The Soon Forgotten - a Coda
What happened to the 'patriotic Germans' who dutifully turned in their neighbors for opposing the Nazis?
Over at Alte Frau - New Life I wrote about the way that Germany now remembers Sophie Scholl, the young member of the White Rose resistance group who was executed in 1943 for distributing leaflets urging passive resistance to the Nazis.
Cathi Harris
Streets, schools, and plazas all over the country are named for Scholl and her brother, Hans, who died with her. Two popular films tell the story of her life.
In the United States, we don't often learn about German resistance. When it is spoken of, the emphasis is on its failure. I used to think it was because it was so small as to be inconsequential - that is also what many historians still teach.
I now think it is because many of the resistance groups were Communist. And because the United States admitted so many former Nazi scientists and academics after the war that they needed to emphasize, instead, collective German guilt.
I wrote about my issues with the concept before, because I believe it helps obviate the actions of people who actively collaborated with Nazi crimes. ('We all did it, you see, no one realized it was wrong.') And it erases the sacrifice of the Germans – many of whom died – who opposed them.
While it is true that internal resistance to the regime was not successful in overthrowing it - numerous groups did exist, throughout the years of National Socialism.
And it is hard to say what impact - taken together - their actions had on the ability groups of persecuted people to flee, and on the Allied Powers to win the war.
Gedenkstätte Deutscher Widerstand
Since moving to Berlin, I am often struck by the streets, buildings and parks named to honor people who were killed by the Nazis, and wishing that the vastly more numerous loyal National Socialists could see and know that they themselves would not be among the triumphant victors of a great thousand-year reich, but instead relegated to history's trash bin. Denied even the notoriety of Hitler's pathetic suicide in a bunker or the humiliation of the gallows at Nuremberg.
And by loyal Nazis, I don't mean those who just didn't resist, but the ones who were eager and willing participants in the atrocities.
As I've watched with horror and shame the videos of the U.S. military bombing unarmed fishing boats off the coast of Venezuela, and of federal agents shooting defenseless observers and bystanders in Minneapolis, I wonder what they think their future will hold?
Do they imagine that their families and friends approve of what they are doing? That the regime they serve will always excuse and protect them? When it comes to the ICE agents in Minnesota, it seems they took JD Vance's promise of "absolute immunity" to heart, then used it to act with abandon.
I thought it would be interesting to use the case of the Scholl siblings - executed as criminals - to look at what happened to the people who were 'just enforcing the law' at the time.
Jakob Schmid - the Janitor
Schmid was a janitor at Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich and saw Sophie and Hans Scholl leaving anonymous pamphlets urging resistance to National Socialism outside classrooms. He reported them to the school administration, which turned them over to the Gestapo.
He had been employed by the university since 1926, joined the Sturmabteilung (SA) in 1933, and became a party member in 1937.
Schmid received a reward of 3,000 Reichsmarks and was promoted from blue-collar worker to professional employee. Hundreds of students cheered Schmid at a thank-you ceremony organized by the University of Munich to deter student resistance. Schmid responded with a Nazi salute.
Schmid was arrested three days after the end of World War II on May 11, 1945 and detained for 13 weeks. During his denazification trial in 1946, he claimed that he only reported the Scholls because distribution of pamphlets was against university policy, not because they were against the party.
He was still classified as a 'Major Offender' under the categories established by the U.S. military occupation and sentenced to five years in a labor camp, the loss of his pension, right to vote, and to hold public office. He was released in 1951, later having his pension and civil rights restored. He died in 1964 at the age of 78.
Roland Freisler - the Judge
Karl Roland Freisler was a politician, lawyer, and judge who served as the State Secretary of the Reich Ministry of Justice.
Freisler became known for his aggressive personality, his humiliation of defendants, and his frequent use of the death penalty in sentencing.
He was flown into Munich to serve as the judge during the show trials of the Scholl siblings and the other members of the White Rose. He sentenced the Scholls and Christoph Probst to be hanged, though it was later decided to carry out the sentence with the guillotine out of fear the condemned would be considered martyrs.
Freisler was killed during an Allied bombing raid just over a year later while attempting to preside over a special Saturday session of the People's Court.
Freisler hastily adjourned the court and ordered that the prisoners be taken to an air raid shelter but he stayed behind to gather files before leaving.
A bomb struck the court building at 11:08, causing a partial internal collapse and a masonry column came crashing down on Freisler, crushing and killing him instantly. A large portion of the courtroom also landed on Freisler's corpse. The flattened remains of Freisler were found beneath the rubble still clutching the files he had stopped to retrieve. Among the files was that of Fabian von Schlabrendorff, a bomb plotter who was on trial that day and facing execution.
Schlabrendorff survived the attack, was re-tried, acquiteed and survived the war. Freisler was not widely mourned.
Luise Jodl, wife of General Alfred Jodl, recounted more than 25 years later that she had been working at the Lützow Hospital when Freisler's body was brought in, and that a worker commented, "It is God's verdict." According to Mrs. Jodl, "Not one person said a word in reply."
His body was interred in his wife's family plot at the Waldfriedhof Dahlem, but his name was not included on the memorial marker.
Johann Reichart - Executioner
Johann Reichart was the state-appointed judicial executioner in Bavaria from 1924 to 1946. During the Nazi period, he executed a number of people who were sentenced to death for their resistance to the Nazis.
However, he then served as an executioner for the U.S. military and oversaw the executions of convicted Nazi war criminals.
Reichhart, a member of the Nazi Party, was arrested by members of the United States Army in May 1945. American troops were planning to summarily execute him in Harlaching Cemetery, but were stopped from doing so at the last moment by an officer.
Reichhart spent one week in Stadelheim Prison for the purposes of denazification. He was not tried for carrying out his official duties as judicial executioner. He was subsequently employed by the U.S. Office of Military Government, until the end of May 1946, to help execute dozens of Nazi war criminals on the gallows at Landsberg am Lech.
In 1948, Reichart was sentenced in a second denazification trial to two years in a labor camp and confiscation of half his assets. During his trial he insisted that he had always carried out executions in compliance with the laws of the state and that he had never doubted the legality of his actions.
On appeal, his sentenced was reduced to 1.5 years and 30 percent of his assets, he was released as having already served longer than the amended sentence.
Reichart retired to a lonely existence. His wife divorced him. His son, humiliated by the revelations of his father's denazification proceedings, died by suicide in 1950.
Impoverished and despised by many, Reichhart lived on a small military pension from the First World War. In 1963, during a series of murders of taxi drivers, when public demands increased for the reintroduction of capital punishment, Reichhart spoke against it.
Reichhart was temporarily confined in Algasing [de] psychiatric hospital. He died on 26 April 1972, at a hospital in Dorfen, at the age of 78.
What does the future hold for violent service members, ICE agents and officials who lie for them?
We have watched, now, as officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security have insisted that the public reject the evidence of their eyes and ears, as Orwell once wrote, blatantly lying about supposed attacks on ICE agents.
Will Croxton
Court proceedings also uncovered text messages from Agent Exum. In one exchange with fellow agents, he appears to brag about the shooting: "I fired 5 rounds and she had 7 holes. Put that in your book boys."
Video evidence in case after case has shown that it is the agents using excessive, unprovoked force against the civilian population, not the other way around.
This naturally calls into question what else the government is lying about.
What about the deaths in CBP custody?
What about the disappearance of the detainees from 'Alligator Alcatraz?'
Several ICE agents, in particular, have seemed to have no qualms about murdering people in broad daylight and on camera. In fact, some seem to relish it. As the above-quoted social media post shows. This callous bravado has often provided the key evidence against them.
If these young people are not able to rediscover their humanity - I at least recommend they read a little history to see that "absolute immunity" can have a very short shelf life.
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