Posted on 01/17/2011 2:18:57 PM PST by Nachum
A new book about the closing days of WW2 chronicles how German civilians murdered many concentration camp survivors as they moved through their towns and villages on infamous 'death marches' back into the shrinking Reich. The violence shows how even with their nation in ruins, the Allies advancing on all fronts and the war hopeless, ordinary people were so indoctrinated with Nazi hate they were prepared to kill defenceless people in cold blood.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
Is there something ingrained in Germans that compose a complete lack of humanity? My stepmother is German dominantly and so technically was an ex of mine.
Sadly, no. The potential is universal to the species.
I’ve interviewed scores of Holocaust survivors over the years. One of the stories they all share involves their “ordinary” neighbors who sacked their homes immediately after their arrests. Sometimes the neighbors were even waiting on the sidewalks when the police came so they could get first grabs at whatever the Jews left behind.
This is an ugly aspect of any society that no one wants to talk about. Most people WILL steal, if they justify it in their minds and think they can get away with it.
Yeah, but the Germans literally turned it into something that was actually organized.
I don’t know. They are certainly still the same.
We might yet as well.
Read the comments after the article. One person thinks it’s America’s fault because we didn’t get into the War fast enough.
Another, Max in Moscow, claims England has killed more people than any other country.
And in most cases, those neighbors were not Germans.
Also, something else no one ever seems to talk about.... weren’t there sporadic fights up to 8 years after the war “ended”.
“Is there something ingrained in Germans that compose a complete lack of humanity? My stepmother is German dominantly and so technically was an ex of mine.”
I don’t think so. It was more a spirit of the time, or just a spirit, that swept through a country that was immersed in horror.
Sadly, not many seem to have learned much from it. Synagogues are being burned across the border from us in Canada and Christians are being slaughtered across half the globe.
I worked with a former Hitler Youth in the late 70’s.
In his mind the war never quite ended.
I believe there is a Germanic trait (genetic?) that is obssessed with “order” and deeply nationalistic and xenophobic, traits that Hitler capitalized on.
(I am half German by ancestry but got more of the irreverent Irish side for traits)
BTW- The Japanese empire built itself on the same traits among the Japanese - imho
bookmark
“Is there something ingrained in Germans ...?”
Nope. Reread Genesis for an account of how all humanity came to be capable of atrocities of this kind.
All too accurate, I fear.
America has black and Latino activist groups calling for what amounts for race war. They seem to be ignorant of the “First Law” of Genocides - make sure you are in the majority rather than in a small, easily ID’d minority.
Man is a territorial critter, and thus ‘in-group’ v. ‘out-group’ thinking is hard wired into us.
Only the Constitution has kept us from the wars and massacres of Europe and much of the rest of the world.
In 1945, large sections of Eastern Europe were places where the value of human life had completely collapsed for over a decade.
Off the top of my head, these “house sackings” occured in Germany, Rumania, and France. Not so much in Italy or Hungary.
Everyone agrees that the Poles were the worst.
Me thinks about the Summer of our Discontent, 2009!
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