Download PDF

On the Web site of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is a film titled The Path to Nazi Genocide, which gives a 38-minute overview of the history of Nazi Germany, World War II, and the genocide of the European Jews.1 The film begins not with the 1933 ascent of the Nazis to power in Berlin or the German invasion of Poland in 1939, but with the events in Sarajevo in 1914—because so much of what occurred during the years of National Socialism, World War II, and the Holocaust itself can be traced back to the events of World War I and its turbulent aftermath.

A particularly deep connection between the two wars pertains to the issues of humanitarian and military care for civilians, displaced persons, and enemy prisoners of war (POWs), including the ethical implications for how such programs were conceived and carried out. War has always had unpredictable and disastrous effects for these vulnerable populations, and these challenges were hardly new to the 20th century. Many of those involved in such work after World War II, however, drew a direct link between the humanitarian challenges after 1918 and the related issues that arose in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust. Part of the international network that mobilized during and immediately after World War II actually grew out of earlier work during the interwar period, with a number of humanitarian leaders and staff having started their careers during the 1920s. In meetings, white papers, and correspondence, many of those who had been engaged in this work then believed that it was crucially important, as they developed a foundation for postwar Germany in 1945, that they “not make the same mistakes” that had been made after 1918.2

These leaders were referring primarily to the punitive effects of the Versailles Treaty on Germany. These effects were blamed for the subsequent political instability in Weimar Germany and for the rise of Nazism.3 Especially among those engaged in humanitarian work, however, there was a sense that the post-1918 humanitarian efforts on behalf of civilian and POW populations had been inadequate and that this was a central reason for the failure to create the necessary conditions for a lasting peace.4 The conclusion they drew in 1945 was that successful coordination of policies for these vulnerable populations was absolutely crucial for long-term stability in Europe.5

A major challenge in the wake of the Great War was the sheer scope of human devastation. In addition to the enormous casualties suffered by the troops involved (approximately 10 million dead soldiers and more than 21 million wounded), an estimated 13 million civilians died as a result of the war, and another 5 to 10 million were displaced.6 Around 8 million soldiers became POWs in the course of the conflict.7 While these figures are the final tally, they represented a daily, weekly, and monthly toll from the beginning of the war, posing an ongoing and daunting challenge to military leaders and humanitarian workers.

There were codes and regulations in place that established clear ethical conventions for the treatment of injured soldiers as well as protections for medical personnel. The Lieber Code from the U.S. Civil War regulated the military protection of civilians and was incorporated into the 1907 Hague international regulations, which “expanded the scope of humanitarian law and the laws of war to cover the treatment of enemy combatants” as well as civilians.8 The Hague regulations were closely related to the 1864 Geneva Convention, which had codified the treatment of injured combatants. As Heather Jones observes, these regulations “did provide a functioning measure of protection in the First World War” for injured soldiers and prisoners of war—and yet “the war led to the widespread perception that the laws had failed.”9

At the time of World War I there were international organizations that could address the needs of noncombatants, including displaced persons and refugees: the International Red Cross, Salvation Army, Young Men’s Christian Association, and Quakers.10 After 1918, additional organizations and initiatives were founded by the international missionary movement, Protestant ecumenical movement, and Jewish aid organizations, and for the first time there was active interfaith cooperation and engagement around refugee issues.11 A new Protestant office in Geneva, the Central Bureau for Relief, was founded by Swiss pastor Adolf Keller to coordinate Protestant missions dealing with hunger, displaced persons, and refugees throughout Eastern Europe.12 During the same period there was a growing focus on the concepts of human and minority rights, particularly focused on the situation of vulnerable Jewish minorities throughout Eastern Europe.13 The 1920s also saw the founding of new international bodies such as the League of Nations.

Out of these interwar developments emerged a loose international network of individuals and organizations that continued to work together after the Nazis came to power in 1933. Many had already concluded that a different scale of international cooperation was needed to prevent another European war, but they were also dedicated to a new internationalism with respect to humanitarian issues. While their motives were largely pragmatic and political, there was also an underlying ethical commitment. In his essay on “The Pity of War,” which traces the emergence of humanitarian work in the wake of World War I, David Bryer (who directed Oxfam International for a number of years) notes that the common motive shared by the numerous individuals who became involved in these efforts was not a particular religious or political orientation, but “a human response to the suffering caused by war.”14

A striking example of one individual whose career bridged the two wars is the story of Hertha Kraus, who began her career working in Berlin with the Quakers after World War I, played a pivotal role in the German social welfare system during the 1920s, and became a leading figure in the American Friends Service Committee refugee work during World War II.

Kraus was born in Prague to a secular Jewish family that moved to Germany at the turn of the century. After completing her doctorate in sociology in 1919 in Frankfurt, she moved to Berlin. By this time, she had become a Quaker and a Social Democrat, and she worked in a social settlement project in eastern Berlin. It was the first such social settlement in Germany, drawing the attention of American social workers such as Jane Addams. During the 1920s, Kraus traveled to the United States and established ties to American Quaker circles. She remained in Berlin until 1923, working with the American- and British-run Quaker soup kitchens (the Quaker Feeding Mission) and eventually becoming the executive director of the Berlin office, from which she created and oversaw a network of around 50 urban Quaker settlement centers throughout Germany.

In 1923, she was invited by the mayor of Cologne, Konrad Adenauer, to direct the Office of Public Welfare there, which she did until 1933. Adenauer’s leadership of the city from 1917 to 1933 was remarkable in several respects. The first is that in the aftermath of the Great War he developed a close and cooperative working relationship with the First British Army of the Rhine, which occupied Cologne until 1926. The second is that he skillfully managed the contentious divisions between the different German political movements and parties during this period. The third is that he invited Kraus to oversee public welfare in Cologne during the 1920s, which included oversight of the offices of public assistance, youth programs, unemployment offices, housing projects, institutional programs, and the budget offices that dealt with all these programs.15

Adenauer was a Catholic and a member of the Catholic Centre party; Kraus was a Jewish-born Quaker whose political affiliations were with working-class leftist groups. Despite these differences, they shared strong leadership and organizational skills and a pragmatic approach to navigating political complexity. In March 1933, Adenauer was forced out of office by the new Nazi regime, as was Kraus because of her Social Democrat ties and Jewish ancestry. Adenauer went underground; Hertha Kraus left Nazi Germany, coming to the United States. After teaching for several years at Bryn Mawr, by the late 1930s she began to organize efforts to help Jewish refugees enter the United States. When World War II began in 1939, she started working with the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) and became a U.S. citizen. AFSC consisted of a team of about 25 staff and 25 volunteers throughout the war, but that modest staff fielded more than 50,000 requests for help; this work was coordinated with that of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) when it was founded.

In April 1945, shortly after the Western forces had liberated the Rhineland, a letter for Kraus arrived in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania, delivered via the American military. It was from her former colleague, Konrad Adenauer:

I have a very great request to make of you: please come back here for at least a little while, as soon as possible! I can imagine that this will mean a great sacrifice for you. But I know your readiness to help and your work ethic. You are familiar with our country, and you are familiar with the United States. I believe that you could perform an invaluable service to the city of Cologne, to Germany, and to our shared ideals.16

Although the official end of the war was still weeks away, U.S. First Army forces in the Rhineland were reaching out to figures such as Adenauer who had well-established records of public service and governance and were known to have been opponents of National Socialism.17 Adenauer was appointed as mayor of Cologne following the German surrender on May 8. The political and military situation on the ground prevented direct communication between Kraus and Adenauer until well into the summer of 1945, and Kraus was unable to return to Germany until the summer of 1946—by which time the British had removed Adenauer from his post as mayor. He remained involved in politics, however, and when Kraus returned, they worked together to establish two neighborhood centers. In March 1947, she returned for a longer period, staying until 1949 to work with the Office of Military Government, United States (OMGUS), and religious aid organizations including the Quakers and other humanitarian organizations. She played a significant role in coordinating relief work for displaced persons, civilians, and POWs with the different branches of the Allied governments.18

As in 1918, the numbers and scope of the humanitarian crisis were daunting.19 In April 1945, there were more than 10 million displaced persons in German territory. That figure included civilians from throughout Europe who had been forcibly brought into the Reich by the German army to serve as forced labor, as well as POWs from various countries and concentration camp survivors. It did not include the millions of ethnic Germans who continued to flee from the east into German territory, nor did it include German civilians whose homes and cities had been destroyed and were living in temporary housing. A relatively small percentage of these people (approximately 250,000) were Jewish concentration camp survivors. In the early months after the war, many of these populations were housed together in the displaced person camps before separate camps were set up for them.20

As in the wake of World War I, the situation posed numerous complexities. In contrast to 1918, however, there was a more extensive network of aid organizations in place. Even before the war ended, Allied leaders, anticipating a massive humanitarian crisis, agreed to dedicate aid workers, resources, and money to help Allied countries in Europe devastated by the events of the war. In November 1943, UNRRA was established for this purpose. Its early plans to care for the anticipated refugee population vastly underestimated the numbers it would be dealing with, and after the defeat of Nazi Germany, the combined Allied forces (the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces) soon realized that UNRRA was overwhelmed and that more extensive coordination with other agencies would be crucial.21

The crisis was worsened by two factors. One was the extensive destruction of German cities, exacerbated by the record bitterly cold of the winters of 1945–1946 and 1946–1947. Of the 18 largest German cities, 14 had been damaged by more than 50 percent; 61 percent of the city of Cologne had been destroyed.22 The military occupation government was spread thin, resources were insufficient, and in the early months it struggled to cope. Hunger and starvation were serious problems. In Cologne, for example, only 11 percent of the children were of normal weight at the end of 1946.23

The combination of logistical challenges, division of postwar Germany into different occupation zones under the control of the French, U.S., and British military governments, enormous humanitarian needs, and involvement of multiple aid organizations made the immediate postwar months a humanitarian nightmare. These challenges were compounded by the complexities of the German political situation and growing German resentment. There had been widespread popular support for the Nazi regime, and in the wake of defeat, Nazi loyalists throughout the country began to fan the old resentments about the Versailles Treaty. During the initial period before aid and humanitarian coordination began, there were real concerns about political unrest. In April 1945, a general “nonfraternization” directive was issued that prohibited British and U.S. troops from working directly with German civilians, and the Allies began developing ambitious plans for denazification, reeducation programs, and democracy-building activities.24

By late 1945 and early 1946, there was greater coordination between the different aid organizations and OMGUS. International religious aid organizations and Protestant ecumenical leaders reached out directly to German church leaders, leading to cooperative efforts that were more effective in reaching civilians.25 In February 1946, the Council of Relief Agencies Licensed for Operation in Germany was created; it comprised 11 international religious humanitarian organizations.26 As J. Bruce Nichols has noted in his study of refugee work, “World War II was the decisive turning point in the humanitarian alliance between church and state in refugee work abroad.”27 The extent of coordination between Hertha Kraus and Konrad Adenauer during the 1920s had been unique, but after 1945, it became modus operandi for religious, governmental, and military bodies working together.

And—as had been the case during the 1920s—the period between 1945 and 1950 included a number of parallel developments. A new internationalist sensibility was emerging among American leaders, eventually leading to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization military alliance and economic partnerships between Europe and the United States. In the wake of the Holocaust, a deeper understanding of and commitment to human rights led to the establishment of new international laws, including the genocide convention and universal declaration of human rights. The Nuremberg trials led to clearer definitions of war crimes and the establishment of new international tribunals.28

It has become commonplace to talk about systems theory and the ways in which simultaneous events and processes intersect and affect one another. When one looks historically at the realm of humanitarian work after 1945, however, including the care for POWs, civilians, and the displaced, it was clear that the establishment of lasting peace had to be coordinated among governmental leaders, religious leaders, the military, and other institutions.29

It was strategically important to resolve these issues as humanely and expeditiously as possible—but as Kraus and Adenauer were well aware, this was not only a logistically pragmatic or political task but also a profoundly ethical one, with long-term implications for postwar Germany. Adenauer in particular was already thinking of how to create a viable foundation for postwar Germany in terms of a political or economic stability and what could be described as a kind of ethical stability.

The Ethical Foundations and Implications of Humanitarian Care

The ethics of care for civilians, displaced persons, and POWs is delineated in the regulations and guidelines of the military, international law, and humanitarian organizations. Practically, however, ethical values are concretely realized in the on-the-ground, real-life, in-real-time practical implementation of such work. Ethics depends ultimately on the actions of individual human beings.

The destabilizing aftereffects of World War I were not only political and economic, but also, in a profound sense, ethical. The collapse of empires and the redrawing of ethnic and national boundaries were followed by new waves of ethno-nationalism and separatism, making fascism increasingly attractive in some places. In Germany, the fragile Weimar Republic proved incapable of withstanding these social and political currents, and younger Germans in particular began to search for a political cause or leader who seemed to offer a clear vision and certainty about what Germany’s future should look like. In this quest, many turned toward Adolf Hitler and the Nazi party.

Born in 1906, the German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer was of this generation. Two of his brothers fought in the Great War, and one of them was killed in France. Bonhoeffer personally experienced the food shortages that afflicted German families in the war’s aftermath, and as a student during the mid-1920s, he briefly flirted with one of the nationalist paramilitary groups. In 1932, he described his generation as being “in free fall.”30 By then, however, he had become critical of the new nationalism that was sweeping the nation, although he understood why it was so attractive to young Germans. Shortly after Hitler came to power in 1933, Bonhoeffer wrote a short critical essay about the lure of National Socialism for his generation.31 World War I had left them, he wrote, “with a convincing impression of the meaninglessness and complete isolation of the individual and of the blunt power of the masses,” a development that had led young Germans to abandon any sense of personal or ethical responsibility.32 The disaster, in other words, had both political and ethical consequences. These insights subsequently shaped Bonhoeffer’s writings on ethics, both as he understood ethics within the Christian theological context and more broadly as he wrote about it in the societal and political context.

Discussions about Bonhoeffer’s ethics often focus on the ethical complexities of his involvement in the resistance conspiracy to overthrow the Nazi regime, but his approach to ethics was a central aspect of his theology throughout his adult life. For Bonhoeffer, “ethics” encompassed all spheres of human existence and was closely related to what he called the “mandates.”33 The mandates are the four primary spheres of life in which human life is lived: in family and marriage, in the sphere of work, as citizens under the authority of a government, and in the church (today one would say more broadly within one’s respective religious community). In each of these spheres, individuals have a certain role that gives them clear responsibilities—whether as head of government or citizen, as parent or child, as teacher or student.

Bonhoeffer understood those responsibilities ultimately as God-given, delineated in the values, principles, and rules of a society and its institutions. For people of a faith tradition, these are grounded in teachings and commandments, clear standards that must be followed and obeyed, setting a clear difference between right and wrong. In any given profession, there are additional ethical norms, and of course in human society generally there are norms about our behavior and responsibilities as we go about our daily lives.

In his writings on ethics, Bonhoeffer focused particularly on what happens when we are confronted with life’s complexities, and here he offered two insights that are particularly relevant to the ethical ambiguities that arise during war and its aftermath. The first is that even in situations in which we have a clearly defined role and responsibility and in which there are clear rules, the act of responding ethically to a given situation often demands a judgment call on our part. Core ethical concepts do not offer the fine print for every situation that may arise; even if they did, in real-time moments of crisis one does not rely on the fine print. These are the moments when people draw on their capacity for decency, for moral courage, for their most deeply rooted sense of right and wrong, and for a basic respect for human dignity. They make decisions about how to act in the knowledge that they must take responsibility for their decisions and actions. This is when character plays a central role.

Bonhoeffer understood that in times of political turbulence, violence, and war, there are complex and ambiguous ethical situations that may suddenly challenge people in a profound way. How people choose to act at such moments can affect the behavior of those around them and alter subsequent events. Bonhoeffer expressed this most eloquently in his 1942 essay “After Ten Years,” when he reminded his fellow conspirators that the goal of their actions could not be some kind of self-justification or the hope that history would judge their actions heroically. The goal and central ethical motive guiding their actions had to be simply that they would act in such a way that their actions prepared the foundation, politically and ethically, “for how a coming generation is to go on living.”34 Bonhoeffer understood that in our actions we set an example, not just for those around us, but also for those who come after us.

This is related to Bonhoeffer’s second insight, which concerns the ripple effects of ethical action: the connection between individual acts and the wider social and political contexts in which human beings live and act, a context that includes history itself. As early as 1927, Bonhoeffer wrote that all human sin is inherently social: even an individual transgression or injury done to another human being has broader ripple effects, including longer term impacts such as the shifting of social or political norms.35 A single act of dehumanization against another human being may help foster and normalize collective forms of dehumanization, increasing the vulnerability of those targeted. As such, that single act can contribute to the erosion of moral norms both at the individual and collective levels. Bonhoeffer’s insight is related to his corresponding emphasis that the ethical nature of human action reflects our personal purposes or goals, but at its core there must be action taken for the sake of others, for the sake of a deeper commitment to the greater good—the protection and well-being of others, the fundamental morality of our society, and the integrity of our respective institutions.

Theologically, this approach to ethics was central to how Bonhoeffer understood the call to Christian discipleship, but the interrelationship between individual ethical behavior and the broader social ethical fabric can be found in all religious traditions. Writing about the relationship between different religious traditions and the tenets of international humanitarian law, for example, legal scholar Brian Lepard has noted that in every religious tradition, “particular rights and duties are nested within a humanity-oriented framework.”36 That framework rests on the ethics of individuals and links them to a greater community.

The connection between individual ethical perspectives and action and the greater good is the foundation for the leadership programs at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for members of the military, judiciary, and law enforcement. These groups come to the museum for several days to a week, touring the exhibitions and exploring case studies that portray specific ethical challenges and dilemmas that confronted their counterparts in Nazi Germany.37 This exercise gives participants new insights into their own professional and individual responsibilities. More than 50,000 military professionals from the U.S. Naval Academy, U.S. Military Academy at West Point, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, and other military training institutions have participated in these programs.38

Colonel Edward Westermann, USAF, a participant in one of these programs, was interviewed several years ago for a Holocaust Museum podcast in which he described why he thought these programs were so important for the troops he was training: “Looking at the Holocaust,” Westermann noted, compelled his students to reflect on the difficult situations they might confront in the field. It is an important form of preparation:

If you first face that question in the moment when you’re standing on a street in Baghdad or when you’re standing on a street in Kabul, if that’s the first time you asked yourself the question about “What are my ethical and moral responsibilities in morally ambiguous situations where I have to react?” then you’re asking the question too late.39

As his insight indicates, part of the ethical grounding for our actions must be conscious reflection about our role and responsibilities, which is important for both our professional training and our daily lives as citizens.

This is evident in the writings and actions of many of those who were involved in humanitarian work between 1918 and 1945. The insights of humanitarian workers after 1918, and the insights that Hertha Kraus and Konrad Adenauer gained during the 1920s in interwar Cologne, shaped how they approached the challenges of humanitarian care in postwar Germany after 1945. The conclusions they drew from their experiences after 1918 led them much later to advocate for greater coordination between humanitarian and religious agencies and the military governments, opening the way for different approaches to navigating postwar political issues. The resulting extensive coordinated networks of aid were a reflection of the lessons learned, which included the insight that certain political and humanitarian structures have to be in place if the ethics of care in wartime is to find continuity when the peace begins. Such coordination goes beyond creating organizational structures and networks; the ethical underpinnings and goals of such collaboration must be articulated and incorporated. As Adenauer wrote in his letter asking Kraus to return to Germany in 1945, his invitation came not only because of her proven capability and work ethic, but also because—as he put it—of their “shared ideals.”

The importance of attending to the needs of civilians, displaced persons, and POWs is not morally ambiguous in the way that other wartime decisions may be. Nonetheless, the daunting circumstances under which millions of human beings have to be fed and housed, and their longer term needs for relocation or repatriation met, inevitably pose logistical and political challenges. The central ethical challenge for those doing this work under the extraordinarily difficult circumstances of the postwar era (after both 1918 and 1945) was how to do this with compassion and concern, in a way that respected the humanity and dignity of these vulnerable populations. That fundamental respect for human dignity became a cornerstone of the post-1945 European project.

There were numerous difficulties, complexities, and political crises along the way, and we should not oversimplify the aftermath of National Socialism and the Holocaust. On the humanitarian front, however, these issues were navigated more successfully after 1945 than they were after 1918, due in no small part to the collaborative and ethical foundations that had been laid by people in humanitarian and religious agencies, starting with some of the work done during the 1920s. Combined with substantial economic aid programs, notably the Marshall Plan, this led to a different kind of political stability and helped create a foundation for decades of postwar peace among European nations. As is so often the case in history, the essential ethical underpinnings of the humanitarian work done during this period became one part of a much larger story.