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On the Topic of Werner Boch and Anti Semitism


Jeff Crowell

Paranormal Annoyance
During last week's pre-amble Gene related an interesting phone call he received from an unnamed source who claimed Boch was an active participant in a radio show, and often expressed on that show, anti-semitic views. Chris chimed in saying he didn't know Boch had such primitive views (I believe him) but then Chris implied something that disturbed me.....something I felt needed addressed. Chris indicated then that because Boch was born and raised in Germany he was anti-semitic in his views and upbringing.

In the late 1980's, my girlfriend hosted a foreign exchange student from Norway who had been to Germany often.......even had relatives, there. This girl stated that after WWII and during the reconstruction period, the anti-semitic views of old Nazi Germany were crushed and, in some cases, made illegal in some forums by the new-born governing establishment, there. The lash-back from Hitler's influence was to quell anti-semitic views, stifle them.....to become more open minded and dispel racism and hatred that Hitler had influenced under-cover of his reign. Yes, there are remnants of Neo-Nazism still within the borders of Germany, but there are just as many hints of such here within the United States.

It caught me off guard that Chris was implying that people from Germany, 'just because' they're from Germany, would have anti-semitic views. That's not to say Boch doesn't have these views himself....I don't know. Perhaps he was, indeed, associated with one or more of those Neo-Nazi groups but that would be the cause of his views and position regarding Jews, NOT strictly because he's from Germany. To say such is identical to claiming that all Americans are wild-jack Christians who drink poison cool-aide at the behest of our religious leaders......it's presumptuous and simply not true. So, if you meet someone from Germany, please don't assume they hate Jews........or like Mel Gibson.

Peace.
 
As far as the law goes, Germany has much stricter laws governing things like Nazi symbolism and hate speech. You can be put in jail there for things like openly espousing anti Jewish views or holocaust denial. Still, to this day, they censor any and all forms of Nazi symbolism that aren't historically related, so things like video games for example, cannot display swastikas or other such Nazi related symbols. Saying something like all Germans are anti-semitic or even that a large number of Germans are anti-semitic, is pretty damn ignorant imo.

Just another side effect of ridiculous conspiracy theories, only instead of blaming everything on the US government, it's the Jews. Or is it the Jews controlling the US government? Or maybe the NWO controlling the Jews? More black and white, us vs. them, we're the good guys and everyone who doesn't think like us are the bad guys nonsense.
 
Uh-oh. That's a misunderstanding, Sandanfire. Mr Bock was born in 1942. Even though he was too young during the Nazi regime itself, he probably had older family members, friends, teachers etc. who secretly retained their way of thinking after the war and would have been influencing younger people like Mr Bock, telling them or at least implying that the destruction and misery they had to grow up in had been caused - absolutely not by the Nazis themselves (as that lying allied propaganda would have it) - but by their enemies, including of course The Really Big And Terrible Menace Of The Jewish World Conspiracy.

Those were people who in their childhood and youth had been indoctrinated by the Nazi "ideology" which in turn had been fed to them at school, by functionaries in their village, by propaganda via radio and early cinema. It's not that this "ideology" simply stopped existing in people's heads when the war was over.

So, what Chris was adressing wasn't the general fact that Mr Bock is from Germany, but the fact he's from the Germany of that time.

And I'm afraid Chris is right there. Sadly enough, I know quite a few Germans of about that age who could never quite shake off that way of thinking, because in their childhood it was the way you were supposed to think. Germans were chosen by fate and it was the greatest adventure to become a nazi youth and go to war, where you surely wouldn't die a terrible and utterly senseless death, no, instead, given the nearly almost certain superiority of your people and your technology, you would show the world who's the biggest baddest cheese of them all.

All I'll say is that this has lead to very bitter animosity even between close family members. It really makes for hard times to discover that people you are very fond of or at least who you are supposed to love, like grandfathers or fathers, more or less secretly still foster these ideas, which have caused such incredible pain, misery, injustice, death and destruction.
 
So, what Chris was adressing wasn't the general fact that Mr Bock is from Germany, but the fact he's from the Germany of that time.

Thanks Polterwurst, but this was the designator I was looking for and from what I heard Chris didn't specify that. Whether or not Boch is a neo-Nazi anti-semitic really wasn't my point. My point was that people from Germany are not anti-semitic just because they are from Germany. I'd even give a little and say that people from Germany from a particular time frame are more likely to have anti-semitic views, but again, the geographical assumption is what I'm concern with, here. Perhaps Chris should have been more specific in his comments in the pre-amble just to clarify that Boch may hold those views because of the time in which he grew up, or, if evidence shows, that Boch holds those views because he was associated with 'X' neo-Nazi group, etc.

Just a bit of clarification goes a long way.
 
I recently heard an interview with the author of a book called I Sleep in Hitler's Room. I haven't actually read the book, but the author contends that anti-Semitism is still quite rampant in Germany today. He mentioned a club called 88, which he says is code for HH or Heil Hitler, and that while traveling in these circles he started to become a self-loathing Jew himself. Like I said, I haven't read the book, and I've never actually been to Germany. When I was still in my old band, I played shows with a number of German industrial bands, and I never experienced anything like that. Growing up in Philadelphia I was only ever confronted with anti-Semitic insults a handful of times and almost every single time it was from skinheads. Now that I live in Colorado, I have noticed a small, but very vocal, and very visible Nazi element in the local goth scene. I just tend to ignore those guys...
 
During last week's pre-amble Gene related an interesting phone call he received from an unnamed source who claimed Boch was an active participant in a radio show, and often expressed on that show, anti-semitic views. Chris chimed in saying he didn't know Boch had such primitive views (I believe him) but then Chris implied something that disturbed me.....something I felt needed addressed. Chris indicated then that because Boch was born and raised in Germany he was anti-semitic in his views and upbringing.

In the late 1980's, my girlfriend hosted a foreign exchange student from Norway who had been to Germany often.......even had relatives, there. This girl stated that after WWII and during the reconstruction period, the anti-semitic views of old Nazi Germany were crushed and, in some cases, made illegal in some forums by the new-born governing establishment, there. The lash-back from Hitler's influence was to quell anti-semitic views, stifle them.....to become more open minded and dispel racism and hatred that Hitler had influenced under-cover of his reign. Yes, there are remnants of Neo-Nazism still within the borders of Germany, but there are just as many hints of such here within the United States.

It caught me off guard that Chris was implying that people from Germany, 'just because' they're from Germany, would have anti-semitic views. That's not to say Boch doesn't have these views himself....I don't know. Perhaps he was, indeed, associated with one or more of those Neo-Nazi groups but that would be the cause of his views and position regarding Jews, NOT strictly because he's from Germany. To say such is identical to claiming that all Americans are wild-jack Christians who drink poison cool-aide at the behest of our religious leaders......it's presumptuous and simply not true. So, if you meet someone from Germany, please don't assume they hate Jews........or like Mel Gibson.

Peace.
I try and be careful not to make sweeping generalizations about people, places and things. You didn't get what I was saying: I ventured a guess that as a kid he was raised w/ those kind of views around him in the culture. Young minds are extremely impressionable was my point—You are reading to much into my "what if" comment. My best friend Fritz, whom I've known for 35 years, was born and raised in Germany and spends 1/2 the year there. His 100 yr old father (still alive) was an SS communications officer on the Eastern Front. I've come to know many of Fritz's German friends through the Internet. None of them are anti-semitic, to my knowledge.
 
I think Chris has a point here. If I remember correctly, at one point in the interview Werner spoke proudly of his father's service during WWII. I am correct, right? Or is my memory fuzzier than I think?
 
I try and be careful not to make sweeping generalizations about people, places and things. You didn't get what I was saying: I ventured a guess that as a kid he was raised w/ those kind of views around him in the culture. Young minds are extremely impressionable was my point—You are reading to much into my "what if" comment. My best friend Fritz, whom I've known for 35 years, was born and raised in Germany and spends 1/2 the year there. His 100 yr old father (still alive) was an SS communications officer on the Eastern Front. I've come to know many of Fritz's German friends through the Internet. None of them are anti-semitic, to my knowledge.

Thanks for the clarification, Chris.
 
Now that I live in Colorado, I have noticed a small, but very vocal, and very visible Nazi element in the local goth scene. I just tend to ignore those guys...

Yup, and that's pretty much how it is here in Germany, although they are not too visible, because they are illegal. I don't think there's more neo nazis than elsewhere. Probably that book could have been written about similar "clubs" and "organizations" in other countries. Maybe there's still a few more old ones, but not for very much longer, I guess. Not many things anger and scare me more than the thought of someone who has personally experienced what the Nazis really were about and still goes "They were right. I wish we had another Hitler nowadays". I just hope these so-called "humans" didn't get too many young people to listen to them.

One thing why I guess Mr Bock is likely to have been influenced is that he's probably from a very rural area where the footage of the concentration camps wasn't shown until like forty years later on TV (there was a period of "idyllic world" and ashamed silence in between) and where the reports about nazi atrocities weren't first hand, so that, unlike the cities, I think, there was less "re-education" and more of the old old enemy images survived. I'm from a rural area myself and Mr Bock very much reminds me of some of the older people in the more remote villages hereabouts.
 
And I hope that I could be properly read on my post. I don't necessarily assume that Germany is currently a bastion of anti-Semitism, I think there are pockets of such thinking everywhere. Just as there is all kinds of bigotry to be found all over the world. I did find the author's interview interesting, because of the personal experience he was reporting on. Personally, I try to avoid all forms of bigotry myself, but I bet I have a few prejudices myself that I am not even aware of. This is not something I am proud of, but I bet they're there. I was raised by an old man (my grandfather) who was very anti-racist, an old German-Jew, who taught me that when I was presented with a questionnaire that asked what race I was, check 'other', and then write 'human' next to it. I've tried to live my life that way, maybe not always successfully, but I've always tried...
 
Personally, I try to avoid all forms of bigotry myself, but I bet I have a few prejudices myself that I am not even aware of.
We all probably do. One prejudice that I am ashamedly certain of is an aversion to "ignorance and stupidity." When exposed to large doses of these afflictions, I break out in a bad case of invisible hives that no calamine lotion can treat and no logic—no matter how judicially applied—can cure. :eek:
 
A very good friend of mine was German, he died young of heart failure. Anyway, his father was a collector of SS memorabilia and his father had been an ardent Hitler supporter.

To illustrate how where you are brought up might influence these things, my friend Bjoern used to laugh at his fathers interest. Bjoern wasn't anti-semitic himself, never having spent much time in Germany itself but I wonder if he would have been more like his father had he stayed in Germany while growing up.

Of course people from any country can be anti-semitic but at the same time, it is not unreasonable to expect more Germans of a certain age to be anti-semitic purely because there was a time it was basically state policy. So this would have created anti-semitic feelings in huge numbers of people, whilst from the same era, the numbers of anti-semitic people from the UK would definitely have been far, far fewer because it wasn't encouraged from the top levels of the government.

So I don't think it is wrong to think the way Chris might have (or not) as long as no-one is actually saying that Germans = anti-semitic people.
 
I just listened to this show.

Now, I am a disbeliever -- however you want to process that. I don't believe in a great many things discussed here; at least, I don't believe in the explanations people seem to have for those things.

However, I believe there is a time and a place for open, skeptical criticism. Times when talking to 70+ year old men with clear psychological problems isn't one.

You guys were a little too rough on this poor dude. It takes five minutes of hearing him ramble to put together that he's pathologically delusional. There are times when it's OK to let someone just tell their cooky story. There was too much inquisition, here. It was really off putting. You guys even ignored when he stated that he had actually been institutionalized. It was like listening to someone tease an Alzheimer's patient with inquiry.

Maybe it was harder to detect on that end of the recording. I find that difficult to understand, though. Chris said that he had several conversations with this man prior to his appearance on the show. I disbelieve that anyone could talk to that person and not recognize that something is psychologically off. This wasn't the usual, fanciful goofiness of folks like Johnson or Steiger, and I think it was readily apparent. This person was emotionally charged and desperately irrational.

As an "animal person" I found it disturbing that he likely mistreats and underfeeds his stock. Still, frustrating a pathologically delusional old man for two hours seemed unnecessarily harsh.

It's only fun when they're crazy on purpose, guys.
 
@Prophet - some people are naturally better at 'reading' another's emotional or psychological wellbeing and it maybe that you are one of the better ones. At the end of the day, Werner is an adult who takes care of himself and he is big enough to make a decision whether to appear on a show or not, a show that is known for not handing out free passes.

I don't think either host was harsh on him, I only really heard frustration in not being able to tease a coherent storyline/argument from him and maybe that would be impossible anyhow because he may have genuinely experienced something so out of the ordinary that it would be impossible for anyone to make sense of it all. If the reality doesn't make much sense, then someone trying to relate that reality to others is fighting an uphill battle to be understood anyway.
 
I would expect many Germans raised during the years leading up to WWII to have been inculcated with a world view leading up to the calamity that was the Third Reich. Mr. Boch may or may not be an adherent. But sounds like he might make use of the insanity defense in any case.​
 
As an American living in Switzerland, I was surprised by the amount of open racism you see here and from what I understand, the closer you are the Germany, the worse it is. Google the "Swiss People's Party" and you can see some of the political posters that are still displayed here, that would cause an uproar in the US. Images of a group of white sheep kicking out a black sheep, etc... Now, I'm not saying that all Swiss or Germans are racist, or even the majority. Im just saying I was shocked that it's okay to be openly racist here.
 
Regarding Werner's potential antisemitism, he did want very much to appear on a show whose host has a Jewish sounding name. That may suggest that he's not really antisemitic.
 
Or he didn't consider it. Steinberg is actually a name with a European origin (usually German). It doesn't necessarily have to be Jewish. In fact, the original surname for my grandfather was slightly different, but, when he emigrated to the U.S. early in the 20th century, they wrote down what they thought they heard -- Steinberg. So that's the rest of the story.
 
As far as the law goes, Germany has much stricter laws governing things like Nazi symbolism and hate speech. You can be put in jail there for things like openly espousing anti Jewish views or holocaust denial.

Germany's Battle Against Scientology - TIME

Germany is also very weary of wild sects like Scientology. (L Ron Hubbard: science fiction writer :D )

Why the US tolerates that fake religion and doesn't boot these weirdos is beyond comprehension.
Scientology in Germany - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Seems they also have a racist bent...
Ex Scientology Kids :: View topic - Are scientologists racist?
I did some more digging around, and I found these quotes from Hubbard:-

"[The Chinese] have neither the foresight or endurance to overrun any white country in any way except by intermarriage. One American marine could stand off a great many yellowmen without much effort.

A Chinaman can not live up to a thing, he always drags it down.

They smell of all the baths they didn�t take.
The trouble with China is, there are too many chinks here"

�One of the reasons they [the Japanese] have bad eyesight is probably these microscopic characters [furigana] which have many lines and strokes to them.& We wonder why they went mad and bombed Pearl Harbor when they knew they couldn�t win. That [the Japanese language] would be a reason.�

�The South African native is probably the one impossible person to train in the entire world; he is probably impossible by any human standard.�
 
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