Boycott of Nazi Germany

[Sam Gamgee]

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/Holocaust/Black.html

http://www.wintersonnenwende.com/scriptorium/english/archives/articles/jdecwar.html

[Sam Gamgee]

I have posted a couple links about a facet in history that peaked my interest recently. I have heard the claim that Jews brought the Nazis hand upon themselves by starting the war against the Nazis through boycotts. Although it begs the question why should German Jews suffer because some American Jews decided to attack the Nazi regime? And if anti-Jewish boycotts were the result of Jewish economic attacks on Germany, did they deserve the escalation that lead to genocide? Also, those that blame Jews for initiating the war make a big assumption that the Nazis had no opinion or plan for the Jews until the boycotts of 1933. However it seems to me that the Nazi regime and Hitler already had developed plans against Jews (and to be fair against gypsies, the infirm and aged, and lesser peoples including the English) long before 1933.

I have to admit the history recalled in the first link was very complex. With Jewish organizations initially launching boycotts against Germany, and them some Zionist organizations helping the Germans circumvent the boycotts for promises to remove German Jews to Israel.

The second link struck me as particularly anti-Jewish and extremely pro-German, if not pro-Nazi.

I wonder if anyone has some opinions on this issue?

[pcottraux]

Boycotts, attacking regimes...

There is no excuse whatsoever for trying to eliminate a group of people from the face of the Earth. No one could bring genocide on themselves.

[Sam Gamgee]

I agree. And it seems fairly elementary.

What is scary is that I have had this thrown in my face for proudly stating that I support Israel or Zionism or that anti-semitism is unjustified. Not on this forum. But on another "conservative" forum.

The implication of the second link is that Jewish groups had it in for Germans for some unexplained reason. I find that hard to believe, and expect Jewish groups in America were well aware of Hitler's intention of waging a crusade against Jews in Germany. If the goals of American Jewish groups was to topple a German government I really can't fault them.

[Paul_Denton]

I agree pcottraux. Completely agree.

[globalheater]

The jews aswell as raped women always had to face these - 'you where asking for this' mentality - certainly some of nowadays israely extremists do anything they can to support this bullshit by exploiting the holocaust and acting like they where the only ones hunted down by the regime...


Still we know who was to blame - it was those who decided (Hitler, Goebbels etc...) and those who helped and didn't face the foe (to many names here and not just german names)

[Clemenza]

Ah, the typical German response of "yes, some of us were bad, but it wasn't just their fault."

The Krauts ran the show. The blood is on the hands of 99% of the Germans who were born from 1880-1930.

What is an "Israeli Extremeist?" One who wants to stand up to Arab psychos who don't belong there in the first place?

[HostileTerritory]

Ridiculous--Hitler was raving about the Jews and what he would do to them in Mein Kampf 10 years before he ever came to power. Some people have a little problem with cause-and-effect and are trying to whitewash a period of history that can't be covered over.

[Sam Gamgee]

One thing I find somewhat unfortunate about our memory of the Holocaust is those groups we forget to remember. German scientists had a field day experimenting on the aged and infirm. Poles were probably the second most mistreated people group, the Ukrainians the third.

I know it is not PC to say this but I really feel the German people had a certain level of culpability. If they didn't know about the death camps they did know that Jews were persecuted, looted and rounded up. Perhaps the Germans were punished for these crimes via the fireball made out of Dresden and other industrial cities? But as you said Nazi sympathizers in Britain, the US and other places bear some guilt as well.

[Sam Gamgee]

You should look at the second link going to its homepage. It is rather unbelievable. I have a German co-worker who takes that stance. The other side did nasty things too in his opinion. I agree with you second statement and seem to think the Germans got off far too easy.

[Sam Gamgee]

That's what I seem to discover as I learn more about that period. These people that repeat the fact of the boycott are really evil in intent in my opinion. Their assertion is that American Jews, out of some unreasonable hatred for Germans, decided to destroy Germany's economy. We should thank them for the damage they did. Otherwise Hitler may have had a few hundred more fighters to defeat Britain.

I am quite frightened that there are some who are seeking to re-write that history.

[Clemenza]

I remember that I once lived in a building with an Austrian fellow, a member of the Social Democratic party. When our conversation turned to WWII and Hitler being from Austria, he stated "well yes, what Hitler did was evil, but so was what the U.S. did to the Indians and what the Zionists are doing to the Palestineans." What I've typically heard from Germans has been similar, although they usually add the caveat that "much of the killing was not done by the Germans." Sure there were colloborators, but it was Germans who ran the camps and German military personell that did most of the killing both in the camps and in the towns and battlefields.

One more anecdote: I remember an interview that Dick Cavett did with former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, in which he said that "Germans should no more apologize for Hitler than the French should apologize for Napoleon."

[HostileTerritory]

The best line I ever heard was that the Germans will never forgive the Jews for the Holocaust.

That said, I think the Germans, or at least some subset of them, have done more atoning and confronting their past about this issue than almost any other country that has committed similar crimes. (The Austrians? Different story. I still wouldn't go to that country, even though I've been to Germany.)

It seems that for every young German who is sick of hearing about the Holocaust and channels his feelings into fierce resentment of Israel, there is another who is positively obsessed with Jews and Jewish culture and feels guilty over something that, after all, he had nothing do with.

[Clemenza]

You are correct. Let us not forget that Germany is Israel's staunchest ally and major trading partner in Europe. Its just that I have noticed revisionism over the past 15 years or so, possibly tied to resentment over feeling forced to atone for a dark portion of their history.

In other countries, particularly in Eastern Europe, it is very complicated, as even those folks who mistreated their minority populations (Jews, Roma/gypsies), were in turn victimized by the Nazis. Its hard to ask someone to atone for the fact that some of his countrymen turned over their neighbors to the Nazis when they themselves had relatives killed by the Wehrmacht or in the camps.

With that, I will leave you with one of my favorite jokes about Austrians: Austrians convinced the world into thinking Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler a German.

[HostileTerritory]

Its just that I have noticed revisionism over the past 15 years or so, possibly tied to resentment over feeling forced to atone for a dark portion of their history.

That's definitely true. The last few years, it seems like the Germans have been way more confident talking about how they suffered during the war (and they did) and also trying to talk about how they're sick of talking about the Holocaust all the time, which is a very sensitive topic to approach. Atonement is particularly hard for those who grew up in East Germany and have never seen any benefit from being the "master race" in their lands in the last 60 years.

The whole problem is figuring out how to transition from the Holocaust being an event we have to deal with, with both the victors and victims still around and needing to move on and participate in the world somehow, to a historical event identified with dead generations. I'm hopeful we can preserve the lessons of the Holocaust--people can commit terrible, dehumanizing acts against other people--and divorce them from their identity with one particular incident, which as monumental as it was, tends to blur the message by making people think "it's all about the Jews wanting attention."

[dfwgator]

Hitler was just upset because they wouldn't buy his lousy paintings.

[dfwgator]

Poles were probably the second most mistreated people group, the Ukrainians the third.

Thank you for pointing that fact out, Christian Slavs were considered ubermenschen. The plan was the work them as slaves and then use sterilization to eventually wipe out their races. Hitler boasted that in 30 years, all Poles would be wiped from the face of the Earth albeit in a much slower manner than he dealt with the Jews.

[A Longer Name]

I remember an interview that Dick Cavett did with former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, in which he said that "Germans should no more apologize for Hitler than the French should apologize for Napoleon."

He is quite right. The French should apologize for Napoleon. He was responsible for the deaths of millions all over Europe, an absolute record not beaten for another century. He was less evil than Hitler, but that's not saying much.

[Sam Gamgee]

That’s why I regard Hitler as a bit of a scapegoat. He is a convenient excuse for Germans. All was roses and sunshine, but then Hitler came on the scene, and did these evil things. Hitler must have been a busy man to do all that by himself. It seems to me, that to most Germans, Hitler was a god - until his defeat and their occupation in 1945. That Austrian sounds like one of the traitorous sympathizers that sided with the evil empire – not all Austrians were German lapdogs.

I just love that “Well you sinned, so why shouldn’t we sin” line of defense.

Actually the French should be ashamed of the terror years prior to Napoleon's’s arrival. Like all socialist regimes, their’s was far worse and far more tyrannical than the one it replaced. One has to wonder how French school texts gloss over that blood soaked period?

[Sam Gamgee]

It is sad that there is still a very anti-Jewish element in Poland, and that Polish resistance groups wouldn’t work with Jewish groups in the war years. Because Poland has an equally tragic history that the Jews do. Victimized constantly by Russian, Austrian and German aggression over the centuries. They produced some real resistance heroes in the Nazi years and the following Communist years. Even when I was a child here in Canada I remember some nasty Polish racial slurs repeated in front of me. I hope that sort of thinking dies for good.

The allies had to whitewash some of Stalin’s atrocities to avoid criticism of the alliance they kept together to defeat Hitler. Such as the mass murder of Polish generals and military staff. Never mind the massacres committed crossing the Ukraine.

A bit off topic, but what started the anti-Semitism one sometimes finds in the black community?

[globalheater]

Well that's a typical response based on very crude and undifeerentiated opinions about history as featured in hollywood.

Do you need to blame an ethnic group ?

What would be won if we don't accept that many germans where guilty others stupid and some where victims ?

Did your grandpa fight for freedom and democracy or for blaming and taunting ?

Get real.

Muslims aren't dangerous - The Germans where no more evil than the Brasilians or the Latvians. Hate preachers and people who see to much 'blood on hands' on CNN are the plague.