Highlight
in our education about the Holocaust was a research project during the final
year at school. Our progressive history teacher set us the task to research the
Nazi seizure of power in 1933 in our own location Kirchheim unter Teck, a
small town in Southern Germany. Many books had been written about how Hitler had
been able to rise to power in Germany, but knowledge about the local history of
this time was patchy at best.
Our teacher
had organised for us access to the local archive which contained some public
documents but especially also editions of the local newspaper Teckbote from the time.
Additionally, we tried to get in touch with eye-witnesses. After all, the
perpetrators of the Holocaust had only been the generation of our grandparents.
Many people responsible for, and/or involved in, or witnessing the atrocities
were still alive. After some asking around, we secured the name and telephone
number of an elderly man. ‘He knows what happened back then’ was all we were
told. However, when we rang him and explained our research project, the phone
was put down quickly on the other end. Three days later we found his name in
the local newspaper of January 1933, being listed as one of the first local
NSDAP, i.e. the Nazi Party, councillors. No surprise that he had not wanted to
talk to us.
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
We
followed up on other names of councillors, listed in the newspaper. The father
of the local paint shop owner had been high up in the local NSDAP but was no
longer alive. A teacher and also Nazi councillor, however, still lived in
Kirchheim unter Teck. This time, rather than ringing and announcing our
request, we went directly to the house. We tracked him down standing on a
ladder harvesting apples with his grandson in the autumn sunshine. He too
refused talking to us. We would not understand anything anyway, was all he said.
How could it be that this Nazi was able to enjoy his old age harvesting apples,
while millions of people had perished in the gas chambers of the Nazi concentration
camps due to his and other people’s actions? I still remember how I was
troubled by this thought. What it indicated clearly was that Germany had never
fully reckoned with its past. Many perpetrators had gone unpunished and pursued
‘normal lives’ in post-war West Germany. Only 6,656 people were
convicted of Nazi crimes, which is “fewer even than the number of people
who had been employed at Auschwitz alone” (Fulbrook quoted by Mishra in the Guardian,
30/01/2025).
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
‘Never
Again’ was the motto underpinning our teaching in history across the school
years. By the 1980s, teaching about the Holocaust was mandatory for everyone
and German guilt fully acknowledged. And yet, already back then there were
troubling signs in relation to that teaching programme. Although our education
focused on German atrocities, there was always also a discussion of resistance
against Hitler. Undue we felt, considering how little there had been, how widely
Hitler and the Nazis had been supported by the German population. Moreover, the
main focus was on the resistance around Claus von Stauffenberg and the failed
assassination attempt of Hitler on 20 July 1944. Praise was allocated to a
group of army officers, who had been part of the German military machine and
only turned against the Nazis, when defeat in war had become inevitable. Civilian
participants in that coup attempt were covered far less, Communist resistance
not mentioned at all.
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
Nazi
field marshall Erwin Rommel too was praised for his links to the assassination
attempt and yet, had he not been Hitler’s favourite general, making Germany’s
brutal attack war possible in the first place? Were these really the people to
look up to when trying to find something good in the Germany of 1933 to 1945? Equally
disturbing was also a sense of superiority over the Japanese, who unlike us
Germans had never owned up to their atrocities during World War II, or so it
was said. In short, while teaching about the Holocaust and Nazi Germany was
widespread and mandatory, there were some dubious undertones coming with it
already in the 1980s. Unsurprisingly, earlier German atrocities in the Global
South were not part of the School curriculum. Between 1904 and 1908, the German
colonial power had killed tens of thousands Hereros and Nama people.
Nevertheless, it took the German state until May 2021 to acknowledge this
genocide officially and to agree on paying financial compensation (BBC, 28 May 2021).
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
Fast forward to today, and the teaching of ‘Never Again’ has quickly unravelled. German support for Israel had always been in the background of our school education, but the main focus was still on the Holocaust itself. It is only now that it becomes clear how taking responsibility for the Holocaust has simply been translated into unquestioning support for Israel, mixing up being Jewish with the state of Israel. And this despite an emerging consensus amongst international human rights organisations that Israel is carrying out a genocide in Palestine (The Guardian, 23 December 2024). This despite the fact that the International Court of Justice had already decided in January 2024 ‘that South Africa had made a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza’ (Middle East Eye, 27 January 2024). This despite the International Court of Justice’s ruling on 19 July 2024 that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful (Middle East Eye, 23 July 2024). This despite the International Criminal Court issuing arrest warrants against the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on 21 November 2024 (BBC, 21 November 2024). This despite many Jews and Jewish organisations condemning the ongoing genocide in Palestine (e.g. Jewish Voice for Peace).
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
Germany
is the second largest arms supplier of Israel after the US. ‘In 2023 some 30%
of Israel's military equipment purchases came from Germany, totalling $326.5m
(£257m) last year - a tenfold increase on 2022’ (BBC, 30 April 2024). These arms exports continued unabated during
2024 (Euronews,
24 October 2024). On 10 October 2024 Annalena Baerbock, Germany’s Foreign
Secretary, stated in a debate in the German parliament, marking the first
anniversary of the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack:
‘That’s why we
have made it clear time and again that self-defence means, of course, not only
attacking terrorists, but also destroying them. This’s why I have made it so
clear that when Hamas terrorists hide behind people, behind schools, then we
end up in very difficult waters. But we’re not shying away from this. This is
why I made it clear at the United Nations that civilian sites could lose their
protected status if terrorists abuse this status. That’s what Germany stands
for – and that’s what we mean when we refer to Israel’s security’ (Annalena
Baerbock, 10 October 2024).
It
is difficult to imagine a more appalling justification of the ongoing genocide.
It goes completely against international humanitarian law, as it was pointed
out in a letter signed by 300 academics, asking Baerbock to retract her
comments (Middle
East Eye, 29 October 2024).
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
The
German media does its part in supporting Israel’s genocide against the
Palestinian people. The journalist Fabian Goldman
portrays well how a completely one-sided coverage of events dehumanises
Palestinian victims while justifying Israel’s genocidal war (Liveblog
Nahost). As he points out,
‘Anyone in
Germany who opens the newspapers or switches on the television today to find
out about the war in the Middle East will most likely come across statements
from the Israeli army. Crimes whose perpetrators hide behind passive
constructions. Euphemisms about “targeted counterattacks” and “limited ground
operations”. Platitudes about “spirals of violence” and “wildfires”. Omissions,
racism and fake news’ [own translation] (Goldman,
16 October 2024).
A
police clamp-down on voices and groups speaking out in solidarity with the
Palestinian people has gone hand in hand with a rise in Islamophobia (Zeynep
Conkar, TRTWorld). Chanting the slogan ‘From the river to the sea,
Palestine will be free’ has been declared a crime (The
Guardian, 6 August 2024). Free speech is clearly also a victim of Germany’s
unrelenting support for Isreal.
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
When
in May 2024 I visited my grandparents’ hometown Korntal,
a small town outside Stuttgart characterised by its arch-conservative, pietist
Protestantism, I was horrified to see the Israeli flag waving in the wind
outside the community’s prayer hall. Where other towns have a Third World shop
in support of developing countries, Korntal boasts its Israelladen,
where customers can purchase goods produced in Israel. ‘After the difficult
experience of the Holocaust, which has painfully connected Jews and Germans, it
is just as important to us to actively shape the friendship between Israel and
Germany’ [own translation], it is stated on the shop’s homepage.
What
the current German position reveals is how futile and ineffective the teaching
of ‘Never Again’ has been. Germany has always been and remains a deeply racist
society. It is correct that many demonstrate against the increasingly strong
far-right party Alternative für Deutschland (AfD). And yet, by combining
opposition to the AfD with support for Israel, it is clear how little has been
learned from Germany’s history.
Genocide
runs deep in German society!
Andreas Bieler
26 February 2025
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