Paddy Hitler, Max Mosley and the dilemma of Nazi children

As the son of a concentration camp survivor I have wondered what it must be like to be the child of a leading Nazi.

How does one resolve the painful conflicts that such a relationship produces?

Not long ago my mother met with Hilde Schramm, the daughter of Albert Speer, their meeting being featured in a radio programme. My mother thought her a good woman who had struggled to put right her father's crimes in the best way she could.

But nevertheless, my mother decided not to confront her directly about Speer. Why? Because Mum felt it would not be fair. The issue was bound to be so difficult for Schramm. "After all, he was her Daddy".

In today's paper there was the fascinating (if sordid) story of Max Mosley, Oswald's son, and his Nazi sex games. Both Nicholas and Max Mosley have striven so hard to consign their family history to the past. Yet it is clearly still there in Max's case, and strongly so.

Here's a review of ten Nazi children.

Gudrun Himmler: No conflict for the daughter of Heinrich Himmler. She remains, basically, a Nazi. Since 1951 she has been a member of Stille Hilfe, an organisation supporting arrested, condemned or fugitive former SS-members in states of distress. For decades she has been their prominent symbol.

Katrin Himmler: Himmler's great niece, on the other hand, regards Uncle Heinrich as a mass murderer. She worries about what she is going to tell her child about the family. Why? Because she is married to a Jew who survived in the Warsaw ghetto and then went to live in Israel.

Hilde Schramm: The daughter of Hitler's architect has become a bohemian figure, a Green politician, and a brave and outspoken leader of efforts to return works of art stolen by the Nazis. She simultaneously retains affection for her father with an abhorrence for Nazi crimes, including his. This dual stance is made possible to some extent by the lack of clarity still existing about Speer's exact role and knowledge about the Final Solution. Obviously however, Speer knew much more than he admitted.

Max Rufus Mosley: The son of Oswald Mosley was his father's supporter and aide in the 1960s when Oswald had made European federalism his cause. He later was involved in the Tory party, before becoming a Labour donor in the mid 1990s. He keeps talk of the Mosley political past to a minimum and has become successful instead in the world of motor racing. 

Paddy Hitler: Adolf Hitler did not have a son, but he did have a nephew, Paddy. Paddy, the son of Hitler's brother Alois, lived in Liverpool as a young boy. In 1933 he moved to Germany, trying to be a car salesman and cash in on his family name. Things didn't work out and he moved to the US, denouncing his Uncle and serving in the US Navy in the war. Finally he settled in Long Island where he had three sons, including Brian Hitler. I am not making this up.

Nicholas Mosley: Oswald Mosley was married twice. Yet while Diana Mosley, Max's mother was a fascist supporter, Nicholas's mother Cynthia was not. She was alive during Oswald's Labour years. Her son Nicholas is a successful novelist and an outspoken critic of his father and his politics.

Romano Mussolini: The third son of Benito was a successful jazz pianist. So successful in fact that he became one of the top players in Europe in the 1960s, his albums winning critical acclaim and prizes. He started under a pseudonym, Roman Full, but later played under his own name. He claimed that his father had been misunderstood - that he was not an anti-Semite or as ruthless as he was portrayed.

Martin Bormann Jr: Bormann's son was an ardent Nazi as a child, but gradually came face to face with Nazi crimes, recording with horror an incident in which Himmler's family showed him a lightshade made of human skin. He became a Priest and tours the world denouncing the crimes of the Nazis.

Alessandra Mussolini: Roman's daughter is more fascist than jazz pianist. The Mussolini family has had its revenge on democracy with Alessandra's election to the European Parliament. Or perhaps it's the other way round. Benito's grandaughter has grown up into a fully fledged neo-fascist leader. She has gone through a complex legal process to allow her children to attach the name Mussolini to their father's surname. Bet they are all eternally grateful.

Albert Speer: Hilde turned to politics while her brother chose the alternative route, picking up his father's architectural legacy. He has been fabulously successful in this alternative career, despite bearing such a controversial name.

Comments

[Marty Price]

Here in my neighborhood in Oakland,California. Many of us African American neighbors of Oswald Mosely's daughter Decca Truehaft(Jessica Mitford) still revere her memory, her committment to civil rights, her personal journey to Missippi, and the faith that shse and her husband Bob had in humanity.
Her children have had the good sense to follow her and not their grandfather's example!!

[vaseem]

"...a lightshade made of human skin". Sometimes you read things that confirm that there is no level of depravity to which human beings will not sink, but nonetheless turn your stomach...makes you wonder whether the real "Final Solution", is a great big asteroid which will wipe out "humanity"...if we don't do it ourselves first.

Then again, there are plenty of inspirational points of light to take us onwards and upwards - Barack Obama's extraordinary bid for the White House is the current flavour. For every Hitler, there is a Gandhi, a Mandela and Luther King battling agauinst the darkness (one hope)

[Phil Greene]

Decca Truehaft or Jessica Midford is not Oswald Mosley's daughter. Her sister Diana Midford married Oswald Mosley. She remained estranged from her sister Diana all her life.

[Sandra M]

Marty: I don't think Jessica Mitford was Oswald Mosely's daughter: she was his sister-in-law, surely?

[Linda in New York]

I don't think Decca was daughter of Mosley. Believe Decca was a Mitford and thus sister-in-law to Mosley.

[Dan O'Leary]

"Here's Comment Central's list of top ten Nazi children."

Did you all sit round the office and have a bet who could come up with the most distasteful idea for an article?

[Phil Greene]

Distasteful you say, not at all. Enlightening yes, and very well done. Incidentally the Mitford sisters are were six of the most remarkable girls that ever strode this earth. Diana was my favorite.

[Alice]

Following Dan's valid comment, Danny has changed the line mentioned. The rest remains intact.

Alice
Comment Central

[Louise]

Er hmm Marty Price ...

Decca Mitford was a sister-in-law to Oswald Mosley, not his daughter. She would turn in her grave if she hears what you said!

[Jp]

I love how 'Max's lineage' can set the media off like this. If it was some Big Brother 'celeb' caught with sleazy hookers no one would bat an eyelid. (rightfully so)

My money is on both Ecclestone and Max doing this in advance of the Bahrain race on Sunday for some increase in ratings....
Jp

[MLO]

I do believe it was William Patrick Hitler, rather than Paddy. In any case, Hitler's nephew changed his surname to Stuart-Houston after WW2. So there was never any Brian Hitler, only Brian Stuart-Houston.

[squiggle]

Mosley and Mussolini weren't Nazis.

[Kleiber]

Daniel, I'm sure you've read 'My Father's Keeper' by Stephan Lebert. My own father knew and interrogated Albert Speer, finding him to be a decent sort of bloke. I presume this was early on in the proceedings...

Sordid Gudrun still runs Stille Hilfe, somewhere in the north of Germany. Not even her 'friends' have a good word to say about her.

Serving as a high-ranking diplomat in Warsaw in 1945, by father also had the dubious honour of being one of the first - if not the first - member of the Allied Forces to inspect Auschwitz. My half-brother, then six years old, waited for him in the embassy car while my father was on duty. When he returned, my dear dad wept uncontrollably for over two hours. His life was never the same again.

[Peter]

There is this light shade story again. I definitely remember overhearing my mother telling it to my grandma in 1944 and, in total disbelief, calling it "a piece of enemy propaganda" as well as adding another example of such propaganda, the story that a cheap kind of soap which floated in water (Schwimmseife) was--"according to the enmy"--produced from jews' bones. Horrible stories.

[Joseph Anthony]

We all inherit, not just the children of war criminals. We are proud to inherit when the legacy is good or brave or inspiring. We cringe when we are reminded of our other legacies.
I think of nationalism like that. Germans claim Schiller and Goethe and Beethoven; they'd like to forget Himmler et al. Americans like to remember Lincoln but not the KKK, Lindbergh's flight but not his anti-Semitism. And Britain remembers its finest hour often, but doesn't care to recall its many imperial crimes.

The children in this article just have a concentrated form of our common dilemma: how to choose among the good and bad of our inheritance.

[volov]

I don't think I've ever met the child of a leading Nazi, although I did once meet the tall and beautiful granddaughter of Field Marshall Heinz Guderian.

I have, however, several middle class German friends, born during or shortly after World War Two, who all struggle perpetually, even now, with the dismal heritage their parents left them. I don't think any of them ever feels quite "whole".

My German pals are all fine people, the finest I have ever met. I'm glad, though, that I don't have their heritage and can take a simple, natural pride in my parents.

As to Max Mosley, I don't recall him ever denouncing his own shameful heritage. In fact, during the 1960s, he was firmly part of his father's brief revival as a rabble rouser.

[Joe Sobey, Turks & Caicos Islands]

Interestingly Liverpool had another Axis link. A son of Emperor Hirohito escaped the stifling restrictions of life at the Imperial Court in the 20s and worked his passage to Liverpool where he worked on the docks and lived in a council tenement under the name of Paddy Murphy! I am not making this up and I realise it is nearing April 1st but it is true. The late Fritz Spiegel used to carry in his wallet the notice that appeared in the Liverpool Echo in the late 70s, describing Prince Paddy's strange life and death in Liverpool. This was mentioned in one of Fritz's obituaries and can be checked. remember, the great Jung did say that Liverpool is the pool of Life so no tittering!

[Sulpiz Delhaye]

Silly Soviet-style propaganda -- of course there were no lampshades made of human skin in Himmler's living room. Growing up in a boarding school, Martin Bormann hardly got to know his father, let alone Himmler.

[Hillblogger]

Your Mum made an honourable choice not to confront Hilde Speer.

The sins of the father cannot be imputed on the daughter especially now that she's taken the non-neo Nazi route.

[philip]

Very informative in a parlour game kind of way. My grandfather was in Auschwitz, though understandably being Polish our family doesn't have the same keen sense of suffering as the author. I probably wouldn't have had the curiosity to explore this subject myself and I'm quietly rather pleased that Paddy Hitler has remained fairly anonymous, not visiting the sins of the parents on the children and all that. But then how hypocritical of me to now enjoy hearing about him. One point, the lampshade story was an unnecessary embellishment imo - as surely it's run its course --> http://www.straightdope.com/columns/040604.html , but apart from that v entertaining.

[Dave B]

Not an original idea,Gerald Posner did the same thing in "Hitler's Children" published several years ago.
Incidentally a company I worked for a few ago in Plymouth used machinery made in the Mengele engineering works in Germany,founded and still owned by Josef Mengele's immediate family the machinery proudly wears the family name as it always has done.

[Andrew of Sydney]

Really not sure why there should be the question of "How does one resolve the painful conflicts that such a relationship produces?". Never forget that in the pre War period the Nazi’s were reasonable well accepted by many English and Americans. After the War up to about 1950 many non Jews were not tolerant of Jews - a lot due to Jewish terrorism in Palestine. While not disputing the Holocaust it is a subject of much subjectiveness as well as objectivesness

[C]

Paddy Hitler? It is April 1st, and wasn't Hitler's real name Shicklgruber?

[nazis&sex]

What is fascinating about this case, I suppose, is that something has been revealed which should have remained concealed — a definition of the uncanny incidentally. The majority of BDSMers (Bondage Discipline/Domination Submission/Sado-Masochism), quite accurately, abhor the use of Nazi or fascist regalia in their ceremonies — a standard feature of entry guidelines to fetish clubs for example, in keeping with the BDSM credo of no children, no animals and keeping it sane (however, Foyles stocks a book by the Satanic Sluts, which in its use of the 'blitz' double 's' insignia, indicates a worrying blurring of boundaries). The aberration of an 'aberration,' the conversion of titillating, if cartoonish Miss Whiplash into the nightmarish figure of Mistress Nazi Deathsex, is therefore disturbing, but should not be dismissed out of hand, as some of the Holocaust perpertrators, motivated as they were by strategies of obtaining sexual gratification in direct contravention of BDSM ideals, carried out similar scenarios, with the difference that their 'play' resulted in death.

File under: Chelsea torture chambers, in addition to Chelsea tractors, Chelsea yummy mummys, etc.

[Chris Gillibrand]

Albert Speer Junior has strangely never been commissioned for a EU building.

I think I am right to recall that the recruiting sergeant for the US Navy when Hitler (Paddy) was recruited was a Himmler.

The house where Hitler lived in Linz has been turned into the offices for the gravediggers who service the cemetery where his parents are buried. Someone still pays for the upkeep of the grave.

[Peter Wigglesworth]

This article is yet another example of British intellectual poverty; an example that refuses to go away and underlines a dilemma of character. The British still get a kick and a laugh out of the WW2,'the Germans', Hitler and the Nazi's whilst nothing about that time was remotely funny.
The idea that Nazi's had children seems to baffle the mind. That the children might be like anyone else i.e., anything a human being can be despite or because of their heritage, is again baffling. Perhaps,’ The Times’ should employ a psychiatrist to explain the state of the writers mind or dubious expressions of the national psyche that are a sub-text to many articles.

‘Finally he settled in Long Island where he had three sons, including Brian Hitler. I am not making this up’. This is a line straight from the history book of 'Music hall joke journalism'. The incredulity that invokes, ‚I am not making this up’, is itself incredible. Taken from another context, ‚His children, the last Hitlers, now apparently live on Long Island, although understandably they keep themselves to themselves’. Is this so understandable, especially if understandably they changed their names, like so many people with German names that were persecuted during the wars and still are for their name alone?

[James Finch]

Check the calendar anyone?!

[daniel]

Brian Hitler lol!

[Paul]

Did Albert Sppeer also have an American born grandaughter named Brittany, by any chance?

[Anne Lux]

neither distasteful nor terribly original. Anyone who's really interested in the topic should check out the incredibly interesting "Born Guilty" by Peter Sichrovsky, published in 1998. It's out of print now but copies can still be found. Anyone with a bit of compassion in their bones must have an inkling that being born the child of (and thus presumably growing up loving) a mass murderer is a dilemma you wouldn't wish on anyone.

[Al in London]

One additional name that could be mentioned in this context is that of journalist Niklas Frank. A son of Hans Frank, the butcher of Poland, he wrote a remarkable book about his father. An English translation came out in 1991.

[Al in London]

One additional name that could be mentioned in this context is that of journalist Niklas Frank. A son of Hans Frank, the butcher of Poland, he wrote a remarkable book about his father. An English translation came out in 1991.

[e skelton]

Bwian Hitler? Thyorly Finkelthtein wagth uth?

[Rui]

«Man is what man does». Some NAZIs descend from NAZIs, some don't. That doesn't make them any worse or any better.

If the offspring of NAZI proeminents do good things they are good persons. If they do bad things they are bad. Pretty simple if You ask me.

Every choice is an INDIVIDUAL choice and (very important!) Man does have a choice.

[Ivi]

Jessica Mitford was not related to Mosley, except by marriage, her sister Diana married Mosley. Jessica Mitford was in fact a communist all her life. She ran away to fight the civil war in Spain before emigrating to the United States with her first husband to escape unpaid bills.

[P Stroud]

I remember hearing an amusing story about an English jazz musician who met Romano Mussolini some time after the war. A bit nonplussed he greeted Romano with the words, "Hi Romano, sorry to hear about your old dad."

[Paul Perry melbourne australia]

Not exactly the son of Hirohito, but close:
Paddy Murphy was the assumed name of
Kanso Yoshida, born in Japan in 1895, settled in Liverpool in 1938 and lived there until he died in 1973.

Kanso was second cousin to Princess Chichibu, who was sister-in-law to Emperor Hirohito, Akihito's father.

[hans]

You could also mention Monika Goeth the daughter of Amon Goeth who is depicted in the movie Schindler's List. An interview with her was published in German. The title of the book reads "I must love my father, musn't I?" Wikipedia also mentions what happened to her mother. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amon_Goeth

[c.m.andersen]

only british newspapers are looking for 1.april comments, even though its about the darkness of the history,..we germans never can make this.

[Kathy Richards]

Decca Truehaft wasn't Oswald Moseley's daughter! For goodness sake, she was his sister-in-law, and loathed him!

Jessica and Diana Mitford were sisters. Diana married Mosely - Jessica was appalled.

[S Brown]

I do not mean to be pedantic but Decca Truehaft (Jessica Mitford) was in fact the sister of Mosley's second wife Diana, not as mentioned above, the daughter of Sir Oswald. I do not think the surviving Mitford sister, the dowager Duchess of Devonshirem would appreciate the ongoing obsession of people with the political views of her sisters. The family as a whole were appalled by Mosley's views and the fact that Diana had publically shamed the family by becoming his mistress en titre. Please let the Mitford sisters be known for their joie de vivre as opposed to raking up boring stories about whether one of them was a fascist or communist.

[Michael Walsh]

If you want an even stranger coincidence, at least one of the Mitford girls was worn in the Canadian town of Swastika, Ontario! Their family had founded the town to support their mining interests in the area. During WW2 there was talk of renaming the town Churchill, but the residents objected, saying that the swastika was an ancient and honorable symbol that had been wickedly hijacked by the Nazis, and that hanging the name would hive it even more evil power.

[Amanda]

The Nazis did make lampshades out of the skin of Jews. Also they did make soap out of the bones of Jews. I can give you the number of an excellent speaker who was one of the first to libeate the concentration camps, & has personally seen these lampshades. Also of men who have witnessed such bars of soap. Also of Jews who were forced to work in factories making this soap.

Do not be so stupid as to dismiss Nazi atrocities as propaganda. We Jews sadly have suffered enough atrocities to not need to make any up.

[llloyd]

Why don't you Brits leave this world war two black propaganda stuff alone? You are increasingly making international fools of yourselves. The world is in enough trouble without resurrecting all this old nonsense. Also I think it is time not to mention Israel and human rights in the same breath.

[Mannstein]

Children of Holocaust survivors are now to receive restitution because of trauma they suffered while growing up.

By the same token German children of who are innocent parties ought also receive restitution for trauma brought on by incessant Holocaust propaganda going on 60 years now.

The Ilse Koch's lampshades were dead and buried long ago when General Lucius Clay ordered a forensic investigation only to discover they were made of goat skin. He admited as much in an interview state side.

If Bush and his crony war criminals don't end up at the International Court in the Hague after they leave office the American public owes an appology to the Germans.

I'm proud of my German heritage warts and all.

[Jenna Rhodes]

Hitler's father name was originally schickelgruber yes. But after finding out his real fathers name as a adolescent he changed it to 'Heidler'. There was a mix up and it came back mispelled as Hitler.

I thought the article was well written, and I have heard bout the human ski lampshade thing before. I agree that we should not be held accountable for our parents/ elder relations actions.

I found some of the mini biographies very interesting. Expecially about Himmler's neo nazi daughter. Such an interesting outcome from the 'super chicken' farmer.

[Linda]

I would like to second Peter's comment. I think the main point is that all peoples have been victimizers as well as noble.

I am Jewish and I cringe every time Israel builds a new settlement or moves into Gaza.

Linda

[Jack Daniels]

Thank goodness that Britain's imperial crimes are now behind us, and that all the subject peoples of the Empire are so much better off, as they are in Sierra Leone, Zimbabwe, Burma...

[Colin Coghlan]

This story gathered the most comments of any that I have seen in The Times. I believe all of the stories of Nazi atrocities, and I fear for those who do not. You know what they say about people who ignore history.

[peter]

Even Yad Vasheem and the redoubtable sainted Debra Lipstad have said that the Human skin lampshades, and the soap made from Jews is WW2 propaganda. The shrunken heads from Buchenwald turned put to be of amazoninan Indians, rather than from innocent Poles!

[Siasu]

Hitler's nephew was called Willie Hitler, not Paddy (although Patrick featured in his given names). He was born in Liverpool to an Irish mother, Bridget Dowling, and Hitler's half brother Alois. Beryl Bainbridge wrote a novel about a fictional visit by a young Adolf to his Liverpudlan relatives -which was dramatized on T.V. in the early 80s I think. Willie's three sons, who all live(ed?) in Long Island, changed their name and made a pact never to have children so as to end the Hitler bloodline. As far as I know they kept this pact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Patrick_Hitler

[Edmund Burke]

In tracing family links to Adolf Hitler, we need to remember that Hitler was an adopted name. His real name was Schickelgrueber.

[daveg]

Do not be so stupid as to dismiss Nazi atrocities as propaganda. We Jews sadly have suffered enough atrocities to not need to make any up.

Apparently not. The soap story is 100% false.

[John Kinloch]

An excellent piece of journalism.
As a post war baby, I could only read of the horror of the Final Solution.
The Nazis were sick, brutal people
and the world would be a better place without them.
To say they are animals is to insult the animals.
I hope and pray that modern methods of communication means that concentration camps would be exposed before millions are slaughtered.
Forgive and forget? NO THEIR ACTIONS MUST NEVER BE FORGOTTEN AND
MUST SERVE AS A REMINDERE TO THE MODERN WORLD.
John Kinloch
New York, USA.
ps. I am not Jewish but Catholic.

[liam]

About Max Mosley being with whores,its a know fact M L K was into whores as well.So whats the big deal?

[MaryM]

To Kleiber: Though I don't know the veracity of that hideous light shade story, I am confounded by doubt of the truth of that, and your annoyance by it, being the focus of your post.

As for your mother reacting to this story with "total disbelief, calling it 'a piece of enemy propaganda'" I am quite confused. So, your mother believes the genocide, and putting people in ovens and torturous "medical" experiments on people, and sterilizing people without their consent, and forced labor, and separating families, and other evil parts of the story, but the light shade story goes too far for her? And, that offends her? (And you?) Talk about being in denial! And talk about the darkest of moral bankruptcies.

[Chris Gillibrand]

Wittgenstein (whose sister was the mistress of my wife's late husband-I am also not making this up!) and Hitler were in the same class in Linz. The school which is on the other side of the road from the synagogue- now reconstructed- has a plaque to commemorate the former but not the latter.

I was recently in the synagogue for a service and found the most ulta-traditional Catholic of the whole of Austria there- one should not always believe stereotypes. In the war years, however, sadly it was often the case the more liberal the Catholic the bigger the Nazi.

[Chris Gillibrand]

What a terrible life for Bormann Jr to have a Nazi father and then to be a victim of Vatican II, one failed priest among many in the post-Conciliar times.

The Head of the Protestant Church in Germany, Wolfgang Huber also lives under a terrible shadow- his father wrote the standard law text for the Nazi period "The Law of Greater Germany".

Ralf Hochhuth who wrote the work "The Representative" which is the source for all the libels on Pope Pius XII, also was in reality dealing with his parents legacy. Or has he- he is best friends with one David Irving "an honourable man" to Hochhuth.

[MIcky B]

"Lightshades made of human skin". That is not true there is no evidence of it at all, it's well established the story was fabricated by the Russians for the Nuremburg trials. Doh

[Charles]

Pervert and servant Max Mosley. yep, it's about his privacy, but i detest his nazi-style action. Moreover, taking in count his parents story. I like those t-shirts that i've found at http://www.cafepress.com/tshirtmaster/5252349 , very good apparel for this theme.

[MIcky B]

Lampshades made of skin and Human soap was not true, it was made up by the Russians to present at Nuremburg along with alot of other things.

[none]

Were companies like BMW and Mercedes making money off German exploits during WW2? And if so - why are they not to pay up...?

[Marc]

Its interesting to read the responses to the above article. There are still so many misconceptions and myths about Hitler and his Germany. The propaganda against Hitler's Germany started in the mid-thirties and hasn't stopped. No there weren't any lampshades made from human skins or soap made from human fat. Even the Holocaust center Yad Vashem in Israel doesn't support these crazy ideas and no serious historian of the Third Reich would dare put them in a book anymore. Plus the Auschwitz Museum has confessed that the 'gas chamber' shown to tourist was constructed three years after the war was over for communist propaganda. Unfortunately the personalities of the Third Reich never got to defend themselves or tell their stories. We today are given a blurred view of those times. But slowly things are beginning to surface to challenge the orthodox and comformist view of WWII and the period proceeding it. And if you are looking at things from a different perspective it doesn't mean you are a Neo-Nazi or anti-Jewish. Be open-minded and not be afraid of approaching or seeing things from a different point of view.

[david collier]

The truth behind the story of a lightshade made of human skin is that the commandant of Buchenwald and his wife were responsible for this disgusting crime.They were duly tried and executed by the SS.This sort of practise occured extremely rarely,unlike the American practise of cutting ears from corpses as souveniers.Strangely the only crimes that count are the german ones and the rest are covered up.

[Damian Andrews]

The lampshade and soap fairy tales were exposed long ago.No serious historian believes these propaganda lies anymore.

How abouat an article about Arthur Harris' children?How about the children of Communist mass murderers?

[Peter Trigg]

What happened to Edda Goering?

[jennie m]

Whether or not there were lampshades made of human skin or soap made from bones, or more likely the ash from burned bones (ash is a constituent of soap) - don't get bogged down in detail.The point is that over six million men, women and children were murdered in the concentration camps. They were treated as less than human,herded, marked, experimented on and ultimately slaughtered like animals. This is something which needs to be remembered in order to try to prevent its happening again.
I have no Jewish ancestry and no axe to grind - other than that of being a human being.

[Robert]

The problem is in a few years time the second world war will be like the first world war history, already many who fought in this war are dead and in twenty or thirty we will have films pictures and history. Go back a bit further and I wonder what people would have said of the UK concentration camps in Africa and the death of starvation of perhaps millions.

We all have a black sheep in the family or we have bigger black sheep in governments Blair and Bush went to war and perhaps killed half a million over a lie, Labour will not live this one down, America has secret camps around the world which perhaps tortures and kills innocent people, because Bush the batty twit wants to.

[Debra]

To Marc: Why be so coy? Spell out your "different perspective" to our "blurred view of those times" so we can judge whether it passes the smell test.

[Blue Baby]

In response to Michael Brown’s comments, Unity Mitford was certainly conceived in Swastika. A further unfortunate coincidence was that her second name was Valkyrie. She was an ardent Nazi and a friend of Hitler. She attempted suicide at the start of WWII, but whilst the bullet lodged in her brain, she did not die. However, she was severely brain-damaged as a consequence and died in 1948 of meningitis caused by complications of her injury.

[fred]

The United States Constitution prevents the corruption of blood by the government. It is injust to accuse and/or find guilty someone of a crime which they did not commit. Unless those childen of NAZIs participated in the crimes, stop bothering them. Justice is not found by corrupting blood, whether done officially or not.

[Hughy Hubris]

"Then again, there are plenty of inspirational points of light to take us onwards and upwards - Barack Obama's extraordinary bid for the White House is the current flavour. For every Hitler, there is a Gandhi, a Mandela and Luther King battling agauinst the darkness (one hope)"

Actually no, they all get shot when they get that far. All of them.

[Lucio Rossi]

Benito Mussolini was not a Nazi, but
the inventor of Fascism. For this reason, Romano Mussolini was not a Nazi's son, nor Alessandra Mussolini the nephiew of a Nazi.Italian Jews were about 50.000 amongst 50millions of Italians: most of them were Fascists and backed Fascism until 1938,also after Hitler persecuted German Jews. When Mussolini allied with Hitler because the British embargo to Italy for the Ethiopia, in 1938 he made some antiJew laws. The Jews couldn't have public jobs, don't be in the army nor in the administration, schools, and so on. You know that until 1942 it didn't begin the mass killing of Jews in East Europe, in 1940 Mussolini thought to a Blitzkrieg, not to WW2. Howhever in WW2 60millions of people died, not only 6million of Jews. Remember also these 60millions of deads sometimes, please. I am sorry for the Jews, but WW2 was not made because them and it would be historically important don't reduce WW2 to the Holocaust, otherwise we don't understand anything of history of WW2.

[Bela]

The comments above are one of THE most depressing things I have read for a long while. Such ignorance! Such prejudice! Who cares whether there were or weren't lampshades made of human skin or soaps, isn't 6m people murdered in concentration camps and elsewhere bad enough?

To Linda: You have swallowed the propaganda whole. With friends (or fellow coreligionists), like you, who needs enemies. You can proudly call yourself a liberal antisemite.

Shame on you all!

[Wayne Peters]

These are desperate times for people at home and in our present war zones.
The utopia of a consumer led ideal society has waned. A housing crisis has struck the US and the UK through bad financial regulation.
The children of German fascists as with the children of ethnic Jewish communists like Berea, Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin and many Bolsheviks who were ethnic Jews and did as much harm as Hitler (I'm trying to be fair) deserve to be given a chance to make a new life for themselves.
What we don't need is an extreme reaction to our politial problems.

[Paul]

..."a lightshade made of human skin". Sometimes you read things that confirm that there is no level of stupidity to which writers of comments will not sink, but nonetheless infuriate you. Lampshades? Soap? Didn't you know all those "Nazi atrocity" stories were made up? Please don't comment on historical personages if you haven't even read enough to know the facts of history.

[Arron hitleren]

its weird because everyone thinks my last name hitleren has something to do with my grand grand grand parents were nazis but the thing is, im black reply to this someone

[Damian Andrews]

"Don't get bogged down in detail."

Right,who cares about the truth.

"They were treated as less than human."

Kind of like the Germans are now with the endless hate campaign being waged against them.Sometimes I wonder if the war ever ended.

[Veniamin Nikolayev]

This article should have been published on April 1. It would have made a great April Fool's joke. Most of the information in this article comes entirely from the author's overactive imagination. But it was entertaining to read how Hitler's nephew served in the US Navy during the war.

[Lucio Rossi]

The most of people living in Europe, US and Japan are the children of WW2 survivors and this article showes Finkelstein's historical confusion, because he doesn't know that 60millions of people died in WW2. Yes, the Jews died differently, we know, but history shows that the Jews never had fought a war in Europe. Europeans Jews fought only in WW1, for the first time in Europe. In the past centuries Jews were a different community with different jobs, they didn't make wars and lived in ghettos, with different status. The French Revolution gave the Jews equal rights, but until this time some Jews were only the bankers of the wars not the soldiers, nor the generals. It was Venice the most antipapist city in Italy to order the ghetto, and Venice did this during a war she was losing. Luckily I haven't seen a war in West Europe, but during wars the states changes laws usually.If one country is fighting a war doesn't trust anybody: this is cruel,but this is history. Now many times Jews say they have not a clear national identity, they are over all nations, they are loyal only to Israel, they are all children of the Holocaust, and in the past it was not very different. They had no clear identity. For this reason they were seen with suspicion and persecuted out of the ghettos.(Yes, Dreyfus was a Jew and he became a case, but how many no Jew ufficials were accused of the same things for antaghonism, jealosy or other?)
In the past centuries during war Jew were in the ghettos and they had no great killing. Past wars had also less deads than WW2. Daniel Finkelstein doesn't understand that the Jews will be killed fighting or under the bombings or in concentration camps like the other people, if Hitler were not anti-Jew. Yes, they were persecuted and gassed, but if they were not persecuted and send in camps, they would be die the same, like the other Europeans. May be, the number of Jews dead could be possible different, but we don't know. I can understand Finkelstein considers himself special, but he is not special and in case of war between Great Britain and Israel he could be seen with suspicion, may be considered "alien". We never know what can happen, so I think the best thing is let Germans and Italians in peace, because they haven't a memorial day for their relatives deads in WW2. Many simple people died in Germany and in Italy in WW2 and the best thing is speaking about war historically now. The personal feelings of children of Germans and Italians survivors of WW2 are just personal at this point.

[Jimmy]

I think that Martin Bormann jr and his mother were actually shown a copy of Mein Kampf by Hoess, the Commandant of Auschwitz which he offered to her as a gift. She suspected that it was bound in human skin and declined.

[Steven Davies]

The human skin lampshade and soap stories may have been propaganda but Anthony Read in his book 'The Devil's Disciples' quotes Martin Bormann Junior's 1991 interview with Gitta Sereny. On a visit to the Himmler home near Berchtesgaden in 1944, Haschen Himmler showed him Himmler's 'special collection', "When she opened the door and we flocked in, we didn't understand what the objects in the room were - until she explained, quite scientifically, you know...It was tables and chairs made of parts of human bodies. There was a chair...the seat was a human pelvis, the legs human legs - on human feet. And then she picked up a copy of Mein Kampf from a pile of them...She showed us the cover - made of human skin, she said - and explained that the Dachau prisoners who produced it used the Ruckenhaut, the skin of the back to make it". Allied propaganda?

[The American Illuminati]

What about the Hoffmanns?

I am Heindrich Hoffmann's great grandson and my opinion of the war differs so radically from printed history it's no wonder I am Hells Angels.

Sincerely yours

Norman Christian Hoffmann

[Dick Richards]

Actually human skin makes rotten lampshades. And the soap was made from the rendered down fat, not from the bones.

D.R.

[Andrew]

What is so shocking about the holocaust were the idealogical forces of genocidal eradication. Yes many other races & nationalities suffered but they did not have a master plan of extinction in such an instutionalised mass mechanized method of sinisterness.what concerns me today is that people are forgetting this & are aligning their beliefs to a false stereotype.

[Rob Curtis]

Lampshades made of skin? Skin bound editions of mein kampf? Human soap? Why cant it be true? The Nazis experimented on their victims, be they Jewish, gay, Russian, political opponents, just like they do on Rabbits and monkeys today. These tests were barbaric and totally inhumane. For instance, plunging infants into freezing/scalding water to see how long they would survive.
Yet the notion of my earlier points is met with disbelief. If Human life is so cheap and disposable to the Nazis, why wouldnt they make 'souvenirs'?
That aside, I do feel sorry for the children. What a start to life indeed.

[MaryM]

Aaron, Your comment "Kind of like the Germans are now with the endless hate campaign being waged against them" comes across as tremendously callous.

Just what are you comparing? What exactly are you referring to that is happening to Germans that has you so offended and concerned that you would mention it here in a discussion about Nazi's?

If you have a concern about Germany that stems somehow from something relevant to this discussion, I would try to rework your message so it is clearer what you are trying to say, and so it does not come across as minimizing atrocities.

[MaryM]

After reacting to Aaron's comment I decided to post this.

There is a book I am interested in reading called After Hitler: Recivilizing Germans, 1945-1995.

Here is a brief description of the book:

Unlike other intellectual inquiries into German efforts to deal with the Nazi past, After Hitler primarily focuses on the practical lessons a disoriented people drew from their past misdeeds, and their struggle to create a new society with a sincere and deep commitment to human rights.

After Hitler offers a comprehensive view of the breathtaking transformation of the Germans from the defeated Nazi accomplices and Holocaust perpetrators of 1945 to the civilized, democratic people of today's Germany.

[MaryM]

Veniamin Nikolayev, your post above, is quite possibly one of the most ludicrous things I have ever read in my entire life.

The part of your message that said, "...but if they were not persecuted and send in camps, they would be die the same, like the other Europeans" is completely nonsensical.

As I said before, a discussion about Nazi's really has those who slither around in dark places (even if that darkness is just total denial or ignorance or a mind incapable of discernment) crawling out of the woodwork it seems.

[padd]

One off the female singers in the pop group ABBA was a Nazi baby also

[Jim]

One of my relatives was an officer in Abwehr (intelligence service) of the Heer (army). As an intelligence officer, he knew people in the geheimestattspolizie(gestapo). Willy Hitler apparantly was raising all sorts of rucus galavanting around reich trading on his uncles name. It only went so far. He eventually threated Hitler with blackmail regarding a family secret, which Hitler assumed involved potential Jewish family blood (although it didn't-it related to being born outside of marriage). Hitler caved but soon the state polize and RSD was watching him. He caught on, moved to the US like the author said, joined the Navy, and toured the country on his name after the war eventually becoming a phlebotomist. 2 of 3 of his children are apparantly alive and well, living in New England....but changed their names. They are Hitlers closest living relatives...and they're Americans.