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225 D Chapter Sixty-Seven d Cold War At this precise point in history,with life well on its way to normalcy,efforts could and should have begun on the part of the Germans to deal with the past, their own guilt, possibly even with a hint of remorse,preconditions for a new beginning.But just then,a true miracle happened ; overnight,a powerful ally came to the rescue of the German morale,a new common enemy raising its ugly head: Communism. With the Iron Curtain now separating the two opposing ideologies, West Germany, physically wedged between them, was badly needed as a crucial buffer zone. The image of the despicable Huns had to be changed to that of a most desirable and vitally needed partner. With the outbreak of the Cold War, practically overnight, the Nazi era was dismissed as an unfortunate but probably not unforgivable period of a mere twelve years, now to be legitimately written off as past history. German rearmament , unthinkable just a few months before, was not only permitted, it was ordered. Convicted Nazi criminals were secretly let out of prison long before their sentences were completed,confiscated possessions returned to them,and soon,like cockroaches,old party members came crawling out of the woodwork to fill the highest positions not only in the new government, but in all walks of German life. With the traditional submissiveness and servility displayed to Adolf Hitler, the Germans now eagerly served their new respective masters in East and West, throwing themselves into the reconstruction of their demolished cities. Democracy, the form of government that other nations had achieved by working, fighting, suffering, and even dying for, had been presented to them by the Western Allies on a silver platter. All they had to do was learn how to handle it by patterning themselves after their conquerors. The sad truth that far more lay in ashes than the devastated cities was now conveniently swept under the rug; the sense of a national shame gone, the nation of poets and thinkers once more prided itself as the “cradle of humanity.” Only a handful of Germans took the time and trouble to ponder the true value of something that could be so totally destroyed in a mere dozen years. How much was tradition and civilization worth, if human beings had not been educated to concentrate on the most vital issues—to defend and, if necessary, stand up and fight for the rights of human beings? The fact was that 55 million had lost their lives during the Third Reich, among them 20 million Russians, 259,000 Americans, 300,000 British, and 500,000 French. Four and a half million Germans had been killed in connection with the war that was supposed to pro- Part two 226 vide unlimited new“lebensraum”for theAryan“master race.”And then there was that other number, one that had been hushed up and whispered behind cupped hands at first, growing in size like an avalanche from a few thousand to hundreds of thousands and finally to millions. Six million Jewish men, women, and children had fallen victim to Hitler’s raging madness, exterminated like vermin, with the support and silent indifference of 60 million helpers. Germany, in ruins, at least was now “Judenrein”! That goal, having been achieved, or almost achieved,went unnoticed by the vast majority of the people concentrating on rebuilding their country.Even in the following decades,those leading to wealth and prosperity, nobody missed the Jews; no one seemed to be aware of the devastating consequences that this physical, mental, and spiritual self-mutilation entailed. But with the Jews gone, nothing would ever be the same in post-war Germany; a frightening degree of spiritual poverty in connection with an embarrassing degree of mediocrity would prevail after the loss of those who had contributed so richly to every aspect of German life. Like no other group, the German Jews had, over the centuries, excelled in every imaginable field, particularly in the arts and the sciences.38 The anti-Semitism of the past was now replaced by a new and sickening form of tearful philo-Semitism,expressed in actions like the so-called“Annual BrotherhoodWeek,”where a handful of survivors on one side and German officials on the other professed understanding and tolerance.Totally bewildered by the general denial of dealing with the horrors of the Nazi era, voices among the new generation grew louder and more persistent.Young people turned to their...

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