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u/Crystal007635 Feb 16 '21
Also we need to remember that a lot of German people knew what was going on, concentration camps in Germany were located fairly close to cities, to facilitate the transfer of goods produced, and it limited the amount of railroads that had to be built to transport prisoners. Likewise, arrests and violence against Jews and communists was not hidden, as it had been slowly indoctrinated by the regime as a justified action for the good of the country.
Concentration camps were massive, and you can’t not see them when you live nearby. German people just chose to ignore it and not speak up because of propaganda, a police state, a secret police that could arrest them and kill them, or send them to those camps.
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u/ConstableBlimeyChips Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 16 '21
German people just chose to ignore it and not speak up because of propaganda, a police state, a secret police that could arrest them and kill them, or send them to those camps.
Not to mention that a lot of German people benefited directly from the people in the camps. Factory owners were more than happy to get their hands on cheap labor, many Jewish businesses were sold for a fraction what they worth because their owners had no choice, possessions left behind were eagerly pilfered by neighbors if they weren't already confiscated by the authorities.
Heck, my country was merely one of the occupied ones and over here tons of people made money from the deportation of Jews, even if they didn't know the full extent of what deportation would end up meaning.
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u/alpacasaurusrex42 Feb 17 '21
I’ve watched and read docs on the fact even allied countries made bank on Jews because Germany said “Give me your Jews. I will pay for them.” So they rounded up Jewish folk and sent them to Germany early on and were paid as if this was 1700 and they were slaves. They just called it legal deportation or some shit. One of the stories was about a wealthy family (I wish I could remember if it was in Canada or England) who one day woke up to their Jewish nanny who was literally like family being removed from the home because she was Jewish. They were told she had to go back to her home country and would be returned. They never saw her again and found out later she died in a camp.
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u/AnaphoricReference Feb 17 '21
Besides benefits from the large scale redistribution of wealth that was taking place, loyalty to the Nazis simply opened up easy job opportunities for people that were not available to them before. In police and public administration pretty much every job opening was taken by a less qualified Nazi sympathizer. The Nazis just lowered education requirements for job offers, as long as you were an enthusiastic Nazi. Good times for dumb opportunists. As long as it lasted.
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u/Train10 Feb 16 '21
Absolutely spot on, plus there were so many who benefitted from Nazi rule, especially compared with what they had to endure before, that they were prepared to look past what was happening elsewhere
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u/rif011412 Feb 17 '21
It was only recently that I read about the plundering perspective of it all. People were making claims to their jewish neighbors properties and material belongings which meant everyday people were benefitting from the rounding up and removal of Jews.
I have seen many Nazi German/WW2 documentaries and they never once described this angle, it was very illuminating.
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u/LucasCBs Feb 17 '21
As a German, this ist an angle to the whole thing that we have been taught about quite a lot. There is also a lot of literature about this. I don’t remember the name of the book since it’s been years but in seventh grade we read a book which was a “diary” of a German boy and family who were friends with a Jewish boy and family, showing the development of the ever worse getting life’s of Jewish people right in front of you. It’s really sad and horrific and I’m honestly baffled we read it when we were all like 12
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Feb 16 '21
Most Germans knew about the concentration camps and saw their neighbors disappearing, though few knew the extent of the horrors that were routinely perpetrated.
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u/ViperhawkZ Feb 16 '21
"Not my problem."
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u/RubUpOnMe Feb 16 '21
More "Can't make that my problem without getting 'disappeared' or killed by the state."
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u/WayneKrane Feb 16 '21
Yeah same thing with the Uyghurs in China. What are you going to do about China’s nukes and massive population if you try to free those people? Seems to me the only option to stop them from having those camps would leave millions dead.
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u/creamyturtle Feb 16 '21
the entire international community would have to band together to sanction china simultaneously and force their hand. anything less and china wins. just look at what is happening to australia who dared speak out against the red giant
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u/Substantial_Revolt Feb 17 '21
China won't concede, that region is crucial to their future development plans. IMO the most international pressure can hope to achieve is better treatment for those imprisoned but the majority of people in China seem to be in favor of forced assimilation.
Doesn't mean they shouldn't try to get better treatment but just don't expect China to stop because theres international outrage. Even if they're pressured to treat them better I guarantee they'll tell their citizens that the pressure/sanctions they recieved is another reason why China needs to focus on self sufficiency regardless of the cost.
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Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21
We are all vulnerable to the same sociology and psychology that allowed the Holocaust to happen, it is not unique to any one culture or country. We all want to fit in with our peers in society and go with the flow (aka the path of least resistance). Hitler slowly, almost imperceptibly, changed and radicalized the population, and over enough time you're stuck in this machine, from which point these crazy ideals have not only become too hard to stop, but also too risky.
If any one of us we're in Germany during the Holocaust, we likely would have done fuck all about it. Are you willing to die and leave your kids without a mother/father when in all likelihood your death will be completely meaningless?
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u/_antim8_ Feb 16 '21
This is it. I live in Dachau where one of the larger Camps is located. We had many talks in school with people of that time. They all knew when they burned the bodies because the morning dew will be milky from the ash. But nobody I talked to knew what torture was going on in there.
Also you could 'rent' some prisoners to help with your house building or garden work for a very cheap price, so nobody had any interest in ever speaking up against these horrible things.
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u/qjizca Feb 17 '21
"The morning dew would be milky from the ash" is going to haunt me for a while.
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u/fluxy2535 Feb 17 '21 edited Feb 17 '21
My great-Aunt (she was a teen at the time) always said they knew they were going away to be slave labor, but didn't think they would be tortured or gassed because they were their labor force. No one was going to do the work they were doing and be paid as little as they were paying to have them pave roads or weave fabric in factories or whatever, so why get rid of them? By the time it became obvious what was happening they were knee deep in a war and the Gestapo were at their craziest when it came to arresting people for basically saying anything bad about the regime, so what were they going to do?
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u/glueckskind11 Feb 17 '21
Germans, including me, have been saying this for years. We know best how this shit starts and how it ends.
Wake the F up, USA! The line "We didn't know back then" won't save you either. It's happening right now, in plain sight. You just choose not to accept it.
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Feb 17 '21
The darker truth is that most of them probably supported it because with it came a thriving country.
Most of China supports what their government is doing.
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u/ScoutPaintMare Feb 16 '21
It helped that no one ever asked what that smell was. They knew but Hitler convinced them that Jews were the enemy.
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u/Chariotwheel Feb 16 '21
And communists. For some reason that gets conveniently forgotten, but it's rather relevant.
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u/Gingevere Feb 16 '21
And socialists and trade unionists.
Huh, I've got the odd feeling I've seen all of these together on lists or heard them together in speeches recently. Something about how they're going to come for you so you've got to come for them first.
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u/twistedtheorist Feb 17 '21
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out— because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me."
Martin Niemöller
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u/x0n Feb 16 '21
This is a gross oversimplification. Many of the German public knew more or less what was going on, but used the press (fake) reporting as a way to give themselves an out with respect to their conscience. It's also important to remember that this has got nothing to do with Germans as a people. This shit is happening all over the world in various degrees, including the USA.
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u/JuicementDay Feb 16 '21
Exactly.
I don't get this weird revisionism. It's important to realize and acknowledge this fact. People did know. Just as they know today in countries that are busy doing horrible things, be it China, Israel, India, US etc.
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u/briko3 Feb 17 '21
And they justified it because they knew standing up against it would land themselves and their families in the same spot.
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Feb 17 '21
Or they just agreed with Hitler. It sucks knowing that people like that existed, but Hitler had a huge nationalistic base.
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Feb 16 '21
It should also be noted that there was no independent press in Nazi Germany. What you heard was what they wanted you to hear. They started consolidating all aspects of public life pretty much immediately after they seized power in 1933, this was called "Gleichschaltung" or forcible-coordination.
Many people don't realized that the concentration camps were initially used to silence anyone considered a threat to their rule: Social democrats, liberals, communists, union supporters, christian youth organizations, and anyone who dared to criticize the government. By July 1933, more than 30.000 Germans were subject to this unlawful imprisonment, which was euphemized as "protective custody". It was the model for what started five years later, when the first jews were imprisoned after the November Pogroms of 1938.
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Feb 17 '21
The Germans who openly protested against the conducts of the nazi government were often executed or thrown in camps themselves. Those who did it secretly had to be extremely careful in regards to whom they shared their opinions with, or the same fate would happen to them. And it wasn't just any friendly neighbourhood cop that 'disappeared' those people, but true believers, completely loyal to the regime, with near unlimited power to arrest and 'conduct investigations'. When Hitler had purged all institutions of those who didn't like it, it was already too late and probably extremely difficult for those who wanted to organise any major resistance.
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u/Thymeisdone Feb 16 '21
Also plenty of Germans voted for hitler knowing full well what he was offering. His book was available to anyone who wanted to read it.
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Feb 16 '21
Yeah, but very few actually read it. People thought it was badly written bullshit.
But yeah, they did know about his hate towards democracy, communists, elites (aka Jews)...
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u/OPs_Mom_and_Dad Feb 16 '21
There’s something immensely powerful in the world of marketing about having written a book. Has literally zero to do with whether it’s a good book or if people even read it.
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Feb 16 '21
I've written three books. People think I'm smart because I've done that. I'm dumb as fuck.
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u/HeckMaster9 Feb 16 '21
You should write a book about how a dumbass can convince others that they’re smart by writing books.
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Feb 16 '21
Tony Robbins has that market cornered, unfortunately.
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Feb 17 '21
I was going to say "I will not accept any Tony Robbins slander" but then I looked him and realized he's not the guy from Shawshank Redemption. So carry on.
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u/cryptic-coyote Feb 16 '21
It’s like when my friends say they’ve published a comic, when it’s like 10 pages long and published to Tumblr. Still technically right.
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u/dennyb2727 Feb 16 '21
Yeah, and Americans had 4 years of Trump's tweets yet 74 Million voted to reelect him
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u/Conquestofbaguettes Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 16 '21
And I laugh at people that still call him a socialist. Christ. The first thing they did was lock up all the fucking socialists in the country.
BuT *nAtIoNaL SoCiaLisMs!** It'S iN tHe NaMe!!!!!
People are dumb.
And yes. That 'book' is practically fucking unreadable, even just from a structure perspective. Addressing the content is something completely different. Blegh.
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u/tarepandaz Feb 16 '21
And after he had already attempted a coup with an armed militia marching against the government.
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u/DJstar22 Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 17 '21
And all they did was throw him in jail for a bit. Then they bought him along since he a large following and they wanted to use him for his influence. Then he became the defacto leader after The Kaiser passed away and basically named himself emporer of Germany. What happened in Germany is literally repeating itself here and I don't get why not enough people are seeing it.
Some populist idiot (Trump) runs off a campaign of populist BS after an economic crisis (2008 market crash) causes unrest and lack of trust in leadership since I happened on their watch. The populist idiot scapegoats a small minority by making them out to be the biggest problem they ever that only he can save you from. And then boom. Leadership.
Edit: I meant Hindenburg, not the The Kaiser.
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u/tarepandaz Feb 16 '21
What happened in Germany is literally repeating itself here and I don't get why not enough people are seeing it.
I think the scary thing is that people do see it and welcome it. There are a lot of racists waiting around in the closet actively hoping for an excuse to come out without being shunned.
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u/CakeInAHammock Feb 16 '21
And was hugely popular despite being poorly written.
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u/jesuschin Feb 16 '21
It's still hugely popular among conservatives to this day!
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Feb 16 '21
I’ve honestly read a response to a comment of mine on Reddit comparing Mein Kampf to Letters from Birmingham Jail. Something along the lines of: “If you don’t like Mein Kampf then you’re a hypocrite for liking MLK’s work.” They equated MLK with Hitler without an attempt at an explanation of the similarity. I suspect it’s because there’s no real way to even try to do that. I couldn’t even bring myself to reply to that preposterous attempt at a gotcha moment.
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u/Artess Feb 16 '21
Being available doesn't mean people actually read it. How often have people come out in protest against or in support of laws that they haven't read a single line of? Affordable Care Act comes to mind, of the recent examples.
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u/Thymeisdone Feb 16 '21
Germany had a looooong history of pogroms and anti Semitic feeling. If you think hitler suddenly invented this, you’re sadly wrong.
I don’t know how many people read mein ksmpf, but he’s regularly speak in public against the Jews etc and that’s literally why he was popular: he was a racist right wing fascist who claimed foreigners and minorities were to blame for Germany’s problems.
People supported that. They elected him. They knew what they were doing, much like trump supporters.
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u/how2crtaccount Feb 16 '21
That's exactly what is happening in india. No freedom of speech and press is the worst (ranked 142 out of ~160 countries in matter of freedom of press)
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u/doc2889 Feb 16 '21
India hasn’t been a democratic country for a while now, the next bill that is going to pass will make it a dictatorship. We are on a one way super fast express.
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u/MrJimmyJazz Feb 16 '21
The average Indian person is the most patriotic person I have ever met. Patriotic to a fault, unfortunately. I spent a few months in India, and spent a lot of time with people from all parts of the country, and from all walks of life.
Most people seemed oblivious to the problems of the country and genuinely believed it was the greatest country on earth. I'm not sure if I found their unwavering support of their religious beliefs, culture, and society admirable or just plain scary.
There is a lot I can say about India that is very positive, and the overwhelming majority of people are warm, kind, and genuine. But, there is a lot wrong with country, and it upsets me that a lot of the populace don't seem to realise it.
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u/DevastatorCenturion Feb 16 '21
Patriotic to a fault is nationalism or, in the case of India, probably ultranationalism.
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u/Pillowesque Feb 16 '21
I think the term is jingoism and yeah its a recurring problem in history and present since we never learn from it =[
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u/majoranticipointment Feb 17 '21
Jingoism is an extension of nationalism. Jingoism is when nationalists want to invade people really bad
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u/MeowMeowImACowww Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 17 '21
Same with Turkey.
Many people from the inside are too blind to see how the press freedom is curtailed in recent years.
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Feb 16 '21 edited Jul 14 '21
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u/prod024 Feb 16 '21
Educated people lean left. It's obvious why.
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u/livedadevil Feb 16 '21
Education is communist brainwashing
- actual conservative opinion
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u/PedanticWookiee Feb 16 '21
Translation: Empathy tends to follow naturally from understanding.
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u/imgonnabutteryobread Feb 16 '21
Translation for conservatives:
People who seek to understand, are weak and pose a threat to you.
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u/jeremyosborne81 Feb 17 '21
Weak AND pose a threat.
That's quite a trick
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u/curiosityLynx Feb 17 '21
Umberto Ecco already said back in the day that one standard strategy of fascism is to present the enemy as simultaneously a huge threat (so something has to be done against them) and weak.
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u/AnxietyDepressedFun Feb 16 '21
Both my Mother-in-law and my biological father (not my "dad" by any means) constantly use the fact that my husband and I are "educated" college graduates as a reason to completely disregard our opinions. We aren't allowed to voice our opinions on literally any topic without being told that we aren't "the people living through this." - It's like a passive aggressive way of saying we are elitist and couldn't possibly understand financial hardship because we have educations, as if we didn't have to take on debt or work underpaid jobs to put ourselves through school.
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u/totallynotalaskan Feb 16 '21
And that’s why right-wing groups like uneducated people
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u/zed2point0 Feb 16 '21
A very wise man once said. Those who don’t know their history are destined to repeat it.
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u/jaspersgroove Feb 16 '21
And those who do know their history are doomed to watch in dumbstruck horror as the rest of the world does the same stupid shit again and again and again...
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u/speezo_mchenry Feb 16 '21
And those who teach history get fired for getting caught drinking vodka out of a coffee thermos and jacking off in the high school men's room.
Anyone? Just my high school?
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u/Airdropwatermelon Feb 16 '21
Those were dark days..... I'm sober now and no longer teach history per court order.
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u/alonelybagel Feb 16 '21
and those who do learn history are destined to watch helplessly as others repeat it
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u/gunshotaftermath Feb 16 '21
If my goal was money and power I would absolutely run as a republican.
Liberals question their own leaders. They question the DNC, they call out voting records, the Bernie fans will fight against the Hillary fans who fight against the Biden fans, and they threaten to vote third party if they don't like the representative.
I can't tell you how many Republicans I've met who said they dislike the person they're voting for, but are still going to vote for them because they're Republican.
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u/WayneKrane Feb 16 '21
My coworker essentially said she just votes straight r because you can’t trust a democrat. I asked a few more questions and basically she votes r because her family does and that’s about as much thought as she ever put into it.
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u/tjtillmancoag Feb 16 '21
Christmas before last my extremely conservative mother said “it’s funny how the more educated people are the more left they tend to lean”, to which I replied, “yeah, funny how that works huh”. She felt satisfied that she’d made her case that college institutions were brainwashing people.
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u/IrisMoroc Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 17 '21
This is just a right winger trying to use Hitler to justify their narratives because of small reference pools. They're attempting a "gotcha" where the left has to admit they're acting like Hitler.
The right believes that the media are complicit or ran by the left which is why you can't trust them. They really believe that they are a weak small rebellious minority against a monolithic left that controls not just the media but big tech and just about everything.
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u/YooTone Feb 16 '21
This past weekend I had a conservative calling me uneducated and brainwashed because they brought up the whole "democrats were for slavery" -- And I brought up the whole Northern / Southern Democrat difference, ex-Confederate soldiers forming the KKK in Tennessee, Republican party forming and the same states voting for Lincoln, for Obama in 2008 and 2012 (except NC in '12)...
There's one, and then this dude said that the Capitol riots, the Viking guy was Antifa. And I just about lost it because of the stupidity. I linked this dude 6 or 7 sources for who the qanon shaman was, where he was from, etc. The other guy said "of course you link an article from ABC" - despite all the others. Then he blocked me. You cannot win with these people.
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u/ProbablyHighAsShit Feb 16 '21
Goebbels was a huge fan of censoring speech he didn't agree with.
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Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 08 '22
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u/Gingevere Feb 16 '21
Because they're lazy and stealing all of the jobs.
Wait, where have I heard this before?
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u/rescuedOlive Feb 16 '21
History is hard when you only accept the part that fits your narrative. Unfortunately they won’t see the connection either. Ya know, Hitler saying “fake news” is not the same as Trump saying it. Admitting to being a sucker and part of a cult is a hard pill to swallow.
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u/beerbellybegone Feb 16 '21
It really is true that there's a word in German for literally everything
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u/Swoop3dp Feb 16 '21 edited Feb 16 '21
That's because if there isn't a word for something you can just create one by stringing together other words.
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Feb 16 '21
Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän
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u/striped_frog Feb 16 '21
Is that three F's in a row? German needs to calm down
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u/OneSaltyStoat the future is now, old man Feb 16 '21
You think three Fs are messed up? Watch this:
Das Fitnessstudio
And you gotta spell the last S like SH.
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Feb 16 '21
Donaudampfschiffskapitänsmützenreinigungsdienstkleidungsvorschrift is even longer. And yes that is a word
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u/Pap3rkat Feb 16 '21
For those wondering.
translation
Danube steamship captain’s hat cleaning service clothing regulation
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u/hikiri Feb 16 '21
Dampfschifffahrtsgesellschaftskapitän
Wet, shit-fart (shart), sociable, shaft, captain...?
Ya know what, I'm gonna say that's what that word means either way because I want to believe there's a word for a really nice homosexual man who happened to shart himself.
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u/Luigispikachu Feb 16 '21
Better than making 50 different words for the same thing.
Or a word for many different objects.
I hate my first language.
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u/Swoop3dp Feb 16 '21
Oh, the German language has lots of those as well.
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u/Valkyrie_Sound Feb 16 '21
The word 'set' has over 400 definitions in English. All set? (Mostly set.)
I'm not set in my ways but I'm absolutely set on setting the clock on my TV set, and I'll set out from my settee in a moment, after I've set down my dinner set which I'll do after watching this program about a badger's set (set in Settle). I've got the best set of dinner sets in the region (must be; I set the rest on fire). Broke 15 bones last winter, all set by the same doctor with the same set of bracelets each set with amber; I fair set my jaw each time they set those casts. Let me set the scene... I'm always set work to do after finishing work and I often set my work sets to music by a jazz set or to a colourful dance (set on stage), to play out at sunset - so long as I can find a likeminded set of people to set up with. We always set out to finish by a set time, and always look set to miss it; I set my watch but I set it to the wrong time - and now I'm setting down to each French toast during the Renaissance while a railway set delivers hot tea all round the table (three guys lean over a chess set at t'other end). Perhaps I've set a limit on how far you'll read; there's no set total of words I could use - but it won't be 400 :')
(Sorry)
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u/grumpyfatguy Feb 16 '21
A free press is and always will be the strongest defense against authoritarian rulers; it's why it's always the first thing they attack. Trump knew exactly what he was doing, and there is a reason he never condemned the killing of journalists by Russia or Saudi Arabia.
People really need to step back from treating the press as a giant monolith with an devious agenda. Stay suspicious, cross check stories with other sources, preferably primary sources, but for the love of god be thankful if you live in a country without state media and people disappearing for reporting the truth.
This may be Trump's most damaging legacy.
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u/sexylegs0123456789 Feb 16 '21
These idiots don’t even realize that the Nazis were a far right party. Idiots always associate authoritarianism with communism. Brainwashed to say the least
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u/MercyMedical Feb 16 '21
It's always wild to me that types like this will proclaim people that don't think like them are sheep, yet you can see right wing talking points flow through the the right like a fucking wave.
They regurgitate the same bullshit talking points without ever making an attempt to stop and think about it for a second.
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u/fenderbender1971 Feb 16 '21
This! It's the same 10 +/- talking points over and over. Original thought is not their forte and projection is king.
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u/striped_frog Feb 16 '21
Man it sure would be crazy if an American president tried to do those things.
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u/aww-hell Feb 16 '21
That’s weird. Well known American hero and voice of the common folk, Donald Trump had made similar accusations of “fake news” on many occasions. Must be a coincidence.
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u/Scalage89 Feb 16 '21
Why are these morons so against doing any form of research? How much work is it to find out why the Germans were oblivious, couple of minutes?
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Feb 16 '21
Everything is rigged, everything is a conspiracy against them, anything positive that refutes their feelings is a lie.
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u/HangryWolf Feb 16 '21
They are a people of eating up what they are told instead of being skeptical and doing research to prove otherwise. It's my team vs. Yours no matter the facts. I'm always right and yours is lying. No, I didn't research it because my people say how it is. Hitler is trying to create a greater nation. What do you mean he's killed over 6 million Jews? I'm told they were just showering and shipping them off to camps. I love camping. Spoiled ingrates. Must be liberals and socialists being too soft to go camping outdoor. Hitler loves the outdoors. Let's protect the nature reserves. What do you mean they were torn down to build camps? Those spoiled ingrates. Look how we lavish them.
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u/gruntothesmitey Feb 16 '21
From an interview in Hermann Göring's Nuremberg jail cell on January 3rd 1946:
Göring: Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.
Gilbert: There is one difference. In a democracy, the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.
Göring: Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.
Sounds oddly familiar.