German Contrition Dubious Tetens

The New Germany and the Old Nazis, by T.H. Tetens. 1961

No German Guilt Diffusion. German Repentance Was Forced and Insincere. The Hollowness of De-Nazification. Includes the Polokaust

The author, Friedrich Tete Harens Tetens, was a German Jew and a journalist who came to the USA in time. He does not engage in the nowadays-usual mystification of the Holocaust. He recognizes the Polokaust as well as the Shoah. I now focus on some topics in some detail:

GERMAN CONTRITION WAS EXTERNALLY COMPELLED, AND WAS ONLY PARTLY GENUINE

Nowadays, Germany is held up as some kind of model of repentance, while Poland is blamed for not “repenting” for its comparatively minor acts against Jews. The mass murderer is complaining that the pickpocket has not sufficiently apologized for his pickpocketing. So now the mass murderer gets to occupy a higher moral ground than the pickpocket!

The facts are otherwise. Author Tetens repeatedly shows that everyday Germany, long after the war and in the late 1950’s, was still very much permeated with Nazi-style thinking and Nazi-style anti-Semitism, especially in the small towns. In addition, Tetens shows that a considerable number of Nazis, including ones with definite criminal backgrounds, returned to positions of authority by the late 1950’s, and thus challenges the notion that Konrad Adenauer’s policies represented a decisive–as opposed to cosmetic–break with Nazism.

This book challenges the notion that the Nazis who had conducted the Holocaust had been brought to justice. Such an erroneous view is, for example, promoted by the well-read book by Peter Hayes, WHY? EXPLAINING THE HOLOCAUST. Author Tetens documents dozens of examples of unpunished high-level German war criminals. This included Heinz Reinefarth, who led the mass murder of Polish civilians during the Soviet-betrayed Warsaw Uprising (1944). (pp. 190-191). (He went on to escape justice and live to a ripe old age.)

THE REAL CAUSE OF THE HOLOCAUST: CENTURIES OF SUPREMACIST GERMAN THINKING

Nowadays, we see the customary de-Germanization of the Nazis, even a contrived dichotomy between Germans and Nazis. The Holocaust is reflexively blamed on centuries of adverse Christian teachings about Jews. All this, too, is a relatively recent invention, as is obvious from this eye-opening book.

Author Friedrich Tete Harens Tetens identifies the REAL cause of Nazi barbarity–and not only that against Jews. He writes, (quote) Long before Hitler came on the scene, they [the Germans] had worshipped General Count von Haeseler, who declared in a speech in 1893: “It is necessary that our civilization build its temple on mountains of corpses, on an ocean of tears and on the death cries of men without number.” (unquote). (p. 108).

To show that the foregoing was no fluke, Tetens provides further evidence of the abject supremacism of Nazi-antecedent German thinking. He writes, (quote) A few years later the Pan-German paper GRENZBOTE (No. 48, 1896) stated in an editorial: “We teach that if the welfare of our Fatherland should require conquest, subjugation, dispossession, extermination of foreign nations, we must not be deterred by Christian or humanitarian qualms.” (unquote). (p. 108). Clearly, German crimes were not committed because of Christianity: They were committed IN SPITE of Christianity.

Finally, Tetens concludes, (quote) Hitler brought nothing new to the Germans. When Otto Richard Tannenberg published his famous book GROSS DEUTSCHLAND in 1911, he proclaimed: “War must leave nothing to the vanquished but their eyes to weep with. Modesty on our part would be pure madness.” (unquote). (p. 108).

For further quotes documentation of pre-Nazi German thinking, Tetens refers to his 1944 booklet, KNOW YOUR ENEMY. (p. 109). It was published in New York. See my review.

NOT ONLY JEWS AND THEIR HOLOCAUST: POLES WERE ALSO SLATED FOR THEIR OWN POLOKAUST

Author Tetens alludes, in part, to the WWII German GENERALPLAN OST, as he writes, (quote) Yet it is too often forgotten in the West that the extermination of the Jews in Europe was only to be a prelude for much more drastic action, a contemplated crime many times greater than that committed against the Jews. Hitler’s long-range aim was the total destruction of the almost 300,000,000 people belonging to the Slavic race…Had the Germans succeeded with their plans they would have carried out a diabolical scheme of “resettlement” and of “special treatment” which would have caused the death of a couple of hundred million Poles, Czechs, Ukrainians, and Russians (unquote). (pp. 94-95).

THE MATERIAL BENEFITS, TO THE GERMANS, OF THE SHOAH

Nowadays, we hear the curious argument that the Holocaust was special, and more worthy of recognition than other genocides, just because it, unlike all other genocides, was “irrational” in that it provided no benefits to the perpetrator. Who decrees such a meritocracy of genocides? And think again.

The “rational”, material-gain aspect, of the Holocaust, for the Nazi Germans, is unmistakable. Tetens quips, (quote) It is estimated that the SS, by stealing the property of the Jews and by plundering Europe, acquired billions of dollars’ worth of valuables, of which a large part was brought to neutral countries for safekeeping. (unquote). (p. 97).

NAZI GERMANY DID NOT CONSISTENTLY SUPPORT FAMILY VALUES

Nowadays, there is an effort to besmirch the current supporters of family values by creating a guilt-by-association with the “traditional marriage” values of the Nazis. This is a completely specious argument, as not only the Nazis, but virtually EVERYONE at the time, generally supported family values and what now is called traditional marriage.

As it turns out, the Nazis did NOT unilaterally promote the traditional, monogamous, one-man/one-woman marriage as the sole proper norm in society. Tetens writes, (quote) Girls in the female Hitler Youth (BMD [BUND DEUTSCHER MADEL]) were encouraged to bear as many children as possible out of wedlock to contribute “to a German biological victory on the baby front.” (unquote). (p. 96).