As per my usual, the majority of my reading consists of German history. For most European countries, Germany, as a unified state, is fairly young (their unification was accomplished in 1871 by the Prussian, Otto von Bismarck.), but their history is quite extraordinary (and does not always elicit positive memories). I came into this interest, at about the age of fourteen when I was studying about World War Two. There were two things about this period that stood out for me: 1) The internment of Japanese-Americans by the United States and 2) the Holocaust. The second event (I hate using that word, but can't feel any better about it by the thesaurus suggestions of 'appearance or happening,' which shows the complexity of the subject.) drew me in quickly and my focus on the US internment camps waned.
World War Two and the Third Reich are synonymous with the Holocaust when thinking of the European front. Most history covering this time period, dwell on the Jewish Holocaust and what "Germans" did under the Third Reich. I'm not one to just take history for granted and only take one portion of a history as a glossed over version of a national history. It is a very good thing (and the right thing) to forever remember what happened under Adolf Hitler, especially where the Jews are concerned. I'm a huge advocate for the works of Yad Vashem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Their organizations have been very effective in keeping the history current, arming future generations with the knowledge of the events that allowed Hitler to come to power and the repercussions of his twelve year reign.
That being said, as a sort of disclaimer, in all my studies, I have chosen to look beyond the obvious history surround the Third Reich, the endless biographies of Hitler and the well-researched history of the Holocaust itself that covers the Shoah (the specific Holocaust of the Jews, excluding the Roma, POWs, those with disablities, anti-Nazi activists, homosexuals, and Jehovah's Witnesses). The Jews were Hitler's priority and his hate was highly effective in permanently removing them from the 'Aryan State.' The Roma (or Romani; gypsies) have interested me a great deal. They are still considered an 'outsider' race in much of Europe.
More recently, my interests have turned to the Germans who lived during the times preceding the Third Reich and what various roles were taken during that time period as well. It can be a difficult undertaking at best. I have found very little in the way of research of German daily life. The image of Hitler is so overreaching, there seems to be little available in trying to understand or see how a German family lived. And that was, by far, more than Hitler ever dreamed his regime could accomplish; to not see individual life outside the precepts of Nazism. By the end of the war, knowledge of the atrocities that had been committed became known to the public (yes, even to the German public; there is a reason the extermination camps were not in Germany, but in Poland. The camps within Germany were concentration camps, being geared for political prisoners, POWs, and as stops along the way to the extermination camps like the Auschwitz compound, Belzec and Chelmno. The camps within Germany eventually saw many of the same atrocities as the death camps, but that was not their primary purpose.).
One thing I've found in scholarly research is that those who lived in Germany during this time period do not wish to remember that time (if you study this time period, the term 'collective guilt' crops up quite a bit). If it is discussed, it is in a cryptic, detached manner. Not all Germans were Nazis, not all Germans were guilty of committing the crimes, but many feel the guilt of association; the guilt of passive allegiance to the man that claimed to pull Germany back together as a nation after the devastation of the first world war and the Treaty of Versailles.
I find that I can get 'wordy' as I think about this time period. This post was not even supposed to be about this. It was to be a post on a fantastic book I just completed this morning. I guess I have another post in the future about this book, which is good. I probably need to think about it a little more before I get 'wordy.' I guess my blog title is appropriate in this case. I'm rambling.
