Why did the Jews of Europe not know what the Nazis were going to do to them?

Answer 1

My mom's first husband was a POW during WWII. In his opinion, most people that lived in towns around the camps knew what was going on. The difference was, that there wasn't much they could do about it. Hitler turned many people against the Jews. The Germans weren't the only ones in denial. When he returned after the war, there were a lot of Americans that didn't believe what he had seen. They told him he was just spreading government Propaganda. Very few people could comprehend that many people being murdered and no one was stopping it. He died at a young age of a massive heart attack partially brought on by damage caused by all the time and torture of being a POW in WWII Germany. Just an afternote: my uncle transported German POW's back to Germany after they worked in the U.S. during their captivity...he couldn't count all of them that begged him to leave them in the U.S. To find some way for them to stay here. Certainly many Germans, and others, were directly involved in and knew what was going on. Equally certainly, many of them endorsed it or not, for any number of reasons, including self preservation and not seeing any alternative or what we now class as pure hatred. Also equally as sure would be that, human nature being what it is, to really acknowlege the terrible acts being done (especially if there is any complicity), is something one would conciously or not, try and find a way not to. In fact, LEST WE FORGET, for years after the end of WW2, even from those who had first hand experience, coming to terms and bringing to light what had gone on, was not done, being a grossly offensive human experience simply too hard or embarrassing to deal with and maybe even desired forgotten. Most German soldiers on the Eastern Front knew what was happening, though not necessarily the details. Occasionally, they came home on leave - and talked ... Some Germans listened to the BBC ... There was at least one case where a train transporting Jews was derailed in the Rhineland and some of the cattle trucks broke open. They knew (in outline) but they didn't want to know.

Answer 2

Most had some idea of what was going on. Unless they lived in places where there were no Jews, they must have noticed the yellow stars and surely known that it was a hostile, discriminatory badge. They certainly knew their Jewish neighbours were disappearing - though many Germans may have believed that they were simply being resettled in Eastern Europe.

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I think, I do not know, the answer to this is that most Germans were wholly unaware of what happened to those that were no longer to be seen on the streets anymore. And of course it was in their interests not to want to know. Not even to ask. Secrecy pervades during the rule of tyrants, darkness cloaks their dishonour. But of course that is the way of warfare, but it does in no way excuse the terrible actions carried out by the Nazis. As I say I do not think most Germans had knowledge of what was going on elsewhere, which was just what the Nazi hierarchy wanted created.

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One can add to the above. The German historian Helga Grebing (born in 1930) wrote in her book on Nazism (Der Nationalsozialismus: Ursprung und Wesen, which was first published in 1959) about the importance of avoiding 'blanket' verdicts on what people in the Third Reich did and did not know. (She was writing at a time when it was very fashionable in Germany to claim to have known nothing about the atrocities committed by the regime). She writes on pp. 130-31 of the 1964 edition of the book that many soldiers on the Eastern Front had a pretty good idea of what was going on, though usually without knowing all the details. From time to time they went home on leave and talked ... The attitude of the folk back home was 'hear no evil, see no evil'. In other words, most of them did not want to know. After all, many had voted for the Nazis in 1930-33, and accepting the stories they heard would have meant admitting that they had made a colossal error of judgement.

Later research by Martin Broszat in the 1970s broadly confirms this. Ordinary Germans were 'vaguely aware' - and didn't want to know more ...

It's is worth bearing in mind that until 1944, the British and U.S. governments also downplayed the Holocaust. When the first report from the Polish underground about routine mass gassings of Jews at Chelmno reached London late in December 1941, the Foreign Office official who read the report wrote in the margin 'Bolshevik propaganda?' (!) So, not wanting to know was not peculiar to the German population.

See also Jan Karski's accounts of his meetings with President Roosevelt. When Karski - who was a courier for the Polish underground - reported on conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto and one of the extermination camps to Roosevelt face to face twice, the latter just kept on saying, 'Tell them that the wrongdoers will be punished'. Karski's plea for immediate action fell on deaf ears.

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Recent research by Peter Longerich has tended to confirm the points made by Helga Grebing in the 1950s. (See above).

Answer 3

Obviously most Germans did not know the details, but they had some idea. They knew that German Jews were being forcibly 'resettled in Eastern Europe', and most had a good idea that the conditions there were 'unpleasant'. Moreover, some soldiers on leave from the Eastern front had deeply disturbing stories. However, put simply, they knew but didn't want to know.

Research by Peter Longerich and others that suggests that ordinary Germans knew much more than they were later willing to admit.

Answer 4

The reasons included: * The real meaning of 'resettlement in Eastern Europe' was of course never given by the Nazis * Germany's outstanding reputation as a highly civilized country * The whole thing was simply mind-boggling * To some extent they did not want to believe the rumors they heard from late 1941/early 1942 onwards Please bear in mind that when the first reports of the Holocaust reached the British and American governments in late 1941, the Allies were also reluctant to believe them.

Answer 5

Most German soldiers on the Eastern Front knew, at least in outline.

Answer 6

Yes they did but they did not like it so they kept out of it

Answer 7

Because Hitler never told the germans why he hated the jews so much that he wanted to kill every jew and make a new human race of his own without jews