It was a very busy week here. I barely had time to look at the posts, but none to answer, until now.
I've told my old German school friend about our discussion and she has expressed her admiration for our taking on this project. The book is a bestseller also in Germany, its title isDie Bücherdiebin (a composite noun. "Bücher = the plural of Buch, die is the feminine article, and in is the corresponding feminine suffix of the noun "Dieb").
My friend remembers the horrors of the Hitler era as I do, but she said that reading the book would be too upsetting for her. She confirmed what I have said in the pre-discussion : no one who did not live in Germany at that time can have even a remote idea of what life was like under a totalitarian regime. As I look back, it seems like a tight, gigantic net pulled over the country, like forcibly put-on, suffocating blinders. There is only one comparison: Soviet Russia under Stalin.
Mind control was total. All existing communications (books, the press, radio, films) were under the control of (the aptly named) Propaganda Minister Dr. Joseph Goebbels, a Rhinelander, educated by the Jesuits. He was of small build, had a clubfoot and a silver tongue - an orator par excellence. And the people believed him! He even sold tem on the Total War (before Germany invaded Russia). Goebbels killed his wife, his six children, then himself in Hitler's bunker in Berlin as Soviet soldiers stormed the capital. Various versions exist of Hitler's last hours in the bunker in the company of Eva Braun. Incidentally, nothing about her had been known in the land before.
Mein Kampf is a hate script of the worst order. Not only was it required reading but we had to write an essay about it. My father had a two-volume copy in his library, but I was physically unable to read it. I merely leafed through and then composed what may have been my first attempt at "creative writing" ... Hitler wrote the book in 1924 when he was imprisoned after the failure of the beer hall Putsch in Munich a year earlier. He was the instigator and ring leader. (Unfortunately they let him go too early.)
The man was a megalomaniac, quite possibly insane, an agent provocateur. All his speeches began the same way : back-tracking to the unfairness and injustices sof the Versailles Treaty. He can still be seen ranting and raving on PBS stations and the History channel in his hoarse voice, with the rolling rrr's in his mixed Bavarian-Austrian accent. (My instant reaction is to click the mute button.) Why on earth would anyone want to be exposed to such destructive ideas that brought so much misery and death to millions? Why is there such a morbid fascination with such an obvious instrument of evil? Are we seeking thrills?
Mein Kampf is banned in Germany and in Austria - but accessible in many countries in the world. There has been no new publication in Germany since 1948. The State of Bavaria, one of the states in the Federal Republic of Germany, owns the rights o the book --- and is allegedly trying to change things , as I saw on Google to my utter dismay.
The possession and trading of Hitler memorabilia is illegal in Germany and Austria, and so it should be in my opinion.
Allow me to make something clear : the intelligentsia, the nobility who wished (in vain) for the return of a monarchy, and the military high command did NOT support Hitler - originally. It is well to remember hat the two unsuccessful assassination attempts were carried out by military officers. They were hanged. At the risk of being called a snob I'd like to say that H. was uneducated: he habitually mis-pronounced "Versailler Vertrag". Those two ll's in the word are silent - as in Paella - but nobody ever had the gumption to correct him.
Frybabe, at the time there was a huge class difference in Germany. The intelligentsia dismissed Hitler - in the beginning - because he was under-educated. He did have artistic aspirations, and perhaps some talent. But his authoritarian father, who beat his son, sent him to a technical school instead, where H. did poorly. There was talk about some water colors he had painted, but I cannot remember any details. Yes, the man was referred to as MM (for mass murderer) and "house painter" among the hopelessly stifled opponents, though here were cells of student resistance, and I belonged to one of them. Markus Zusak's use of this ironic term is tongue-in-cheek, I believe, and from what I can tell, there is more irony in the story.
My answers to cardinal questions.
The existence of death camps was never common knowledge.
The disappearances generated rumors, which were ruthlessly suppressed wherever they flickered - but nothing concrete was known - until the camps were liberated, by Russians and Americans troops in 1945.
Ordinary Germans could NOT, and would not dare, to hide Jewish children, adolescents, much less adults. The penalty was death for the perpetrator(s), even the eradication of entire families. The preferred mode was hanging. And Jews were NOT the only victims.
Of course the world should never ever forget the Holocaust: that's why we have Spielberg's Schindler's List and now Zusak's book. I believe Zusak intends the book as just such a remembrance. It is more likely than not that he is Jewish. But does it matter? I wonder whether he ever visit Dachau.
Years before the iron curtain fell, my husband and I visited Buchenwald near Weimar in East Germany, and I took my daughter and son there in 1977. East Germany was still under Russian occupation; getting there was fraught with difficulties, in short a nightmare. But that is partially off topic and I will end right here.
