Der Spiegel - other nations helped Germany in Holocaust

Warsaw Business Journal ^ | 20th May 2009

[lizol]

Der Spiegel - other nations helped Germany in Holocaust

20th May 2009

Poland, among other countries helped Hitler mastermind the mass murders, the German weekly says

The Der Spiegel weekly claims that Germany would not have been able to prosecute its WWII mass-murder campaign against the Jews on its own and the country required the cooperation of other nations, including Poland.

The magazine's front-page story, entitled "Partners. European associates in murdering Jews," cites the case of John Demjaniuk, a former Ukrainian SS-officer, who is currently awaiting trial in Munich, in its bid to prove that without the support of citizens from occupied states the extermination of European Jews would not have been possible.

"Obviously, only Hitler and his associates or the Wehrmacht, were able to stop the Holocaust. This, however, does not weaken the argument that without foreign allies, thousands if not millions of the six million Jews killed would have been saved," the Der Spiegel article reads.

In addition, the weekly claims that while the French, Dutch and Belgians could not have really known what was happening to the Jews, Poles were well aware of the fate that awaited them in concentration camps. Historians and experts from Poland and Germany have undermined the weekly's claims, saying it has made a number of misinterpretations.

[Castlebar]

remember the scene in “Saving Private Ryan” where some German SS guys were pretending to be Polish, and of course the US soldiers shouted at them, “there are no Poles in the SS”.

That was in the HBO series, "Band of Brothers", not "Saving Private Ryan."

[wolf78]

Deserves its own thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2255171/posts

[muawiyah]

Recalling what the Germans did in Naples, (they expressed pique by burning down the genealogical library ~ that place had the complete genealogies of every noble family in Europe all the way back to the Dark Ages), and at the end what they did in Paris (Hitler, et al, were prepared to destroy the City of Light in yet another fit of pique), we cannot help but conclude they didn't like to have to run away.

The burning of Reindeer Crossing (as I translate it roughly) falls into the same category. They destroyed it angry with the fact they were being run out of the country by the Finns, and particularly the Sa'ami.

Germans eventually have to learn that they do not bring glory on themselves by trashing everything. Makes them no better than the Russians, and even there the Russians take months to trash up a place.

[muawiyah]

Look, there are always people around ready, willing and able to collaborate with the enemy. We saw that today when Senator Feinstein of California made a big argument to bring all the GITMO prisoners into the United States.

She's acting as an individual in this matter. No sane person wants those pukes around.

[dfwgator]

You’re right, I still get confused sometimes between the two, with regards to the Normandy scenes.

[DTA]

>>>>>BTW, this article was meant for all the Eastern euorpean countries that want to enter the Nato group...it really has a sinister subplot that has nothing to do with Hitler or the Poles! <<<<<<

I doubt that there is such subplot. Almost all Hitler's allies from Eastern Europe were in NATO before publishing of this article. NATO's policy is continuation of The Third Reich's Drang nach Osten. NATO's madness will end the same way as Hitler's, probably with more than 50 million dead, and this time it will not be 200 000 Americans and 49 800 000 others.

-Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria are in NATO since 1999. They repeated their WWII role in NATO's attack on Serbia by allowing their territory to be used as a staging area, the same as in 1941.All three countries had fascist governments and were Hitler's allies.

-Croatia and Albania are in NATO since early this spring. WWII Croatia operated the most barbaric extermination camps that even the German Nazis were shocked with Croatian savagery. They are not mentioned in Der Spiegel article. Nor are Albanians who provided one Waffen SS division for Hitler.

The only Hitler's helper outside of NATO are Bosnian Muslims but their manpower and territory is insignificant.

Ukraine can not be considered as Hitler's helper because it was only minority who did the killing on Hitler's behalf.

[lizol]

So now you're quoting PiS bullsh*t?

Well, I can see you're following Polish politics pretty closely. And what Polish politicians are saying at the moment :-)

Actually - I took it from Kaczynski

[lizol]

You see, Wolf - as I've read in a newspaper today, regarding the “Spiegel” article - imagine a situation, that somebody’s grandfather murdered his neighbors.
Of course the grandson wouldn't be responsible for that, however such a thing would be a cause for some trauma to him.

But - if he tried to raise his mood by publishing an article, in which he'd admit his grandfather's guilt, diving also in details into guilt of other people recruited by his grandfather to the crime - that would be at least tasteless.

And this is the case of the “Spiegel’s” article.

[lizol]

OK, Wolf, I’ve read his article – in its English version provided by you. And it has not changed my mind about it.
I’d even say it affirmed my opinion, that it’s a try to “share” German responsibility for the Holocaust with the others.

The main problem with the article is, that - while single statements are true – when you put them altogether they create a completely false picture. One may wonder – was that a result of lack of knowledge, or something else?

Examples? Sure.

The article says – „Denunciation was so common in Poland that there was a special term for paid informants "Szmalcowniki" (previously a term for a fence). In many cases, the denouncers knew their victims.

Regarding this issue the following text is worth quoting:
Blackmailers (szmalcowniks) were plentiful in Warsaw, sometimes gangs of them. Gunnar S. Paulsson estimates that their total numbers, however, were relatively small, "1 or 2 percent" of all Warsaw Poles (p. 113). The damage that these criminals did, however, was substantial. Most were interested in money. By stripping Jews of assets needed for food and bribes, harassing rescuers, raising the overall level of insecurity, and forcing hidden Jews to seek out safer accommodations, blackmailers added significantly to the danger Jews faced and increased their chances of getting caught and killed. Jews who lived on the Aryan side were more afraid of szmalcowniks than the Germans because Polish blackmailers were experts in distinguishing Jewish facial features. At the beginning of German oppression, szmalcowniks were satisfied with a few hundred zlotys extortion but after the death penalty for hiding Jews was introduced the sums rose to several hundred thousands zlotys. (…) The blackmailers were both of Polish and Jewish ethnicity . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Szmalcownik

But “Spiegel” doesn’t bother to explain that.

In other place “Spiegel’s” article applauds Holland, that “Dutch collaborators were quickly punished after the war. Some 16,000 were put on trial by 1951, and most of them were convicted.”
But it doesn’t mention, that the Polish Secret State considered what the “szmalcowniks” were doing as an act of treason and collaboration with the German occupiers and punished it with the death sentence executed by young soldiers of the Home Army. Neither it mentions, that many “szmalcowniks” were executed after the war by the communist authorities.

It also applauds the Danes, that When the deportation of Denmark's Jews was about to begin in 1943, large parts of the population helped Jews to escape to Sweden or hid them. Some 98 percent of Denmark's 7,500 Jews survived World War II.
But the authors don’t try to figure out how the Danish people would behave, if there was death penalty in occupied Denmark for helping Jews – not only for the one, who helped , but also for is entire family, and neighbors, who knew about it (like it was in German occupied Poland).

[lizol]

One more thing.

The article says: Ukrainian gendarmes and Latvian auxiliary police, Romanian soldiers or Hungarian railway workers. Polish farmers, Dutch land registry officials, French mayors, Norwegian ministers, Italian soldiers -- they all took part in Germany's Holocaust.

And why the authors have not mentioned the Russians? You know Vlasov army, RONA army, suppressing of the Warsaw uprising, etc., etc.

Have they forgotten?
Or maybe they don't want to mess up with the Russians.

Or maybe they're afraid of the new Russian "anti-defamation" law

You know - when the Poles complain about being compared to the Nazis - you can always say - "Oh, typical Polish hysteria".

But beware of the Russian bear roaring ...

[lizol]

Interesting. Too bad they didn't give any more information on who commented on what kind of alleged misinterpretations.

Like prosecutor Joachim Riedel from the “Central Office of the State Justice Administrations for the Investigation of National Socialist Crimes” in Ludwigsburg, who said: "This is unacceptable to equalize collaboration with the Nazis with drive to Holocaust. The initiative to destroy Jews, and methods, that had been used to achieve that goal came from Germany. Those are facts, that is German guilt, which can't be effaced".

[dfwgator]

How much oil does Germany get from Poland?

[AnalogReigns]

Read the article. You may be enlightened. Nothing in the article says, or even hints that Poles, Ukrainians or anyone else was equally guilty. However, it is a fact that the Germans had a LOT of help from their conquered peoples in the Nazi project of exterminating the Jews.

To not honestly acknowledge that is to be guilty of the same sin of the Nazis—that is of a bigoted nationalistic racism, this time against Germans.

I don’t recall in world history of any other nation which has so clearly and honestly faced the horrendous sins of their past than Germany.

It would be well if other countries did the same. The unimaginable evils of the Holocaust (where 20 million civilians were purposely murdered—of which something over 5 million were Jewish) were evidence of the evil latent in all human beings—not just Germanic ones. To pretend it was only a German thing is a lie—and is, like all lies, very destructive. Was it primarily German? Yes—but did others, amidst the conquered peoples gleefully participate as well—also, yes.

[lizol]

I don’t recall in world history of any other nation which has so clearly and honestly faced the horrendous sins of their past than Germany.

Sure. But looks, like they're fed up wit it.
Somehow I can't imagine such an article in a German paper 30 years ago.

[lizol]

Read the article. You may be enlightened. Nothing in the article says, or even hints that Poles, Ukrainians or anyone else was equally guilty.

I have read it.
And you should also read between the lines.

If someone states, that "OK, my ancestors murdered many people, but they wouldn't have done it without your ancestors helping them" - I consider it as equalizing.

[Matt_Rel]

Let me say again what I’ve already said as a comment.

Yesterday, former Israeli ambassador to Poland, Shewah Weiss, said on TVN24, “Since WWII Germans have lived with the Sign of Cain marked on their foreheads and they seem to be tired of this. That’s why they try to share their crime with other nations to wipe the shameful sign out”.

Then he added, “Poland was the only German occupied country that had no collaborative government persecuting Jews.

What’s more, the armed forces of the underground state of Poland, Home Army, executed everybody that was proved guilty of selling Jews to Germans, which was unprecedented in the whole of Europe.”

So called “shmalcovniks” (a pejorative slang word for money-makers), were usually pre-war criminal prisoners that were set free by German invaders and then used by them for invigilation purposes. Not only did they sell Jews but also other Poles who e.g. hid Jews in their homes. They sold everybody for whom they could be paid by Germans.

Der Spiegel’s sharing Germans guilt for the Holocaust with Poles is a shameful and outrageous insult against the whole people of Poland.

[wolf78]

Sure. But looks, like they're fed up wit it. Somehow I can't imagine such an article in a German paper 30 years ago.

Yeah... they were so fed up with it that the very same SPIEGEL led with an article called "The Perpetrators: Why so Many Germans Became Murderers" a few months ago. But of course nobody cared, because stating the obvious isn't exactly fascinating news. But now the Kaczynskis have something to be outraged about.

A propos Kaczynski: The problem with reading between the lines is that you can't really hold someone to something he hasn't said. It's like saying: At least one of the Kaczinsky twins is gay. It's the obvious conclusion, but I can't look inside other people's heads and therefore can't prove it.

[buzzer]

Simply wrong. There were poles in the Wehrmacht. A polish magazine seems a valid source of information and they simply say: There were poles in the Wehrmacht. "Wyrwy w szeregu. Polacy do Wehrmachtu, czyli pomysły na kolaborację" Polityka No.7 17. February 2001.

[jackdanielss]

There is lots of history on this web page.
http://www.danzigfreestate.org/