Hitler, His Crimes And The People Who Were Next Him - Term Paper Example

Hitler, His Crimes And The People Who Were Next Him “Of course, the terrible things I heard from the Nuremberg Trials, about the six million Jews and the people from other races who were killed, were facts that shocked me deeply. But I wasn't able to see the connection with my own past. I was satisfied that I wasn't personally to blame and that I hadn't known about those things. I wasn't aware of the extent. But one day I went past the memorial plaque which had been put up for Sophie Scholl in Franz Josef Strasse, and I saw that she was born the same year as me, and she was executed the same year I started working for Hitler. And at that moment I actually sensed that it was no excuse to be young, and that it would have been possible to find things out.” - Traudl Junge In this famous quote and through her own biography, Traudl Junge is a symbol for the entire German nation as it experienced the rise and fall of the Third Reich, Nazism, and Hitler. Traudl Junge was the secretary for Adolf Hitler during the last days of his empire in Germany. Hitler during that time orchestrated through his SS soldiers the “Final Solution” or genocide of six million Jewish people in the gas chambers. Traudl Junge says she was not aware of it at the time, but that she should have known. She says Hitler rarely spoke of the Jews. In some ways, people have accused her of lying – she was Hitler’s personal secretary and typed his last will and testament to the people before he committed suicide. How could she not have known of “the Final Solution”? In some ways this is not credible, though it is also the claim of many German people at the time, that they simply did not know. Traudl Junge says that she was intoxicated with Hitler, and was young at the time and did not pay so much attention to the politics. She was traveling with him as a regular basis, and married to a SS guard under Hitler’s command. She was a Nazi in the sense that a woman could also be a Nazi at high levels of work. Even as a secretary, she had access to intimate documents even historians do not know. She may be hiding what she knows but no one can know her mind. What if she is telling the truth, and like many Germans, she simply did not understand all of Hitler’s philosophy, only that he was great, amazing, and fantastic as a dynamic speaker? She may have been like hypnotized or she may have been traumatized and shell-shocked. We can marvel most at Traudl Junge that she survived what she did, life in Hitler’s bunker and escape from it. She did not commit suicide, and like many Germans lived many years to reflect on the past. Despite what we know of Traudl Junge as a Nazi, she comes to mind as a sympathetic figure of beauty and innocence. This also was what Hitler and the Nazis loved in her – she was a pure symbol of Germany. She was what Hitler loved in the Aryan race, the model of a German woman. If she did not think past her trance of intoxication with Hitler, so also many Germans fell in love with him. It is sure that at the time, not everyone was forced to serve Hitler. Not even Traudl Junge gives any account of being forced to love Hitler – she gave her love with all her heart as she knew him most deeply and intimately. The German people also gave this kind of love to Hitler in response to his speeches, and lost their country in a kind of mind control. It is sad, but later she must live with the memory of this love and also know it was hateful. No one can read or hear Traudl Junge speak and feel that she is a hateful woman. No one can look at her life and story and not feel emotion. She had a tragedy because she fell from a high position, but few can wish to be in her position as a woman. Like Germany, she did not remain defeated. Traudl Junge later in life said she felt she should have known what was happening, even if she did not know. Everyone in Germany feels the same as Traudl Junge or can feel hate. We do not feel hate in Traudl Junge and she is not a figure of hate – but Nazi life is that symbol forever to us. To use this contrast, Traudl Junge is also a representative of German life and culture as Motherland. What happened to her during the war was Germany and also what happened to her after the war was Germany. Maybe she also was divided in her mind by Germany. Traudl Junge was in no way an ignorant woman to be the secretary of one of the most powerful men in history. Maybe she was Hitler’s love and she was German motherhood to him as a person. In Traudl Junge’s stories of life by Hitler she has a strong feeling of admiration. If I admire Hitler, it is not possible, even as young or foolish. So she was a Nazi at heart in every way, we cannot find a woman more Nazi than her. But she did not hate, she loved. So, how can she be a Nazi if she did not hate and only gave love to Hitler. She did not hate the Jewish people. She did not kill any Jewish people. She did not even ask for anyone else to hurt Jewish people. How can she be hated if she did not wish any of these things to happen or act them out herself? She may have been a secretary to Hitler, and the world will hate Hitler, but we cannot see Traudl Junge as the same as Hitler. She is also not his victim, but his princess. If she was the princess to the Devil, and did not know the Devil was evil, it is terrible the moment of surprise when he becomes known to her. In the end of the war, Traudl Junge is captured by Russian soldiers and raped as a slave. She suffered terribly and nearly died. Many of her experiences can be found as even worse than death to live through. Yet she survived, and lived through this time to become an old woman. For this, and her beauty, we love her and her story. Traudl Junge makes us wonder if we are all responsible, or could be responsible, for genocide without knowing. Or she makes us reconsider how to know what is real in politics when we love a leadership of country. No one can know or we must always resist – these are the questions of Traudl Junge for modern Germany and the world. How can we punish a girl for the sins of Hitler, even if she may have loved and worked for him? Was Traudl Junge a war criminal? Again she did not commit any crimes or violence in her own hand. Her mistake was she loved the mass-murderer of six million Jews who history will always hate. Maybe she made life good for the man who was evil. But we do not think that Traudl Junge is evil. In this way we can see modern Germany as a life similar to Traudl Jung in experience and mind. Maybe some in Germany can never understand or accept Hitler but must live with his stain on their country and name forever, even if they never committed any crime or never hated any Jews. This is not fair to the German. Germany is a beautiful country, rich, and intelligent and we cannot believe Traudl Junge who also had these qualities cannot have known about the Final Solution. If she knew really and lied we will condemn her as liar and think differently. But we have to believe some loved Hitler as a pop star and not as a killer in heart. Traudl Junge was intoxicated personally by Hitler’s heart and brain, but she loves his ego as the star of her life. She loves the fame and power of Hitler, and her closeness to it, the wealth that commands millions of soldiers. We think she as a woman did not consider what was not for a woman to consider but she may have lost her heart to sadness. One day Traudl Junge comes to know of a girl her own age who died when she worked in Hitler’s office. The girl was Jewish, known as a Jew. She died in a concentration camp, in gas, by Hitler’s guards, in a chamber. Six million Jews became ashes, and the world can never forget this. Germany can never forget this. Traudl Jung can never forget this. So we remember Traudl Junge and her story and we can never forget this holocaust. We must visit the museum, and the German must visit the museum, and see the name of a person, of themselves, in the wall of stone. Why we love the Jewish people who died in Germany in our memory is they were the victims of Hitler who died in injustice like a machine. The Traudl Junge story we must love for a different reason, because she survived. Modern Germany can experience a bad name from Hitler even if they are not a Nazi country today. All German women can be Traudl Junge in our mind, but no one can imagine being a Nazi unless a mind of hate is present and strong. Anyone who can hate in a mind like Hitler we cannot believe in to love, but maybe Traudl Junge is this example. A hatred can die in a suicide like Hitler but a love of Traudl Junge can survive. One day it is possible the love of Traudl Junge turned to hate, and she began to hate Hitler for what he did to people and the country. Maybe she would come to hate Hitler for the Holocaust, but we do not know. The modern Germany can be said to also hate Hitler now, so they have changed. Maybe Traudl Junge had to change in an opposite manner in this regard to modern Germany because she loved the Nazi so much in her heart, as secretary and wife to the nation in its capital of war. We cannot blame the modern Germany or German people of today for the crimes of Hitler, but many people do. When they do so, the people who hate will follow the path of Hitler, and the people who love will follow the path of Traudl Junge. She was the survivor who came to understanding and wisdom from her deep personal experience. From this, we can love the modern Traudl Junge and love the modern Germany with people. But we never forget to hate Hitler. This is a paradox in the life of Traudl Junge and part of her beauty. Her question is how old Germany once loved Hitler and did not know what he was doing in killing the Jewish people, how they did not know. We can blame Traudl Junge and the Nazi Germany for these crimes, even if some people did not commit them or only a minority were the killers. Maybe we are wrong to blame the German who never killed any person and did not hate any person. For a girl who loved Hitler to change in life to see her weakness and apologize for it is also a strong message for the modern German people and country, as we will respect that person who admits their guilt and repents for it sincerely, even if they are without total blame for the crime. Source: Junge, Traudl (2004). Until the Final Hour: Hitler's Last Secretary. New York: Arcade Publishing; 1st Edition, 2004. Read More