Michael Mills wrote:
When he had an actual position of power, as Gauleiter of Franconia, he used it mainly to satisy his personal appetites, both for inflicting cruelty and for amassing wealth.
In regard to the first, he was reputed to have gone to prisons and personally whipped prisoners. In regard to the second, he was notoriously corrupt.
So, then, if I may...you would find his trial at Nuremberg, ummm, "unnecessary" (MY term) but you would then find it acceptable to try him at a lesser trial as one who at one time was a high ranking Nazi official who used his powers and office to basically torture, while also probably assimulating part of his wealth from those he could exploit?
If the argument is that Striecher should not be executed for his propaganda, then would it be perhaps acceptable for a judgment, whether that is imprisonment or execution, for his acts while he was in power against the personal appetites for inflicting cruelty as you write?
Just a thought, but if Streicher was responsible for any one person's death because of his racism, bigotry, political ideology, or his use of his state sanctioned powers as a Nazi official, he was a murderer, and that is a capital offense in any "enlightened society".
Not arguing the law or Nuremberg here, but justice under the law.
It was because of his misuse of power in a scandalous way that he was eventually stripped of his executive positions and forced into retirement, although of course he could still go on publishing his newspaper, which was his private property.
But the crucial point is that while he did have an executive position in pre-war Germany, he played no pivotal role in the bureaucratic process of extruding the Jews from the German society and economy and eventually forcing them to emigrate. His one contribution was the organisation of the largely symbolic one-day boycott on 1 April 1933.
Still, the point exists that while Streicher was removed from power, and still lived vs. a Roehm of the SA, his publishing continued. Since he was a vehement antisemitic, no matter how much he may have been loathed by the hierarchy of the Nazi Party, his existence was tolerated because no matter how far he had fallen from grace, he managed to survive.
I doubt if his paper took on a dissident form, or did not serve the needs of the racial ideology of the Nazis, he would have.
Hilberg writes that there was no single, solitary event that led to the Holocaust, rather it was a series of events, and he writes with a view of documents, demographics, and governmental papers. There has never been found, an order from Hitler issuing the death of the Jews, obviously as you well know. Yet, the Jews did die, and somehow none of the "propaganda" of _Mein Kampf_, Hitler's speeches, Nazi Party ideology, Nazi Party officials, Goebbels' control of the media ever had the effect of creating an atmosphere in which it was "acceptable" to, at minimum, launch events that led to Jews in Germany being forced to leave the country, let alone end up being killed, including even WWI decorated veterans.
Doesn't mean every German was antisemitic, nor do I believe that; even Himmler speaks of how individual Germans know, obviously, Jews from their neighborhoods, shopping, from daily interactions who are, I guess, "good Jews", but the whole has to go. Goering acted on the behalf of two Jewish women, IIRC, who helped when he was wounded in the early days of Hitler's first attempts at power, and who took him into their home after he was shot.
I agree with you that I do not think Streicher was an element of the of the Nazi bureaucracy that managed to create the camps, but it happened. If that satisifies you, I am content. On the other hand, I am not quite as sure as you about his lack of cupability.
Just as a parting philosophical argument, the use of propaganda, or even misinformed "common knowledge" has certainly never influenced, say, perceptions or political actions of bureaucracies, right? Say "4 million" dead at Auschwitz, or reperations owed to Jews, and say I had a US government controlled media source that made such claims for 15--20 years, and that was official US government policy and dissent was not allowed. It, and those that controlled and wrote it, should be, of course, blameless for all that follows.
All I can do is suggest that, in order to understand the reasons for the above events, you read the book "Architects of Annihilation", and/or other books by Goetz Aly, and also Christian Gerlach.
If you are not prepared to do that, but wish to persist in your pre-conceived notions, then I can do no more.
Well, thank you Michael, and I always read your posts, and I have read several books you recommend, and enjoyed, for example, Piper, immensely. (I also reserve the right to perhaps not draw the same conclusions you do from source material, but that is what this about.)
I doubt that I could ever convince you of what you assume are my "preconcieved notions" are or are not, but that hardly matters. I could say the same about you, couldn't I?
Regards to you,
Mark
