Neonazi is certainly a word used to insult or criminalise people these days. Few people would call themselces that and if they did it would be political suicide.Martin_from_Valhalla wrote: ↑25 Feb 2021, 10:32Anyone who disagrees with current policy of the state can be called neo-nazi in modern Russia. And everyone who expresses discontent with USSR, Soviet past is easily labelled as neo-nazi.
Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
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Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Hi GLG,
The two studies you quote (one of them unattributable) are interesting. The Michael-Muller-Claudius one, is described as “still obscure”.
I have found the following alternative account of it on the internet:
"In 1938, only 5% (3 Nazis out of 61) gave responses that he categorized as extremely hateful or antisemitic. 67% responded with indignation, saying that this was just idle talk to excite the masses but not the true beliefs of the Party, or even in a few cases with a straight-up rejection of antisemitism. The remaining 28% responded with indifference ("that's not something I worry about" or "that's Hitler's problem to solve" or "we shouldn't talk of this").
In 1942 (post Wanssee, post invasion of the USSR, long after it was quite clear to even mid-level bureaucrats what was happening to the Jews), that same 5% of rabid Jew haters hadn't grown at all. But the "indignant" and "indifferent" numbers had flipped. Now, two thirds didn't care to think about what might be happening to the Jews."
However, I couldn’t find the original statistics in German on the internet. Do you have access to the original German text?
You ask, “Kristallnacht was over in two days (one night), what could ordinary Germans have done in that short of time to discourage or oppose it?” Virtually nothing. However, it probably should have informed their future attitudes and actions.
You post, “The fact it was carried out by such a small minority of people speaks volumes”. How many were needed?
You post, “Removal of Jews =/= Extermination of Jews”. In this case it did. The “removal of Jews” was an observable fact. The murder of them was also a fact but one that only reached the German public in the form of rumour - rumour which seems to have gained wider public currency as the war progressed.
You post, “Most Germans remained indifferent to what was happening to the Jews for various reasons. But, there is no evidence that most Germans between 1933-45 supported the actual extermination of Jews.” I agree. However, indifference to racial persecution and possible mass murder is not a good look of itself.
You post, “Because no evidence has ever been shown to prove that the majority of Germans knew about the extermination of the Jews.” True, but there is evidence that a lot, perhaps the great majority, had heard rumours of it. The mere fact it was even a point of debate or discussion tells us something in itself.
You post, “Do you think every person who voted for the Nazis had bothered to read Mein Kampf? The popularity of the book soared once the Nazis had come to power, not the other way around.” Ignorance is no excuse. Mein Kampf is the most complete and available version of Hitler’s manifesto and it is explicitly anti-semitic from Chapter 1. By the time Hitler came to power there were arounf a quarter of a million copies in fcirculation. By the end of 1933 it was well over a million! (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4465572?se ... b_contents). Nazism's anti-semitism was not its best kept secret!
You post, “Although anti-semitism was indeed a core idea of Nazi ideology, it was absent during the time when the Nazis were trying to gain power because they knew it wouldn't have been approved of by most Germans.” The evidence for this absence is what? They certainly never took Mein Kampf off the bookshelves.
You post, “Even some Jews attended Nazi rallies when Hitler was giving a speech!” So? I have attended a speech given by Robert Mugabe, but it tells you nothing about my beliefs or reasons for being there.
You post, “Someone who behaves like a thug and holds racist views is not necessarily a Nazi.” Nevertheless, both were hall marks of the Nazis’ route to power. Anyone supporting the Nazis was giving a nod of approval to both, if only by their indifference.
You post, “Not all members of the Nazi Party were thugs. Not all members supported the killing of people. Not all members were anti-semitic. Etc.” Again true, but they nevertheless all chose to support a party that was, did or advocated all those things publicly. If any of those were deal breakers for them, they could have resigned.
I can’t find any reference to, “several Gauleiter and deputy Gauleiters had refused orders to enact the Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders, while expressing disgust. Some Nazis helped Jews during the Kristallnacht.” Do you have any names or primary sources?
Cheers,
Sid.
The two studies you quote (one of them unattributable) are interesting. The Michael-Muller-Claudius one, is described as “still obscure”.
I have found the following alternative account of it on the internet:
"In 1938, only 5% (3 Nazis out of 61) gave responses that he categorized as extremely hateful or antisemitic. 67% responded with indignation, saying that this was just idle talk to excite the masses but not the true beliefs of the Party, or even in a few cases with a straight-up rejection of antisemitism. The remaining 28% responded with indifference ("that's not something I worry about" or "that's Hitler's problem to solve" or "we shouldn't talk of this").
In 1942 (post Wanssee, post invasion of the USSR, long after it was quite clear to even mid-level bureaucrats what was happening to the Jews), that same 5% of rabid Jew haters hadn't grown at all. But the "indignant" and "indifferent" numbers had flipped. Now, two thirds didn't care to think about what might be happening to the Jews."
However, I couldn’t find the original statistics in German on the internet. Do you have access to the original German text?
You ask, “Kristallnacht was over in two days (one night), what could ordinary Germans have done in that short of time to discourage or oppose it?” Virtually nothing. However, it probably should have informed their future attitudes and actions.
You post, “The fact it was carried out by such a small minority of people speaks volumes”. How many were needed?
You post, “Removal of Jews =/= Extermination of Jews”. In this case it did. The “removal of Jews” was an observable fact. The murder of them was also a fact but one that only reached the German public in the form of rumour - rumour which seems to have gained wider public currency as the war progressed.
You post, “Most Germans remained indifferent to what was happening to the Jews for various reasons. But, there is no evidence that most Germans between 1933-45 supported the actual extermination of Jews.” I agree. However, indifference to racial persecution and possible mass murder is not a good look of itself.
You post, “Because no evidence has ever been shown to prove that the majority of Germans knew about the extermination of the Jews.” True, but there is evidence that a lot, perhaps the great majority, had heard rumours of it. The mere fact it was even a point of debate or discussion tells us something in itself.
You post, “Do you think every person who voted for the Nazis had bothered to read Mein Kampf? The popularity of the book soared once the Nazis had come to power, not the other way around.” Ignorance is no excuse. Mein Kampf is the most complete and available version of Hitler’s manifesto and it is explicitly anti-semitic from Chapter 1. By the time Hitler came to power there were arounf a quarter of a million copies in fcirculation. By the end of 1933 it was well over a million! (https://www.jstor.org/stable/4465572?se ... b_contents). Nazism's anti-semitism was not its best kept secret!
You post, “Although anti-semitism was indeed a core idea of Nazi ideology, it was absent during the time when the Nazis were trying to gain power because they knew it wouldn't have been approved of by most Germans.” The evidence for this absence is what? They certainly never took Mein Kampf off the bookshelves.
You post, “Even some Jews attended Nazi rallies when Hitler was giving a speech!” So? I have attended a speech given by Robert Mugabe, but it tells you nothing about my beliefs or reasons for being there.
You post, “Someone who behaves like a thug and holds racist views is not necessarily a Nazi.” Nevertheless, both were hall marks of the Nazis’ route to power. Anyone supporting the Nazis was giving a nod of approval to both, if only by their indifference.
You post, “Not all members of the Nazi Party were thugs. Not all members supported the killing of people. Not all members were anti-semitic. Etc.” Again true, but they nevertheless all chose to support a party that was, did or advocated all those things publicly. If any of those were deal breakers for them, they could have resigned.
I can’t find any reference to, “several Gauleiter and deputy Gauleiters had refused orders to enact the Kristallnacht, and many leaders of the SA and of the Hitler Youth also openly refused party orders, while expressing disgust. Some Nazis helped Jews during the Kristallnacht.” Do you have any names or primary sources?
Cheers,
Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 27 Feb 2021, 13:28, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
What is the source for that?Sid Guttridge wrote: ↑27 Feb 2021, 13:13I have found the following alternative account of it on the internet:
"In 1938, only 5% (3 Nazis out of 61) gave responses that he categorized as extremely hateful or antisemitic. 67% responded with indignation, saying that this was just idle talk to excite the masses but not the true beliefs of the Party, or even in a few cases with a straight-up rejection of antisemitism. The remaining 28% responded with indifference ("that's not something I worry about" or "that's Hitler's problem to solve" or "we shouldn't talk of this").
I didn't know the Nazis conducted opinion polls, especially during the war, and especially among the Nazis.
Actually, almost nobody did that in Europe, and when they were done they were mostly unscientific and useless.
This is why we don't know what people, for example in Poland or France, really thought about the war.
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Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Hi wm,
All legitimate questions.
The source is apparently; Der Antisemitismus und das deutsche Verhängnis by Michael Müller-Claudius, published in 1948.
If you need to know more it is probably better to ask George L. Gregory, who introduced it above.
Cheers,
Sid.
All legitimate questions.
The source is apparently; Der Antisemitismus und das deutsche Verhängnis by Michael Müller-Claudius, published in 1948.
If you need to know more it is probably better to ask George L. Gregory, who introduced it above.
Cheers,
Sid.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
I'm still not ready to believe in the story, especially if it contains such statements as "long after it was quite clear to even mid-level bureaucrats what was happening to the Jews."a still-obscure study done by Michael Müller-Claudius, a German psychologist, at the very time the Final Solution was being implemented is illuminating. Müller-Claudius prompted 61 longtime Nazi Party members (all had joined the party or the Hitler Youth before the Nazi seizure of power) to discuss anonymously their views of the regime’s anti-Jewish policies.
Five percent applauded the notion of exterminating the Jews—but the same percentage fully rejected anti-Semitism. Twenty-one percent displayed a degree of moral sensibility (advocating, for example, a future Jewish state). The remainder, 69 percent, showed what Müller-Claudius called “indifference of conscience”—an attitude that could contain some sympathy for the Jews but was at best resigned and at worst callously uninterested.
The Warsawian Jews didn't know in the summer of 1942, the Hungarian Jews didn't know in the spring of 1944, but mid-level bureaucrats knew. The author tries too hard.
The Holocaust was a state secret, who would even allow a psychologist to conduct such, bordering on treason, studies.
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Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Hi wm,
Hungarian Jews knew as early as mid 1942, because some Slovak Jews, who were the first to be killed en masse at Auschwitz, escaped to relatives in Hungary. It was via them that the first news of an extermination camp reached the western Allies.
Cheers,
Sid.
Hungarian Jews knew as early as mid 1942, because some Slovak Jews, who were the first to be killed en masse at Auschwitz, escaped to relatives in Hungary. It was via them that the first news of an extermination camp reached the western Allies.
Cheers,
Sid.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Knowledge about this or that atrocity, or about a camp wasn't equal to knowledge about the Holocaust.
As far as I know, all 142 transports from Hungary arrived full of people unaware of their fate.
As far as I know, all 142 transports from Hungary arrived full of people unaware of their fate.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
In 1996 I met Henri Metelman who told me that everyone who served on the Eastern Front knew that something very unpleasant was happening to Europe's Jews. Anyone travelling by rail could not fail to notice trainloads of people in sealed trains heading east, or what was happening to jews in occupied soviet union.
Last edited by Sheldrake on 27 Feb 2021, 22:20, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Such statements, several decades later are worthless.
It was a few trains per day, traveling mostly on local, secondary railway lines, every day a different line, from a different direction.
The trains weren't any distinct from ordinary freight trains.
Someone close to the train could have noticed that there were people inside but not what awaited them.
Similarly the Einsatzgruppen, you could have seen an execution or two but not all of them. Nobody had a bird view of the Holocaust.
So yes he was talking nonsense and inventing things.
It was a few trains per day, traveling mostly on local, secondary railway lines, every day a different line, from a different direction.
The trains weren't any distinct from ordinary freight trains.
Someone close to the train could have noticed that there were people inside but not what awaited them.
Similarly the Einsatzgruppen, you could have seen an execution or two but not all of them. Nobody had a bird view of the Holocaust.
So yes he was talking nonsense and inventing things.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Sorry, but...wm wrote: ↑27 Feb 2021, 22:16Such statements, several decades later are worthless.
It was a few trains per day, traveling mostly on local, secondary railway lines, every day a different line, from a different direction.
The trains weren't any distinct from ordinary freight trains.
Someone close to the train could have noticed that there were people inside but not what awaited them.
Similarly the Einsatzgruppen, you could have seen an execution or two but not all of them. Nobody had a bird view of the Holocaust.
So yes he was talking nonsense and inventing things.
1. These were not ordinary freight trains. As Henri pointed out "Ordinary Freight" is not secured with barbed wire, does not smell of human bodies and their waste products, or call out in German for water as it passes through the stations.
2. The trains to the extermination camps had to use the main lines to the various camps. A secondary line around rural Bavaria could not lead to Treblinka.
3. The rear areas across the eastern front held plentiful evidence of executions from June 1941 onwards.
This is supported by Shepherds's Hitler Soldiers, or Danbiel Goldhagen
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Very few German Jews were transported directly to death camps.
Most of them were sent to ghettos in occupied Poland and to death camps many months later.
So the example is invalid.
Most of them were sent to ghettos in occupied Poland and to death camps many months later.
So the example is invalid.
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Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Hi wm,
You post, "Very few German Jews were transported directly to death camps. Most of them were sent to ghettos in occupied Poland and to death camps many months later."
In so far as it goes, that is true, but as German Jews were only about 2% of the Jews who died at Nazi hands, they are only a tiny part of the so-called "Holocaust". Fifty times as many other Jews were being moved around Europe, hundreds of thousands of them across Germany itself, and all of them past the eyes of large numbers of Germans, civilian and military alike. Mettelmann was just one of the latter.
Cheers,
Sid.
You post, "Very few German Jews were transported directly to death camps. Most of them were sent to ghettos in occupied Poland and to death camps many months later."
In so far as it goes, that is true, but as German Jews were only about 2% of the Jews who died at Nazi hands, they are only a tiny part of the so-called "Holocaust". Fifty times as many other Jews were being moved around Europe, hundreds of thousands of them across Germany itself, and all of them past the eyes of large numbers of Germans, civilian and military alike. Mettelmann was just one of the latter.
Cheers,
Sid.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Around Europe?
The death camps were in occupied Poland because the Jews lived there.
Most of the Jews were transported locally in Poland.
Even the Jews from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia were transported to ghettos in occupied Poland, or to so-called transit camps before they were sent to death camps.
The Jews from West Europe were too insignificant in numbers to make a difference. And most of them were transported in nice passenger, not in freight trains.
The death camps were in occupied Poland because the Jews lived there.
Most of the Jews were transported locally in Poland.
Even the Jews from Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia were transported to ghettos in occupied Poland, or to so-called transit camps before they were sent to death camps.
The Jews from West Europe were too insignificant in numbers to make a difference. And most of them were transported in nice passenger, not in freight trains.
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Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
Hi wm,
None of that stops large numbers of Germans witnessing the deportations and it doesn't stop what turned out to be accurate rumours from multiplying amongst the rest as the war progressed.
Cheers,
Sid.
None of that stops large numbers of Germans witnessing the deportations and it doesn't stop what turned out to be accurate rumours from multiplying amongst the rest as the war progressed.
Cheers,
Sid.
Re: Nazi vs Neo-Nazi
For my personal impression, you write and talk each other to death, but that's just my very personal opinion...
Hans1906
Hans1906
The paradise of the successful lends itself perfectly to a hell for the unsuccessful. (Bertold Brecht on Hollywood)