From: abkevich@husc3.harvard.edu
Newsgroups: soc.culture.german
Subject: Re: Germans and Jews
Date: 26 Jan 93 08:48:06 GMT
Article-I.D.: husc3.1993Jan26.034806.19799
Followup-To: soc.culture.german,soc.culture.jewish
Distribution: world
Organization: Harvard University Science Center

In article <dieter-250193104759@frueh-koelsch.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>, 
dieter@informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Dieter Kreuer) writes:
> In article <1993Jan24.035907.19738@husc3.harvard.edu>,
> abkevich@husc3.harvard.edu wrote:
>> 
>> In article <dieter-220193153324@frueh-koelsch.informatik.rwth-aachen.de>, 
>> dieter@informatik.rwth-aachen.de (Dieter Kreuer) writes:
> 
>> I have never heard about muss executions of German army (except SS members - 
>> well, Russians considered them all criminals): Stalin was too realistic for
>> them. He prefered to used prisoners in labor camps for many years after the
>> war
> 
> Recently, mass graves of German soldiers have been found in ex-GDR,
> (Poland, too?) and Russian historians have admitted that mass executions of 
> German soldiers have been committed by the Red Army on German ground.

These murders should be investigated but there were probably some "reasons" for
them. As I said from Soviet point of view by 1945 all SS members should be shot
without any further investigation. Or people who looked like SS member, or was
suspected in being interested in SS membership... I am not going to say that 
Stalin was interested injustice. He never was. However for Red Army was quite
unusual to murder German prisoners (otherwise Germany losses would be much 
higher). On the other hand most part of Russian prisoners didn't survive. They 
were rarely shot - most part died from starvation).
  
> 
>> My mother recalls that conditions in these camps were *bad* even comparing 
>> with starving Russians. However their conditions were uncomparable with 
>> conditions of Russian prisoners in Germany. I might recall you, that 
>> 3,500,000 Russians prisoners died in German camps.
> 
> True. The Nazis rated them not higher than the Jews, so they were killed.
> I do not doubt that German camps were crueler than Russian ones. 

German camps were crueler than Russin ones? It is true if you are talking about
Russian camps for Germans. Were Russian camps for their own citizens less cruel
then German camps? I doubt it. There are not many people who survived both of
them and were able to compare. Grandfather of my friend (a Jew) was caught by
Germans, barely survived in Buchenvald and was liberated by Red Army only to be
arested after few monthes. He was sent to Siberia and spent 11 years there. His
opinion was that Russian camps were more cruel. In German camps many people
died without even understanding what is going on. Permanent population of 
German camps were uncomparably less than Russian ones (it began to rise from
probably 0.1 million by 1928 to the more less constant level of 10-15 millions
after 1935 for more than 20 years). Hitler wanted to murder "enemies of state"
as soon as possible. Stalin wanted to isolate the most part of them (there were
shootings too, of course) and let them die through unbearable labor so that he 
would profit from his own cruelties. For people it usualy mean agonizing slow
death. On the other hand it was easier to survive in Siberia than in the middle
of Europe. But it is hard to compare such cruel camps. 
  
>> > Well, dropping 2 million tons of TNT on civilians and 2 nuclear bombs
>> > on Japanese cities is also rather cruel, so I would not rate any World
>> > War 2 participant to be much crueler than another [...]
>  
>> There was a difference: Allies, especially Western, were cruel during war 
>> time Germans were extremly cruel especially after they got fool control over 
>> civilians. If you don't believe it, just compare number civilians murdered by
>> Germans with number Germans and Japanese murdered by Allies (again - there 
>> are a lot of reasons why these bombing took place, but they also do not 
>> have moral justification). I don't have all necessary statistics, but if you
>> sum at least 10,000,000 Russians (I am talking only about civilians now) and
>> 6,000,000 Jews it will be more then enough. There are also millions Poles, 
>> Serbs and so on. 
> 
> Apart form the fact that there isn't much more cruelty beyond dropping an
> atom bomb on civilians, the Germans ruling in occupied territories were 
> especially chosen and well organized. If you rate cruelty in the number of 
> killed persons, you are right with your points, but if you "measure" it in
> the number of cruel persons in a random group, I doubt that you are.
>   
>> > [...] But the decisions on these crimes were made by a small
>> > group of the population. I would not say that the average German
>> > was more brutal than the average Russian/American/English/French. Only,
>> > while in the allied countries, dangerous criminals were in jail, here,
>> > they were ruling the country, and it is the fault of the German popula-
>> > tion not to have stopped them at the very beginning.
>> 
>> 1. Don't you think that it is to easy to explane millions of brutaly murdered
>> by a small group of dangerous criminals? 
> 
> See above. Select the right persons, organize them in a pyramid, give
> orders from above and shoot everybody not obeying to them.
> 

That is a problem: you need a pyramid. Every next level is less cruel, but have
to stand cruelties of the previous level. It's not kind of exercise which will
make your heart softer. Ever read Remark?

>> 2. Even if decisions were made by a small group of population ther were much 
>> more who executed them and *MUCH* more those who knew but didn't do a thing
>> because they were afraid or didn't give a damn?
> 
> Correct. Many prefered to kill others than to be killed themselves. Most
> human are not born heroes.
>  

Correct. But is doesn't make things better. See above.

>> > What would you have done in their position? Or in the position of a
>> > German citizen of 1930? 1933? 1939? People were probably not aware of
>> > their fate in the beginning, and later, the Nazis were too powerful.
>> 
>> Almost certainly I wouldn't be able to stand a presure. But I was happy and I 
>> wasn't put in such awful conditions, I didn't do it. They did. And were
>> corrupted.
> 
> That is exactly why we, living today and looking back from the lazy chair,
> should be careful to judge those who lived then. We should not excuse their
> deeds, but consider the causes. We should learn from them, where their
> faults were, and how we can prevent them to be made again.
>  

I am not judging them. I could understand them. I pity them. But I am also have
to condemn them and their deeds. Because a man has at least moraly answer for 
what he did and what he didn't.

>> That is a point. They have such **democratically elected** goverment because
>> they inherited mentality of communists. I expect a *lot* of problems in Eastern
>> Europe and the former USSR. I think that Eastern Germany would be more
>> rassistic even after economic problems would ease.
> 
> This might be true. But they will learn, too. Now, they get the same books
> at school as we did, and they will encounter more foreign people in their
> daylife than in ex-GDR.
> 

I hope they will. But we are talking about nowdays, aren't we?

>> Yes, I understand a difference between 1993 and 1933. However Civil War in US
>> ended in 1865, because of enormous number of emmigrants population of US is 
>> now 5 times larger, then was in 1865, population mixed a lot and still 
>> Anti-black movement is much stronger in the South.
> 
> I don't think that the average white Southern has more against the blacks 
> than the average white Yankee. But I can imagine that the racist organi-
> zations who existed before the civil war still have a number of followers
> today in the same region.
>  

Doesn't it mean that average white Southern has more against the blacks than
the average white Yankee? You could also see how people voted. 60% of white
population of Louisiana voted for Duke who is a former member of KKK, who
celebrated Hitler's birthday last year and made his election compain as an open
anti-black and anti-Jewish Southern. He is not a governor only because 30% of
Louisiana's population is black.
   
>> > After the destruction of German cities by the allies, after they had
>> > been shown the concentration camps, and after their sons and husbands
>> > had come home from a POW time of up to ten years - or had not come 
>> > home at all, like one of my grandfathers (yes, we also lost relatives
>> > during the war) [...]
>> 
>>  But sadly such loses do not change people's
>> mentality. It take years for trudition to change. During Civil War 1 white 
>> Southern of every 20 was killed, economy was ruined (it never fully recovered)
>> but it didn't prove them that black people have the same rights as white. How
>> many Germans were killed in WW1?
> 
> A Nazi stays a Nazi, no matter how hard he is punished. However, someone
> who has been cheated and misused by the government, like the GDR citizens,
> or those of Russia, or most Germans during the Nazi era, will learn their
> faults.
>      

It might take longer time than people would remember, how they were cheated and
misused. You can see that former Communists parties in Eastern Europe changed 
their name and recieve more and more votes on each elections, cleverly using 
economic decline. BTW, do you think that Germans learned a lot from WW1?

>> > [...] They felt more liberated than conquered, when
>> > the allies came. I know of many Germans who were children then, 
>> > who admired the American soldiers, who gave them chocolate, and after
>> > the war, the USA had long been an idol country for Germans ("the
>> > land of infinite possibilities"; when I was a child, I admired so
> 
>> So what? If you will ask Serbs today, I almost sure they would cry who they
>> admire US, "the land of infinite possibilies". Admiring has nothing to do with
>> behaviour.
> 
> I was talking about how people regarded the American troopers: As libera-
> tors, send from an ideal country. You can only have such an attitude,
> when you believe that your former government was bad and ill-willing.
> (Of course, this was not the idea of everybody, but of most of the
> population. The Nazis had very different ideas from the US).
> A people which has this point of view can be expected to adopt the same
> rationals as its idol. 

But this will not make them the same as Americans. Look, I've talked with many
Russian Jews. They all idealised US. They fled here because of several reasons.
So what will they say after 5 days in States? "I KNOW what this country need. 
(He is 5 days here. But he already knows. He was not allowed to have his own
opinion in Russia. It was one of the reasons for emigration. But he will not 
let me have my own opinion.) It is too soft. We should give more power to the 
police. (He left his country because he was afraid of KGB. Now he is begging
for a strong power). These blacks... (In Russia he never had black friends,
quite probably have never talked with them, and even probably have never seen
them. He suffered from anti-semitism. Now he is ready to be a rasist himself.)"
Do you need more examples? Mentality is not a thing which might be changed so
easily. 
                              Cordially

                          Victor  Abkevich
Newsgroups: soc.culture.german