Figure 1.--This is a scene of Hang-Jörg as a baby with family and fiends in 1914. Milo and their baby sister are not yet born. The pooch is Rolf.

Hans-Jörg's father was Artur Emil Gottfried Hartmann was a cavalry officer during World War II. It looks to us like a family a conservative family in comfortable ciurcumstances. They appear to have grown up on a country estate. One photograph gives the impression of the Junker Class, reinforced by his calvalry role in World War I. He is described as a 'gentleman, business manager and land-owner'. This would have affected the family political outlook. They would have been very conservative and anti-Bolshevik and perhapos concerned about growing Polish populations in eastern Germany from which farm laborers were drawn. All of this would have drawn the family toward right-wing politics. And his father in fact becane a minor NAZI functionary. It was not only large land owners that supported the NAZIs. Small scale farmers also voted very heavily for the NAZIs. Hitler and the NAZIs made a pitch for a viryually mystical co=nnectiion with the land. The NAZO slogan was 'Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil). Richard Walther Darré was very sucessful in popularizing this idea in rural Germany. Once in power, however, the NAZis did almost nothing for the farmers. Abd virtualy no farmers sjowed any entyhusiam about colonizing the occupied East. What many conservatives did not understanbd was that Hitler was intent on a revolution of his own, a fundamental reordering of society. Conservatives wanted to resist the Bolsheviks, not to reorder society.

Created: 10:39 AM 9/17/2020
Last updated: 10:39 AM 9/17/2020