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> Furthermore, if you read any of the books written by Germans who lived through that time they'll often say they didn't know what was happening and in one book

> Furthermore, if you read any of the books written by Germans who lived through that time they'll often say they didn't know what was happening and in one book about a kid who went through the ranks of the Hitler youth, I believe he thought they were fine in the camps and thought people just moved away. From what I've read, the Holocaust was a pretty open secret in Germany. Wikipedia [1] cites studies suggesting that 30-50% of German adults during WWII were aware of the Holocaust, and I'm inclined to believe the higher estimates (especially if you include people who could reasonably suspect that extermination was going on but didn't want to think too hard on it lest they realize their own moral culpability). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Holocaust https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Holocau...

that_guy_iain 3y ago
What have you been reading? And an open secret pretty much means it wasn't public policy or politics. And higher estimates don't really make sense, why were the allied forces in the dark? Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? People who were living nearby, I will never be convinced they didn't know. But expecting someone in Fankfurt am Main to know about the mass executions happening in small towns in Poland during a time where the country was at war and trying to keep things hush hush so the allied forces don't find out. > Johnson suggests (in disagreement with his co-author) that it is more likely that about 50% of the German population were aware of the atrocities being committed against the Jewish people and other enemies identified by the Nazi regime.[46] To me this reads as someone wanting to say a high number to make things sound bad. There are always people who are going to do that. And I think this thread is exactly that. Frame it in the worst possible way to make a point. But the realities are different. To disagree with experts in the field to say they're wrong and it was something different from what they say is arrogance at the highest order. Especially, when basic logic and reasoning say it wasn't politically motivated. It was motivated by a deranged lunatic who hatred of Jews dates all the way back to when he lived in Vienna and whose hatred of Jews got in the way of everything else which is shown by the fact he increased the killings at the end of the war. The fact, the holocaust as we know it didn't really start until well after political decisions were made. So really, I think it's a fair question to ask was an event that happened well after politics was important a political event or are making it one to fit our narrative? So far the answers have been that it was a clear policy which has been refuted and instead it was an open secret with numbers of people who knew being refuted by the very source that is giving them.
- jruohonen 3y ago
  > Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen... You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps), but massive executions happened in both, and some of these were established throughout Germany almost immediately after the regime change in 1933. That said, see the points below about Holocaust.
  - that_guy_iain 3y ago
    > You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps), Hundreds of thousands of deaths is semantics? That is a disgusting point of view. I wanted to ignore this entire conversation because there is no postive side to it. But quite simply it is disgusting to minimise the horrors that happened at camps like Auschwitz by comparing it with camps such as Dachau and it really highlights the fact that the opinions that oppose the opinion of the Auschwitz museum as held by people who are fundamentally deatched from what actually happening and having the correct perspective.
    - jruohonen 3y ago
      Read my comment again: it was a reply to your false claim that there weren't camps in Germany.
      - that_guy_iain 3y ago
        I didn't claim there were no camps in Germany, I said there were no death camps - camps built to kill people, camps equipped for mass killing. Your response was to mention other camps and to say the difference between them is semantics when the difference between them is literally hundreds of thousands of deaths.
        jruohonen 3y ago
        I think it is still semantics, and particularly semantics invented by the regime itself, which had a whole vocabulary for camps. But by no means am I trying to downplay the atrocities that happened in the extermination camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau where I've also been. The examples were given to you to refute your mission about Germans not knowing what was happening; political opponents, Jews, criminals, minorities, and others were interred already in the 1930s.

that_guy_iain 3y ago

What have you been reading? And an open secret pretty much means it wasn't public policy or politics. And higher estimates don't really make sense, why were the allied forces in the dark? Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? People who were living nearby, I will never be convinced they didn't know. But expecting someone in Fankfurt am Main to know about the mass executions happening in small towns in Poland during a time where the country was at war and trying to keep things hush hush so the allied forces don't find out. > Johnson suggests (in disagreement with his co-author) that it is more likely that about 50% of the German population were aware of the atrocities being committed against the Jewish people and other enemies identified by the Nazi regime.[46] To me this reads as someone wanting to say a high number to make things sound bad. There are always people who are going to do that. And I think this thread is exactly that. Frame it in the worst possible way to make a point. But the realities are different. To disagree with experts in the field to say they're wrong and it was something different from what they say is arrogance at the highest order. Especially, when basic logic and reasoning say it wasn't politically motivated. It was motivated by a deranged lunatic who hatred of Jews dates all the way back to when he lived in Vienna and whose hatred of Jews got in the way of everything else which is shown by the fact he increased the killings at the end of the war. The fact, the holocaust as we know it didn't really start until well after political decisions were made. So really, I think it's a fair question to ask was an event that happened well after politics was important a political event or are making it one to fit our narrative? So far the answers have been that it was a clear policy which has been refuted and instead it was an open secret with numbers of people who knew being refuted by the very source that is giving them.

jruohonen 3y ago
> Why were the death camps in Poland and not Germany? Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Dachau, Oranienburg, Ravensbrück, Sachsenhausen... You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps), but massive executions happened in both, and some of these were established throughout Germany almost immediately after the regime change in 1933. That said, see the points below about Holocaust.
- that_guy_iain 3y ago
  > You can argue about the semantics (i.e., death camps versus concentration camps), Hundreds of thousands of deaths is semantics? That is a disgusting point of view. I wanted to ignore this entire conversation because there is no postive side to it. But quite simply it is disgusting to minimise the horrors that happened at camps like Auschwitz by comparing it with camps such as Dachau and it really highlights the fact that the opinions that oppose the opinion of the Auschwitz museum as held by people who are fundamentally deatched from what actually happening and having the correct perspective.
  - jruohonen 3y ago
    Read my comment again: it was a reply to your false claim that there weren't camps in Germany.
    - that_guy_iain 3y ago
      I didn't claim there were no camps in Germany, I said there were no death camps - camps built to kill people, camps equipped for mass killing. Your response was to mention other camps and to say the difference between them is semantics when the difference between them is literally hundreds of thousands of deaths.
      - jruohonen 3y ago
        I think it is still semantics, and particularly semantics invented by the regime itself, which had a whole vocabulary for camps. But by no means am I trying to downplay the atrocities that happened in the extermination camps, including Auschwitz-Birkenau where I've also been. The examples were given to you to refute your mission about Germans not knowing what was happening; political opponents, Jews, criminals, minorities, and others were interred already in the 1930s.