Hello Oberon,
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oberon
I often wonder if that is part of what has created that sort of subculture of shame that is mentioned, I once read somewhere that the Eastern half of Germany has a bigger problem with Neo-Nazis because the GDR didn't go through the same re-education process that the FDR did. Is there any truth in that?
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Difficult to say, if it was easy to explain one might be able to do something about it .. i can only try to speak about this from the western part, and point of view.
As long as the GDR existed (or East Germany, until 1989), the official socialist theory 'over there' was that the surviving Nazis had all fled and were all living in the capitalistic western part, while in the socialistic GDR they were all pure as snowflakes and would help the Soviet Union and comrade Stalin and his successors to make the world a better place.
They also had students from abroad like from countries of the eastern soviet block, or Cuba; but indeed inofficially those foreigners were not really liked. You could say that they went on on with their way of control, dislike and dictatorship like under Hitler, but indeed now it was of course for the other side, which made it all good. The system was certainly different (at least theoretically ahem), but in the minds ..
Certainly officially hate against foreigners and the like was all suppressed and censored, but when the old GDR seized to exist in 1989, and the capitalist bright promises of wealth and occupation for everyone failed to come true, a lot of especially younger people were disappointed with both systems, and found their resort in violence and Neonazi groups.
(I will never understand though how so much people in the US and Russia can become Neonazis - they must seriously lack some perception on what it really is about lol).
There is certainly some truth with the Nazis in the west, lots of 'former' Nazis sat in leading positions in the FDR or West Germany, backed by the US, England and France; thousands of 'Nazi' physicians, technicians etc., were now working for the West, from Wernher von Braun to Walter but also lots of less known but not less brilliant scientists. French Mirage jets were flying with the further developed HE 176 Heinkel turbines and helped Israel win their war in the Levante .. lots also worked for the Soviet union though as well. Then there were those US experiments on citizens that did not seem to be far-fetched from what the Nazis did, then the OSS (which later became the CIA), working with the Nazi 'Odessa' and 'Kameradenwerk' networks to help and cover up former Nazis, collecting the remnants of the organisation Gehlen, SD etc. to work with them yaddayadda ... but i digress.
A lot of judges and well-known leaders from the 3rd Reich were again sitting in high positions in West Germany soon after the war, and when the new youth at the universities found that out, there almost was a revolution, in West Germany in 1968.
This constellation of power backed by US and other western Allies led to some sympathy in the west-german students, for the socialist GDR. And for demonstrations against the war in Vietnam, of course.
After all i think this re-education was not such a bright idea for the USA and its satellites, because frankly, now those pesky western germans would now even criticize their western liberators for shortcomings, wars and atrocities, because they were now educated and keen to criticise everyone, from their elevated and self-righteous point of view ..
Greetings,
Catfish