During the Third Reich, Germany’s foreign ministry staff across Europe cooperated in the mass murder of Jews and others, according to a government-sponsored study released Thursday in Berlin.
The report says German diplomats during the Nazi era were far more deeply involved in the Holocaust than previously acknowledged. It also shows how West German diplomats after the war worked to whitewash history and create a myth of resistance and opposition to Nazi rule.
The report is a devastating indictment of Germany’s war-era diplomatic corps, that long cast itself as relatively “clean” of Nazi war crimes and tried to portray any wrongdoing as the result of a few bad actors.
I would like a link to the report itself, because I want a copy. And an English translation. Few scholars would be surprised by this. Most Germans would have known what was going on. Truth, however embarrassing, is the truth. And it appears that thye truth needs to hit us with a 2 x 4 block of wood.
I have no doubt the report is largely correct. At the same time, would anyone at all be surprised or shocked that people who felt themselves threatened because they cooperated with their government, which they knew was gravely dangerous to the safety of themselves, their family, and friends? BTW, my grandfather was part of the US legal team at Nuremburg, and I grew up with a complete bound set of the notes in a bookcase in my bedroom. I am also part-Jewish.
The same is also true of the universities. You often hear scholars sneer at how little the church did — while they totally ignore the fact that the universities feel into line with Hitler without a single murmur whereas 100s of priests, nuns and other christians were killed for their resistance.