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You should probably read the wikipedia article on this topic: there's far more evidence than I could give a concise introduction to, but the majority consensus

You should probably read the wikipedia article on this topic: there's far more evidence than I could give a concise introduction to, but the majority consensus is yes, the german people did know about the holocaust, because it was the german people (not just a secretive subset) that did it. The majority of the holocaust was carried out by ordinary german soldiers.

himinlomax 6y ago
That it was carried out by "ordinary german soldiers," whatever that means, is irrelevant to the issue at hand, namely whether what was actually going on was widely known.
- pasabagi 6y ago
  Do you have some kind of axe to grind on this topic? I just ask because, at that time, almost the entire male fighting age population were mobilized. So when it comes to the question 'is something generally known', it's obviously relevant that such a large portion of the population were actively involved in it.
  - himinlomax 6y ago
    There's a difference between what people can be made to do in the heat of the action (and it's frighteningly easy given the right circumstances) and what they will consent to when their rational, moral brain is engaged. (Though according to cognitive dissonance theory, the former influences the latter.) The only axe I have to grind is that this drive to further demonize Nazism, as if it needed any outside help, is utterly counter-productive. First it prevents us from drawing actual lessons from what happened. In this case, I posit that merely hiding the most gruesome details of the Holocaust was instrumental in allowing it to happen. "I should have known, I could have known, I didn't know" Albert Speer said. It was sneered at as being self-serving, but I think it reflects an important truth: it was rather easy to have people choose to ignore what was going on. They could simply choose to believe that the Jews had gone to live on a farm or something, so to speak, and avoid thinking too much about it at a time when they had plenty of other things to worry about. Second, it gives credibility to denialists' arguments. For example, they point out that gas chambers look dodgy and extremely unsafe for operators. That's because the Final Solution was initially presented as a well orchestrated, industrial operation that would have required a larger population to have full knowledge. But the current historical consensus is that while it was indeed a massive operation, it was in fact committed with relatively limited resources using leftover supplies.
    - pasabagi 6y ago
      I don't think this question is really about Nazism. I think it's about the role of the German people in the Holocaust. One driving force in how Germans think about it is the 'clean hands Wehrmacht' idea - simply, that the really evil, anti-semetic and genocidal aspects of the Nazis were carried out by a small minority of fanatics, and the larger body of German society was unaware, unenthusiastic, and largely uninvolved. In this account, the Germans were among the victims of Nazism - it's a view really typified by the Reichstag Dome - where you can literally walk over, and look down on, the Bundestag. This dome was inaugurated as an expression of the idea that the german people should 'never again' be under the state. Obviously, this kind of stuff is very comforting when you have to go to visit Grandfather Klaus, because he was (after all) a victim, rather than a perpetrator - and you can buy your good german products made by good german companies, and if they have a somewhat dark and disturbing past, you can remind yourself that they too were victims, in a sense. Except, of course, it's not true. The Nazis were hugely popular with german voters. Anti-Semitism was, if anything, more popular still. The Holocaust largely consisted of massacres by normal german soldiers, and the Germans had explicitly genocidal aims in major policies (e.g. operation Barbarossa + 'lebensraum'). I don't think denialist arguments need to be taken into consideration when thinking of the holocaust. They are obviously ridiculous. What does need to be taken into consideration is the way in which Germans, and German culture, aimed to shield itself from its own pathological underbelly, while keeping hold of the economic spoils. After the war, everybody who was anybody had been a Nazi. Many companies were literally founded by the Nazis (VW) or got their big breaks under the Nazis (addidas, for instance). Everybody who was in the film industry cut their teeth on propaganda films for the Nazis. One of the most awful consequences of this is the fact that, after the Allies left, most of the Nazis who had escaped execution in the Nuremburg trials were released, and those who had not been caught yet, were generally not prosecuted. If you read through the list of administrative personnel in a concentration camp, the majority usually escaped prosecution, or received short sentences (I recommend checking out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_trials - three years! For operating a gas chamber! And remember, it takes many more than ten people to run a camp. Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_trial - Of eight people they actually brought to trial, only one was sent to prison! Here you can actually see the 'clean hands wehrmacht' logic - they were all 'acting under duress!'). The West German unwillingness to find and prosecute the greatest criminals in history is the kind of thing any nation should be ashamed of, except instead, we just hear a lot of pretentious nonsense about 'remembrance culture'. The reality is, forget the average Wehrmacht soldier - if you were an SS officer employed at a concentration camp, and you avoided the soviets, and you didn't get hanged by the Allies, your chances of avoiding serious legal consequences were very good.

himinlomax 6y ago

That it was carried out by "ordinary german soldiers," whatever that means, is irrelevant to the issue at hand, namely whether what was actually going on was widely known.

pasabagi 6y ago
Do you have some kind of axe to grind on this topic? I just ask because, at that time, almost the entire male fighting age population were mobilized. So when it comes to the question 'is something generally known', it's obviously relevant that such a large portion of the population were actively involved in it.
- himinlomax 6y ago
  There's a difference between what people can be made to do in the heat of the action (and it's frighteningly easy given the right circumstances) and what they will consent to when their rational, moral brain is engaged. (Though according to cognitive dissonance theory, the former influences the latter.) The only axe I have to grind is that this drive to further demonize Nazism, as if it needed any outside help, is utterly counter-productive. First it prevents us from drawing actual lessons from what happened. In this case, I posit that merely hiding the most gruesome details of the Holocaust was instrumental in allowing it to happen. "I should have known, I could have known, I didn't know" Albert Speer said. It was sneered at as being self-serving, but I think it reflects an important truth: it was rather easy to have people choose to ignore what was going on. They could simply choose to believe that the Jews had gone to live on a farm or something, so to speak, and avoid thinking too much about it at a time when they had plenty of other things to worry about. Second, it gives credibility to denialists' arguments. For example, they point out that gas chambers look dodgy and extremely unsafe for operators. That's because the Final Solution was initially presented as a well orchestrated, industrial operation that would have required a larger population to have full knowledge. But the current historical consensus is that while it was indeed a massive operation, it was in fact committed with relatively limited resources using leftover supplies.
  - pasabagi 6y ago
    I don't think this question is really about Nazism. I think it's about the role of the German people in the Holocaust. One driving force in how Germans think about it is the 'clean hands Wehrmacht' idea - simply, that the really evil, anti-semetic and genocidal aspects of the Nazis were carried out by a small minority of fanatics, and the larger body of German society was unaware, unenthusiastic, and largely uninvolved. In this account, the Germans were among the victims of Nazism - it's a view really typified by the Reichstag Dome - where you can literally walk over, and look down on, the Bundestag. This dome was inaugurated as an expression of the idea that the german people should 'never again' be under the state. Obviously, this kind of stuff is very comforting when you have to go to visit Grandfather Klaus, because he was (after all) a victim, rather than a perpetrator - and you can buy your good german products made by good german companies, and if they have a somewhat dark and disturbing past, you can remind yourself that they too were victims, in a sense. Except, of course, it's not true. The Nazis were hugely popular with german voters. Anti-Semitism was, if anything, more popular still. The Holocaust largely consisted of massacres by normal german soldiers, and the Germans had explicitly genocidal aims in major policies (e.g. operation Barbarossa + 'lebensraum'). I don't think denialist arguments need to be taken into consideration when thinking of the holocaust. They are obviously ridiculous. What does need to be taken into consideration is the way in which Germans, and German culture, aimed to shield itself from its own pathological underbelly, while keeping hold of the economic spoils. After the war, everybody who was anybody had been a Nazi. Many companies were literally founded by the Nazis (VW) or got their big breaks under the Nazis (addidas, for instance). Everybody who was in the film industry cut their teeth on propaganda films for the Nazis. One of the most awful consequences of this is the fact that, after the Allies left, most of the Nazis who had escaped execution in the Nuremburg trials were released, and those who had not been caught yet, were generally not prosecuted. If you read through the list of administrative personnel in a concentration camp, the majority usually escaped prosecution, or received short sentences (I recommend checking out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_trials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treblinka_trials - three years! For operating a gas chamber! And remember, it takes many more than ten people to run a camp. Or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_trial https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belzec_trial - Of eight people they actually brought to trial, only one was sent to prison! Here you can actually see the 'clean hands wehrmacht' logic - they were all 'acting under duress!'). The West German unwillingness to find and prosecute the greatest criminals in history is the kind of thing any nation should be ashamed of, except instead, we just hear a lot of pretentious nonsense about 'remembrance culture'. The reality is, forget the average Wehrmacht soldier - if you were an SS officer employed at a concentration camp, and you avoided the soviets, and you didn't get hanged by the Allies, your chances of avoiding serious legal consequences were very good.