I just watched “Hitler - A Career” on Netflix. If I wasn’t already aware of the Holocaust, I would have little knowledge of concentration camps from this doc alone. It focused on Hitler’s rise and fall with little mention of Jews/camps.
Is there a documentary that talks about the experience of German civilians and soldiers? I imagine many were against the concentration camps. Aside from “brainwashing” soldiers from a very young age, how were the people of Germany convinced to stay on board? I would love to watch a documentary that dives into this.
Is there a documentary that talks about the experience of German civilians and soldiers? I imagine many were against the concentration camps. Aside from “brainwashing” soldiers from a very young age, how were the people of Germany convinced to stay on board? I would love to watch a documentary that dives into this.
If you are interested, probably the single best work that handles this subject is actually a book--Christopher Browning's Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland.
Browning essentially discovered that a few Nazi soldiers were gleeful about participating in mass murder, a few essentially stepped back from immediate involvement, but most of the soldiers--"ordinary men"--went along with the murders. Browning also explores the reasons they did.
It's an incredibly harrowing read. Highly, highly recommended.