German Hatred for the world

Out of the Foxholes Questions
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One thing that is becoming more and more clear to me as I watch the war unfold week after week is how much hatred the Germans had. All they do is take, destroy, and kill. They don’t just kill Jews they really kill anyone they don’t like for whatever reason they like. They do not have any remorse nor do they even question what they are doing. There doesn’t appear to be any serious conversations on what happens to them because of their actions if they lose the war. They have left themselves no outs if they lose the war.

I don’t hear about any win condition where Germany wins and the world goes back to peace. The cause appears to be pillage, destroy and kill and Germany is so dedicated to that cause that they’ll do anything and everything to do it. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering all have family and friends. Yet at the end of this war they will kill their families and then themselves. Goebbels in particular will kill his wife, his six children and himself.

Smart politicians always keep their options open. They always leave themselves outs. Leaders of nations that lose wars usually live like Napoleon. Paul von Hindenburg political career took off after WWI and was President of Germany!

Has any of your research been able to shed light as to WHY the Germans acted like they did and why they are so full of hatred that they’ll stop at nothing to pillage, destroy and kill and never stop doing?

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Hi and welcome to this forum. In Antony Beevors splendid book “Stalingrad” he explained how the normal human feelings such as empathy slowly are stripped down until only the pure desire to survive at any cost is left. This made the Eastern front ruthless. Furthermore everyone one how the others often killed the POWs, so it became a never ending spiral of pure hatred, desire for revenge and brutality. It is my impression it’s was much different on the Western front.

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First, welcome to the forum!
I think the humiliation from the treaty of Versailles after WW1 played a major into Germany’s hatred of the Allies

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I totally agree the Treaty of Versailles played a major role in the hatred, but these guys went far and beyond that. Hitler would be convicted of treason and go to Jail for the Beer Hall Putsch. This was even before he gained power in Germany. A normal person would have thought and I’m sure he had to recognize that what he was doing was dangerous and it could put him in jail for the rest of his life and/or kill him. Yet he doubles down. Writes a book on anti-semitism and continues to try to gain power.

Hitler’s a great orator. He’s probably one of the best orators in the whole world at this point. He could have been a great motivational speaker or anything else. But no. He picks anti-semitism and hate. Same for Joesph Goebbels. He had his Ph.D degree and a dedicated writer. He wrote something like 15 books on Nazism. He could have been a popular fiction writer and made a ton of load of money.

Yet both of these people and many others in German High Command go onto kill 50 million people and then themselves without regard to any of the consequences. Hitler was 56, Goebbels was 47 when he decided to kill himself, wife and six of his children.

Their hatred totally consumed them and then it destroyed them. Now they are the most hated people in history. When people try to figure out who’s the most evil man in history. Hitler is at the top of the list usually the first one.

Either Hitler and German High Command never asked themselves how history will judge them or they just didn’t care. Now most people in power usually care about creating some sort of legacy they leave behind for others to follow so they probably did ask themselves that question and they just didn’t care that their legacy was pillaging, destruction and death.

After paying attention to this series for years it’s shown me a new look on hatred and racism. Hating someone and being racist is bad. However, even if you hate someone and/or are racist you need to be very careful because it can consume you like it did Hitler and it can kill everyone around you and yourself. It’s very unhealthy and it will hurt your life.

I don’t think I’m going to find an answer as to how they got so much hate and there probably isn’t an answer.

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Let’s be careful, here. The average soldier was just trying to live through the war, and kill who he was told to kill by (to him) legal authority. This is common to all soldiers.

There was certainly a lot of beyond-war downright evil killing by Germans, but from what I’ve read, the Germans were convinced by their leaders that what they were doing was necessary. One of the things we’ve discovered in things like the Milgram Experiment in the early 1960s is that given a removal of responsibility by an authority figure, an average person will act in what would objectively seen as sadistic, even lethal ways.

The Germans soldiers fighting in WWII had been told since 1932 that there were people who needed to be removed from the earth - Jews, Gypsys, Communists - by the highest authorities in the land. Most of them would not remember a time when they hadn’t been told that.

The “German Evangelical Church” - Lutheran, Reformed Christian, United Chirstian - had been anti-semitic for decades. There were opposition denominations - notably the “Confessing Church” (viciously suppressed by the Nazis). The Catholics were ambivalent; there were Nazis who were virulently anti-Catholic, and the Church thought they had to be non-political to survive (that does not absolve them of standing by while evil was done.). All German Churches were anti-Communist.

So German men had been told in public, in newspapers, on the radio, and in (most) churches that anti-semitism, anti-communism, and racial theories were the proper way to think, and from there it is an easy jump to believing that there were no limits on what could be done to designated victims. That they did not (with some significant exceptions) protest what was happening is understandable, but in no way excusable. The Germans who killed civilians in their millions were not the victims of anything but indoctrinations; the killing of helpless people is still a conscious act.

I would say that the German civilians back home, watching bombers fly over dropping death on them, watching the maps change, and reading the death lists didn’t hate much of anybody. During the war, the SD carefully surveyed civilian victims of bombing and found they didn’t blame anybody particularly; they just saw it as a catastrophe brought on by the Nazis, which the civilians were entirely powerless to change.

I would note that the RAF bombed the bejezus out of German civilians, because they were told that incincinerating thousands of them was necessary. The USAAF bomber crews were told that incinerating tens of thousands of Japanese was necessary. That doesn’t make them equivalent to the SS at Birkenau, and all the other miserable camps the Germans built to kill whoever came on the trains.

The answers are not simple, and pretty much all of them are deeply disturbing. We can hear echos of it in advocation of murdering Supreme Court Justices, for instance. Saying it’s as simple as “the Germans hated everybody” is not sufficient.

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I disagree. Even in the beginning of the war the German Military didn’t like the way the SS was just killing civilians of conquered territory. German High Command told the military to ignore it and don’t talk about it anymore. There was an active German Resistance to Nazism. Which Rommel was apart of and was told he can either kill himself and his family will be fine or he can live and be charged with treason and his family destroyed. He took the former. You can’t force someone to fight. The average soldier is just going to do what he’s told to do and the ones who don’t will be dismissed, arrested and/or executed. At each person there is a limit on what they will do.

The majority of German High Command was supportive of the German War Effort. They could have overthrown Hitler and ended the war anytime they wanted. In fact there was a movement to overthrow Hitler in the July 20 plot. However, that group failed and they were all rounded up and shot. This was well after it was certain that Germany was going to lose the war. They killed the plotters and they kept operating the Holocaust and pillaging, destroying and killing even though Hitler’s orders to every army was to never retreat and fight to the last man! The military knew Hitler was willing to kill everyone in the military and then lose the war anyway. Hitler was going to kill and destroy everything for no gain and the military knew this.

During the Battle of Berlin when the war was clearly lost. Hit put the Hitler Youth on the line and they willing went! Hitler is killing Germany’s children just to kill them and the General Helmuth Weidling knew it and went along with it. Weildling was a career German Army Officer. He fought in WW1. He had fought in Poland, France, Soviet Union. He’s seen a lot of the war. Even know he knows the war is over and Berlin will fall in a matter of days he doesn’t even question Hitler’s orders. No questions no “Hey Hitler, the war is over. I’m not killing our children”

How do career military men get so ingrained with their cause that even after they know their country has lost the war they will kill the children of the country.

If you are a military officer your top priority should be to protect your country. If you can’t do that then protect the civilian population. If you can do that then try and protect the children or at least try and protect as many people of your country as you can.

German officer corp had seen Hitler issue orders and those orders have led to their fellow officers being killed and the Officer corp knew the war was lost and yet they kept following Hitler’s orders even though they knew it would kill them and there wasn’t any point other than to pillage, destroy and kill people. They must have hated everyone other than Germans to go that far to do that.

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Well the Millgram experiment is totally debunked. For one paid volunteers in an “academic” experiment can walk away or go to the police later if they are stopped. Also no one in their right mind would assume the professor would actually kill a test subject. And no one did as they wanted their 4,50 a day to participate and the whole experiment was rigged to get the conclusions. Unlike Germans from the SS Polizei Battaillon which had he choice of murdering (seeing corpses of men, women and children) or get another job like maintaining cars and psychological help.

Sadly this crap is repeated and repeated. Bregman Humankind did an excellent analyses on it as well as others. And I am aware there is some staged footage around of someone who wanted to leave.

If you really believe that Universities in 1961 were paying 4,50 a day to kill random people, well… maybe not!

Sadly t

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I think you missed the point. Every subject was told at the end of the “experiment” what was going on, and got paid. That some refused to participate because they thought the experiment made-up does not invalidate the results of those that did participate. No one was told they had killed anybody. The idea was to see what they were willing to do, with no responsibility for their action.

Most people who did participate refused to administer anything like a supposedly lethal shock; the interesting thing was that some did not stop. That some subjects thought they were being ‘subversive’ and going all the way does not invalidate the results. Declaring the results “debunked” is to not understand the experiment, the results obtained, and only to pay attention to what was said afterward (including by Milgram himself.)

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You’re a German soldier and/or citizen. You’ve pillaged, destroyed and killed everything and everyone for whatever reason you came up with in practically every country in Europe. I don’t think the “Hitler told me to do it” argument is going to work very well. THEY HAVE TO KNOW THIS!!! They don’t care at all about themselves and given no thought about what happens after the war or their country. It’s so strange. The hatred that they had for the world is just crazy. Then the German population just ate it up. It’s crazy. Doesn’t make any sense. How do you get that way? I don’t think we’re ever going to get an answer.

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Is this an argument? You ignore the arguments (real corpses because ovs turning a knob at Yale with no real consequences similar to playing hitman or another fake setup).

You would have to be a complete idiot to assume they were willing to kill like the German willing group of Police Battaillon 101 was. Or say the Germans in Dachau who took a Jewish girl from her mother and kicked her until her entrails came out of her mouth.

Do you think those knob turners at Yale were willing to kill? yes or no. If it is no it does not prove anything.

PS Whether you think if I understand is not an argument and please stick to arguments and not just telling other users they don’t understand if they disagree. Not convincing.

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Something to also think about WRT the hatred… use of resources. The humanity of this horrible act has been covered many times, so don’t take any of this as an ignorance of the loss of lives.

Look at how many resources were dedicated to murdering people and disposing of the bodies. How many trains were used to move people when they could have been used to move materials? How many people were dedicated in the search for humans to destroy instead of fighting their enemy?

There was so much effort that was put directly to murder millions of people that I really wonder if things would have been different had they used the resources differently.

And then look at the treatment of the people occupied, particularly the USSR- Stalin didn’t exactly treat his citizens all that well, and it would have been pretty easy for Hitler to offer them a real better life- opening them up to fighting against Stalin in all ways (farming, manufacturing, fighting, etc). Instead the hate made sure that there were few allies in conquered land.

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I see this is going nowhere. That won’t stop me, however :slight_smile:

… that, again, is not the point. They were not told they were going to kill anyone. They were just told that they would be giving increased levels of shock for incorrect answers. Any idea that they were killing someone would have only been in their heads. They were free to stop at any point, and many did, after hearing apparent damage they were doing to the ‘victim’.

The test was not to see if someone will kill someone. It is to show that some people will obey orders from a supposed authority figure that might cause damage to another human being that is unknown to them (that is, they know the supposed name of the ‘victim’, and it isn’t anybody they know.) That’s all.

Milgram was only trying to show that. He was not trying to say that random people at Yale would act like the SS at Auschwitz-II-Birkenau (and many other places.). To claim he did is to misunderstand everything about the test. He was trying to show that some people, in some situations, would believe they had no responsibility for their actions if given ‘permission’ by a perceived higher authority.

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OK,
You don’t answer my points and argue that I misunderstand without telling what I misunderstand, those are ad hominum attacks.(OK).

Talking about YOUR stated view:
If you say the Yale University experiment has nothing to do with the Shoah why did you connected this directly to the Shoah. See your point here:

Now I know a lot of people have abused this Yale University “expirement” to explain the holocaust and YOU present it as proof. See your own write-ups.

My and other peoples argument of real corpses by "German volunteers who could have got other duties versus University knob turners who DON’T want to end up on the electric chair already says this is a debunked experiment.

What is disturbing that this has been used in what a German historian I knew called the “Holocaust verstehers” or willing executioners as what Goldhagen called them. I am not saying here you are one because I can’t mindread.

But you tied this expirement with the holocaust/Shoa and just refuse to anwer my point and come with “misunderstanding” ad hominem attacks.

Best Regards,
Chew

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“Average” != “Murderer”. “You misunderstand” != “ad hominem”. “Experiment of behavior” != “Telling people to kill” Me != “holocaust denier”.

“Holocaust verstehers” not even close to “willing executioners”, not by my German-english dictionary anyway.

Declaring that an experiment is “debunked” by not doing exactly the same situation (including centuries of culture) is silly. I did not say you said it, so it’s not an ad hominem attack. Anyone who does is declaring as “debunked” anything they like. I did not say you said so, so it is not an ad hominem attack. Saying someone doesn’t understand is in fact an answer. I did not say I did it, so its is not an ad hominem attack. Indeed, if anyone cannot prove I actually said it with my mouth and vocal chords, I did not say it. Reduci ad nihilism.

In the immortal words of Stan Lee: “'Nuff said.”

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I was thinking about i should writing something in this thread. I would like to share my personal opinion.
One should not generalize and lump all Germans of that time together. In every nation there are good and bad people. Not every German was driven by hatred and committed crimes.

My grandfather was a soldier in the Wehrmacht. From the beginning of the eastern campaign until almost the end of the war he served at the northern sector of the eastern front. Among other things, he was also in the Demyansk pocket. As an Unterfeldwebel he was commander of an infantry gun. Later in the war they had no more infantry guns left and he served as a regular infantry soldier. He personally knocked out two Russian tanks with Panzerfausts. He was wounded several times, but survived the war and Soviet captivity. I don’t think he hated the Russians. He never spoke badly of the Russians or the Soviet Union. For me, my grandfather is not a criminal but a hero.

On February 15, 1940, the newspaper “Braunschweiger Latest News” reported on an event in the city of Wolmirsleben in the article “undignified folk comrades”. A German gave a Polish prisoner of war a sweater, cake and allowed him to talk in Polish with the German’s wife, who was also Polish. For this he was sentenced to four months in prison.

In the film “On the Green Beach of the Spree” a German soldier was stationed in a small town in occupied Poland. He had his uniform cleaned at a local Polish laundry. He thought nothing of it and found it normal to pay for the service as well. Only his superior officer forbade such behavior when he found out about it.

This should make it clear that even as a soldier you could keep your conscience. As already mentioned, there are good and bad people everywhere. There were also Soviet soldiers who raped and murdered civilians. Other Russians, on the other hand, shared their rations with German children.

It is difficult to say what would happen if you were in an extreme situation yourself. But if war should break out in Germany, I would certainly do my duty.

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German High Command didn’t really put an effort into saving their troops that were trapped in Stalingrad after they had fought and died their way across Russia. Orders were fight to the last man. Nor did they make an effort save their men in Northern Africa after those troops had spent years fighting and dying their way across northern Africa trying to take Egypt. Orders were fight to the last man. Same thing played out in many many other situations even after everyone knew the war was unwinnable. After the Allies had landed in France and liberated Paris the Axis powers made no serious efforts for a peace deal. Yet the orders were fight and die to the last man. The sooner Axis powers just surrendered the better it would have been on the German people after the war and lives would have been saved. But nope. Do your duty, fight till you die. If we can’t win then we all die. at least that was “Do Your Duty” with Hitler in power. Once Hitler was removed from power. Then they surrendered as soon as they possibly could. Very interesting “yen/yang” thing going on kinda all depends who’s in power.

At what point of “Do your duty” do you stop and recognize that your commanders are trying to kill you, your comrades in arms and your country and stop letting them do it? I would like to think that everyone no matter what nationality part of “Do Your Duty” is to have a responsibility to the people they fight with and their country and themselves to recognize when they are destroying and killing just to do so and stop their leaders from doing it.

Thank you for your response.

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Rommel was definitely not a member of the anti-Nazi resistance. He may have got snarled up in the aftermath of von Staffenberg’s assassination attempt, but his entire career depended on Hitler.
The need of the Bundeswehr to have some relics of legitimacy led to the “clean Wehrmacht” myth, and the sanitising of the reputation of various generals. More recent historians have debunked most of this.

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Best to control my emotional responses. So there you go and poof there it went.

To be sure, it was about pointing out that a certain real estate mogul and his fans are basically the biggest threat to freedom and democracy that exists in the western world today. I do stand by that assessment.

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