Letter : Judge not

N. H. Raven
Saturday 17 August 1996 23:02 BST
Comments

Your support helps us to tell the story

From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.

At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.

The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.

Your support makes all the difference.

Further to your article "Willing Executioners revives German angst over Holocaust" (11 August), one day while interrogating a German SS soldier in a POW camp in Scotland, I asked why he was so committed to Adolf Hitler. "At the end of the 1914 war," he said, "my father was a cripple, having lost his leg. My father and mother, with me in her arms, were walking the roads of Germany with no money or food and nowhere to live. Then came Adolf Hitler. Hitler gave my father a pension because of his lost leg. Hitler gave him a job he could do sitting down. Hitler gave my parents a house. That's what Hitler did for my parents." The Intelligence Corps staff sergeant, himself a Jew, turned to me and said: "What are we going to say to him?" and I thought, yes, I might just have been that baby, and where would I have been on that day? I might have been on the other side of that table.

N H Raven

Stroud, Gloucestershire

Join our commenting forum

Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies

Comments

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged in