FORMER WEST GERMANS AND THEIR PAST
533
Appeals, articles, lectures, functions, and demonstrations are indications.
But all the candle-bearers of the last few years cannot conceal the fact
that, while the majority of Germans condemn the attacks on asylum–
seekers' hostels, they also share the opinion of the perpetrators of such
acts that asylum-seekers and foreigners should be removed from German
soil as quickly as possible. I would still contend that many Germans have
become aware of the regressive thought patterns of the New Right and
reject a blinkered, obtuse mentality incapable of a realistic perception of
friend and foe, present and past. But a defensive reaction against feelings
of guilt still plays a major role, as the following example shows. Since
the fifth of March of this year there has been an exhibition in Hamburg
entitled "War of Annihilation. The Crimes of the Wehrmacht, 1941-
1944."
In
the weekly newspaper,
Die Zeit,
there was a readers' forum on
the subject of these crimes.
In
this discussion, the members of the older
generation who had served in the
Wehrmacht
did all they could to fend
off the realization that they belonged to a criminal institution . They
showed the same alacrity in denying self-evident, proven facts as was dis–
played by the German generals in their memorandum to the military tri–
bunal in Nuremberg in 1945, denying that they had been allies of Hitler
and contesting any knowledge of or participation in the crimes commit–
ted against Jews and prisoners of war.
The documents on display in "War of Annihilation" prove the op–
posite. The active participation of the
Wehrmacht
in the so-called R6hm
putsch
has gradually come to light. During the war the
Wehrmacht
committed countless crimes sometimes even without direct orders from
Hitler. The Eastern front and Serbia were the scenes of the worst mili–
tary carnage. Diaries and letters of soldiers in action there reveal that,
from the beginning of the campaign against the Soviet Union at the lat–
est, everybody knew exactly what was going on. The vast majority of
the members of the armed services were infected by racial doctrines of
National Socialism.
The title of the discussion in
Die Zeit
was "We Thought We Could
Stay Decent."
It
took a long time for the idealization of the
Wehrmacht
to be abandoned to the point where it was possible to face enough of
the past to organize this exhibition. The
Wehrmacht
supported Hitler
from the outset; it took part in the murder of
Sturmabteilung
members
and of Ernst R6hm. A racially-motivated war of annihilation was un–
leashed, not by the SS alone, against Poland, the Soviet Union, and
Serbia. The
Wehrmacht
also participated in Hitler's campaigns of racial
extermination. And since it prolonged the war well beyond the stage
when there was any hope of avoiding defeat, it must share the blame for
