WWYD? Grandad’s war record

[TrickyGrandad]

As a part of my son’s work sent home from school, there’s an investigation project into relatives experience of war, rationing, evacuation, service, that sort of thing.

WWYD if you knew that Grandad’s war record was highly controversial? My child never met this Grandad but knows where he fits in the family tree, obviously.

Would you use this as a learning experience OR keep it under wraps for when they’re older. Safe to say this isn’t an aspect of war that school are exploring.

I wouldn't hold it against anyone but some kids and their parents would so I'd keep it under wraps

Don't say anything until he is an adult. If kids & their parents find out now they might make life very difficult for your child.

And how awful they would be for doing that to an innocent child! What a nasty world we live in still.

Another one saying that it would be wiser not to allow this information out to his school.
Apart from anything else you don't know who is in his class and, given that old wounds do run deep and down the generations, it might cause unneeded pain to others.

But also - what a thing for him to find out at this age - so no, I think leave it until he's older, maybe 15 or 16. I don't think you should hide it forever, but he's still at quite a tender age (my own son is only a year older) and I think he'd probably be quite upset to know this now.

Just tell the truth. You can’t change history, don’t cover it with glory just show it from a factual point of view.

I certainly wouldn't keep it a secret from him as it is what it is but I wouldn't have him discuss it in school at this age. I know we had a discussion around this when I was in school just before we finished so we would have been 17 as a boy in our class had a cousin who was marrying a German woman and her family had a high ranking nazi as a grandfather (he had been executed after the war) and we all found it fascinating and interesting but we were young adults and obviously the person in our class wasn't related to the nazi so wasn't a target for any nasty behavior.

Jesus Christ of course you don’t let on, I’d be very much trying to forget about that if O were you 😬

It's nobody's business and for that reason I wouldn't be giving chapter & verse to a school teacher.
When I was young even the most mundane family things weren't discussed so openly as they are these days.

I don't see the big deal, although maybe just make something up?

I bet a lot of people have horrendous criminals in their family tree if you dig deep enough. British history is caked in blood, Boer war, internment, slavery etc

I guess with children from different backgrounds at school, it could be a bit awkward to do a topic what did you grandad/great grandad do in the war.

Although it could actually be quite interesting, because most Brits don't really understand what was going on in Poland/Czech/former Yugoslavia etc.

Having said that, as many kids like to pick up on any little thing to bully others, maybe not such a good idea.

Fwiw, one of my close friends in school was German, and it never caused any trouble when we were learning about either world war. Sometimes kids would ask her if her ancestors had been in the army or Nazis and she would not sagely and say "oh yes, but I can't help that", and honestly the kids were mostly just impressed and thought it was cool.

I got the feeling her family had gone through all this with her. Her dad was an amateur historian and their house was full of WWI memorabilia from all factions, especially Russian, so I'm sure none of it seemed mysterious or taboo to her. Once when I stayed over her grandmother was there and told tales of being a child in the war, and the stories were pretty much identical to the stories my grandparents told me, except the place names all sounded foreign.

My point being this wasn't anything like as emotive a subject for me as a kid as it is for older generations, and your DS is a lot younger than me. I think it's unlikely he'd be disturbed by the knowledge, and I don't think he'd get much flak for it in school. I think the most important thing you can do is NOT make it seem like a big deal whenever you do decide to tell him.

Cause it really isn't a big deal. Everyone is there own person and no one should feel ashamed of something someone else did (especially when it all happened decades before they were born!)

Yes but he might have been in logistics, training or not involved in anything directly. Not every single person was responsible for death and destruction. High ranking might mean deporting Jews and Roma but it might be rather mundane. The issue of what he did and what he believed should be explained later in DCs life. Whenever appropriate. But if it was logistics or politics at a low level (Nazis were politicians) it may not be too upsetting. We use the word “Nazi” and always think of horrific death camps but that was not the job of everyone.

For fuck's sake, Is this where we are now? Looking for the kind and gentle side of the Nazis? The Waffen SS were the military wing of the party. They were strongly ideological and responsible for a huge number of war crimes. However I'm sure some of they were nice to their wives and kids and patted dogs in the streets. What's a few million dead people between friends?

Can't believe how many posters are minimising this (though actually maybe I can the way this site is going) and saying how 'interesting it is'. I'd be horrified if a relative of mine was a Nazi not doing a fucking project on it.

God, as a German living in the UK this thread is rather depressing. Why should an 11 year old child hide who their great grandfather was? It's not his fault! It's important to know that even our own families can include terrible people. It's also good to know that terrible people may still have made good husbands and fathers.
The excuses on this thread for many Germans during the war is also astounding. Most people knew very well what was going on. They chose to ignore it. Or they actively agreed with it. This myth of the silent majority disagreeing is not true.

It makes me realise that we may actually have done a reasonably good job in Germany dealing with our past.

Op, I hope you are open and honest with your child. He doesn't need to feel ashamed about his ancestry, but it might stop him from becoming blindly patriotic.

I wouldn’t ever tell him.

Don’t say this now. It’s a conversation for a much older child. While you can clearly emphasise that what happened in the 1940s is nothing to do your son, I don’t think you should underestimate how people do regard “active Nazis” even now.

Your son may feel inappropriate guilt. He may feel isolated. Or that he is somehow “the enemy”.

Should you tell your child’s classmates that his grandad was a racist mass murderer? NO. Your son isn’t old enough to process this yet

I wouldn't get into that for a year 6 kid - what about other GPs? Aunts?Uncles? My grandfather was too old to serve, and a widower with 4 dependent children, so worked in a munitions factory but when I told Year 6 DS that for a project he was a bit disappointed, so we went with the hero RAF pilot great uncle who died in combat, and the grandma who was a wren. god knows what he would have thought if Grdpa had been an actual Nazi.
That would be private family history to talk about when kid is a bit older

OP my step grandfather, my dad's stepfather fought for Nazi Germany. He was in the Hitler Youth, joined the Army at 16, got injured in Russia and missed a good chunk of the War, started paratrouping again towards the end and found himself a PoW in England.

He met and married my grandmother and took on her children as his own. My father suffered a lot of stigma at school, some of the teachers called him and his siblings Jerry Kids and he got caned for having a German stepfather a few times.

It was common knowledge when I was at primary school in the 90s and secondary in the 00s (my father was in his 50s when I was born and we lived in the same rural area).

Never had any issues because of it. No-one called me names or anything. Most people were fascinated - Grampy met Hitler when he was injured fighting, who presented him with medals for bravery and a signed copy of Mein Kampf. We did WW2 in year 5. I seem to recall the teacher using it as an opportunity to highlight that ordinary Germans suffered too during the War, they lost citizens to bomb raids, people were forced to fight etc.

Grampy's mother and sisters were raped by the Soviet Army (their area ended up in East Germany).

It was never a secret growing up, I don't remember ever not knowing. I think your DS has the right to know. I would hope there would be no issues at school, but I can understand why you would rather keep it quiet.

Perhaps, instead of focusing on men in the family, focus on the women? Any great grandmas who were land girls for example?

so this is YOUR granddad? - you have two, as does his father (I had some complicated cousins' marriages, so not quite the full count) - so he should have four great grandfathers - and four great grandmothers as well.
So seven excluding the High Ranking Nazi whom I agree it's probably best to keep quiet about for the purposes of a school project

I don't think this is the sort of info the school are after. I think they're going for more everyday life type descriptions.
I definitely wouldn't use this an opportunity to disclose the crimes of your Nazi relative.

I have an Austrian relative who joined the Nazi party by choice we believe, and rose quite high.

I knew at primary school that he was a member and that he chose to join, I remember talking about how choices were not always obvious, how situations are not as clear cut when you are living them.

When I asked what he did exactly my parents said they were not sure, it's harder to get records from that side of the war, lots of nazi records were destroyed etc etc. I have never felt the need to find out more, I'm sure it wasn't nice.

I didn't study history at exam level but my brother did so he knows more than me, I remember my dad and him looking over some papers and photos when he was studying a level history but I wasn't particularly interested.

So I would probably say that he joined the Nazi party, like many people of his time did. So the knowledge is sort of out there. But just say you don't know any more, maybe we should investigate some time. And let it drop. It might come up again at secondary school, it might not. It's a tough one.

I have to say I have glossed over this relative so far when my kids have asked. Luckily another grandfather was quite a successful RAF pilot so his 'glamorous' story gets all the attention.

People in Germany did ignore what was going on but in a totalitarian state that’s what happens. It’s not making excuses. What else could they have done?

If anything it’s saying dig deeper and try and find out what really happened and if he wasn’t German, what was his story? Knowledge is power and is key to understanding history and learning from it.

It wouldn't be unusual in your circumstances for such a war record to be hidden, not talked about, or lied about within families. You could say "I know he lived in Germany, so I think he was in the German army but don't have details."
Perhaps he could research how German families coped during the war. Did they have rationing? Did they starve? etc.,