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To: h.a. cherev
Their religious education was obscenely warped by the Hitler Youth but they truly believed they were saving Christianity and Germany by acting like savages towards the Jews, the Slavs and the other untermenchen.

Could you clarify this for me, please. It seems you are saying that the feelings for the Jews in Christian Europe was only warped by the Hitler Youth. I probably am misreading you.

I will clarify.

No, I am not referring to the mere "feelings" but the intensity of the feelings and, most importantly, how the feelings were translated into action.

Was Europe anti-Semitic? It sure was.

America was anti-Semitic too back then.

Many parts of Europe are anti-Semitic right now.

However, there is a vast difference between the "I don't like Jews" anti-Semitism and rounding up 6 million human beings for extermination.

Was Germany during World War One anti-Semitic? Yes, it was. During World War One, being Catholic in the United States would not win you much favor either.

However, in Germany during World War One, Germany was tolerant enough to lionize it's Jewish war heroes.

Lt. Wilhelm Frankl, was awarded the Pour le Merite (The "Blue Max"), Germany's equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor.

His portrait was sold as a "Sanke Card" which were photos of German war heroes (mostly the glamorous aviators) that were the military version of baeball hero cards in World War one Germany. Frankl's Sake Card, when it was issued, bore the inscription: "Our most successful flyer, Lieutenant Frankl."

Another German World War One Jewish war hero was Fritz Beckhardt who was awarded the Iron Cross (First Class), the House Order of Hohenzollern with Swords, the Hessian Medal of Bravery and the Hessian Order of Ernst Ludwig.

Fritz Beckhardt, in one of war's greatest ironies, decorated his World War One German aircraft with a swastika. Of course, back during World War One, the swastika had no political meaning and was merely a universally recognized good luck charm. Raul Luftberry, of the Lafayette Escadrille, also decorated his SPAD with a "good Luck" swastika.

Fritz Beckhardt's love and loyalty for Germany was so great that, after the Armistice was signed, Beckhardt refused to deliver his plane over to the Allied enemy and instead flew it to Switzerland.

And how was Beckhardt's loyalty to Germany repaid during the Nazi era? Beckhardt ended up in a concentration camp. Fortunately, Hermann Goering (a World War One aviator himself), at the pleading of another World War One German Jewish aviator, Berthold Guthmann, secured Beckhardt's release and Beckhardt escaped from Germany.

A few years later, Berthold Guthmann was sent to the concentration camps that he had saved Beckhardt from and he died there.

World War One Germany, despite all of it's anti-Semitic faults, was a nation that Jews were willing to fight for, to die for and to defy Allied orders for, as Beckhardt did to preserve the honor of his squadron.

Even monsters such as Hermann Goering retained a bit of the honor of Imperial Germany when he arranged the freedom of his old Jewish comrade, Fritz Beckhardt.

But Nazi Germany was a different creature.

The Jewish war heroes were expunged from the list of Por le Merite winners. German Jewish war heroes were sent off to extermination camps as if they were insects.

That quatum leap from Jewish Por le Merite recipients to Jewish untermenchen deserving of extermination was a Nazi ideological creation.

That extreme ideology had to be instilled in the tabula rosa that was German youth. The mechanism for that indoctrination was the Hitler Youth.

That is what I mean by my refernce to the Hitler Youth.

Mere anti-Semitism produces a Dreyfus Affair.

Nazi ideology, ingrained into the psyche of millions of youths by the Hitler Youth, produced 6 million dead Jews ten year down the road.

That is the difference.

64 posted on 03/05/2004 8:10:11 PM PST by Polybius
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To: Polybius
Thank you. That clarifies your position.
66 posted on 03/05/2004 8:14:57 PM PST by h.a. cherev
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