Neoneocon has a new post The Ratcatcher, about the reminiscences of Germans ten years after the war, and how they viewed Hitler then. David Foster, who shows up in my sidebar under Chicagoboyz, is one of the better commenters on the topic.
Two notes: A less well-known book in my personal library The Good Old Days, about German attitudes before the war, is also unsettling. Anytime we see evil people as real we cannot help but see ourselves.
Her reference to the Pied Piper is interesting. The folktale possibly refers to the young people of Germany migrating to Transylvania in the 12th C. So my third and fourth sons may be descended from some of those.
Have you read 'Before the Deluge?'
ReplyDeleteNo. will seek.
ReplyDeleteThat Pied Piper reference is excellent. Will try to get hold of the book. I thought Neo was a little snide in her intro to the author in the original 2009 review... I mean, being a lefty and a pacifist in the 50s often meant that one was a person of principle and brave, by definition. When I think of the DISGUSTING conformism and willingness to condone bureaucratic and governmental wickedness on the part of my parents' propagandised (anti-Commie) generation in the 50s, 60s and 70s....but I digress....another formerly liberal rant....
ReplyDeleteWhy did the Germans go to Transylvania in the !2th century? Wasn't a large segment of that area enslaved by the Turks a little later? Or am I fuzzy...too many Teaching Company CDs on long car trips jumbled together...And how were they affected when it got colder again in the 14th century? (I seem to remember the cooling down of Europe at that time and worse harvests being a big factor in the Black Death as people were less well fed, immune systems worse, and rats hungrier so coming into barns and houses looking for scarce food...)
I don't mean Iin the above comment) to sound as if I condone the evils of Soviet tyranny or the barbarous things done in Eastern Europe under communism. I am merely referring to certain methods of operating in the world and carrying out foreign policy, by fair and foul means, that the US resorted to in its fight against the commie menace we were all raised to be so terrified of.
ReplyDeleteYears ago my wife and were standing in front of a preserved bombed out building in Munich. She asked what could drive a nation to support a group like the Nazis'. My best guess was that your frightened the middle class and promised them stability. They would then provide themselves with excuses for any transgressions.
ReplyDeleteI watched an excellent Norwegian TV series (historical drama) called the "Heavy Water War" on Netflix recently. If was about the struggle to damage or defeat the supply of heavy water from Norway to the German Atomic bomb program. It did a good job covering the players in Germany including Werner Heisenberg. Heisenberg was a Nobel prize winning physicist (the Heisenberg uncertainty principle). He stayed in Germany when many Jewish Physicists left and headed the bomb program. Over the years there has been an attempt to rehabilitate him by claiming he was not truly trying to make his research work. I am an old nuclear guy and reading the transcripts the British took after the fall of Germany you know he was trying his best. Not necessarily for patriotic principles alone but because he got the money and resources to pursue his research. The Norwegian series brings this part out well. They also highlight the degree to which high level corporate Norwegians tacitly collaborated to preserve their incomes and privilege.
Neo is right in that large sections of society will find a way to get along, particularly when bullied.