Prewar Europe

Again Abe is right. From the end of the First World War, Germany was in a state of chaos with numerous factions striving for power. The main foe of the Nazis was the Communist Party. The only time when the Nazis could have been stopped was during that period from the mid to late 1920s. Once the SA (storm troopers) were able to roam the streets at will, it was too late.
The point I was making is that far more people than members of the Nazi Party acted less than admirably. This would have been the same no matter what country was involved because evil men and even evil women are found everywhere. The only surprising thing is that there were so many of them in Germany at that time. Given free reign to commit atrocities, those types everywhere would have behaved as the Germans behaved. Nationalism gone wild is never a pretty sight.
The thing American soldiers I was with resented most was that no one would admit having supported what had taken place or even known that it had taken place although the evidence was overwhelming. When Germany was overrunning one country after another, Hitler's detractors were few. That would have been true in every country (Shortly after the war 22 top psychiatrists and psychologists disagreed with that and said the only other country where it would have been possible was the United States). It would have gone over better with us had even one person been willing to say, "We were wrong." Instead it was always "they" and never "we." One line in a record album titled Hitler's Inferno has stuck in my mind: "How could these men sing so happily while murdering millions?" My paternal ancestors were German so I have always viewed Germans kindly. I just wish that even one of the countless number of men I met there in the months right after the war would have just admitted what they had done was wrong and he was aware of that from the beginning. None ever did.

The American newspapers covered the rise of Hitler and the years prior to the war in great depth. A number of reporters became very well known. Read William L. Shirer's book Berlin Diary for a closeup look. He and other newsmen were heard regularly on radio reporting from Germany and other hot spots. Their names became known to all. Prominent among them was Edward R. Murrow. Had people taken their warnings more seriously and had the leaders of Europe acted more firmly there was time to stop the Germans before they became too powerful to stop. Hitler's fatal mistake was invading Russia. Even that might possibly have been successful had they been less ruthless in the Ukraine. Most of the men involved are dead now. What they did will never be forgotten, but today Germany has changed and is considered a friend.

Dick,

Good post.

Interesting info.

Carol

In the 1990's Serbian nationalist in Bosnia acted with similar disregard for what we consider civilized behaviour. We saw the same build up to this horror as before but Europe was to busy to notice until it was to late. Will human kind ever learn.

Dick, what you say has credibility, yet there is an aspect that many fail to realize. Survival was the objective of the citizens. There were spies everywhere. It was easy to gain favor by turning in a neighbor for saying something against the regime.
Most of those who were involved in the evil regime, are now dead. Their descendants are still held responsible by many, and that is sad.
My wife was born in Germany in 1938. By the end of the war she was seven years old. Her father did not serve in the military since he didn't pass the physical but was required to function as a local observer. My wife has many stories to tell of hiding in shelters during air raids. She was also a lookout and would yell when planes were approaching so they could run into the shelters. Food was the biggest problem for many. They would go at night into the fields at night in search of food. They were not allowed to cut trees for firewood and the kids would drag home branches they foraged during the night. She remembers going door to door begging for food. Her mother went with her to the local Priest asking for food. The Priest said, "I cannot give you food for your body, but I can give you food for your soul." Her mother told the Priest what he could do with his soul food. Although the family were Catholic, my wife was baptized Protestant. It may have had something to do with that incident.
Of all the ex-military men I have met who served in Hitler's army, not one was a volunteer. My friend, Hermann Frech, was 15 when they came into the school with orders for him to report for duty. Their greatest aim was to survive.
When my wife came to America in 1961, she was still considered the enemy. Sometimes she would come home from work crying, having been called a Nazi.
For some, the war still goes on. Some never want to forgive or forget and still place blame on the descendants.

The descendants should never be blamed. There is an 89-year-old man from Cleveland now about to be deported to Germany because he served as a guard at a concentration camp. Germany wants to try him as a war criminal. He should be blamed, tried and severally punished.
I am in no way critical of young Germans and certainly not your wife. She suffered from the war. Unfortunately so did kids in every country occupied by the Germans. Those I knew in Belgium looked much younger than their age because of four years of malnutrition. I have written about enjoying seeing the pleasure of little children in Nordenham when the town Christmas tree lights were turned on in 1945. They had never seen anything like it.
Sad to say, less than a year earlier I had seen an American soldier shot and killed by a German boy who turned out to be four. And I saw a French girl in Villedieu whose leg had been cut off with a saw-tooth bayonet as the Germans were withdrawing from the town. I know a man in Vire, France who suffered severe burns as a boy when two German soldiers set fire to a barn where he and other civilians were hiding as the fighting went on nearby. You witness some terrible things in war. Peter asked if humans will ever learn. Apparently not because it is still going on. Doesn't say much good about us.

I have been researching this issue like I am fighting a fire here lately, and I am learning quite a lot. Interesting stuff. I guess that I have researched it far enough to delve into control and manipulation by the Western (outside of Germany) press and news media by thier own governments.

I found out today that the Pre-war news media of Holland was quietly asked by that Government not to be so harsh on Hitler because it was feared that this might have incited him to attack. Holland in the late 1930s was still trying to cling to the illusion of neutrality, and so was not above stepping on eggs. Dick, did it ever seem that the governments of Western Europe were stiffling thier own media?

There were actually quite a few folks in these small European nations that admired Hitler. But after 1936, the darker side of Hitler started to show. Public support for the Nazi regime and the miracle economy across the border began to fall away, and the governments of these small nations began to manipulate the press at times to stiffle criticism of Hitler out of plain old fear.

This formula sheds some light on what Dick has revealed, and what I have been finding on my own for the last few days on this issue. The American press was overwhelmingly anti-Hitler right from the start, and wasnt afraid to say it. The US govt apparently made no effort whatsoever to restrict the presses bashing of the Teutonic lunatic, and that tells me some things:
A...The Government and the people of the United States were not afraid of Hitler. But I do think that there was a disconnect going on behind the feelings of the British people verses the official British govt line where appeasement was concerned.

The people and the majority of the press in the UK and France seems like wanted to be harsh on him, but the press was held back by thier own governments. Chamberlain and that government coalition that he led were trying to keep from having a "Yellow Press" event that would talk up a war that they were trying so hard to prevent. Do I have this right?

B...The majority of the people of small European nations were indeed afraid of Hitler. And as the small states of Western Europe outside Germany were afraid of Hitler, and were not expecting any realistic protection from the UK, France, or the USA; press coverage was often manipulated. This reflected in thier news coverage of him, and the way that the governments of the day put bridles on thier own media.

Fear worked for Hitler. Isolationism in America actually made us less fearful of Hitler due to the size of the Oceans that kept him away. And thus, American media was more free to be harsh on him.

So, was the American media the most severely harsh critics in the whole world that Hitler faced back in the 1930s? Was the American press leading the charge against the Nazi regime? Did the USA do most of the criticising that went on about Hitler while the rest of the world shrank away from it?

By the way, Abe, I agree with you. I was stationed in Germany for several years, and I found the German people to be the salt of the Earth. I dont want to blame them for thier dark past. That would be ridiculous. I dont want anybody blamming me for stuff that happened before I was born. Ive got enough problem to deal with than to have that. The Germans that I know were beautiful people, and I just cant see them doing Nazi style things.