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Responsibility for the Holocaust
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1. Hitler on Race. Any crossing of two beings not at
exactly the same level produces a medium between the
level of the two parents. This means: the offspring will
probably stand higher than the racially lower parent, but
not as high as the higher one. Such mating is contrary to
the will of nature for a higher breeding of all life. The
stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker,
thus sacrificing his own greatness. The consequence is
racial purity. To mix blood and lower the level of the
higher race is to sin against the will of the eternal creator.
Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf, (1943), 372-3.
If we were to divide mankind into three groups, the
founders of culture, the bearers of culture, the destroyers
of culture, only the Aryan could be considered as the
representative of the first group. Adolph Hitler, 373.
In judging the Jewish people's attitude on the question of
human culture, the most essential characteristic we must
always bear in mind is that there has never been a Jewish
art and accordingly there is none today. The two queens
of all the arts, architecture and music, owe nothing
original to the Jews. What they do accomplish in the field
of art is either patchwork or intellectual theft. Adolph
Hitler, 377.
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2. Hitler's Propaganda. After my joining the German
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Worker's Party, I immediately took over the management
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of propaganda. The psyche of the great masses is not
receptive to half measures or weakness. They are far more
satisfied by a doctrine, which tolerates no rival than by the
grant of liberal freedom. They often feel at a loss with
what to do with freedom. Adolph Hitler, 373.
All propaganda has to be popular and has to adapt its
spiritual level to the perception of the least intelligent of
those towards whom it intends to direct itself. The great
masses of people will more easily fall victims to a big lie
than to a small one. Adolph Hitler, 373.
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Propaganda has absolutely nothing to do with the truth,
said Nazi minister of Propaganda, Paul Josef Goebbels.
Propaganda is organized carefully designed lying.
Seymour Rossel, The Holocaust: the World and the Jews,
1933-1945 (West Orange, New Jersey: Behrman House
Inc., 1992), 82.
Goebbels added, "Any lie, frequently repeated, will
gradually gain acceptance. Seymour Rossel, 82.
4. Nazi Propaganda. Frau Mathilde Mundt was a
schoolteacher. The thieves were the Poles. They did
everything. In 1938 the Germans had been so tormented
by the Czechs. The Czechs killed half a million Germans.
Horrendous. I saw it on television once. I cried and
prayed to God, no? Alison Owings, Frauen: German Women
Recall the Third Reich (New Brunswick, New Jersey: Ruter's
University Press, 1993), 93.
Since 1935, the Poles had published a map reaching to the
Elbe River, everything with Polish names. (The famous
and phony map, meant to convince Germans that Poland
planned an invasion, has been acknowledged as the work
of Nazi propaganda). They forced a very large number of
Germans during a heat wave to make a long march to the
other side of Warsaw. Those who couldn't keep going got
shot. They killed sixty thousand Germans. We wanted to
avoid war at all costs. But the Poles were so hateful to all
the Germans there and those who lived along the border.
The Poles went to Schneider- Muhl daily and killed the
workers who were on their way to work. Alison Owings,
93.
Frau Irene Burchert was a Catholic farm girl living in East
Prussia during the war. In 1939 the Poles came in the
night and looted. Our men chased them away with clubs.
Those were not German soldiers. Those were Poles who
came over the border and looted houses everywhere.
(Most historians agree that the men were not Poles but
Germans in Polish uniforms. This incident was staged to
prompt German civilians to support retaliation against
Poland). Alison Owings, 142.
Frau Margarete Sasowski was a schoolteacher's wife. The
English fighter planes dropped poisonous candy and
explosive dolls and pen holders, all to attract and harm
German children. The daughter of a woman she knew lost
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three fingers opening one pen holder. Alison Owings,
226.
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5. No Knowledge. Frau Mathilde Mundt was a school
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teacher. How one suddenly can say, You gassed six
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million Jews. Where does the six million number come
from? They guessed. But there weren't six million in
Europe. Barely two million. And of them, there's still a
long line alive today. I killed no one. Alison Owings, 98.
Frau Verena Groth was a half Jewish gardener during the
war. Somebody did say once. They're making soap out of
Jews. Or Lampshades are made from human skin or
something like that. But it was so far beyond the ability of
comprehension, closer to cannibalism sort of, that one
simply did not want to believe it. Alison Owings, 110.
Frau Ellen Frey. We knew nothing about the
concentration camps. And if they want the Jews out, why
don't they do it in a nicer way. That's what we always
said, in a normal manner. But they were such boors, such
rowdies . . . What is written about the holocaust is manure.
It is all greatly biased. Alison Owings, 176, 182.
There are so many people in Germany and we're in such a
narrow space, the Jews can give something up for us, no?
That Hitler somehow managed to get room, but in a proper
manner one had thought. Alison Owings, 184.
7. Knowledge of the Holocaust. Frau Martha Brixius
was a 17-year-old housewife during the war. Anyone who
read a newspaper could tell what was going on. Some did
not have the time, money nor inclination to read a
newspaper. However, I never suspected there were so
many concentration camps. I'd have thought two or three.
Alison Owings, 211.
Frau Lieb was a farmer's wife. We knew about Dachau
through newspapers and black radio (radios turned to
foreign stations). Alison Owings, 236.
Frau Christine Weihs was a Catholic schoolgirl. One
knew that people in the camps were being gassed. That
had seeped through. It was named Theresienstadt and it
was called gassing. Alison Owings, 430.
206,000 worked at the Dachau labor camp. There were
31,900 deaths. From the center of camp it is seven miles
to City Hall. One a bright day you can see City Hall. It is
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completely unbelievable that the German people did not
know about the Holocaust. The smoke from the
crematoria could be seen and smelled. Saul Rosenthal, a
Jewish member of the Anti Defamation League, assembly,
East High School, 4/16/96.
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8. German Responsibility. Efforts to blame the
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slaughter on a mere handful of deranged Nazi leaders are
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indefensible: approximately 50,000 people were directly
involved in Hitler's "Final Solution." Few of them were
ever held accountable for their crimes. John Louis Beatty,
Oliver A. Johnson, Heritage of Western Civilizations,
Select Readings, Second Edition (Englewood Cliffs, New
Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1958), 925.
In all, probably less than 10,000 German were employed
directly in mass shootings or in the guarding and running
of the killing centers. Some of these were racist fanatics, a
few were psychopaths. Most obeyed orders and consoled
themselves by the safety and comfort compared with front
line combat. The distinctive feature of the Third Reich
was not that Germans were specially murderous, but that
they obeyed a government that was. RAC Parker,
Struggle for Survival: The History of the Second World
War (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1989),
271.
Dr. William McConahey was an American surgeon and
medical officer at Flossenburg. It was those concentration
camps that made us realize what we were fighting for. We
really felt this was a holy crusade to wipe out this
diabolical regime. We have sadistic bums and misfits and
psychopaths in this country who could do what the SS did
in Germany, but Hitler gave them a rank, a uniform, a
purpose and a mission, and encouraged them. Rhonda G.
Lewin, Witness to the Holocaust, An Oral History
(Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers, 1990), 203.
Frau Margarete Sasowski was a schoolteacher's wife. My
husband always said, "Keep your mouth closed and be
quiet. Let the Nazi do what they want. We can't change
anything anyway." Alison Owings, 219.
11. Holocaust Survivors on Propaganda. Sam
Bankhatler, Lodz, Poland, was a 14-year-old Jew who was
sent to Auschwitz. When I sit in a place, I see 65% of the
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people will pick up the sports page of the newspaper.
They don't care what is on the front page! This is where
the danger lies. All you need is the economy to turn a
little sour and have on person give out the propaganda.
With 65% of the population the propaganda works. Then
the other 35% is powerless to do anything about it. Rhoda
G. Lewin, 8.
Henry Harvey fought against the Germans as a member of
the Polish Army in exile. The Holocaust did not start as a
Holocaust. It started with insensitivity of the German
population toward scapegoating. Hitler used the Jews as a
scapegoat for the economic ills of Germany in the 1930s
and for defeat of the German armies in World War I. He
said, We didn't lose in battle, the Jews and the
Communists stabbed us in the back. The average German
didn't really believe it, but he was indifferent. That led to
the Holocaust. Rhonda G. Lewin, 139.
Fred Wildaur was a Jewish mechanic in Riga, Latvia.
Stutthof was a big camp, 45,000 people. The barracks for
Jews were designed for 300 people, but they took in 1,500.
The whole German population from the town walked by
us they went every day to the railroad station. If there's
anybody there that says they didn't know there was a
concentration camp, they are liars. Rhonda G. Lewin, 90.
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