Quote:
Originally Posted by PIMking
Wrong,
I've got family that fought in ww2 for the Germans. They were forced at gunpoint at 12 and 14 year old boys in Munich to fight. The later fled west and surrendered to the Americans. There were rumors about it but nothing was set in stone. Got to remember that this wasn't the age of TV and Internet, so the information that was out wasn't that great. It would be hard to think that your leaders would be capable of trying to kill off and entire race of people.
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Are you trying to say that the German civilians did not know there was genocide against Jews (and assorted other groups) taking place? The entire German government, pretty much at all stages, were part of the process. From the labeling of Jews, to enacting laws against them, to ghettos, to trains, to concentration camps, was a big project that the military only did a portion of the work. Bureaucrats did much of the rest. Civilians were also being fed a load of crap to be a part of the process. Businesses would bid on who built the machinery used to commit genocide...And the soliders were certainly not keeping quiet, they all talked and spoke about what they did.
Who knows how many were aware of gas chambers, but many witnessed their neighbors yanked out of houses and either shot on the street or beaten and dragged away, and did nothing. Not that I think you are saying this, but the vast majority knew something bad was happening. It is amazing how evil people are capable of becoming.
I was just skimming through the wiki on the holocaust, the entire sequence of events is terrifying. Part of the article states that even those who planned to overthrow Hitler still considered the plan to deal with Jews reasonable (which goes towards how deeply the populace believed the propaganda against Jews).