In this poll thread about surviving Nazi Germany, at what point would you have left Germany to escape the whole mess?
I like to think that mrAru and I would have left when they started with the hard core restrictions on Jews and other behaviors. I think Kristalnacht would have definitely done it.
September 1939.
1933, as part of the Fifth Aliyah.
Leaving ? Why on Earth for ? I’m told our newfound prosperity will last a thousand years, I’m riding this gravy train baby !
That being said, it probably doesn’t qualify as a Great Question ;). Reported for forum change.
This is going to be everyone’s answer. We’d all like to think that a certain set of conditions would have pushed us too far. But I think most humans are incredibly adaptable, and – not really knowing what the future holds – we’ll stay put far longer than they would have preferred to in retrospect.
(Before I report this thread and suggest it be moved to GD: Is there a factual question here?)
Maybe. On the other hand, I’m descended from immigrants - my great-grandparents came to America to get away from poverty and antisemitism, and my parents came to Israel for ideological reasons. Getting out of Germany would have been the natural thing for us to do.
Moved from General Questions to IMHO.
samclem, moderator
It isn’t an easy thing to do, to uproot oneself from one’s native country, especially given the fact that Nazi Germany had strict rules about just how much of your belongings and money you could take with you. I’m sure that had I lived there sheer inertia would have made me stay on. Also I wouldn’t have been in any of the ethnic groups targeted by the Nazis so no pressure there. Of course, if I’d been gay or a Socialist, that might have forced me to leave, but I’m neither so again, realistically, I would have probably just kept my head down, kept my opinions to myself and stayed in Germany.
It’s not an heroic path but I’m sure it’s one that many followed then and that many of us now, had we been Germans at that time, would have followed too.
Remember that in the 1928 elections, the Nazis polled less than 3% of the vote, and were a small party among dozens of others. The Great Depression made them attractive as the Specter of Communism loomed larger; and after Hitler cleaned house of his more raucous members in the Night of the Long Knives, Hindenburg and Von Pappen put him up as Chancellor, thinking the aristocrats could run things while he’d be happy to march and shout. Then the Reichstag burned, and the Nazis were granted all the nasty powers they dreamed of.
Somewhere in there, at a certain point it was obvious you better leave. But at that point the Nazis had the power to squeeze you for your every last reichsmark to do so, and most eveywhere you could go would point to the calendar and say “it’s the 1930s: we already have more broke people than we can deal with,” or “maybe the Germans are on to something, and you Jews are just not our sort of people.”
I don’t know. I really thank my ancestors who left Russia just to dodge the draft (the eldest son was drafted for 25 years). But to put it in perspective, I am now seriously thinking about leaving Quebec now that they are poised to pass a new law banning Quebec civil servants from speaking English (in their official capacity) and mandating that income tax forms no longer be available in English. This is all extremely mild compared to Germany any time after 1933. Had I been an academic (as I am) I would have tried to leave as soon as I lost my position, of course.
In the 1400s.
It’s so hard to say, isn’t it? In Schindler’s List, there’s a scene where a well-off family is deported to cramped quarters in the ghetto. The wife looks around briefly and says, “It could be worse” and the husband replies “How? How could it be worse?” Also, in the mini-series Holocaust (where Meryl Streep first became famous), the patriarch wonders “What more can they do to us” while the family still had their home and before anyone had been killed.
Living day-to-day, I’m sure so many just thought they would keep their heads down and ride it out. That’s an important lesson for all humanity - don’t just accept loss of freedom or persecution. Fight it or run from it, but if you accept it, it only gets worse.
It’s hard to answer questions like this truthfully, without the benefit of hindsight. Recall the proverbial frog who doesn’t flee a pot of water, if it’s heating only gradually.
Some progressives are saddened by developments in U.S.A. and threatening to leave (or have already left). When a question like OP’s is asked several decades from now, many will point to an event before 2013.
Don’t forget prior to Hitler being offered the Chancellorship that Germany after World War 1 was, to put it mildly, a total toilet. Mass unemployment, absurd hyperinflation (a 50 million mark note in 1923, worth about $1 and soon less than that), total demoralisation and territory loss. Then the Wall Street Crash and Depression puts another boot in as the US called in loans Germany could ill afford.
Then a new man arises, promises a new Germany, turns it all around, throws up the finger to the opulent democracies, gives you work and bread. He tells you the Jews are to blame for your woes…Germany was a modern, industrial, Christian nation. Yet they willingly, blindly followed Hitler. If any of us had been born then as ordinary Germans, fought in World War 1 to find our country betrayed by Versailles? I dare saw we’d probably all hail this new man who seemingly destroyed enemies internally and defied enemies externally, as Germans did. It’s hard to judge the Germans of 1933 with modern eyes, as they sleepwalked towards Armageddon.
I don’t think I would have. I think I should have left right around the time that Hitler took the Chancellorship, and I hope I would have been bright enough to leave right around the time he invaded Poland. But honestly, if I felt about Germany the way I do feel about America, I’d feel obligated to stay, to object, and to try to reclaim the country from the insanity gripping it. I’d probably have gotten shot for my troubles, too, because I have a big mouth and no sense of when to shut it. But honestly, I don’t think I’d have left.
Hm. I predict it would have gone like this:
I would likely not put much stock in initial rumors. As time went on and it continued and things started happening that seemed to confirm that they were true (don’t remember the details historically, but I’m guessing no one cares about that level of predictive detail anyway), I would decide that I needed to flee. Especially given that, if we’re assuming that I’d be the age I am now, there’d be a detailed history of my visits to physical and mental health professionals and I would almost certainly be considered undesirable.
However, I’m completely dependent on my family emotionally and economically, and I predict that although if I pressed it they would acknowledge my concerns were valid, they wouldn’t believe things would get bad enough for their lives to be in danger, so it would not be enough to overcome their inertia and reluctance to uproot and go to a different country.
I’d like to think that I’d be able to convince them or that I’d have the guts to go on my own but I don’t think I could, if for no other reason than I don’t think I could leave them behind in danger.
So I’d probably be toast. And kicking myself the whole way and feeling horrible for not being more persuasive or just flat out insisting or, failing that, having the courage to save myself.
My German ancestors left in the late 1600s, but that probably doesn’t count.
Given my historical hindsight and my present mindset, I probably would have bugged out 1938-39. I can also see myself getting ready to leave, and getting trapped by the events of the Polish invasion and the declaration of war.
I once took a sort of personality test on the web designed to say how I’d have reacted to Nazi control. According to it, I’d have been some sort of anti-Nazi freedom fighter.
Frankly, I probably wouldn’t. After a World War, a ridiculous post-War set of limitations and reparations, hyperinflation, etc. I would probably have stuffed my objections all the way along. In the last three US Presidential elections it’s better to say that I voted for the one I disliked least, but there was no candidate I actually liked. I’m sure I’d see the Nazis the same way in the real world. Sure, they’re evil, bigoted, mega-maniacal thugs, but at least they fixed the economy and aren’t communists.
Maybe by the late 30’s I’d have become so upset by the whole thing that I’d have left, or done something to resist… but I don’t know.
One of the things I have to consider is that the average German was ignorant of the worst excesses. They couldn’t deny that Jews and other groups were persecuted, but they didn’t know about the death camps either.
(But if we allow hindsight? I’d have been out of Germany before 1914. Get me outta there before the Nazis even come on the scene!)
Unfortunately, I would probably been one of the early victims of the Nazis, or I would otherwise have stayed until the Russians pried me out of the bunker. I have a habit of getting along, and it all depends on what people I happened to have fallen in with.
I’d probably be the guy with the WWI iron cross in Ship of Fools.
