Swastikas and Germany in the modern day...

Oberon · 03-29-14, 08:09 AM

I can see this going well...

Anyway, as a nation who was on the receiving end of some of the Third Reichs finest, I struggle frequently to understand the banning of the swastika, but equally I can understand the fear and worry of it being hijacked by Neo-Nazis. However, one does have to ponder that if the swastika holds such power because of its blood stained past, then what of the hammer and sickle? It is drenched in as much blood if not more than the swastika, and yet it is still perfectly permissible to use it within Russia.

There are other genocides, including the colonisation of the Americas if one wishes to look upon it as such, which have taken a higher death toll than the Holocaust, and yet the events are often overlooked and dismissed.

Still, it is a German internal matter, and if Germany is fine with it, then that is the main thing really. I don't fully understand it, and think that banning things only tend to make them more alluring to those already susceptible to such things, but it's not for me to decide on such matters.

Skybird · 03-29-14, 08:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

I can see this going well...

Anyway, as a nation who was on the receiving end of some of the Third Reichs finest, I struggle frequently to understand the banning of the swastika, but equally I can understand the fear and worry of it being hijacked by Neo-Nazis. However, one does have to ponder that if the swastika holds such power because of its blood stained past, then what of the hammer and sickle? It is drenched in as much blood if not more than the swastika, and yet it is still perfectly permissible to use it within Russia.

There are other genocides, including the colonisation of the Americas if one wishes to look upon it as such, which have taken a higher death toll than the Holocaust, and yet the events are often overlooked and dismissed.

Still, it is a German internal matter, and if Germany is fine with it, then that is the main thing really. I don't fully understand it, and think that banning things only tend to make them more alluring to those already susceptible to such things, but it's not for me to decide on such matters.

Stalin is en vogue again in Russia, Oberon.

Germans by still a huge majority dispise Hitler. Ver ymany Russians, probably even a majority, embrace the Stalin cult. Huge differences there.

If so many Russians would not be so sympathetic to the Stalin cult, maybe the symbolism of the USSR would not be that much part of the mainstrema culture now. Or maybe it is like this: that the symbolism of USSR are used by the elites to push the popularity of Stalinist personal cult?

If you mention today the iperial age and the western powers' behavior in the colonies, you immediately get a public verbal beating and a substantial media bashing. If you would voice opinions of sympathy for the wars against the Southern and Northern Indians, you would face massive criticism and personal attacks.

In China, however, again the symbolism of the past - Mao and his influence - is used to protect party interests.

Re,member the anger and fury Japan causes year by year when those backward-oriented conswervatiove dwarfs visit their damn shrine, and Japan until today rejects to recognise its responsibility for certain dark chapters in the history of the war in Asia.

If I were the soul of an Allied soldier who fell at Omaha beach, and I would look down from my cloud and see that I gave my life only that people today prepare a path for Nazism again, and that they show tolerance for the very thinking that led to a war that costed me my life which I gave to fight against it, and that they claim that said thinking has a right to exist in this world - I would turn in my grave. Eh, roll over on my cloud, I mean. And I would make it my rule that if I ever get reborn, I will never fight again agaiunst Nazism, for such stupid people just do not deserve to risk one's own life for them.

Taking these examples, i think it cannot hurt to not start Nazi symbols in German public again. We have the Nazis already growing again anyway over here, we must not make the path easier for them.

That having a public debate about symbols and ideologies not automatically leads to immunity against their content and their dretsurcive mind work, you can see in the example of Islam. The publicly demonstrated sympathy and all-embracing attitude towards its claims, not only means that its many barbaric aspects get glossed over and an basic uncritical attitude toewards it is spreading and historic events are forged in its favour - it also helps to increase the number of "radicals" and "extremists" as well. That works by the same logic like pest plants do blossom if you prepare a good ground for them and give them fertilizer and a friendly climate helping their growth. How one could fight weed by not rooting it out but by tolerating it and adding fertilizer to it, escapes me as long as I can think. To me that is one of these typical Western follies. You help what is positive - nevertheless you also have to fight what is bad, you must not tolerate it in the hope that the growing positives will overcome it. All too often, they do not.

Westwern rational people all too often tick by this idea of that if they mean it well and act rationally, the other will answer by becoming well-meamnning and actingf rational as well. Have the recent years not taught us for the better? The currently actual example would be Erdoghan I. of Turkey. He has been appeased and endlessly embraced, and turned out to be the autocratic corrupot and extremely fundamentalsist bastard that I always have claimed he really is. And still he is not being banned in the EU and in Germany, but gets welcomed with open arms.

Two years ago, we had a nazo march right at the block where I live. For half a day police in hiuge strength isollated the whole district, us residents could not get in or out, thoisuands demsntrated and blocked the traffic roads and brought puiblic life to anstandstill within this zone while police tried to keep separate one or tweo hundred Nazi scumbags shouting and yelling their paroles on the crossorad 50m from my kitchen windows. All this effort, money, awareness, hype and emotion, police operation and personell on the street - just for - for what...? For a bunch of holocaust deniars and backwards-oriented imbiciles too dump and too stupid to relasie they have a brain, living at all our costs, and spitting the hand that still feeds them: the all-understanding oh so tolerant wellfare state.

Calculating the net costs against the net gains, it would have been cheaper to have their train derailed and falling from a bridge.

Oberon · 03-29-14, 08:54 AM

Another interesting observation and comparison that you might want to make in this thread is the nation of Japan, as well as the treatment of German history in West and East Germany.

Again, I am British so I do not have first hand experience of this matter, however I have read about it and spoken to German people, and have been able, rightly or wrongly, to draw some conclusions from this.

In Japan there wasn't any sense of war guilt impressed upon the population, the nation was demilitarised (briefly) but symbols of Imperial Japan were not banned, and the Emperor was not removed. As such, if one compares modern Japan and modern Germany one sees two very different sides of the spectrum of dealing with a difficult period of history.
Whilst Germany carries its war guilt, Japan has denied it for the most part, although it has paid reperations in many instances, it still denies many of its most brutal crimes such as the 'Rape of Nanking' and conducts historical revision in its school textbooks.

Furthermore in Germany itself, and admittedly this is a more sketchy conclusion that I have drawn, and I await confirmation or denial from those more in the know, there was a difference between how the post-war guilt was taught to East and West Germany, and that, coupled with the vast difference in economic prosperity between East and West Germany in the modern day has meant that if one were to look at Neo-Nazism in Germany you would likely find a slightly higher percentage of Neo-Nazis in the former territories of East Germany than in the West, as people were educated and society tackled the issue in a different manner.

So, it's not really a clear cut issue, few things really are, and historical revisionism takes place all over the world, and I think that as we approach the 100th anniversary of the First World War, there's a danger of it happening again as the victorious Entente look to place the blame of the war firmly upon the Central Powers, one only has to look at Max Hastings on the causes of WWI to see the arguements being put forward at this centenary.

Gammelpreusse · 03-29-14, 09:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

Furthermore in Germany itself, and admittedly this is a more sketchy conclusion that I have drawn, and I await confirmation or denial from those more in the know, there was a difference between how the post-war guilt was taught to East and West Germany, and that, coupled with the vast difference in economic prosperity between East and West Germany in the modern day has meant that if one were to look at Neo-Nazism in Germany you would likely find a slightly higher percentage of Neo-Nazis in the former territories of East Germany than in the West, as people were educated and society tackled the issue in a different manner.

The DDR saw itself in the tradition of people who activly fought Nazism (communists, socialists), a "new" Germany" without ties to the past and as such saw now guilt in itself. Instead the "West" was to blame. This was such a strong part of eastern german (and soviet at large) self idendity that it justified much of the state's existence in itself. In ways you still see remnants of that today in the Ukraine conflict, given how often the word "fascist" is thrown around by the russian side of the propaganda game.

The BRD on the other hand considered itself (and still does) the continuation of the old german state. However, a real tackling of the past only came in the wake of the 68ers, the children that were born in the last years of the war or immidialty thereafter, who rose up in the still rather very restrictive after war years with teachers still from the Nazi era and challenged a tendency that was initially very much like that of Japan, forget and move on.

fireftr18 · 03-29-14, 10:42 AM

It's one thing to ban symbols in certain circumstances. In this case, just the fear of repeating the past is understandable. The important thing is to remember the history, the atrocities, the destruction that was caused. Just as we celebrate the high parts of our histories, we need to also remember the low parts. In the US, our history lessons make a point to teach about slavery. We don't honor it, we feel it should be remembered as a low point in our nation's history. We also make it a point to teach how our Native Americans were treated. Another low point. We teach these, not because we're proud of them, but because we're ashamed, and we don't want it repeated. As long as Germany teaches about the Nazi era in history, then that is what is important.

GoldenRivet · 03-29-14, 11:55 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

then what of the hammer and sickle? It is drenched in as much blood if not more than the swastika, and yet it is still perfectly permissible to use it within Russia.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Oberon

There are other genocides, including the colonisation of the Americas if one wishes to look upon it as such, which have taken a higher death toll than the Holocaust, and yet the events are often overlooked and dismissed.

quite simple really

Those sides won

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03-29-14, 08:09 AM	#1
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	I can see this going well... Anyway, as a nation who was on the receiving end of some of the Third Reichs finest, I struggle frequently to understand the banning of the swastika, but equally I can understand the fear and worry of it being hijacked by Neo-Nazis. However, one does have to ponder that if the swastika holds such power because of its blood stained past, then what of the hammer and sickle? It is drenched in as much blood if not more than the swastika, and yet it is still perfectly permissible to use it within Russia. There are other genocides, including the colonisation of the Americas if one wishes to look upon it as such, which have taken a higher death toll than the Holocaust, and yet the events are often overlooked and dismissed. Still, it is a German internal matter, and if Germany is fine with it, then that is the main thing really. I don't fully understand it, and think that banning things only tend to make them more alluring to those already susceptible to such things, but it's not for me to decide on such matters.

03-29-14, 08:54 AM	#3
Oberon Lucky Jack Join Date: Jul 2002 Posts: 25,976 Downloads: 61 Uploads: 20	Another interesting observation and comparison that you might want to make in this thread is the nation of Japan, as well as the treatment of German history in West and East Germany. Again, I am British so I do not have first hand experience of this matter, however I have read about it and spoken to German people, and have been able, rightly or wrongly, to draw some conclusions from this. In Japan there wasn't any sense of war guilt impressed upon the population, the nation was demilitarised (briefly) but symbols of Imperial Japan were not banned, and the Emperor was not removed. As such, if one compares modern Japan and modern Germany one sees two very different sides of the spectrum of dealing with a difficult period of history. Whilst Germany carries its war guilt, Japan has denied it for the most part, although it has paid reperations in many instances, it still denies many of its most brutal crimes such as the 'Rape of Nanking' and conducts historical revision in its school textbooks. Furthermore in Germany itself, and admittedly this is a more sketchy conclusion that I have drawn, and I await confirmation or denial from those more in the know, there was a difference between how the post-war guilt was taught to East and West Germany, and that, coupled with the vast difference in economic prosperity between East and West Germany in the modern day has meant that if one were to look at Neo-Nazism in Germany you would likely find a slightly higher percentage of Neo-Nazis in the former territories of East Germany than in the West, as people were educated and society tackled the issue in a different manner. So, it's not really a clear cut issue, few things really are, and historical revisionism takes place all over the world, and I think that as we approach the 100th anniversary of the First World War, there's a danger of it happening again as the victorious Entente look to place the blame of the war firmly upon the Central Powers, one only has to look at Max Hastings on the causes of WWI to see the arguements being put forward at this centenary.

03-29-14, 10:42 AM	#5
fireftr18 Ocean Warrior Join Date: Feb 2010 Location: Kentucky Posts: 2,528 Downloads: 77 Uploads: 0	It's one thing to ban symbols in certain circumstances. In this case, just the fear of repeating the past is understandable. The important thing is to remember the history, the atrocities, the destruction that was caused. Just as we celebrate the high parts of our histories, we need to also remember the low parts. In the US, our history lessons make a point to teach about slavery. We don't honor it, we feel it should be remembered as a low point in our nation's history. We also make it a point to teach how our Native Americans were treated. Another low point. We teach these, not because we're proud of them, but because we're ashamed, and we don't want it repeated. As long as Germany teaches about the Nazi era in history, then that is what is important.