by Dan McMillan
The more interested in politics the respondents declared themselves to have been, the less likely they were to report having known of the murders. Of respondents with a primary school education (to age fourteen), 30 percent of the “politically interested” admitted knowing, while 35 percent of the “politically uninterested” reported knowledge; similarly, among those whose education went beyond primary school, 39 percent of the “politically interested” reported knowledge, while 44 percent of the “politically uninterested” said they knew. This pattern is the exact opposite of what one would normally expect: those who were more interested in politics should have been paying closer attention to what the government was doing. Reuband speculates that those who were politically engaged felt more responsibility for the government’s actions, hence more shame over their own knowledge of the Holocaust, and a greater need to conceal their knowledge from the interviewers conducting the survey. Reuband, “Gerüchte und Kenntnisse vom Holocaust,” 212–213.
32. Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution, 229. Otto Dov Kulka, who has edited a collection of opinion reports, finds that during the war years, “the dominant line is almost total silence regarding the Jews.” Otto Dov Kulka, “The German Population and the Jews: State of Research and New Perspectives,” in David Bankier, ed., Probing the Depths of German Antisemitism: German Society and the Persecution of the Jews, 1933–1941 (New York: Berghahn Books, 2000), 274; Otto Dov Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel, eds., Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten, 1933–1945 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 2004).
33. On fear of the Gestapo generally: Robert Gellately, The Gestapo and German Society: Enforcing Racial Policy, 1933–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press), 129; Johnson and Reuband, What We Knew, 348–349. Johnson and Reuband draw the opposite conclusion: they are more impressed by the fact that most respondents did not recall knowing anyone personally who had had an encounter with the Gestapo.
In Würzburg and Lower Franconia, the Gestapo investigated people for shaking the hands of longtime Jewish friends on the street, for stating a wish to continue using a Jewish family doctor, for saying that Jewish businesses sold goods at better prices, and for other equally innocuous “offenses.” Gellately, Gestapo and German Society, 160, 174–175, 207–210.
On the level of criticism of government policy: Kulka, “German Population and the Jews,” 274; Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983), 283–303.
34. Kershaw, Hitler, the Germans, and the Final Solution, 226–227; Michael Müller-Claudius, Der Antisemitismus und das deutsche Verhängnis (Frankfurt: J. Knecht, 1948), 166ff. Cf. Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!” 234–235. Some historians argue that Germans said so little about the Holocaust because they supported the regime’s murderous policy (e.g., Kulka, “German Population and the Jews,” 277). The only documentary evidence offered in support of this conclusion comes in the form of an opinion poll conducted in Germany in October 1945 (ibid., 279). However, as Sarah Gordon has pointed out, these surveys conducted by the American occupying forces are fraught with methodological problems. One survey suggests that less than 1 percent of the population approved of Nazi policy toward the Jews. Sarah Gordon, Hitler, Germans, and the “Jewish Question” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1984), 197–206. Another problem with Kulka’s thesis is that if Germans really supported the regime’s policy, they probably would have frequently blamed Jews for their own wartime suffering, as the government encouraged them to do. There are a few examples of such comments in Kulka and Eberhard Jäckel’s exhaustive compilation of opinion reports concerning the Jews, but the number of these is insignificant measured against the total volume of the regime’s reports on the public mood. Here is a near-complete list of reports containing such comments blaming Jews for the war and its consequences: Kulka and Jäckel, eds., Die Juden in den geheimen NS-Stimmungsberichten, documents numbered 3277, 3279, 3299, 3361, 3401, 3437, 3439, 3444, 3482, 3509, 3581, 3582, 3587, 3588, 3610, 3627, 3628, 3634, 3708, 3718, 3724, 3726. Many of these documents appear only on the CD-ROM that accompanies the book, and not in the printed volume. Müller-Claudius’s survey also tends to disprove Kulka’s thesis. If only three out of sixty-one committed Nazis expressed approval of the murders, it is difficult to see how the general population, most of whom were not party members, could have supported the regime’s policy.
In contrast, Peter Longerich contends that most Germans felt “indignation” (Unwille) at the regime’s murder of Jews, but there is scant evidence for this conclusion beyond the unpersuasive argument that if Germans had not strongly objected to the genocide, the government would not have mounted such a massive anti-Semitic propaganda campaign. Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!” 52–53, 320. The only solid evidence supporting Longerich’s position is the strongly negative reaction Germans displayed toward the introduction of the yellow star in September 1941. David Bankier argues that Germans, while accepting anti-Jewish policy in the abstract, for a brief period reacted negatively to this tangible act of cruelty toward concrete, living individuals. Bankier, Germans and the Final Solution, 128–129. Longerich also argues, even more implausibly, that the regime’s internal reports were not intended to give the government an accurate picture of public opinion, but rather to “artificially create a homogeneous public mood” and document the public’s support of the regime. Leaving aside the problem of how confidential reports could “create” a “public mood,” Kershaw’s research defeats this argument by showing how much dissent, from a socioeconomically fractured public that was clearly not “homogeneous,” was reflected in the official reports. See Longerich, “Davon haben wir nichts gewusst!” 42–46, and Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent, 281–330, 372–373.
35. On new research on dissent: Nathan Stoltzfus, Coercion and Compromise, forthcoming, cited with the author’s permission. On intermarried Jews: Stoltzfus, Resistance of the Heart: Intermarriage and the Rosenstrasse Protest in Nazi Germany (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996).
36. Samantha Power, “A Problem from Hell”: America and the Age of Genocide (New York: Basic Books, 2002), 329–389, esp. 366, 378ff.
37. Müller-Claudius, Der Antisemitismus und das deutsche Verhängnis, 167–168. “I want [to live in] normal conditions” translates “Ich will geordnete Verhältnisse.” “An all-powerful government” translates “einen totalen Staat.”
38. Erwin Staub, The Roots of Evil: The Origins of Genocide and Other Group Violence (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 87; Zygmunt Bauman, Modernity and the Holocaust (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1989), 155.
39. Helen Fein defines the universe of obligation as “the circle of people with reciprocal obligations to protect each other whose bonds arise from their relation to a deity or sacred source of authority.” Helen Fein, Accounting for Genocide: National Responses and Jewish Victimization During the Holocaust (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984), 4, quoted in Staub, Roots of Evil, 26.
CONCLUSION
1. In addition to the examples adduced above, Olaf Blaschke argues that conflict between Protestants and Catholics was “certainly one of the most prominent causes of the escalation of antisemitism,” because unity of Christians against Jews, like appeals to racism, offered a way to ease or surmount confessional tensions. Olaf Blaschke, Victims or Offenders? German Jews and the Causes of Modern Catholic Antisemitism (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2009), 41–51.
2. On the use of anti-Semitism and the exclusion of Jews to define and strengthen the Nazis’ idealized harmonious “racial community” (Volksgemeinschaft): see, for example, Peter Longerich, Holocaust: The Nazi Persecution and Murder of the Jews (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 76–80. See also the fascinating and innovative arguments in Thomas Kühne, Belonging and Genocide: Hitler’s Community, 1918–1945 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2010).
3. For an overview of the instit
utions participating in the extermination program, see Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 3rd ed., 3 vols. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2003), 1:49–59.
On the military: Jürgen Förster, “Complicity or Entanglement? Wehrmacht, War and Holocaust,” in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 266–283; Longerich, Holocaust, 246–247; Sönke Neitzel and Harald Welzer, Soldaten: On Fighting, Killing, and Dying. The Secret WWII Transcripts of German POWs, trans. Jefferson Chase (New York: Knopf, 2012), 99–119.
On the civil service: Mary Fulbrook, A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), esp. 9, 66–67, 343–356; Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, 3:1084–1104; Hans Mommsen, “The Civil Service and the Implementation of the Holocaust: From Passive to Active Complicity,” in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 219–227.
On big business: see especially the thematically rich essay by Peter Hayes, “State Policy and Corporate Involvement in the Holocaust,” in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 197–218; Peter Hayes, Industry and Ideology: IG Farben in the Nazi Era (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987), esp. 325–376.
4. On the interchangeability of perpetrators with those who were not chosen to participate: Hilberg, Destruction of the European Jews, 1084–1085. The polls suggest that roughly 40 percent of Germans with higher education (as compared to around a third of those with schooling only to the age of fourteen) had some knowledge of the Holocaust. Karl-Heinz Reuband, “Gerüchte und Kenntnisse vom Holocaust in der deutschen Gesellschaft vor Ende des Krieges: Eine Bestandsaufnahme auf der Basis von Bevölkerungsumfragen,” in Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 9 (2000): 212–223, 218.
5. On anti-Semitism in Nazi campaign propaganda: Ian Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 1889–1936: Hubris (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 410. More generally, Christopher R. Browning finds an “impressive” degree of consensus among leading scholars that anti-Semitism was “not a major factor in attracting support for Hitler and the Nazis.” Christopher R. Browning, “Ordinary Germans or Ordinary Men? A Reply to the Critics,” in Michael Berenbaum and Abraham J. Peck, eds., The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), 253.
INDEX
Abel, Theodore, 109–113
Academy of Fine Arts, Vienna, 98
Africa, 57, 154, 158, 165, 204
African Americans, 43, 144
Agrarian League, 142
America. See United States
Annexation of Austria (Anschluss), 125, 126–127
Anthropologists, racist views of, 22, 153, 155, 158, 159
Anti-Semitism, 2–3, 5, 12, 14, 18, 21, 23, 39, 51, 58–60, 62, 77, 82, 85, 110, 112, 136–152, 202, 204, 208
as weapon against Marxism and democracy, 51, 58–60, 82, 85, 141–142, 143–144, 145, 149–150, 160–161, 166, 205–206, 207, 209
at German universities, 150–151
Christian roots of, 138–139
Germany compared to other countries, 145–152, 207–208
in Britain, 143, 148
in Eastern Europe, 143, 146–147, 152
in France, 148–149, 208
in Germany, 5, 51, 58–60, 77, 145–152, 167–169, 183, 202, 204, 205–207, 209
in the United States, 143, 147, 148, 208
in Western Europe, 144, 147, 148–149, 208
in Hitler’s thinking, 2–3, 6–9, 136–138, 157, 166–168, 207
perpetrators’ alleged lack of, 29
racist variant of, 2–3, 18, 21, 23, 58, 60, 136, 144, 150–152, 157, 160, 165, 166–168
World War I as cause of, 144–145
Appeasement, 125–127
Ardennes forest, 128–129
Armenian genocide, 12, 13, 14, 17, 19–20, 40, 170
Arms production, 3, 8, 57, 83, 106, 128
Auschwitz, 9–11, 13, 19, 21–22, 24, 25, 26, 27–28, 30, 31, 35, 36, 39, 63, 132, 180, 185, 195, 196
founding and operations of, 9–11, 21–22, 30–31, 35–36
perpetrators in, 21, 24, 26, 27–29, 35, 63, 132, 180
public knowledge of, 185, 195–196
victims in, 19, 25, 27–29, 31, 35–36, 39
See also Death camps
Austria, 44–47, 55, 208–209
nationalities in, 45, 55
role in German unification, 44–47, 209–209
See also Austria-Hungary; Austrian republic
Austria-Hungary, 56, 63, 66, 89, 91, 99, 144, 162
Hitler born in, 63, 99
in World War I, 66, 89, 91, 162, 144
nationalities in, 56
Austrian republic, 104, 125, 127, 144
Austro-Hungarian
Empire. See Austria-Hungary
Bach-Zelewski, Erich von dem, 132
Battle of Britain (1940), 8
Bavaria, 44–45, 103–104, 130, 199
Beer Hall Putsch, 103–104
Beingolf, Ferdinand, 74
Belarus, 132
Belgium, 10, 66, 83, 96–97, 103, 128–129, 185, 189
invasion of Ruhr, 96–97, 103
in World War I, 66, 83, 189
in World War II, 128–129
Jews deported from, 10, 185
Belzec, 9, 25, 30, 165. See also Death camps
Bergen, Doris L., 14
Bergen-Belsen, 12
Berlin, 85, 93, 94, 97, 102, 103, 104, 140, 189
capital of Germany, 94, 97, 102, 103, 104
Jewish community of, 140, 189
leftist politics in, 85, 93
Berliner, Meir, 32
Berliner Tageblatt (newspaper), 140
Bernhard, Georg, 140
Bernhardi, Friedrich von, 79, 161–162
Bernhardt, Michael, 178–179
Bethge, Friedrich, 69
Bethmann-Hollweg, Theobald von, 83
Beveridge, Albert, 162
Bialystok, ghetto uprising in, 31
Bilgoraj, Poland, 171–172
Bismarck, Otto von, 46–47, 57, 61, 121, 208–209
as political genius, 46, 121, 208–209
as precedent for charismatic leadership, 61, 121
luck of, 47, 208–209
role in German unification, 46–47, 121, 208–209
Bolsheviks, 85–86, 193. See also Communist parties: in Russia
Bomba, Abraham, 36–37
Brauchitsch, Walther von, 167
Braun, Eva, 102
Britain, 2, 8, 40–41, 43–44, 48, 57, 66, 67–68, 70, 73, 80–81, 89, 109, 116, 125–130, 138, 148, 150, 155, 162, 163, 185, 189, 191, 195, 202
allegedly controlled by Jews, 2, 41, 138, 191
compared to Germany, 48, 116, 148, 150, 163
in World War I, 57, 66, 67–68, 70, 73, 80–81, 89, 109, 162
in World War II, 2, 8, 127–130, 185, 202
parliamentary democracy in, 40–41, 43
relations with Germany, 57, 80, 125–130, 162
revolutions of 17th century in, 43
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), 185–186, 194, 255n6
Broca, Paul, 153, 159
Browning, Christopher R., 170, 220n9, 221n15
Brüning, Heinrich, 106–107, 114, 117
Burgfrieden. See Peace of the Fortress
Byelorussia. See Belarus
Caesar, Joachim, 24
Calley, William, 176–177
Cambodian genocide, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, 40
Carbon monoxide, 11, 15, 34, 164–165. See also Belzec; Chelmno; Euthanasia program; Sobibor; Treblinka
Catholic Church, 49, 114, 134, 138, 164, 200
<
br /> Catholics, German, 48–49, 114, 200. See also Center Party
Cecil, Robert, 162
Center Party, 48–49, 89, 92, 95, 98, 114, 116
Charismatic leadership, 58, 60–61, 85, 104, 111, 119–135
by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 120–122
by Hitler, 104–105, 119–135
Bismarck as precedent for, 61, 121
crises as precondition of, 61, 120–121
pre-1933 hopes for, 58, 60–61, 85, 121–122
success as essential to, 120–121
Charlie Company, 170, 174–179, 181. See also My Lai Massacre; Psychological factors
Chelmno, 9–10, 25, 30, 135. See also Death camps
China, 143, 159
Christianity, 5, 19, 112, 114, 138–139, 145, 146, 155–157
as source of anti-Semitism, 138–139, 146
churches’ complicity in Holocaust, 5
impact of Darwin’s work on, 155–157
impact on voting patterns, 112, 114
See also Anti-Semitism; Catholic Church; Catholics; Darwin, Charles; Protestants
Civil War, American, 120
Class, Heinrich, 53, 58–64, 79, 121, 140–141, 142, 144, 160
anti-Semitic views of, 59–60, 140–141, 142, 144, 160
hopes for charismatic leader, 58, 60–61, 121
on war and foreign policy, 58, 61–62, 79
Clendinnen, Inga, 13
Colonies, overseas, 54–57, 63, 83, 162, 165
German aspirations to, 55–57, 63, 83, 162, 165
of other European powers, 57, 83
of United States, 57, 162
Combles, 69, 75
Commissars, political, in Soviet army, 167–168
Communism, 2–3, 8, 50, 84, 93–94, 102, 115, 141, 175, 181
fear of, 84, 93–94, 102, 115
Hitler’s views on, 2–3, 8, 102
Marx’s theory of, 50