legion wrote:No shortage of documentary evidence of what really happened. The body language of the civilians tells the story, the locals had no idea what they were going to see.
I never said the ordinary German people knew the extent of the horrors in the camps or even necessarily that they existed. Ordinary Japanese people had no idea of what the Japanese camps were like or even of their existence and I'm not even sure they know now. But you said that the German high command didn't know and never ordered them to kill people - They did, even if they deny it and even if crucial evidence has been destroyed.
I accept that as the war progressed they got worse and worse and the thing took on a life of its own, but they were deliberately and knowingly set up for a purpose and that purpose was obscene from the start.
You also seem to be conflating rather different camps. Bergen Belsen was set up for an entirely different evil purpose to Auschwitz. You can say events and conditions at Bergen spiralled out of control to some extent, but Auschwitz operated according to plan from the start right to the end, didn't it? That plan, the funding, the personnel and it's oversight came directly from the high command of the Nazi Party through a chain of command. Not everyone knew but a lot of people did and some ordered it.