It’s been a recent topic among Holocaust researchers. IIRC back in 2017ish they did a study on how people were captured. The conclusion was that the SS didn’t have the numbers to hunt people down, let alone go door-to-door searching every nook and cranny. Most people captured were taken by local law enforcement or lynch mobs, with additional Wehrmacht personnel helping where possible.
Then there were all the newspaper articles circulating in Germany about how many people were captured and deported, begging readers to notify authorities of any undesirables they might know of. People were often rewarded by getting first dibs on the stuff where people were hiding, so there was additional incentive to snitch.
In other words, the Germans did know what was happening and chose to become active participants. The idea it was just Hitler, his high command, and a few units among the SS is total horseshit. The only Germans who weren’t guilty were the ones hiding Jews, Roma, the disabled, etc. Anyone not actively trying to sabotage the nazis was directly complicit.
The Germans got off really lightly for what they did. It would have been justifiable to hang every adult over the age of 18 with prison sentences for the 13~17 focused completely on re-education until they could show they weren’t a danger to anyone else. They knowingly helped murder millions of their neighbors, friends, and coworkers, if they didn’t murder them directly.
Some great research in Poland on this stuff, much to the universal opposition of all sides of the political spectrum there. Night Without End shattered Polish self-mythologizing
It’s been a recent topic among Holocaust researchers. IIRC back in 2017ish they did a study on how people were captured. The conclusion was that the SS didn’t have the numbers to hunt people down, let alone go door-to-door searching every nook and cranny. Most people captured were taken by local law enforcement or lynch mobs, with additional Wehrmacht personnel helping where possible.
Then there were all the newspaper articles circulating in Germany about how many people were captured and deported, begging readers to notify authorities of any undesirables they might know of. People were often rewarded by getting first dibs on the stuff where people were hiding, so there was additional incentive to snitch.
In other words, the Germans did know what was happening and chose to become active participants. The idea it was just Hitler, his high command, and a few units among the SS is total horseshit. The only Germans who weren’t guilty were the ones hiding Jews, Roma, the disabled, etc. Anyone not actively trying to sabotage the nazis was directly complicit.
The Germans got off really lightly for what they did. It would have been justifiable to hang every adult over the age of 18 with prison sentences for the 13~17 focused completely on re-education until they could show they weren’t a danger to anyone else. They knowingly helped murder millions of their neighbors, friends, and coworkers, if they didn’t murder them directly.
Some great research in Poland on this stuff, much to the universal opposition of all sides of the political spectrum there. Night Without End shattered Polish self-mythologizing
Nothing will stop Poland (or any Europeans) from self-mythologizing. Not even reality.
I guess what I mean is more that they just are fully in denialism now.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Night_Without_End_(history_book)
Yeah to be clear this book, not the Alistair MacLean novel about freezing to death
All the good Germans died in Dachau.
“Wir haben es nicht gewußt.”
with vanishingly few exceptions germans and german speakers are all evil and always have been
can we at least hand it to them for the Battle of the Teutoburg Forest
no. of the many evils of the roman empire, failing to civilize the animals across the Rhine ranks at the top