Personal and Collective Responsibility in Race-Torn WWII Germany

Introduction

Poems fall among the literary forms of historical preservation alongside songs and other literary works. They were, and still are, a means of conveying the emotions and reactions one has toward a particular situation. Some poems are focused on wars that may or may not have occurred, depending entirely on the poet's preference. Other poems dive deep into the subject of war — how it started, its causes, its effects, and the repercussions of a particular battle — while others seek to discuss means of avoiding conflict altogether.

This paper briefly examines personal and collective responsibility in race-torn Germany during World War Two. The poems used for research on this topic are "Frozen Jews" by Avrom Sutzkever and "First They Came…" by Pastor Martin Niemöller.

Historical Context

During the World Wars, Germany experienced both victories and downfalls as a nation. Governed by one of the cruelest and most contentious dictators in modern history, Adolf Hitler, Germany was perceived as a rival by several nations. During the first two years of World War Two, Hitler's objective of developing hegemony in Europe was largely successful. Following Poland's defeat, Hitler shifted his focus westward within a single month. He believed it was essential to conquer France and Britain before turning eastward toward the territories he envisioned as his new empire's "living space." Hitler seized both Norway and Denmark within a matter of days in April, then invaded France along with Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Only Britain remained as a barrier to his complete triumph in the west (Geary).

Nevertheless, Hitler allowed other matters to distract him from his primary goals. He assisted his ally Mussolini in invading North Africa, which was largely under British influence, supported Mussolini's conquest of Greece, and launched a retaliatory operation against Yugoslav resistance. By the end of 1941, Hitler controlled most of the European territory of the Soviet Union, although his plans for a swift defeat of the Soviet Union had not yet been fully realized. Even amid his triumphs, one issue remained: the Jews (Geary).

The Jewish people were viewed as a threat by those Germans who considered themselves members of a pure Aryan race. Hate messages spread claiming that Jews gained disproportionately from the economy and monopolized employment. Nazi organizers developed a detailed plan for the reorganization of western Soviet Union and Eastern Europe — a plan that required the eradication of existing populations and the resettlement of those territories by German overlords who would ultimately repopulate the region with Germans. What followed was the Holocaust: the mass murder of the Jewish people (Geary).

According to Geary, deployment groups began gathering Jews and shooting them by the thousands. It is estimated that approximately 6,000,000 Jews were killed in the death factories of Eastern Europe. At least 6,000,000 non-Jews also died of starvation and murder in camps such as Auschwitz, the Polish rail junction, including 2.5 million Soviet war prisoners and numerous others from Eastern European nationalities.

Conclusion

Both the international and the local community had the responsibility to discover the truth and not merely speculate. Numerous lives might have been saved had thorough, accurate, and timely investigations been conducted. The poems of Sutzkever and Niemöller stand as enduring reminders of the moral cost of silence and inaction in the face of state-sponsored atrocity.