In article , "Paul F
Austin" wrote:

"Howard Berkowitz" wrote
One of my mentors took his doctorate in Germany. He told me that in,
oh,
1937 or so, he was presented to Hitler. While he was an academic, he
was also a wrestler, and felt he could have done great damage -- if he
had only known.

I remember watching him shake over the memory, and the only words I
could offer him were that he couldn't have known -- and wrestling
doesn't give you the skill to kill someone in seconds.

Please don't take this as a jab at your mentor but did he talk about why
he
and others "didn't know"? After all, Kristalnacht for example was four
years
in the past at that point.



You may be thinking of the "Night of the Long Knives," the 1934 purge of
the SA and other inconvenient sorts. Kristallnacht was in 1938.

I can't say I would have seen that as more than thuggery and lack of
central control. Given the information I had at the time, would I have
sacrificed myself -- for certainly that would happen -- to kill someone
whose monstrosity was not yet well known?

Remember that one of the issues of the SA purge was that they were
running internment camps independently of the SS, police, etc. While the
"euthanasia program" certainly preceded the Final Solution, the latter
was formalized at the Wannsee Conference in 1942.