CMU Professor, Son of P.O.W., and German Scholar Pen Holocaust Blockbuster
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History Prof. Eric Johnson of Central Michigan University formerly was a member of Princeton University's Institute for Advanced Study.
Dr. Karl-Heinz Reuband, German sociologist from the University of Dusseldorf, is an expert on opinion research.
Many ordinary Germans admired Hitler and supported his policies during World War II and were aware of the murder of Jews, according to a massive contemporary survey of public opinion in Germany revealed in a new book.
The book, "What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany," based on surveys of 3,600 Germans who lived under the Third Reich, was released Feb. 1 by Basic Books (New York, $27.50).
The book's release is timely in that May 8, 2005 officially marks the 60th anniversary of the end of the Holocaust. In early 1945 American and Russian troops discovered the Nazi death camps and liberated the mostly Jewish inmates.
Booklist, the review publication of the American Library Association, calls it "a major contribution to the understanding of life in Nazi Germany."
Amazon.com says it is "the most startling oral history ever done of life in the Third Reich. It directly addresses some of the most fundamental questions we have about the Nazi regime, particularly regarding anti-Semitism, issues of guilt and ignorance, popular support for the government and the nature of the dictatorship itself." The survey was conducted beginning in 1993.
The book,exploring the feelings of ordinary wartime Germans, is earning laudatory reviews and is expected to soar to bestseller status on sales charts in the U.S. and Europe.
"What they say is horrifying, moving, and -- even at this distance from the war -- often surprising," says a German reviewer.
Co-authors are Prof. Eric A. Johnson of Central Michigan University, Mt. Pleasant, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German who is a Sociology professor at the University of Dusseldorf, Germany.
Both Johnson, the son of an American GI held as a prisoner of war in Germany, and Reuband, an expert in public opinion research, bring unique personal perspectives to the work.
Dr. Johnson's father, 1st Lt. John S. Johnson ofthe 15th Army Air Corps, was shot down near Hitler's Eagle's Nest in Austria while on a mysterious mission.
He was severely beaten repeatedly by townspeople and military interrogators and was one of a small percentage of American aviators to survive German captivity toward the end of the war. John Johnson died in 1991.
Dr. Reuband's family had Jewish relatives and his father by some unconfirmed reports was with the German military on the eastern front. "He obviously has a somewhat conflicted viewpoint," said Dr. Johnson.
"What We Knew" is complementary to Dr. Johnson's earlier book, "The Nazi Terror: Gestapo, Jews and Ordinary Germans." That work examined written records revealing the complicity of ordinary Germans in the Holocaust.
Dr. Johnson has taught at CMU since 1976 with the exception of six years in Germany, 1989-95, on a Fulbright Scholarship. A native of Massachusetts, he grew up in Shrewsbury, MA, was graduated from Brown University, Providence, RI, and earned his graduate degrees at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA.
He was a colleague of Dr. Reuband at the University of Cologne. As an expert in public opinion research, Dr. Reuband contributed the necessary ability to delve into the sensitivities of average Germans, said Dr. Johnson.
The CMU professor knew very little about his father's wartime experiences until on a visit he discovered that his father had been held in the town of Kuchl, near Hitler's Eagle's Nest at Obersalzburg.
"Many things got me wondering over the years," he said. "So I cooked up this idea of an oral history to actually talk to people."
The pair collaborated in obtaining 3,600 written survey responses, out of 8,000 contacts, and in face-to-face interviews with 200 Germans and Jews who had survived the war. They found that all the Jews had been persecuted while the non-Jewish Germans led normal lives unthreatened by Nazi terror, he said. Of the 200 personal interviews, 40 are excerpted in the book.
"Even though they experienced official mistreatment from the Nazis and German government, Jewish survivors said anti-Semitism wasn't universal among their neighbors.
Despite heated arguments by the co-authors, they agreed that one-third to one-half of the German population knew about the Holocaust. He commented on the findings:
"More than 80 percent of Germans either said they liked National Socialism or that they found things to their liking. They liked the economic factors. Hitler was credited with getting rid of unemployment, creating public works systems, the Autobahn (super highway), paid vacations, etc. Germans liked the sense of community feeling, of national pride."
However, intimidation and terror played no great part in enforcing loyalty to the government, the researchers found.
A conclusion the pair also reached is that a dictatorship can be popular and offer a life that seems normal to the majority of citizens, said Dr. Johnson.###
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