# Would you have survived in Nazi Germany? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [May 2, 2013, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342 "2013-05-02T19:26:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![OttoDaFe](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ottodafe/32/356_2.png) [@OttoDaFe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OttoDaFe)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/21 "2013-05-02T20:43:42Z")
Racially, I’d probably have snuck into the lower echelons of the _Volk_ (dark hair and eyes, but 100% European ancestry). Despite that, I’d most likely have ended up with a black triangle — not because of any overt actions, but because a) I’m not a joiner, and b) like **Mr. Kobayashi** , I’d eventually say something in the wrong place and at the wrong time that would call my enthusiasm to National Socialism into question. (As I said in another thread, one of my college friends had a grandfather who had served in the German army in WWI and emigrated to the US in the 1930s. The grandfather said that living in Nazi Germany was remarkably like being in the trenches: as long as you kept your head down and stayed in the rut that was already there, you would probably survive; stick your head up to see what was outside, and you’d likely get it shot off.) ---
**Author:** ![Mr.Kobayashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/4af34b/32.png) [@Mr.Kobayashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mr.Kobayashi)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 8:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/22 "2013-05-02T20:44:02Z")
> [@Larry\_Borgia](#): > > As a “first degree mixed race” (half Jewish half Nordic) I might have survived if I kept my head down, petitioned for reclassification, etc. My blue eyes and small nose would help. I’d like to say I would oppose the regime but that’s an easy boast to make, a difficult one to prove. This is a very good point. There are many who are proud liberals on these boards, but if told by some government sanctioned jackbooted thug that if you don’t drop that attitude and fall in line we will end you and your family, how many would condemn themselves and their loved ones for their beliefs? The reason I think I’d still be screwed is that I don’t think I could help keeping my gob shut. There’s a section in the excellent _The World At War_ documentary that interviews ordinary Germans; paraphrasing one woman mentions that a man following Krystallnatch saw the destruction and muttered ‘shameful’, or words to that effect. A party official was in the crowd and demanded his address. Accidentally getting on the ‘radar’ of the Gestapo I think would be dangerously easy for me. ---
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/23 "2013-05-02T20:47:50Z")
Possibly. Chinese. Could likely pass myself off as Japanese (they’re German, how’re they gonna know?) thus an “honorary Aryan”. Or as long as I’d not joined the Communist Party of Germany, as many Chinese in Germany did at the time, I’d probably be okay. However, I’m sure they’d have gotten around to us eventually. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/24 "2013-05-02T20:55:05Z")
I wouldn’t have been a favorite child but I probably would have been okay. Not a blue-eyed blonde but I’m white enough. Not a German but not a Slav. Raised a Catholic but so was Hitler. A little union work but nothing radical. ---
**Author:** ![Septima](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Septima](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Septima)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/25 "2013-05-02T21:09:57Z")
I’m neither blonde nor blue-eyed, but I am an ethnic Norwegian, and descended from three prominent Odel farming families. Which was pretty much the bestest thing you could be to nazis, even better than native german in some cases. Mouth shut etc. I’d be a nazi pet, basically. I am not brave. That my whole close family were in the resistance at the time _might_ be more of an issue, but I’d still live - I might spend the war in a forced labour camp with my relatives, but I’d survive, as they did. ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/26 "2013-05-02T21:16:00Z")
I’m pretty sure my “type” could have survived just fine; I just hope I would have had the courage to do something that would have precluded me getting along just fine in Nazi Germany. ---
**Author:** ![Atomic\_Alex](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/atomic_alex/32/175_2.png) [@Atomic\_Alex](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Atomic_Alex)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/27 "2013-05-02T21:21:10Z")
That’s actually an interesting question, I’m blue-eyed with light-brown hair and in decent physical shape so in that respect I’d be fine. Of course if I had been born and raised in Nazi Germany I wouldn’t be the same person I am now, wheras the person I am now would happily sign up to overthrow the Nazi regime _(or regimes like it, I’m kind of regretting telling friends about a year ago that I’d join up if David Cameron took a head-stagger and decide to overthrow the North Korean regime!)_ but I strongly suspect that ‘Nazi me’ would be goose-stepping his way across Europe with the best of them… But then I did grow up during The Troubles in Northern Ireland and never went down the extremist route, or was tempted to do so, so there is that to consider. ---
**Author:** ![geneb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a88e4f/32.png) [@geneb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/geneb)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/28 "2013-05-02T21:28:07Z")
Brown hair, brown eyes, visibly white (technically Melungeon), no delusions of resistance unless they came after me first. I’d probably be fine. ---
**Author:** ![artemis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/91b2a8/32.png) [@artemis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/artemis)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/29 "2013-05-02T21:31:51Z")
I answered the question assuming we’re talking about “current me” being in Nazi Germany; I think “current me” would get in trouble for holding radical political views, because I probably wouldn’t be smart enough to shut up quickly enough to keep off the Gestapo’s radar once the Nazis take over. But if I’d actually been born at the turn of the century, I suspect I’d have been fine had I found myself in Germany at that time: I’m of Germanic stock, and I suspect my political views back then would be different then from what they are now. So “turn of the century me” would probably have been a good German and survived just fine. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/30 "2013-05-02T21:33:38Z")
Jewish. If not for my ancestors immigrating from eastern Europe to the US in the early 1900s, I would not be here to write this. ---
**Author:** ![panaccione](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@panaccione](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panaccione)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/31 "2013-05-02T21:40:34Z")
Liberal pacifist of german decent. But, in that reality, I probably would have just kept my mouth shut. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/32 "2013-05-02T21:40:53Z")
Blonde hair - well, it was when I was a child, so - check. Blue eyes - check Fair skin - check African American ancestry -check (but they’d probably never have found out) Mouth shut - highly unlikely This is a really tough one. If it was just me I know I’d have been freedom fighting and leaflet distributing my way straight into the camps. If I’d had Celtling though. I’ve often said there’s very little that I wouldn’t do for her, and it might’ve been true there too. I’m heartily ashamed to say that I may have kept my head down for her sake. :sigh: ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/33 "2013-05-02T21:47:10Z")
My grandmas maiden name on my dads side was Goodman [Goodman Surname History, Jewish](Http://www.houseofnames.com/goodman-history/Jewish). Also my husband would be screwed as well. His mom’s maiden name is Jaffee. [Jaffe Name Meaning & Jaffe Family History at Ancestry.com®](http://www.ancestry.com/name-origin?surname=jaffe) ---
**Author:** ![April\_R](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3da27b/32.png) [@April\_R](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/April_R)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/34 "2013-05-02T21:54:07Z")
That should have been Jaffe with one e. I missed the edit window ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/35 "2013-05-02T22:02:00Z")
> [@Mr.Kobayashi](#): > > A link on [black people in Germany](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_people_in_Nazi_Germany) - not officially classified, still considered racially inferior although bizarrely could join the [armed forces](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b1/Bundesarchiv_Bild_101I-177-1465-16%2C_Griechenland%2C_Soldaten_der_%22Legion_Freies_Arabien%22.jpg). I learned something new today. Thanks, Mr. Kobayashi! ---
**Author:** ![Silence\_Lenore](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e56c9b/32.png) [@Silence\_Lenore](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Silence_Lenore)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/36 "2013-05-02T22:05:49Z")
My mother and her family did ok, so I most likely would have too. Me: light brown hair, blue eyes, pale skin, tall & strong with child bearing hips. But, if you are asking my present day self & my family, no, not fine at all - my husband is half Jewish, so it would be off to the camps. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/37 "2013-05-02T22:11:11Z")
> [@geneb](#): > > Brown hair, brown eyes, visibly white (technically Melungeon), no delusions of resistance unless they came after me first. I’d probably be fine. I might be able to live down my prior record of writings on political topics – but if they found copies of my old essays, I’d be toast. Also, what’s “fine?” I’m healthy enough, I’d get drafted and put in the army and die under fire at Kursk. Or, as a civilian, I’d die from shrapnel from a mortar round somewhere outside Berlin. Or simply get an infection from stepping on a tack and die for lack of antibiotics. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/38 "2013-05-02T22:20:29Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > I learned something new today. Thanks, Mr. Kobayashi! Same here. I had no idea, I just assumed. ---
**Author:** ![Inigo\_Montoya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/inigo_montoya/32/124_2.png) [@Inigo\_Montoya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inigo_Montoya)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/39 "2013-05-02T22:32:51Z")
I’m a blue-eyed non-aryan, but I think I’d be at least as OK as anyone else who looked like der Führer. However, if the shit hit the fan, right now, I’d probably end up with a black triangle for being mentally ill. My son would not last 10 minutes because his crazy is very documented, and he has a criminal record. He’d wig out the second someone laid hands on him to the point where he’d be shot in the living room. Likely the entire houshold would be wiped out in the same episode if it happened at home (as opposed to at school), or the folks coming to get him would be wiped out and the household would be on the run. It’d get ugly very fast. If we knew about the camps I think we’d all be killed resisting. Not because I and my family are brave and resisting is the right thing, but because if we know we’re targets, any fate would be better than the camps. But I think most people didn’t know about/believe in the camps back then. Hm…no, for one reason or another, we would not likely have made it. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 11:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342/40 "2013-05-02T23:08:41Z")
I could scamper back in the closet. I’m white of Irish & German extraction, but am a natural brunet (so was Hitler). Technically I’m Jewish in the matrilineal line from a great-grandmother who converted, but I assume in this scenario I’m just being plopped back in time so any papers I had would be forged anyway. None of my grandparents were Jewish anyway. My biggest problem is that like most American men I’m circumcised so I’d have to come up with an excuse for that. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/would-you-have-survived-in-nazi-germany/657342.md?page=3)