What Did the German Public Know About the Holocaust During WWII?

The BrainFood Show

Cloud10

Education, History

4.9 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 22 November 2025

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

While something like the holocaust isn’t exactly unprecedented in history, with mass genocide popping up an unnerving number of times the world over throughout our time humaning, perhaps no other instance of this has shocked the modern world more than the Nazis systematically murdering somewhere in the ballpark of 5 or 6 million Jewish people along with another 5 or 6 million people of other backgrounds, such as the lesser talked about Romani genocide. In this one, the Nazis murdered upwards of a million Romani, which was about half the entire Romani population of Europe at the time. That any civilized people could allow something like this to go on seems unthinkable to our modern selves, but the question becomes from this- how much did the general public actually know about what was going on at the time it was happening? It turns out, contrary to what is often stated, quite a lot actually both on the global scale, and even within Germany itself evidence pointing to at least the idea that it was happening being relatively common knowledge, as we’ll get into shortly. But also, paradoxically, by accounts from many people directly after the war, they didn’t really know at all… So which is true? To really get to the bottom of this, we must discuss events leading up to the holocaust and how much of these the German people and wider world knew about. Sponsor note: Go to ⁠HelloFresh.com/BRAINFOOD10FM⁠ now to Get 10 Free Meals + a Free breakfast for Life! Author: Daven Hiskey Host: Simon Whistler Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:33.6	Well, something like the Holocaust isn't exactly unprecedented in history, with mass
0:37.5	genocide popping up an unnerving number of times the world over throughout humans,
0:42.2	humaning, perhaps no other instance of this has shocked the modern world more than the Nazis
0:46.8	systematically murdering somewhere in the ballpark of 5 or 6 million Jewish people, along
0:51.9	with another 5 or 6 million people of other backgrounds,
0:54.8	such as the lesser talked about Romani genocide.
0:57.3	In this one, the Nazis murdered upwards of a million Romani, which was about half the entire
1:02.7	Romani population of Europe at the time.
1:04.8	That any civilized people could allow something like this to go on seems unthinkable
1:10.2	to our modern selves. So the question becomes,
1:12.5	how much did the general public actually know about what was going on at the time it was happening?
1:17.8	It turns out, contrary to what it's often stated, quite a lot actually, both on the global
1:23.4	scale and even within Germany itself. Evidence pointing to at least the idea that it was happening
1:28.8	being relatively common knowledge, as we'll get into shortly. But also paradoxically,
1:33.6	by accounts from many people directly after the war, they didn't really know at all. So, well,
	...

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