The SS men loaded the
children into wheelbarrows and dumped them into the fiery ravines.
Living children burned
like torches.
Sara
Nomberg-Przytyk, Auschwitz, 1943
This post deals
specifically and only with the murder of 6 million Jews by the Nazis ending with
WWII in 1945. It does not cover the murder of 5 million Gentiles - the insane,
gypsies, communists etc. The term used to describe this mass murder is 'Final
Solution' and not 'Holocaust' as is commonly used by historians. The term
'Final Solution', German - 'Endlösung',
is a more accurate term than ‘Holocaust’ or the Hebrew word 'Shoah'.
'Holocaust'
('sacrifice') implies there was a purpose in mind or a purpose was achieved.
Proving this is impossible and therefore equally difficult to disprove. For
example: Jews sinned and God punished them - making Hitler an innocent
instrument of God. Or: The Zionist orchestrated it to force the creation of the
state of Israel - making the German people the most gullible on earth.
'Shoah' which means ‘catastrophe’, falsifies the true nature of what happened. A shoah is a natural event beyond
human control (Amos Oz) and this was not the case. It was very much an
event under human control which could have been prevented by humans.
'Final Solution' is
the most accurate term as it describes what the Germans tried to achieve -
solving a perceived 'problem' which has been around for thousands of years -
the 'Jewish problem'. The Nazis were right; murdering all the Jews is a way to
solve this 'problem'.
But then so would
murdering all the gentiles - a Zionist is a Jew who shoots back.
So, maybe it is best
if there are no problems which needed solutions of any kind.
The Final Solution raises
four important questions
- Why did the highly civilized Germans murder Jews?
- Why didn't the Jews fight back?
- Where was God when this was happening?
- How can a similar event be prevented?
HATRED AND HORROR
The Germans (and
others) came to hate the Jews after a fresh wave of anti-Semitism which swept
Europe at the end of the 19th century. This was followed by an overwhelming
horror filled fear. The combination of hatred and horror led to the Final
Solution coming into being.
The term 'anti-Semites'
was first used in 1879 to describe a group of Germans who viewed Jews as being
part of a 'Semitic race'. This 'race' they believed would never fit into German
society. So effective was the propaganda at the time, few people, even now,
realized there is no such thing as a 'Semitic race'. It belongs firmly in the
pseudo-scientific conspiracy field but like all good conspiracies, it had a
nugget of truth to it.
There are different
'groups' of related languages. Speaking a particular language does not imply
belonging to the dominant race of a 'group'. This is simple logic - English
speaking, New York, Chinese, aren't Anglo Saxons. Whether he was a real figure
or not is immaterial, the Bible goes to a lot of trouble to explain Abraham was
not 'Semitic'. He and his family were called 'Hebrews' - 'outsiders'. Racially
they were Persians - Aryans (the term 'Iran' is the local pronunciation) - they
were not Arabs.
During the 19th
century, Jews slowly became part of mainstream German society and by 1870; all
forms of discrimination had been lifted. The largest part of German Jewish
society tried to integrate in both society and the modern world. This was
possible because they had changed much of their religious practices. The new
Judaism was called 'Reform' and it was very accepting of and similar in
practice to Christianity.
At this time, modernism
swept the world with a series of unsettling events with Albert Einstein proving
time is an illusion, Sigmund Freud
showing unexpressed emotions never die, and
Karl Marx encouraging workers to rebel because they had nothing to lose but their chains. This provoked strong opposition
especially in Germany where a large part of the population was trying to hang
on to the 'good old days'. The world, as the Germans saw it, became filled with
uncertainty. Resentment of the emancipated, liberal Jews grew. The 'Bolshevik'
Jews were especially blamed for periodic financial downturns but never praised
for upswings in the economy.
Modernism brought
about a Christian theological revolution driven by German theologians who were
trying to bring religion in line with the new understanding of the universe. The
result was a more modern approach amongst liberals and a far more careful
reading of the Bible amongst conservatives. The result was a splintering of the
protestant church but by 1900, almost all the churches had accepted that
scripturally, the Jews were 'God's children'. As an unintended consequence, the
entire issue of the 'chosen people' surfaced again especially amongst Germans
who were more exposed to the new theology. For the deeply religious, this was
not an issue but for ordinary Christians it was a crisis. No matter how the
theologians tried to placate, all they understood was they were no longer
amongst 'the chosen' and this created jealousy and eventually hatred.
The Roman Catholic
Church increasingly tried to correct social ills associated with modernism
resulting in a new liberal theology. A unique type of anti-Semitism came into
being. An article in an official Church publication (Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche) of 1930 provides one of the
clearest examples: Two types of
anti-Semitism can be distinguished, one national and politico-racial, the other
politico-governmental. The former combats Judaism simply because of its racial
and national foreignness, the latter because of the excessive and deleterious
influence of the Jewish segment of the population of a given people. . . . The
legal order of the system of competition in modern private economies has Judaism's
fingerprints (or rather, the mark of its spirit and its character) all over it,
as if it had been cut to its measure. . . . Only anti-Semitism linked to the
rise of moral decadence (the decline in births) represents an internal
anti-Semitism. The Catholic Church encouraged their members to be good
'natural' or 'internal' anti-Semites and fight Jewish decadence.
Some German Christians
believed God need to be upgraded to a 'God of the Germans' - a God sympathetic
to Germans. This idea was spread by people like Professor Ernst Bergmann who
said either we have a German God or none
at all and it is because we believe
in Him and not in our own German God that we are defeated in the struggle of
the nations. Hitler was seen as the new messiah (We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith that he (Hitler) was sent by God to save Germany -
Hermann Göring).
Though the belief Jews
poison wells and use children's blood in the making of unleavened bread was
still common in Eastern Europe, it had little credibility in the more
sophisticated and skeptical Germany where proof of every assertion was required.
In its place myths which could not be proved one way or the other gained
traction. The most popular of these occurred in various forms. Jesus was said
not to have been a Jew but an Aryan called Jesus ben-Pantera.
The early Christian
church spoke of ‘Jesus, the son of a virgin’ with the Greek word for ‘virgin’
being parthenos. The Jews heard it as
Jesus ben-Pantera or ‘Jesus the son of a panther’. As the name ‘Pantera’ was not
a Jewish one, they decided it must have been a Roman one and concocted and
entire tale around it. Mary, they said, was unfaithful, Joseph divorced her and
she took up with her Germanic Roman legionary called Pantera. This is how it is
written in the Babylonian Talmud.
When Adolf Hitler in
Mein Kampf expressed his fear of the Jews, he gave voice to a common
phenomenon. (While thus examining the
working of the Jewish race over long periods of history, the anxious question
suddenly occurred to me whether perhaps destiny, for reasons unknown to us poor
mortals, had not unalterably decreed the final victory for this little race.)
The ancient Egyptians were scared of the Jews; and he said to his people, “Look the people of the children of Israel
are more and mightier than we (Exodus 1: 9). The book of Esther explain it neatly, If Mordecai, before whom you have begun to
fall, is of Jewish descent, you will not prevail against him but will surely
fall before him.
The belief of a
superior race being in an unfair position to do better in life is a
particularly dangerous form of racism as it easily grows into violence. Haman,
in the book of Esther wanted all the Jews killed, as they were a threat to his
high position. And like the Nazis, he saw himself as the victim who couldn't
compete on a level playing field. It is
true we have made discriminatory laws, but they are directed not so much
against the Jews, but for the German people, to give economic opportunity to
the majority. (Adolf Hitler, 1933)
The Germans believed
they were the superior people but the Jews were underhand and sneaky and so got
the advantage. Richard Wagner's music drama, Nibelungen Ring (completed 1874)
was constructed from a variety of traditional stories and songs reflecting the
culture of the late 19th century - tales with which his audience could
associate. In the beginning, there were the gods who were awesome, giants who
were dumb, dwarfs or nibelungs who were evil (half the dwarfs were black, the
other half Jewish), and nymphs who were good. Later another hero (a superior
human) called Siegfried was created. He killed some of the dwarfs but was then treacherously
slain. The Germans believed themselves to be part of the superior race of
Siegfried who tries to rid the world of dark dwarf (Jewish) evil. And they
believed themselves betrayed by their own government and the world.
Added to the strange
mix of half-believed myth were conspiracy theories. They are popular as they,
like myths, account for the vagaries of life and personal failure - they
provide a justification of actions. The most impactful anti-Jewish conspiracy
theory is a booklet called 'The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'. Because it
was written for the barely literate, it remains one of the most influential
works in history and it was (and still is) used to sway the plebian masses.
Hitler used it as proof - the existence
of the Jews is based on one continuous lie is shown in incomparable manner in
the Protocols. The 'Protocols' was closely linked to the theory of the Jews
being responsible for the German surrender during the First World War and the
punishment imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. (The stab in the back
theory.)
Going from
anti-Semitism, with little violent action, to the Final Solution however was a
massive step and the crude propaganda of media like Der
Sturmer, offended Jews and Germans alike and was a complete failure. The
average German wasn't roused to violent action by the crude pornography - they
were disgusted and blamed the liberal Weimar Republic for the freedom of speech
which allowed such filth to be published. The Jews were equally offended and
left the country. In 1933, there were approximately 520 000 Jews living
in Germany. During the next six years under Nazi rule 300 000 emigrated. These
were the wealthy and leaders who left the 200 000 most vulnerable mostly
Haredim behind - 180 000 of them were murdered.
On 9
November 1938, Germans were offered the chance to murder all the Jews with no repercussions.
The night became known as Kristallnacht - named for all the broken glass of
smashed Jewish shop windows (and Gentile owned shops) lying in the street. For
the Nazi high command, the night was a complete disappointment because there
was no mass murder - 91 Jews were murdered. The night was unpopular with Germans in general and the
insurance companies who had to carry the cost were furious. Hitler
ordered Goebbels to get the German people ready to murder Jews. What he
produced was the most successful propaganda campaign in history.
The majority of Jews
in Germany belonged to a conservative unnoticeable integrated prosperous
middle-class. But two Jewish groups created a completely different perception -
an unfavorable one. The one group was the highly aggressive and often violent
Bolsheviks with their connection to the Soviet Union the other was the Haredim.
By 1939, the Bolsheviks had mostly left the country after vicious encouragement
and a large number of murders. The other was the Haredim, and Goebbels had tehm
in his sights.
Haredi Jews
were the most conservative and reactionary group in Europe. They stood against
all modern art, science and human development and wanted the world to remain
frozen in the Middle Ages. From around 1870, fleeing Russia and Poland,
hundreds of thousands started streaming through Western Europe mostly on their
way to America. Some settled near towns and cities where wealthy Jews were to
be found. For the first time Germans, Gentiles and Jews, saw them for what they
really were as they were no longer confined and isolated in shtetls. It was a
shock. Jews and Gentiles, alike, took an unfavorable view of their superstition,
pagan religious practices and medieval customs. (As they did of the behavior of
the Gypsies and Polish peasants.)
The result of the
anti-Semitism - hatred - was to lay the foundation and build the walls. The
roof was horror. The Germans feared the Jews would take revenge for what had
been done to them. Goebbels capitalized on their fear and concentrated on demonizing
and dehumanizing the Jews making them seem as cruel and vengeful as possible.
The most successful
part of Goebbels' campaign was a film called Der Ewige Jude ('The Eternal Jew') where Haredi Jews were depicted
with real footage from Polish shtetls. They are equated with the spread of rats.
Right near the end there was a cruel scene showing a Haredi ritual animal
slaughter. Hitler, who was a vegetarian, was so shocked when he saw this scene
in October 1939 he made his final decision ordering, this Jewry must be annihilated (as Goebbels had written in his
diary after he had seen the film).
The film was released
to the general public in 1940 and it had the effect Hitler wanted. What the
German public saw were 'rats' - a primitive people behaving like rats - coming
to slaughter them and their families with great cruelty, and they took the
final step. The impact was as if the zombies of World War Z were a real thing. The Germans believed they were
acting in self-defense to protect their way of life, and their lives. There is
a form of logic to this. They believed if the Jews were all dead, the Allies
and especially America would no longer have a reason for war and it would end. Germany
would then be able to get a just peace, free from the 'evil Jewish influence'.
