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The Nazis once bowed to a public protest
We have more power than we ever seem to realize. This is a story from the Nazi era -- of a protest that saved 2000 lives.
Germans examine rare protest against Nazis
By Laura Himsworth
The Mirror
Friday, Apr 30, 2004
BERLIN (Reuters) - Fearing civil disorder, the Nazis once unexpectedly bowed to a public protest in Berlin and freed 2,000 Jewish husbands of Aryan wives, a U.S. historian says.
The 1943 "Rosenstrasse" (Rose Street) uprising outside a detention centre succeeded because the Nazi regime feared it would spread, Florida State University historian Nathan Stolzfus told a Berlin conference on Friday.
"The Nazi power was extremely sensitive to the popular morale and the events in Rosenstrasse underline aspects of the Nazi power structure," Stolzfus said of the only known public protest against the deportation of Jews during the Third Reich.
Laws enacted in 1933 by the Nazis banned open gatherings other than those they organised.
"The Nazis feared the way they were fighting for their families...was something that could unravel the system around Hitler," he added. "We are deeply indebted to the protesters."
After nine days and even though some of the Jewish husbands had been deported, propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, also governor of Berlin, ordered them freed and even had 25 men sent to Auschwitz returned to their wives in Berlin.
A film called "Rosenstrasse" about the poorly organised, non-violent protest by thousands of women, who shouted from the streets for the release of their Jewish husbands, won an award at last year's Venice Film Festival.
It's been screened in many nations, including the United States, and had a successful run in German theatres.
It is based on the true, but little-known, story about the thousands of Berlin women whose Jewish husbands were rounded up from their homes and jobs as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" and taken to detention at an office building on Rosenstrasse.
Before then, Jews married to Germans had been exempted from
deportation. But as attacks on Aryan women married to Jewish men increased, some 2,000 Jews in "mixed marriages" were arrested.
In the early 1930s there were 35,000 marriages between German-Jewish and German-Aryan couples. After 1935 the marriages were forbidden. Many Aryan men had abandoned their Jewish wives.
"That it took a film to move historians to discuss the issue is sad," Stoltzfus told the conference of about 150 people, including children of parents from the Rosenstrasse showdown.
"No historian here in Germany had written about it because it did not fit. Until now they dismissed Rosenstrasse as a fluke, not as an important example of resistance but as just an example of what married people do to fight for loved ones."
It also dispels the notion harboured by many Germans that they had no choice in the Nazi dictatorship, he added.
http://www.mirror.co.uk
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/24by7panews/tm_objectid=14198992&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=germans-examine-rare-protest-against-nazis-name_page.html
By Laura Himsworth
The Mirror
Friday, Apr 30, 2004
BERLIN (Reuters) - Fearing civil disorder, the Nazis once unexpectedly bowed to a public protest in Berlin and freed 2,000 Jewish husbands of Aryan wives, a U.S. historian says.
The 1943 "Rosenstrasse" (Rose Street) uprising outside a detention centre succeeded because the Nazi regime feared it would spread, Florida State University historian Nathan Stolzfus told a Berlin conference on Friday.
"The Nazi power was extremely sensitive to the popular morale and the events in Rosenstrasse underline aspects of the Nazi power structure," Stolzfus said of the only known public protest against the deportation of Jews during the Third Reich.
Laws enacted in 1933 by the Nazis banned open gatherings other than those they organised.
"The Nazis feared the way they were fighting for their families...was something that could unravel the system around Hitler," he added. "We are deeply indebted to the protesters."
After nine days and even though some of the Jewish husbands had been deported, propaganda minister Josef Goebbels, also governor of Berlin, ordered them freed and even had 25 men sent to Auschwitz returned to their wives in Berlin.
A film called "Rosenstrasse" about the poorly organised, non-violent protest by thousands of women, who shouted from the streets for the release of their Jewish husbands, won an award at last year's Venice Film Festival.
It's been screened in many nations, including the United States, and had a successful run in German theatres.
It is based on the true, but little-known, story about the thousands of Berlin women whose Jewish husbands were rounded up from their homes and jobs as part of Hitler's "Final Solution" and taken to detention at an office building on Rosenstrasse.
Before then, Jews married to Germans had been exempted from
deportation. But as attacks on Aryan women married to Jewish men increased, some 2,000 Jews in "mixed marriages" were arrested.
In the early 1930s there were 35,000 marriages between German-Jewish and German-Aryan couples. After 1935 the marriages were forbidden. Many Aryan men had abandoned their Jewish wives.
"That it took a film to move historians to discuss the issue is sad," Stoltzfus told the conference of about 150 people, including children of parents from the Rosenstrasse showdown.
"No historian here in Germany had written about it because it did not fit. Until now they dismissed Rosenstrasse as a fluke, not as an important example of resistance but as just an example of what married people do to fight for loved ones."
It also dispels the notion harboured by many Germans that they had no choice in the Nazi dictatorship, he added.
http://www.mirror.co.uk
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/24by7panews/tm_objectid=14198992&method=full&siteid=50143&headline=germans-examine-rare-protest-against-nazis-name_page.html
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Thus the British were NOT more susceptible than the German Nazis under all circumstances. Gandhi's campaign in India worked (while the Maori campaign in NZ fialed) because what the British WANTED was different in those two cases. And similarly with "Rosenstrasse". Let me say this very clearly --- an effective "non-violence" campaign depends upon the "side" relationships between the contesting parties, what the protested against WANT of the protestors. You cannot beat somebody until they like you. You can eliminate somebody with violence; you can't make them willing cooperators.
"Rosenstrasse" worked because what the Nazi authorities WANTED of these women was that they be "good German housefrous". What the British WANTED of India was to exploit it economically (requiring active cooperation becuase they were not going to replace the Indians with their own people). What the Birtish WANTED of the Maoris was that they not exist -- in this case they WERE interested in displacing them with their own people. Similarly here in the US it would have been suicide for the native population to have resisted non-violently. Ward Churchill is right about THAT -- but the reason is because of what was wanted, not lack of morality or ineffectiveness of non-violence udner different circumstances--- and BTW, using violence can be just as futile and suicidal if you lack sufficient means to be effective. Just because non-violence won't work does NOT mean violemce will work any better.
Some useful rules of thumb. Never try a campaign of non-violence (for effect as opposed to just making a moral statement) if you have reason to believe that the other side is just as sure that they are in the right as you are. Never if there is NOTHING that the other side wants from you, when they would prefer that you went away or did not exist. And what I really mean by those things is that to be successful with non-violence you need to manipulate the situation at the point of encounter so those things aren't true.
Most governments have ruled by popular consent; that includes the Tsar of Russia and also the Nazis. Not even the most brutal regimes can easily afford to make a public show of shooting at their own people. The Tsar's troops did not understand that; the Nazis did. Even the Nazis could see that they'd be doing themselves no favor by beating down hundreds of German housewives on the streets of Berlin. So they gave in on a point that was obviously very important to them.
The repeated lesson of events like that of the Rosenstrasse is that the limits of what even the most violent government can do to its citizens is generally defined by what its citizens will tolerate.
Of course one might wonder what may happen in the case of a regime which wakes up some morning to realize that it has already passed the limit and has nothing further to lose.
Protest was not an appropriate response to Nazism. The only appropriate response to Nazism was, and continues to be, physical violence. The only good Nazi is a dead Nazi. Kill them all.
It also disturbs me that you would even consider that a person should put the life of one of their own family members over the lives of fifty million other people’s family members. You’re a sick, selfish person. Shame on you. Go hang your head.
Protest is not an appropriot response to Nazism. The only appropriate response to Nazism is physical violence. That was the lesson of York PA. That was the lesson of Kursk.
Nevertheless, by 1943, every righteous person on earth was either killing Nazis and their allies, or, like Rosie the Riveter, helping supply someone who was. In 1943, if you weren't doing everything in your power to bring about the deaths of as many Nazis as you could, as soon as possible, you were abetting their crimes.
Nazis are a cancer on the global body politic. Only complete excision will cure it. Instead, the Allies let some Nazis live, they even hired some. As a result, Nazism metastasized, and spread its influence further than it ever did by force of arms alone.
For details, see:
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See also:
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