A former Hitler Youth/SS soldier demonstrates what it will take to open a Trumpster's eyes

[DFW]

Last edited Tue Dec 24, 2019, 03:41 AM - Edit history (1)

Last night, there was a documentary on German TV about the last days of the Third Reich, and about how a desperate Hitler started turning Hitler Youth brigades into fighting SS divisions. Having grown up knowing practically nothing but a Germany under Hitler, they were fanatic and thoroughly indoctrinated. They were known for their brutality and cruelty, sometimes lining up prisoners of war and executing all of them.

There were interviews with a few survivors of these boys, and they told of their indoctrination and inability to entertain any notion that they had been misled, or that the regime could possibly lose the war, even after it was clear to older Wehrmacht soldiers they met that this was the case.

One told of the night he realized that everything he had learned was wrong, how his world collapsed. Just before the war ended, he had been separated from his unit, most of them killed, and he was wandering around somewhere on the Eastern front in a daze. He came to a house, was seen, and was beckoned in. To his surprise, the people in the house spoke Polish, not German. But the bigger shock was when he was shown a room where he could sleep. There were two beds, and two people already there. One of them moved over to share a bed with the other so the boy could have a bed to himself. Both of his roommates for the night wore the white and gray striped clothes of concentration camp inmates. He said he wept uncontrollably. He understood then that his whole life up to then had been based on lies.

We wonder what it will take for fanatic Trump-loving Republicans to change their points of view? I fear it will take nothing less than a traumatic awakening of the kind this (now very old) man told about in the interview. And guess what? 99% of the Trumpanzees will never have one.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

1. That's a great story, my dear DFW......

We can hope that the Trumpanzees might have such an epiphany, but it's unlikely.

However, there is always hope.


Merry Christmas to you and your lovely wife!

[DFW]

2. Same to you, dear Peggy!!

All our best to you and L.M.!

At the moment, we are swamped with two daughters, their partners, one cranky granddaughter, my wife's 92 year old mom, and the parents of our elder daughter's new husband. There is only one person in the bunch who is not at least bi-lingual (my wife's mom speaks only German). Languages spoken are German, English, Russian and Italian.

The German media show constant documentaries about the Nazi era, how it happened, the evil that sprang from it, and why it was so awful for the people here. Germany is very intent on making its people aware of the past, and preventing it from ever happening again. It is a cause of huge concern that their efforts are not 100% successful.

One of our younger daughter's friends, born 40 years after Hitler shot himself in his bunker, said that decades years later, the Nazis' worst legacy to her was robbing her of the right to be proud of being German. It is still felt that deeply here by some of her generation. My daughters don't dwell on it, but they have the "advantage," if you can call it that, of being only half German.

[TEB]

3. When I was a kid in west Germany in army

I used to go to a pub down in Butzbach. And I became a regular when we were in garrison. And I met a few former soldiers of the third Reich. This was 1985 to 1987. And the common thread these men shared was Russia they never talked of their time on East front. And I never asked them who would want to be reminded of the horrors.

Comments at times were made about how if they the Reich. Could have produced weaponry as America had done. One gentleman in particular used to say then I would have been farming in Russia today.

In getting to know these fine men I started to feel a sadness for them. I just truly felt compassion for them as two of my friends. Not sure how to explain what they told me as to say they felt betrayed and used by the Reich.

[DFW]

4. My father-in-law was that "poor slob on a farm" that Goering talked about at Nrnberg

“Why, of course, the people don’t want war,” Goering shrugged. “Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece?"

My father-in-law WAS that "poor slob on a farm." He was drafted in 1941 at age 17, sent to Stalingrad in 1942. He did not return in one piece. He got a leg blown off by a Soviet artillery shell. He returned to his farm, now a useless cripple at age 19. He went to work for a local bank, helping other farmers to stay afloat. He never consciously talked about the horrors he witnessed. When he was deathly ill, in his delirium, he relived his combat experiences, calling out warnings to long-dead members of his unit. They were all city boys, and those that weren't blown up outright froze to death. He would have, too, but another retreating unit noticed he was still alive, and dragged him back with them. For well over 55 years, he kept it all bottled up inside him.

[raccoon]

5. Great post. Nt

[Cosmocat]

6. It is likely that we long ago passed the point

Where this can turn around without it getting very dark.

[dewsgirl]

7. I 100 percent agree.😞

[DFW]

8. Remember 1950-1954

Many Americans thought McCarthy had led us so deep down a dark hole that we would never recover, and there was no SNL or Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert or Rachel Maddow to give us any balance. At long last, we DID have some decency left. I'm hoping we can muster some up yet again.

[panader0]

9. And we will muster decency again.

Have a great Holiday.

[DFW]

10. We have no alternative but to hope that is possible.

Thanks, my friend. Same to you!

[Cosmocat]

12. That was a congressman run amuck

Yes, it was bad, but that was 1/1,000,000 of what we are dealing with now.

This is a country with a potus who is relentlessly cruel, corrupt and and hell bent on being our first dictator.

This is kids in cages on the Southern border.

This is the entirety of our government being run like New York City's boss tweed.

This is the complete overturn of the post World War II world order, where the US was the mostly benevolent singular world power. We now go out of her way to spit on our traditional democratic partners, while bending the knee to every tinpot dictator on the planet.

This is the 1st time that our military is starting to be corrupted by these types of things.

H***, that was a nationalist fervor against Russia. This is Russia running one of our major political parties.

[hatrack]

11. Back when I was in junior high, a woman named Rosemary Hartner visited our school

She'd grown up in Nazi Germany, had been an enthusiastic Hitler Youth member, and talked about how much fun it was. All kinds of activities, sports and games, a chance to travel around Germany, and hardly an adult to be seen. That was part of the allure - it was made to be largely self-governing and run by the older kids, which made it all the more appealing and "authentic" to younger kids like her.

None of it felt like a cult - the indoctrination was constant, but relatively low-key; like low-level background radiation, it just never went away.

Some years later, a lot of the fun had run out of the bucket. By late 1944 and early 1945, she and her friends in the Hitler Youth were keeping busy by pulling frozen bodies off of refugee trains coming from the east, or by clearing debris from the air raids, which were pretty much constant (she lived in Berlin). This was when some of her friends began to sicken and die. In her words, "Enough food, enough sleep, enough warmth - you can do without any two, but not all three."

In mid-April 1945, she was struck by the sound of thunder to the east one morning - continuous and growing steadily louder. "Oh, it's just a spring storm", according to her neighbor, a fanatical Nazi. Which was strange, considering that there wasn't a cloud in the sky. What she'd heard was, of course, the Soviet artillery opening the last round of the war.

I'll never forget the last sentence of her talk: "And then the Russian came, and we surrendered, and the trees in my neighborhood filled up with the bodies of people who'd hanged themselves, and that was the end of my wonderful Hitler Youth experience."

[mountain grammy]

13. I think of the trauma of the Civil War

And then, decades later, statues glorifying the event. And now Nazis are on the rise everywhere.

Somehow I think we’re not learning from history, especially in America where our history is so sanitized it’s ridiculous. I think Germany has made the best efforts to teach historical truths, but doubt we’ll see it anytime soon here.

Yes 99% of trumpanzees will never have the awakening.

[CrispyQ]

14. We could challenge the hours and hours of hate radio that blankets rural America.

That's where much of the indoctrination comes from. Fox is just the ugly spawn of hate radio.

Maybe our billionaire candidates could buy a few radio stations, pay for some top notch writing talent, and challenge the message of hate and division of right wing radio, even if they have to run those stations at a loss. I have three rwnj in my family and it's embarrassing and shameful the shit they believe that they've heard on radio and read on rw hate sites. Until the dems/left take on hate radio/media, this country will continue to be divided.

We need a marketing department, stat.

[appalachiablue]

15. The very wealthy fund elections and even decide to run as candidates

but there's no effort to develop counter news programming that's accessible on the radio, TV, internet and in print.

And Bloomberg already has a media empire.

Like another Bill Moyers & Co. type program, once a week-- or even something close for the sake of democracy.

It's truly baffling.

[wryter2000]

16. I wish our billionaires would stop running for president and do some good

I keep seeing Bloomberg and Stoyer ads that trout their success at closing coal plants and beating the NRA. Really? How did the mayor of New York and a businessman do that?

I'm especially irritated by Stoyer's ad for term limits. Did he really want to go through the impeachment without Nancy Pelosi and Adam Schiff?

Fund some liberal radio, guys or some candidates.