P's Simpsons Appearance: A Transcription (Spoiler Alert)

[KXX4493553 at aol.com]

In einer eMail vom 27.01.2004 01:26:13 Westeuropäische Normalzeit schreibt 
Gentle_Family at btinternet.com:


> In other TV related news; there was an excelent documentry about the Nazi's 
> plans to nuke New York
> on Channel 4 here this evening. Lots of interesting details about Von Braun 
> in it, most of which I
> knew before but which still lead me to question when people in general knew 
> about the use of slaves
> to manufacture the V2 after the allies bombed the above ground manufacturing 
> plants. When was that
> common knowledge?
> 
> 

Oh, difficault to say. As a German who was born after the war in 59, I can 
only answer in general. Of course a lot of young people asked in the sixties, 
seventies and eighties their parents, relatives a. s. o. what they knew and how 
much they knew. And the result was always the same: we knew very little, 
roomers, and such stuff. They told us stories - very detailled - about their own 
fate, the bombardements of the cities, how they fled to the contryside and so 
on. A lot of soldiers told their families during the "Fronturlaub" (holidays) 
what was going on at the front, some told their wifes about massacres they were 
involved in. Astonishing: a lot of people heard the "Feindsender" during the 
war, mostly BBC (so my mother), but didn't believe in what they were told. 
Concerning slave and forced workers I can only say that f. e. a lot of farmers had 
forced workes, from France, Poland, Russia, the Ucraine a. s. o. 
"Fraternization" was strongly forbidden, the Germans were not allowed to eat together with 
"their" workers in one room and such stuff. In spite of all this, many 
treated their slave workes quite well, but the most didn't. The workers were cheap 
capacities for work and exploitation. It was a system of general corruption. 
Because the most man were at the front, millions of women, often girls, 16, 
17 years old from the BDM (Bund Deutscher Mädel) were forced to work in 
factories, a lot of them in ammunition factories. There they met the "bald heads" 
(Kahlköpfe), the shaven slave workers, POW's from Russia and KZ-prisoners. It was 
strongly forbidden for the women to speak with them, but some had pity and 
gave them some food. But the most women tried to ignore what they saw.
Concerning the V 2, it was part of the propaganda of the Nazis that the 
"Wunderwaffen" would bring the turning point of the war. My grandfather who died in 
December 1942 in a working accident, who was member of the SA and already in 
the 1st WW at the eastern front, said as he heard that the Wehrmacht attacked 
the Soviet Union, "That's the end. We will lose the war." A lot of "old 
comrades" who already fought in the first war thought this. They compared Hitler's 
fate with Napoleon. I think the most Germans knew after Stalingrad that the war 
was lost. So the "Wunderwaffen" were a part of a mythology, inspired by the 
"Durchhaltefilme" ("hold out movies") as they were called later, and when Zarah 
Leander sang "Ich weiß es wird einmal ein Wunder geschehen..." (I know that a 
wonder will happen) this was also part of this mythology. But the V2 program 
as such was "top secret".
You may ask why the Germans combined their fate with Hitler's until the last 
moment. First, a lot of them didn't, especially the Nazis. The Nazi bigwigs 
fled, and let the rest alone. Second, their was a tremendous fear of the 
Russian's revenge, 'cause most of the soldiers knew what they did in the Soviet 
Union, "die Rache wird furchtbar sein", "the revenge will be horrible". And in 
deed, it was horrible in many cases. The fear of the Western aliied was less big, 
let's say everybody wanted to be captured by the British or American troops, 
the French were less "comfortable".
kwp
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