know" is a Goddamned liar.
My contention is not that what happened there was exaggerated, but rather that the evil it represented was not unprecedented in human history. The notion that the scale of killing was unprecedented in human history, and that "industrial processes" were needed to kill lots of people in a short time, or that the Nazis brought some novel degree of efficiency to the process of murder.
The Mongols killed 60M to 100M people, a MUCH larger percentage of the human population at the time than the Nazis and commies combined.
They also killed more people much faster than the Nazis, being rivaled in this only by the great bombing attacks of WWII.
The Mongols regularly took 100,000 or more people captive after taking a city, bound the captives and shared them out among a perhaps 50,000 man army. On the signal, everybody chopped heads and then they built a pyramid with them.
IOW, the Mongols routinely murdered 100,000 people in just a few minutes. Whereas, if I remember correctly the maximum killed in 24 hours at Auschwitz was somewhere around 25,000.
Since the Nazis had to ship people from all over Europe to Auschwitz, using precious shipping space to do so, their method of killing was immensely less efficient than the Mongols, who needed only edged weapons and tens of thousands of hardened killers willing to use them.
My point is not that the Nazis were not spectacularly evil, only that we have forgotten how much evil there is in human history.
How clear is our conscience today? Does voting to kill millions of babies in the womb (and some botn in spite of an attempted abortion) give supporters room for a clear conscience today?
Maybe Chelsea is a monster too?????
“Guilt by blood.”
Think about that for a little bit. It is both true and not true. If you consider that you yourself are guilty by virtue of blood, you are well on the way to wisdom. If, however, you find yourself thinking that there are some who are guilty by virtue of their blood, but, certainly, not you, then you are primed to become something you cannot imagine yourself to be. You are the very thing Hannah Arendt pointed to when she coined the phrase, “The banality of evil.”
If certain Germans, related to the Goerings, Hoess’, Goeths, Franks, and who-knows-who-else’s of this world, are guilty by virtue of blood relation, how different is that from the Nazis’ own accusation of guilt by blood association of the Jews? This is just one group blaming another for all the world’s problems. But the problem is deeper than that, far deeper, more personal than that, far more intimate than that. The problem touches each of us.
The world cares little for what the Bible - God’s Word! - says about sin and guilt and evil. But it is so right. It is so perceptive and true. Which is, probably, why most of the world dismisses it. It is too uncomfortably on point.
Evil is a condition in which we find ourselves immersed. Some give evidence of the reality of evil in obvious, plainly seen ways, others in subtle, easily shrugged off ways. But we all swim in it, breathe it in, and walk through it.
As we enter once more into the season of Advent, the season of preparing ourselves for why - why! - the eternal Son of God became man and came into the world, it would be well worth our while, each of us, to consider the banality of evil and what the phrase “blood guilt” means and does not mean.
Christmas will be much more meaningful for us if we do.
Guilt by blood is a disgusting concept. When I was younger, my best friend was named Hans. His parents where two liberal UN employees. His grandfather was a Nazi party member before 1933. My father, a Holocaust survivor, and mother, a daughter of two survivors, never had a problem with our friendship. Hans’s grandfather was an evil man, long dead.
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