Mansfield Times

The Real Truth Behind the Holocaust

Article Two: How Did it Happen?

By Kenneth Neff Hammontree

In our first article, we discussed the source of the Holocaust based on the WHY did this happen? In this article we will discuss the HOW did this happen? Over the years that we have portrayed Oskar Schindler in our programs, the question always would come up in our Question & Answer time, “How could the Holocaust ever have taken place?” How could such evil even be allowed in the countries of Martin Luther’s Reformation, the renaissance in art and literature? The creation of the world class music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Bach, Richard Wagner and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart?

How did this happen? is a more difficult question than, Why did this happen? During the War crimes trial at Nuremberg in 1945-1946, the men who perpetrated the mass murders, were described as petty, colorless, and superficial, without dignity, controlled fanaticism, and obsessive hate. These men, as well as Hitler, saw embodied in the Jews and others, like the Blacks, disabled individuals, and Gypsies: Untermenschen or subhumans. However, it was the Jews that the Nazis wanted to eliminate from Europe, and then the world.

As we know, Antisemitism goes back several thousands of years. However, leading up to the 1930’s in Germany, Heinrich Treitschkle, an influential German nationalist, published a series of articles that drew attention to the German phrase: “Die Juden sind unser Ungluck,” meaning “The Jews are our misfortune.” In the 1930’s, that slogan would be written on banners at Nazi Party rallies and marched through the streets.

Over the centuries, antisemitism has taken different but related forms: religious, political, social, and racial. Jews have been discriminated against, hated, and killed because prejudiced non-Jews believed Jews belonged to the wrong religion, lacked citizenship qualifications, practiced business improperly, behaved inappropriately, or possessed inferior racial characteristics.

In the 1930’s, the Nazi Party pushed all of the above on the German people. Without antisemitism, the Holocaust could never have taken place. As their propaganda specialist Joseph Goebbels would always say, “repeat something over and over enough times, and the people will accept it as truth. Black can become white, and white can become black. Evil can become good, and good can become evil.”

Adolf Hitler would always say in his main speeches, “By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work.” Antisemitism in Germany had simmered for centuries, it had reached the boiling point by 1933. Germany was suffering from the effects of a worldwide economic depression, coupled with the loss of WWI. Someone or something had to take the blame for Germany’s plight, and the Jews would suffice. They had to be eliminated!

The Nazis began to enact hundreds of National laws that would define and segregate the Reich’s Jews during the time from 1933 to 1939.  It was at this time, that the Aryan act was instituted to further strengthen Antisemitism. Separation, subdivide, and conquer has always been the goal of fascism, a government ruled by a dictator controlling the lives of the people, and in which people are not allowed to disagree with the government.

However, in order to bring this about, history had to be rewritten, statues and wall plaques had to be removed, as well as Jewish names in universities and on buildings. Certain books had to be burned, and schools, beginning in kindergarten, had to begin teaching about the terrible Jews and what they have done to Germany and the world. The dirty work was handed over to the Brown shirts and the SS to accomplish this evil deed. Heinrich Himmler, leader of the Black Shirts (SS) said, “the extermination of the Jews was a moral right, and historical task, as a page of glory in German History.”

Ordinary men and women, who were not fanatical Nazis, but just a working class, family oriented, and going to church on Sunday, would assist in the Jewish purge. Through diaries, letters to home, and confidential reports written by the executioners, and sympathetic observers of the Holocaust, we have a dark and grim picture of ordinary men and women who were proud of their actions. The killers left meticulous records of actions, of plans, of diaries, and of orders. Indeed, they were very proud of their actions. Photos were taken by the hundreds, even films were made, sometimes in color.

It really did not take a long time to brain wash an entire generation of people to accept the reality that all Jews were a burden, and evil. As propagandist Joseph Goebbels believed, “repeat something over and over enough times and the people will accept it as truth.” In many ways that has not changed today.

In the next Article III, we will deal with the Holocaust itself, and the death camps.

Kenneth Neff Hammontree is a Historian, Lecturer and Author.

Original source found here.