Account Rendered

I should be working on my review of the book about Peleliu. I find that book and that subject very difficult to wrap my head around, and the way the book is written doesn’t help. So, I am putting it off just a little while longer. Instead, right now, I am reading a book called “Account Rendered” by Melita Maschmann. I ordered two copies of this book many months ago-one copy for myself, another for a young woman I know. Her birthday is coming up soon, and I feel compelled to read the book before giving it to her.

Melita Maschmann was a young woman who become involved in Naziism in Nazi Germany as a teenager. Unlike many Nazis, who never repented, Melita came to regret her involvement in Naziism in later years. The book “Account Rendered” is her attempt to try to explain how and why she was drawn into that movement. When it was published, she was attacked by former Nazis, who felt that she should have kept her mouth shut. She was also attacked by those who believed that she was insincere, or trying to rationalize her former life.

Like many, I have always been fascinated by how so many could have been seduced by Naziism, and also by the fact that so few ever repented of it. Some say that death bed conversions aren’t fair: how can someone do evil all of their lives, and then get off scot free with a death bed conversion? But if death bed conversions are so easy, then why do so few people have them? I am thinking of the Nazis who moved to Argentina and other places after the war, and spent the rest of their lives partying and enjoying the good life, with, apparently, no remorse and no regret whatsoever. How could they? Especially as they grew older and death became more imminent. How could they? Weren’t they at least afraid for their own souls and for themselves?

Very few Nazis-none that I can think of off the top of my head-ever showed remorse, definitely not by writing a book about it. I am so intrigued by this book. I have just finished the first chapter, and will review it chapter by chapter.

Melita Maschmann is a very talented writer. I have been completely drawn into the world she describes, which, so far, is the world of her childhood, the world of the Weimar Republic in the years before Hitler took power. She describes her childhood in an attempt to explain the mindset she had when she embraced Naziism. Melita was born into what the book says is an upper middle class family, but they sound downright wealthy to me: her mother had at least several servants, and her father had a chaffeur. The servants loom very large in Melita’s account of her childhood. Her mother sounds like a rather cold woman who demanded total obedience from her children. Though she never quite says it, it often seems as though Melita liked the servants better than she liked her mother. One servant in particular, a dressmaker who was an ardent supporter of Hitler, was the one who first introduced Melita to Naziism when Melita was 14 or 15 years old.

Her parents were against the Weimar Republic, and often lamented the chaotic political environment of that time. They regularly gave money to an unnamed political cause run by a broke noblewoman who longed for the days of the Kaiser. Though she never actually says it, at least not yet, it seems as though Melita’s parents were monarchists. They were definitely snobs. They sneered at the idea of “uneducated” people voicing political opinions, and they looked on the Weimar Republic with contempt.

The views of Melita’s parents on National Socialism are, so far, less clear. They were not in favor of it, but it isn’t clear how much they opposed it. I have only just finished the first chapter. What emerges is a girl who rejected her parents’ snobbishness and accepted their rejection of democracy. It is interesting to note that the dressmaker mentioned earlier, who had such a profound influence on Melita, also rejected upper class snobbishness while at the same time embracing Hitler. Melita describes the dire straights that many Germans of that time were living in, but she makes it clear that she herself was definitely not in dire straights and she was not driven to Naziism by economic desperation which she saw all around her but never personally experienced. From what she describes so far, it sound as though Naziism fulfilled a kind of religious craving for her-and by Melita’s account, many comfortably raised German young people were also seduced, often against the inclinations of their parents. Raised in the aftermath of Germany’s defeat in WWI, they longed for something that would make them feel good about Germany: recoiling from the class prejudices and snobbishness of their parents, they longed for a universal brotherhood of man. They seem to have shared their parents’ frustration and exhaustion with the democracy they experienced during the Weimar Republic. According to Melita, all of these factors made her and those like her easy pickings for Naziism.

I am struck by the fact that so far, religion isn’t mentioned at all. Jews haven’t been mentioned yet. Christians have not been mentioned either, and so far, Melita doesn’t say what faith, if any, she was raised with. It occurs to me that the world of her childhood that Melita describes is a world in which God does not exist, is not even mentioned. I don’t know if she intended that, but after reading the first chapter, I am left with the impression that God was totally absent from the world that Melita grew up in.

I will write more, as I read more.