Being Present , livre ebook

BEING PRESENT
Being Present
GROWING UP IN HITLER’S GERMANY
WILLY
SCHUMANN
THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
KENT, OHIO, AND LONDON, ENGLAND
© 1991 by The Kent State University Press, Kent Ohio 44242
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 91-9996
ISBN 0-87338-447-4
ISBN 0-87338-493-8 (pbk.)
Manufactured in the United States of America
04   03   02   01   00   99   98         5   4   3
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Schumann, Willy, 1927–
Being present: growing up in Hitler’s Germany / Willy Schumann.
p.       cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-87338-447-4 (cloth : alk. paper) (alk.)
ISBN 0-87338-493-8 (pbk. : alk.)
1. Schumann, Willy, 1927—. 2. National socialism.
3. Germany—History—1933–1945. 4. Children—Germany—Bibliography.
5. Youth—Germany—Bibliography. I. Title.
DD 247. S 384 A 3                               1991
943.086′092—dc20                      91-9996
British Library Cataloging-in-Publication data are available.
To the memory of my mother and father
Contents
Preface
1 Bread and games
2 Young people must be guided by young people
3 The flag rates higher than death
4 As it actually happened
5 Many enemies, much honor
6 Something exciting was going on again
7 My Lord, doesn’t this ever stop!
8 Amerikabild
9 What must not be, does not exist
10 Tough times—tough people (and soft heads)
11 They act as though the war will go on forever
12 Every person for himself
13 The bad years
14 The need to catch up
15 In the wrong army
Notes
Index
Preface
I t is common knowledge among responsible writers that they at all times keep their audience in mind, the people they want to address. The readership I had in mind during the two years when this book was taking shape was not composed of the specialists, the Germanists and Central European historians, but rather the younger generations of Americans for whom the Third Reich and the Second World War is merely the history of more than four decades ago. I know that many have an avid interest in the events of the 1930s and 1940s. They ask questions: What led to the second global war in our century? How did a divided Europe come about? In other words, I am thinking of my students and others who cannot have firsthand knowledge of the events, but who have the intellectual curiosity and the desire to learn wie es eigentlich gewesen , “as it actually happened” (Leopold von Ranke).
Above the main entrance of the university library in Boulder, Colorado, are chiseled in stone the words: “Who knows only his own generation remains always a child.” The well-known quotation by George Santayana points in a similar direction: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to fulfil it.” I fully subscribe to these views and I am convinced that a society without historical consciousness is a society without a future. In innumerable discussions and conversations with students, colleagues, friends, and my three children, it has become clear to me in more than forty years how fragmentary, sporadic, and one-sided the real knowledge in this country is about the events that led to the founding of the Third Reich, how little is known of the mentality, the inner attitudes, the thinking and feeling of a people who, because of their central geographical location, were destined to play a major role in history.
It was not my intention to write another history book presenting the course of events from 1930 to 1950. What I do want to convey to a larger general audience is to what extent the minds of the young, their thinking and feelings, were formed by the events of the day. In 1933, the year of Hitler’s seizure of power, I was six years old. I have tried to reproduce an eye- and-ear-witness account of the twelve years of the National Socialist regime from the point of view of a young person— aus der Froschperspektive , “from a worm’s eye view.” I am, of course, aware that more than forty years have passed since then, and I also recognize the fallibility of human memory, which is often colored by later events. Therefore I was particularly careful and scrupulous about reporting only those reactions, feelings, and attitudes in those years of which I am absolutely certain. When I had doubts about the accuracy and reliability of my memory, I have said so.
My writing of the last three chapters, covering the years 1945 to 1950, is an attempt to show how long it took us to change some of our most basic concepts of politics, history, and social and moral issues and what the main contributing factors for this gradual transformation were: the influence of parents, teachers, and older friends; the intensive study of literature and history; and, in my own case, two immensely valuable and eye-opening stays abroad, three months in England and eleven months in the United States, months of true reeducation.
If there is one all-encompassing motivation for writing this book it is to show young Americans how easy it is, given the right historical and political circumstances, to form, control, and manipulate a whole nation—especially its young people. Today I cannot imagine a generation in the history of Germany less susceptible to political extremism than my own, one less prone to adventurism in the area of foreign policy. The lessons of the past are too gruesome, the consequences too catastrophic.
It is with great pleasure and a deeply felt sense of gratitude that I record the invaluable assistance and support my wife, Marianne Morrell-Schumann, provided from the inception of the project to the final sentence. She was instrumental first of all in her strong encouragement to undertake the endeavor. Secondly, she was the patient audience as I read to her week after week the results of my efforts. She was always ready with constructive criticism about what would be of interest to an American readership and what should be eliminated. Thirdly, she was, as a first-rate editor, to a large extent responsible for the readability of the manuscript. She saw to it that the book would not read like a translation.
A special note of thanks goes to Lillian N. Kezerian for her skill and patience in preparing the manuscript, for always being ready to do yet another draft. It helped greatly that she became fascinated by the evolving story. She was part of the first tiny audience of Being Present .
Ministerialrat Walter Fehling, a long-time friend, and the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, helped me greatly by researching in Germany and acquiring permission for photographic material.
I wish also to mention my colleagues and friends at Smith College, who showed interest in the project and made valuable suggestions. My friends at the Hampshire Regional YMCA provided me with some of the specific English vocabulary with which I was not familiar, especially that of a military and maritime nature.
The Board of Trustees of Smith College, President Mary Maples Dunn, and Dean of the Faculty Robert B. Merritt generously approved the year’s sabbatical which allowed me to give my full attention to the writing of this book.
I wish to express my appreciation to the Kent State University Press and especially to its director, Dr. John T. Hubbell, whose interest encouraged me through the completion of the text. His able editorial staff provided cogent suggestions; for their assistance I am most grateful.
1
Bread and games
I n the annals of Western history, 1927 is not a spectacular year. Today’s historians do not consider it a significant turning point in any respect—not politically, economically, militarily, socially, or culturally. Perhaps only in the history of aeronautics could an event of the first magnitude be recorded in 1927: Charles A. Lindbergh’s first west-east crossing of the Atlantic in July.
The year 1927 cannot be compared to the year 1914, which initiated the end of an epoch, the Wilhelmian-Victorian age, and when “the lamps went out all over Europe.” Indeed there are some historians who see the first days of August 1914 as the end of the nineteenth century, rather than December 31, 1899. Nineteen twenty-seven also cannot be compared with the year 1929, which signifies for many people “Black Friday,” the beginning of the collapse of the New York Stock Exchange and the ensuing Great Depression and all its consequences. And most certainly 1927 cannot be measured with 1939—the outbreak of World War II, with all its profound and often horrendous effects on individuals and nations alike and the new power groupings in world politics.
Nineteen twenty-seven was relatively calm and uneventful. In German history—that is to say, in the history of the Weimar Republic—it was the time when one could hope for the gradual convalescence and strengthening of the “unloved republic.” 1 The confused, chaotic, and often bloody beginning for the republic was in the past. It had become history. The transition from monarchy to a parliamentary democracy had been seemingly successful. The German people remembered very clearly the civil wars of 1918–19, the political assassinations, the Ruhr occupation, the catastrophic inflation of 1923, the various putsches from the extreme political Left and Right—but they were all memories. Things seemed better in 1927. The situation appeared to have stabilized, especially politically, economically, and culturally. There were enough indications to justify the friends of the republic speaking of a first flourishing of Weimar culture: in the previous year Germany had been asked to join the League of Nations in Geneva, thus ending the pariah status of the republic; the “Spirit of Locarno” seemed to prevail with the conclusion of a mutual security treaty between the two archenemies, Germany and France; the reparation demands of the 1919 Treaty of Versailles were being cut back and, piece by piece, eliminated. In literature, the arts, the theater, and the new film medium there was much adventurous mo