Just Following Orders
The year was 1959 and we were living in Scarborough. I was working with Shell Canada at the time as a district engineer responsible for the maintenance and building of gas stations and storage terminals in Toronto. All the work was carried out by building contractors. I would prepare building specifications and a request for submissions and send it to qualified contractors who would bid on the work with the lowest bid being rewarded the work. One of my regular contractors was Hardy S. That's not his full name but you will understand why I don't give it to you when I have finished telling you this story.
Hardy was one of my best contractors, performing work to the highest standard, scrupulously honest and completing assignments on time. He was also a gentleman and pleasant to deal with on a human level. He immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1948, three years after the end of World War II. Soon after he started up his construction company, met and married a Canadian girl, was granted citizenship and bought a home in Scarborough. Over time our relationship became friendly and we shared many conversations over coffee about our families, thoughts and past experiences.
One day during a routine inspection of one of his building sites he said that he wanted to talk about something important and we should go off for a coffee in a nearby restaurant. I was somewhat surprised by his earnestness but otherwise there was nothing unusual about taking a coffee break. When we entered the restaurant he chose a booth away from the other clients because, as he said, he wanted to talk.
Here is essentially what he told me as best I can remember it.
" I want to tell you that I was in the German SS during the War. My Canadian wife and children know nothing of this. She knows that I was just a German soldier on the Russian Front but because of the horrors of that war she has accepted my silence about what took place. As for my children, they are now only 3 and 5 and too young to know any of this."
I asked, "Hardy, why are you telling me this?"
" I've never spoken to anyone in Canada about this including any of the German immigrants I've met here. I guess I just feel I have to tell someone. Just let me continue with what I want to say."
"I grew up on a farm, was a simple farm boy, never travelled far from home and didn't know much about the world. In 1936 a law was passed that all German children of the Aryan Race when they turned 14 were compelled to join the Hitler Youth. The Boy Scout movement had been banned and many of it's sports and recreational activities were incorporated into the Youth movement. Living an isolated life on the farm I was happy to be a member because I found friends there, and engaged in sports and outings. We also regularly listened to lectures and received endless literature talking about the superiority of the Aryan race and the decadence of other races, particularly the Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. When German troops moved into Austria in 1938 and invaded Poland the following year, the Hitler Youth were being geared for war and marching and weapons training became an additional part of our weekly activity. I turned sixteen that year and by then had already become a local troop leader over younger boys. Soon after I was selected to join the SS and in early 1943 sent off to Poland with several other new recruits to work in a concentration camp. The prisoners in the camp I was assigned to were a mix of Jews, Gypsies and other people - mostly Slavs - that were deemed undesirables and I initially assumed were there to provide forced labour for the Third Reich. The men were housed in one section of the camp and the women in another.
When I first arrived in the camp along with the other new recruits we were ordered to observe the disciplining of prisoners to harden us up before taking on our duties. These wretched prisoners looked like they were on starvation diets. It wasn't uncommon for them to try to sneak back in the food line to steal more food for themselves and others. Our job was to watch over the meal and if anyone was caught misbehaving or simple stealing another crust of bread they were to be beaten. The beatings were brutal beyond belief and I'm sure some prisoners came close to dying. On the first few days after I arrived I would cry myself to sleep from what I was observing but within a few months I began to harden and believe these prisoners deserved their brutal beatings. I soon vigorously played my part.
I'm not going to tell you any more other than to say I became a soldier in the Waffen SS on the Russian Front. I did terrible things and I now look back in horror at what I became."
I listened to Hardy tell me this over 50 years ago and I can only speculate on what he had done. At the outbreak of the war Hardy was one of 8.8 million boys who were members of the Hitler Youth.
They estimate that 6 million Jews were either systematically exterminated - mostly in gas ovens - or died from starvation, disease or exhaustion. If we add to this the extermination of gypsies, slavs, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals and others deemed undesirables the total is between 11 and 17 million civilian men, women and children of all ages who were slaughtered by the Germans. The Waffen SS, an army working independently but in parallel to the German army was assigned the leading role in all this slaughter. From what little Hardy told me that day I don't have any doubt that he took an active and willing part in this. He admitted that he eventually came to believe that the prisoners in the concentration camp deserved the harsh treatment; he had become indoctrinated. From then on it is likely that when it was his responsibility to commit unspeakable acts of violence he acted without remorse. Why he confessed to me that day I don't really know.
After the war at the Nurenberg trials the Waffen SS was deemed a criminal organization except that conscripts from 1943 on were exempt from that judgment as they were deemed forced to join. Many of these young recruits like Hardy immigrated to Canada and the US with the governments full awareness of their service in the Waffen SS. Because of that clearance there wasn't anything I could do with Hardy's confession.
It raises the moral issue of what do you do when you are a member of an organization where following orders requires you to perform criminal acts. Millions of innocent people murdered every day by soldiers just following orders.
Shortly after my conversation in that coffee shop with Hardy S, I was transferred to another job in Shell and lost track of him. It is likely that 50 years later his Canadian children have children of their own and Hardy is an aging grandpa.
The year was 1959 and we were living in Scarborough. I was working with Shell Canada at the time as a district engineer responsible for the maintenance and building of gas stations and storage terminals in Toronto. All the work was carried out by building contractors. I would prepare building specifications and a request for submissions and send it to qualified contractors who would bid on the work with the lowest bid being rewarded the work. One of my regular contractors was Hardy S. That's not his full name but you will understand why I don't give it to you when I have finished telling you this story.
Hardy was one of my best contractors, performing work to the highest standard, scrupulously honest and completing assignments on time. He was also a gentleman and pleasant to deal with on a human level. He immigrated to Canada from Germany in 1948, three years after the end of World War II. Soon after he started up his construction company, met and married a Canadian girl, was granted citizenship and bought a home in Scarborough. Over time our relationship became friendly and we shared many conversations over coffee about our families, thoughts and past experiences.
One day during a routine inspection of one of his building sites he said that he wanted to talk about something important and we should go off for a coffee in a nearby restaurant. I was somewhat surprised by his earnestness but otherwise there was nothing unusual about taking a coffee break. When we entered the restaurant he chose a booth away from the other clients because, as he said, he wanted to talk.
Here is essentially what he told me as best I can remember it.
" I want to tell you that I was in the German SS during the War. My Canadian wife and children know nothing of this. She knows that I was just a German soldier on the Russian Front but because of the horrors of that war she has accepted my silence about what took place. As for my children, they are now only 3 and 5 and too young to know any of this."
I asked, "Hardy, why are you telling me this?"
" I've never spoken to anyone in Canada about this including any of the German immigrants I've met here. I guess I just feel I have to tell someone. Just let me continue with what I want to say."
"I grew up on a farm, was a simple farm boy, never travelled far from home and didn't know much about the world. In 1936 a law was passed that all German children of the Aryan Race when they turned 14 were compelled to join the Hitler Youth. The Boy Scout movement had been banned and many of it's sports and recreational activities were incorporated into the Youth movement. Living an isolated life on the farm I was happy to be a member because I found friends there, and engaged in sports and outings. We also regularly listened to lectures and received endless literature talking about the superiority of the Aryan race and the decadence of other races, particularly the Jews, Gypsies and Slavs. When German troops moved into Austria in 1938 and invaded Poland the following year, the Hitler Youth were being geared for war and marching and weapons training became an additional part of our weekly activity. I turned sixteen that year and by then had already become a local troop leader over younger boys. Soon after I was selected to join the SS and in early 1943 sent off to Poland with several other new recruits to work in a concentration camp. The prisoners in the camp I was assigned to were a mix of Jews, Gypsies and other people - mostly Slavs - that were deemed undesirables and I initially assumed were there to provide forced labour for the Third Reich. The men were housed in one section of the camp and the women in another.
When I first arrived in the camp along with the other new recruits we were ordered to observe the disciplining of prisoners to harden us up before taking on our duties. These wretched prisoners looked like they were on starvation diets. It wasn't uncommon for them to try to sneak back in the food line to steal more food for themselves and others. Our job was to watch over the meal and if anyone was caught misbehaving or simple stealing another crust of bread they were to be beaten. The beatings were brutal beyond belief and I'm sure some prisoners came close to dying. On the first few days after I arrived I would cry myself to sleep from what I was observing but within a few months I began to harden and believe these prisoners deserved their brutal beatings. I soon vigorously played my part.
I'm not going to tell you any more other than to say I became a soldier in the Waffen SS on the Russian Front. I did terrible things and I now look back in horror at what I became."
I listened to Hardy tell me this over 50 years ago and I can only speculate on what he had done. At the outbreak of the war Hardy was one of 8.8 million boys who were members of the Hitler Youth.
They estimate that 6 million Jews were either systematically exterminated - mostly in gas ovens - or died from starvation, disease or exhaustion. If we add to this the extermination of gypsies, slavs, Jehovah Witnesses, homosexuals and others deemed undesirables the total is between 11 and 17 million civilian men, women and children of all ages who were slaughtered by the Germans. The Waffen SS, an army working independently but in parallel to the German army was assigned the leading role in all this slaughter. From what little Hardy told me that day I don't have any doubt that he took an active and willing part in this. He admitted that he eventually came to believe that the prisoners in the concentration camp deserved the harsh treatment; he had become indoctrinated. From then on it is likely that when it was his responsibility to commit unspeakable acts of violence he acted without remorse. Why he confessed to me that day I don't really know.
After the war at the Nurenberg trials the Waffen SS was deemed a criminal organization except that conscripts from 1943 on were exempt from that judgment as they were deemed forced to join. Many of these young recruits like Hardy immigrated to Canada and the US with the governments full awareness of their service in the Waffen SS. Because of that clearance there wasn't anything I could do with Hardy's confession.
It raises the moral issue of what do you do when you are a member of an organization where following orders requires you to perform criminal acts. Millions of innocent people murdered every day by soldiers just following orders.
Shortly after my conversation in that coffee shop with Hardy S, I was transferred to another job in Shell and lost track of him. It is likely that 50 years later his Canadian children have children of their own and Hardy is an aging grandpa.
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