Utente:FedeTomma/Sandbox
Campagna di colpa collettiva
Le idee sulla colpa collettiva e la punizione collettiva nacquero verso la fine della guerra per mano della classe politica inglese e americana, quando cominciarono a essere diffusi orrendi video sui campi di concentramento nazisti per indurire l'opinione pubblica e renderla più conforme a quella dei politici.
A partire dal 1944 fu iniziata una campagna di propaganda negli USA che sosteneva una pace con condizioni molto dure per la Germania e che era volta anche a porre fine alla consuetidine di vedere il nazismo come un'entità separata rispetto al popolo tedesco. Delle dichiarazioni di alcuni governanti inglesi e americani, fatte più o meno nel periodo della resa della Germania indicavano l'intera nazione tedesca come colpevole moralmente per le azioni del regime nazista, usando spesso i termini "colpa" o "responsabilità collettiva".
To that end, as the Allies began their post-war denazification efforts, the Psychological Warfare Division (PWD) of SHAEF (Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force) undertook a psychological propaganda campaign for the purpose of developing a German sense of collective responsibility.[1] The Public Relations and Information Services Control Group of the British Element of the Allied Control Commission began in 1945 to issue directives to officers in charge of producing newspapers and radio broadcasts for the German population to emphasize "the moral responsibility of all Germans for Nazi crimes."[2] Similarly, among U.S. authorities, such a sense of collective guilt was "considered a prerequisite to any long-term education of the German people."[1]
Usando sia la stampa tedesca, che era sotto controllo alleato, sia il cinema, sia manifesti ed opuscoli, fu condotto un programma per mettere a conoscenza tutti i tedeschi di quello che era successo nei campi di concentramento; per esempio furono diffusi dei manifesti che rappresentavano delle vittime dei campi di sterminio, affiancate da testi come "TU SEI COLPEVOLE DI QUESTO!". [3][4] o "Queste atrocità sono colpa tua!!"che avevano .[5] Secondo i capi della divAccording to Sidney Bernstein, chief of PWD, the object of the film
...was to shake and humiliate the Germans and prove to them beyond any possible challenge that these German crimes against humanity were committed and that the German people – and not just the Nazis and SS – bore responsibility.[6]
Il 20 luglio 1945 - il primo anniversario del fallito attentato a Hitler - non fu fatta menzione dell'evento, perché ricordare al popolo tedesco che c'era stata un'attiva resistenza a Hitler in Germania avrebbe minato gli sforzi degli alleati di creare un senso si colpa collettivo nella popolazione tedesca.[7]
Subito dopo la liberazione dei campi di concentramento molti civili tedeschi furono costretti a visitarli, a seppelire i cadaveri o a riesumarli dalle fosse comuni. [8] come anche a fornire i propri averi agli ex internati.[8]
The radical left in Germany during the 1960s–70s and Nazi allegations
Because the Cold War had curtailed the process of denazification in the West, certain radical leftist groups such as the Red Army Faction justified their use of violence against the West German government and society based on the argument that the West German establishment had benefited from the Nazi period, and that it was still largely Nazi in outlook. They pointed out that many former Nazis held government posts, while the German Communist Party was illegal. They argued that "What did you do in the war, daddy?" was not a question that many of the leaders of the generation who fought World War II and prospered in the postwar "Wirtschaftswunder" (German Economic Miracle) encouraged their children to ask.
One of the major justifications that the Red Army Faction gave in 1977 for killing Hanns-Martin Schleyer, President of the Confederation of German Employers' Associations (BDA) and perceived as one of the most powerful industrialists in West Germany, was that as a former member of the SS he was part of an informal network of ex-Nazis who still had great economic power and political influence in West Germany.
Today
The late admission of famous German writer Günter Grass, perceived by many as a protagonist of 'the nation's moral conscience', that he had been a member of the Waffen SS reminded the German public that, even more than sixty years after the Third Reich had ended, membership in Nazi organisations is still a taboo issue in public discourse. Statistically it is highly likely that there are many more Germans of Grass' generation (also called the "Flakhelfer-Generation") with biographies not unlike his, who have never found cause to reveal their wartime record in the context of total ideological blackout.[9]
- ^ a b Janowitz, 1946
- ^ Balfour, pg 263
- ^ Marcuse pg 61
- ^ [http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj77/maitles.htm Book Review of Hitler's Willing Executioners
- ^ Eric Voegelin, Brenden Purcell "Hitler and the Germans", Footnote 12, p.5 "In the summer of 1945, the Allies publicly displayed horrifying posters and reports from the Dachau and Belsen concentratrion camps with the accusatory headline 'Diese Schandtaten: Eure Schuld!' ("These atrocities: Your guilt!). See Christoph Klessmann, Die doppelte Staatsgrundung:Deutsche Geschichte, 1945-1955, p. 308
- ^ PBS Story
- ^ Michael R. Beschloss, The Conquerors: Roosevelt, Truman and the Destruction of Hitler's Germany, 1941–1945 ISBN 0-7432-4454-0 p.258 "At a moment when they were trying to establish a sense of collective guilt for Hitler's horrors, they did not wish to confuse the issue by reminding the world that some Germans had risked their lives, however belatedly and for whatever reasons, to stop the Fuhrer."
- ^ a b Marcuse, pg 128
- ^ Karen Margolis: Who wasn't a Nazi?