German people abetted Hitler

On Saturday, Ms. Elaine Kalcsics wrote that all Catholics are not to blame for the wrongs of their priests.

I have no objection to her assertion, but then she seeks to buttress her argument as follows: "No one said the German people were to blame for the wrongful acts that Hitler committed."

Please read some history books, starting with "Hitler's Willing Executioners," by Daniel Jonah Goldhagen. Aside from a few "righteous" Germans, whom do you suppose were the vast majority of people who stood by as synagogues were burned and Jews beaten on the streets?

Who were the store owners who hung signs on their doors, "Dogs and Jews Not Allowed."

Who were the educators who threw the Jewish kids out of their schools?

Who were the factory managers who paid the Nazis for the use of slave labor?

Who reported to the Gestapo that a 6-year-old boy, while standing at a bus stop, was not wearing his yellow star? That boy was my uncle, but I never met him as he went up the chimney before I was born.

What do you suppose the German managers of the company that produced Zyklon B gas thought their gas canisters were being used for as they shipped loads of product to Auschwitz?

But, to be accurate, it wasn't just the Germans. One can also blame the Austrians, the Hungarians, the French, the Poles, the Ukrainians, the Croats, and the Latvians (who willingly helped murder my great grandparents and great-uncle).

Believe this; before the war, you could not find a German who was not a Nazi. After the war, you could not find one who was.

Ron Coppel

Schaumburg