Table Of ContentHISTORY ERIC A. JOHNSON
author of NAZI TERROR and
The horrors of the Nazi Regime and the Holocaust still JOHNSON 4/c process
KARL-HEINZ REUBAND
present some of the most disturbing questions in modern & matte poly finish
history: Why did Hitler’s party appeal to millions of
REUBAND
Germans, and how entrenched was anti-Semitism among
the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that
the genocide of Europe’s Jews was a secret? Did ordinary
non-Jewish Germans live in fear of the Nazi state? In this
unprecedented firsthand analysis of daily life as experi-
enced in the Third Reich, What We Knewoffers answers to
these most important questions. Combining the expertise
of Eric A. Johnson, an American historian, and Karl-Heinz
Reuband, a German sociologist, What We Knewis the most
startling oral history yet of everyday life in the Third
Reich.
“A very important book.” —FINANCIAL TIMES
“A wellspring of information, this text provides unprecedented
insights into the mind-set and daily lives of ‘average’Germans,
and the lives led by Jews in Nazi Germany.”
—HISTORY IN REVIEW
W H AT W E
“A major contribution to the understanding of life in Nazi WHAT
Germany.” —BOOKLIST
WE
ERIC A. JOHNSON is a professor of history at Central
KNEW K N E W
Michigan University. He is the author, most recently, of
Nazi Terror. He lives in Mt. Pleasant, Michigan.
TERROR,
KARL-HEINZ REUBAND is professor of sociology at the
University of Düsseldorf. He lives in Düsseldorf, MASS
Germany. MURDER, AND
EVERYDAY
T E R R O R , M A S S M U R D E R , A N D
LIFE IN NAZI
Jacket photograph: CORBIS
US $18.00 / $23.95 CAN
GERMANY
EVERYDAY LIFE IN NAZI GERMANY
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
AN O R A L H I S T O R Y
www.basicbooks.com
WHAT WE KNEW
Also by Eric A. Johnson
Nazi Terror: The Gestapo, Jews,
and Ordinary Germans
Urbanization and Crime: Germany, 1871–1914
The Civilization of Crime: Violence in Town and
Country since the Middle Ages
(coeditor)
Social Control in Europe, 1800–2000 (coeditor)
Also by Karl-Heinz Reuband
Drogenkonsum und Drogenpolitik:
Deutschland und die Niederlande im Vergleich
Soziale Realität im Interview:
Empirische Analysen methodischer Probleme
(coeditor)
Die deutsche Gesellschaft in
vergleichender Perspective (coeditor)
W H AT W E K N E W
Terror, Mass Murder,
and Everyday Life
in Nazi Germany
✛ ✛ ✛
A O H
N RAL ISTORY
Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband
A Member of the
Perseus Books Group
Copyright © 2005 by Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband
Hardcover first published in 2005 by Basic Books
Paperback published in 2006 by Basic Books,
A Member of the Perseus Books Group
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may
be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case
of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
Books published by Basic Books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in
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mation, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group,
11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, or [email protected].
Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress.
HC: ISBN 0-465-08571-7
05 06 07 08 / 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
PBK: ISBN-13 978-0-465-08572-9; ISBN 0-465-08572-5
In memory of Walter and Thea Reuband
and John Clark Johnson
C
✛ ✛ ✛ ONTENTS
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction xiii
Part One: Jewish Survivors’ Testimonies
1 Jews Who Left Germany Before Kristallnacht 3
William Benson, Leipzig, “Never to forget, never to forgive.”
Margarete Leib, Karlsruhe, “They strangled my father with a
packaging cord.”
Henry Singer, Berlin, “Anti-Semitism was there before Hitler.”
Karl Meyer, Cologne, “In Cologne they never had this anti-
Semitism.”
2 Jews Who Left Germany After Kristallnacht 26
Armin Hertz, Berlin, “My toes were frozen ...all of them fell
off.”
Josef Stone, Frankfurt, “All the people started yelling at us.”
Elise and Hermann Gottfried, Berlin, “They were all detectives
in civilian clothing.”
vii
viii CONTENTS
Rebecca Weisner, Berlin, “Every few weeks they rounded up
people and shot them.”
Joseph Weinberg, Stuttgart, “We did not feel the anti-Semitism.”
3 Jews Who Were Deported from Germany During the War 59
Max Liffmann, Mannheim, 1940 to Gurs, “Fear was not something
I knew.”
Herta Rosenthal, Leipzig, 1942 to Riga, “All the Jews were
leaving, and they [the Germans] were happy, a lot of them. They
were standing there laughing.”
Ernst Levin, Breslau, 1943 to Auschwitz, “They say ‘we didn’t
know about it.’ Bullshit!”
Ruth Mendel, Frankfurt, 1943 to Auschwitz, “I wouldn’t be alive if
not for my mother.”
Helmut Grunewald, Cologne, 1943 to Auschwitz, “I know that I’ll
be sent to Auschwitz and be gassed anyway.”
Herbert Klein, Nuremberg, 1943 to Theresienstadt, “We were the
last ones deported in 1943.”
Werner Holz, Krefeld, 1943 to Theresienstadt, “I was blond,
blond.”
Hannelore Mahler, Krefeld, 1944 to Theresienstadt, “We didn’t
want to believe it because we could have been next.”
4 Jews Who Went into Hiding 120
Ilse Landau, Berlin, “I had been caught and sent to Auschwitz ...
I jumped out of the train!”
Lore Schwartz, Berlin, “In any case, I came out of the war a virgin.”
Rosa Hirsch, Magdeburg, “There were some people who tried to help.
But they were such a minority.”
Part Two: “Ordinary Germans’” Testimonies
5 Everyday Life and Knowing Little About Mass Murder 141
Hubert Lutz, Cologne, “In my ten years in the Hitler Youth, I
never heard anybody suggest that you spy on your parents or that
you spy on anybody else.”
Marta Hessler, Stettin, “They came and arrested my brother.”
CONTENTS ix
Rolf Heberer, Freithal, “For 60 million Germans, that was what
the people really wanted.”
Gertrud Sombart, Dresden, “Most people were, of course, for
Hitler.”
Erwin Hammel, Cologne, “They felt like members of the master
race.”
Anna Rudolf, Berlin, “You, good girl!”
Peter Reinke, Cologne, “Why should I have been afraid? We just
sat there in detention.”
Helga Schmidt, Dresden, “There was never any particular
sympathy for the Jews.”
Werner Hassel, Leobschütz, “A large number of people really
didn’t know anything.”
6 Everyday Life and Hearing About Mass Murder 185
Hiltrud Kühnel, Frankfurt, “That was his hobby, measuring
skulls.”
Ruth Hildebrand, Berlin, “The soldiers on leave...
did a lot of talking.”
Ekkehard Falter, Dresden, “Rat-a-tat-tat, dead.”
Stefan Reuter, Berlin, “One heard in communist circles that
numbers of Jews were being gassed.”
Ernst Walters, Schwalbach, “Gassed. They were killed and soap
was made from the bones.”
Effie Engel, Dresden, “[The BBC] also confirmed it, and with
rather exact information.”
Winfried Schiller, Beuten, “Auschwitz was not so very far away
from us.”
7 Witnessing and Participating in Mass Murder 226
Adam Grolsch, Krefeld, “In two days, 25,000 men, women, and
children.”
Hans Ruprecht, Cologne, “We have to carry out some ‘cleansing
measures’ here.”
Albert Emmerich, Eberswalde, “There are three hundred Jews
lying in each grave.”
Walter Sanders, Krefeld, “I not only told my parents about that,
I also told others when I was on leave.”
