Reddit Reddit reviews What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany

We found 7 Reddit comments about What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.

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What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany
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7 Reddit comments about What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany:

u/furiouslyserene · 24 pointsr/bestof

What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany by Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband conservatively estimates that, based on their research and surveys conducted, 33% of Germans were well informed about the Holocaust during the war. A further 11% to 13% had "suspicions." Based on their research, that means that at least 44-48% of the entire German population knew or suspected Germany's mass murder of the Jews. Information about the Holocaust was widely available across the country, to people of varying backgrounds and locations.

u/AlloftheEethp · 8 pointsr/OldSchoolCool

I assume the point of that was to show that German citizens were somehow unaware of the Holocaust.

There is in fact extensive evidence that most Germans knew of the Holocaust or were willfully ignorant. While they may not have known of the use of gas chambers, particular numbers, or other specific details, they knew of the ghettos and camps, not to mention generally the regime's sanctioned violence against Jews. Citizens of conquered states extensively cooperated with the SS and Wermacht to systematically exterminate Jews. It's also very likely that the Americans knew much more about the Holocaust than we were taught, and the [Smithsonian and the Holocaust Museum] (http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-project-uncovers-what-americans-knew-about-holocaust-180958712/) are working to determine the extent to which American newspapers and Americans knew, and at what point they did so.

We know this because of contemporary German newspapers, the number of German citizens who worked for the camps, and interviews with both Jewish and non-Jewish Germans (many of whom had actively engaged in the Holocaust) after the war.

Specifically, I would recommend reading Eric A. Johnson's [What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany] (https://www.amazon.com/What-We-Knew-Everyday-Germany/dp/0465085725). Relevant is this review from Publishers' Weekly:

> The refrains in Germany for many years after WWII were "we didn't know" about the Holocaust, and "if we had known and had tried to do something, we too would have been killed by the Nazis." These claims have not stood up to historical scrutiny. Large numbers of ordinary Germans were involved in carrying out the mass murder of Jews, and knowledge of it was widespread among the population at home in Germany. Moreover, the Nazi elite ruled primarily by consensus, not terror; it was a popular dictatorship. Central Michigan University historian Johnson and German sociologist Reuband confirm these interpretations in their wide-ranging study based on hundreds of interviews and surveys they conducted with both Jewish and Christian Germans . . . Roughly two-thirds of the book consists of transcripts of interviews with Jews who had a range of experiences (going into hiding, leaving Germany before Kristallnacht, suffering in the camps) and Germans (those who heard about the murder of Jews, those who didn't, those who participated).

Also relevant is Peter Longerich's [Davon Haben Wir Nichts Gewust!] (http://www.dialoginternational.com/dialog_international/2012/02/review-peter-longerichs-davon-haben-wir-nichts-gewusst.html) (We knew nothing about that!)".

"The preponderance of accounts and documents such as these leads Longerich to conclude:

> In der deutschen Bevölkerung waren generelle Informationen über den Massenmord an den Juden weit verbreitet.

> (General information concerning the mass murder of Jews was widespread in the German population.)

There are also a fair number of fairly recent [newspaper articles] (https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard) on the topic.


*Edit: Formatting

u/AerThreepwood · 7 pointsr/HistoryPorn

What We Knew is a book of a series of interviews with Germans during that era and it's interesting how much (at least that they're willing to say) people were complicit.

u/AlHazred_Is_Dead · 6 pointsr/OldSchoolCool

Copy pasting from what I said to other guy, this is getting old...
uck it: https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2001/feb/17/johnezard

https://www.amazon.com/What-We-Knew-Everyday-Germany/dp/0465085725

I would also suggest the documentary Night Will Fall for some info on the reversal of the DeNazification policy.

It a stupid lie to even believe: that somehow the vast majority of Germans were unaware and uninvolved. The scale of the operation makes it impossible on both fronts. Hitler was ENORMOUSLY popular, Anti-Semitism and White Nationalism were the principle policies of the enourmously popular government. They made it illegal for Jews to own businessess or property and revoked their citizenship, then they (and the gypsies and the gays, and the mentally ill and so on) started disappearing left and right... How is that possibly going on without you knowing? How many people had to be involved? It's not even worth arguing. After the war, we realized basically the whole country needed to be prosecuted, it wasn't practical, so we pretended they were innocent. It's very simple.

u/ryhntyntyn · 2 pointsr/HistoryPorn

Probably not. They would see them marched off or taken in trucks to smaller depots when they had enough they would move them en masse to larger depots or camps and then the ghettos, then to the VL. And each of these was more restricted to the public the further east you go. People were told they were being relocated, and often when news of real atrocity leaked its way back home, what we now know as the truth was too awful to be believed without hard proof.

Tl;DR It's not so cut and dried. Recommended reading from Johnson and Reubands

u/[deleted] · 2 pointsr/europe

You are assuimg that I am asumming things, this has been talked about many times before, of course these things would be of no interest to you would it

I assume what they were thinking? If they didn't do shit about Jewish business, homes and churches being vandalized, if they didn't do shit when they saw their Jewish neighbor dissapearing and never coming back, if they didn't do shit when they saw the anti-semitism that was a staple in the nazi party that 30! percent of Germans voted for in the last free elections, it wouldn't surprise me if the reaction you would get from these guys after telling them that the Jewish are being exterminated on such a massive scale would be (and I'm being very generous here) "Well that sucks, but I can't do anything about it"

Its not true for the end of the war, but those sons of bitches were pretty fine with Nazi Germany.

u/WARFTW · 1 pointr/history

The Germans definitely knew about concentration camps as when they were first established they were regularly discussed in newspapers as they were created for re-educating social outcasts and the government reported on who was going in/coming out, etc. Furthermore, many camps in Germany proper were built next to or even inside cities. You have to distinguish between the various types of camps the Germans created (transit, concentration, labor, or death).

Also, check out:
http://www.amazon.com/What-We-Knew-Everyday-Germany/dp/0465085725/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1311115754&sr=8-1

Lastly, to a large extent it's been proven that Germans also knew about the holocaust in the east. Soldiers regularly wrote letters home discussing their participation and what they witnessed on the frontlines and in the rear.