Grandpa was a Nazi
Talk about the sins of the fathers! In this case, it’s the sins of the grandfathers.
I’ve never quite understood blaming children or grandchildren for the evil their ancestors did. But nevertheless, I can understand why descendants might feel tainted by that history and find it hard to shake.
I’ve noticed a strange phenomenon in life: the least at fault are often the most tormented by guilt, and vice versa.
[NOTE: Here’s a book by the brother of a notorious murderer that reflects deeply on the issue of familial guilt by association.]
It seems pretty simple to me. The people who committed the crimes had very little or no conscience and, therefore, never agonized over what they had done or its effects, including what kind of effect it might have on their relatives and descendants.
The perp’s descendants are more normal, had consciences ,and thus felt tainted and did agonize over what their ancestor had done.
Do you reckon the kids who were Che Guevera shirts feel guilt over Che’s crimes?
Powerful article. Thanks for sharing. Of course the descendants of such people will be deeply affected. The knowledge of their parents’ actions will trickle down the generations in the way they live their lives and teach their own children.
“I’ve never quite understood blaming children or grandchildren for the evil their ancestors did.”
This is a guilt trip that the left applies only to civilized Westerners. The children of communist monsters are never subjected to this. Nor anyone in the third world.
I feel a great deal of sympathy for decent people like Rainer Hoess, who have done nothing to be ashamed of.
I’m the grandchild of a German man and woman who always hated the Nazis and often spoke their minds despite the atmosphere of strict conformity at the time (my grandmother was always worried if ever my grandfather was late returning home). I myself despair at much of the received wisdom of today accepted without question by the left. I like to think it’s not guilt I’ve inherited from my German grandparents, but a natural inclination to think for myself and not just follow the crowd. I’m lucky: They could have paid with their lives, I at worst might pay with my job or friends.
pst314 – that’s right; I wonder what the descendants of Dzherzinsky, Yagoda, Menzhinsky, and Yezhov are up to?
I don’t think they should be attacked any more than these poor souls detailed in the article, but man, oh man, is it telling that 9/10 people WOULD feel something “weird” about meeting Hoess, but absolutely nothing upon meeting a descendant of, say, Yezhov (I don’t know if he actually had descendants, but you get the point).
It’s things like that that truly demonstrate how completely the left has succeeded in airbrushing history. It’s gone to our very emotions, to the point where we can (ironically enough) apply a kind of genetic theory of evil to grandchildren of Nazis, but completely exempt the grandchildren of leftist monsters – and not willingly, with our reason, but in a Pavlovian way, as if we’ve been trained.
And we have been trained.
I had a fair amount of contact with Germans during my time in Latin America, as co-workers or as fellow tourists. They were all coming to terms with the past, and doing a better job of it than the Japanese. I found Germans more compatible than the French, as Germans were not on a mission to put down the US. At least back then. I found Germans more compatible than the British because they were not as emotionally constipated as the Brits.
From the link, here is the story of one grandchild of a Nazi.
By contrast, consider Herta Dé¤ubler-Gmelin .She had her 15 minutes of fame when she called the US justice system “lousy” and compared George Bush to “Adolf Nazi.” When you find out what her father did, you get a different perspective on her attacking the US.
Puts Herta’s gratuitous criticisms of the US in a different context, does it not? Such as: “In an attempt to expiate my guilt feelings over my father’s conduct in WW2, I will attempt to show that the Americans are as bad as the Nazis.” Herta, I would much prefer that you come to terms with your father’s wartime conduct- you are NOT responsible for how your father behaved when you were an infant- so that you would stop dumping on the Americans.
It is also of note that Herta Dé¤ubler-Gmelin’s father was Hans Ludin’s assistant, and Alexandra Senfft is a granddaughter of Hans Ludin. Alexander Senfft is dealing in a more healthy manner with her family’s background than is Herta Dé¤ubler-Gmelin. She is coming to terms with it, while Herta’s reaction is to say that the Amis are as bad as the Nazis, i.e., as bad as her father.
Neither the German nor English Wikipedia versions on Harridan Herta mention her father’s Nazi background, though both mention her father’s being mayor for two decades.
kolnai
pst314 – that’s right; I wonder what the descendants of Dzherzinsky, Yagoda, Menzhinsky, and Yezhov are up to?
Recall that while the above were murderous thugs, they met their fate due to Murderous Thug Number One: Josef Stalin. I would not be surprised to find out that Stalin killed their wives and children, just like he killed them. Dead people cannot take vengeance.
Brother was a Nazi: Albert Goering, who used his position as the younger brother of Hermann Goering to save many from becoming victims of the Nazis.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albert_G%C3%B6ring
I’ve never quite understood blaming children or grandchildren for the evil their ancestors did.
because you were raised in a world where people are equal, and genetics and breeding are outside of your knowledge. what a farmer would know and others who had raised and been with beings for a long time, a domesticated person would not know if they misinformed them…
after all… adoptees do not refelct their adoptive situation, but their natal one… (which is why people have had lawsuits for not being told)
Dé¤ubler-Gmelin is really an arrogant a**. She was dug up again just last week to appear on a talkshow discussing in part the DSK affair. I had hoped that after the Bush/Hitler remark, she would vanish from the public view, but my hopes have been dashed. When you hear her, you realize how superficial and full of clichees her thinking is. She knows nothing of the US. She exemplifies the feeling that only the Germans have learned the lessons of WWII. That her father was mayor of Té¼bingen for 20 years shows how a certain intellectual class is not held to the same standards as the hoi-poloi. Judging by comments on the net to various news items and by positive reactions to people willing to take on the PC police, I think quite a few Germans are getting sick of being talked down to.
Then there are the Japanese, who have gone to the other extreme of never even acknowledging that their parents and grandparents even did anything wrong, as Gringo has also noted. Only within the last few years have Japanese leaders begun to come to terms with the atrocities that Japanese occupiers committed during the war. They have done so grudgingly, incompletely, and possibly not even sincerely. But it’s a start.
I would like for all of the guilt to stop.
The WWII generation, the younger ones, those who were mere foot-soldiers at that time, are rapidly dying off now. The older people of that era – the ones who actually had power during that time – are long gone. Modern Germany and modern Japan have almost nothing in common with their WWII regimes.
Yes, we can all learn from history. But not to assign blame to people now living who had no part in the atrocities of that time.
Let it go.
Gringo: Thanks for that insight into Herta Dé¤ubler-Gmelin’s background.
I have long felt that a key reason for the demonization of the United States is to bring it down to the moral level of the moral level of the evil regimes that America’s critics prefer.
Do you reckon the kids who were Che Guevera shirts feel guilt over Che’s crimes?
I would doubt that most of them know who Che was, let alone his crimes or even his racism.
Exodus 20:5
You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me,
Deuteronomy 24:16 –
“The fathers shall not be put to death for the children, neither shall the children be put to death for the fathers: every man shall be put to death for his own sin.”
Ezekiel 18:3 –
“As surely as I live, declares the sovereign LORD, you will no longer quote this proverb* in Israel. For everyone belongs to me, the parent as well as the child – both alike belong to me. The one who sins is the one who will die.”
And cf. the entirety of Ezekiel 18.
Contradiction between Deuteronomy-Ezekiel and Exodus? Don’t know:
http://www.religioustolerance.org/ostroot01.htm
* The proverb is: “The parents eat sour grapes / and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
I once knew a lad who was married to a Jewish girl. She insisted he hang his father’s SS graduation picture inside the hall closet door and then finally that he hang it in some other abode.
Some of us have no issues at all with history…
Latvian Legion
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian_Legion#War_Crimes_Involvement
The Latvian Legion was a formation of the Waffen-SS during World War II created in 1943 and consisting primarily of ethnic Latvians.
The 15th Division was administratively subordinated to the VI SS Volunteer Corps, but operationally it was in reserve or at the disposal of the XXXXIII Army Corps, 16th Army, Army Group North.
The 19th Division remained active in the Courland Pocket until May 1945, when it was among the last of Nazi Germany’s forces to surrender at the close of World War II.
The Latvian Legion was created in January 1943 on the orders of Adolf Hitler following a request by Reichsfé¼hrer-SS Heinrich Himmler. Technically, it was a volunteer unit, but one month after the unit was founded, German occupation authorities in Latvia started conscripting military age men, as close to none had volunteered.
They were given a choice between “volunteering” for SS Waffen legions, serving in the German army (Heer) as “auxiliaries” (labourers behind the front lines), commanded by German officers and often treated as subhumans, or being sent to a slave labour camp in Germany. Those who tried to avoid one of those options were arrested and sent to concentration camps.
As a result, only 15-20% of the soldiers serving in the legion were actual volunteers
Soldiers serving in the Legion did not necessarily share Nazi ideology and were not completely loyal to Germany. A report by the commander of the 15th Division, Oberfé¼hrer Adolf Ax on 27 January 1945 says: “They are first and foremost Latvians. They want a sustainable Latvian nation state. Forced to choose between Germany and Russia, they have chosen Germany, because they seek co-operation with western civilization. The rule of the Germans seems to them to be the lesser of two evils.”
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
hope was that the legion would fight off the Soviet Union, until it was no longer dangerous to Latvia, and then turn its arms against Nazi Germany, as a repeat of the Latvian War of Independence of 1918-1920, when Latvian forces managed to fight off both the Red Army and German forces. This was reflected in one of the most popular legion songs which went “We will beat the Russians now and we will beat the Germans after that” (with euphemisms for Russians and Germans).[3] Also Latvians, like Estonians and to lesser degree Lithuanians, believed that Western powers, especially Britain, will come to their aid any time soon, as they did in 1918-1920.
they were betrayed at Yalta…
“The Baltic Waffen SS Units (Baltic Legions) are to be considered as separate and distinct in purpose, ideology, activities, and qualifications for membership from the German SS, and therefore the Commission holds them not to be a movement hostile to the Government of the United States.”
free book:
THE LATVIAN LEGION
According to Independent Observers
home.mira.net/~vanagi/AV/Latvian_Legion.pdf
The year of Russian occupation from June 1940 to July 1941 Latvia remembers as the Year of
Horror.
The 15th SS Latvian Division was one of the most decorated foreign volunteer forces. Who had won no less than 13 Knight Crosses! This was the highest score of any non-German Legion.
By January 1945, the Germans withdrew seven divisions from Courland to defend the German Reich, leaving 25 divisions to hold a 161kms front line in Latvia. The 19th SS Division remained in “Fortress Courland” engaging Soviet forces until the end of the war. Most of the surviving Latvians surrendered to Soviet forces, and were subsequently sent to Siberia and probably executed. The division went through five commanders. The last commander was SS-Generalleutnant Bruno Streckenbach from 19 May 1944 to 8 May 1945.
http://www.lettia.lv/en_a_legionari-nirnberga.html
good for image reference, latvian language
http://www.hot.ee/vaikal/vahi.htm
http://www.hot.ee/hintzer/album_8.htm
history has a lot of answers and stories that are rarely known or told any more…
Grandpa was a Nazi? What’s about grandma? What makes You so sure that she wasn’t a Nazi too? The sins of Your father? Or the sins of Your father/mother? Excluding women in general statements by unsing onley the male form is sexism, isn’t it?