Figure 1.--This bewildered in 1920 little German girl crawls in a Berlin gutter after being abandoned by her widowed mother who could no longer feed her. Click on the image for a discussion.
This bewildered little German girl in 1920 crawls in a Berlin gutter after being abandoned by her widowed mother who could no longer feed her. There were thousands of children like this little girl in Germany after World War I. It certainly is a very disheartening photograph that is difficult to view. We have no idea what happened to this child. We do know that many in Germany actually starved following the War. Some readers have asked why we chose to use this image. Here the primary reasonm was to better understand the German psyche and terrible attrocities of the NAZIs.
This bewildered little German girl in 1920 crawls in a Berlin gutter after being abandoned by her widowed mother who could no longer feed her. We have no other information on the children. A reader writes, "Oh my god what a sad picture of that little urchin girl left on the street to die. I felt ill at viewing this particular picture. What was her mother thinking." We do not know why the mother abandoned her on the street instead of taking her to an orphanage. We do not know for that matter to what extent orohanages were functioning in Germany at the time. Germany was at the time bankrupt.
It certainly is a very disheartening photograph that is difficult to view. We have no idea what happened to this child. We would like to think that the photographer took her to an orphanage that would accept her, but we just do not know. We can only hope.
There were thousands of children like this little girl in Germany after World War I. We know that many in Germany actually starved during the last months and more so the years immediately following the War. Conditions were desperate. The British blockade during the War reaked havoc on the Germany economy. Germany even before the War had to import food. The War affected food production because so many men were killed or were away from the front. After the War, Germany no longer had the money to import foot as it had once done. The result was mass hunger and actual starvation. Many women were widowed and thus left destitute, unable to feed theselves or their children. Many men who survived te War, were unable to find jobs to support their families.
American food aid flowed to Belgium while America was still neutral. Britain which through the Royal Navy controlled access to ports controlled by the Germans allowed the aid in, but took measures that the supplies not be diverted to Germany. We have not yet researched the details, but believe that American food aid continued to Allied nations after the War, but was not extended to either Germany or Austria. A Dutch reader tells us that the Dutch aided Austrian children after the War, but the Dutch did not have the resources to begin the supply the massive food deliveries required.
Some readers have asked why we chose to use this image. It is undoubtedly difficult to view. It is in sharp contrast to so many of our images showing well cared for children in loving families. History is, however, not alwats beautiful and children in particular have suffered as a result of great historical movenents or events. World War I was of course no exception. Here the primary reason for using this image was to better understand the German psyche and terrible attrocities of the NAZIs. We do not do this of course to justify NAZI attrocities, but to better understand how such evil people came to dominate such a great and ciltured country.
There are quite a number of HBC pages to which this image relates.
World War was the most devestaing conflict in human history. Battlefield casualties for severl combatant nations actually exceeded those of World War II. The deaths, destruction, economic dislocation, destroyed the established social order. In some countries the old empires were replaced by democratic governments, in other totalitarian regimes arose leading to the Comminist and Fascist atrocities that preceded and ocurred during World War II. The Armistace ending World War I in the end proved to be just that, lasting only a little more than 20 years.
The humiliating and punative Treaty of Versailles prepared the groundwork for the rise of totalitatrianism in Germany. As a result of Bismarck and Wilhemn I and II, democratic institutions were weak in Germany. The Weimar Republic faced grevious challenges and in the end was finally destoyed by the Great Depression. It isoften asked how the NAZIs could have so throughly directed such a great nation to its evil desigsn. We must also ask how a people longing for law and order could have turned to one of the most ruthless and lawless individuals in human history.
The Holocaust was a crime without presidence in modern
history. The crimes of the NAZI era defy understanding is both their vicuiousness and sweep. The holocaust is one of the great crimes of all of history. It was primarily directed at the Jews, but not limited to them. It is still difficult to understand how the NAZIs could have orchestrated such a crinme and been so successful in so many countries.
The NAZI killing machine was obsessed with finding and killing the Jews. Their long-term plans did not stop with the Jews. The plan for the occupied East was starvation and slavery and repopulation with Aryan peoples. Poland from 1939-44 got a taste for what the NAZIs had in mind. The NAZI program for Lebensraum in the east was not just to acquire territory. The plans for that territory was monsterous beyond belief. he plan was to evacate Poles an Russians from these territories. Some would remain to serve as slave laborers. Millions would be expelled or "evacuated" with the understanding that large numbers would die in the process. The goal was to make the east German. Here Reichsführer Heinrich Himmler had the responsibility for persuing this effort. He appears to have assigned his deputy Reinhard Heydrich appears to have coordinated this effort and essentially he SS's entire eastern operations.
A counterpoint to the NAZI program of exterminating Jews and other groups considered to be sub-human was the Lebensborn program, a sectret NAZI program to enrich German racial lines with pure Nordic Aryan blood. The NAZIs desire to reshape the genetic map of Europe was frustrated by the low-German birth rate. They attempted to increasecGerman births through the Lebersborn program, but it was not equal to the task. After the War began, the program was extended to kidnapping "suitable" children from occupied countries and bring them back to the Reich to be raised as Germans.
The Hitler Jugend (Hitler Youth), the NAZI party's youth movement, indoctrinated German youth to perpetuate the "1,000 year Reich." The Hitler Youth movement emphasized activism, physical training, NAZI ideology, especially nationalism and racial concepts, and absolute obedience to Hitler and the NAZI Party. Indoctrinating children in National Socialist idelogy was a key goal of the NAZI Party. Once Hitler assumed control over the German state, he used the Goverment to make the Hitler Youth the country's all encompasing youth movement. Hitler and other NAZIs leaders saw the indoctrination of young Germans as of critical importance. In the same year that they took power, the NAZIs organized German youth organizations into two branches of the Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugen), one branch for boys and one for girls. Membership was eventually made compulsory and all boys had to report to a neigborhood office to have his racial background checked and be registered for membership. There was then a typically elaborate introduction ceremony on the Füherer's birthday.
World War II involved enveloped virtually every part of the world during the years 1939-45. The principal belligerents were the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, and Japan) and the Allies (France, Great Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and,
China). The Soviet Union, while not a member of the Axis, was until the German invasion in June 1941, a virtual ally of the Germans-seizing territory from neigboring states and occupying the Baltic states. To most observers it looked like German had essentually won the War in 1940 and 41, seizing most of SWestern Europe and North Africa. Then in 6-months the
direction of the War was fundamentally altered when in Hitler attacked the Soviet Union bringing that enormous country into the War on the Allied side (in effect switching sides) and Japan attacked the United States at Pearl Harbor bringing America into the War. World War II was the central event of the 20th century. It not only was the largest most destructive war in human history, but it also fundamentally changed social, economicm and political trends in Europe, North America and Asia. While the focus of most studies of the War are primarily on the titantic military campaigns, weapons, and leaders, children also played a role in the War. They in many ways the people most affected by the War.
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