Happy Holocaust Holidays
Posted on Thursday, September 27, 2007Who’s this?
This is SS officer Karl Hoecker, with his dog, Favorit. Isn’t it idyllic? Karl and his dog. Thirty-three years old, in the prime of life, a family man with a wife and lovely little daughter back home in Lubbecke. He loved them. He loved his dog. He loved his job.
The only problem was that his job involved the murder of his fellow human beings on an industrial scale at Auschwitz.
Karl Hoecker joined the SS in 1933. In 1943, he became the adjutant to the commandant at Majdanek-Lublin during the Operation Reinhardt mass deportations and murders. In May 1944 he moved to Auschwitz, again as adjutant to the commandant.
What of it? Karl was a keen photographer and these are his pictures of happy times at the death camp. The pictures came to light recently when an America former intelligence officer donated the album to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
What I find terrifying about these pictures is the sheer ordinariness of the people. If they were obvious monsters, you wouldn’t be so appalled, because monsters are supposed to do monstrous things. It’s when the guy from the hardware shop does these monstrous things, or the girl next to you on the bus. That’s when you recognise the real horror of it.
Here’s a lovely picture of Karl with the girls (the SS Helferinnen, or female auxiliaries) having a bit of a break. The same day this picture was taken, 150 Jewish prisoners arrived. The SS selected 33 for work and gassed the rest.
Here he is again, schmoozing and snoozing with the girls after a hard week exterminating their fellow human beings. I’ll do another post on the caring gentleness of women involved in this fine endeavour. It might surprise you.
Isn’t it just lovely?
Here are a few more of Karl’s holiday pics involving the staff of the death camp relaxing. As you do.
Here’s Karl lighting the Tannenbaum.
Here’s a picture of the caring professions:
See that guy there on the left? The guy with his arms folded? That’s 33-year-old Josef Mengele, the doctor who perverted his profession in the service of evil. Well, he wasn’t really a doctor, apart from holding a medical degree, but in many ways he exemplifies the dilletantist nature of the Nazi regime who were, for the most part, amazingly mediocre and boring. A pathetic bunch of individuals, in fact, as their followers are today.
Anyway, here’s the Angel of Death as he’s sometimes known. Isn’t it lovely?
Hoecker remained at Auschwitz until the evacuation, then moved to Dora-Mittelbau. He escaped from the camp before the Allies took it and was captured by the British while pretending to be an ordinary soldier near Hamburg.
He was released at the end of 1946 but turned himself in for a de-Nazification trial in 1952. He was sentenced to serve nine months for membership in the SS but didn’t serve the time, thanks to a new law. He became the chief cashier of the regional bank in Lubbecke, a job he lost for a while during the pre-trial investigations for the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial. The judges decided that he aided and abetted the murder of 1000 people, but on balance, because he’d been a model citizen and had volunteered for for denazification, they couldn’t prove he had been anything but an administrator.
He got seven years, but time already served was taken into account and he was released in 1970. He got his job back as Chief Cashier of the regional bank in Lubbecke.
Here’s the Übermensch at the height of his powers. What a magnificent specimen. You can see why they thought they were superior, can’t you?
Hoecker finally died in 2000 at the age of 88, a peaceful old man.
Isn’t it just lovely?
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Thanks to Qu1zMaster for drawing this to my attention.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
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September 28th, 2007
Pulls up chair, grabs popcorn, waits for driveby nazi comments.
That being said, he was only following orders like :D
September 28th, 2007
All these Nazi fellows had really fat thighs, didn’t they. I bet that’s where a Nazi has his hate glands. They must just have ballooned and swelled as the war and horror progressed until, perhaps, they were punctured by a little prick. After all there were plenty of them dangling betwixt. Quite a risk to take - keeping one’s turgid, swollen hate glads in the same trousers as one’s little prick. I’d suggest that a Nazi would have to have great big balls to take such a risk (if only for the cushioning), but of course we know they didn’t - Nazi balls were all strangled and choked off by the huge fat hate glands early in life. It’s something they did to the cabbage over there that made them that way, back then. Something wrong they did to the cabbage. Some additive or other - Arrogance, I think.
September 28th, 2007
“…Problemchildbride…”
What the…!!??
September 28th, 2007
Blimey.
September 28th, 2007
did these only come to light recently, Bock? i got a lot of hits on my blog last week after people googled gleeful nazi photos at auschwitz and was wondering what the fook was going on (they landed on an account of my visit there- i don’t have any gleeful photos)
September 28th, 2007
I saw them somewhere (made me feel a bit sick — my ’significant other’ has visited Dachau).
Here’s a bit about them:
“Last December, Rebecca Erbelding, a young archivist at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, opened a letter from a former United States Army intelligence officer who said he wanted to donate photographs of Auschwitz he had found more than 60 years ago in Germany …”
New York Times
They have them as a slideshow.
September 28th, 2007
scary stuff bock, human and all that crap but were they?
September 28th, 2007
Just goes to show that even the vilest of people can pass for ordinary folk, relaxing with friends and having a good time.
September 28th, 2007
The last sentence of The Book Thief by Markus Zusak springs to mind. If you haven’t read it yet I certainly recommend it.
September 28th, 2007
Our local Cologne newspaper carried this Auschwitz storey last weekend, the photo of those ladies sitting on a fence enjoying their blueberry deserts with a chap playing an accordion is so bizarre, shocking, it beggars belief. This menacing photo shows “civilised human beings” and realising at the same time when they returned to work they would transform into “monsters”. In fact 450 Jews arrived the following day of which 85 men were registered as prisoners, the other 365 were murdered in the gas chambers.
But Bock what the fuck it’s only history, no need to understand how those ladies turned from “lambs” into “natural born killers”.
But then an article in today’s Irish Times made me think again……..
The National Disability Authority (NDA) revealed in today’s Irish Times that in its latest survey of public attitudes in Ireland to disabilities, has uncovered more negative attitude towards mental health difficulties.
Excerpt:
Almost half of all respondents (46 per cent) said children with mental health difficulties should not attend mainstream schools. One-fifth said they would object if those children were in the same class as their own children.
September 28th, 2007
Squid: No sign of them yet. Is it my personal hygiene?
Sam (pcb): They all did. It’s very strange. I noticed that too.
Snookertony: !
Badgerdaddy: Cor!
Rosie: Yeah. They only surfaced recently.
Nora: That’s good. Thanks.
Joey: They were ordinary humans. That’s what makes the pictures so terrifying. If they were monsters, you could just shrug and say, hey! What do you expect?
But you don’t have the comfort of that when you’re looking at ordinary flesh-and-blood folks who could easily be your cousins.
LimerickGal: They are ordinary folk, who just happen to work in a mass-murder factory.
Conortje: I haven’t read it. I will.
Cologne Mike: I saw that newspaper report and I was planning to write something about it. Maybe later tonight, if I’m doing nothing else and I’m sober.
September 29th, 2007
It’s very hard to see these nurses simpering and giggling like that when the evil things they must have seen and done were such a perversion of what nursing’s meant to be. It’s kind of like the priest with the choirboy: you expect - rely on - people in certain professions to be beyond reproach and when it turns out they’re not it’s like an extra film of betrayal and horror somehow.
If we didn’t know the backstory of these photos we’d think it was some kind of a holiday camp. It’s monstrous beyond words. The banality of evil indeed.
September 29th, 2007
sad thing is the capacity for evil like this still exists…and they will smile right before they strike.
September 29th, 2007
Nazis frolicking in the sun. They’re so cute.
September 29th, 2007
There’s a man around here who is in the process of getting deported after it came out that he worked at one of the death camps.
I’m with you—the most horrifying thing about the Nazis was that they seemed to have no idea that what they were doing was wrong. They got so used to life that way that it seemed normal. It’s terrifying, really.
September 29th, 2007
Sam PBC: Indeed. They don’t have horns.
Savannah: It still exists.
Twenty: It might be nice to have one for a pet. And mistreat it.
Sassy: Lots of people today have no idea what they’re doing is wrong.
September 30th, 2007
sassy is right. tho i would expand the word many to most- making it read that “most people don’t know that what they are doing is wrong”. but that may not be true- perhaps it is worse and people do the wrong things because they know they are wrong and for no other reason than to hurt someone -(which is the definition of perversion)- or as many people as they can- it somehow makes them feel superior. the nazis certainly thought that they were the most superior people that ever walked the planet. but we should not demonise them- they were human beings and as such should prove to the rest of us that we are capable of doing great harm. and god entrusted us to take care of his planet? - very poor choice if you ask me- probably somewhat over 400 million people perished needlessly in the last 100 years- i think that we will top that record in the coming 100 years-the only blessing that god has bestowed on us is the fact that we neither know the time or the circumstances of our own deaths. if yiu knew that you fate was to face jumping from the 102nd floor of the world trade center or die in the fire or collapse of the building- would you choose to live that life?- i wouldnt.
September 30th, 2007
For instance, you have soldiers over there in Iraq who believe what they’re doing is right.
September 30th, 2007
Great post Bock!
Yet again I think it is a good to show and to inform people about so called “knights”… one more thing…
you shouldn’t forget what language almost all of the SS butchers were speaking. They were Germans and Austrians and that shouldn’t be forgotten.
It doesn’t mean that I have something against Germans, but calling them only “Nazis” is just a blurring the history.
I am sick of the ignorance about my nation and country and sick of people speaking about Polish anti-Semitism, and tendency of saying Nazis instead of Germans.
Germans who destroyed Warsaw (blowing up house by house) after 1944 uprising was not only SS but also Wehrmaht - regular troops - not members of Nazi party.
Germans who burned alive a defenders of Polish post office in Gdansk (Danzig) in September the 1st, 1939, they weren’t members of Nazi party.
Germans who were hunting Polish civilians during the aggression of Poland in 1939 were not only members of Nazi party.
The list of the genocides and warcrimes of Wehrmaht and non-nazi Germans - ordinary soldiers is very very long.
Don’t forget that.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_of_the_Wehrmacht
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planned_destruction_of_Warsaw
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invasion_of_Poland_%281939%29
After all, I am not trying to rise the hate towards Germans. The bad ones are dead already. It is not a fault of post war generations. They are not to blame. Moreover, every nation has a beast inside. The same thing happened in Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina just 15 yeas ago.
as for the anti-Semitism. Before the war Poland had the biggest Jewish community and anti-Semitism in Poland was never stronger than in other European countries. Moreover, we Poles had no “Polish legion” in SS formation.
September 30th, 2007
Well, MacKozer, much of what you say is true.
However, all armies in wars have committed atrocities, including the destruction of cities. You need only think of Dresden or Hiroshima.
The Poles were not without blame either: many Jews who survived the camps were murdered by Polish people when they tried to return home.
The central issue is an organised ideology of murder and extermination, which is why the focus needs to stay on Nazism. I think these pictures illustrate how very ordinary people can become part of such an evil ideology.
September 30th, 2007
Bock, I don’t deny that, but it wasn’t so many of pogroms. Actually the only two examples are from Jedwabne (Poles killed the Jewish neighbours) and in Kielce right after the war. The pogroms were all over the Europe, even in Limerick. That is why linking anti-Semitism with Poles is just a lie or ignorance.
Of course, the anti-Semitism in Poland was and is still present but it is not bigger, and I dare say - sometimes lower than in other European countries. (what about the synagogues under fire in Germany and France couple of years ago?)
It seems that you need a deeper look into history of Poland. Many of the Jews were also massively involved in the Stalin-era communist dictatorship when almost all of the Polish freedom fighters were chased and hunted and killed.
Even now, Israel denies extradition to Poland one man who is accused of post-war crimes against German and Polish citizens of Silesia, in the communist concentration camp over there.
So if you really want to accuse us of anti-Semitism just compare how many of the Jews were saved during the war by Poles (check out the Yad Vashem files) and then… learn some about history facts. Poland was the one of not so many countries that welcomed Jews kicked from Nazi Germany. Jewish population in Poland was the biggest in Europe. Is it because we were so anti-semitic? Due to the biggest in Europe Jewish population Germans decided to built death camps in Poland.
What about Vichy France and its co-operation with Germans in sending French Jews to the death camps. What about Switzerland and the fact that they allowed train transports of Jews from Italy and France to the concentration camps. What about SS interrnational legions, with the almost all European nationalities, except Polish?
and as I wrote. I am not trying to erect another stereotype: German = nazi bucher. The thing that happened to Germany, happened again 50 years later to Serbs and partly (in effect to the agression) to the other Balkan nations.
Every nation has a beast inside and under exact circumstances that beast can be waken up. Every nation is like that - even we - Poles.
Btw. Check out my latest blog entry ;)
Regards :)
September 30th, 2007
MacKozer: I agree with a lot of what you say, and I’m not trying to accuse the Poles of being anti-Jewish.
As you said, what happened in Germany also happened in other countries, and while I certainly think the recent Serbian example was appalling, you also need to look at the earlier history of Yugoslavia. The Croatian Ustasha were among the worst Nazi collaborators.
There seems to be one common thread in the totalitarian regimes of that time: the Catholic church.
September 30th, 2007
Bock… sorry, not in Poland. Polish Catholic Church was to be destroyed by the communists, but it survived.
During the war Polish Catholic Church was also targeted by Germans and experienced a lot of deaths of the priests. It was also involved in helping Jews movement. Thousands of Jewish kids were safe in the Church asylums undercover of being Aryan kids.
However, nowadays, Polish Catholic Church is very right wing and it is partly anti-Semitic. That is true.
September 30th, 2007
and for the Croats. You are right. However, it is not an excuse of Serbian genocide… and it should never be an excuse to any such crimes of any nation.
October 1st, 2007
MacKoser: There’s never a valid excuse.
October 1st, 2007
Met with some american soliders in a pub in limerick a couple of months ago in full army gear, when i asked them what their thoughts were on the war one of them said ” its a fucking adventure man!” young guys that know no better, just felt sorry for them really one of them gave me their medics badge pretty cool but then again pretty scary shit!
October 2nd, 2007
Isn’t there something to say here about the common psyche or shared consciousness? That’s us were all pointing at. Remember in Sophie’s Choice, she eventually choose. So if we’re in fear for our lives, for our children’s lives, we do serious bad shit. How do we get rid of that fear? We did this again in the Congo and Rwanda and we’re doing it somewhere today.
Are there any blog shrinks out there, who’ll say definitively why we go along with this genocide?
October 2nd, 2007
Joey: Adventure? that’s what they think it is? Great.
They should ask the Iraqis how much of an adventure they think it is.
S&C: You put your finger on it. When we look at them, we see ourselves.
October 3rd, 2007
Do you think is nice to make fun about this guys life ? You americans have been KILLING people for 200 years. Cuba, Mexico, Vietnam, Japan, Iraq, Afganistan… does that makes you killer ? yes. It does. So be FARE.
October 3rd, 2007
Who’s an American, Louis?
March 27th, 2008
Hah ! Fuck you all and fuck the jews
The Nazis were doing the world a favor.
So what did the allied forces do ?
Linked up with the fucking russians - real smart.
Now the western world is crumbling because of zionist agenda to wipe out all culture that ever was anti-semitic.
Oh but we can’t offend the jewsss. No, they are inncoent as lambs. Besides, if you offend them they might hurt you. No, lets be politically correct and blind as hell
Wake up you shit brained idiots!
The kikes are doing what they always did. Now they do it a hundred times better because of the internet!
Banking, Media. all the same old cliches. They are still at it.
Take a real look at who the controlling parties are. It is the same old same shit.
Fuck the jews and you too.
March 27th, 2008
And that, folks, is what a jerk sounds like.
April 19th, 2008
the hilarity of evil to paraphrase Hannah Arendts bannality of evil description of the staggeringly boring logistics of the Nazis Shoah plans