Muslims Who Sacrificed Themselves To Save WWII Jews

Noor Inayat Khan was recruited by Churchill’s elite Special Operations Executive (SOE) to work in Paris as a wireless operator. Her clandestine efforts supported the French Underground as England prepared for the D-Day invasions. Among SOE agents, the wireless operator had the most dangerous job of all, because the occupation authorities were skilled at tracking their signals. The average survival time for a Resistance telegrapher in Paris was about six weeks.

Khan’s service continued from June 1943 until her capture and arrest by the Gestapo in October. Her amazing life and eventual murder in Germany’s Dachau prison camp in September 1944 are the focus of a PBS film I co-produced that is airing this week. In researching her story, I came across quite a number of other Muslims who bravely served the Allied cause — and sometimes made the ultimate sacrifice. History is rich with examples of their daring heroism and split-second decisions that helped defeat the Nazis.

Behic Erkin, the Turkish ambassador in Paris, provided citizenship papers and passports to thousands of Jews (many with only distant claims to Turkish connections) and arranged their evacuation by rail across Europe. One fateful day, Necdet Kent, the Turkish consul-general in Marseille, stymied the shipment of 80 Turkish Jews to Germany by forcing his way onto a train bearing them to their likely death and arranging for their return, unharmed, to France.

Abdol-Hossein Sardari used his position at the Iranian consulate in Paris to help thousands of Jews evade Nazi capture. Later dubbed the Iranian Schindler, he convinced the occupying Germans that Iranians were Aryans and that the Jews of Iran had been Iranian since the days of Cyrus the Great — and, therefore, should not be persecuted. Then he issued hundreds of Iranian passports to non-Iranian Jews and saved their lives.

Ahmed Somia, the Tunisian co-director of the French Muslim Hospital outside Paris, organized weapon caches, facilitated Resistance radio transmissions, treated wounded Resistance fighters, and helped save many downed U.S. and British pilots by hiding them in fake T.B. wards where Gestapo and French gendarmes feared to go.

Khan was posthumously decorated with the highest British and French civilian and military honors, but so were other Muslims, including standout heroes among the 2.5 million British Indian troops fighting Axis forces around the globe. In this largest volunteer army in recorded history, Muslims (roughly one-third of the force) played prominent roles. 

In a letter to President Roosevelt during the war, Churchill pointed out that Muslim soldiers were providing “the main army elements on which we [the British] must rely for the immediate fighting.” 

In 1944-45, the French Army of Africa, joined to de Gaulle’s Free French Forces, was expanded to 260,000 men, of whom 50 percent were North African, the great majority being Muslim, while another substantial group were Senegalese Muslim riflemen. These forces invaded Italy and helped liberate southern France.

 Eastern Europe offered more examples: 

In the Balkans, for instance, only 200 Jews lived in Albania before WWII. Yet by war’s end, almost 2,000 Jews lived in the country, because so many had fled Greece, Austria and other locations in Europe to take shelter there among the predominantly Muslim population, which hid and protected them.

As Cole wrote elsewhere, commemorating the 70th anniversary of D-Day: 

“While a few Muslims did support the Axis, out of resentment of Western colonialism and hopes that the rise of an alternative power center would aid their quest for independence, they were tiny in their numbers compared to the Muslims who not just supported the Allies… but actively fought on their behalf.”

By Michael Wolfe

Arab Rescue Efforts During The Holocaust

Si Ali Sakkat

During his career Si Ali Sakkat held positions of a government minister and mayor of Tunis. By 1940 Si Ali Sakkat was enjoying retirement on his farm at the base of Jebel Zaghouan. There was a forced labor camp for the Jews not far away from Sakkat's farm. Jews from the camp were put to work repairing an airfield, which was regularly bombed by Allies. Arabs saw how Germans who ran the camp beat Jews on a regular basis. One night, during an especially heavy battle, sixty Jewish laborers were able to escape. The first structure they encountered was the wall of Sakkat's farm. They knocked on the gate, and were allowed shelter and food. They were also allowed to stay until the liberation of Tunisia by Allied forces.

Khaled Abdul-Wahab

Main article: Khaled Abdul-Wahab

Abdul-Wahab was a son of a well-known Tunisian historian. He was 32 years old when the Germans occupied Tunisia. He was an interlocutor between the Nazis and the population of the coastal town of Mahdia. When he overheard German officers planning to rape a local Jewish woman, Odette Boukhris, he hid the woman and her family, along with about two dozen more Jewish families, at his farm outside of town. The families stayed there for four months, until the occupation ended. Abdul-Wahab is sometimes called the Arab Oskar Schindler. In 2009 two trees were dedicated to honor his bravery. One tree was planted in Adas Israel Garden of the Righteous in Washington, D.C., the other was planted in the Garden of the Righteous Worldwide. His daughter Faiza attended the ceremony in Milan.

Shaykh Taieb el-Okbi

Taieb el-Okbi was a member of Algerian Islah (Reform) Party, and a friend of the prominent Algerian reformist Abdelhamid Ben Badis, who was tolerant to different religions and cultures. Ben Badis founded and directed the Algerian League of Muslims and Jews. He died before Vichy forces occupied Algeria, but Taieb el-Okbi took his place. Taieb el-Okbi discovered that the leaders of the pro-fascist group the Légion Français des Combattants were planning a Jewish pogrom. He did everything he could to prevent it and ordered Muslims not to attack Jews. His actions were compared to French archbishops Jules-Géraud Saliège and Pierre-Marie Gerlier, both of whom saved some Jews in France.

Muslim Rescue Efforts In Europe

Refik Veseli

Most of the 2,000 Jews of Albania were sheltered by the mostly Muslim population. Refik Veseli, a 17 year old Muslim boy, took in the family of Mosa and Gabriela Mandil, including their five year old son Gavra and his sister Irena, then refugees from Belgrade but originally from Novi Sad, for whom he had been working as an apprentice in their Tirana photographic shop. When the Germans took over from the Italians, he took them, and another Jewish family by night on long journey to his family village at Kruja, where they were protected by his parents for the war's duration, some 9 months later, even against Enver Hoxha's partisans. His example inspired his whole village to risk their lives in order to protect Jews. On receiving Gavra Mandil's request for them to be recognized as righteous, the authorities of Yad Vashem inscribed both Refka and Drita Veseli in 1988 among the Righteous. The story became better know after Albania's surviving Jewish community was allowed to perform aliyah in the 1990s, and many survivors told how their Albanian hosts vied for the privilege of offering sanctuary, on the grounds that it was an Islamic ethical obligation. Since that date, a further 50 Albanians have been registered among the ranks of the Righteous.

Source: Wikipedia

“Les Hommes Libres” (“Free Men”)

An unlikely savior of Jews during the Nazi occupation of France: the rector of a Paris mosque.

Muslims, it seems, rescued Jews from the Nazis.

“Les Hommes Libres” (“Free Men”) is a tale of courage not found in French textbooks. 

According to the story, Si Kaddour Benghabrit, the founder and rector of the Grand Mosque of Paris, provided refuge and certificates of Muslim identity to a small number of Jews to allow them to evade arrest and deportation.

In the early 1940s France was home to a large population of North Africans, including thousands of Sephardic Jews. The Jews spoke Arabic and shared many of the same traditions and everyday habits as the Arabs. Neither Muslims nor Jews ate pork. Both Muslim and Jewish men were circumcised. Muslim and Jewish names were often similar.

The most graphic account was given by Albert Assouline, a North African Jew who escaped from a German prison camp. He claimed that: 

more than 1,700 resistance fighters — including Jews but also a lesser number of Muslims and Christians — found refuge in the mosque’s underground caverns, and that the rector provided many Jews with certificates of Muslim identity.

In his 2006 book, “Among the Righteous,” Robert Satloff, director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, uncovered stories of Arabs who saved Jews during the Holocaust, and included a chapter on the Grand Mosque. 

Dalil Boubakeur, the current rector, confirmed to him that: 

some Jews — up to 100 perhaps — were given Muslim identity papers by the mosque, without specifying a number. Mr. Boubakeur said individual Muslims brought Jews they knew to the mosque for help.

Mr. Boubakeur showed Mr. Satloff a copy of a typewritten 1940 Foreign Ministry document from the French Archives. It stated that:

the occupation authorities suspected mosque personnel of delivering false Muslim identity papers to Jews. “The imam was summoned, in a threatening manner, to put an end to all such practices,” the document said.

Mr. Satloff said in a telephone interview: “One has to separate the myth from the fact. The number of Jews protected by the mosque was probably in the dozens, not the hundreds. But it is a story that carries a powerful political message and deserves to be told.”

A 1991 television documentary “Une Résistance Oubliée: La Mosquée de Paris” (“A Forgotten Resistance: The Mosque of Paris”) by Derri Berkani , and a children’s book “The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Saved Jews During the Holocaust,” published in 2007, also explore the events.

Source: The New York Times

Albanian Muslims Rescued Jewish Lives From Nazis

In 1934, American Ambassador to Albania Herman Bernstein proclaimed, “There is no trace of any discrimination against Jews in Albania, because Albania happens to be one of the rare lands in Europe today where religious prejudice and hate do not exist, even though Albanians are divided into three faiths.” Indeed, as Jews across Europe were being massacred en masse as part of the Nazi final solution, one country in Europe didn’t have a negative Jewish growth rate and that country, Albania, had a Muslim majority.

Prior to WWII, only 200 Jews lived in Albania, yet by the end of the war, about 2,000 Jews lived within the country because so many Jews fled Greece, Austria, and other locations in Europe to take shelter there. Other Jews, such as Albert Einstein, used Albania in order to pass on to other countries. Immigration officials in Albania permitted Jews to enter even if they didn’t have the proper paperwork and when the Nazis took over, the local inhabitants protected the Jews who lived within their country, providing them with paperwork stating that the Jews were Albanian Muslims. As a result, the Jews who fled to Albania were spared the horrors that the rest of the Jews of Europe endured.

Indeed, the Albanian Muslims have an honor code known as besa, meaning to keep the promise, which mandates hospitality and protection of guests as if they are members of ones own family. Because of this Albanian honor code, many of the Albanians who saved Jewish lives during the Holocaust often don’t feel that what they did was particularly extraordinary, for they assert that any one in their culture would do the same. Yet, the reality is that other peoples in Europe did not live by the besa code, thus preventing what happened in Albania from happening elsewhere. The Albanian Muslims truly live by the Quranic principle, which is also cited in the Talmud, “If one saved a life, it would be as if he saved all humanity.”

Yet, Albanian Muslims living within Albania were not the only Albanians to help save Jewish lives. Dervis and Servet Korkut, who were Albanian Muslims that hid the Sarajevo Hagaddah from the Nazis, also saved the life of Mira Papos. When Mira’s parents were murdered by the Nazis, Mira escaped to the forests and joined the partisans. After the partisans suffered some horrendous defeats, they ordered Mira and the other young children to return to Sarajevo, which Mira viewed to be a death sentence. However, she also understood that remaining in the forests without assistance would also lead to death.

So, when she returned to Sarajevo, she met someone who worked with her father and begged him for help. He brought her to Dervis Korkut, who immediately took her into his home. Even though Nazis lived nearby, no one suspected them because they dressed Mira in traditional Muslim clothes, gave her a Muslim name, and told people that she was hired to take care of their baby. She was instructed not to speak to people outside the family, so she wouldn’t be detected as non-Albanian. Thanks to them, she survived the war. The Korkut family lived by the besa code and thus took it upon themselves to save Mira, in addition to one of the oldest Hagaddah prayer books in Europe. This demonstrates the marvelous ethics demonstrated by the Albanian people.

To watch a documentary on Albanians saving Jews during the Holocaust, see below!

Source: United With Israel

The "Righteous Muslim" Exhibition

The Righteous Muslim Exhibition, launched at the Board of Deputies of British Jews in Bloomsbury, will feature photographs of 70 Muslims who hid Jews from the Nazis, alongside their stories and detailing their acts of heroism.

These 70 Muslims were recently added to Yad Vashem's list of "righteous among the nations" detailing those who risked their lives to protect Jews.

Among those listed in the Righteous Among the Nations are Muslims from Albania, Bosnia and Turkey.

Source: The Jerusalem Post

The Changing Face Of Germany

The Story Of A Muslim Convert

Islam is the fastest-growing religion in the world. All across the globe different individuals from different cultures and backgrounds are embracing Islam. Many are from Western countries. Each new convert has a story, a journey and a reason. And each has experienced significant changes in their lives. Many describe the experience as being born anew and some simply can’t find the words to explain. 

Isabelle Wachter is amongst the many Muslim converts in Europe. She is a German lawyer and mother of three. In this documentary she will share her story of converting to Islam and her new life as a Muslim woman in the German society.

Lehi Terror Wartime Contacts With Germany & Italy

German cover letter from 11 January 1941 attached to a description of an offer for an alliance with Nazi Germany attributed to Lehi.

In mid-1940, Stern became convinced that the Italians were interested in the establishment of a fascist Jewish state in Palestine.^[4] He conducted negotiations, he thought, with the Italians via an intermediary Moshe Rotstein, and drew up a document that became known as the "Jerusalem Agreement". In exchange for Italy's recognition of, and aid in obtaining, Jewish sovereignty over Palestine, Stern promised that Zionism would come under the aegis of Italian fascism, with Haifa as its base, and the Old City of Jerusalem under Vatican control, except for the Jewish quarter. In Heller's words, Stern's proposal would "turn the 'Kingdom of Israel' into a satellite of the Axis powers."

However, the "intermediary" Rotstein was in fact an agent of the Irgun, conducting a sting operation under the direction of the Irgun intelligence leader in Haifa, Israel Pritzker, in cooperation with the British. Secret British documents about the affair were uncovered by historian Eldad Harouvi (now director of the Palmach Archives) and confirmed by former Irgun intelligence officer Yitzhak Berman.^]When Rotstein's role later became clear, Lehi sentenced him to death and assigned Yaacov Eliav to kill him, but the assassination never took place. However, Pritzker was killed by Lehi in 1943.

Late in 1940, Lehi, having identified a common interest between the intentions of the new German order and Jewish national aspirations, proposed forming an alliance in World War II with Nazi Germany. It offered assistance in transferring the Jews of Europe to Palestine, in return for Germany's help in expelling Britain from Mandatory Palestine. Late in 1940, Lehi representative Naftali Lubenchik went to Beirut to meet German official Werner Otto von Hentig (who also was involved with the Haavara or Transfer Agreement, which had been transferring German Jews and their funds to Palestine since 1933). Lubenchik told von Hentig that Lehi had not yet revealed its full power and that they were capable of organizing a whole range of anti-British operations.

On the assumption that the destruction of Britain was the Germans' top objective, the organization offered cooperation in the following terms. Lehi would support sabotage and espionage operations in the Middle East and in eastern Europe anywhere where they had cells. Germany would recognize an independent Jewish state in Palestine/Eretz Israel, and all Jews leaving their homes in Europe, by their own will or because of government injunctions, could enter Palestine with no restriction of numbers.

Stern also proposed recruiting some 40,000 Jews from occupied Europe to invade Palestine with German support to oust the British. On 11 January 1941, Vice Admiral Ralf von der Marwitz, the German Naval attaché in Turkey, filed a report (the "Ankara document") conveying an offer by Lehi to "actively take part in the war on Germany's side" in return for German support for "the establishment of the historic Jewish state on a national and totalitarian basis, bound by a treaty with the German Reich."

According to Yellin-Mor,

Lubebtchik did not take along any written memorandum for the German representatives. Had there been a need for one, he would have formulated it on the spot, since he was familiar with the episode of the Italian "intermediary" and with the numerous drafts connected with it. Apparently one of von Hentig's secretaries noted down the essence of the proposal in his own words.

According to Joseph Heller,

The memorandum arising from their connversation is an entirely authentic document, on which the stamp of the 'IZL in Israel' is clearly embossed.

Von der Marwitz delivered the offer, classified as secret, to the German Ambassador in Turkey and on 21 January 1941 it was sent to Berlin. There was never any response.

A second attempt to contact the Nazis was made at the end of 1941, but it was even less successful. The emissary Yellin-Mor was arrested in Syria before he could carry out his mission.

This proposed alliance with Nazi Germany cost Lehi and Stern much support. The Stern Gang also had links with, and support from, the Vichy France Sûreté's Lebanese offices.

Source: Wikipedia

Frankfurt: An American Military-Intel Metropolis

Espionage, Logistics, Attacks Orchestrated from the U.S. Consulate

It’s understandable that the guards standing outside the U.S. Consulate General in Frankfurt are a little nervous. The building used to house the U.S.’s largest military hospital. Now it looks more like a fortress with its high walls, barbwire, antitank barriers, security cameras and guards with machineguns. But is it really an offense to stand in front of the building here, on the sidewalk? Or, better put, does a dawdling passer-by really necessitate two police cars and American security officers? Really?

“What are you doing here?” one officer asks.

It’s no wonder they’re so nervous here. This consulate plays a supporting roll in the worldwide NSA spying scandal from here in Germany. This is where a unit of the Special Collection Service (SCS) is based. SCS is a joint NSA-CIA program allegedly responsible for tapping the German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s phone in Berlin. That information was made public through documents leaked by whistleblower Edward Snowden.

But the German government knew about the SCS agents operating in the American consulate in Frankfurt long before the Merkel phone scandal. If they didn’t it’d be hard to explain the helicopter that the Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz (BfV, Germany’s domestic security agency) sent to fly low over the consulate, taking high-resolution photos. They apparently wanted to find out whether there were any listening devices on the rooftop—like those suspected to be on the roof of the U.S. embassy in Berlin.

A Ministry of the Interior spokesperson says, “the BfV conducts air surveillance routinely, or as is necessary,” on “specific properties of certain foreign nations,” as part of its “counter-espionage” efforts. Loud and clear. ‘Counter-espionage’ leaves little to interpretation.

Camouflage of the Consulate

The use of the word ‘consulate’, on the other hand, might be a bit misleading in the case of the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt. ‘Consulate’ brings to mind gala receptions and visa paperwork. Not abductions or secret prison planning. And it definitely doesn’t bring to mind a camouflaged headquarters for CIA operations or an appropriate place for the Secret Service to have offices. But a few weeks ago we also never would’ve thought there was a listening station on the top of the embassy in Berlin.

The U.S. consulate in Frankfurt, with its 900 employees, is not only the largest in the world, but also acts as one of the largest foreign branches of the Virginia-based CIA.

Frankfurt is the U.S.’s German intelligence capitol. CIA agents, NSA spies, military intelligence officers and the Secret Service all work there. Within a 40 kilometer, or 24 mile radius the U.S. has built up a strong network of outposts and sham offices. But the center is, as far as we can tell, at the consulate.

Everything on lockdown and top secret? Not so much. Even the police around the consulate admit CIA officers work inside.

We’d love to ask the U.S. Consulate General about it and hear what they have to say.  But the consulate says there won’t been anyone there for the next few weeks with whom we could speak. A visit would not be possible either. Maybe because there’s even more to talk about than was given away by the NSA leaks.

Loading Dock for the ‘War on Terror’

To the right of the consulate entrance there’s another entryway guarded by watchmen. A sign on the door reads “Warehouse”. Every few minutes, delivery trucks drive up and the guards use mirrors to check for explosives on the underside of the automobiles. Then the drivers are allowed to continue. They’re directed to a large flat-roofed building where heavy deliveries sit and behind them, high-security containers wait for overseas shipment.

This is the largest American logistics center outside the U.S. From here the military, the CIA and other agencies supply their bases all over the world. This is where the journey begins for supplies headed to Afghanistan, Pakistan and probably Yemen and Somalia. Some are everyday objects, and some not-so-ordinary wares. Horse feed and saddles were bought in Frankfurt for the CIA’s special assignments in Afghanistan, according to one former head of the CIA in Germany. The Frankfurt Regional Support Terminal supplies whatever the ‘war on terror’ calls for. Even when it came to requests requiring some sensitivity. Such as when, after 9/11, the U.S. tried with all its might to bring the suspected masterminds of the attacks to justice. That was a task for the CIA in Frankfurt as well.

The long-time CIA agent Kyle Foggo, AKA “Dusty” was tasked with planning out three secret prison sites for the U.S. government. At these “black sites” the CIA interrogated many high-level terror suspects. Foggo orchestrated it all from Frankfurt, making sure all the interrogation chambers looked exactly the same, whether they were in Morocco or Poland; plywood walls, non-slip flooring and a plastic chair. Same appearance, same size. The prisoners were meant not to be able to figure out what country they were in—making it very difficult, later, to pin any human rights violations on the CIA. Only the utensils used in waterboarding (a long plank to which the victim is strapped, water bucket and a towel—to make sure the victim doesn’t really drown) did not come from Frankfurt. Those things were supplied locally. Foggo, who organized it all, was officially on the payroll at the U.S. consulate in Frankfurt at the time.

Military-Intel Metropolis

Frankfurt—more precisely, the greater Frankfurt area—plays a prominent role in the U.S. intelligence apparatus. Many key locations are here. For instance the mysterious Dagger Complex in Darmstadt, some 32 kilometers, or 20 miles south of Frankfurt. The military arm of the NSA’s spy troop is stationed here, isolated by a grove. The United States Army Intelligence and Security Command (INSCOM) and NSA officers of the European Cryptologic Center all work here as part of the “largest analysis and production location in Europe”, as it was put in one NSA report in 2011. Millions of pieces of data are filtered, sorted and—if necessary—decrypted and evaluated. Sometimes using the XKeyscore software made public by the NSA leaks.

From the outside, you can’t see the Dagger Complex compound. You can’t see what has been done with the millions of dollars invested here over the last few years. The most important part of the Dagger Complex is actually underground. From the so-called ICEbox American spies have monitored and intercepted communications since 2004, when they moved here from another base in southern Germany. Since then the Frankfurt area has become increasingly important for the U.S., even as public furor over the spying programs has grown. And the greater Frankfurt area will only become more important in the future.

Long after leaving the complex, the police are calling. Why are you looking around at the Dagger Complex? Research, we say. The policeman replies jokingly: There’s still an open cell in Guantanamo.

Soon the U.S. won’t need their German helpers in Darmstadt any more. The base is planned to be closed and the colleagues sent over to barracks in Wiesbaden, 30 kilometers, or 18 miles west of Frankfurt. There they’ll surely meet new colleagues from the NSA and INSCOM, as they’re headquartered there. It sounds like a place where you’d be able to get a closer look. But, we were told, a visit was not possible. Not so much as a phone interview.

One place you can get information is on the U.S. database of government contracts, which says $124 million was spent on the new intelligence analysis control center. Only U.S. companies with security clearance will be allowed to do construction there. It’s planned to be almost 12,000 square meters, almost 40,000 square feet and be occupied by some 1,500 “intelligence professionals” who will work in three shifts.

The most ‘American’ German State

The heart of the U.S. surveillance apparatus beats in the western-central German state of Hessen. Why here? Several reasons: the central positioning, the growing U.S. presence and the large international Frankfurt airport. Maybe also simply because Hessen has long been more ‘American’ than any other German state. Traditionally the lion’s share of U.S. soldiers in this country has been stationed here. This is where, in 1948, the air bridge to Berlin was orchestrated, and where, during the Cold War, 100,000 soldiers stood watch. This is where the reconnaissance flights over the USSR took off and later thousands of flights departed toward the Gulf War and even later, to Afghanistan.

Most U.S. military flights are now handled by the nearby Ramstein airbase. That’s where the Islamist Abu Omar was transferred after CIA agents abducted him in Milan. Omar was taken to Egypt where he disappeared into a torture cell for more than a year. Twenty-three U.S. agents were later convicted in absentia to long prison sentences in Italy—a symbolic victory for the rule of law. The U.S., of course, never allowed the agents to be extradited.

Parts of Omar’s abduction were planned in Frankfurt. The investigators followed the trail from a Frankfurt hotel, to an elusive trucking company at the airport, to the U.S. consulate.

All the trails—coming from and leading to U.S. intelligence agencies—converge here.

When two special agents detained an Estonian hacker and fraudster in the Frankfurt Airport—although it’s illegal for U.S. agents to do so in Germany—all roads led to Frankfurt.

The address printed on the business cards of the two agents read: U.S. Secret Service, Frankfurt Resident Office, 30 Giessener Street. The address of the U.S. consulate.

Dresden SunSet

Softly the evening came. The sun from the western horizon
Like a magician extended his golden wand o’er the landscape;
Twinkling vapors arose; and sky and water and forest
Seemed all on fire at the touch, and melted and mingled together.

Photo by: Matthias
Taken on: July 31, 2009
Location: Dresden, Saxony, Germany
Quote by: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,
Evangeline (pt. II, sec. II)
Quote provided by: CZ

They Thought They Were Free

An Excerpt From: "They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45"

But Then It Was Too Late

By Milton Mayer
Courtesy Of: The University Of Chicago Press

"What no one seemed to notice," said a colleague of mine, a philologist, "was the ever widening gap, after 1933, between the government and the people. Just think how very wide this gap was to begin with, here in Germany. And it became always wider. You know, it doesn’t make people close to their government to be told that this is a people’s government, a true democracy, or to be enrolled in civilian defense, or even to vote. All this has little, really nothing, to do with knowing one is governing.

"What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if the people could not understand it, it could not be released because of national security. And their sense of identification with Hitler, their trust in him, made it easier to widen this gap and reassured those who would otherwise have worried about it.

"This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter.

"You will understand me when I say that my Middle High German was my life. It was all I cared about. I was a scholar, a specialist. Then, suddenly, I was plunged into all the new activity, as the university was drawn into the new situation; meetings, conferences, interviews, ceremonies, and, above all, papers to be filled out, reports, bibliographies, lists, questionnaires. And on top of that were the demands in the community, the things in which one had to, was ‘expected to’ participate that had not been there or had not been important before. It was all rigmarole, of course, but it consumed all one’s energies, coming on top of the work one really wanted to do. You can see how easy it was, then, not to think about fundamental things. One had no time."

"Those," I said, "are the words of my friend the baker. ‘One had no time to think. There was so much going on.’"

"Your friend the baker was right," said my colleague. "The dictatorship, and the whole process of its coming into being, was above all diverting. It provided an excuse not to think for people who did not want to think anyway. I do not speak of your ‘little men,’ your baker and so on; I speak of my colleagues and myself, learned men, mind you. Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and ‘crises’ and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the ‘national enemies,’ without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us. Unconsciously, I suppose, we were grateful. Who wants to think?

"To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it—please try to believe me—unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, ‘regretted,’ that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these ‘little measures’ that no ‘patriotic German’ could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men? Frankly, I do not know. I do not see, even now. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice—‘Resist the beginnings’ and ‘Consider the end.’ But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men? Things might have. And everyone counts on that might.

"Your ‘little men,’ your Nazi friends, were not against National Socialism in principle. Men like me, who were, are the greater offenders, not because we knew better (that would be too much to say) but because we sensed better. Pastor Niemöller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing; and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something—but then it was too late."

"Yes," I said.

"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn’t see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don’t want to act, or even talk, alone; you don’t want to ‘go out of your way to make trouble.’ Why not?—Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.

"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, ‘everyone’ is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there would be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, ‘It’s not so bad’ or ‘You’re seeing things’ or ‘You’re an alarmist.’

"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can’t prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don’t know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. You are left with your close friends, who are, naturally, people who have always thought as you have.

"But your friends are fewer now. Some have drifted off somewhere or submerged themselves in their work. You no longer see as many as you did at meetings or gatherings. Informal groups become smaller; attendance drops off in little organizations, and the organizations themselves wither. Now, in small gatherings of your oldest friends, you feel that you are talking to yourselves, that you are isolated from the reality of things. This weakens your confidence still further and serves as a further deterrent to—to what? It is clearer all the time that, if you are going to do anything, you must make an occasion to do it, and then you are obviously a troublemaker. So you wait, and you wait.

"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That’s the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked—if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in ’43 had come immediately after the ‘German Firm’ stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in ’33. But of course this isn’t the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.

"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying ‘Jewish swine,’ collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in—your nation, your people—is not the world you were born in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God. The system itself could not have intended this in the beginning, but in order to sustain itself it was compelled to go all the way.

"You have gone almost all the way yourself. Life is a continuing process, a flow, not a succession of acts and events at all. It has flowed to a new level, carrying you with it, without any effort on your part. On this new level you live, you have been living more comfortably every day, with new morals, new principles. You have accepted things you would not have accepted five years ago, a year ago, things that your father, even in Germany, could not have imagined.

"Suddenly it all comes down, all at once. You see what you are, what you have done, or, more accurately, what you haven’t done (for that was all that was required of most of us: that we do nothing). You remember those early meetings of your department in the university when, if one had stood, others would have stood, perhaps, but no one stood. A small matter, a matter of hiring this man or that, and you hired this one rather than that. You remember everything now, and your heart breaks. Too late. You are compromised beyond repair.

"What then? You must then shoot yourself. A few did. Or ‘adjust’ your principles. Many tried, and some, I suppose, succeeded; not I, however. Or learn to live the rest of your life with your shame. This last is the nearest there is, under the circumstances, to heroism: shame. Many Germans became this poor kind of hero, many more, I think, than the world knows or cares to know."

I said nothing. I thought of nothing to say.

"I can tell you," my colleague went on, "of a man in Leipzig, a judge. He was not a Nazi, except nominally, but he certainly wasn’t an anti-Nazi. He was just—a judge. In ’42 or ’43, early ’43, I think it was, a Jew was tried before him in a case involving, but only incidentally, relations with an ‘Aryan’ woman. This was ‘race injury,’ something the Party was especially anxious to punish. In the case at bar, however, the judge had the power to convict the man of a ‘nonracial’ offense and send him to an ordinary prison for a very long term, thus saving him from Party ‘processing’ which would have meant concentration camp or, more probably, deportation and death. But the man was innocent of the ‘nonracial’ charge, in the judge’s opinion, and so, as an honorable judge, he acquitted him. Of course, the Party seized the Jew as soon as he left the courtroom."

"And the judge?"

"Yes, the judge. He could not get the case off his conscience—a case, mind you, in which he had acquitted an innocent man. He thought that he should have convicted him and saved him from the Party, but how could he have convicted an innocent man? The thing preyed on him more and more, and he had to talk about it, first to his family, then to his friends, and then to acquaintances. (That’s how I heard about it.) After the ’44 Putsch they arrested him. After that, I don’t know."

I said nothing.

"Once the war began," my colleague continued, "resistance, protest, criticism, complaint, all carried with them a multiplied likelihood of the greatest punishment. Mere lack of enthusiasm, or failure to show it in public, was ‘defeatism.’ You assumed that there were lists of those who would be ‘dealt with’ later, after the victory. Goebbels was very clever here, too. He continually promised a ‘victory orgy’ to ‘take care of’ those who thought that their ‘treasonable attitude’ had escaped notice. And he meant it; that was not just propaganda. And that was enough to put an end to all uncertainty.

"Once the war began, the government could do anything ‘necessary’ to win it; so it was with the ‘final solution of the Jewish problem,’ which the Nazis always talked about but never dared undertake, not even the Nazis, until war and its ‘necessities’ gave them the knowledge that they could get away with it. The people abroad who thought that war against Hitler would help the Jews were wrong. And the people in Germany who, once the war had begun, still thought of complaining, protesting, resisting, were betting on Germany’s losing the war. It was a long bet. Not many made it."

Copyright notice: Excerpt from pages 166-73 of They Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 by Milton Mayer, published by the University of Chicago Press. ©1955, 1966 by the University of Chicago. All rights reserved.

This text may be used and shared in accordance with the fair-use provisions of U.S. copyright law, and it may be archived and redistributed in electronic form, provided that this entire notice, including copyright information, is carried and provided that the University of Chicago Press is notified and no fee is charged for access. Archiving, redistribution, or republication of this text on other terms, in any medium, requires the consent of the University of Chicago Press. (Footnotes and other references included in the book may have been removed from this online version of the text.)

Milton MayerThey Thought They Were Free: The Germans, 1933-45 ©1955, 1966, 368 pagesPaper $19.00 ISBN: 0-226-51192-8

For information on purchasing the book—from bookstores or here online—please go to the webpage for They Thought They Were Free.

The Gold Is Gone - Germanys' Access To Its Gold Denied

Courtesy Of: Russia Today

The world is losing trust in the dollar as a safe haven. 

A major blow came after Germany's Bundesbank demanded the repatriation of a big chunk of its gold being held in the US. 

Because as RT's Gayane Chichakyan reports, some are concerned the assets of foreign nations in the Federal Reserve are not secure or even there. 

The Germans were infuriated when the US Federal reserve didn't even let them examine their own assets properly. 

Peter Boehringer, the founder and chairman of 'German Precious Metal Association', says that's a bad sign.

American WWII GIs Were Dangerous Sex-Crazed Rapists

The French Feared American GI's As Much As The Germans

• - Book 'debunks myth that the GI were manly and always behaved well'

• - By 1944 women in Normandy 'filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers'

• - Debauchery, lawlessness and institutional racism are chronicled in book

• - Penned by Mary Roberts, a history professor at the University of Wisconsin

• - Veterans Affairs rep says there is 'no way' to reprimand the U.S. soldiers

• - Comes just after Sexual Assault Prevention Month in the U.S., where the military is under fire for string of high-profile assault cases

• - Japanese politician also just claimed that American soldiers used their women as 'sex slaves' during WWII

By MAIL FOREIGN SERVICE

Swapping stockings for kisses and teaching girls how to jive, American GIs were meant to be a welcome ray of sunshine in war-torn Europe.

But a new book has revealed the dark side of Europe’s liberation after the Second World War. 

Professor Mary Louise Roberts, from the University of Wisconsin, said within months of D-Day ordinary French women came to fear their American ‘liberators’.

American soldiers seen here (who are not related to the book's content) disembarking from Coast Guard landing craft at the shores of Normandy. In an explosive book, Roberts claims that some soldiers terrified French citizens

The professor said previous historical research on the subject paid little attention to this 'dark side' of Europe's liberation. The people in this picture are not related to the book's content

She tells how, by the summer of 1944, large numbers of women in Normandy filed complaints about rapes by US soldiers.

And their arrival prompted a wave of crime all over France, with American soldiers caught committing robberies and petty thefts. 

Professor Roberts said: ‘My book seeks to debunk an old myth about the GI, thought of as a manly creature that always behaved well. The GIs were having sex anywhere and everywhere.

‘In the cities of Le Havre and Cherbourg, bad behaviour was common. 

‘Women, including those who were married, were openly solicited for sex. Parks, bombed-out buildings, cemeteries and railway tracks were carnal venues.

‘People could not go out for a walk without seeing somebody having sex.

‘But the sex was not always consensual, with hundreds of cases of rape being reported.’ 

The locals of Le Havre were shocked by the soldiers’ behaviour and wrote letters of protest to their mayor.

Mary Louise Roberts on rape, race and the American GI

One complaint, from October 1945, said: ‘We are attacked, robbed, run over both on the street and in our houses. 

ONGOING PROBLEM: SEXUAL ASSAULTS IN THE MILITARY

The book, which was released in June, focuses specifically on the soldiers of World War II and their interaction with the French people, but problems of sexual assault in the military persist to today, though now the victims are those in uniform as well. 

The Pentagon is reeling from a series of sex-related scandals in recent weeks, including cases in which military advocates for victims of sexual assault were themselves accused of sex crimes.

Figures from the Department of Defense show a 37 per cent increase in reports of unwanted sexual contact, from groping to rape, last year. About 26,000 cases were reported in 2012. 

'Sexual harassment and sexual assault in the military are a profound betrayal - a profound betrayal - of sacred oaths and sacred trusts,' Mr Hagel said. 'This scourge must be stamped out.'

His comments came a day after President Barack Obama delivered a similar message to graduates at the U.S. Naval Academy in Maryland, saying sexual assault threatened to erode trust and discipline in America's armed forces.

‘This is a regime of terror, imposed by bandits in uniform.’

Le Havre’s mayor, Pierre Voisin, complained to Colonel Thomas Weed – the commander of US troops in the region.

‘Scenes contrary to decency are unfolding in this city day and night,’ Voisin wrote, adding it was ‘not only scandalous but intolerable’ that ‘youthful eyes are exposed to such public spectacles’. 

The mayor suggested the Americans set up a brothel outside the city to avoid public outrage and contain the spread of sexually transmitted diseases. However although US officers publicly denounced the behaviour they did little to curtail it. 

The book also claims the US army ‘demonstrated a deep and abiding racism’, suggesting they pinned a disproportionate number of rapes on black GIs. 

Documents show that of 152 troops disciplined by the army for rape, 130 were black.

Professor Roberts said: ‘American propaganda did not sell the war to soldiers as a struggle for freedom but as a sexual adventure.’

She points out that The Stars and Stripes, the official newspaper of the US armed forces, taught soldiers German phrases like ‘waffen niederlegen’ meaning ‘throw down your arms’.

However the French phrases it recommended to soldiers included ‘you have charming eyes,’ ‘I am not married’ and ‘are your parents at home?’ US magazine Life even fantasised that France was ‘a tremendous brothel’ inhabited by ‘40,000,000 hedonists, who spend all their time eating, drinking and making love’.

A cafe owner from Le Havre said at the time: ‘We expected friends who would not make us ashamed of our defeat. Instead, there came only incomprehension, arrogance, incredibly bad manners and the swagger of conquerors.’

The author claims that when the first soldiers swarmed ashore at Omaha Beach in Normandy (pictured) on D-Day, it was 'a veritable tsunami of male lust'

Controversial: Mary Louise Roberts wrote the book to uncover the reality about some GI soldiers

WIDESPREAD PROBLEM: JAPANESE MAYOR CLAIMS AMERICAN SOLDIERS USED WOMEN IN JAPAN AS 'SEX SLAVES' DURING WWII

Controversial: Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto said that soldiers used 'comfort women' as ways to release tension during WWII

The book comes just one day after a Japanese politician sparked an international row after claiming the use of sex slaves during WWII was justified has tried to shift the blame by accusing other country's of using the same practice. 

Osaka Mayor Toru Hashimoto, co-leader of an emerging nationalist party, argued Japan's wartime practice of forcing Asian women into prostitution was necessary to maintain military discipline and provide relaxation for soldiers.

But following the public outcry over his comments, the mayor has attempted to deflect criticism by accusing America and Britain of using sex slaves for its own soldiers.

He said: 'It is a hard truth that even these nations used local women for sexual reasons. This is a historical fact and there is hard evidence that proves it was true.'

Historians say up to 200,000 women, mainly from the Korean Peninsula and China, were forced to provide sex for Japanese soldiers in military brothels. While some other World War II armies had military brothels, Japan is the only country accused of such widespread, organized sexual slavery.