Attention TRUC, DANIEL and VINCENT...

I am still waiting for your response to the statement; 'a thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased.'

National Guilt - Hans Frank Quote Response

“A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased.”

This quote revolves around the national guilt of the German people during World War 2 and their crimes committed by Hitler’s Germany. It was said by Hans Frank, a former Nazi governor of Poland. In some aspects, I do agree with the statement above. However, there are other areas in which I disagree that the guilt of Germany will not be erased.

I strongly believe that future generations after WW2 will still feel that they are responsible for the crimes committed by Hitler’s Germany. They feel as if they cannot wash the blood off their hands. In an article, Bernard Schlink (author of ‘The Reader’) pointed out that “Children inevitably share some of that guilt...Not because they were directly involved but their parents, teachers and those they look up to as people of admiration may have had a concealed past.” If a child was suddenly told that his or her father was involved in the holocaust and slaughtered many lives, the child would be full of regret and would immediately feel the desire to re-pay the debts his or her father had caused to the Jews. In essence, I believe that the guilt would not fade away. By having this guilt and remorse created by future generations, it makes them pay homage to the victims of the Holocaust, acknowledging that Jews were a serious victim of torture, torment and slaughter. In this way, Jews who were involved in the Holocaust and the children of the victims are able to be at peace and gain respect and acknowledgement from the outside world. Although victims of the Holocaust may never forgive Germany for exposing them to genocide, they know that Germany acknowledges that they are guilty and as long as history stands, they will always feel regret and do not wish to impose any prolonging threats against the Jews made by their ancestors.

However, society, as a whole, should move onward and need not remind themselves about the atrocities of WW2 and the Nazi’s whenever they hear the word “German” or “Germany” in the next thousand years. There are those who have become ashamed of calling themselves “German” because of WW2. It is true that one must recount history, learning about mistakes in the past to advance and learn for the future. But it does not need to be exaggerated like Frank’s quote. The Crusades between the Christians and Muslims occurred roughly a thousand years ago, yet no strong collective guilt is felt between Christians today. There are no memorials to celebrate the end of the Crusades, neither are there any emphatic gestures of apology today. In a thousand years time, would the same occur for the Holocaust? Would people forget about the atrocities although it has been engraved in the sandstones of history? Although I strongly believe that the victims of the Holocaust should be remembered, we cannot guarantee that the collective guilt of Germans will never be erased.

I do believe that the guilt caused by the Nazis of those who were not involved will be difficult to erase. But as history has told us with the Crusades, this “guilt” defined by Frank may not last for a thousand years. It could fade away as time burries the events of the past. This guilt felt by Germans who were not involved in WW2 should not be taken lightly. 11 million to 17 million of Jews were slaughtered for no definite reason. This guilt should last as a reminder and a gesture remembrance to the countless victims killed during the Holocaust.

HANS FRANK QUOTATION - My response, By Arusha.

Hans Frank, the Nazi governor of Poland, stated right after the Nuremberg trials that “A thousand years will pass and the guilt of Germany will not be erased”
The aforementioned quote was said during a time of immense feelings of guilt, remorse, despondency. At this point, it was an intense time, Hans Frank seemed to have honestly uttered this statement, however, that is arguable.

I would agree with Hans Frank’s statement, I believe that the guilt of the Nazi’s is a collective guilt felt by the people of Germany. I say so for the mere reason that those who were NOT directly involved (or were not harmed) were therefore, not involved and by not involving themselves, they looked on while history was unfolding before them. Therefore, the generation of that particular time felt guilt and remorse collectively for having not extending themselves in a time of need. The people directly involved, on the other hand, would most definitely feel guilt because it is clearly established that what the Nazi’s did was unforgivable, and therefore no significant amount of time would erase their act. And since their act can never be erased effectively enough, the children of the following generations will reside under the shadow of the past, as Bernhard Schlink also makes clear in his novel “The Reader”.

The reason that Hans Frank feels as though an exceedingly large number of years could never diminish the resentment and guilt felt by those who were, in fact, not the direct perpetrators of the heinous crime committed an age ago, is because the 1^st generation to follow the war, are the children of either the perpetrators, the onlookers, or the harmed. The children of the perpetrators would feel guilt for ever having loved those, for ever having admire those that turned out to be involved in such a monstrous crime, and even though they were previously oblivious to it, they would still feel the guilt when it’s a matter of coming to terms with redefining their relationship with their loved ones and feeling a sense of disappointment and disgust at having been loved by the person who could carry out such terrible tasks. The children of the on-lookers were inclusive of those to feel the guilt in years to come due to the fact that they also must redefine their relationship with their loved ones. They must do so because, as time progressed and so did their education and awareness, they realized the true magnitude of destruction caused, and wish to understand why the acts didn’t come to end when they could have, hence they feel as though the guilt rests upon them because they are the ones involved with those who were involved, they must learn to live with the thoughts that those they respected, turned out to be coldhearted enough to ignore their surroundings when the situation worsened. The children of those harmed of course, just feel guilt for ever having been part of a country that so conveniently banished them, therefore, they feel guilt alongside disgust and grief.

Perhaps we can say that the quote was exaggerated, even though I agree with it, I wouldn’t entirely state that a thousand years would diminish the guilt felt by the oncoming generations, but the 4^th-5^th generation would be much less under the shadow of guilt, much less than the 1^st and 2^nd generation, where there are personal links and the shock of coming to terms with the situation is intense.