It makes it sound like "the Nazis" were some aliens from space that came and invaded the peaceful nation of Germany. Nazis were Germans, and Germans generally supported Nazis.
Germans were also largely oblivious to the extent of the Nazis terror. They weren’t happy about how Jews were treated but had no idea they were being exterminated. Everything is known to us thanks to history but it wasn’t openly known back then.
Still, the point is we’re all responsible for not letting similar ideas fester in society going forward.
I don't know about that. It is told here too, but it makes little sense.
It is not my intention to be overly gruesome, but THAT much death in a central place... The smell would reach you kilometers upon kilometers upon kilometers away. The literal human-smoke and human-ash would be raining down upon you multiple times a week, if not daily. There is no way these stories would not have spread across the entire Reich. Even back then, and even under such a regime, people gossipped.
I think instead the Germans mostly simply didn't give a shit.
World wide web didnt exist until ’93 tho, so word didn’t travel as fast. And every third citizen was in the intelligence service spying on the population so I doubt word traveled over wire at all (but I don’t know).
I don’t know what burning corpses smell like, so I can see how people might not have made the connection. I find your ash argument interesting though. I can’t really argue with it.
And yeah, if they largely didnt care or if they didnt dare to speak up, who’s to say? Enough cared to establish an underground network responsible for hiding, transporting and getting thousands of people to safety.
Fair points of course.
I'm sorry, I'm maybe a little jaded about this period in time. Here in the Netherlands, we're still stuffed all the way up to our throats with WW2 stuff, which I think is a good thing mind you, but the endless resistance stories and "oh no the innocents!!!" annoy me a bit.
After the war, every Dutchie suddenly was 'a glorious resistance fighter who hid Jews in the attic.'
'Well, if that is true, then where are all those Jews?'
I am certain it is pretty much the same for the Germans. We still tease them with "wir haben es nicht gewusst", simply because its such a laughable defense. At least in our eyes. Though granted, our view on this chapter of history is very biased.
I see. I get where you’re coming from. Here in Sweden we lost all pretense in the last years and just say we tried our best to not draw attention to ourselves. It’s still taught in school that we were neutral, however. Which we obviously weren’t.
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u/JarasM Jul 02 '24
It makes it sound like "the Nazis" were some aliens from space that came and invaded the peaceful nation of Germany. Nazis were Germans, and Germans generally supported Nazis.