Saw this last week or so, never liked Brody, but he did a great performance as the pianist. :yeah:

And Schindler was a Nazi as well.

Right! And when someone calls for extermination of others you don`t think, you agree. Very easy way of living by letting someone else think for you, and thats one of main goals of nationalism.

I hope never to be put in that position. Fortunately, our genocide period was over long before I was born. But that would be a difficult decision. I hope I would be able to make the "right" decision.

They didn't call for extermination, they called to fight for the fatherland. You really think that the German military was all about killing Jews? It was mainly about defending your fatherland. Defending your families. Defending your very own life.

I'm suprised....the film is a few years old now :hmmm:

Your pity was not asked for, nor did I try to excuse "Mitläufer" and free them of their share of guilt - I have accused silent Mitläufer of their share of guilt myself often enough, in context both with the Nazigerman and the Muhammeddan communities. But my grandfathers both were neither Nazis, nor did they feel explicitly nationalistic - not back then, and not in the decades later. Neither had them voted for the Nazis to come to power, nor did they bring or wish to bring more nationalism to Germany than Western nations in general ticked nationalistic back in that era. And still they turned out to be victims of circumstances that - different to your claim - they, like many others, had not opted for to bring to themselves or to Germany.

This is not to excuse Naszis, or "Mitläufer", I have attacked Mitläufer myself often enough for their share of guilt in making given cirucmstances lasting on, in debates with contexts of both Nazi-Germany and Muhammeddan societies. I just want to correct this stupid polarising and stereotyping of "all Germans were Nazis". That is an extremely simplifying claim. Many Germans were turned into victims of the tryanny, too - by ideological abuse and indoctrination of the young generation, and the suffering and killing of the civilians in the cities who got killed later in the war, and many families loosing the mere basis of their existence, too. There were Nazis. There were Mitläufer. And there were innocents. The first two got dleivered what they asked for, and what they maybe deserved. The latter - were victims, like the many victims of Nazi war and Nazi terror throughout Europe.

The existence of mass prisons, socalled concentration camps, were most likely known to the British authorities since sometime in the second half of 41. Whatz happened inside these camps - was not known.

For the Americans, the "date of knowledge"most often noted in historians' debate, seems to be somewhere in 42. Still in summer 1939, the Americans and Canadians turned back a ship with around 1000 Jews fleeing from Europe and seeking refuge in North America, the shipü finally had to return to Europe. It must be assumed that mkost of the poeple aboard then got killed. Roosevelt himself ordered this turning back. I doubt he would have done that if he had known what this would mean for the people aboard.

During the war, there were the usual set of reports, and thus: "knowledge" of local mass executiuons committed by the Germans in occupied territories, also reports about mass deportations. Occasional news tend to pop up in Amerian papers since later 41 on.

But: the inustrialised mass gassing of Jews inside the camps and the full sacale of the horror was completely unkinown until the end of the war. There is a story of the British government having turned down evidence given by a Jew who had escaped from a camp, presenting photographic evidence. But the story continues that the evidence had no consequence because it told such a horrifying story that one simply refused to believe it. (Also, the British at that time were quite a bit antisemitic themselves, and reflected that in their policy-making, too.) It is a story soemtimes brought up in discussions. However, the historic truth of it is not confirmed beyond doubt.

So, the real horror of the camps and the full extent of the systematic genocide was revealed not before the Allied troops reached them and liberated them at the end of the war. The shock then was the greater.

First,m as just explained, the US civilians did not know what the camps were about. Second, the Nazi regime did it'S best to hide the presence of KZs from the German public, or better: they hid what happened inside of them. For good reason, even the Nazis must have feared a revolt if the German public would have gotten full information of the barbary that took place. The "Lager" were rumoured about, it was a threat lurking in the background of every conversation people held with somebody - a bit liked imperttinent children get disciplined by story about the balck man catching them if they do not obey, only that the Lager, the GeStapo, the robust interrogation were known to be a bit more realistic than the dark child-catcher.

What must be assumed is that villagers living in villages close to concentration camps, sooner or later got rumours and knowledge about whjat happend in the camps close by. That may be the reasons why the camps were tried to be hidden in relatively distant, isolated places.

Your assumption that "all Germans had to know", is most unlikely, therefore. Your reason for that assumption (because all Americans knew from early on) is basing on false grounds: Americans did not know what happened before the end of the war.

People need to remind one thing: Germans, no matter their disgust or loyalty to the regime, lived in a tyranny, a brutal dictaorship, that had brought police control methods and spying on its people to heights that before were unknown in history. FEAR is a decisive variable in determining a human's actions and decisions. And the simple truth is that most of the time, most people tend to hunker down, seek cover and hope to survive it all somehow. And that is true for ALL people, not just Germans. Beside, there are so many untold stories of German heroes whose names will never be known, who risked their lives by hiding Jews under their roof for months, who brought doom and horror over their familieds when helping refugees to make it over the border. History books and movies only remember the famous names, like Scholl and Stauffenberg. But there were so many thousands of grey, ordinary people who fought their own secret battle of resistence against the regime that way.

Comparable things told my grandfathers - but they said that rumours ab oiut the crimes comitted by the SS, for example, started to widely circulate not before the last third of the war. In the beginning, there was a woprking propaganda that was very successful in selling the German attack on Poland as an act of self-defence in a war started by the Poles. Minds and thoughts started to change when the Russian war shifted against the Germans, and losses climbed.

By effect, that is correct, and it is also true for the simple "Mitläufer", which I remind of their share of guilt becasue their silence and tolerance also helps to prolongue the current state. But that does not mean that every German soldier was a Nazi in thinking and conviction. I claim that most were not. As was said, it was an other time, asnd there were different sentiments amonst people from all nations aboout things like "nation" and"duty", standards which have massovely lost in meaning for many modenr people - who then find it hard to accept that they once were important for people in a past era. Also, what do you expect when a man is given the choice of either fighting in the army, or being deported or executrd, with threats being turned against his family? That all of them turn into altruistic superheroes yearning for martyrdom? True, the regime would not have lasted if ALL people all of a sudden turned against it. But how oftehn does histgory give you an example of people doing like this in the face of a most brutal regime in full power? Americans do not understand it,m because the short history of theirs does not know an era where their forefathers lived under a txyranny, I mean a real tyranny like Stalin or Hitler or Ceaucesco who ruiled with irdon fist and physical violence. Most people are intimidated sufficikently by the prospect of physical force and toprture and dissappearance in secret prisons. That's why such regimes can successfully install themselves by the means they choose. Not having the heroic martyrdom-gene may be a human weakness, but this weakness is a fact in human history. The behavior of crowdfs and masses, and tghe behaviour or an indiovidual making a choice - it cannot really be compared. Masses and the cukltural climate they form by their mere existence, create a cultural atmosphere feeding back on people that initially most people cannot escape. That's what makes such a "cult" lasting. Not before counter-effects and pressures from outside make themselves feelable to a sufficient degree (a "critical mass"), the situation becomes unstable and the status quo is put in danger and may collapse. IMO it compares very much to Newton's Laws and Angular Momentum - where there is no energy passed on to another object, or no foreign object projects an energetic effect on a given object, that object's momentum does not change by itself, then. :-)

Only antisemites and people hating gypsies and Bolshewists cpould have made a decision to fight for the ourpose of committing genocide against them. Those who fought becaseu they were taken away from the civil life by the regime'S law and foudn themselves as a number in the great machinery of the Whrmacht - just fought, and hardly for the purpose of bringin g extinction to theJews/gypsies/Bolshevists/etc.). They fought to surive, and because tghey were in the army and it was war. The overwhelming majoreity of German Wehrmac ht-soldiers - had no choice, facing the firing squad if refusing to do so.

Now, Nazis by conviction, and SS, as well as higher ranks disliking the Nazis (a wide-spread attitude in the Wehrmacht, btw) but keeping loyal to Hitler due to their totally misled and disconnected sense and code of "obedience" - these are something totally different.

Like they did in the Alamo?

Yes, I'm sure the Allies' boys as well as the German defenders had such philosophic monologues on their minds and really reflected over the other guy's mindset that way. When the bombs start falling and the bullets start whizzing past your head, men easily get into the mood to meditate about the rights and evils of life and how to convince the other of one'S own motives.

The trap you fall into is - you see it from today's perspective, with the full knowledge about continent-wide events that we have about history. But you must ty to put yourself into the situation back then, into the mind of the single man at location, with the ammount of knowledge that was available to him. You must use the scales and standards of that time in order to assess that time.

They did what soldiers do in war: they fought, and by the standards of war, they did it extremely effective. That was their job, like it was the job of the invasion troops to storm the beach. Was it horrific? Yes. The whole war was. Every war deserving the name, is like that. And both side'S soldiers - correctly - thought they were fighting for their lives, against an enemy that their own side has demonised since months and years (like in every war). The single soldier in the trench and bunker did not have on his mind to defend the concentration camp in Dachau and to enable Berlin to commit more genocide. You doom the Germans for defending their position.

You use present day knowledge to judge them in their situation of k,limited knowledge, and lacking opportunity to relfect on it while being in battle. Well, the allied commanders intntionally detemrined that the first wave should be recruited not from veterans, but novices, who had no knowledge of the horror of battle lying ahead of them. For two treasons, they expected such naive boys to storm the bech with greater entusiams, not being hindered by caution and fear, and since the commander'S knw the losses of tghre first wave would bne dramatic, they wanted the newpocmers to be lost - not the veterans and their precious already collected experience. What moral judgement do you have to give for this? Militarily, it makes perfect sense, like the way the Germans tried to defend the beaches and inflict maximum casualties made sense too: for denying the Allies to get a foothold on the continent.

Context, Tater. You disconnect yourself from it, and too often.

Some people tend to simplify complex realities in an effort to reduce them to a simple dualistic scheme that knows only black and white, 0 and 1, right or wrong, and even: American and Bad. For my own use I call it the binary trap. The truth is that the situation bac k then as well as realities today have so many simultaneous levels overlapping and coexisting at the same time, that such reductionistic approaches are doomed to fail from begining on. Compared to the awarenss and the mind of the individual man, a whiole ideology itself is mostly if not always a relatively simply thing indeed, and Nazi ideology beyond doubt is simply evil and inhmane. There are other ideologies like that as well. Ideologies are always crutches to describe and tame complex realities in a mostly inappropriate way. When they argue with appeals to lower sentiments, then they are not only primitive, but even become really evil. To me, there are only primitive, not-so-much evil ideologies, and primitive very much evil ideologies. But primitive crutches ideologies are, always. Reality always remains to be so very much more complex. The more this is ignored, the more distorted one becomes when depending on ideologic standards.

Did you see Schlinders list, when it went to the movies,
 

:cool:

Schindler was an opportunist. The opportunity to seize lucrative business contracts made him entering the party. He also was a bon vivant, and he combined both when becoming a party animal on parties of Nazi figures.

However, this does not mean he complied with the Nazi ideology. His witnessing of the cruelty by which Jews were treated by German occupators led him to his resistence against the regime, by getting his factory rated as a factor vital for the war, thus falling under jurisdiction giving him privileged rights how to handle it. this he used to bring Jewish slave workers into safety by demanding them to be recognised by the authorities as urgently needed workers in his factory. He took many personal risks and gambles to safe and protect "his" Jews and save them from deporation and execution. There shall n ot be any doubt that he did not act by the motive of exploiting them in his factory. When he had decided to try to rescue Jews, the former economic opportunism of his did not play a role in his motivation anymore. He also invested and totally consumated all his former wealth for supplying "his" Jews with food and the items needed for life.

If in Israel people would think of Schindler as having been a "Nazi" indeed, they would not have honoured him and build him a monument and invited him to live in Israel when after the war he economically failed and was poor, which in his last years he did for half of every year.

He carried a party badge. But was he really a Nazi by conviction? I say no. What he was guilty of, before he "switched sides", was opportunism for economic profit. That is not an attribute winning him sypathy, for sure. But what counts is that he made up his mind and then made a decisive correction in his actions and behavior, at high risk to his personal life - he was arrested and interrogated by the Gestapo several times, because they were very suspicious about his factory.

I don't know if he was a great man. But he was a courageous man who in the end did the right things and made the right decisions even in the face of danger, no matter his beginning as an opportunistic businessman, (and before that workijng for German intelligence). And that is what counts.

vWhat about open discrimination of Jews before the war.
Taking all their rights as German citizens?
Beating them on the streets taking over businesses that was up to moral standard of average German as it seems.
It was done in open for all to see.
There is a thin line between the above and mass murder.
Since Germans at the time had no serious problem with that Hitler could be quite confident to move into mass extermination.
Sure its difficult to judge people who lived in those times but just the German discipline and maybe culture of blind obedience has something to do with it?
It was very easy to turn militaristic society into Nazi.

So this is how it happen... oh my:damn:. So you trying to tell me that Nazi Germany was defended itself. So Poland atacked Germany, not the other way around. And the poor Germans march in the streets of Berlin and shout "We are innocent....zig fail".
Welcome to "Alice in Wonderworld".:rock:

War was only part of their policy which means it could not be defined as good or bad, it was all about decisions and consequences.

Perhaps they were defending their country against the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles?

I am not opining on whether one side is "right" or "wrong" at this time.

But I hardly think the German government just decided one day "hey, nutton else on TV, let's invade Europe for the hell of it" :nope:

There are always reasons for war. Look at the US, we always fight defensive or retaliatory wars... depending on the word defensive and retaliatory.

No one just "starts" a way without having some reason... even if they have to manufacture it. :know:

Which is exactly my point. Schindler saved hundreds of Jews. Yet he was a Party Member, and with Tater's and Dimitrius' limited mindset this makes him a bad person.

What did you expect them to do? Turn against the Nazis and get shot themselves?
Also, theres a *huge* difference between harassing people and killing them. According to your definition, every bully is only a thin line away from being a murderer.
And yes, there were lots of people that had antisemetic feelings at the time. But this doesn't make them all Nazis. There are lots of Palestinians that hate your Israel, yet there are loads of them that aren't Hamas members.

So you're telling me that later in the war the USSR didn't invade Germany? Allied forces didn't invade Italy? D-Day never took place?
Later in the war Allied planes bombed the hell out of German cities. So it was most certainly defending yes.
And even when on the attack, you can still fight for your fatherland.

No, that's not what he was saying at all. He, like I, was saying that the average German believed he was defending his country. The were indeed told that Poland attacked Germany, and they believed it.

By how? Build weapon of mass destruction, and repeat the same thing which cause treaty of Versailles to take place. Maybe it was a excuse after all :know:. War for Nazi Germany was all about land space, so claiming that it was a self defence its quite pathetic. You can check the historycal data regarding the subject and see for your self.

You are 100% right but the thing/problem is that he turned a war that may had some justification into war for living space of master race.
Hitler was backed up with mass hysteria love until wehrmacht got its ass kicked on eastern front or until his generals realised that the guy lost grip with reality and pushed too hard.
He had no serius oposition till things/dream of master race started go wrong and it was time to prepere to face consequences.

So that was their policy. ;)

So now you admire yourself? So much for a debate :88).

Glad you say it yourself.
The war had nothing to do with the Jews. Nothing at all. Now we've finally reached this point, can I stop trying to tell you the obvious?