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.
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