# What was the official Nazi party opinion of various European nationalities? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 29, 2003, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160 "2003-10-29T03:15:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 19\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/21 "2003-11-07T17:54:49Z")
If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t there an exception made for the Croatians, because the _Ustache_ was was working with the Axis? ---
**Author:** ![Tranquilis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tranquilis/32/3639_2.png) [@Tranquilis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tranquilis)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/22 "2003-11-07T18:59:44Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by flodnak \* > \*\*It’s still a sore spot for many people. \*\* If you don’t mind a bit of a hijack here, how does your nation deal with the memory of Vidkun Quisling? ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/23 "2003-11-07T22:57:40Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by galen \* > \*\*Actually, as long as it appeared that Hitler’s primary target was the USSR, which it was, the British ruling class was perfectly content with him. \*\* That seems to me to be rather confused, reading sources from the time you’ll find that Hitler was not viewed very favourably before the war in the UK and he didn’t target the USSR until he had already targetted Britain as before this time he had a non-aggression pact with Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/24 "2003-11-07T23:02:05Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t there an exception made for the Croatians, because the _Ustache_ was was working with the Axis? \*\* You’re not mistaken. There were also two SS divisions of Moslem Bosnians. [Ustache](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jasenovac) ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/25 "2003-11-07T23:05:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by galen \* > \*\*Actually, as long as it appeared that Hitler’s primary target was the USSR, which it was, the British ruling class was perfectly content with him. \*\* That seems to me to be rather confused, reading sources from the time you’ll find that Hitler was not viewed very favourably before the war in the UK and he didn’t target the USSR until he had already targetted Britain as before this time he had a non-aggression pact with Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/26 "2003-11-07T23:09:46Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Guinastasia \* > \*\*If I’m not mistaken, wasn’t there an exception made for the Croatians, because the _Ustache_ was was working with the Axis? \*\* You’re not mistaken. There were also two SS divisions of Moslem Bosnians. [Ustache](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/jasenovac) ---
**Author:** ![MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/bb73d2/32.png) [@MC\_Master\_of\_Ceremonies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MC_Master_of_Ceremonies)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/27 "2003-11-07T23:15:55Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by galen \* > \*\*Actually, as long as it appeared that Hitler’s primary target was the USSR, which it was, the British ruling class was perfectly content with him. \*\* That seems to me to be rather confused, reading sources from the time you’ll find that Hitler was not viewed very favourably before the war in the UK and he didn’t target the USSR until he had already targetted Britain as before this time he had a non-aggression pact with Stalin. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/28 "2003-11-07T23:23:14Z")
Groundhog Day. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2003, 11:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/29 "2003-11-07T23:28:56Z")
Groundhog Day. ---
**Author:** ![DreadCthulhu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/db5fbb/32.png) [@DreadCthulhu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DreadCthulhu)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/30 "2003-11-08T00:32:20Z")
Ah, they are 1920’s style “Death Rays.” ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/31 "2003-11-08T01:27:42Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by DreadCthulhu \* > \*\*Ah, they are 1920’s style “Death Rays.” \*\* Groundhog Day. ---
**Author:** ![syncrolecyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f08c70/32.png) [@syncrolecyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/syncrolecyne)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/32 "2003-11-08T01:37:19Z")
What I always found funny was most of the Nazi leadership were not the “Nordic” type Germans that predominate in the North of Germany but the more “Alpine” South Gemans and Austrians. The fact is Germans are not mostly “Nordic” like Swedes or Norwegians - if we are to suppose these once common labels are even valid. I mean Hitler, Goebbels Himmler, Goering, etc. were all short, brown or black haired men, not the Nordic “supermen” of Nazi’s wet dreams. The was even a German joke, “The Aryan is blonde like Hitler, tall like Goebbels (who was barely 5 feet), and thin like Goering (who was of course obese).” The one Nazi leader that did fit the supposed “Nordic Ideal”, Reinhard Heydrich, was widely rumored to be part Jewish himself. As far as other nationalities, it was all a matter of convenience. If a country was of use to the Nazis, its people were acceptable. If a country got in the way of Nazi ambitions, it was denigrated. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/33 "2003-11-08T01:47:50Z")
Posted by **MC Master of Ceremonies:** > [@](#): > > That seems to me to be rather confused, reading sources from the time you’ll find that Hitler was not viewed very favourably before the war in the UK and he didn’t target the USSR until he had already targetted Britain as before this time he had a non-aggression pact with Stalin. Yes, **but . . .** Let’s look at it from the viewpoint of a contemporary observer. From _The Lion and the Unicorn_ by George Orwell (1941) (reprinted in _My Country Right or Left: The Collected Essays, Journalism, and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 2_ (Harcourt Brace JovanovicH, 1968), pp. 71-72: > [@](#): > > [The British ruling class] could not struggle against Nazism or Fascism, because they could not understand either. Neither could they have struggled against Communism, if Communism had been a serious force in western Europe. To understand Fascism they would have had to study the theory of Socialism, which would have forced them to admit that the economic system by which they lived as unjust, inefficient and out-of-date. But it was exactly this fact that they had trained themselves never to face. They dealt with Fascism as the cavalry generals of 1914 dealt with the machine-gun – by ignoring it. After years of aggression and massacres, they had grasped only one fact, that Hitler and Mussolini were hostile to Communism. Therefore, it was argued, they _must_ be friendly to the British dividend-drawer. Hence the truly frightening spectacle of Conservative MPs wildly cheering the news that British ships. bringing food to the Spanish Republican government, had been bombed by Italian aeroplanes. Even when they had begun to grasp that Fascism was dangerous, its essentially revolutionary nature, the huge military effort it was capable of making, the sort of tactics it would use, were quite beyond their comprehension. At the time of the Spanish civil war, anyone with as much political knowledge as can be acquired from a sixpenny pamphlet on Socialism knew that, if Franco won, the result would be strategically disastrous for England; and yet generals and admirals who had given their lives to the study of war were unable to grasp this fact. . . . > > The British ruling class were not altogether wrong in thinking that that Fascism was on their side. It is a fact that any rich man, unless he is a Jew, has less to fear from Fascism than from either Communism or democratic Socialism. One ought never to forget this fact, for nearly the whole of German and Italian propaganda is designed to cover it up. The natural instinct of men like Simon, Hoare, Chamberlain etc was to come to an agreement with Hitler. But – and here the peculiar feature of English life that I have spoken of, the deep sense of national solidarity, comes in – they could do so only by breaking up the Empire and selling their own people into semi-slavery. A truly corrupt class would have done this without hesitation, as in France. But things had not gone that distance in England. Politicians who make cringing speeches about “the duty of loyalty to our conquerors” are hardly to be found in English public life. Tossed to and fro between their incomes and their principles, it was impossible that men like Chamberlain should do anything but make the worst of both worlds. ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/34 "2003-11-08T03:06:27Z")
“To understand Fascism they would have had to study the theory of Socialism, which would have forced them to admit that the economic system by which they lived as unjust, inefficient and out-of-date.” And which economic system would that be? Contemporary observers don’t have the advantage of hindsight. There were Nazi sympathisers within the ‘ruling classes’, but there were also many that were opposed… the Mitfords are probably a good example… ---
**Author:** ![flodnak](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/838e76/32.png) [@flodnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flodnak)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 11:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/35 "2003-11-08T11:12:23Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Tranquilis \* > \*\*If you don’t mind a bit of a hijack here, how does your nation deal with the memory of Vidkun Quisling? \*\* Oh, that’s easy. He was a criminal, who did the worst thing a person can do: he handed his country over to the enemy. (Well, actually, the Nazis didn’t need him, but he sure tried his best to be helpful.) Unless you’re of a fascist bent, there’s very little to argue there, so he’s not a troubling part of Norway’s history at all. What makes the situation of the “tyskerunger” (as they were called) so difficult is that the children themselves were so clearly innocent. Whatever you think about what their parents did, nobody can deny that children cannot choose their parents and have nothing to do with the circumstances of their birth. And yet the children themselves were shunned and harrassed by their neighbors, and their situation was largely ignored by those in authority. I believe the reason it’s such a sore spot is because people are now ashamed of this situation, but 1. it’s awfully damn late to do much about it and 2. nobody likes to lose face on this sort of scale. As **Futile Gesture** alluded to, Anni-Frid Lyngstad of ABBA was one of these children. She was born after the war ended, and her father was already back in Germany; her mother died when she herself was a toddler. She didn’t die directly of anything her neighbors did to her but surely their treatment didn’t help her any. Lyngstad’s maternal grandmother moved to Sweden with her young granddaughter and raised the girl there, where nobody had to know she was the daughter of a German soldier and there wasn’t such shame connected to it anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Blackeyes](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/f6c823/32.png) [@Blackeyes](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blackeyes)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/36 "2003-11-08T20:33:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Jinx \* > \*\*Perhaps, Hitler might have started rounding up all those deemed to lack a German connection in the lands he occupied. Of course, Hitler was quick to pardon himself for having Jewish blood in his own family tree! …Although the OP calls for some conjecturing, I think the cold hard facts speak for themselves. - Jinx \*\* Hitler being [Jewish](http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_325b.html) will not be part of the conversation. ---
**Author:** ![the\_creosote\_kid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b2d939/32.png) [@the\_creosote\_kid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/the_creosote_kid)\ **Post date:** [November 8, 2003, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/37 "2003-11-08T22:50:43Z")
what about hitlers book on his early years spent in the coal industry?..mein shaft… ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2003, 12:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/38 "2003-11-09T00:03:53Z")
Posted by **mascaroni:** > [@](#): > > There were Nazi sympathisers within the ‘ruling classes’, but there were also many that were opposed… the Mitfords are probably a good example… There’s so much history they don’t bother to teach us on this side of the pond . . . Who were the Mitfords? ---
**Author:** ![mascaroni](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/dc4da7/32.png) [@mascaroni](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mascaroni)\ **Post date:** [November 9, 2003, 12:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160/39 "2003-11-09T00:37:50Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by BrainGlutton \* > \*\*Posted by **mascaroni:** > > There’s so much history they don’t bother to teach us on this side of the pond . . . Who were the Mitfords? \*\* [The Mitfords](http://en2.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitford_sisters) It’s not really mainstream history, I was using them as an example of the split in the ‘ruling classes’ at the time; Jessica was a communist, Diana married Mosley and Unity was a friend of Hitler… This was, of course, before the full horror of Nazism and Communism became known. As with Orwell, hindsight… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-official-nazi-party-opinion-of-various-european-nationalities/210160.md?page=1)