Hitler's NSDAP (Nazi Party) rise to power in Germany marked a time of great bloodletting and violence. Enemies in political, religious, and social realms became vulnerable and were soon actually targeted for imprisonment and execution by the dictatorship. In this second extract, the Ploetzensee Memorial booklet (1974) reflects on the questions: who knew what was going on? what did they know? and what did they do about it?

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Did we really know nothing?

For sure, most Germans did not know all that was carried out in their name, and certainly not the most terrible atrocities. And certainly, it was a minority of Germans and also non-Germans, who perpetrated these crimes.

But most Germans at least knew there were concentration camps. They also knew that horrible and dreadful things took place there, and everyone lived in fear that they could be sent there.

The Nazis did nothing to hide the existence of concentration camps [KZ Lager in German]. Rather they exploited citizens' fear of concentration camps. Their fear of terror condemned most citizens to silence. This psychological terror was fortified by an army of undercover police and informers. So Germans kept silence out of fear, though almost all had experienced, seen, heard that individuals and groups were demonized.

Did all then want to know?

Many Germans, moreover, just wanted to know nothing so that they could avoid a crisis of conscience, or to secure for themselves possible advantages. People trivialized reported injustices and white-washed them for themselves: "A few excesses. As if the Fuehrer knew about it!" "When you use a wood-plane on a board, shavings will drop," etc.

People were blinded by [Nazi] successes. The number of unemployed - six million in 1933 - were declining quickly. War reparations imposed by former enemies did nothing in the new political context to benefit the reputations of the former democratic governments, instead they now served as a big gain for Hitler's reputation. The shackles of the Versailles Peace Accords were being sprung. The clever propaganda of Goebbels did the rest.

So, do we want to know it today?

More than 40 years have passed since 30 January 1933, the day the Nazis assumed power. For most Germans hearing the full inventory of crimes carried out in their name against compatriots and citizens of neighbouring countries was incomprehensible.

It is probably understandable that most contemporary Germans, even though they have read, heard, and seen much about the barbaric crimes of their former Fuehrer, are not much inclined to speak about this era. Feelings of shame and disquiet arise within. Then most had done little to resist all that, now they can't do anything to make it unhappen.

Certainly there are still some Germans today who try to portray the Nazi crimes as exaggerated enemy propaganda. Others try to trivialize the injustices. They don't want to "foul their own nest." They want "finally 27 years after the war's end to stop talking about it!" They cite the history of injustice and violent acts of other countries to mitigate their own crimes. They even try to justify murder citing the requirement to obey orders. They claim the SS-guards and executioners, participants in the firing-squads and Gestapo torture had no choice but to carry out orders, because they themselves would have been shot if they refused to obey.

This is however not true as revealed in many prosecutions of other members of the fore-mentioned groups. More accurate is that SS people not able or willing to take part were transferred to the front. But that they didn't want. Their opponents there were heavily armed soldiers, tanks, and airplanes. On top of that, there was cold, mud, and often inadequate provisions to contend with. So they avoided the front, left the war to soldiers, while they fought defenseless men, women, and children.

From the war diary of an armed-SS special forces commando:

"....forcing women and children into the pit did not achieve the expected results, because the pits weren't deep enough for them all to be submerged. Hard bottom was usually only one metre below the surface, so submerging wasn't possible. The total number of executed plunderers and others was 6526. Only about 10 were taken as prisoner."

They obeyed orders to kill and for this received special rations of schnapps and cigarettes. They did their "duty."

From the speech by Reich's leader of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, at the SS-group leaders' conference in Posen on 4 October 1943:

"Here before you, I want to touch openly on a heavy chapter. We need to be very frank with each other here, and nevertheless, we will never speak about it in the open public. I'm talking about the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. It is among the things one can readily express - "the Jewish people will be exterminated," says every Party comrade to you, "quite clear, it is written in the Party platform: elimination of Jews, extirpation, we're doing it, bah, no big deal." And then everyone comes along - all the 80 million good Germans: each has their own respectable Jew, while all the others are filthy wretches (Schweine), but this one is a first-class Jew. Admittedly none has seen it through. Among you, most will know what it means when 100 corpses lie side by side to each other, when 500 lie there, or 1000. To have persisted and thereby - notwithstanding exceptions of human weakness - to remain steadfast, this has made us tough and is a page of honour in our history never mentioned and never to be mentioned ."

Another serious problem for Germany's younger generation who find the whole episode inconceivable is the question they pose to those who became adults then: "how could you allow or tolerate all that?" As justified as this question of offspring may be, it must not however be uttered lightly without serious exploration of the problem. The tone of the question rings with the inuendo: "You allowed it to happen - we wouldn't do that!"

That lacks critical assessment given that these young people's experience has been gathered up in a democratic state committed to law and order - not in a national socialist (Nazi) police state. In that era, if someone published leaflets or distributed them, s/he would be condemned to death and executed, as in Ploetzensee Prison.

One group of former pupils of the Ruetli School in Berlin-Neukoelln did however publish leaflets opposing the Nazis. They printed 2300 copies and distributed them in the period 1939 to 1941!
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In this second extract of the Ploetzen Memorial Centre booklet, we can easily ask ourselves: what would we have done in the frightful situation of Nazi Germany before and during World War II? Happily I hadn't been born yet during the time. The dilemmas were clear and the society succumbed to the threats and tyrannical impulses of the bullies and murderers to whom the levers of power had "democratically" been entrusted.

But in our time: when we see a drift to intolerance of others - demonizing people "not like us" - how do we respond? Do we really believe that democracy with our Charter and heritage of parliamentary government is so securely and deeply established that no such threats can shake it? Would we "bet" on that? Or is our democratic heritage something we much constantly nurture and protect from those who seek "simpler" and more direct governance?

Scriptures tell us that human beings are the offspring of the Creator and we are created in the image of the Holy One.
We know from everything in creation that the Creator cherishes diversity and variety. But all humans - of whatever colour, creed, sexual orientation, gender, nationality, language, culture, economic situation - ALL are part of only ONE FAMILY - the human family - a unity with blessed diversity - a reflection of the diversity of the Trinitarian community. All created in the image of the Holy Mystery who is God.

There is only one kind of human beings. And the Holy One "commands" and requests, pleads, yearns, and asks in thousands of different ways to live like a family - a family which Allah, God, the Divine, the Creator, the Parent loves boundlessly and indefatigably. The Holy One is willing, as revealed in the life/death/rising of Jesus, to resist destructive forces by total self-giving love - the meaning of the cross - for the survival and well-being of the family and the Earth and its creatures.

The horror of Nazism and its kith and kin is the sign of its rejection of the Creator's sovereignty - the Spirit's never ending, total commitment to the human family birthed by God's love.

When this is rejected or negated, then other gods take hold: aryanism, nationalism, racism, sexism, patriarchalism, corporatism, capitalism, communism, stat-ism, totalitarianism, fascism, nazism, materialism, consumerism, etc. Parse carefully almost any "ism" that has taken hold of societal reality and it is likely to reveal a rejection of the living God and the divine law of love. It represents a challenge against the sovereignty of the Holy One and endangers the human family.

The Hitler Nazi story shows us that even a society like Germany, with it magnificent churches, its sacred music, its theological heritage, its tradition rooted in Christian truth and testimony - even such a nation can be led to embrace an "ism" which breeds, cultivates, harvests, and distributes hatred and death for millions and the destruction of so much of God's good creation. For friends and companions of Jesus, they are called by the Spirit to resist and challenge and to clothe their resistance with divine love for the well-being of All.

more to come in Theme Post #3....