To Die for Germany, Heroes in the Nazi Pantheon by Jay W. Baird

It is easy for us today to remember the leadership of the Third Reich as almost comical characters; Hitler with his funny mustache, Goring, the fat man who wore make up and overdressed in gaudy uniforms with rings on his pudgy fingers, Goebbels with his deformed foot, etc.  It is easy to dismiss them until we remember that they were responsible for some of the greatest crimes in human history.  They led a nation that had been known for its science, philosophy, literature and music and turned it into a vast killing machine that had to be put down like a mad dog.  How was that transformation possible?  How could millions of ordinary people participate in such terrible crimes?

In May, 1945, Germany was a nation destroyed; the entire infrastructure from trains, to electricity to running water lay in ruins; the political system founded on the principals of National Socialism lay shattered as millions of Germans fled the advancing Red Army and the military was suffering the greatest losses of the war, up to 450,000 dead in one month.  The lack of fuel, ammunition and transportation meant that the Wehrmacht was doomed to fight with rifles and machine guns against thousands of tanks and planes on each theater. Despite these terrible realities, the German killers who had operated in the East were let loose on the German population and through intimidation and executions, they drove the population onward to the very end.  Finally, when the war did end, millions of former slave laborers were free from their guards and took to the streets.  Even with the best of intentions, they were driven to violence in the simple act of eating as there was no organization for their care.  And, many were filled with a hatred of all things German after seeing their countries and their families, not to mention their own personal experiences at the hands of the “Master Race”.

From 1932-45, millions of individuals were slaughtered by Hitler and Stalin in pre-war Eastern Poland, the Baltics, Ukraine, and modern-day Belarus.  Although we tend to think of the nearly six million Jews who were murdered, other ethnic groups suffered in huge numbers as the policy of collectivization was applied and as the Nazi and Soviet armies occupied the same area one after another bringing with them their ideologies, economic theories and security concerns. The numbers are staggering, especially when on realizes that the numbers involved were very often accomplished on a one on one basis.  The deaths were not the result of vast bombing raids or clouds of poison gas but were rather individuals methodically executing people one after another, day in and day out.