Something that I could not help but think about while reading Chapter 8, “Into Oblivion,” was the proximity of the Jewish deportations to non-Jewish German citizens. What I mean by this is that those who were taken from there homes were the friends, neighbors, and acquaintances of German citizens. This was illustrated by the anecdote in which Inge Deutchschkron witnesses the deportation of her neighbor, a 65 year old Jewish widow (p. 164). We often think of the German public as being more or less oblivious to the actions of their government, but such instances prove that this might be untrue.
This especially reminded me of a specific scene from the film Judgement at Nuremberg, about a group of lower-level Nazi officials who were put on trial in the years following the war. Towards the end of the film, one of the officials on trial, Ernst Janning, admits:
“My counsel would have you believe that we were not aware of the extermination of millions. That we were only aware of the extermination of the hundreds. Does that make us any the less guilty? Maybe we didn't know the details. But if we didn't know, it was because we did not want to know.”
How much did the average German citizen, or even soldier, know about the fate of their Jewish neighbors? Moorhouse notes the conscious of one woman, whose husband told her of the mass exterminations, but she was kept quiet by the knowledge that were she to tell, she would meet the same fate (p. 180). In fact, most Berliners, knowledgeable or not, seemed to keep quiet. Perhaps correctly, Moorhouse contributes this behavior purely to human fear.
Of course, this also questions the ability of normal citizens to actually do anything about such practices, which, from the examples Moorhouse gives, seems to be nonexistent. It seems obviously to say that this does not render German citizens guilty of the same crimes, especially when, as Moorhouse notes later, a small number of Berliners were willing to aid Jewish individuals in escaping deportation. However, I think the role of German civilians in the Holocaust (positive and negative) is something to be considered.
You bring up a very interesting perspective on how much the public or even military actually knew. The extent of the damage done to the Jewish people is virtually unrepairable. This then raises an ethical question, is it the action that matters or the intention? For example, did these people not act simply because they had no intention to or did they know what was going on? Does this lack of knowledge incriminate them for their lack of action? I do find it difficult to believe that the public legitimately believed that their government was only exterminating a few hundred. This raises a very interesting ethical dilemma when it comes to the judgement of the history of a people.