Category Archives: Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler’s legacy is one of infamy and horror, with his name forever associated with the atrocities of the Holocaust and the devastation of World War II. His rise to power and the events of his regime serve as a stark reminder of the dangers of totalitarianism, xenophobia, and unchecked authoritarianism.
He was born on 20 April 1889 in Braunau am Inn—a town in Austria. The historian and biographer Ian Kershaw describes Hitler as “the embodiment of modern political evil”
In 1943, the US Office of Strategic Services, a precursor to the CIA, commissioned Henry Murray, an American psychologist and a Harvard professor, to study Adolf Hitler’s personality to try to predict his behaviour. In his 229-page report, “Analysis of the Personality of Adolf Hitler,” Murray described Hitler as a paranoid “utter wreck” who was “incapable of normal human relationships.”
According to Murray, Hitler’s cycle from complete despair to reaction followed this pattern:
“An emotional outburst, tantrum of rage, and accusatory indignation ending in tears and self-pity. Succeeded by periods of inertia, exhaustion, melancholy, and indecisiveness. Followed by hours of acute dejection and disquieting nightmares. Leading to hours of recuperation. And finally confident and resolute decision to counterattack with great force and ruthlessness.”
Several theories have been proposed by psychologists, historians, and scholars to understand Hitler’s personality, motivations, and behaviour. Here are some key points often discussed in psychological analyses of Hitler:
Narcissism and Grandiosity: Many experts believe that Hitler exhibited traits of narcissistic personality disorder. He displayed grandiose self-importance, a sense of entitlement, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy. Hitler’s speeches and writings often emphasized his own perceived greatness and the superiority of the Aryan race.
Authoritarianism: Hitler’s leadership style was authoritarian, characterized by a desire for absolute control and obedience. He centralized power within the Nazi Party and created a cult of personality around himself, portraying himself as a strong and infallible leader.
Paranoia and Conspiracy Theories: Hitler harboured deep-seated paranoia and was prone to conspiracy theories, particularly regarding perceived enemies such as Jews, communists, and other groups he deemed responsible for Germany’s problems. He often saw himself as a saviour fighting against imagined threats to the German nation.
Psychological Trauma: Some historians and psychologists have speculated about possible traumatic experiences in Hitler’s early life, such as the death of his younger brother, Alois, or his experiences as a soldier in World War I. These experiences may have contributed to his worldview and psychological makeup.
Sociopathy or Psychopathy: Some experts have suggested that Hitler exhibited traits of sociopathy or psychopathy, including a lack of remorse, manipulative behaviour, and a disregard for the well-being of others. His willingness to use violence and cruelty to achieve his goals is often cited as evidence of these traits.
Propaganda and Manipulation: Hitler was highly skilled in the use of propaganda to manipulate public opinion and rally support for his regime. He understood the power of symbols, rhetoric, and mass communication to shape perceptions and influence behaviour.
Megalomania and Delusions of Grandeur: Hitler had a grandiose vision of himself as a messianic figure destined to lead Germany to greatness. He believed in his infallibility and was unwilling to listen to dissenting opinions or consider alternative viewpoints.
I was reluctant to post about a man who is evil personified, especially on his birthday—but I felt the importance of showing the analysis so we can recognize these traits in current or future leaders.
Sources
https://www.thejournal.ie/hitler-psychological-profile-2620137-Feb2016/
https://digital.library.cornell.edu/collections/nuremberg/analysis-hitler
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Rudolf-Christoph von Gersdorff—Hero?
Rudolf Christoph Freiherr von Gersdorff attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler by suicide bombing on 21 March 1943, and obviously, without success. The plan failed because Hitler left early. That same month, soldiers from his unit discovered the mass graves of the Soviet-perpetrated Katyn massacre.
To be honest—I am a bit sceptical about this failed assassination attempt.
His plan was that on March 21, 1943, Gersdorff, as an expert, should explain individual exhibits to Hitler in the Zeughaus in Berlin. While Hitler was touring the exhibition rooms, Gersdorff kept close to him constantly with two bombs in his coat pockets. But unlike in previous years, on this occasion, Hitler left the exhibition after only a short tour.
The plan was to set off two ten-minute delayed fuses on explosive devices hidden in his coat pockets. His plan was then to throw himself around Hitler in a death embrace that would blow them both up.
Why am I a bit sceptical? Hitler left the venue earlier than planned, but that didn’t mean that von Gersdorff had to stay in the building. He still could have carried out his plans afterwards. In many ways, it wouldn’t have looked suspicious. You could delay someone from leaving, especially a megalomaniac like Hitler, who loved to get his ego stroked.
Von Gersdorff said he defused the devices in a public bathroom “at the last second.” After the attempt, von Gersdorff was immediately transferred to the Eastern Front, where he managed to evade suspicion. So basically, no one actually knows if he had been carrying these devices at all, and the Gestapo never found them. All there is are his words afterwards.
In general, people who are willing to sacrifice themselves do so unless there is a drastic change of circumstances, and Hitler leaving an event a few minutes early is not one of those. He was also allegedly involved in the preparation for the 20 July plot—this was also never discovered. Conveniently, those who knew were all killed.
However, I could be wrong in my analysis. Maybe Von Gersdorff was a hero, but I doubt it.
In 1955, he was the military advisor on the movie The Plot to Assassinate Hitler.
Sources
https://military-history.fandom.com/wiki/Rudolf_Christoph_Freiherr_von_Gersdorff
https://www.deutsche-biographie.de/118538799.html?language=en
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Margot Wölk: Taste of Death—Hitler’s Food Taster
Maniacal dictators tend to develop a sense of paranoia throughout their reign, as was the case with Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was a vegetarian (it is not precisely known when he became vegetarian), but certainly he was throughout World War II. Allegedly, he once commented that he didn’t like to eat lobster because he thought it was cruel how lobsters—cooked alive.
Margot Wölk was a former German secretary. At the age of 24, she fled her bombed-out parental home in Berlin in the summer of 1942 and moved to Groß-Partsch in East Prussia to live with her mother-in-law. Two and a half kilometres to the west was the Führer headquarters, Wolfsschanze. Her husband Karl, whom she had married at the start of the war, was missing in action, presumed dead. She did not plan to become one of the food tasters or Adolf Hitler. She was one of a group of fifteen young women in 1942 who had to test Hitler’s food for toxins at Wolf’s Lair. She was the only surviving witness from this group. The existence of this group of food tasters was unknown until 2013.
Every meal could have been her last. And when she had finished eating the bland vegetarian dishes put before her, 25-year-old Margot Wölk and her young female colleagues would burst into tears because they were grateful still to be alive.
Margot was the only one to survive. All her colleagues were rounded up and shot by the advancing Red Army in January 1945.
There had been rumours that the Allies had plans to poison Hitler. Each day, the women sat around a big table in front of plates heaped with the food prepared for that day, which included rice, noodles, and dumplings, so they didn’t go hungry. Once the confirmation came that the food was safe, it was packed into crates and taken to the main headquarters by members of the SS.
After Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg’s failed 20 July plot in 1944 in the Wolf’s Lair to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power, they tightened security around the Wolf’s Lair and the food tasters were no longer allowed to stay at home. A vacant schoolhouse was nearby and used for the tasters to board. “We were guarded like caged animals,” Wölk said in an interview. Each morning at 8 a.m., Wölk every morning was woken up by the SS, who shouted “Margot, get up!” from beneath her window. At that time, her only food taste service needed was if Hitler was actually at the Wolf’s Lair.
When the Soviet army was just a few kilometres from the Wolf’s Lair, a lieutenant took her aside and told her, “Go, get out of here!” He put her on a train to Berlin. It saved her life. She saw him again after the war and learned the fate of the other food tasters, shot by the Soviet soldiers.
Her life was saved a second time by a Berlin doctor who took her in after she fled the Wolf’s Lair. When SS soldiers showed up at his practice searching for the fugitive, he lied to them, and they left.
As Wölk returned to Berlin, she fell into the hands of the Soviet Army after the end of the Battle of Berlin. For two weeks, they raped her repeatedly, inflicting such injuries that she was never able to bear children.
A British officer called Norman helped her recover. He went back to Britain after the war. He wrote asking his German girlfriend to join him. But Ms Wölk told him she wanted to wait and find out if her husband Karl was still alive.
In 1946, she reunited with her husband, Karl. His disposition, mentally and physically, was marked by years of war and imprisonment. The married couple lived happily together until he died in 1980.
Margot Wölk died in April 2014 at the age of 96.
Sources
https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20190807-the-women-who-tasted-hitlers-food
https://www.joyvspicer.com/joy-blog/2022/8/22/history-margot-wlk-adolf-hitlers-food-taster
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/hitler-s-food-taster-reveals-haunting-past-1.1342930
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The Meeting Between Haj Amin al-Husseini and Adolf Hitler
It is often claimed that Amin al-Husseini was a “major player” in the Holocaust. This is not entirely correct. However, Hitler and Amin al-Husseini had the same aim—the eradication of all Jews.
Amin al-Husseini{aka Husseayni) was the Mufti (chief Muslim Islamic legal-religious authority) of Jerusalem under the political authority of the British Mandate in Palestine from 1921 to 1937.
Scholars often blame him for the Palestinian failure to achieve statehood. The Palestinian revolt of 1936-41, which he led hoping to reverse British support for Zionism, turned out to be a disaster. He murdered Palestinian rivals and refused to compromise when the revolt was crushed, instead seeking refuge among Britain’s enemies. His ties to the Nazi SS made the principal Palestinian leader a war criminal by 1945.
The Grand Mufti’s visit in 1941 came once many “Final Solution policies were already in full swing. Almost immediately following the invasion of Poland in September 1939, Reinhard Heydrich received instructions from Berlin giving the orders to establish ghettos and Jewish Councils in Poland.
The Mufti had a specific agenda in meeting Hitler on 28 November 1941. The Protocol from this fateful meeting specifically—states that “The Fuehrer replied that Germany stood for an uncompromising war against the Jews and that naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine.” Hitler promised that he would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the “Judeo-Communistic Empire” in Europe.
Below are the notes of that meeting, taken by Dr. Paul Otto Schmidt, as published in the Times of Israel on 21 October 2015, translated into English.
The photograph above: Hitler hosted the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem Haj Amin al-Husseini in 1941 in Germany. (Heinrich Hoffmann Collection/Wikipedia)
The following is an official German record of the meeting between Adolf Hitler and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, on 28 November 1941 at the Reich Chancellory in Berlin. (Source: Documents on German Foreign Policy 1918-1945, Series D, Vol XIII, London, 1964.)
GRAND MUFTI:
The Grand Mufti began by thanking the Fuhrer for the great honor he had bestowed by receiving him. He wished to seize the opportunity to convey to the Fuhrer of the Greater German Reich, admired by the entire Arab world, his thanks for the sympathy, which he had always shown for the Arab and especially the Palestinian cause and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches.
The Arab countries were firmly convinced that Germany would win the war and that the Arab cause would prosper. The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as Germany, namely the English, the Jews, and the Communists. Therefore, they were prepared to cooperate with Germany with all their hearts and stood ready to participate in the war, not only negatively by the commission of acts of sabotage and the instigation of revolutions but also positively by the formation of an Arab Legion.
The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews. Furthermore, they had close relations with all Muslim nations, of which they could make use on behalf of the common cause. The Arab Legion would be quite easy to raise. An appeal by the Mufti to the Arab countries and the prisoners of Arab, Algerian, Tunisian, and Moroccan nationality in Germany would produce a great number of volunteers eager to fight. Of Germany’s victory the Arab world was firmly convinced, not only because the Reich possessed a large army, brave soldiers, and military leaders of genius, but also because the Almighty could never award the victory to an unjust cause.
‘The Arabs could be more useful to Germany as allies than might be apparent at first glance, both for geographical reasons and because of the suffering inflicted upon them by the English and the Jews’
In this struggle, the Arabs were striving for the independence and unity of Palestine, Syria, and Iraq. They had the fullest confidence in the Fuhrer and looked to his hand for the balm on their wounds, which had been inflicted upon them by the enemies of Germany.
The Mufti then mentioned the letter he had received from Germany, which stated that Germany held no Arab territories, and understood and recognized the aspirations to independence and freedom of the Arabs, just as she supported the elimination of the Jewish national home.
A public declaration in this sense would be very useful for its propagandistic effect on the Arab peoples at this moment. It would rouse the Arabs from their momentary lethargy and give them new courage. It would also ease the Mufti’s work of secretly organizing the Arabs against the moment when they could strike. At the same time, he could give the assurance that the Arabs would in strict discipline patiently wait for the right moment and only strike upon an order from Berlin.
Concerning the events in Iraq, the Mufti observed that the Arabs in that country certainly had by no means been incited by Germany to attack England, but solely had acted in reaction to a direct English assault upon their honor.
The Turks, he believed, would welcome the establishment of an Arab government in the neighboring territories because they would prefer weaker Arab to strong European governments in the neighboring countries and, being themselves a nation of 7 million, they had nothing to fear from the 1,700,000 Arabs inhabiting Syria, Transjordan, Iraq, and Palestine.
France likewise would have no objections to the unification plan because it had conceded independence to Syria as early as 1936 and had given her approval to the unification of Iraq and Syria under King Faisal as early as 1933.
In these circumstances, he was renewing his request that the Fuhrer make a public declaration so that the Arabs would not lose hope, which is so powerful a force in the life of nations. With such hope in their hearts the Arabs, as he had said, were willing to wait. hey were not pressing for the immediate realization of their aspirations; they could easily wait half a year or a whole year. But if they were not inspired with such a hope by a declaration of this sort, it could be expected that the English would be the gainers from it.
HITLER:
The Fuhrer replied that Germany’s fundamental attitude on these questions, as the Mufti, himself, had already stated, was clear. Germany stood for an uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests. Germany was also aware that the assertion that the Jews were carrying out the functions of economic pioneers in Palestine was a lie. The work there was done only by the Arabs, not by the Jews. Germany resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.
Germany was at the present time engaged in a life-and-death struggle with two citadels of Jewish power: Great Britain and Soviet Russia. Theoretically, there was a difference between England’s capitalism and Soviet Russia’s communism; actually, however, the Jews in both countries were pursuing a common goal. This was the decisive struggle; on the political plane, it presented itself in the main as a conflict between Germany and England, but ideologically it was a battle between National Socialism and the Jews. It went without saying that Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle because platonic promises were useless in a war for survival or destruction in which the Jews were able to mobilize all of England’s power for their ends.
“Germany was resolved, step by step, to ask one European nation after the other to solve its Jewish problem, and at the proper time to direct a similar appeal to non-European nations as well.”
The aid to the Arabs would have to be material aid. Of how little help sympathies alone were in such a battle had been demonstrated plainly by the operation in Iraq, where circumstances had not permitted the rendering of really effective, practical aid. In spite of all the sympathies, German aid had not been sufficient and Iraq was overcome by the power of Britain, that is, the guardian of the Jews.
The Mufti could not but be aware, however, that the outcome of the struggle going on at present would also decide the fate of the Arab world. The Fuhrer therefore had to think and speak coolly and deliberately, as a rational man and primarily as a soldier, as the leader of the German and allied armies. Everything of a nature to help in this titanic battle for the common cause, and thus also for the Arabs, would have to be done. Anything, however, that might contribute to weakening the military situation must be put aside, no matter how unpopular this move might be.
Germany was now engaged in very severe battles to force the gateway to the northern Caucasus region. The difficulties were mainly with regard to maintaining the supply, which was most difficult as a result of the destruction of railroads and highways as well as the oncoming winter. If at such a moment, the Fuhrer were to raise the problem of Syria in a declaration, those elements in France which were under de Gaulle’s influence would receive new strength. They would interpret the Fuhrer’s declaration as an intention to break up France’s colonial empire and appeal to their fellow countrymen that they should rather make common cause with the English to try to save what still could be saved. A German declaration regarding Syria would in France be understood to refer to the French colonies in general, and that would at the present time create new troubles in Western Europe, which means that a portion of the German armed forces would be immobilized in the West and no longer be available for the campaign in the east.
The Fuhrer then made the following statement to the Mufti, enjoining him to lock it in the uttermost depths of his heart:
- He (the Fuhrer) would carry on the battle to the total destruction of the Judeo-Communist empire in Europe.
- At some moment which was impossible to set exactly today but which in any event was not distant, the German armies would in the course of this struggle reach the southern exit from Caucasia.
- As soon as this had happened, the Fuhrer would on his own give the Arab world the assurance that its hour of liberation had arrived. Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power. In that hour the Mufti would be the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. It would then be his task to set off the Arab operations, which he had secretly prepared. When that time came, Germany could also be indifferent to the French reaction to such a declaration.
Once Germany had forced open the road to Iran and Iraq through Rostov; it would be also the beginning of the end of the British World Empire. He (the Fuhrer) hoped that the coming year would make it possible for Germany to thrust open the Caucasian gate to the Middle East. For the good of their common cause, it would be better if the Arab proclamation were put off for a few more months than if Germany were to create difficulties for herself without being able to help the Arabs.
He (the Fuhrer) fully appreciated the eagerness of the Arabs for a public declaration of the sort requested by the Grand Mufti. But he would beg him to consider that he (the Fuhrer) himself was the Chief of State of the German Reich for five long years during which he was unable to make to his own homeland the announcement of its liberation. He had to wait with that until the announcement could be made on the basis of a situation brought about by the force of arms that the Anschluss had been carried out.
The moment that Germany’s tank divisions and air squadrons had made their appearance south of the Caucasus, the public appeal requested by the Grand Mufti could go out to the Arab world.
GRAND MUFTI:
The Grand Mufti replied that it was his view that everything would come to pass just as the Fuhrer had indicated. He was fully reassured and satisfied by the words that he had heard from the Chief of the German State. He asked, however, whether it would not be possible, secretly at least, to enter into an agreement with Germany of the kind he had just outlined for the Fuhrer.
HITLER:
The Fuhrer replied that he had just now given the Grand Mufti precisely that confidential declaration.
GRAND MUFTI:
The Grand Mufti thanked him for it and stated in conclusion that he was taking his leave from the Fuhrer in full confidence and with reiterated thanks for the interest shown in the Arab cause.
Sources
https://www.yadvashem.org/blog/setting-the-record-straight.html
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/hajj-amin-al-husayni-the-mufti-of-jerusalem
https://www.timesofisrael.com/full-official-record-what-the-mufti-said-to-hitler/
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/haj-amin-al-husseini
https://time.com/4084301/hitler-grand-mufi-1941/
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The Reporting of the Death of Evil
On 29 April 1945, Hitler completed his will and last political testament and married his longtime mistress, Eva Braun. He also received the news that Benito Mussolini met his death in Italy. Mussolini’s corpse, along with that of his mistress, Clara Petacci, had been smashed in fury by a mob and hung upside down outside a gas station.
The following day, 30 April 1945, while holed up in his bunker under his headquarters in Berlin, Hitler committed suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head. His wife, Eva Braun also killed herself.
This is how the media reported the news.
One of Time magazine’s most iconic covers of all time was used to mark Hitler’s death.
Inside the edition, TIME Magazine would also mention the death of Mussolini.
Karl Lehmann was a German-Jewish refugee. He arrived at Leighton Park in 1936 from Cologne, Germany, where conditions were no longer safe. Karl joined the BBC Monitoring Service, first at Evesham, then Reading, where he listened to and translated German wartime broadcasts, including the one on 1 May 1945 announcing the death of Adolf Hitler.
The 24-year-old monitoring German state radio when listeners were told to prepare for an important announcement. “They played solemn music and then they said Hitler had died” he recalls. “They said he had fallen fighting Bolshevism. It was announced in a very sombre way.”
“We were the first people in Britain to hear the announcement,” he remembers. “The whole building cheered. We realised how important it was. It meant the end of the war against Germany.”
Sources
20 April 1945
It’s difficult, if not impossible, to categorize any particular day as the eviliest day during World War II, but I think 20 April 1945 would be a good contender.
On that day, Allied bombers in Italy began a three-day attack on the bridges over the rivers Adige and Brenta to cut off German lines of retreat on the peninsula. Meanwhile, Adolf Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday as under a Gestapo reign of terror resulting in the hanging of 20 Russian prisoners of war and 20 Jewish children: Of these, at least nine were under the age of 12. All of the victims had been taken from Auschwitz to Neuengamme, the place of execution, for the purpose of medical experimentation.
On his 56th birthday, Adolf Hitler made his last trip to the surface, from the bunker, to award Iron Crosses to boy soldiers of the Hitler Youth. Although the below picture was taken in March 1945, and the officer awarding the Iron Cross clearly isn’t Hitler, it does indicate how young these child soldiers were. The boy is Willi Hübner, he was 16 when he received the Iron Cross, but he looks about 12.
On 20 April 1945, it must have become blatantly clear that the Nazis would lose the war within a matter of weeks. Yet children would be sacrificed and murdered.
On Hitler’s 56th (and maybe for his) birthday, the SS took 20 children, who had been victims of medical experiments at Neuengamme, to a school building in Hamburg. Situated on Bullenhuser Damm, this location was a subcamp of Neuengamme. (10 boys and 10 girls, all Jewish) to be murdered.
The Nazis also murdered four adult prisoners that day, who had been looking after the children at the camp. The adults were two French doctors, Gabriel Florence and René Quenouille, and the Dutchmen Dirk Deutekom and Anton Hölzel.
The children were told that they had to be vaccinated against typhoid fever before their return journey. Then they were injected with morphine. They were hanged from hooks on the wall, but the SS men found it difficult to kill the mutilated children. The first child to be strung up was so light – due to disease and malnutrition – that the rope wouldn’t strangle him. SS untersturmführer Frahm had to use all of his own weight to tighten the noose. Then he hanged the others, two at a time, from different hooks. ‘Just like pictures on the wall’, he would recall later. He added that none of the children had cried.
One of those children was Jacqueline Morgenstern, she was 12 when she was murdered.
Before you continue reading, I want you to look into the eyes of Jacqueline, and imagine her body hanging on a hook like a piece of meat.
These are the names of the 20 children, remember all of them, Get their names ingrained in your brain.
Alexander Hornemann, 8, the Netherlands
Eduard Hornemann, 12, the Netherlands
Marek Steinbaum, 10, Poland
Marek James, 6, Poland
W. Junglieb, 12, Yugoslavia
Roman Witonski, 7, Poland
Roman Zeller, 12, Poland
Sergio de Simone, 7, Italy
Georges Andre Kohn, 12, France
Eduard Reichenbaum, 10, Poland
Jacqueline Morgenstern, 12, France
Surcis Goldinger, 11, Poland
Lelka Birnbaum, 12, Poland
Eleonora Witonska, 5, Poland
Ruchla Zylberberg, 10, Poland
H.Wasserman, 8, Poland
Lea Klygerman, 8, Poland
Rywka Herszberg, 7, Poland
Blumel Mekler, 11, Poland
Mania Altman, 5, Poland
The murder of children is something I will never understand.
sources
http://www.kinder-vom-bullenhuser-damm.de/_english/jacqueline_morgenstern.php
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/photo/seven-year-old-jacqueline-morgenstern
Those Who Lived Through It
Some of the perpetrators of the Holocaust just went about their business as if it was the most natural thing in the world. In the above photograph, you see a picture of the first German commander of Camp Schoorl SS-Untersturmführer Schmidt visiting Amsterdam as if he was a tourist. He is just one of the many criminals, although a lesser-known one, responsible for the murder of millions.
Fortunately, some survived, and some bystanders bear witness to the appalling crimes committed.
Edith Reiss, from Bolton, England, describes witnessing antisemitic violence on the streets of Göttingen, Germany when she was a visitor there in 1939
“It must have been August 26, 27, something like that, of 1939. And I had taken pictures during my holiday in the Harz Mountains and left them at a photographer’s studio in the town of Göttingen.
I went to pick up the pictures. And there were several other people in the store. I had to wait. And as I was waiting, I heard a commotion outside the shop.
Then I picked up my pictures and came out of the shop. And there, I saw a man in the Brownshirt uniform kicking an old man into the pavement into the gutter. Now there was a crowd of about 12 people standing around, looking. As I came out of the shop, I was horrified to see what was happening.
The Brownshirt walked away from the man, leaving him in the gutter. I immediately rushed to pick him up. And as I picked him up, I saw he had a patch on his coat that had the Jewish symbol Juden, J-U-D-E-N, which meant Jew. I picked him up, and as I did so, a person nearby touched my elbow and said, “Don’t get involved.”
I said, why not? Why can’t you help this man? And they used two words, concentration camp. So I helped the man along the street, and then he turned to me. He said, “I will be alright.”
Kurt Klein, who emigrated from Walldorf, Germany, to the United States in 1937, recalls how Nazi policies and propaganda affected his life at school.
“Well, there was, of course, a gradual alienation with my non-Jewish friends and classmates. And whereas in the beginning, they were almost apologetic about it, saying things such as, “Well, Hitler doesn’t mean people like you really, or your parents, but you will admit there are certain Jews who really deserve to get Hitler’s wrath,” …and so on—in the beginning, they would still be half apologetic about it. This soon turned into a real taunting of Jewish boys and girls.
They might say, “You know, there are now some concentration camps. And if you don’t behave and if you don’t watch it, you’ll wind up in one of those.” and gradually they even stopped talking to us altogether.
But I had seen the gradual change of that. I also saw how they were exposed to Nazi propaganda. For instance, it became mandatory for all schools and all classes to attend such films as the Leni Riefenstahl film, Triumph of the Will. And I myself had to attend it also. And I could see how they were swallowing that up and how it affected them and how they were imbued with this idea of German glory. And anything they would tell them about the Jews, of course, they also swallowed whole.
And so I remember coming out of this film and, having seen the reaction of my classmates, walking along and thinking, how did I get into this position? I didn’t do anything. Why is all this venom directed at me and my family and all the people I know? So I could see the role that propaganda can play and how it can influence people.
What was it like for you to sit in a class and watch a film like this?
Well, it was a totally shattering experience for me to find that all these people were turning away from me, and what was even worse, that some teachers were espousing that same ideology. For instance, I remember a gym teacher of ours giving a lecture once in class to the effect of– this is as close to what he said as I can remember: There are certain elements among us here who are merely guests in this country. They will be treated OK as long as they behave themselves. Unfortunately, they have not always behaved themselves, and therefore we cannot guarantee what will happen to them. I mean, this completely undid me, and not because perhaps even of the content, but because I could see that the Nazis were reaching everybody, not only my classmates.”
From Democracy to Dictatorship
Alfred Wolf, a Holocaust survivor from Eberbach, Germany, recalls the changes he noticed in Germany after the election of Adolf Hitler.
“Do you remember Election Day?
Not per se.
Did you know about it? Were you aware of this?
Oh, yes. Oh, elections dominated the whole atmosphere very much as a presidential election does here, except that elections of various types happened a little more often in Germany.
Did your parents have a chance to vote?
Oh, yes. Well, Jews in the Weimar Republic were very much part and parcel of civic life. There was no exclusion that I was aware of. And they were very proud of the fact that they were full citizens.
Did your parents and grandparents think of moving out of there?
No. That thought did not occur to them because, in the Weimar Republic, the instability of national politics was such that we were sure, very much in the spirit of my father’s bet, that parties like the Nazis would come and go, and we just had to sit and be patient, and they would be sure to go.
So when did you finally realize that it’s not going away?
The most visible change after– I don’t remember whether it was after a week or so– that the flag of the country was changed. The black, red, and gold flag of the Weimar Republic was eliminated. And the swastika flag– black, white, and red– was hoisted in the school. The director of the school, who was a registered Democrat, walked out and said, I refuse to teach under this flag. And he was immediately arrested. He was very lucky in that they just reduced his rank from director to a teacher, but we realized that a different wind was blowing.”
Holocaust survivor Barbara Fischman Traub describes the reactions of her neighbours as she and her family were marched through their hometown of Sighet, Hungary, to the ghetto during the Holocaust.
“Early in the morning, it was the week after Passover, so it must have been the end of April, early May– end of April, I believe. I think it is a very beautiful town. And it was the time when the lilacs began to bloom.
The lilac in my mother’s garden was very special because it was double-petaled purple lilac. And you could see already the buds. And this was the morning when they rang– and again, the gendarmes– and we were packed by then, mother, and I, and the cook, and across the street, my brother’s wife, Rosie– Rose– and the two little babies, my nieces.
We had our valises. And in the street where we lived, there were a few Jews. It was a mixed neighbourhood. So there were about four Jewish families and they were all packed and the gendarmes came.
And they took us towards another street where there were some more Jews. They put us in the centre of the street where the cars and horses were driven, and they started to force us to march to the ghetto. The ghetto was in the Jewish section of the town which was on the other side of the town.
Were your neighbours aware of what was going on?
Oh, yes. Oh, yes. Those very neighbours in whose courtyard I played as a child, those very neighbours who were guests at my mother’s dining room table months before, peeked through their windows and turned their faces.
And as I look back now, strange that it pains me so much. That trek through the main street, in the middle of the street, driven like cattle, with the valises, with the baggage, with my little nieces, with the little infant who was five, six weeks old, being driven to that Corso where my father, had a big business where people would come to buy, would tip their hat and say, “How do you do, Mr Fischman,” and turned to my mother and say, “How are you?” [SPEAKING HUNGARIAN], which is a very respectful way to address a lady in Hungarian. “How are you, my lady?”
These very people who used to watch my bicycle through town and say, “[INAUDIBLE], you have the first girl’s bicycle–” because they never saw a girl’s bicycle, you know, without a handlebar– these neighbours who used to pinch my cheek when I was a little girl, they stood and watched, stony-faced, as we were driven to this town with the Hungarian gendarmes using truncheons on old people who couldn’t walk fast enough. It was so shameful, so humiliating. But I know now that the shame was theirs, not ours. But I didn’t know it then.”
Marion Pritchard, a member of the Dutch resistance who hid a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Holland, describes what happened when a Dutch Nazi policeman investigated her house.
“Miek van der Loeff, who was the director of the Amsterdam Municipal Electrical Works by then, asked me to find a place for his friend, Freddy, and Freddy’s three children to go into hiding. And I couldn’t find any place that would take all four of them. So then Miek moved us into the servants’ quarters of his mother-in-law’s house out in the country. That’s that yellow house in the pictures.
When you agreed to do this, what was your relationship with this person who asked you up until that time?
Oh. His parents were best friends with my parents, and I had known him all my life. My parents were older than the parents of children my age. So my parents’ friends children tended to be 10 to 15 years older than I. But I knew them all.
And so Miek is the one who asked me to find a place. And he and his brother built a hiding place underneath the living room floor. At night, I’d open it up.
Because when you heard a motor vehicle come, or a truck, or whatever, you knew that it wasn’t somebody Dutch. You knew it was most likely the Nazis looking for Jews. So we practised, and I could get him and the kids in there and cover it all up in about 30 seconds.
This one particular night, a Dutch Nazi policeman brought three German Nazi officers to the house. And I thought they were in the hiding place, but I’d let them out—I let the kids out after half an hour because I hadn’t had time to give the baby her sleeping powder. And she began to cry. And Freddy decided to stay in the hiding place, because he was working on his PhD thesis, and he was in the middle of an important chapter. Some people know how to concentrate.
So then the Dutch policeman came back. Because it was customary for the person in hiding to sleep in the same bed with a member of the host family. Because if the Nazis came, and they found, say, that there were five beds slept in but only four people, they could guess that the fifth person had gone out the window or something like that. So this night, just the Dutch Nazi policeman came back. And I couldn’t think of anything else to do except to shoot him.
How did you have a gun?
Miek, the gentile who had asked me to find a place for them, had given it to me. And I had put it behind the books on the shelf above the bed, never intending to use it. I’m against capital punishment, and I’m against abortion. I can make exceptions on abortion, of course. But I am basically opposed to capital punishment and killing in general.
But your unconscious is quite powerful. And when it was a choice, most likely, between the kids and him, I chose him. And I didn’t wait to see what he was going to do or what he was going to say.
By then, obviously, if he’d gone into the other room, he would have seen the kids. He might have known the kids around anyway. But my instinct was that if I didn’t get rid of him, those kids were doomed.
So we talked briefly. We decided that Karel would go walk to the village, which of course was strictly against the rules. You’re not supposed to be out during curfew. Especially if you’re a Jew, you’re not supposed to be out during curfew. And I suggested that he stay with the kids and that I go to the village, but he wasn’t having any of that.
And he went to see the baker– and I have a picture of the baker somewhere– who in normal times brought his wares around in a wagon with a horse. And the baker agreed that as soon as curfew ended in the morning, he would come with his horse and wagon and get the body. And before Karel came back, together they went to see the local undertaker. And the local undertaker agreed to bury the body in a coffin with somebody who was having a funeral the next day.”
Barbara Turkeltaub, a Jewish girl who was hidden by Catholic nuns during the war, describes witnessing a Nazi massacre.
I usually was a very good girl and listen, very conform to what I needed to do. That one particular day that looked such a nice day early in the morning—we were very early up. We were up at six o’clock because there was like a mass in the morning. They had like a little chapel and they went to mass and they took us there too. My sister was not very often there, because she wouldn’t sit. But they took me almost every time.
Now, after the mass, we would go and have breakfast. And after breakfast, it was a quiet time. So during that quiet time, which was still very early, I venture. I didn’t remember that I wasn’t supposed to. And I ventured and the forest was, I mean, right there, very close by. So I went into the forest and I went a little bit farther and was very curious. I wasn’t frightened at all, and I didn’t have to go very far from there. I started to hear these noises. These noises. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
I didn’t really associate this with shooting, because it sounds different. I don’t know. Anyway, I went towards the sound. And I didn’t go very far. I saw this huge ditch. And around it a group of—I began to hear also voices. Voices. And I saw a group of women, and who were undressed, and some of them were holding babies in their arms. And the Germans were shooting randomly. I mean, and they were falling.
I was so stunned, I couldn’t move. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t. I was just hypnotized. I was there. And very soon afterwards, somebody grabbed me and carry me again from there. And that was one of the nuns, older nuns. And they were telling me, she was telling me, and the others were dead. You were told not to venture. You were told not to go. You have not listened to us. It’s very bad.”
sources
https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/witnessing-antisemitic-violence
https://www.dw.com/en/voting-in-the-midst-of-nazi-terror/a-16646980
The Significance of December 12 in the Context of the Holocaust
The letter above is dated 18 December 1943. However, it is in direct connection with a program that started eight years earlier. On 12 December 1935, the Lebensborn program began as a campaign to encourage so-called “racially valuable” Germans to have more children. Lebensborn initially focused on giving financial assistance to members of the SS with large families and providing pregnant “German-blooded” women with medical care in comfortable maternity houses. During World War II, the program also became involved in the kidnapping of thousands of foreign children for adoption into German families to counter Germany’s declining birthrate.
On 13 September 1936, nine months after the program had been initiated, Heinrich Himmler wrote the following to members of the SS:
“The organisation “Lebensborn e.V.” serves the SS leaders in the selection and adoption of qualified children. The organisation “Lebensborn e.V.” is under my personal direction, is part of the Race and Settlement Central Bureau of the SS, and has the following obligations:
• Support racially, biologically and hereditarily valuable families with many children.
• Placement and care of racially, biologically and hereditarily valuable pregnant women, who, after a thorough examination of their and the progenitor’s families by the Race and Settlement Central Bureau of the SS, can be expected to produce equally valuable children.
• Care for the children.
• Care for the children’s mothers.
It is the honourable duty of all leaders of the central bureau to become members of the organisation “Lebensborn e.V.” The application for admission must be filed prior to 23 September 1936.”
One of the children conceived via the Lebensborn program is Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad from the Swedish pop band ABBA.
After her birth on 15 November 1945, the result of an encounter between her mother, Synni, and a German sergeant, Alfred Haase, Anni-Frid’s mother and grandmother were branded as traitors and ostracized in their village in Northern Norway. They were forced to emigrate to Sweden, where Anni-Frid’s mother died of kidney failure before her daughter was two.
It is estimated that 20,000 Polish children were kidnapped who passed the Germanization criteria and were integrated into the Lebensborn program.
Below is the translation of the letter above:
Lodz. 18 Dec. 1943
To Mr Karl Müller
Richrath / Langenfeld Rietherbach St. 11
R IV / I – A. E. – 023 – Hei / MHW –
Subject: placement of a child
Reference: Preceding correspondence
Condition: proof of health (2 persons)
Dear Mr Müller!
I am pleased to finally announce that I have found two boys, one of which you will most likely approve. They are Sep Piehl, born on 3 December 1935, and Eugen Bartel, born on 11 March 1937. I believe that at least one of them is of an age that is well-suited to your household. The children currently live in Oberweis (Upper Danube). Arrange to take the 6:19 train leaving Gmunden on 4 January 1944, and arrive in Oberweis at 6:37. If you need overnight accommodation, confirm with me and I will arrange it. It is necessary that you bring your identification papers with you. Please notify me no later than 22 December 1943, whether I can expect you in Oberweis on 4 January. In any event, please complete the accompanying proofs of health for yourself and your wife. The authorized departmental or SS physician will, as is standard, provide me with the completed forms. I hope that my news to you has given you special Christmas joy.
Hail Hitler!
On behalf of: signed
Most people will have heard of the Wannsee conference, but only a few know about the meeting that preceded the conference. That meeting may have had greater implications than the Wannsee conference.
On the afternoon of the 12th of December 1941, Hitler ordered the leading members of the Nazi party to a meeting in his private rooms at the Reich Chancellery.
The announcement Hitler made on 12 December to the Reichsleiter and Gauleiter refers to an earlier statement he had made on 30 January 1939:
“If the world of international financial Jewry, both in and outside of Europe, should succeed in plunging the Nations into another world war, the result will not be the Bolshevization of the world and thus a victory for Judaism. The result will be the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe.”
With the United States being dragged into World War II on 7 December 1941 and the subsequent declaration of war on the US by Nazi Germany on 11 December, the war, especially regarding the above statement, had become truly a World War. Hitler announced this declaration of war on 11 December in the German Reichstag, a speech also broadcast on the radio. On 12 December 1941, he had a meeting with the most important Nazi leaders.
Attendance in this meeting was obligatory for Nazis in high party offices. No official list of the people who attended this meeting exists, but the following leaders of Nazi Germany, are known to have been there:
Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Goebbels, Martin Bormann, Hans Frank and Philipp Bouhler. More than likely, Alfred Rosenberg; Gauleiters Arthur Greiser, Fritz Bracht, and Fritz Sauckel, Reichskommissars Hinrich Lohse and Erich Koch, and Alfred Meyer were also present. Known to have been absent from this meeting were Hermann Göring and Reinhard Heydrich.
Joseph Göbbels. noted the following in his diary on 13 December 1941.
“Regarding the Jewish question, the Fuehrer is determined to clean the table. He prophesized that should the Jews once again bring about a world war, they would be annihilated. These were no empty words. The world war has come, therefore the annihilation of the Jews has to be its inevitable consequence. The question has to be examined without any sentimentality. We are not here to pity Jews but to have pity for our own German people. If the German people have sacrificed about 160,000 dead in the battles in the east, the instigators of this bloody conflict will have to pay for it with their lives.”
What is so significant about the December 12 meeting is that Adolf Hitler himself was present and had called for the meeting. Believe it or not, but to this day there are still people who claim that Hitler had no hand in the murder of Jews, clearly, that meeting shows his full knowledge and endorsement and also that he ordered the mass murder.
On that same day, the first group of Jews was deported to Majdanek: 150 men who had been captured in a manhunt in the Lublin ghetto. By 6 January 1945, just 17 of them were still alive and were liberated from the camp by an order of the German Labor Ministry in Lublin. Between 22 February and 9 November 1942, at least 4000 Jews from Lublin were murdered in Majdanek.
Werner Galnik, a young Jewish boy in the Riga Ghetto in Latvia worded it probably the best in his diary entry of 12 December 1941.
“I figured this way: Hitler loves only the Germans, but no other people, and particularly not us Jews. Does it follow that because we are Jews we must be prisoners? Did my father perhaps steal or murder that he should be arrested? And what had my dear mother done? And what did we children do?”
sources
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/jun/30/kateconnolly.theobserver
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/joseph-goebbels-on-the-jewish-question
https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/10444531
https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/lebensborn-program
https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/the-quot-lebensborn-quot-program
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Why Shouldn’t We Compare Some Individuals to Hitler?
The general consensus is that once you introduce Hitler into a debate or an argument, you have lost that argument. Even though I subscribed to this opinion—my view has changed.
I believe not comparing some current far-right politicians to Hitler is a mistake. For example, despite what Putin thinks, he has become a far-right dictator following a similar path as Hitler from 1936-1939. However, Putin is not the only one.
Hitler didn’t start as a dictator—he gradually became a dictator. He started his campaign with legitimate political means. He also knew how to tap into the zeitgeist of the German population in the 1920s and 1930, referring to mainstream conservative German civilians. They feared their values were slowly eroding, although—there was no clear evidence. It was the perception of the time.
German citizens believed their concerns and fears were not listened to or addressed by politicians. Hitler did listen. He devised most of the Nazi policies based on those fears.
The far-right and far-left movements are basically the same but—not in name. Both are emerging globally, at the moment, for doing the exact same thing as Hitler. If you convey that in a debate today, you are immediately dismissed.
We should listen to all opinions, and if there are concerns, be they real or just a perception, they need to be addresses and not dismissed.
History of Sorts 
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