Who is responsible for the Holocaust?

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FTW

Like your current Sun Tzu quote btw.


Aside from the aliens; apparently German debts and Weimar republic made them open to pretty wild means to justify the ends.

In addition to Cornflake's reply: Many gays and transsexuals were experimented on by Nazi "scientists" in an attempt to find out what made them different. Like other "research" subjects, they usually didn't survive those experiments. Others died in the gas chambers or were used for target practice by SS soldiers.

And some gays were actually killed by other camp inmates who hated them as much as the next homophobe. The SS deliberately used the widespread homophobia to their advantage. They often played different groups of inmates against each other, for example by starving one group while giving another group more food and privileges. As long as the inmates were at each other's throat, they were much easier to control.

The story that the higher ranks of the Nazi party were filled with gays is anti-gay propaganda spread by hate groups such as the American Family Association. Don't let yourself be fooled by the innocent names of these groups, and please don't buy into their propaganda. The Nazis weren't gay, they were no socialists or otherwise politically left, and they were no pagans or atheists. They were Christian right-wing authoritarians whose racist, anti-immigration, anti-liberal, anti-left, anti-gay, anti-transgender and pro-military ideology was frighteningly similar to the agenda of the extreme religious right in the modern day USA.

Most Ashkenazi Jews didn't look any different from the rest of the German population. Think of celebrities like Seth Green, Scarlett Johansson, Natalie Portman, Ben Stiller or Michelle Trachtenberg. Or, to name two historical figures, Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud. They wouldn't have been spotted as Jews by other people. Only orthodox Jews stood out due to their traditional clothes and hairstyles.

Hitler's hatred for Jews had its roots in his religious views and his Catholic upbringing. He often pointed out that (quote) "they killed our Lord Jesus Christ" and believed that he was on a mission from god / Jesus. In a speech in 1921, he said "I believe that I am acting in accordance with the will of the almighty creator: by defending myself against Jewry, I am fighting for the work of the Lord." The anti-Semitic Nazi ideology had both a racist and a religious component.

I'll reiterate, Ernst Rohm and many of his "friends" who he had placed in high ranking positions of the SA had been gay. They had also represented the left of the Nazi party. To be sure, Rohm was not a very nice man, nor were his Brown Shirts. But it's also true that they themselves were among the very first victims of Hitler through Himmler's SS, soon after the Nazis had assumed power.
That is in no way to incriminate homosexuals or socialists who were, outside the SA, innocent victims of the Third Reich.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

"Röhm was gay" is not the same as "the entire Nazi party was made up of gays" or "Hitler and his helpers were gay", which is the myth that the AFA is pushing. There is no denying that the NSDAP took a rigorous anti-gay stance, outlawed gay sex, and tried to systematically exterminate gay and transgender people (not that you were denying that, but the AFA is).

Oh, no, I'm not saying that homosexuality was rampant in the Nazi party, just that there were a few who were. And I know perfectly well that gays were among the Nazis many innocent victims.

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

I'm sorry if I'm overreacting a little. It just irks me when homosexuality is mentioned in connection with the Nazi party because of Röhm, or paganism because of Rosenberg. I guess I read something into your posts that wasn't there.

Last edited by CrazyCatLord on 02 Feb 2012, 6:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Absolutely.

Just out of interest, what part of Germany do you hail from?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer

Northern Germany (Lower Saxony), but I've grown up in the Ruhr area in North Rhine-Westphalia.

Fascinating. My Dad's people back in the 19th century had immigrated out of the Kraichgau region of northwestern Baden-Wurttemberg, where the South Franconian dialect is spoken (unlike the rest of the Swabian-Alemannic speakers to the south) - hence my screen name. There had been some folks in my line from Frisia and the northern most tip of Alsace (also a Franconian speaking region, unlike the rest of Alsace). From there, they had immigrated to the Crimea in Ukraine, when the Russian Empire had offered Germans land and political autonomy. When that ended, with a thaw directed at the German settlers, my ancestors headed for the American west.
My Mom's people were Bavarian and Austrian Catholics on her father's side, and Prussian Lutherans (who sometime or other had apparently converted from Judaism) on her mother's side, and both had ended up in Chicago, Illinois. Despite opposition by my Grandfather's family (they were sure that Prussian girl was going to make him a Lutheran), he married my Grandmother. He never converted to Lutheranism... but my Mom and her sisters were were raised in the faith.

-Bill, otherwise known a Kraichgauer

You may have a point there

Actually, while I agree with Natalie Portman and Michelle Trachtenberg, they don't really look very Middle Eastern at all, probably because the bulk of their ancestry is likely converts, and Scarlett is half Swedish and looks more Swedish than Jewish, Ben Stiller, Seth Green, Einstein and Freud all look quite different from your average European imo.

I went to a high school that had a large Jewish population, and most of the Jews didn't look like a stereotypical Jew. I dated a Jewish girl whom I never would have guessed was Jewish if someone didn't tell me they were. For this reason, I have a hard time thinking that they are a separate race of people. Maybe a little different, but not a completely different race.

For the German Nazis, this is correct. But for the Croatian Nazis, this is not true at all. Croatia had its own, home grown anti-semitic fascist movement started by a guy named Anton("Ante") Pavelic who gave this movement the name Ustashe(meaning "insurrection"). He claimed that the Jews of Croatia had collaborated with the Serbs to subject Croatia to non-catholic rule. He was an enthusiastic supporter of Hitlers "final solution" and he single handedly organized and carried out the extermination of Croatian jewry(along with the orthodox Croatian Serbs) due to their refusal to convert to catholicism. Religion and national identity go hand in hand, and minority religions who refuse to leave or convert are often seen as traitors. This is why so many churches in Eastern Europe were participants in the Holocaust.

+1

BTW, weather or not Edmund Burke actually said that is disputed. But it's a good quote so who cares I guess.

I've never heard of him - sounds like a truly horrible person. When did he sully the earth with his existence?

-Bill, otherwise known as Kraichgauer