Polish-Jewish Relations: 1,300 Keyword-Phrase-Indexed Book Reviews (by Jan Peczkis)

Knowing About Genocide, by Joachim J. Savelsberg. 2021. California: University of California Press

German Reckoning? Hardly. Consequences of Punishing Only a Handful of Nazi German Leaders

The Nuremberg Trials were launched with the best of intentions. The victorious Allies wanted to avoid victor’s justice, and especially wanted to avoid assigning collective guilt to the defeated Germans. While well intentioned, the Nuremberg Trials ended up doing the opposite extreme of instilling collective guilt. They allowed the Germans to whitewash themselves, and to blame only their leaders. Savelsberg writes:

“More specifically, charging a relatively small number of leading Nazis, the Allies allowed the majority of Germans to be ritually divorced from their past leaders. Cultural sociologist Bernhard Giesen (2004a) calls this a decoupling effect, through which many are (at least judicially) absolved while guilt is attached to a few. In addition, the organizers of the trial selected defendants carefully so that each would represent a major organization of the Nazi state. The expected guilty verdicts thus not only served as degradation ceremonies toward the defendants (Garfinkel 1956) but also delegitimized the organizations they represented, separating them ritually from the majority of the German people.” (p. 164).

That’s just it!

The German reckoning came less and less. In time, the false dichotomy between “Nazis” and “Germans” only grew. Next, the de-Germanization of the Nazis took place. The mysterious Nazis may as well have come from another planet. The Holocaust establishment picked up and reinforced this false dichotomy, perhaps encouraged to do so by German reparation payments. And now we are in the situation where blame falls on “Poles and (denationalized) Nazis”, presumably working as partners to kill off the Jews. The blame-shifting ranges from the egregious Polish death camp lie to the more subtle mantra about ‘Polish complicity in the Holocaust.’”

Where will it end?