The Beast Society. Hell in the Nazi Society (1933-1945). The case of Eberhard Goldstein.

Dear community Steemit, here I present to you the beginning of my novel: The Society of the Beasts. Hell in the Nazi Society (1933-1945). The case of Eberhard Goldstein. It is a family half Jewish and half German originated in the formation of mixed marriages between Jews and Germans. When the Nazis seized power in 1933, they had to deal with a new reality, the formation of a third race, a product of the cross-breeding of Jews and Germans. The children of these hybrid unions were called mestizos, in German, "mischlinge", half Jewish and half German, and had to obtain certificates to be recognized as Aryan (German) citizens and to be saved from the purges carried out by the Nazis within the Jewish communities. It was not easy to obtain an Aryan certificate. This is the story of the Goldstein family. The children, David and Eberhard Goldstein deeply love their Jewish grandfather Alfred Goldstein who owns a bookstore in the center of Berlin. Of their four grandparents, only Alfred is their only Jewish grandfather, and they will have to fight to be reclassified as Aryan citizens. Every time they leave school they run to Grandpa Goldstein's bookstore, and there they will learn to read the great works of world literature. The love between the grandfather and his grandchildren is not only part of a narrative, but in many instances it is a work of love and an act of poetry. I hope you like it.

If the novel has a remarkable acceptance, I will publish it in installments, but only depending on its acceptance.

The Beast Society. Hell in the Nazi Society (1933-1945). The case of Eberhard Goldstein.

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Societies like men also tend to go through moments of darkness. Hence, there is no doubt that these are the faithful mirror of their leaderships when they are governed with solidarity, well-being, resentment or hatred. When ruled by hatred, the worst of a society with widespread destructive power emerges. It's all about not letting hatred and darkness spread and embrace everything. When the darkness seems to expand and embrace everything, there is always hope to change everything and start over. There is no absolute darkness in the bad times when a nation or a society can live, because even in the darkest night there will always be a little light so that in the end full light will emerge or reappear.

Even in spite of the destructive force of hate, love is more powerful. "Amor vincit omnia": "Love overcomes all." There is nothing stronger in a human being's life than the feeling of love. A person who doesn't love is missing the most beautiful thing about being alive. When one loves, creative forces arise and everything is easier. There are many ways to love. There is love for children, love for parents, love for grandparents, and finally love for the family. Of course, we cannot forget the love between a man and a woman, the creative source of all that exists in this world. Nor can we forget the love of our country, a kind of controversial love because it can be frank, but it is also a source of discord and tragedy. When you love you can hear noises of kisses in the air. That's what my grandfather Alfred Goldstein used to call me. Years later I could see it.

It was the year 1933. Germany was going through an economic depression like any other country in the world. Agricultural and industrial production plummeted to the ground because of the war, and financial speculation and the high war debts imposed by the Treaty of Versailles signed in 1921 by the Weimar Republic caused hyperinflation and the unemployment of six million Germans, creating unrest, poverty and misery among a population of sixty-five million inhabitants. The National Socialist Party and its leader Adolf Hitler took advantage of this situation to attract the social masses with an attractive populist discourse.

German cities were more than ever impregnated and bathed in politics. Politicians could now be seen to offer their speeches openly in an era of freedom inaugurated by German democracy in the city of Weimar. Of course, democracy was not well understood by its protagonists, with political parties showing a fierce rivalry and often resolving the controversy through paramilitary forces created by the parties to act in the streets as shock forces. The National Socialists began to develop political confrontation and street violence as a method of pressure for the seizure of power, confronting the communists, the liberal governments in power and attacking the Jews in some towns. Although it is true that German democracy was weak, despite the insurrections of the early years (1919-1923) it cannot be ignored that there was a brief period of economic recovery with marked progress in science, culture and the arts.

The city of Berlin was a cosmopolitan and bohemian city par excellence. A city with large natural parks, beautiful old and modern buildings, a thriving metro with modern railway and underground lines, electric trams, horse carriages, lavish churches, cathedrals, squares, palaces and synagogues. Not to mention historical monuments such as the seat of parliament, the chancellery and the Brandenburg Gate. When you appreciate the natural beauties of a country like Germany, you love everything around you. Each natural season endowed the city with unparalleled beauty, whether it was winter with snow or spring with its flowers.

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Who would have thought eighty-three years later that Germany, the most cultured nation in Europe, would be the protagonist of the most dreadful nightmare of horror ever lived in the history of the modern civilized world. Few imagined that blindly following a leader like Adolf Hitler was a bitter path full of hatred, death and destruction. Societies need to be alert to the leadership they offer to save people from their problems because they are not aware of what they are really trying to achieve when they gain power. We know that it is very difficult to guess the nature of negative, harmful and pernicious leadership for a society from the very moment a nation faces difficult times. It is precisely the circumstances of crisis that create the conditions for the people to listen to the sirens' songs, always seduced by a charismatic leader who knows how to eclipse the social masses by trapping them with wonderful promises that are not easy to leave aside.

No one could have imagined that Germany would become the "Society of the Beasts" for twelve years, as Aristotle had imagined it and as our ever-loved and remembered professor Frederick Dollman explained it, an outlawed society dominated by tyrants or dictators lacking in values, self-control and respect for the other, giving free rein to irrationality and perversity. It is in this way that man builds a machine of power to crush and destroy other human beings by becoming a beast.

The country that my paternal grandfather and his family had chosen to live in for more than ten generations was being shaken by a time dominated by fear and terror. Darkness had taken over the streets of Germany. None of the Jewish families who chose this nation as their home ever imagined that they could no longer trust their neighbors just because they belonged to a different religion and had one or four Jewish grandparents. This is the story of Alfred Goldstein, an elderly Jewish owner of one of the most important bookstores in Berlin. The Düsseldorf bookshop on Ribestroof Street. Goldstein had given his all for Germany, and had been decorated with the iron cross during the First World War. There in that bookstore, the old man taught his grandchildren to love books. In the afternoons, as soon as they left school, David and Eberhard would run to Grandpa's shop to help him sort the books or attend to the customers. There they were locked in a reading room created by the old man to read some of the most famous works of world literature.

This is Eberhard Goldstein, your grandson, speaking to you. Classified by the Nazis as a mischlinge, a half-breed. A German hybrid, because he is the son of a German Catholic, considered Aryan, married to a half Jewish man. In other words, he was a special Jew, having four grandparents to one Jewish grandfather. While he passed perfectly like an Aryan German as a blond boy with a sturdy body, straight hair, a fine nose, a distinctly German chin, prominent cheekbones and soft icy blue eyes, my brother David, twelve years old, was not left behind, he also fulfilled the Aryan race's prospect, black hair and eyes of a powerful blue sky blue. Even so, we both bore the mark of the beasts, which was not precisely the yellow star of David, but the mark of hatred and intolerance of the führer Adolf Hitler and a political party, the Nazi party, newly created in 1919, and which rose to power through the short-sightedness of the left-wing and liberal parties who were involved in a constant division and quarrel and could never unite to avert the political crisis.

For Nazi Germany, it became a great headache from the beginning to recognize that many descendants of Jews also had German blood and were therefore German. The big question was: How do we ensure that mischlinge born of mixed marriages between Germans and Jews is incorporated into Nazi society? The problem was complex and confusing, because in the German armed forces alone some 150,000 soldiers were children of Germans and Jews, including senior members of the military hierarchy.

Even though Adolf Hitler issued a decree for Jews to be expelled from the army, the reality was different. They couldn't get rid of the half-breeds. It was a human capital asset for war. Aryan racial theory was a complicated skein. Thus, there were mestizos to varying degrees with the possibility of being considered Aryans. Half-breeds with fifty percent Jewish blood in their veins, and others with twenty-five, fifteen, or barely an eighth of Jewish blood. This question of the races was so ephemeral that only the color of the skin and eyes became a possibility to be considered Aryan. If we add political and economic power to these possibilities, the closer the chances of being recognized as an Aryan citizen were.

At that time, the initial solution was to grant a certificate recognizing a mischlinge as an Aryan. Shortly thereafter, the courts had to deal with thousands of applications from German Mischlings for recognition as Aryan citizens. The administrative and supreme court courts received an infinite number of lawsuits, and certainly, the courts received them by resolving hundreds of cases, ruling in favor of many mestizos.

This work of socio-racial reengineering was not easily achieved. Experts were sought to find out how they cleared the question of who would be considered Jewish and who would be mestizo. The reality was that many mestizos became special Jews, but the brutality of Nazism was so ruthless that thousands of mestizos were transported to the death camps. Added to this was the fact that thousands of mestizos did not consider themselves Jewish at all, for while it is true that they may have Jewish grandparents or a Jewish past, a large part of the mestizos never practiced the Jewish religion and in some cases did not even know they had a Jewish past because their great-grandparents, grandparents and parents had converted to the Catholic religion.

By the time the events began in 1933, I was just a kid. He was only seven years old. My paternal grandfather was a Jew and my father a half-breed, both of whom followed the tradition of marrying German Aryan women. I was a precocious child, with a strong and happy complexion, and I loved reading, strolling through the streets of Berlin, through the tiergarten park, the lime trees boulevard and the opera square, as well as going to my school. We didn't know how life could change us, but yes, that the beasts were stalking us. It was during that year, 1933, that Adolf Hitler came to power without ever having won an election, and it was during that year that we began to live our first nightmares in horror. Now I am 82 years old, and I feel obliged to tell you this story told with the support of some of my relatives. This is my story.

It will continue to depend on your acceptance.