New Book - The SS Officer's Armchair by Daniel Lee – the life of an 'ordinary Nazi'

[JoeArthur]

Guardian review here:

The SS Officer's Armchair by Daniel Lee review – the life of an 'ordinary Nazi'

The compelling story of tracking down the secrets of a ‘desk murderer’ and confronting his family with his crimes

www.theguardian.com

The bit that got me:

"Griesinger joined the SS in 1933, partly to further his career."

 

[Mister T]

The bit that got me:
"Griesinger joined the SS in 1933, partly to further his career."

Ambition knows no limits, a much bigger fish below for your reading.

Hans Globke - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[T34]

And the horse he rode in on.

 

[Eagle4ty]

Ambition knows no limits, a much bigger fish below for your reading.

Hans Globke - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Best one I thought here is "...he wrote a law that restored back pay, pensions, and advancement to civil servants who had served under the Nazi regime, including himself." after the war while in the Adenauer government that "....In a word, they would be entitled to whatever promotion would have come their way had their careers proceeded without the inconvenience of an Allied victory." Truly repentant for his association with the Nazis.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

Lee’s own family was devastated by Nazi violence. When he first met Griesinger’s two daughters, Jutta (born 1937) and Barbara (born 1939), he thought they should “make amends for his actions by bearing witness” and acknowledging the evidence of their father’s complicity in Nazi crimes.

Sounds like a nice case of harassment. As well as a bloody stupid idea. These ladies who weren't yet 9 years old when the war ended owe this person something?

It used to be the English automatically ranked you in society according to who your father was. I was under the impression that practice died out a long time ago.

 

[Mister T]

Don't forget the rest of the paragraph.

But they knew scarcely anything about their father (“an unspoken memory”) and they were eager to hear what Lee had discovered about Griesinger in his research. He came to like them, and even saw parallels with how his own family had dealt with their experiences: “The traumas of the war were wrapped in an oppressive silence that became habitual over the course of generations.”

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I don't doubt it was interesting to them to learn about their father but unless the Guardian exaggerated Lee' motives (possible) I don't see where it was his business to shove it in their face in order to extract "amends." They had nothing to amend for - the sins were their father's, committed when they were only infants. If someone came to me and said "your dad was a piece of shit to me when you were five" I'd be interested in what he was talking about, but would have no interest in "atoning" for something I had nothing to do with.

 

[R Hooks]

A friend of mine is nephew to "panzer" Meyer, former 12th SS commander, who served time in a Canadian prison while my uncle was a guard there. It's a small world after all. If we dig deep enough we'll discover we're all related to war criminals, slaves, scientists, and cavemen.

 

[von Marwitz]

I don't doubt it was interesting to them to learn about their father but unless the Guardian exaggerated Lee' motives (possible) I don't see where it was his business to shove it in their face in order to extract "amends." They had nothing to amend for - the sins were their father's, committed when they were only infants. If someone came to me and said "your dad was a piece of shit to me when you were five" I'd be interested in what he was talking about, but would have no interest in "atoning" for something I had nothing to do with.

A friend of mine is nephew to "panzer" Meyer, former 12th SS commander, who served time in a Canadian prison while my uncle was a guard there. It's a small world after all. If we dig deep enough we'll discover we're all related to war criminals, slaves, scientists, and cavemen.

I think what we can learn from this is that we should severely distrust anyone who tells us that 'the blue ones' or 'the red ones' are evil, much less people at all, and that it could be honorable or dutiful to kill them because they are blue or red. Fact is that we are all just people who prefer peace over being shot at. The ones who deserve being shot at most are not the so called 'blues' or 'reds' but those who try to convince you to shoot these and construct 'differences', division, and distrust to make it happen.

von Marwitz

 

[daniel zucker]

I think what we can learn from this is that we should severely distrust anyone who tells us that 'the blue ones' or 'the red ones' are evil, much less people at all, and that it could be honorable or dutiful to kill them because they are blue or red. Fact is that we are all just people who prefer peace over being shot at. The ones who deserve being shot at most are not the so called 'blues' or 'reds' but those who try to convince you to shoot these and construct 'differences', division, and distrust to make it happen.

von Marwitz

Von, that's just to mamby-pamby buddy, I want just want to know who to kill?


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