Howard Zinn Quotes

He was shot in 1944 for his involvement in an attempt to kill Hitler

Robinson who was a Republican from New York was, like the other Negro Republican delegates , when they were cursed, shoved, threatened and spat on. The Southern delegates were part of a general Southern backlash as a result of the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

He was a viscious anti-Semite who attracted to his party extreme right wingers, Nazi Sympathers and apologists for the Vichey Franch government. The party was rejected by the majority of French voters, but when his daughter took over the party, she was not an anti Semite but foudn it hard to shake the party's image which was alaysa associated with her name even when she actually kicked her father out of the party.

See Talaat Bey {40621} for a similar twisted logic.

The Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, preceded him with the announcement of declaration of war against Germany, but it was left up to the Foreign Minister to explain the implications. This was the first time in history that a nation had used radio to communicate such momentous events to its population.

Eisenhower was then Supreme Allied Commander.

“Lebensraum” was a German expansionist concept of the time which has no good English translation. Literally, it means “living room”. The Germans had this notion that the German race and nation had to have more land to accommodate the growth of the German people. And because the Germans were a superior race, they were entitled to the land surrounding Germany in which to have Germans grow and thrive. The “inferior” peoples who lived on the land could be exterminated so that Germany would have this expansion room. The “Death’s Head units” were special German elite troops who used the Death’s Head as a symbol on their uniforms. Some of the Generals were concerned that the rest of the world would condemn Germany and possibly interfere if they exterminated the Poles. Hitler pointed to the example of the Turks who had killed most of the Armenians in the Armenian Genocide in the early 20th century. They got away with it with no outside interference, and there were no international consequences for Turkey. Hitler, convinced that the Armenian genocide was the precedent, thought Germany could easily get away with murdering the Gypsies, seriously handicapped, homosexuals, Russians, Poles and Jews. For other quotations on the Armenian Genocide, see {51838}, {638251}, {620602}, {620603}, {620604}, {620605}, {620600}, and {620606}

This quotation is important because there are some who believed that the professional German Soldiers did not respect Hitler and his murderous policies. This quotation shows that at least publicly Donitz had no problem extolling Hitler above all others. After the war Donitz was found guilty of Unrestricted Submarine Warfare and using thousands of slave laborers in his shipyards. He was sentenced to 10 years, one of the lightest sentences if the German War Crimes Trials.

The historical record that is available shows that while the Pope did not, actively or aggressively oppose Hitler, and he did not discipline Catholic prelates who were Nazi supporters, there is no specific evidence that shows the Pope conspired with Hitler, about the extermination of Jews or anything else. However, most of the relevant documents of the era are in the Vatican and the records have been sealed and have not been visible to historians. Apologists for the Pope’s passivity point out that a large percentage of Germans were Catholic and he had a duty to not antagonize Hitler who would retaliate against German Catholics and the German Catholic clergy and church property. Further, Fascist Italy was under Hitler’s control, and the Vatican itself could have closed and its property seized. The historical record is still very vague.

Auschwitz was the worst of the German Nazi WWII Death Camps where over 2 million people were murdered.

Although a fervent Nazi, he detested Hitler. When Hitler consolidated power, one of the first things he did in 1934 was to order his guards to murder Strasser, just as Strasser had feared.

Schindler was a very wealthy industrialist who risked his own life and kept over 1000 Jews from being sent to the gas chambers during the Holocaust. Yad Vashem’s, Israel’s Memorial of the Holocaust has a duty to convey the gratitude of the State of Israel and the Jewish people to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust. This mission was defined by the law establishing Yad Vashem, and in 1963 the Remembrance Authority embarked upon a worldwide project to grant the title of Righteous Among the Nations to the few who helped Jews in the darkest time in their history.

It is amazing what explanations religious and biased fanatics can come up with to explain history.

The Professor was explaining the explanation of the so-called “Frankfurt School” of WWII policy advisors Franz Neumann, Herbert Marcuse, and Otto Kirchheimer.

Some scholars look back at the allied bombing of German Cities in WWII with criticism that it was morally improper to bomb populated cities, and that the use of the adjective “exterminating” indicated that Churchill was more interested in killing Germans than strategic victory. This revisionist history has two failings. First, the Germans had already bombed Coventry, London and other civilian targets in England as well as cities in Holland, Poland and other countries killing many civilians. As a result, under the rules of war, Germany was no longer entitled to protection for their cities. Further, Hamburg and other targets were manufacturing sites of war material and as such lost the protection anyway. Even Dresden, which had very little war manufacturing was the main location for R&R of German Officers and by their military presence in the city converted it into a legitimate target. FDR agreed with Churchill, that the bombing was a good strategy to cause Hitler to fall as they thought the public would rebel. They were wrong however and his grip on the population through the Gestapo and the military was so strong that, it took a land invasion and occupation to put an end to Hitler. However, the devastating bombing all but crippled the German weapons development and deployment. For example. The Germans had developed the Jet Airplane Engine and actually put a few in the fight at the end if the war. Without the bombing, they would have had many more and countered the allied air supremacy. However, it is also true that Churchill and many Englishmen and some Americans believed that the English were morally entitled to retaliation for the innocent civilians killed with the German bombing of civilian targets.

The assassination was attempted in 1944 and after its failure, he was shot be a firing squad.

The non-violent resistance tactics of the White Rose were so threatening to the Nazi German regime that Sophia and other members were executed by guillotine beheading as a particularly harsh example. The graphic is a postage stamp that Germany has issued in her honor.