Suchergebnisse

Otto Ohlendorf, SS group leader and Lieutenant General of Police, director of the Reich Security Main Office that was responsible for domestic intelligence and public opinion analysis, and lawyer and economist, was the best- known defendant in the subsequent Nuremberg trial of the Einsatzgruppen commanders (case 9) for the mass murder of Jews and others in the rear areas of the invading German armies during the first two years of the Russian campaign. Having admitted, as a witness in the precedent trial before the International Military Tribunal (IMT) at Nuremberg, that his Einsatzgruppe D operating in the southern Ukraine during one short year under his command executed some 90 thousand Jews and other civilians, Ohlendorf could not deny the charges, particularly because almost daily detailed con temporary Einsatzgruppen reports were submitted in evi dence. Nor could he claim "superior orders" because the IMT (London) Charter ruled out such a defense, except as miti gation. Ohlendorf and some of his fellow defendants in the same case contended that they were convinced at the time that Soviet Jewry was a mainstay of bolshevism and therefore constituted a direct threat to the security of the Third Reich. Ohlendorf was convicted of crimes against humanity and was executed at Landsberg prison on 7 June 1951.

The reaction of the Christian community to the Holocaust can generally be described as mild, vague, and belated. While there are notable exceptions to the general ineffectiveness of the Church to affect its concern over rising antisemitism, it failed in any significant way to provide political or moral leadership to combat the antisemitic designs of Hitler's Germany. The reappraisal of past teaching coupled with acknowledgement of past complicity with antisemitism has contributed to a heightened sense of ecumenical respon sibility. Since World War II, the Christian community's state ments condemning the Holocaust have increased Christian sensitivity to the horrors of the past and to the potential dangers of the future.

At a time when the national need suggests we should be increasing the exposure of our citizens to other languages and cultures, that exposure is, in fact, declining. The failure of the United States to promote or even provide opportunities for the study of foreign language and culture constitutes costly cultural isolation.