The apologists for the German armed services of WW2 need to be reminded that:

All German servicemen were required to, and did take an oath of loyalty to Adolf Hitler personally. Not to Germany, it's people, constitution or government, but personally to Adolf Hitler. That in effect makes them directly involved in carrying out his personal wishes, not those of the people or government of Germany.

Germany aggressively made war on nearly every country in Europe, invaded, enslaved, despoiled and murdered millions of people.

These are not the acts of honorable men. These are the acts of criminals. There were many who were dupes, but they acted as criminals nonetheless.

It does not matter to whom one takes an oath, you should know that. As far as I know, the Canadians and those who wish to obtain citizenship, still take the oth on the Queen of England.



Does this means you are all FUBAR'ed if England does somthing stupid?

It wont probably mean that you guys will go down the drain together with the Queen since you are an independent country, so to say.

And it has nothing to do with "Apologists" if you want to respect the service that individuals did to their country. What is much worse is, that you are willing discount individual acts and just put 'em into the same box with those who did commit crimes.

Yep, your're FUBAR. Especially if the person you just took an oath to tells you to "jump into your tank and invade Poland. We're going to save the world from world Jewry and catapult our country to it's rightful place as the premier world power."

You're totally FUBAR.

But you can't plead "I was just defending my country".

I don't respect the German armed services of WW2. Not in the least. They fought for the most excrable cause that men have ever fought for. That, and perhaps the crusades.

The record of the 'honorable Wehrmacht' speaks for itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_cri..._the_Wehrmacht
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...etrated_crimes

Anybody who defends this, is defending the holocaust. IMO.

You are certainly entitled to your opinion. ;) But, tell me.. didn't Canada try wipe it's indigenous population off the earth by destroying their culture and stealing their children?

Hello, Mr Kettle.. meet Mr Pot.

EDIT:
Mind you, I don't make excuses for the atrocities that were committed. It were despicable acts of crime and behavior. But they were not commited by EVERYONE in the Wehrmacht, nor was every soldier a Nazi.

Yea.. I am aware about those. And I certainly do not find these 'honorable' or excusable in anyway. IMO, the whole War was a ****-up'ed thing. Or to quote my Grandpa when I asked him about the war: " Es war alles ein Haufen Scheisse!" The whole thing was a big pile of ****.

Those who did not commit the acts, supported them by being active members of the
German army, swearing allegiance, not to their country, but Hitler, aggressively
attacking foreign nations, prolonging the war long enough for the atrocities to be
carried out and generally helping the Nazi cause.

EVERY active member of the German armed forces was guilty of that.

You can certainly have a soldier who wasn't a Nazi, but you could never have had
the Nazis with out all the soldiers.

Now that does not make them bad people one bit. It is how the vast majority of
any group of people would act in the same situation.
However, to say it bestows honor upon them?
It gives them no honor, no glory and made no heroes.

Again, everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion.
You want to see black and white and throw them all in one pot? Whatever floats your boats.
I preferr see them individualy and make my judgement accordingly.

I guess, we can agree to disagree on this. ;)

But they are all in one pot. The Wehrmacht pot.
All those in that pot are tarred by their support of the 3rd Reich and it's armies.

How are you seeing them individually?
Do you plan to go round gathering witness statements and references?

And here we are again, 70 years in the past, where judgement is not done by common sense and reason, but led by propaganda and nationalism from "all" sides back then. That Germany was the baddie and did horrible acts of crimes is without any dispute. But that is true for all nations and armies in their history at one point, and "still" servicemen are beeing recogized for individual bravery.
To make a distinction there may be led by good will and high morales, both concepts I respect, but objectivly viewed from the outside, there is way too much hypocrisis involved. Either ppl get a grip and then judge "all" armies to lump the criminals together with the barave ones, or one makes the distinction. I am no apologist or relativist for sure, I recogize the crimes, the holocaust, the atrocoties.

But, I also recogize the firebombings of german and japanese cities, shooting of axis POWs, ignorance of the deathcamps and not doing anything against them despite better knowledge, no support for the german resistance whatsoever for purely power political reasons and finally, the atomic bomb.

A lot of bad things happend there. But that does not mean I will let a murderer point fingers at a mass murderer. Both deserve the death sentence.
Once the sh*t hits the fan, it's not a question of crimes anymore, but a question of quanitity of these. And just saying "they fought for the baddies, we fought for good" is such a convinient simplification of the matter you do not have to wonder why ppl get hostile. Ppl "do" get violent, brutal and inhumane if you just leave them to be. That was the case for the germans, but also the americans, the russians, the british, the french or all other armies that operated within a framework of no punishment or even encouragement for crimes. I mean, just look at the americas. An estimated 90 percent of the native population seized to exist over the course of 3 centuries after the arrival of the europeans. And examples for that are quite obvious even today, abu ghuraib beeing a prime example. But that takes nothing away from individual bravery in face of grave danger, where the prioritiy is survival of oneself, your comrades and the nation, not political parties.

I know Britian is facing huge problems and never really recovered from the loss of the Empire, WW2 beeing the last big hurray for the island before again becoming a medicore european country like everybody else. But you really should try to stop looking at the past with such rose tinted glasses just to have a warm feeling of rightousness to compensate for the lack of power nowadays.

The sun still does not set on British soil all year round. It has been a very long time
since it did. ;)

I don't think I am looking at anything with rose tinted glasses or jingoistically.
There are plenty of British who deserve no honor because they fought in a
dishonorable war and/or fought in a dishonorable way.

It would be highly questionable to most people (but not all, it is still controversial) to
have a statue celebrating the fire bombing of Germany or (less controversially) the
British concentration camps in South Africa or the troops who fought in the army at
the time and therefore indirectly supported the concentration camps.

Aside from that, it is not even about bad things happening.
Even if there where no concentration camps, etc in Germany (or SA) the German
army would not accrue any kind of honor as the war had no honorable purpose.

Would you kindly name me one soldier from any army in any war who would be deserving honour then?

Yet, still the British do.

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpag...pagewanted=all

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...morial%27.html

http://www.londonremembers.com/memorial/?id=1208

Nice hypocrisy here.

For the small Soldier the goal was clear: To keep your country safe... The Polish start shooting at you, and 2 days later the English and French are declaring war on you and start air raiding you country.

Propaganda is a powerful instrument, even in these days.

You are apparently willing to make amendments to your judgment for those 'who fought the just cause' or rather unwilling to see it from perspective and without any peeking at 20/20 hindsight.

Don't confuse the actions of others in my country when I do not support them or do
anything to support them.

I'm all for memorials for the airmen and the crew of U-864, but not for any kind
of military honors, glorification etc.

Exactly!
Back then it seamed the right and honorable thing to do, now we can see it was not.
Their ignorance goes some way to excuse their actions, but we can not use it to
justify our actions.

As long you are coherent with your views to all nations, then that is more then fine with me. Actually, I am on your side in this. As said before, I just have a huge problem with selective perception based on wartime views.

about your points here:

Unluckily I can't agree to this views of yours, not because I doubt your good intentions, but because of the overall picture the british nowadays present.
If you check what's going on in british tabloids during football games, parties Prince Harry attends to, episodes of Top Gear where the cast comes in flying Spitfires to show the german contenders what's up, then I can't help but to think of a country with some huge issues regarding their history and self esteem in the present. Your argumention of "honorable" versus "evil" supports this view.

And now please tell me what war serves an honorable purpose? That is a contradiction in itself. Young ppl die on all sides for the mistakes and agendas of polititians. And the real reasons polititians go to war are never the same to those they tell the public.

For the german public it was the polish corridor and percieved agressions, but also revision of the Versailles treaty, for Hitler it was powermongering and Lebensraum.

For the british public it was helping the Poles and freedom in general, for Churchill it was the age old policy of balance on the continent and die hard economic/strategic interests. There is a reason Britian declared war on Germany, not vice versa. And the reasons were not of humanitarian nature, that one is for sure, else Britian, France and the US would have allowed Jews to escape into their countries en masse, which did "not" happen, not to speak of the after war arrengement of Europe. Freedom for Poland, hmm hmm. More hypocrisis right there.

Honrable my a**, war sucks, period. There is no good and bade side, just bad and worse.

Bewolf, I think we agree more than you know.
I have, here and there, put aside various beliefs of mine in this topic so that I can
better explore others.

I agree with you wholly here, although it is far from the most common view, especially
when war is discussed practically, rather than in abstract.