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| The Nazis, Germany and lazy equations | The Nazis, Germany and lazy equations |
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| Matthew Evans has got his argument backwards (Bergen-Belsen was a German atrocity, Letters, 30 June). Everyone “who cares about the Holocaust and historical accuracy” needs to distinguish between the Nazis and “the Germans” precisely because explanations of the Holocaust must grasp its political causes, and not rely on lazy – and in fact racist – equations of nazism with Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Germans, including political opponents of nazism, victims of the so-called euthanasia programme and Jewish Germans were murdered by the Nazis, who knew very well the difference between themselves and the kind of Germans they aspired to fashion. Some of these Germans died in Bergen-Belsen. Evans insults their memory, as well as doing a massive disservice to the principles of accuracy he claims to honour.Jane CaplanEmeritus professor of modern European history, University of Oxford | Matthew Evans has got his argument backwards (Bergen-Belsen was a German atrocity, Letters, 30 June). Everyone “who cares about the Holocaust and historical accuracy” needs to distinguish between the Nazis and “the Germans” precisely because explanations of the Holocaust must grasp its political causes, and not rely on lazy – and in fact racist – equations of nazism with Germany. Hundreds of thousands of Germans, including political opponents of nazism, victims of the so-called euthanasia programme and Jewish Germans were murdered by the Nazis, who knew very well the difference between themselves and the kind of Germans they aspired to fashion. Some of these Germans died in Bergen-Belsen. Evans insults their memory, as well as doing a massive disservice to the principles of accuracy he claims to honour.Jane CaplanEmeritus professor of modern European history, University of Oxford |
| Related: Bergen-Belsen was a German atrocity, not just a Nazi one | Letters | Related: Bergen-Belsen was a German atrocity, not just a Nazi one | Letters |
| • We know why the Guardian and others describe atrocities in the second world war as Nazi rather than German. It is to distinguish between Germany under National Socialism and the democratic, open Germany that has so remarkably emerged from that war and then the cold war, and which has done much to face its Nazi past. The alternative may achieve narrow historical exactitude, but that is outweighed by its possible connotations of collective historical guilt, itself one of the elements in the Nazi demonising of the Jewish people. This is not “political correctness” (in any case an imprecise, catch-all term) but responsible discourse.Canon Robert TitleyRector, Richmond team ministry, diocese of Southwark | • We know why the Guardian and others describe atrocities in the second world war as Nazi rather than German. It is to distinguish between Germany under National Socialism and the democratic, open Germany that has so remarkably emerged from that war and then the cold war, and which has done much to face its Nazi past. The alternative may achieve narrow historical exactitude, but that is outweighed by its possible connotations of collective historical guilt, itself one of the elements in the Nazi demonising of the Jewish people. This is not “political correctness” (in any case an imprecise, catch-all term) but responsible discourse.Canon Robert TitleyRector, Richmond team ministry, diocese of Southwark |
| • I would agree with Matthew Evans that German nationalism was part of what made my mother a young widow in 1944. However, with the perspective of history, I would now focus on the ideology which uncaged that beast. That sort of ideology is the real enemy, and it is not exclusively German. It stalks the corridors of power in every nation, seeking out those who do not at first recognise it for what it is, or (much worse) believe foolishly that it can be controlled. From my perspective I do not see a focus on the Nazi ideology as “political correctness”: I see it as political clarity of vision.Roger WilsonBillingshurst, West Sussex | • I would agree with Matthew Evans that German nationalism was part of what made my mother a young widow in 1944. However, with the perspective of history, I would now focus on the ideology which uncaged that beast. That sort of ideology is the real enemy, and it is not exclusively German. It stalks the corridors of power in every nation, seeking out those who do not at first recognise it for what it is, or (much worse) believe foolishly that it can be controlled. From my perspective I do not see a focus on the Nazi ideology as “political correctness”: I see it as political clarity of vision.Roger WilsonBillingshurst, West Sussex |
| • Of the many Germans I knew before the war, several lost their lives fighting the Nazis in Germany. Would the noble lord have placed his head on the line fighting them if the fascists had taken over in Britain? In the last free elections before the Nazis seized power, the socialist/communist vote was greater than the vote for the Nazis. No wonder the Nazis came for them well before they came for the Jews, and, of course, many of those who opposed them at the risk of torture and death were also Jewish. Is Lord Evans prepared to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed by Britain in its empire, especially in India? It is a gross insult to the many thousands of Germans who opposed the Nazis actively to hold them reponsible for the concentration camps.Len GoldmanBrighton | • Of the many Germans I knew before the war, several lost their lives fighting the Nazis in Germany. Would the noble lord have placed his head on the line fighting them if the fascists had taken over in Britain? In the last free elections before the Nazis seized power, the socialist/communist vote was greater than the vote for the Nazis. No wonder the Nazis came for them well before they came for the Jews, and, of course, many of those who opposed them at the risk of torture and death were also Jewish. Is Lord Evans prepared to accept responsibility for the atrocities committed by Britain in its empire, especially in India? It is a gross insult to the many thousands of Germans who opposed the Nazis actively to hold them reponsible for the concentration camps.Len GoldmanBrighton |
| Related: Nazis, Germans and cold war propaganda | Letter from John Wilson | |
| • Having grown up in a country where historical guilt is done to excess, we Huns were most most certainly in need of Matthew Evans’ wisdom – as I’m sure were you Brits, given that TV here only shows a programme dealing with the Nazis every other day.Anke NeibigNewcastle upon Tyne | • Having grown up in a country where historical guilt is done to excess, we Huns were most most certainly in need of Matthew Evans’ wisdom – as I’m sure were you Brits, given that TV here only shows a programme dealing with the Nazis every other day.Anke NeibigNewcastle upon Tyne |
| • That the Guardian does not in the first instance call the Nazi camps “German” is not a sign of “worrying political correctness”. In its methods, the Holocaust relied upon those of European industrialisation and colonialism. In its ideology, it was an expression of millennia of European antisemitism. Only Nazis believed there was something specially German about their undertaking. The camps were Nazi. | • That the Guardian does not in the first instance call the Nazi camps “German” is not a sign of “worrying political correctness”. In its methods, the Holocaust relied upon those of European industrialisation and colonialism. In its ideology, it was an expression of millennia of European antisemitism. Only Nazis believed there was something specially German about their undertaking. The camps were Nazi. |
| I was at the Jewish Museum with the German School last week and we were taught how some orthodox Jews may have separate kitchens for meat and dairy products. I thought about Ed Miliband: didn’t we have a good laugh about his nose! And his ability to eat bacon! And now we find he had two kitchens! And then I got to thinking about his act of primal treachery; and about his immigrant father who hated Britain; and about his plan to stab Britain in the back (the same impulse was evident in the Dolchstosslegende in the Weimar Republic – the legend that the war was lost because of treacherous Jews). When I asked staff at the museum what they thought about the treatment of Miliband, they said they thought it was obviously antisemitic but they didn’t make a fuss about it because it would just make things worse. | I was at the Jewish Museum with the German School last week and we were taught how some orthodox Jews may have separate kitchens for meat and dairy products. I thought about Ed Miliband: didn’t we have a good laugh about his nose! And his ability to eat bacon! And now we find he had two kitchens! And then I got to thinking about his act of primal treachery; and about his immigrant father who hated Britain; and about his plan to stab Britain in the back (the same impulse was evident in the Dolchstosslegende in the Weimar Republic – the legend that the war was lost because of treacherous Jews). When I asked staff at the museum what they thought about the treatment of Miliband, they said they thought it was obviously antisemitic but they didn’t make a fuss about it because it would just make things worse. |
| No one seems to say much about it though. Why? Because real antisemitism is something those evil Germans did? In any case, one danger we shouldn’t be overly concerned with is “political correctness”.George HowardRichmond, Surrey | No one seems to say much about it though. Why? Because real antisemitism is something those evil Germans did? In any case, one danger we shouldn’t be overly concerned with is “political correctness”.George HowardRichmond, Surrey |
| • I share Matthew Evans’ concern about the trend for creating an imagined community of “Nazis” where German atrocities can safely be compartmentalised away from the troubling reality of national complicity in cruelty. In 1904, before the Nazis came to power, Germany exterminated 80% of the Herero tribe in Namibia – 60,000 people – and embarked on a horrific project of human experimentation on tribal survivors that was later resumed against Europeans in second world war death camps. | • I share Matthew Evans’ concern about the trend for creating an imagined community of “Nazis” where German atrocities can safely be compartmentalised away from the troubling reality of national complicity in cruelty. In 1904, before the Nazis came to power, Germany exterminated 80% of the Herero tribe in Namibia – 60,000 people – and embarked on a horrific project of human experimentation on tribal survivors that was later resumed against Europeans in second world war death camps. |
| But Evans’ letter also follows the dominant trend of referring only to Jewish victims and replaces the postwar reference to “German crimes against humanity” with the word Holocaust – sometimes Shoah. This might be an understandable emphasis if one is Jewish but it does thereby exclude the full spectrum of victims. | But Evans’ letter also follows the dominant trend of referring only to Jewish victims and replaces the postwar reference to “German crimes against humanity” with the word Holocaust – sometimes Shoah. This might be an understandable emphasis if one is Jewish but it does thereby exclude the full spectrum of victims. |
| Nazi electoral success owed a great deal to the scapegoating of a generation of black mixed-race Germans – known nationally and in Mein Kampf as Rhineland Bastards. Mein Kampf also gives them the label “half-apes”. Some populist histories chose to forget they were persecuted, along with homosexuals, the disabled, Gypsies, trade unionists and leftists. Huge numbers of Poles and millions of captured Russians were also killed in camps.Dr Gavin LewisManchester | Nazi electoral success owed a great deal to the scapegoating of a generation of black mixed-race Germans – known nationally and in Mein Kampf as Rhineland Bastards. Mein Kampf also gives them the label “half-apes”. Some populist histories chose to forget they were persecuted, along with homosexuals, the disabled, Gypsies, trade unionists and leftists. Huge numbers of Poles and millions of captured Russians were also killed in camps.Dr Gavin LewisManchester |