Can guilt be collective?

World War II General WWII Discussion
#1

This thread follows on from claims in another thread that all members of the Heer bore responsibility for Nazi war crimes because, first, they facilitated the conquest of territory to allow those crimes to occur by others such as deportation to the death camps and, second, the Heer committed its own war crimes.

I think that collective guilt is about as illogical as guilt by association.

I think also that there are degrees of moral and criminal responsibility, from nought to complete, determined by the alleged offender’s degree of involvement in whatever crime is alleged.

For example, the Heer in France were generally scrupulous in their behaviour as an occupying force. Why should a member of that force be tainted by something another soldier did in the East?

If one accepts that the occupying Heer in France generally behaved well (and much better than some of the rear area Americans after D Day), then it is illogical to say that “the Heer” were consistently guilty of war crimes because some of its members or units did so elsewhere.

The accurate statement would be that some German soldiers and units in the Heer were involved in war crimes, while others weren’t. The same could be said of every army, in varying degrees.

It’s not like, for example, that some Americans in the rear areas in Normandy in 1944 or Okinawa in 1945 weren’t engaged in numerous rapes of civilian women, never mind the countless routine murders by Americans of Japanese troops on Okinawa. Does that make all American soldiers war criminals?

If facilitating the Nazi thrust eastwards, with all its horrors, brands every member of the Heer as a war criminal, then why is not the same condemnation directed to Ford and General Motors, and especially the latter without which Hitler would not have made his first move east?

The importance of the American automakers went beyond making trucks for the German army. The Schneider report, now available to researchers at the National Archives, states that American Ford agreed to a complicated barter deal that gave the Reich increased access to large quantities of strategic raw materials, notably rubber. Author Snell says that Nazi armaments chief Albert Speer told him in 1977 that Hitler “would never have considered invading Poland” without synthetic fuel technology provided by General Motors.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm

So, why isn’t the same responsibility for conquering parts East and all the horrors which occurred there sheeted home to the GM and Ford workers who made it possible?

After all, they contributed more to the Nazi conquest of the East lands than did the Heer, for without the GM and Ford workers it would not have been possible.

My point is that sweeping accusations of collective guilt rarely stand up to informed and fair analysis but, if one wants to apply that absolute standard, then it will usually catch rather more people than the ‘baddies’ supposedly solely responsible for the wrongful act and, in WWII, often display the hypocrisy of powerful men and interests on the Allied side.

#2

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I was not a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out.

#3

There are three, among many, things to draw from these lines and their author, former WWI U Boat commander and later Lutheran pastor Martin Niemoller.

First, his lines are about individual, not collective, responsibility. Although it bears upon the collective responsibility of individuals who fail to resist what is later determined to be a bad idea, Niemoller focused purely upon the need for individual moral courage in his lines.

Second, before he was imprisoned by the Nazis, Niemoller supported them and was an anti-Semite. He was not then an example of any virtue supporting the defence of the grand values expressed in his lines.

Third, his later life shows that redemption is possible.

So, do we judge him on his early or later life, the pro-Nazi anti-Semite of the late 1930s or the reformed man of later years?

This assumes, of course, that one thinks that renouncing Nazism and anti-Semitism amount to reformation.

#4

Oooh, mkenny’s gonna tear this thread up :D…

I actually once read somewhere that the typewriters used in the concentration camps were produced by IBM…

And Niemoellers poem could be summed up to what Edmund Burke had said almost two centuries earlier.

All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing

But does that make the good men evil?

#5

What can I say… I generaly agree!

One thing that I whould nontheless mention is that each man is an individuum, but yet is a part of a group.
So even if one may not be directly responsible for a misdeeds, he still could bear burden of responsibility of the whole group, though not in the juridical sense.
Realisation that one is actually indierctly resposible for tragedies thousands of miles aways, tragedies thta are not seemingly related to one, is an important step one’s spiritual growth.

#6

To which side of the argument?:wink:

I’m still having trouble deciphering parts of your Signature - is it supposed to be all the high Nazis blaming Hitler, who blames the devil, or all the Germans shifting the blame up to the next higher level?

#7

Both.

#8

Both. There is no definitive answer, IMO.

I’m still having trouble deciphering parts of your Signature - is it supposed to be all the high Nazis blaming Hitler, who blames the devil, or all the Germans shifting the blame up to the next higher level?

This question you would have to address to a Danish news paper which printed this drawing in 1945.

#9

I don’t like the idea of collective guilt because this leads to collective punishment, both of which have definitions that vary wildly from simple shaming and on up to summary executions…

Although, I am aware of an instance early on in the War where an SS lieutenant refused to “follow orders” that tasked him to execute Polish civilians in reprisal killings. He was warned, refused further, and sent back to Germany in custody for a courts martial and potentially execution. The thing is, the German military legal authorities pointed out that he was correct, and his orders were in fact illegal under the Geneva Conventions, and that trying him would open up several legal unpleasantries; such as the Hitler Regime and the Nazi party were essentially institutions of a “lawless state” and flouted all legal precedent and written German law they hadn’t thought to change yet…

#10

Is always going to be a incommodious question, and most times - a passion inflamming one too. As a white South African having fought in the armed forces against what we believed was communism, I think I know just how difficult this question is to answer both as an individual and also as part of a collective. I think the problem is always going to be - how open minded are the individuals on either side of the argument? Can one place themselves in the others shoes and look at the question from a perspective 180 degrees opposed to their own.

I believe collective anything is far too assuming, it’s another word for generalisation which is unfair by it’s very definition. It’s this “generalisation” which leads to many conflicts in the first place.

In the case of the German soldier during WWII, I strongly believe that there were a huge percentage of soldiers who knew, agreed and actively perpetuated the Nazi ideals - and they were called Nazis. You also had soldiers that knew and agreed with some of the Nazi ideals but perhaps did not actively perpetuate all of them - these were called Nazi sympathisers. Then you had the soldier who knew what the Nazis were about but did not agree or perpetuate all their ideals - these were called aiders and abettors. Then you had the vast majority of German soldiers who truely felt that they were fighting for their way of life against a cruel and restrictive penance which the Versailles agreement was. We today, can only imagine the hardships of post WWI Germany.

So to simply tarnish all German soldiers as Nazis, really is non-sensical. All humans are capable of horror just as we are all capable of tenderness and kindness - the deciding factors are our human character with which we are born, our developing influences as we mature and lastly our re-action to people and situations which impact on our well being.

So regardless if you were an American, Japanese or German soldier then, or an Iraqi, Afghan or British soldier today, how you behave depends on you and what your life experiences have taught you.

So as I climb down off the soap box (vacating for someone else) :rolleyes: I disagree totally with collective guilt and punishment.

Geoff

#11

Yes, and ‘collective’ punishment has a disturbing tendency to be quite random in its application.

I doubt that every civilian incinerated in, for example, Dresden and Hamburg was a rabid Nazi. The young children certainly weren’t.

#12

Very well said.

It’s a pity that people in armed services can’t see these things so clearly at the time they’re doing their government’s bidding, yet two or three decades after the war members of armed services on both sides often meet their enemies and discuss the past with them cordially, and with a shared understanding that the politicians and interests who sent them to war cannot understand because they never put their nuts in the vice. It’s an even greater pity that the servicemen who died in the conflict couldn’t be there to participate in their comrades’ cordiality and understanding that was lacking on the battlefield.

Yet, at the time, most of us are victims of our government’s propaganda and the social coercion it promotes.

I am now shamed by my smug hostility towards various Australian anti-war and anti-conscription groups during the Vietnam war. They saw with a clarity I and most of the rest of the population lacked at the time that it was a bad war we should not have been involved in. That doesn’t alter my respect for our soldiers who served in that conflict, nor my contempt for successive governments for the disgraceful way they treated them after they had served.

The primary, perhaps only, guilt for these things resides with the governments who whip up their populations to fight wars which rarely have much to do with the real issues concerning the governments and the corporations and people of influence they really represent. As usual, it’s just the bloody government screwing the population again.

I don’t know that there is really that much difference between a German soldier imbued with Nazi or just patriotic German ideology and an American one imbued with American democratic ideology, when each was really fighting largely to advance the interests of the institutions of capital which stood behind their respective governments.

#13

Sad true, but our politics like to manipulate the mass opinion about Evil Nations, doesn’t they?
Our politica correct Television try to say about Dictators and Tirans, but people have a tend to blame …the nations.
Remember , just recently , one very reasonable president inspired us agains the “new Axis of Evil”-N. Korea and Iran:)
That sad fact imply the …Collective gult.
SO indeed the Collective guilt is the very convenient mehtod of our OWN politicans to rise an “Patriotism” or Ksenophobia among their OWN peoples.
It’s still very profitable and … works well.

#14

Welcome to the forum Saffer, I hope you have a jol here.
I agree with both yourself & RS* that generalisations and collective guilt are both inaccurate and unfair which is why I tend to avoid such.

However, and normally on a smaller scale, collective punishment can be both useful and beneficial.

eg. If school children kick up a fuss while the teacher is out of the room they may well have some privileges removed until their behaviour improves.
Such an immediate reaction by the teacher avoids the pointless ‘he said, she said’ routine and the children learn both self-discipline and that the world just isn’t fair.

Similarly it can be used as a means of forging a team, I’m sure you may remember something along these lines:
“Sien jy daardie boom ? Is jy al terug ?” :wink:
One troep stuffs up, you all stuff up. Help each other and you won’t get 'n rondvok.
It’s a cheap, cheerful and quick learning curve.

But on a larger scale where the miscreants in most cases make up a smaller percentage of the total it can rapidly have the opposite effect from that intended.

#15

Yes, punishing all members of a small group like a section can encourage them to encourage the miscreant to improve his behaviour because everyone knows who’s at fault, but doing it (and for the purposes of argument let’s treat these as punishment exercises intended to alter behaviour, such as encouraging surrender) at larger levels such as bombing Coventry or London or Hamburg or Dresden (the latter two of which were on a vastly different scale of ‘punishment’) are useless because there is no identifiable miscreant and because the experience reinforced rather than reduced resolve against the enemy.

#16

Very well said, Saffer, great to have you here!

You brought up some great points, and there is really only one thing I could possibly add, and even that is only (relatively) minor:

The Omni-present propaganda most likely assured that many people -especially the working class - didn’t really doubt their nations intentions. Otherwise people like Goebbels and his Allied counter-parts hadn’t done their job right.

#17

…are useless because there is no identifiable miscreant and because the experience reinforced rather than reduced resolve against the enemy.[/QUOTE]

Too true mate, too true.

“Sien jy daardie boom ? Is jy al terug ?”
Hey CUTS that would have been “is julle terug”:lol: —collective remember:army:

Geoff

#18

I imagine that no matter how much an individual German soldier hated Hitler, he had thought the die was cast, and wasn’t fighting for Nazism, but was fighting for his family and against being overrun by the angry hordes from the East. Army Group Center of the Ostheer would be a prime example of this…

I saw an interview once with a former SS NCO that fought in Normandy. I think he was asked something to the effect "did you feel bad about fighting and killing the Americans as opposed to the Soviets? He replied, “No! Many of us had lost family members to bombing back home!”

#19

Too true mate, too true.

“Sien jy daardie boom ? Is jy al terug ?”
Hey CUTS that would have been “is julle terug”:lol: —collective remember:army:

Geoff[/QUOTE]

Ag man, dis net fokken grammatika vir Boere ! :wink:

#20

Hi,

Just can’t let it be to follow up on this old tread, started with an excellent post by RS.

First I would like to say that I am generally against the existence general guilt in a juridical sence, but there is a need to use it by historians in post historian analyzes.

Until the mid seventies, war crimes and Holocaust was subject of minor concern to popular historians, and in documentaries etc. The American TV Series Holocaust brought and end to that, and started for the first time, a public debate in Europe. This debate as well as the contribution by Historians, lead to a feeling of collective guilt in Germany, a feeling that is still hanging as a shadow over the German society. I think mainly because everybody know, that the Nazi atrocities could not have been carried out without a strong support from regular army and the civil society.

So, I see the collective guilt more like a tool of investigation, that can lead us to a more productive debate, as well as force individual persons to question themselves and family members role in the Historical events. On the other hand, to be held responsible for a crime, it is the general assumption that one should be able make free chooses, witch again leads to a dicussion about how much did the individual person know about the events, and their individual freedom.

I would assume that the concept of collective guilt would be an appropriate argument when focusing on a country like Finlands role in WW2. Where Finnish and Scandinavian historians allways has been focusing on Finnland role as a victim of Soviet agression, instead of the supporting of the Third Reich in the Continuation war, In fact Finland was both.

But the thesis an “collective guilt”, is not a post WW2 thing, more a post WW1, considering what happened after WW1 in Versailles.

PS. to the mods here, please relate to the thematic in my posts, and not to me as a person :wink: