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 ...
In any case, being ashamed of your ancestry is at least as idiotic as being arrogant about it. You are responsible for your own actions, not those of your ancestors.
True.
You said a mouthful. We saw, in retrospect, German folly in elevating a narcissist with a huge ego to the highest position; now, we see the same thing where Obama’s concerned in this country. Both Clintons AND Obama have been given a pass and high tribute no matter what they do; and they leave much destruction in their careless wakes as they lumber along starting wars and uprisings, feeling very important all the while. Man’s government is CORRUPT; past help other than a divine intervention.
What source are you using in quoting all of these casualty figures relating to the Mongols? 100 million? Who did the tabulating at the time? The Germans were meticulous in their record keeping, it’s part of what got them hung in the Nuremburg Trials. Although they were blood thirsty, it was my understanding that the Mongols moved fast and were more interested in loot so much as to just wanton slaughter. In the modern era, nothing can compare to an entire Western European nation, considered one of the most enlightened , Christian and ‘’civilized’’ as Germany doing what it did.
The real irony is that the atrocities [except the rapes] were committed by the Czechs. People whose Czech families had lived side-by-side with the German-Austrian families for hundreds of years.
The Russians committed the rapes, then stood aside while the other atrocities were committed by the Czechs. The Czechs were allowed to do so because of the Benes Decrees that stripped the German-Austrians of virtually all of their rights.
If you Google [Czech German Expulsion], you will find many citations for it. One of the most famous [infamous] incidents was the Landskroun Massacre. Landskroun is the county seat less than two miles from the town that my ancestral family called home ...
I think Goering got blamed for more than he was guilty.
What he was guilty of was not being a very good Reichmarshall.
After the Stalag 18 or whatever number it was, escape, Hitler ordered them all to be exectuted which was a violation of the laws of war.
Goering convinced Hitler to not do it. I doubt the Americans who loved because of Goering thought he was such a criminal.
I have also read that he was a pleasant person on a one to one situation. He also loved to hunt wild boar and deer.
“...the Nazis didn’t do a single thing that hasn’t been common down through human history...”
Exactly. If you read the Bible, the ancient Israelites conducted several genocides, as did just about every other group in human history. The Roman empire got built because they would slaughter peoples who resisted(such as the Israelites).
People who want to focus exclusively on Nazi atrocities in history have an agenda: to undermine Western civilization psychologically by portraying a group of white, anti-communist Christians as the most evil people of all time.
Conservatives need to reject this attack on our culture and demand that all historical events be treated objectively.
The Mongols reopened the Silk Road, and they preferred to collect taxes than conduct wars ~ I doubt the Mongols came anywhere near 100 million victims ~
I agree. I could hardly imagine at that time in human history if the total population in that part of Asia came any where near that. The Mongols were fearsome, no doubt but like most thieves it was hit hard, grab what you can and move on.
He was a monster. Goering give himself grand titles, and looted whole nations, while millions died. He was perhaps not the worst monster of the group, but he was a monster nevertheless.
he was a pleasant person on a one to one situations
Many monsters are. Hitler and Stalin, for example. Please do not give Goering a pass because others were a bit worse.
He may have deserved it. Those russians had plenty of good reasons to kill nazis and collaborators (Just sayin'.)
FR poster "steamshovel" was referring to my post - it was my ancestor that shot and killed his family before committing suicide.
My ancestor was a "hereditary judge" [meaning he wasn't appointed - his grandfather had purchased the position and he inherited it].
Anyway, I don't know much of the specifics. Some German/Austrians in positions of power and responsibility enthusiastically worked with the Nazis. Others in the same positions were forced to do so on pain of death to themselves and their families.
Which was my relative? I have no clue. All I know is that after the region was liberated, there was a witch hunt for ANYONE who had worked with the Nazis [willingly or not].
My relative decided to end his family's lives [as well as his own] in order to spare them the pain and humiliation of the bloodbath ...
In 1918 when Austria-hungary was broken up and much of what was the Austrian half was disbanded. The Sudentenland should have, ethnically speaking been given to Austria (and Austrians wanted to join the other Germanic peoples in Germany), but that was denied
There were sound defense reasons for the Bohemians for this (since it's always better to own the higher ground), but the Czechs then in the 20s and 30s pretty much banned the German dialect (you can say payback for 500 years of domination by the Germanics)
As an oppressed linguistic group, they unfortunately saw the Nazis as a way out and they had the highest percentage of people joining the Nazis
i've thought about this -- and is you compare to Genghis Khan or even worse Timur-e-Lang, the numbers were a bit lower (Stalin and Mao tie for most bodies), the percentages lower (compared to Pol Pot say or the Mongol attack on Iran), but what was horrifying was that the Germans were of a high culture -- think music and you have Beethoven, Bach, Mozart, Handel; think philosophy or literature and Goethe, Schopenhauer etc. stand out -- the Germans were high culture and for them to massacre in such an unhuman way shocked us and shocks us
In Poland I see the ravages of war by both sides, but the German one was calculated even though the numbers killed were less than the Russian -- so more horrifying as it showed "no matter how civilised we are, we can descend to barbarity very easily..."
it’s sad about her. Goering was not a monster in the same league as the others. One could argue that his sin was the sin of going along with the others. By that extension, any “genetic disposition to being a monster” would be less.
I thought his father was some kind of Governor of Namibia
FDR and Churchill hid the news of Stalin’s purges and Katyn...
But the Mongols did kill many, however Weatherford in ‘Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World’ states that ‘conservative scholars place the number of dead from Genghis Khan’s invasion of central Asia at 15 million within five years’, however ‘even this more modest total…would require that each Mongol kill more than a hundred people’.
The Chinese censuses show a drop in population from 100 million to 70 million in 1290s and 60 million in 1393 – a drop of 40 million.
However, perhaps many were due to the spread of the plague? and due to the flooding of the yellow river with the famine it brought?
Let's assume they did kill 40 million - that was 9% of the world population!
They were not interested in loot per se but did believe they had a divine cause to attack the city dwellers and bring them to the pure ways of nomadism -- remember that Genghis Khan made a rule for his successors to live in yurts only, not a settled life
Stalin’s grandson regularly “defends” his grandfather’s image.... btw,right now I’m reading “Stalin - the Red Tsar” — I strongly, STRONGLY recommend it. incredible book and a must read. It shows how the two evils of Naziism and Bolshevism seem to have fed off each other...
Yes those were guilty - most of just ignoring, many of participation in silent agreement and some of participation in murder
But modern day Germans are not to blame for the sins of their grandparents
it's a lesson for us all -- and we are unfortunately now seeing the starts of the same in Obama's world...
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