My grandfather was German and I never got the chance to ask him why he supported Hitler
posted October 22nd, 2016 at 12:20 AM
Increasingly over the last 6 months of election-watching, I feel like I am time-warping back to Germany 1930, and I am watching people like my grandfather, who just wanted to Make Germany Great Again.
My Opa (Grandpa in German) died when I was 13, leaving me with so many unanswered questions.
The last time I saw him, my parents had sent me over to Germany for the summer. I remember the first time I found my way down to his home office in the basement. I felt uncomfortable as I looked around and saw these huge wall posters featuring black African children (in need of charity) and stacks upon stacks of Native American tribal newspapers and other materials. IN my 13 year old brain, I knew something was not right. I wanted to ask him, "But you helped kill all the Jews and fight Hitler's war, and now your mission in life is to advocate for Native Americans and African children?
I didn't know how to ask these questions and was fearful of asking since these things were Not Talked About.
Then he died shortly after I left, thus depriving me of the chance of ever holding the dialogue I crave to have with him.
Maybe some of the questions, I can just put to Trump supporters: "So, you can support Cinnamon Hitler because the lives of Muslims and immigrants don't really matter to you?"
"So, you do know he is a crazy person and his plan for Making Our Country Great Again is to consolidate his own power but you just like it?"
My Opa had no real reason to feel disenfranchised, from what I can tell. He lived in a nice flat in a shared family house with a nice shared garden, and had a good job. I just sold that house a few years ago and there was not a dam thing wrong with it. I guess it could have had a bigger yard. Is that a reason to start a war? That he wasn't satisfied with the size of his yard, and maybe wanted a fully detached home for his wife & 2 kids??? My mom was 3 years old when he volunteered for the German army -- yes he volunteered, without waiting to be drafted!
My Opa seemed like a nice, kindly man. But one thing is certain, a lot of the atrocities were committed by Germans who went home every day to their families and were known as nice, decent men. I am haunted by the question of the extent of his complicity as a German soldier in 1939 and 1940 when the army was "clearing Jews" out of Poland. There is an online site that transcribed confessions of war crimes but so far I have not been able to use it, partly because my German is limited. But do I really want to know? Why was he kept by the Allies for 3 years after the end of the war?
In the meantime, all those black-and-white newsreels of Hitler ranting and raving to the adulation of the crowds is materializing before my eyes south of our border, and I don't like it.
I came up with a funny joke:
Q: Why do Trump supporters wear red shirts?
A: Their brown shirts are in the wash.
Only it's not so funny....
18 Comments
Post a CommentBut
Oct 22, 2016 at 9:41am
Both candidates are not fit for office. One is a babbling buffoon that is treating life like a tv show and the other is an insane woman who is complicit in genocide in the middle east as she was the secretary of state.
Please don't wash over one persons know issues because of gender while vilifying another because of issues that happened decades ago.
Do you want either of those folks with the finger on the "button"?
Vote none of the above
RightyRoo
Oct 22, 2016 at 11:01am
Comparing Trump to Hitler isn't just insane and baseless, it's absolutely offensive and disrespectful to Jewish people, making light of their struggle. Looks like our corrupt media and broken school system did a number on you... my condolences.
Nationalism rising, globalists panicking, things, they are a changing'
Interesting
Oct 22, 2016 at 11:46am
Too bad you never got a chance to have that dialogue. But I hope you're not losing sleep over it. For all you know, opa may have felt guilty and lived the rest of his life ashamed of supporting evil. There were/are likely thousands like him, and even more people like you with unanswered questions. It might even be better NOT to kno w any details and continue to remember him as the kindly man you knew. The sins of the grandfather are not yours, as you know. Watch "Hitler's Children" if you get a chance. Interesting documentary.
Here is how it works...
Oct 22, 2016 at 11:52am
You have a liberal elite that pays itself tax dollars that thinks its duty is to "improve the world"---this is done on the basis of crass statistics. For example, if 100k people in USA lose their homes due to deindustrialization, but 1 million in China gain homes because all the money that went to USA is now going to China, that's a "win" for the globalist beancounters, because you have "900 million more people" with homes. All they care about is populations and accounting averages, not individuals.
The Trump supporters (and Hitler's supporters) are and were people too stupid to think this is "progress." America is hurting, the middle class is hurting, the only people not hurting are those in mega-bucks entertainment (Kanye, etc.) and people in protected professions like MD, health inspector, etc. Everyone else is grinding on bone.
Obviously
Oct 22, 2016 at 12:16pm
You haven't spent more than 5 minutes researching the era when Hitler was elected,else you'd know the answer.
In the time it took you to type all this you could have found the answer....
I may have a partial answer
Oct 22, 2016 at 1:50pm
Years ago, I had a penpal from Germany. I asked him a question I was very curious about: How was his family living in Nazi Germany and why didn't anybody do anything? He told me people at the time didn't really know what was going on, and the topic isn't discussed much because of its painful nature. Young me---idealistic and impressionable---couldn't understand how such horrific events could happen at such a scale without people knowing or trying to stop it.
Now, I understand better. It's easy to point fingers and to believe we are better than others when we have the advantage of distance and hindsight to guide our vantage point. But the behaviour of the Germans isn't different from the Cambodians during Pol Pot, the Chinese during Chairman Mao, etc. It seems to come from natural, albeit flawed, human tendencies. 1) Human beings are easily manipulable with propaganda, and we tend to reduce cognitive dissonance with willful blindness and denial. 2) Milgram experiment showed that people (regardless of background, education) are willing to obey the rules of an authority figure (inflicting pain on another) even when these are in conflict with their conscience.
I must disagree that Trump is the kind of threat that Hitler represented. While some Trump supporters would make perfect weapons for a would-be dictator, I don't believe Mr Trump entertains this kind of aspirations. His son-in-law is already looking into starting a post-election TV show.
What concerns me most nowadays is a phenomenon that is less visible but just as dangerous because of its insidious nature: collusion of the media, corporations and politicians to maintain the power of people at the top. Are you aware of and do you ever question the power of the media over the information that you consume or Internet companies over the search results that you see? Why is mainstream media pushing a particular narrative while choosing to remain silent on others? Did you grow up thinking a party is good while another is bad? Why are individuals of one party willing to condemn actions of the other party but are turning a blind eye to the unethical behaviour within their own party? You might be uncomfortable with the comparison but the cognitive biases used to control/shape people's views and their own willful blindness aren't that much different from the "brainwashing" that occurred in Nazi Germany.
BD
Oct 22, 2016 at 4:44pm
Wish berrock would stay in there (god bless him) "fuck"8uFyH the rest of them"
Anonymous
Oct 22, 2016 at 4:57pm
Your grandfather fought for his country. You will never know everything you seek, but there are many clues in your letter:
If he was captured and kept for 3 years it sounds like he was fighting in the West, as opposed to the Eastern front which was simply brutal. The western troops were night and day different from the Eastern front troops who killed civilians almost as a matter of policy.
Sounds to me like he was captured at the end of the war, in France, and was made to clear mines after the war ended.
My grandfather was in WW2, in D Day for the allies no less, and afterward turned out to be a closeted narcissistic homosexual who made his family's life a living hell due to his incredible selfishness.
Which of these granfathers would you choose to have?
From everything I've heard about my own grandfather, I'd almost certainly pick your own German one every day of the week, and twice on Sunday.
I guess the moral is, you have no choice over your ancestors.
HRC...
Oct 22, 2016 at 5:42pm
...Is Far Worst for the rest of the world Which is why The US needs to vote against her so the the world can at the very least be saved, albeit for a limited time, from her vile agenda. Nobody's safe under HRC rule. The Donald will just focus on the "making America great" again for all it's worth, but the rest of the world will get to breath. Yes, no candidate is ideal but the Donald is by FAR the lesser of the evils. His scheme is just a loud funny bark, very surface & no substance. You DON'T want, CAN'T HAVE HRC in charge!
Hanz
Oct 22, 2016 at 6:39pm
Honestly for yourself you need to find out what part your Grandfather had in the war to provide some closure for yourself. I have yet to meet a German from that era to admit that they were part of any of the atrocities. Its always "It was the other guys" or "we had no idea what they were doing in the camps". Fact is it was a well known fact what was happening and people just kept quiet.
Just be prepared for the facts of your own families involvement in the war to disturb you.
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