Moorlock reviewed The answers by Ernst von Salomon
Review of 'The answers' on 'Goodreads'
1 star
Summary: We Germans who tried to be patriotic and come to the aid of our nation during the Nazi period by following the law, supporting the military, and doing our various duties while trying to avoid getting any more mixed up in all those atrocities than we really had to… why can’t the world respect us as the really good, honorable people we are, especially the noblemen and officers among us?
Actual quote: “[T]his was precisely the point at which the problem collided with individual conscience. This was every individual’s experience. No matter what route he might have followed to join the movement [Naziism] he was fully informed in advanced concerning [it’s attitude toward] the Jewish question. But in almost no case did this question impinge on the realms of his own problems[!]. Only gradually, but steadily, did the Jewish question seep into the individual’s own field of activity. And …
Summary: We Germans who tried to be patriotic and come to the aid of our nation during the Nazi period by following the law, supporting the military, and doing our various duties while trying to avoid getting any more mixed up in all those atrocities than we really had to… why can’t the world respect us as the really good, honorable people we are, especially the noblemen and officers among us?
Actual quote: “[T]his was precisely the point at which the problem collided with individual conscience. This was every individual’s experience. No matter what route he might have followed to join the movement [Naziism] he was fully informed in advanced concerning [it’s attitude toward] the Jewish question. But in almost no case did this question impinge on the realms of his own problems[!]. Only gradually, but steadily, did the Jewish question seep into the individual’s own field of activity. And each man was at a given moment faced with this decision—how far did the measures periodically ordered (almost always recognised for what they were, but not as steps in a culminating process) affect the carrying out of what he regarded as his own task and duties. I must assume this: that the decision was honestly faced. But even that meant nothing more than the insinuation, into each man’s own sphere, of the foulest sort of corruption of which the conscience can conceive, the corruption that compels the individual to choose the lesser of two evils.”
This prefaces his discussion of one of his prisoner-of-war camp friends, Hanns Ludin, whom he tried to help escape, but who ended up being hanged for war crimes. Ludin, you see, had helped the Reich carry out its extermination of Jews in the Slovak Republic — but, von Salomon notes, at the time Ludin cried out (to himself) “This is an unspeakably foul blunder!” See, he was good inside. Imagine the lesser of two evils conundrum that was “insinuated into his sphere”: Do I quit the Nazi party and/or my post in the Foreign Office and therefore abandon my party in its time of need, or do I help Hitler perpetuate his reign of butchery? And then they went and hanged the nice fellow, whose only wish was to carry out his “field of activity” without having to get tangled up in this “Jewish question” any more than he had to!
This book became a big deal best-seller when it came out in Germany in 1951. It was a good focus for Germans who were sick of being told that a bit of contrition and self-examination was in order.