A little while ago the BBC ran a startling article about the "troubled descendents" of various Nazis. It is a heart-breaking description of the way that having a relative involved in the Nazi regime continues to affect people born long after the event. Bettina Göring's story in particular had me in tears: she and her brother had had themselves sterilised to bring the genetic line to an end. It wasn't their father who was Hermann Göring, but their great-uncle.
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| Katrin Himmler, Heinrich's Great Niece |
Similarly I remember years back reading Katrin Himmler's book "The Himmler Brothers". Her grandfather was Heinrich Himmler's younger brother. She herself was born in 1967 and married an Israeli. Her book is an incredibly admirable, honest work, but you can't help seeing the weight of personal guilt and pain throughout.
Growing up Half German
I am half German and grew up there pretty much the first 12 years of my life (we had two years in Hong Kong in the middle). I love the fact I was brought up speaking German with my Mutti, and English with my father. I love the fact that I have two countries to call home: I go there a good ten times a year most years and feel as home in Hamburg or Munich as I do in London. My dual nation perspective allows me both an outsider's and an insider's view on the strengths and weaknesses of both countries.
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| Bonus: Get to dress up in Lederhosen! |
The BBC story did affect me though. I don't have any big hidden revelations about my family's role in the war. My Grandfather was excused military service until late, because he was an essential worker, an inspector on the Reichsbahn. He then fought as a private on the Russian Front in the last months of the war and spent 6 months in a Siberian prisoner of war camp. The family were ordinary, reasonably well off farmers miles from anywhere in provincial West Prussia (as far east of Berlin as the Dutch border is west). They were undoubtedly Nazi and loyal to the regime (I'd love you to read their story during the war if you are interested: this was my first ever blog, written after my Omi died.) They were just caught up in events as tens of millions of others were across Europe.
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| Kurt Hermann Wittulski, my Opa |
I do still remember my Omi telling me when I was about 11 that Hitler was a very bad man. When I asked why, she told me they had lost everything because of him - even as a child I remember thinking "not because he murdered all those Jews?" I try not to judge her, or other elderly members of my family. I grew up loving them dearly. I understand that times were very different, that their educational standards were poor, that they were "fed" hatred dressed up in the most perverse way by the regime. I know them as kind, basically good people. I have heard far worse racist utterings from English relatives than from them, and I admire their attempts to talk honestly about the period.
I suppose I know, most importantly, that if these attitudes have persisted that is the individual responsibility of the relative involved, not mine. I am linked to them by DNA, not in my opinions and outlook. I will try to challenge them on it gently, but I won't "own" the thought.
My Personal Guilt
On this point, we come back to Bettina Göring. It was a core philosophy of Nazi criminal theory that repeat offenders ("Berufsverbrecher") were congenitally predisposed to crime, because of their genes and "blood". Involuntary sterilisation was one way of "dealing" with them (this particularly applied to Gypsies). Whole families were punished after the failed Hitler assassination attempt of 20 July 1944 because of guilt through genetic association. There is a cruel irony that clearly on some level, these theories seem to have persisted for two siblings, so repulsed at the actions of their great-uncle, to have undergone voluntary sterilisation.
I first went to Israel when I was 18. I take groups of High School students to the concentration and death camps. I have visited 10 of them myself privately, or with groups I am leading. I do wonder whether this is motivated on some level by "guilt" at being half German. I can't really judge by sub-conscious, but a) don't think it is; and b) don't care if it is. I think that there is a massive lesson to be learned from these places, and it isn't an abstract one about something the Germans did 70 years ago. It is an enquiry into the nature of prejudice, tolerance and it is about learning about how to lead our lives today.
My British grandfather was born in 1880. He ran away from his home in the New Forest and lied about his age to join Queen Victoria's army. He served in the Boer War, in which 26,000 South African women and children perished in the new British invention, the "concentration camp". He rose to rank of Sergeant Major and spent over 15 years in India, before returning to fight against the Germans in the World War One trenches.
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| My grandfather Douglas, front row, centre left |
Some terrible events occurred during the British Empire. There were also good aspects: as with most historical questions there are many shades of grey and it is way too simplistic to be black or white about a long, complicated period that had so many aspects and so many effects. As regards the (undoubted many) crimes, do I feel personal guilt about my Grandfather's involvement in this? Truly I don't. I am me: I am responsible for my views and my behaviour, not for those of someone who died in 1954 long before I was born.
When I was in South Africa I did go out of my way to visit Mafeking, but I did the same thing at Vicksburg, yet have have absolutely no connection with the American Civil War. I'm just interested in history. Mafeking did have a slightly difference resonance, because I knew my Grandfather had been there, but that is the extent of it.
People and Governments
Given the above, it's no great surprise to hear that I really do not feel that Germans today should feel guilt at what happened from 1933-45 - even if they are related to the perpetrators. The same applies to the British for the crimes that occurred during our Empire, to the Americans for what they did to the Native American population, for Australians and their treatment of the Aboriginals, for Catholics regarding South America during the Inquisition etc, etc. Because the Third Reich was so off the scale terrible in the extent of its crimes, I know every thinking German will have been through this question much more deeply than any other nation, however.
This, however, is in my view a different question entirely how a government deals today with episodes from its past. (West-) Germany has for the most part taken an extraordinary position of responsibility and openness regarding the Third Reich. Germany has a very special responsibility, as the country of the perpetrators, to teach, to learn, to using its resources as part of this, and to own up to the crimes committed by its former government. This is critically different to individuals sterilising themselves.
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| Munich's Main Synagogue. I just love this building right in the City Centre |
Jewish life is again flourishing across Germany: it has the world's fastest growing Jewish population and Munich's Jewish population is back to 1933 levels, for example. Every time I am there and see people attending the magnificent new main synagogue, I can't help feeling complete glee and thinking "the bastards didn't win". The fact that Jews feel safe and secure in bringing up their families in Germany, of all places, is down in no small part to government actions - the process of "Wiedergutmachung" (making good again). About that I think Germans in 2012, members of the society that are creating this atmosphere today, can actually feel real pride and achievement.
What Bettina Göring's story just brings home to me how desperately hard we can make lives for ourselves if we choose to. If we do not to "forgive" ourselves for an accident of birth, the sins of our fathers will continue to cause crushing pain. They really do not deserve this. Keep alive the memories and learn from them as societies: but do not make their legacy your personal present.
BBC Story: Nazi legacy: the troubled descendents
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