The morality behind playing as "Nazis" in SH3

[P_Funk]

Originally Posted by joea

Again I disagree very strongly, but then I guess that's my last word.

Well how were the Germans any different from anybody else? You can say what you will about Hitler, the SS, the Nazis in general, but this is all a case of hindsight where we accuse the Germans of supporting something that wasn't even fully understood until it was over.

If you actually look to pre-39 Germany you see a different drive than just war. Thanks to the punitive terms of the Versailles Treaty Germany was left post-WW1 as a bankrupt state, punished by the Republic of France (the punitive terms was their sweetheart really) for the crimes of their monarchs. There is no doubt that Germany was abused during the interwar years and as a result the desperate situation in Germany lent to a more radical sense of survival. Then comes along this really charming and rousing guy. He calls himself a national-socialist. He gives great speeches and promises to return Germany to her old glory.

In a desperate situation like that the Germans went with the strength of a man who was a great leader, and Hitler was a great leader in those days before he unleased his real madness. He worked at evil but he led like nobody else in those days. So the people are reinvigourated. They want hope and he gives it to them. They want pride and he gives it back to them. That Hitler was more evil than the average lame duck president was just luck I guess. But the Nazis and the German people are two seperate entities and regardless of what the history books tell us Germans weren't any different than other people. My grandfather gives me the best point of reference.

One story he told me of an SS man that they came accross. Fired at them from a shed. They fire back, wound him. They walk up to him, see he's SS, look at each other, shoot him dead. According to my grandfather SS didn't deserve mercy. But on a different occasion he remarked to me "I didn't like killing them. When I killed one of them I thought 'this guy is just like me. He was just caught up in this mess like anyone else'." He was talking about regular army of course. But that is the distinction. The rare animals that colour the propoganda of the winning side aren't characteristic of the majority. The vast majority of Germans were just doing what they saw as their patriotic duty. Hitler and his cohorts were hatching their own scheme.

This isn't people forgiving crimes. And sometimes history needs to be revised. I believe Winston Churchill once said "History is written by the victors, and I intend to write history." So that really is it. I'm not saying that there is no guilt on the part of Germany for their part in supporting a man like Hitler. But many nations of righteous people have supported bad man and been complicit in all kinds of crimes. America, Canada, Britain. We all allow evil things to happen. So maybe the German people deserve a fair share of the blame for Hitler (I myself encourage blaming the French in part too for their irrational revenge seeking in 1919), but they aren't alone in that. We are all complicit in something daily. But to say that they were somehow different human beings than us is just the rascism of war.