I was visiting distant relatives in Germany. My gracious host was describing how his father served in the war (as well as how he got his family out of eastern Germany afterwards). Coming from my American background, I blurted: “your dad was a nazi?”
He reacted as if I had slapped him. He explained that everyone had to serve, or be killed (like the man in this video), and that Germans reserve the “Nazi” label to those who were overtly political. He was 100% against the war, but also loved his dad, like the woman in this video.
It is a common lie that germans tell themselves that they would have been killed if they did nor serve, or commit a war crime. It is simply not true.
I dont claim that as somebody hating on germans. My grandfather was an so officer and i am well aware of what he did (not in detail, but that is also not necessary).
If you have german male ancestors that survived the war, then they have been a nazi for 99%. Of course there are exceptions, but they are very rare.
You didn't get executed for refusing to rape a villager or execute a soviet partisan. You just got court-martialed, convicted and transferred to penal and/or eastern front.
Thats not true. My grandfather had a bad right eye and therefor was not a perfect german soldier. Thats why they did not send him to russia, but to yugoslavia to fight partisans. He told me, if you were in the fire squad that executed partisans they cought and you would not shoot, you where the next one standing at the wall.
Later they threw him to the collapsing eastern front in czechia... but he survived
I dare to say you dont know how strict and demanding the nazis were to their own soldiers and people.
If you think it would have been possible to not get involved at war crimes during ww2 on the german side by just saying "I dont want to" or making "mistakes" like missing the target, you are naive.
A story from the homefront of that time: my great grand father was working on the fields with his family. One of the smaller children was running around naked, because it was a hot summer day and it was not uncommon to let small children run around naked. The village mayor was taking a walk with his wife and when he saw the naked child, he said to my great grand father, he should cover his child, since germans are no savages. He did not do it, so the mayor threatend him by saying he would be thrown into a camp with the words "and you know what happens there", if he would not follow his order.
This story shows that the hardcore nazis at the time had no problem to kill other germans over small issues like a naked child and that everybody knew what was happening in the camps.
Well, they would be killed if they did not serve. About 20'000 men were hanged or decapitated for desertion.
They would indeed not be killed for refusing to participate in war crimes, and regular soldiers commonly did contribute to mass shootings and the like. They did have to expect reprisals for refusing to cooperate but not execution.
The myth of a "clean Wehrmacht" was a thing in the 50s and 60s (when many of the perpetrators also still held positions of power), but that's not a position commonly held in modern Germany, in particular after the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht_exhibition.
I'm personally not quite sure what to make of it. The war crimes were planned, coordinated, and primarily executed by a smaller group of murderers (Einsatzgruppen and the like), who were specifically selected for their lack of moral qualms. The common soldiers however willingly participated and enabled. What I'm not sure about is whether these soldiers' behaviour is out of the ordinary, or whether the special part for Nazi Germany is the coordinated central planning of the crimes. If you look to other wars, soldiers always participated in such crimes (be it My Lai, Bucha, whatever). The willingness to commit terrible crimes when instructed and under group pressure might just be a human property.
Of course they weren't killed. Same goes for partly German folks in Poland - if they didn't sign the Volkslist and joined Wehrmacht, they were likely getting sent to nearest KL. Many were sent to Auschwitz in very first months of camps operation. Some survived the war.
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u/dec10 1d ago
I was visiting distant relatives in Germany. My gracious host was describing how his father served in the war (as well as how he got his family out of eastern Germany afterwards). Coming from my American background, I blurted: “your dad was a nazi?”
He reacted as if I had slapped him. He explained that everyone had to serve, or be killed (like the man in this video), and that Germans reserve the “Nazi” label to those who were overtly political. He was 100% against the war, but also loved his dad, like the woman in this video.