We’re seeing in the US that majority of the people are being apathetic or ignorant to what is going on as it doesn’t directly affect them, and others are pointing out that we’re on the same route as Germany. Once Hitler seized power and then later when the county split, what was life like for those people that didn’t say or do anything? Assuming they weren’t in a targeted class, did they just go on and live their lives normally? I know there was a drop in the quality of living for them, but did they not know any better? Was it a state of constant fear, or was there “no war in Ba Sing Se”
I’m just curious what majority of the population here would potentially experience.
Well, the average people from then, they don’t live anymore in this world.
My mom, and my mom in law are still here. Both were very little children then, born in 41 and 43. For them, the only memories are the end of the war, and then the time after.
So, what I heard from other people before:
It was always fear. The Nazi’s methods were violent, unfair, inhuman and their power came from creating fear.
Of course the “average” people were not all affected equally. My folks all lived in very rural areas, and there things worked different. Fear was transported indirectly, by some “stronger” Nazis who controlled “medium” Nazis, who were then set to oversee “normal” people in some part of the country.
Not existent after some point.
Everybody was required to actively support Hitler, for example with the infamous greeting. When you were greeted with “Heil Hitler”, then, in the beginning, you had a chance to respond something like “yea, it’s ok…” or “you can lick mine, too” (and of course, normal people said things like “Have a nice day”), but later, if you did respond with anything else than the same “Heil Hitler”, and loudly and clearly, you could get shot right there on the spot.
Of course there were still some exceptions, but therefore you had to know very good who that other person was, and what was possible to do then.
In these rural areas, what many people did was simply hiding when the “wrong” people were in town.
That’s more or less what I’ve read.
In the movies it’s portrayed as if Nazis made everything clean, orderly, “civilized”, but the unfavorable people were removed and killed, slave labor was used and so on, and all of it in the atmosphere of “civilization and normalcy”.
It’s probably to communicate the shock, but in fact things were like you describe them.
Nazis would rule in a medieval way, so to say, minus divine right to rule. Random murders (again, without normalcy or formality, just so, and quite brutal sometimes), torture locations in buildings with windows always open amid crowded enough places, where sounds of someone being beaten to death were heard day and night, such stuff.
The other guy is right too, most people learned to perceive this as normal and not everyone was killed for being not loyal enough, just a few.
Like in today’s Russia not every 16 years old schoolgirl gets into prison for 8 months for blowing up a petard in a public place, the number of whose who does is not big enough to imprint in the public that this even happens, but enough to spread non-verbal fear. Similar with posting a random protest text, or saying something about war, etc. That’s called making an example.
OK, Russia’s regime has that innovation of doing these things covertly enough for there to not be open intimidation. Cause open intimidation causes public reaction more than they need. They are more careful.
This is absolutely inaccurate and borderline revisionism. Germans were not held at gunpoint to heil Hitler or risk being shot, the average german was perfectly happy and enjoyed the comforts naziism brought them. This inaccurate portrayal does nothing but abstract naziism to be an entity that only exists under specific horrifying conditions and not the reality that for the vast majority of Germans they were happy to be nazis.
Please go read about nazi germany before you make up some fanfic about how it was just like the wolfenstein games. “They Thought They were free” is a book entirely centered around the experiences of the average German during the nazi regime and not one word of your description is in his book.
From Milton Mayer:
Now there’s only one of us telling bull & fiction. I don’t know your games and I stay with what my relatives and some neighbors have told me.
Ok, not many were shot in such a way, or in worse ways, but when it happened, then it got told, and people knew who the victim was, and most times people knew who the shooter was. And they remembered long after. Even I was told some of the names, but I didn’t know the people, because it was so long before me.
Thanks for sharing.
I’m guessing it felt a lot like the video games and books describe living in a fascist regime
Soldiers are everywhere, and you do your best to not stand out for any reason.
You are always worried about someone turning you in on false accusations.
You have to hide your joy, and save it for only the deepest parts of your home.
No soldiers everywhere. Only some men from “the party” = the Nazis. These were more or less “normal” people before, but they were given power, and they let power corrupt them.
The soldiers (=the sons of the families, no volunteers!) were all far away, at war, and everybody was hoping that the would come back home alive.
Yes.
Ah, good insight about the Nazi party men with power, not soldiers everywhere. Thanks.