Octotrooper wrote: ↑11 Dec 2019, 21:43
I have heard and seen conflicting reports on how life was under nazi rule, was it terrible with the economy in ruin or was life going or even thriving? Please help, thanks in advance!
Some years ago I read in Michael Jones' book "Leningrad: State of Siege" that in spite of all the horrors that went on in that city (incl. cannibalism, etc), there were also Soviet Party members living there who did not only
not have to starve a single minute, but actually had the nerve to state that it was "the time of
their life" when finally heading off - yes, all throughout
that particular time. And they had no problem saying that right in the presence of others who had been starved close to death!
Ruth Irene Kalder, the lover of Amon Göth (commander of the Poznan concentration camp who was featured in the movie "Schindlers List"), still swarmed during an interview with historian Tom Segev in the 1970ies: „It was a great time, we loved being together. My Amon was king and I was his queen. Who would not put up with it?" She regretted that the 'good' times were over, and when asked about the victims, she replied: “
They weren't really people like us.
They were so filthy.“
Sources:
https://nypost.com/2015/04/05/my-grandf ... lers-list/
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruth_Irene_Kalder (DE language)
When I worked for an NGO in Vienna, a colleague (daughter of an Austrian top diplomate and back then married to a half-jewish husband) once said to me that she would have loved to have lived in the 1930ies "for it must have been such a great time if you were into arts". Asked about how she can simply turn a blind eye on the NS crimes coming along with that she simply shook her shoulders, smiled and said that she is not into politics.
It was this kind of statements that made me realize that there is indeed
no limit to human ignorance whatsoever... just like there is
none to human cruelty, once hell breaks loose. Hence, documentaries like this one about the Auschwitz photo album of Karl-Friedrich Höcker are
not surprising me any more at all:
https://youtu.be/jUvcmGbtHWA
So to answer your question: Yes, "of course" for many people life was thriving - especially in the years between 1933-1939. Bread and games is a principle that already worked well for the Romans 2000 years ago... and the NS regime managed to even add some perfect mass propaganda to this, leaving indigene Germans with the idea of being superior to anyone else in this world (= deserving to be privileged towards them) - regardless of which social class they actually belonged to. Now how much more appalling is this natural
belonging to something that is not even as (seemingly) far away as god, but available right here on Earth compared to accepting that we all are dust and will return to nothing but dust once we pass away, hm?
Yet, some of the time witnesses I met told me that from 9 November 1938 onwards at the latest, they realized that their NS government was indeed
criminal. So the progrom night was definitely a cut - at least for those with a still-intact sense for what is right and what is certainly not. Others took a bit longer: But from 1939 onwards, with the first coffins containing German soldiers being returned to their families, the mood slowly but surely started to swing, at least for many of those actually concerned... (although there were still enough remaining fanatic in spite of their sons brought home like that).