Before the Holocaust, when the Nazis euthanized mentally disabled people, there was a mass outcry in Nazi Germany against the program. The Catholic Church vociferously condemned it. It is a myth that the program was stopped because of public outrage (it stopped because most of the killings had already occurred and they needed those doctors at concentration camps for the Holocaust), but the main point is that the public was outraged. The fact that protestors were not punished for their protests debunks the myth that free speech was prohibited in Nazi Germany.

During the Holocaust, there was literally only one mass protest against it in the entirety of the Third Reich: [Rosenstrasse protest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest). Throughout the Third Reich there was only one mass protest against the Holocaust: [the Rosenstrasse protest](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosenstrasse_protest). It was a protest of non-Jewish women protesting against their Jewish husbands being deported, and guess what: it worked! They gave in to their demands and freed 1,700 Jewish husbands. The government did not punish the wives for protesting the actions of the government. Other than that, in the Third Reich, there was no protest at all against the Holocaust, a stark contrast to how the public reacted to the mentally disabled. The Catholic Church’s response is the starkest contrast, as it vigorously condemned the killings of the mentally disabled and was informed about the mass slaughter of Jews in great detail, receiving tons of letters begging the Vatican and the Church to publicly condemn the atrocities, yet they remained silent. They wished to appear nonpartisan.

The German public’s absolute and utter silence during the genocide of Jews, especially in contrast to their fierce outrage during the killing of the mentally disabled, is not discussed enough.

3 comments
  1. > The German public’s absolute and utter silence during the genocide of Jews, especially in contrast to their fierce outrage during the killing of the mentally disabled, is not discussed enough.

    How much would be “enough” though? It is discussed, it is discussed a lot even. But there is no point at which one could really say it’s enough.

  2. >The fact that protestors were not punished for their protests debunks the myth that free speech was prohibited in Nazi Germany.

    It does not debunk the myth nor is it a myth, with the Treachery Act of 1934, a law that was intentionally so loosely worded that it allowed the nazis to denounce anyone for any critical expression, freedom of expression was severely curtailed.

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