[The following is taken from a memoir of Irmgard A. Hunt, who grew up in the mountains under Hitler’s Eagles Nest during the Second World War.]
About a week later Goebbels again promised victory, and Mutti [German: Mom] wrote in her notebook with barely suppressed cynicism that “all our cities are destroyed and yet we are supposed to win the war!” Demonstrating the order of her priorities, her next sentence goes on to record that cows had gotten into the second garden and trampled on everything that had grown. In spite of her grave doubts, the news of the relentless bombing of German cities and the stories of the maiming, burning, and killing of thousands of German women and children in them rekindled her resolve to support the war with all she had. After an all-out attack on Munich she wrote, “I wish I could go fight myself.”
We never talked or heard about the suffering women and children in the countries we had conquered, much less the victims of concentration camps and genocide. Mutti never wrote a word about Jews in her notebook or about children and women in London now targeted by the V-1 rockets. In her ill-conceived patriotism and constantly reinforced nationalism all her pity and compassion were focused on her own people, and in deep sorrow she would often sigh and say, “Die armen, armen Leute” (those poor, poor people).
Source:
Hunt, Irmgard A. “Hardship and Disintegration.” On Hitler’s Mountain: Overcoming the Legacy of a Nazi Childhood. New York: Harper Collins Publishers, 2005. 188-89. Print.
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