In the end it is not how much
they knew so much how thoroughly each and everyone was first intimidated and was
then often succumbing to the prevailing received mythology of the NAZIs.
It is why I cringe to watch the USA
It is so easy to slide down this
road and that may in fact be the ultimate price we pay for the war on drugs in
which a real percentage of the population is criminalized.
I have often heard the blithe
statement from folks who should know better, that ‘why did they not stop
Hitler?’ while forgetting the thousands who did oppose and where then
trampled. Communism is a classic
example. It fell only because it finally
seized up and left no choice but abandonment.
So long as a few true believers could be hoodwinked, it was possible to
intimidate everyone else. Or at least
for several generations as it turned out.
Today we have liberal democracies
under attack by small groups of Islamic Fascists. Ultimately they need to be crushed.
Importantly, this voice is capable of inoculating German society against such madness in a way other writers are unable to.
Diary shows Germans could have known of Nazi horrors
(Reuters) - The newly published diary of an indignant small-town
official in Nazi Germany has stirred the sensitive
debate over how much ordinary Germans knew of atrocities committed under
Hitler, creating a wave of interest at home and abroad.
The diary of Friedrich Kellner "'All Minds Blurred and Darkened'
Diaries 1939-1945" came to prominence thanks to the intervention of the
elder former U.S. President George Bush.
Filled with scathing commentaries on events, newspaper clippings and
records of private conversations, Kellner's 940-page chronicle gives an insight
into what information was available to ordinary Germans.
Kellner, a mid-ranking court official who was in his mid-50s when he
started writing, vents his anger at Hitler, hopes his country will be defeated
in the war and laments reports of mysterious deaths at mental homes and mass
shootings of Jews.
"These diaries ... represent a towering refutation of the
well-worn refrain of so many Germans after the war -- 'We knew nothing of the
Nazi horrors'," Elan Steinberg of the American Gathering of Holocaust
Survivors and their Descendants said.
Kellner was a Social Democrat who refused to join the Nazi party and
his perspective offers a unique view, say historians.
Born in 1885, Kellner was the son of a baker. He fought in World War
One and became a government employee in the district court at Laubach, a
western town largely sympathetic to Nazis.
"The decisive thing is that he is not an intellectual, he is an
ordinary employee sitting in the provinces who reads the newspapers. He is full
of anger about what is happening," said Sascha Feuchert, head of the
Research Unit for Holocaust Literature at Giessen University
"NAZI BEASTS"
One of the most chilling entries comes on October 28, 1941:
"A soldier on vacation here said he witnessed a terrible atrocity
in the occupied parts of Poland
"...There is no punishment that would be hard enough to be applied
to these Nazi beasts."
That an occurrence like this was the talk of the town as early as
October 1941 shows what information was available.
"Kellner realized there was more to be seen than was being shown.
That is some proof that it was not impossible, maybe not even so difficult to
see through things," said Feuchert.
Personal conversations, news reports and keen observation convinced
Kellner the Nazis were committing terrible crimes.
On September 16, 1942, he wrote: "In the last few days Jews from
our district have been removed. From here it was the families Strauss and
Heinemann. I heard from a reliable source that all Jews were taken to Poland
"This cruelty is terrible. Such outrages will never be wiped from
the history of humanity. Our murderous government has besmirched the name 'Germany
Kellner also wrote a great deal about
the crazed ambition of Hitler that would lead to defeat. Noticing a lack of
reports about German losses, he made his own calculations on the basis of death
notices and came up with a figure of 30,000 per month.
"That may not be the right figure, but the point is he realizes
the losses are extreme and he concludes that the war cannot be won. This is
very striking," said Feuchert.
DISGRACE
Kellner, realizing Germany was heading for turbulent times, set out to
record them. He read newspapers from the Voelkischer Beobachter, the Nazi party
mouthpiece, and Das Schwarze Korps, the SS newspaper, to local papers from all
over the country.
"The purpose of my record is to capture a picture of the current
mood in my surroundings so that a future generation is not tempted to construe
a 'great event' from it (a heroic time or something similar)," he wrote on
September 26, 1938.
"I fear very few decent people will remain after events have taken
their course and that the guilty will have no interest in seeing their disgrace
documented in writing."
Kellner, who never pretended to hold Nazi views, was under surveillance
and questioned by officials several times.
"My grandfather was determined, at great risk to his life, to
provide future generations with a weapon of truth against any resurgence of
Nazism and totalitarian impulses," Robert Martin Scott Kellner, Friedrich's
grandson and joint editor of the diary, told Reuters in an email exchange.
Documents show Kellner came close to being sent to a concentration camp
but was careful enough not to let the Nazis get hold of proof against him.
"If his diaries had been found it would have been over," said
Feuchert.
In 1940, one Nazi official wrote: "If we want to apprehend people
like Kellner we will have to lure them out of their corners and let them
incriminate themselves. The time is not ripe for an approach like the one used
with the Jews. This can only take place after the war."
PUBLICATION BATTLE
After the war, Kellner helped decide which local Nazi party members
should be barred from professions and public office. In the late 1960s he gave
the diaries to his grandson in the United States
"I had no idea it would take over four decades to fulfill my
promise. Publishers throughout the United States
and Germany
Eventually the chronicles caught the eye of Bush, who put them on
exhibition at his presidential library in Texas
That sparked interest in Germany
The appearance of the diaries, 15 years after a major controversy over U.S.
In the last few years, some focus has shifted to Germans' own
suffering, with documentaries and books on subjects from the Allies'
firebombing of Dresden and the rape of German women by Soviet troops to
expulsions of Germans from central Europe.
Kellner's diary features on Sueddeutsche Zeitung newspaper's
"recommended reading" list. The publishers, Wallstein, are on the
third print run, indicating unexpectedly strong demand with about 6,000 copies
sold and an English translation planned.
Der Spiegel weekly compared the diaries to those of Jewish academic
Victor Klemperer, whose account of the climate of hostility and fear in the
Nazi years is widely used in Germany
"These magnificently edited volumes ... belong in every German
library and if possible every book shelf -- next to the diaries of
Klemperer," wrote Der Spiegel.
(Reporting By Madeline Chambers; Editing by Peter
Graff)
By AARON HOWARD
• Thu, Sep 29, 2011
|
With the publication
of a wartime diary in
|
On the day the German army invaded Poland
Kellner pasted a newspaper clip in his diary about a German who initially was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime of listening to a foreign broadcast on his radio. A German judge overturned the initial sentence. Instead, the judge ordered the man to be executed. Kellner, who was a justice inspector in the small town of Laubach, wrote in astonishment and deep anger at this administration of Nazi “justice.”
Kellner pasted a newspaper clip in his diary about a German who initially was sentenced to 10 years in prison for the crime of listening to a foreign broadcast on his radio. A German judge overturned the initial sentence. Instead, the judge ordered the man to be executed. Kellner, who was a justice inspector in the small town of Laubach, wrote in astonishment and deep anger at this administration of Nazi “justice.”
Kellner continued to write throughout World War II. And, on the page of Oct. 28, 1941, Kellner wrote his first entry about the mass murder of Jews. The entry begins near the bottom of the page.
The diary expanded to 10 volumes with a total of 861 pages. It contained 676 individually dated entries from September 1939 to May 1945. More than 500 newspaper clippings are pasted on the pages of the diary.
On July 20, 2011, nearly 72 years after Kellner’s first journal entry, his complete diary was published in Germany under the title “Vernebelt, Verdunkelt Sind Alle Hime” (“All The Minds Are Clouded and Darkened”). The discovery, translation and publication of the diary have been the life mission of one man: Robert Scott Kellner, a resident of
“My grandfather belonged to the Social Democrats [SPD]. He had campaigned against the Nazis. When Hitler took over in January 1933, my grandfather had already moved to Laubach. He was the administrative manager of the regional district courthouse. He was considered a mid-level official in
Hitler banned all political parties and labor unions as soon as he took office as chancellor. The SPD leadership was arrested and thrown into improvised camps – then into concentration camps. Kellner’s grandfather, as a mid-level official, was able to keep his post because the Nazis needed experienced civil officials to run the government.
In 1938, Friedrich Kellner began to think of keeping a diary. But, he didn’t start writing until the day the German army pushed into
Kellner saw the diary as the sole place of light. He directed some of his diary entries to specific individuals in the Nazi government, as if he were shredding the propaganda that poured from Nazi newspapers and radio. He was determined to win his political battle.
Had his diary fallen into Nazi hands, he would have been killed. But,
Kellner was determined to have the last word.
“My grandfather was called up by the head of the Nazi Party in Laubach
in 1940. He was threatened, because he continued to speak out to his fellow
employees in the courthouse that the Nazis were wrong to start the war. He had
a very strong sense of right and wrong. He knew you couldn’t give into
political expediency. He saw what was happening to his fellow citizens,
especially the German Jews, and he showed his strong sense of justice,” said
Scott Kellner.
Ironically, Friedrich Kellner’s own son, Scott Kellner’s father, was caught up in the patriotic enthusiasm of the day. He fancied himself a Nazi. “That was a sad situation for my grandparents,” said Scott Kellner.
“My grandfather had no illusions about these diaries being published. It was something he felt he had to do. He was so busy in his work by day that he worked through much of night to get his entire diary written. He said he was going to write the diary for future generations, so that they would have a weapon to fight any resurgence of Nazism and anti-Semitism. He fervently believed the Nazis would lose the war, because he believed the democratic nations would not give up their liberties to such as Adolf Hitler. My grandfather couldn’t believe the cultured nation of
The publication of the diary has reignited the controversy in
After the war, most Germans claimed it was only the Nazi Party members who were involved in the killings. Most Germans claimed they didn’t know anything about the killings. But, as early as 1939, Kellner wrote in his diary from this small town – certainly not at the center of
In Oct. 28, 1941, Kellner wrote an entry following a discussion he had with a soldier home on leave. The soldier witnessed naked Jewish men and women being lined up before a ditch in
“I consider that the single most important diary entry, because it shows very clearly what the average citizen knew about the genocide,” said Scott Kellner.
Friedrich Kellner kept his diaries hidden in a hutch in the dining room throughout the war. After the war, instead of publishing the diaries, he continued to keep them hidden. The timing seemed wrong to make the diaries public, his grandson explained.
“My grandfather realized what he had written was not going to be well received in
“Second,
“My grandfather, even though he was angry at the Nazis, saw that many of them were dead or punished. Judge Schmidt, for example, his boss who tried to get him to join the Nazi Party, was sent to the Eastern Front. He was in a Russian POW camp and died there. My grandfather was appointed the deputy mayor of Laubach. He sat on the commissions that helped remove the leading Nazis from power in the local government. His larger task was to resurrect the Social Democratic party in his region. He became the chairman of the SDP and represented the region in the State Parliament [
So, the diaries remained tucked away in the kitchen hutch until 1960.
Robert Scott Kellner, then 19 years old and a member of the U.S. Navy, was in Frankfurt for 48 hours, en route to duty in
Kellner didn’t speak German. Although he knew that he had grandparents in
At Laubach’s edge, up a hill, Kellner approached a small white cottage. “You cannot imagine the inspiration I felt,” Kellner said. “It was obvious my grandparents had succeeded in leading a kind of life that led to this cottage.”
Kellner knocked and was received inside. His grandfather spoke a broken English, learned from his postwar work with the Allied Army. After introductions and an exchange of family photographs, Scott brought up the word “Nazi.” The elder Kellner didn’t say a word. He went into the dining room to the ornate antique hutch. He brought out 10 accounting ledger notebooks. Silently, he laid out all 10 volumes on a coffee table in the living room. Then, the elder Kellner pointed to the title on the first page of the diary: “Mein Widerstand” (“My Opposition” or “My Resistance”).
“When I saw that, I immediately knew,” said Scott. “I knew my mother had given me the false impression that her in-laws were Nazis. I knew it was a diary, but I couldn’t initially read anything. His [grandfather] made it clear that the diaries were for me. “Fur dich,” [“for you”] Friedrich told him.
When he returned to
In 1968, Scott returned to
Scott retired at age 58 in 1999. He then was able to work full time on getting the diaries translated, first from Suetterlin script (a stylized way of writing Old German) to modern Latin-lettering German and then into English. Slowly and by piecemeal, the complete diaries were translated over a total of 40 years.
“That’s a long time,” said Scott. “I did the translation, so it’s only a mediocre translation. I probably had a lot of hubris to think I could do it.”
Scott Kellner wanted to be certain the diary was published first in Germany, by Germans.
“Within the diary, my grandfather asked: How could a cultured nation and a cultured people trample democracy and give power to a madman,” said Kellner. “So, I felt the diary needed to be read in German by the German people.
“I was able to collaborate with some professors at the
“Grandfather would often write his entries, based on what was in the newspaper clippings. For example, in 1944, as the Soviet army pushed the German forces westward, the newspaper reported about how the German army was ‘restructuring the lines.’ My grandfather wrote that the word ‘retreat’ had been eliminated from the Nazi jargon.”
Critical reaction to the diary, since the July 20 publication, has been quite positive.
“At this stage,” said Kellner, “I feel I have completely succeeded in fulfilling the promise I made to my grandfather. The newspapers in
Diaries Reveal How Much Wartime Germans Knew
By Elke Schmitter
Newly published diaries by a Nazi-era court official document details
that others conveniently ignored. While many Germans would later claim they
knew nothing of Nazi crimes, Friedrich Kellner's critical observations
show that such information was available.
The penultimate year of the war began with a speech exhorting Germans
to persevere.
Italy was no longer Germany's ally, and the Soviet army was
approaching the borders of Poland, Hungary
and Romania France
Two very different men in the German Reich noted their thoughts about
Hitler's expression of religious sentiments in their diaries. The first,
Victor Klemperer, lived with his wife in a "Jew house" in Dresden
The second, Friedrich Kellner, lived with his wife in an official
apartment in a court building for the Hessian town of Laubach
The extensive diary written by Klemperer, a professor of Romance
Literature who had been fired from his job in Dresden, was published in 1995
under the title "Ich will Zeugnis ablegen bis zum letzten" ("I
Will Bear Witness 1942-1945: A Diary of the Nazi Years"). It is perhaps
the most important private document about the Nazis, because it offers an
extremely clear-sighted and detailed account of the 12 years of the
"Thousand-year Reich" from the perspective of someone who was
marginalized. The account details small annoyances and major crimes, daily
life and the development of Nazi propaganda.
This document now has a counterpart, the diaries of judicial inspector
Friedrich Kellner. The 900-page book begins in September 1938, told from the
perspective of a German citizen who was not a Nazi. It also reveals what
information Germans could have obtained about the Nazis if they had wanted to.
An Ordinary Family
Kellner, born in 1885, a few years later than Klemperer, was not a
privileged man. The son of a baker and a maid, he embarked on a judicial
career after graduating from the Oberrealschule, a higher vocational school.
At 22, Kellner completed his one year of compulsory military service as an
infantryman in the western city of Mainz
They were an ordinary, lower middle-class family, but they were also
politically active. He distributed flyers, gave speeches and recruited new
members for the Social Democratic Party (SPD). Kellner had read Hitler's
"Mein Kampf," and he took the book seriously, saying that it brought
shame to Gutenberg. After the 1932 elections, in which the Nazi Party became
the strongest faction in the parliament, the Reichstag, Kellner requested a
transfer from Mainz
"The purpose of my record," he began, on Sept. 26, 1938,
"is to capture a picture of the current mood in my surroundings, so that
a future generation is not tempted to construe a 'great event' from it (a
'heroic time' or the like)." In the same passage, on the same day,
Kellner revealed a bitter clear-sightedness, when he summed up German postwar
history in one sentence: "Those who wish to be acquainted with
contemporary society, with the souls of the 'good Germans,' should read what I
have written. But I fear that very few decent people will remain after events
have taken their course, and that the guilty will have no interest in seeing
their disgrace documented in writing."
Ten closely written volumes document the things Kellner experienced,
observed and, most of all, what he read and heard. He cut out speeches and
calls to action from newspapers and analyzed them, and he made notes about
ordinances and decrees. He contrasted the information provided by the
government with the facts, both in everyday life in Hesse
and at the distant front. He listened to foreign radio stations when he could.
But most of all, he analyzed the propaganda from a critical standpoint.
Commenting on the 1939 "Treaty of Friendship" with the Soviet Union,
he wrote: "We must resort to aligning ourselves with Russia Russia
Clippings as Evidence
Less than two years later, the warriors had returned, supposedly to
preempt an attack by the Soviet Union . On
June 22, 1941, Kellner wrote in his diary: "Once again, a country has
become a victim of the non-aggression pact with Germany
Using military news, obituaries of those who died ("for Germany 's greatness and freedom"),
caricatures, newspaper articles and conversations with ordinary people,
Kellner fashioned an image of Nazi Germany
Kellner's writings offer a glimpse into what everyone could have known
about the war of extermination in the East, the crimes against the Jews and
the acts of terror committed by the Nazi Party. He wrote about the executions
of "vermin" who made "defeatist" remarks, and about
"racial hygiene." In July 1941 he wrote: "The mental hospitals
have become murder centers." A family that had brought their son home
from an institution later inadvertently received a notice that their child had
died and that his ashes would soon be delivered. "The office had
forgotten to remove the name from the death list. As a result, the deliberate
killing was brought to light," he wrote.
]
Under Nazi Watch
By reading Kellner's diaries and recognizing what Germans could have
known, it's tempting to rethink how the expression "We knew nothing about
those things!" came into being. According to Kellner, people simply
ignored the information available to them out of both laziness and enthusiasm
for German war victories. When this denial of reality no longer worked, when
too much had been revealed about what the Nazis were doing in Germany's name,
there was no turning back for the majority of Germans. "'I did that,'
says my memory," Nietzsche wrote. "'I could not have done that,'
says my pride, and remains inexorable. Eventually, the memory yields."
Kellner himself wrote that "this pathetic German nation" had
been held hostage by the perpetrators. "Everyone is convinced that we
must triumph so that we are not completely lost." The Nazis themselves
warned the population against the revenge of the perpetrators. For most Germans,
the only conceivable end of the war was victory -- or total annihilation.
Kellner lived until 1970. Despite having been under surveillance by
the party and questioned several times, he escaped the concentration camps. In
a denunciation written in 1940, a Nazi official named Engst wrote: "If we
want to apprehend people like Kellner, we will have to lure them out of their
corners and allow them to make themselves guilty. The time is not ripe for an
approach like the one that was used with the Jews. This can only happen after
the war."
In the epilogue, the author's grandson describes how the publication
of Kellner's diaries came about. German publishers were not interested at
first. But then the diaries attracted attention when, in April 2005, SPIEGEL
reported that former US President George Bush had looked at Kellner's original
notebooks in the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M University.
Now that they have finally been published, the volumes are likely to
find a place next to the Klemperer diaries in German libraries and on private
bookshelves too.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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