From: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de (Till Poser  -  ZEUS OFFLINE)
Subject: Re: "responsible for the holocaust"
Reply-To: Poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
Organization: Deutsches Elektronen Synchrotron, Experiment ZEUS bei HERA
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 21:47:35 GMT

In article <9208220105.AA00595@helium>, 
the venerable Mr.Dolan seems to be a little bit historically challenged:

|>Gweggie challenges that by my logic, the Jews were responsible for the
|>holocaust.

So he did, and by my lights he was right. Your rationalisings were at 
best badly constructed social Darwinism. You did it before, You'll
get toasted again.

|>Not quite. By my logic, once the Jews knew that their friends and
|>compatriots were disappearing and never heard from again, they were
|>responsible for rising up and fighting for their lives. They chose, in
|>large numbers, instead to imitate sheep. Six million paid for that
|>choice. My guess is that six million rebels in a country of 40,000,000
|>could have overthrown the government; they'd for sure have outnumbered
|>the army.

1) There were about 700,000 Germans of Jewish faith at the beginning of 
   the Third Reich, distributed along the normal population tree.
   Roughly 30.000 remained in Germany after the war, roughly *250.000 
   perished. Most emigrated.

2) There were about 80,000,000 Million Germans at the outbreak of WWII.
   At the end of the war, roughly 10.000.000 Germans were or had been
   in some sort or armed force.

3) The most massive losses in lives of their Jewish citizens were incurred
   by Poland (*~3.000.000) and Russia (*~1.000.000), where the local 
   population did aid and abet the Nazis in their cause, either through
   already existing and virulent antisemitic tendencies or under the
   duress of German occupation policies. In countries, where the local
   population were hostile to the Nazi Semitism (Denmark, Netherlands, 
   Norway and (mirabile dictu) Italy, for instance) the Jewish population
   component didn't suffer as badly. It is a very sad fact the the Jews in
   fascist Italy fared, on the whole, much better than those of France.

4) The disenfranchisement and legal devolution of the Jews in Germany took
   place over a space of 6-8 years, the systematic killing of that 
   population started during 1941 in a rather clandestine fashion*.
   At that time, Germany was at war.

5) It should be kept in mind that the extermination program was kept very
   secret, spread over a huge area, and that mostly the Jews desperately 
   believed the lie of being "relocated". The Nazis were very much aware 
   that widespread knowledge about what was going on in Poland and Russia 
   might have sparked a desperate resistance. 

6) For any rebel or partisan activity to be even faintly successful, a
   sizable portion of general population must be sympathetic to the cause
   of the rebels. "The population is the water in which the partisan must
   swim like a fish." to quote one of the most successful partisan generals
   of this century. Mao Dsedong understood what he was talking about, You
   evidently don't. One should remember that the only sizable and remotely
   successful Jewish uprising against the Nazis, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
   was, for once, supported by the Polish Resistance and the Allies.

* from Der Nationalsozialismus, Dokumente 1933-1945, Schaetzungen des
       Anglo-Amerikanischen Komitees, April 1946

|>"They came to take the Poles, but I wasn't a Pole, so I stayed silent..."

|>Remember?  Bad choice then, bad choice today.

For one thing, if You quote, quote it right! This is a takeoff on Martin
Niemoeller's speech _after_ the war, when he, for the Lutheran Protestant
Church of Germany accepted part of the guilt for the war and the holocaust,
although Niemoeller himself was a concentration camp inmate at that time.
Read it up, it had something to do with remaining silent _as_ _a_ _member_
_of_ _the_ _oppressing_ _population_. Don't quote just to suit Your agenda!

|>As to overthrowing the government, just what the hell do you think I am
|>going on about here, anyway, Gweggie?  Rabblerouser is an honorable
|>position in revolutions. Ask the ghosts of Marrat or Patrick Henry.

Yeah, right.
I'm sure that You'd find Marat very suited as a role-model. 

Anyway, read up on old Mao. He might have sucked turkey eggs as a statesman
but as revolutionary he was pure white lightning. 

And who's to tell me that You are an improvement on Dan Quayle, just
because You have an admirable command of English?


       Till Poser         Internet: poser@vxdsyc.desy.de
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