
Why So Few Resisted Hitler - jseliger
http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-so-few-resisted-hitler-1481924514
======
lossolo
"Being a lover of freedom, when the revolution came in Germany, I looked to
the universities to defend it, knowing that they had always boasted of their
devotion to the cause of truth; but, no, the universities immediately were
silenced. Then I looked to the great editors of the newspapers whose flaming
editorials in days gone by had proclaimed their love of freedom; but they,
like the universities, were silenced in a few short weeks. . . .

"Only the Church stood squarely across the path of Hitler's campaign for
suppressing truth. I never had any special interest in the Church before, but
now I feel a great affection and admiration because the Church alone has had
the courage and persistence to stand for intellectual truth and moral freedom.
I am forced thus to confess that what I once despised I now praise
unreservedly."

Albert Einstein

~~~
apsec112
This quote is mostly fake:
[http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-05/](http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/06-01-05/)

The actual history, though, is very interesting. Here's the Wikipedia article
on the agreement between Nazi Germany and the Catholic Church:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat)

~~~
candiodari
They would back out of the agreement later, and the pope also denounced the
Nazi and Italian regimes that surround and protected the Vatican. Saying that
the Vatican compromised is ridiculous, given that they were willing, with
thousands of guns aimed at them, to denounce the actions of the people holding
those guns, and even take direct legal and illegal actions to sabotage them,
such as providing "fake/real" visas (real in the sense that a state issued
them, but with false names, false details, "proof" they weren't Jewish, etc),
physically hiding Jews, falsify medical documents (Nazis executed cripples and
metal patients first), falsify school records, threaten to shut down Rome in
protest, the Vatican escape network, all on an enormous scale. The Vatican
was, for years, the only organised resistance against the Nazis. And yes,
those guns didn't fire as a result of their actions, or at least, not at the
Vatican itself (they did shoot plenty of members of the lower ranks of the
Catholic church. They got "the honor" of having their own section inside
Auschwitz, with "special attention" of the guards. The rumour is that
imprisoned priests physically shivered any time any rumour of actions of the
Church made it to the inmates, for that special attention of the guards was
sure to follow. Most of the people in there had committed crimes to save
people from those camps, knowing the consequences, and less than 20% survived
those consequences). Would you be willing to violate the law to save a few
people you don't like knowing there's an 80 percent chance it'll cost you your
life ? But yes, they're a European state and they will negotiate and talk to
whatever government comes to power anywhere in Europe. They even hosted
Hitler's ambassador (and used him to protect Italian Jews).

As a leader of an organisation, would you be willing to organize crimes
against the government if it did things you believe unjust ? Would you be
willing and able to have an organisation continue those crimes when it's
people were being executed ?

I don't think any of us can imagine what running organisations like the
Catholic church, or any other resistance on the mainland, must have been like.

Here's a more complete summary:
[http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-
semitism/pi...](http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/anti-
semitism/piusdef.html)

It is very easy to sit in 2016 and say that everyone saw it coming and anyone
who didn't respond, did so out of cowardice or outright malice. This isn't
true. Self-preservation was by far the main driver of most people's actions.

Why did "so few resist Hitler". Here's a video from yesterday :
[http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/journ...](http://deredactie.be/cm/vrtnieuws/videozone/programmas/journaal/2.47879?video=1.2846435)
(seems to be censored on youtube, or at least, I can't seem to find videos
with the massive crowds cheering his "I killed those dumb criminals"
statements. The -many- videos showing Duterte's people arriving on motorcycles
to people's homes dragging men and women out of their homes, sometimes leaving
behind crying children, are disappearing fast. Here's a video with some
-shocking- imagery about what's happening:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuqx5Ubr5o](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atuqx5Ubr5o)
watch it, because all these videos become "not available" within a few days)

The socialist international celebrated the membership of the Nazis to their
organisation in 1938 and were unwilling to kick them out until 1940.

Or should we point out that members of American academia were publishing
articles in New York in support of the Nazis in ... april 1941 (a time when
rumours of the holocaust would have known far and wide, even if the scale and
cruelty was still hidden, the article in fact mentions and dismisses the
rumours as not something leftists would do). The exact authors were leftist,
but let's not kid ourselves, it doesn't matter, because both left and right on
the American side were mostly in favor of leaving Europe be at the time.

Or perhaps we should point out that the leader of islam, the Mufti of
Jerusalem, Mohammad Amin al-Husayni, at the time organised a few extra Jew-
hunting SS divisions manned by muslims for the Nazis (21st Waffen Mountain
Division of the SS Skanderbeg, 13th Waffen Mountain Division of the SS
Handschar,
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLvP2jTVq8&bpctr=1482035683](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfLvP2jTVq8&bpctr=1482035683)
) ? Islam, the organisation, recruited for the SS ! They recruited Jew-hunters
knowingly. They did this, incidentally, when they already knew about the
holocaust (even if of course it wasn't officially confirmed at the time). This
[1] is an islamic SS division logo.

I feel also obliged to point out that the leader of islam did this partly to
protect muslims in Yugoslavia, partly to gain political control of Albania and
parts of Yugoslavia, and ... partly to eliminate Jews.

A lot of things happened because of alliances with the Nazis. At least 4
Northwest European universities (most, but not all, of the atheist ones) have
their existence to thank from an alliance between them and the Nazis. At least
one university has it's existence to thank to vehement disagreement with the
nazis (a set of professors so unwilling to even talk to the nazis that they
left their university when the Dean did talk to the nazis and worked for free
for years to create a new university - and yes, they were French Catholics
(and beggars, for the last 2 of those years). And no, that was not their only
motivation, just the main one).

The dutch state, including several parties currently in power, were allied
with the Nazis. I believe it's 3 current ministers were mentored by people who
personally allied with the Nazis. For decades, several Kapo (let's just say
that means particularly bad collaborators) held high offices in the
Netherlands. More telling is that this is not of any real concern to the
population. Similar things can be said about the Austrian, Swiss, Italian and
even Greek states, and ...

About the US government, IBM, with explicit permission from the US government
(they asked), provided the system that did the bookkeeping for the holocaust.
They even programmed the rules for deciding if someone was sufficiently Jewish
to be sent to the gas chambers. Yes, seriously, IBM was the organisation that
made, for millions of people, the decision if they were to be ethnically
purified for being "too Jewish" or not. They didn't make the rules, but they
executed them.

You are trying to push an absolutist moral view upon a situation where people
needed to compromise with adversaries with an army that were willing to commit
mass-murder to push their point. You'll find that there are people and
organisations you work with today that owe their social/financial position to
the Nazis directly and indirectly.

Furthermore, you are demanding a moral standard that just isn't reasonable.
Some of the people mentioned above did what they did because the alternative
was death. Yes, after the war anyone that wasn't willing to sacrifice their
own life to sabotage the Nazis was persecuted because of that. This is not a
reasonable standard, and let's not pretend it is.

But frankly, the Catholic church behaved incredibly better than anything else
in Europe in the runup and during the war. They put themselves above religious
differences. Were they perfect ? No. Wasn't possible. But they helped far more
than anyone could expect of them and they paid an extreme price for providing
that help. Tens of thousands of catholics, priests, monks, and volunteers were
executed because they participated in resistance organised from within the
catholic church. Most of those would have been aware of the risk of being
executed, and can therefore be said to have willingly sacrificed their lives.
Hundreds of thousands of members of the Catholic church resisted the Nazis, at
risk of their lives, and did not get caught. The Vatican saved more lives than
all other organisations put together, by between one and two orders of
magnitude.

And, as illustrated above, the same can NOT be said of either states, other
religions, political parties, including many that still exist today.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/13th_Waffen_Mountain_Division_of_the_SS_Handschar_\(1st_Croatian\)#/media/File:13th_SS_Division_Logo.svg)

~~~
apsec112
"You are trying to push an absolutist moral view upon a situation where people
needed to compromise with adversaries with an army that were willing to commit
mass-murder to push their point."

Wait, what? All I did was point out that the quote was fake, and link to some
relevant history. I'm not trying to push anything.

------
Manglano
An ignorant person will always choose to commit an act of violence towards
another to protect against uncertainty. To resist this urge and live with
uncertainty is a form of wisdom.

------
autocorr
One thing I found surprising after researching Hitler's rise to power was that
he in fact did not achieve a large majority of seats in the Reichstag before
seizing power or was overwhelmingly popular. In the 1932 German Federal
election, the last free and fair before Hitler took power, the Nazi party only
achieved 33% of seats in the Reichstag [0]. Hitler and the Nazi party also
gained power within the framework of the Weimar Republic (ie not a direct
military coup). My understanding is that this was possible because the
communists did not view the Nazi's as the primary threat, but rather the
moderate socialist parties, and also some very poor judgement by the
Nationalist-Conservative party to form a coalition with the Nazis. With that
coalition, the Enabling Act was passed giving Hitler dictatorial powers, and
things snow-balled from there.

I know this is kind off-topic, given that the article is about this guys new
book, but I've been diving more into modern history after studying mostly
ancient and world history. Perhaps some other knowledgeable people can point
to good resources on WW2 history? On WW1, I found "The Fall of the Ottomans",
"The Sleepwalkers", and "The Guns of August" very insightful, but there are
just so many resources for WW2.

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_Novem...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_federal_election,_November_1932)

~~~
ivan_ah
This was on HN recently, not a history book but interesting insights about
corporate power and deals with the Nazi party
[https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-
reic...](https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-supermanagerial-reich/)

------
molloy
To those wanting to avoid the paywall, click the 'web' link under the
submission title.

~~~
amelius
This link doesn't work for me, but I must confess that I first clicked the
original link. Has WSJ started to block users that try to be smart?

~~~
bsder
The web link doesn't work for me on Firefox but does under Chrome. It could be
some sort of browser sniffing or ad blocking detection as well.

~~~
jrs235
Right click the link and open in incognito or private mode.

Sites will display the article when coming directly from google if you don't
have certain cookies from prior visits. Private/incognito ensures the cookies
"dont exist".

~~~
amelius
Even incognito mode doesn't work for me with the web link, on chromium, linux.

~~~
_nalply
Even monkeying around with a proxy and different browsers didn't help. What
worked for me: google for the title in a private browsing window.

------
danharaj
It's easy to succumb to the nihilism in the face of fascism because it is an
ideology that is unencumbered by truth or meaning. People like to think that
if they could just have a conversation with a fascist and reason with them
that they could convince them otherwise. When all the reason in the world does
not stem the tide of fascism, one becomes disillusioned with the ideals of the
enlightenment. Fascism is the antithesis of the enlightenment: fascism is the
full embrace of the stupidity of violence and domination. It is rooted in that
fundamental basis of social order which few examine critically. We all would
like to believe that our civilization has gone far beyond the point where it
is brute violence that decides social truth, and when fascism rises it lifts
with it the veil that allows us to entertain such fantasies. When all of the
things we were taught are the basis of society seem to be completely worthless
in the face of fascism's brutality, how could we but not feel helpless and
passive?

Here's an excerpt from Sartre's Anti-semite and Jew [1]. I think it's
illuminating:

    
    
      The anti‐Semite has chosen hate because hate is a faith; at 
      the outset he has chosen to devaluate words and reasons.  
      How  entirely  at  ease  he  feels  as  a  result.   How  futile  and 
      frivolous discussions about the rights of the Jew appear to 
      him.   He  has  placed  himself  on  other  ground  from  the 
      beginning.   If out of courtesy he consents  for a moment to 
      defend his point of view, he lends himself but does not give 
      himself.   He  tries  simply  to  project  his  intuitive  certainty 
      onto the plane of discourse.  I mentioned awhile back some 
      remarks  by  anti‐Semites,  all  of  them  absurd:  "I  hate  Jews 
      because  they  make  servants  insubordinate,  because  a 
      Jewish  furrier  robbed  me,  etc."   Never  believe  that  anti‐
      Semites  are  completely  unaware  of  the  absurdity  of  their 
      replies.  They know  that  their remarks are  frivolous, open 
      to  challenge.   But  they  are  amusing  themselves,  for  it  is 
      their  adversary  who  is  obliged  to  use  words  responsibly, 
      since he believes in words.  The anti‐Semites have the right 
      to play.  They even like to play with discourse for, by giving 
      ridiculous  reasons,  they  discredit  the  seriousness  of  their 
      interlocutors.  They delight in acting in bad faith, since they 
      seek not to persuade by sound argument but to intimidate 
      and  disconcert.   If  you  press  them  too  closely,  they  will 
      abruptly  fall  silent,  loftily  indicating  by  some  phrase  that 
      the time for argument is past.  It is not that they are afraid 
      of being convinced.  They fear only to appear ridiculous or 
      to prejudice by their embarrassment their hope of winning 
      over some third person to their side.
    

In order to resist fascism one has to have the conviction to fight for
something that fascism seeks to destroy.

[1] [https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Semite-Jew-Exploration-
Etiology-...](https://www.amazon.com/Anti-Semite-Jew-Exploration-Etiology-
Hate/dp/0805210474)

~~~
digi_owl
On other words they appeal not to the rational mind but the instincts passed
down to us from our ape ancestors.

This is likely why you find so much of business embracing fascism, as they to
appeal to those same instincts to drive the consumer economy.

------
c54
Out of curiosity to the way HN works -- why was this post flagged?

~~~
euyyn
I guess the "no politics" ban is still in effect?

~~~
grzm
Political Detox Week is over. It was terminated early, but would have been
over by now regardless. See
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13131251)

------
mrle
how could Germany recover so fast after World War 1 ? and build autobanhs, car
industry, weapon industry etc.. follow the money and find out.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworl...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar)

~~~
bad_user
Western Germany recovered well from WWII, with western help of course, but
then they recovered from the recession that followed the fall of the Berlin
Wall and now they are again the first in EU by GDP. Even with the help
received, you have to admit that they are the kind of people that have the
resources to recover from disaster.

And Hitler, along with a second industrial war, was inevitable. I'll even go
as far as saying that we were lucky that Hitler happened, because one can
argue that he made a lot of tactical mistakes and in other circumstances the
Axis might have won.

And I hope we learned something from it, though judging by 2016 I have my
doubts.

------
smnscu
1st comment on the article

> there are among even the most terrifying of targeted massacres such as
> during the regime of pol pot or the misery of rwanda nothing comparable to
> the holocaust. Jewish children were being hanged from windows in the
> neighborhoods of germans whose neighbors knew the families. the german
> people eagerly and happily enjoyed herr hitler and his band of sick
> psychopaths and perverts and lest we forget to mention it, drug addicts.
> those who stood against these crimes were murdered along with the Jews.
> beyond everything, it was the automation and the mechanization of killing
> innocent Jewish german citizens and gassing and hanging 1.5 million little
> Jewish children with great purposefulness that gives the german inquisition
> its special ignoble bloodstamp on history. we have the evidence of the
> smiling laughing hitler saluting audiences crammed together because there
> were hardly spaces large enough to hold them all. don't use the word
> comparable. just don't.

~~~
robotresearcher
> don't use the word comparable.

The only occurrence of the string 'compar' in the article:

"Mr. Fritzsche [the author of the book described] does not labor this point by
comparing the situation with those that came after..."

