"Joseph Goebbels’ 105-year-old secretary" Topic

Brunhilde Pomsel worked at the heart of the Nazis' propaganda machine. As a film about her life is released, she discusses her lack of remorse and the private side of her monstrous boss…

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These people always seem to fall back on both the pride of "doing their duty" and the excuse of "what could I do?" like that absolves them of everything.

Totally dehumanizing Hitler and other nazi bigwigs is SOP now, but it's foolish, and even blunts the lessen that real people who are polite and well-groomed and play with their children can be monsters. Pomsel and most others whose accounts I've read are never, even years and years later, willing to acknowledge both sides of the coin.

The fact that she waited more than half a century to find what ever became of her Jewish friend speaks volumes.

I think the lesson here is the banality of Brunhilde Pomsel.

She meant no harm. She worked for a monster, who directed his monstrosity toward others, but was a kindly boss to her. She tried to be a good, diligent employee. She enjoyed the small rewards she received. She believed what was useful for her to believe. She avoided investigating potentially troubling facts.

She's a lot like us. Like me, anyway. Maybe not like you. Maybe.

Kudos to both of you, Gentlemen.

Each of you said the only--and most important--points to be drawn from this, and other, stories.

No value in elaborating on what either man said, but it's worth repeating one thing: Hitler, and all the rest of the monsters (and not just of the Nazi stripe), do not have to eat babies for breakfast to BE "monsters." Demonizing them is fatal to true understanding of evil. They WERE evil, but evil lives all around us--and even within us--and pretending it's in someplace all it's own and away from us is what makes it all the more dangerous.

TVAG

TVAG:

+1

MH

I think the lesson here is the banality of Brunhilde Pomsel.

That notion struck me after I left the keyboard, but I could not have put it so well.

She's a lot like us. Like me, anyway. Maybe not like you. Maybe.

I don't think I could live nearly seventy years past such events without- at SOME point- some sort of moral hazard light blinking on my instrument panel. I almost think it best to be a fiend who smiles and shrugs at the matter, than to have never questioned it at all.

And well-said, too, TVAG. I often think of the uproar in Germany over "Downfall", and how many accused it of "humanizing" Hilter. I thought, WOW, that's a swell takeaway from that whole nasty affair.

The Bunker, where Anthony Hopkins played Hitler, "humanized" him very well I thought. And what a human being, as a piece of work, he was.

This woman grew up in a world moving toward totalitarian evil, like a horrible patch of poisonous weeds: in Russia, Germany, Japan, China, and lots of lesser known places which only matured after WW2.

Biggest difference between her situation and any of our parents'? The accident of birth. Everyone has to work. Some jobs are lucky enough to be at the top. Who wouldn't leap at a chance to be the secretary of such a high ranking gov't person? Hindsight is always so convenient. Nobody knew before and during the war what kind of world was coming, or what kind of clarity some people would have to judge everyone by.

It seems to me that she is fundamentally healthy in her mind. The last words in the article show that she doesn't beat herself up over what she didn't know. That she spent the rest of her life distancing her mind and emotions from the nightmare that had died. That she sees "It" rising again and regrets that possibility. That she is glad she doesn't have posterity to worry about. She may be somewhat selfish that way. But I know plenty of people, very excellent people, who choose not to have children….

Well said gentlemen.

Hannah Arendt has been credited with introducing the term "banality of evil" which was part of the subtitle of her book on Adolph Eichmann "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality of evil".

While I always am a bit leery of wikipedia, this article goes a long way towards explaining the concept. I especially recommend the short section titled "The banality of evil"

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