quote:

Originally posted by redstone:
If interested a unique treatement of the topic, and overall tells the story leading to the final solution is "The good old days" by Ernst Klee

[URL=The Good Old Days: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders https://www.amazon.com/dp/1568...Cb16QTXA9]Link[/url]

It directly answers your question (in my opinion). From the realization that normal, same people (soldiers) could not just be ordered to kill innocent people. It was a bizarre process of experimentation and strategic study, leading to the death camps.

I read it in school and it is one of those books that while reading it changed me and how I saw the world . BTW the title is taken from a cover of a scrapbook of the administrator of one of the camps.

Fuck. As a young man I took care of myself and significant others for over 15 years working at a slaughterhouse.

Always felt guilt about the things that happened there up to and including nightmares to this day.

Whoever helped and participated in the camps are probably a mess.

I would be.........

quote:

Originally posted by redstone:

I read it in school and it is one of those books that while reading it changed me and how I saw the world . BTW the title is taken from a cover of a scrapbook of the administrator of one of the camps.

I think Franz Stangl had a photo in his scrapbook titled that. The photo was of a crane used to lift corpses to the incinerator.

I read a book about Stangl: Into That Darkness. It is a fascinating study of human nature. I almost (but not quite) felt sorry for him. He seened to have been a good man who allowed himself to become corrupted.

Also, it's easy to judge him, as he was the Commandant of Treblinka (IIRC). However, he made the argument that had he refused to do the work he was *ordered* to do, he and more importantly, his family, might have been shipped off to a camp. People forget it wasn't safe to say no to the nazis.

Of course, it's easy for me to say he should have refused, but my family has never been threatened with death were I to refuse an assignment, either.

However, his argument wears thin, as I can't imagine an 'innocent' man keeping photos from such a place. And, I REALLY can't imagine someone who was truly remorseful titling a photo from there 'good times.'

I posted something long, but I’ll sum it up: given my years of digging into it, I refuse to believe there wasn’t a cultural mindset at work that didn’t fully encourage what was going on, had no idea what was going on, and that those carrying out the task didn’t believe in what they were doing and simply “following orders.” Nope. I would consider myself better educated about it than many, and I cannot get there. What I AM willing to believe is that Germany got so utterly crushed and demoralized and then had years of retribution heaped upon it that nobody who was a Nazi and helped anyone of the untermensch perish or knew of it and said nothing will never, ever willingly admit to willfully taking part in it or being complicit in keeping “the secret.” For what is there to gain?

There was a whole other holocaust that happened postwar where millions of Germans were slaughtered by the victors, mostly women and children, but also surrendered German soldiers. Months of rape on end for German women and children at the hands of their Russian “liberators.” That doesn’t get talked about much and couldn’t have anything at all to do with totally denying any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on, could it? Please. To pretend there wasn’t slaughter committed all over Europe and Russia and that the locals had no idea is bullshit, at best. That those who saw “forgot” or had a different memory after seeing the consequences of being associated is more believable. The takeaway phrase from the Nuremberg trials is “I was following orders,” and yet, we have photographic evidence of some of those carrying out the atrocities seeming to be awfully willing. Case in point, how many troops does it take to execute a guy? This many, I guess:


Image is tagged as a French Partisan, but there’s fifteen guys pointing rifles at him, that I can count. Yeah. Those must have been the only 16 guys in the whole German military, counting the officer, who believed in “Mein Ehre heist treue” and “Deutschland Uber alles.”



*Edit- Summed-up post grew long again. Oh well.

Smudge, given army discipline at the time, if any of those soldiers had refused duty they would be beside the partisan being shot.

The reason you have multiple individuals in a firing squad is to ensure the person dies swiftly, yes, but also to give each of the individuals involved some doubt as to whether they actually killed the person.

Normal humans have a problem with killing others on a 1:1 basis.

You mean like this?







The guy in the foreground, left front is smiling broadly:






I’m familiar with the theory behind firing squads, but there’s OVERWHELMING amounts of photo and video evidence of such solo executions, and while the first image I posted is something that I wouldn’t even begin to argue encompasses the entire argument, I’ll note that you didn’t respond to anything I actually wrote. These are just the first few images I grabbed after a single search. There’s voluminous evidence that’s made it to the Internet, who knows how much may never get transferred from the original celluloid to digital media. Under orders my ass. Those guys in the background watching? Under orders. The guys taking the pictures? Under orders. THE GUY IN THE THIRD PHOTO ON THE FAR LEFT OF THE FRAME WITH THE HUGE GRIN ON HIS FACE IS SMILING BECAUSE OF ORDERS. Bullshit.

I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin. The Germans created two world wars, perhaps a little suffering by the surviving Germans might work it's way into the mindset of the German population.

If it was any of us, who's friends, family, wives, etc. that were killed by the German army, most likely we would be pretty merciless on the way to Berlin. The German army was exceedingly vicious to the Russian population, they got what they deserved.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin. The Germans created two world wars, perhaps a little suffering by the surviving Germans might work it's way into the mindset of the German population.

If it was any of us, who's friends, family, wives, etc. that were killed by the German army, most likely we would be pretty merciless on the way to Berlin.

I think I’m done with this discussion.

Both my grandfathers and my great uncle fought as USGI’s and I am proud of their service. I’m about as far from a Holocaust denier and Nazi apologist as it can get, and for all that, as a human being I find myself falling far short of what I quoted from you above. Nope.

Ernst tells numerous stories, all personal letters and journals of germans. Yes, ordinary soldiers were used at the onset but they quickly realized that sane soldiers would not participate in executions continuously. Yes it did start out that way, but many of them committed suicide etc. So, they moved on to murderers and the SS. The German army did not participate in the Final Solution. And many of them died for it. (Rommel).

It happened, it was evil, how it happened should be deeply studied. How can this have happened in a civilized world?

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

There was a whole other holocaust that happened postwar where millions of Germans were slaughtered by the victors, mostly women and children, but also surrendered German soldiers.

What 'millions of Germans' were murdered postwar?

quote:

Months of rape on end for German women and children at the hands of their Russian “liberators.” That doesn’t get talked about much and couldn’t have anything at all to do with totally denying any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on, could it? Please.

The Soviet atrocities committed against Germans (and whoever else had a pulse) is well-documented. If there is a problem with it, it's ignorance due to lack of history being taught in class, not denial.

quote:

Originally posted by Elk Hunter:
What was going on in those camps in Germany was not common knowledge, and the general population had no idea what was going on. I have been to Dachau and did the "tour" thru the facility, including reading letters from senior officers to higher senior officers. Some of those letters indicated just how difficult it was to get the soldiers involved to actually participate in the killing. One way was to offer the individuals who resisted doing the killing to either join in the killing or join in the "killed".

There was nothing nice about the nazi camps or what took place their.

As I have posted elsewhere, when we visited Dachau there was this incredible feeling of darkness as we went through the gate, and it persisted as long as we were there.

The German wife of a buddy of mine at Ft. Carson told of an incident involving Dachau. There were signs posted all around the place warning of no trespassing, and to stay away. Those signs were some 300 meters from the fences. All the windows in the buildings were painted over so nobody could look in.

One day there was an air strike by the allies that blew out some of the windows. A local resident, walking by, saw some of what was inside. He was so shaken that he visited a local gastehaus, got tipsy and started talking about what he had seen.

He later left to go home, but never got there, and was never seen or heard from again. That object lesson affected a lot of folks around that area. Compared to the total population of German, very few civilians ever had any idea/clue what was going on in those camps.

I have family in Germany who were affected by the war and I have absolute confidence in what we have talked about with respect to the concentration camps. The general population did not know.

Horse$hit. They knew and took part in the spoils.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin. The Germans created two world wars, perhaps a little suffering by the surviving Germans might work it's way into the mindset of the German population.

If it was any of us, who's friends, family, wives, etc. that were killed by the German army, most likely we would be pretty merciless on the way to Berlin. The German army was exceedingly vicious to the Russian population, they got what they deserved.

I lost family. So fuck you and your stupid and moronic ideas.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin. The Germans created two world wars, perhaps a little suffering by the surviving Germans might work it's way into the mindset of the German population.

You "don't have a problem" with the systemic RAPE of thousands of CHILDREN? You are either:
a) ignorant beyond belief
or
b) the most callous subhuman animal I've ever encountered.

Really, saying CHILDREN deserved to get raped due to Germany starting 2 World Wars (and if you knew history, you would know that Germany played a secondary role while Austria-Hungary STARTED WWI).

quote:

If it was any of us, who's friends, family, wives, etc. that were killed by the German army, most likely we would be pretty merciless on the way to Berlin. The German army was exceedingly vicious to the Russian population, they got what they deserved.

Again, CHILDREN 'deserved' to be gang-raped. Yeah.

I think we've reached an all-time low here on the Forum.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

There was a whole other holocaust that happened postwar where millions of Germans were slaughtered by the victors, mostly women and children, but also surrendered German soldiers.

What 'millions of Germans' were murdered postwar?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05x30lb

It's available on Netflix streaming, and honestly, quite shocking. I had no idea until this summer. Watch the footage. Russians and Poles in charge of former KZ's and death camps doing what enraged Jews, Russians and Poles might reasonably be expected to do with zero repercussions immediately following the war. But since Germany spent most of their male blood in war, the bulk of the Germans left to suffer were women and children. There were entire towns where life-long citizens who had German ancestry or spoke German were rounded up and executed. There's footage of them running over a whole row of bodies of women and old men they shot in a firing line with a tractor on the roadside just because. But hey, we victors had the moral high ground in that war, raping and murdering after the surrender....

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Months of rape on end for German women and children at the hands of their Russian “liberators.” That doesn’t get talked about much and couldn’t have anything at all to do with totally denying any knowledge whatsoever of what was going on, could it? Please.

The Soviet atrocities committed against Germans (and whoever else had a pulse) is well-documented. If there is a problem with it, it's ignorance due to lack of history being taught in class, not denial.

I'm talking about denial of any knowledge by the people living in the countries where these things happened who learned of it with any of their own five senses, not the later generations.

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin. The Germans created two world wars, perhaps a little suffering by the surviving Germans might work it's way into the mindset of the German population.

If it was any of us, who's friends, family, wives, etc. that were killed by the German army, most likely we would be pretty merciless on the way to Berlin. The German army was exceedingly vicious to the Russian population, they got what they deserved.

Jesus Christ, man.

I’ve not read through all the comments yet.. but I will

Spending a day at Dachau is one of the few singlely identifiable life changing experiences I’ve had

Sure as hell reinforces the fact one should never give up their guns doesn’t it?

quote:

Originally posted by c1steve:
I don't have a problem with the Russians raping every female they came across, during the push to Berlin.

Typical horseshit shoveled by someone who has never severed in a time of conflict or did time pushing pencils. They often say stupid shit like this, or what we should execute POWS (like 46 and 2 in the recent thread) or we should burn people alive (like another well known member said a couple of years ago).

It's easy to think and say ignorant shit like that from the comfort of your lazyboy while you have never served in or around combat.

You are the sheep, the protected, the weak and it's confirmed by easily saying such evil things.

People like that don't anger me, but they confirm my believe that there are masses of people out there who would be willing to do unspeakable things "because I was ordered to".

(and for the record, I'm not saying everyone who hasn't served thinks those things but I have yet to find someone who has served honorably and put their lives at risk uttering such nonsense. It's sad when warriors can look at their own countrymen who say these things and think "I fought and killed better men than that", but it happens).

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:

This is not a wartime photo. It is actually a production still from the film "Schindler's List", taken during the filming of the below scene, which has been artificially aged to make it appear to be a wartime shot.





Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=veztNJQyRJg

Here's the original production still stock photo:




The scene is based on a true story, though. The real life Hauptsturmführer Amon Goeth really did attempt to shoot Rav Levertov in the Plaszow concentration camp. Just like in the film, Goeth's gun jammed, so he retrieved a second gun, only to have that one jam too. An enraged Goeth then beat the man, but did not kill him. Levertov was thus spared, and eventually survived the war.

Thanks, Rogue. Thought it looked familiar. Here’s one not from a Hollywood production to make up for my faux pas: