German film looks at ties between Rommel and Hitler

[August]

As I understand it Rommel only agreed to suicide in order to protect his family from retribution, so his reasons for cooperating in his death were somewhat more practical than meekness or loyalty to the state.

If he'd have demanded a trial he would still have been executed but so would his wife and son.

[Skybird]

August,

Rommel was a people's hero and he was also told that due to that circumstance one would be willing to not put him on trial, in order to save the public image. Seen that way, Rommel may also have agreed in order to leave the image - or illusion - intact. I think the public and the family motive both played a role.

Oberon,

you are right and I agree with what you say, and still - you took note that in your first asnwers you talked of "guilt and compliance", and I immediately corrected that and reminded you that I called it "responsibility and obedience". It is not always easy to fully see what long-range consequences our decisions and actions have or have not, and by becoming a reality what new new consequences this might trigger. And the amount of moral guilt one has to accept for being obedient, gets heavier or lighter due to the individual characteristics and variables the person is in. For the Germans, you could for example ask what would have happened if a majority of them would not have complied with the Nazis's rules, and would have revolted. I think that while most Nazis in Europe were Germans and Austrians, not all Germans and Austrians were Nazis. Believing Nazis probably only formed a minority, meaning: a group smaller than 50%, how many there actually were, we will never know. Maybe as little as 10% only. However, those accepting to nevertheless play ball and follow rules and look the other way, although they may not have been Nazis and may not have pulled a trigger still helped by that that the Nazis could secure their power. The silent majority that sat put and tolerated the darkness during the war, as well as those desperate workers before 39 who fell for the Nazi's paroles because Hitler indeed brought them back into work and put money and bread and butter on their home's kitchentables, have to accept that by doing so they made decisions that had effects - and that they share a responsibility for this.

We all need to make choices, almost everyday. And we are responsible for our decisions. Maybe I have a somewhat radical view there, put I stick to it: the freedom to chose between decisions, you always have. Maybe your choice will get you killed, but still, the choice is yours, and if your choice means you get killed, you have freedom that way, then.

On the German spirit that you summarised as "my nation, right or wrong", you still see that even in the wars of today, don't you, so it is not typically a German thing, nor was it exclusively in that era only.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Oberon,

you are right and I agree with what you say, and still - you took note that in your first asnwers you talked of "guilt and compliance", and I immediately corrected that and reminded you that I called it "responsibility and obedience". It is not always easy to fully see what long-range consequences our decisions and actions have or have not, and by becoming a reality what new new consequences this might trigger. And the amount of moral guilt one has to accept for being obedient, gets heavier or lighter due to the individual characteristics and variables the person is in. For the Germans, you could for example ask what would have happened if a majority of them would not have complied with the Nazis's rules, and would have revolted. I think that while most Nazis in Europe were Germans and Austrians, not all Germans and Austrians were Nazis. Believing Nazis probably only formed a minority, meaning: a group smaller than 50%, how many there actually were, we will never know. Maybe as little as 10% only. However, those accepting to nevertheless play ball and follow rules and look the other way, although they may not have been Nazis and may not have pulled a trigger still helped by that that the Nazis could secure their power. The silent majority that sat put and tolerated the darkness during the war, as well as those desperate workers before 39 who fell for the Nazi's paroles because Hitler indeed brought them back into work and put money and bread and butter on their home's kitchentables, have to accept that by doing so they made decisions that had effects - and that they share a responsibility for this.

We all need to make choices, almost everyday. And we are responsible for our decisions. Maybe I have a somewhat radical view there, put I stick to it: the freedom to chose between decisions, you always have. Maybe your choice will get you killed, but still, the choice is yours, and if your choice means you get killed, you have freedom that way, then.

On the German spirit that you summarised as "my nation, right or wrong", you still see that even in the wars of today, don't you, so it is not typically a German thing, nor was it exclusively in that era only.

I see where you're coming from, and I think that was where the Nazis were at their most devious, if the German people had seen them in the full light of day at the start, they'd have struggled to get into power, but as it was it was clever propaganda and machinations that presented the German people (and Austrian for that matter) with...dare I say it...'Hope' and 'Change' which are perhaps two of the more powerful words in the English language when it comes to motivating a populace. They promised a lot, and even delivered some of it, fancy schemes such as 'Kraft der Freude', the HJ, the Autobahns, which in hindsight are recognisable as either military preparation or bread and circuses, but at the time were gifts from a regime which, if you weren't politically minded and didn't fall into one of the undesirable categories, gave you a job, gave you money and gave you hope for a better future for a Germany which had been crushed in WWI, betrayed by its bureaucracy and buried under a decade of mismanagement and corruption. With all that glittering promise, it's little wonder that Hitler was, to many, the best thing since sliced bread (which was now affordable without having to use a wheelbarrow of paper notes).
It's only with hindsight that we hold those people responsible for making a wrong decision, if the Nazis had won the war, then this conversation would be completely different.

But I do see where you're coming from, and it's not that radical a view, the concept of free will dove-tails nicely into having a responsibility for ones decisions, however the concept does not always work equally across the board, sometimes things occur that are not intended consequences of your actions. For example, if you were to walk down a street at night and be mugged, would you hold responsibility for walking down that street at night? Certainly there are actions one can take to limit such occurrences, for example if the street is a known trouble spot, don't walk down it at night, or better still avoid it altogether.
The concept also breaks down when it encounters another common human occurrence, deceit, certainly most common in politics. For example, do the people who voted for Tony Blair and the Labour Party in the 2001 election take responsibility for the Prime Ministers decision to invade Iraq alongside the United States in 2003? It was not a stated goal of the PM to do so, in fact, in June 2001 few could have foreseen the events of a few months later and the results that they would have on the world.
If a person lies to you, and you believe them, do you take responsibility for believing them?

Oh, and don't worry, I don't believe for a second that the mentality of 'my country right or wrong' is limited to just Germany of that era, it is a founding principle of nationalism and jingoism that's been all around the world since the dawn of the nation state.

In conclusion, I do understand where you're coming from, and agree, but it's a hard concept to put across the board on a planet with so many variables, but if people did take more responsibility for their actions instead of blaming it solely on others, well...this world would be quite a different place, wouldn't it?

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by Oberon

the Autobahns

Wait a moment there. It is a great myth that the Nazis "invented " the Autobahn, or that the Autobahn program helped to massively battle mass unemployment. The idea for building specialized high-speed streets reserved for car traffic exclusively was introduced already in 1924 or 25 in Frankfurt, an organisation was founded to boost that idea and get that project started. And the building of just more of the same had a minor impact on the unemployment only. Ober 6 million workers had no jobs, but the autobahn projects of the Nazis bound only around 125 thousand workers, and maybe another 125 thousand at max in attached business companies who delivered the material. It was a propaganda coup in the main, because to the wide public the Autobahnen were sold as "the Führer's roads". At the same time the working conditions were extremely primitive even for the conditions of that time, machinery was rarely used, for the most it was all done by worker's hand, with shovels.

The Autobahnen and the Führer, that is a long-living story of myth and misperception.

It's only with hindsight that we hold those people responsible for making a wrong decision, if the Nazis had won the war, then this conversation would be completely different.

I think you mix up the moral guilt aspect and the aspect of technical responsibility, in a causal understanding, too easily. Keep both more separate, but linked. Decisions you form on the basis of knowledge that you have and deal with, or that you ignore. Basing on indeed misinformation or wrong data, is something different. However, one then must ask whether or not you share responsibility for not having better information, or having helped in establishing a mechanism that feeds you false information. And so on and on. If you get lied to by a person who before always spoke the truth, that is one thing. If you believe a person whom is known to be a notorious liar, that is something different.

But I do see where you're coming from, and it's not that radical a view, the concept of free will dove-tails nicely into having a responsibility for ones decisions, however the concept does not always work equally across the board, sometimes things occur that are not intended consequences of your actions. For example, if you were to walk down a street at night and be mugged, would you hold responsibility for walking down that street at night?

The quesiton you seem to ask is whether the victim is morally guilty of havign walked down a lon ely street at night!?

Certainly there are actions one can take to limit such occurrences, for example if the street is a known trouble spot, don't walk down it at night, or better still avoid it altogether.

However. I see that we get distracted here. The issue is "responsibility for your obedience". I remind of the other Hannah Arendt quote I gave: "In politics, loyalty is active support." Obedience implies you stay loyal to an authority you accept to rate above yourself in the power hierarchy. That it is more powerful in said hierarchy, must not necessarily mean it is right. You make a decision to comply with its claims for power, or not. You are obedient, or not. You either support it in its intentions, or you don't. You obey your general's order, or you don't. Both has consequences. Your choice on whether or not to comply, and the consequences that you knowingly accept by that, tell something about you. And here is where you can stay conform with to the authority's demand, you comply - and by that become morally guilty, not just responsible in a causal-technical manner. Obviously, conscience has a lot to do with it. And to me, my conscience is the highest authority to which I indeed owe justification for my decisions and actions. Not a deity. Not a general or president. Not a people electing me. Not my family and not my friends. But my conscience. If I am not in congruence with my conscience, then I'm in trouble. Do I allow to get bought? Do I comply with something my conscience protests over, because else my life is in danger? And how relates a decision for or against compliance with an external authority, to the thread that if I do not violate my conscience, other people, innocents, will suffer or die?

Tricky. And I am responsible for how I navigate through this labyrinth. Me. Nobody else. The external authority manipulating me and blackmailing me, just is what it is and does what it does,. How I face that challenge - that si what it is about.

The concept also breaks down when it encounters another common human occurrence, deceit, certainly most common in politics. For example, do the people who voted for Tony Blair and the Labour Party in the 2001 election take responsibility for the Prime Ministers decision to invade Iraq alongside the United States in 2003? It was not a stated goal of the PM to do so, in fact, in June 2001 few could have foreseen the events of a few months later and the results that they would have on the world.

If a person lies to you, and you believe them, do you take responsibility for believing them?

Technically, yes, but the moral guilt is reduced when you had no reason to not trust the other whose lies you believed. But in case of politicians I do argue - as you have noticed in other threads, I'm sure - that lies are part of their daily business ands manipulation of opinion is their profession. You are responsible for having believed somebody I would label as a known liar. And that is a moral guilt as well.

Oh, and don't worry, I don't believe for a second that the mentality of 'my country right or wrong' is limited to just Germany of that era, it is a founding principle of nationalism and jingoism that's been all around the world since the dawn of the nation state.

It's not just nationalism and extremism. Take the Western idealists in uniform who seriously believed their leaders who send them to Afghanistan or Iraq. Two weeks ago, I touched upon the naivety of German soldiers depicted in a German TV film I had a thread about. There is a certain kind of opportunistic gullibility amongst professional soldiers, especially those without too much experience. They indeed believe they go to Afghanistan to help build democracy. They indeed believed the lies told by Bush. You see, while seeing the good will of theirs, I also hold them responsible for their naivety - a naivety that maybe already starts with the decision to voluntarily join the army. To what degree a moral guilt results from that, again is a follow-on question depending on many variables.

In conclusion, I do understand where you're coming from, and agree, but it's a hard concept to put across the board on a planet with so many variables, but if people did take more responsibility for their actions instead of blaming it solely on others, well...this world would be quite a different place, wouldn't it?

Accepting responsibility for your decision and actions, can plot you a course into troubled seas, that is for certain. And before we have never faced existential challenges, we cannot claim with certainty what we would do in an extreme situation. We only can say what we hope we would be courageous and honest - may I say: noble? - enough to do or to decide. As long as we have not been in such a situation, we do not know for sure.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Wait a moment there. It is a great myth that the Nazis "invented " the Autobahn, or that the Autobahn program helped to massively battle mass unemployment. The idea for building specialized high-speed streets reserved for car traffic exclusively was introduced already in 1924 or 25 in Frankfurt, an organisation was founded to boost that idea and get that project started. And the building of just more of the same had a minor impact on the unemployment only. Ober 6 million workers had no jobs, but the autobahn projects of the Nazis bound only around 125 thousand workers, and maybe another 125 thousand at max in attached business companies who delivered the material. It was a propaganda coup in the main, because to the wide public the Autobahnen were sold as "the Führer's roads". At the same time the working conditions were extremely primitive even for the conditions of that time, machinery was rarely used, for the most it was all done by worker's hand, with shovels.

The Autobahnen and the Führer, that is a long-living story of myth and misperception.

Well, you learn something new every day, it just goes to show how pervasive the propaganda machine of the Reich was to have such myths continue to this day.

I think you mix up the moral guilt aspect and the aspect of technical responsibility, in a causal understanding, too easily. Keep both more separate, but linked. Decisions you form on the basis of knowledge that you have and deal with, or that you ignore. Basing on indeed misinformation or wrong data, is something different. However, one then must ask whether or not you share responsibility for not having better information, or having helped in establishing a mechanism that feeds you false information. And so on and on. If you get lied to by a person who before always spoke the truth, that is one thing. If you believe a person whom is known to be a notorious liar, that is something different.

Question, Question, always question, I think is the lesson to be learnt in many things, life in general. Sometimes though, human laziness strikes and we find it easier not to question in order to live a simple life. You see it a lot in people who couldn't tell you where Iran is on a map but won't miss an episode of the latest reality television show, ignorance is bliss as the old saying goes, but ignorance is also a trap, since eventually life has a funny habit of putting you in situations where your ignorance leads to a downfall.
Besides, as another saying goes, "If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people?"
Sometimes though, even when given the truth, people chose to believe a lie because it either sounds better, or the truth itself is too terrible for them to behold. Be it conspiracy theorists who think that 9/11 was an inside job, or those who believed the propaganda machine of the Reich even as the Soviets marched on Berlin. The human mind sometimes just simply cannot input the information presented to it, sometimes that leads to death like rabbits trapped in headlights, or a complete psychological breakdown, or strict denial that it happened.
But that is straying a tad off course from our subject at hand, but I will refer back to a quote that someone had as their sig for a while, and I think (but I am not 100% sure) that you said it:

"We all, in life, sometimes ignore a truth in favour of a lie that sounds better."

The quesiton you seem to ask is whether the victim is morally guilty of havign walked down a lon ely street at night!?

I guess there is the fine line between what is morally responsible and what is common sense.

However. I see that we get distracted here. The issue is "responsibility for your obedience". I remind of the other Hannah Arendt quote I gave: "In politics, loyalty is active support." Obedience implies you stay loyal to an authority you accept to rate above yourself in the power hierarchy. That it is more powerful in said hierarchy, must not necessarily mean it is right. You make a decision to comply with its claims for power, or not. You are obedient, or not. You either support it in its intentions, or you don't. You obey your general's order, or you don't. Both has consequences. Your choice on whether or not to comply, and the consequences that you knowingly accept by that, tell something about you. And here is where you can stay conform with to the authority's demand, you comply - and by that become morally guilty, not just responsible in a causal-technical manner. Obviously, conscience has a lot to do with it. And to me, my conscience is the highest authority to which I indeed owe justification for my decisions and actions. Not a deity. Not a general or president. Not a people electing me. Not my family and not my friends. But my conscience. If I am not in congruence with my conscience, then I'm in trouble. Do I allow to get bought? Do I comply with something my conscience protests over, because else my life is in danger? And how relates a decision for or against compliance with an external authority, to the thread that if I do not violate my conscience, other people, innocents, will suffer or die?
Tricky. And I am responsible for how I navigate through this labyrinth. Me. Nobody else. The external authority manipulating me and blackmailing me, just is what it is and does what it does,. How I face that challenge - that si what it is about.

It is tricky indeed, and I think that it's something that's run down through society, and religion (sometimes) in history. Do you make the just decision, or the easy one? Often the answers are so vague that it's hard to know if you've made the right decision, rarely is it so simple that the consequences of your actions in either direction are spelled out to you beforehand since you cannot predict the future. Which leads you into the quandry of making the right choice.
I certainly don't disagree with you, when I say that it is your responsibility for navigating this labyrinth, just as it is mine to navigate my own, but sometimes, as they say, a burden shared is a burden halved, and sometimes you can seek advice as to what direction to take, but ultimately, you and only you can walk that path.

Technically, yes, but the moral guilt is reduced when you had no reason to not trust the other whose lies you believed. But in case of politicians I do argue - as you have noticed in other threads, I'm sure - that lies are part of their daily business ands manipulation of opinion is their profession. You are responsible for having believed somebody I would label as a known liar. And that is a moral guilt as well.

Lies certainly are part of the daily business of politicians, although I do ponder, as commented in another thread myself, in a quotation of a comment written by Neil deGrass Tyson on twitter, who has more of the responsibility. A politician will say what they think you want them to say. Are we the ones at fault for just wanting to hear what we want to hear from them? Certainly no politician has ever been praised for bad news, so again we come back to that decision, to take the difficult path and be honest (and probably never be re-elected) or to take the easiest path and lie, and as we both know, humanity is like water and electricity, it tends to take the path of least resistance.
However, I would argue a third factor in our viewpoint of politicians, and that's education. Does a person who is unaware of their ignorance bear the same moral guilt as someone who is aware of it? Personally, I would argue that they do not, as no one person can know all things in the universe, but the person who does know of their ignorance and yet chooses to remain so is counter to all of humanity which has constantly sought for answers.
If I really wanted to derail this thread, I could bring modern religion in at this point, but I think both of us have talked about that for long enough in this forum and I don't know if Neals bandwidth would like it if we started again.

It's not just nationalism and extremism. Take the Western idealists in uniform who seriously believed their leaders who send them to Afghanistan or Iraq. Two weeks ago, I touched upon the naivety of German soldiers depicted in a German TV film I had a thread about. There is a certain kind of opportunistic gullibility amongst professional soldiers, especially those without too much experience. They indeed believe they go to Afghanistan to help build democracy. They indeed believed the lies told by Bush. You see, while seeing the good will of theirs, I also hold them responsible for their naivety - a naivety that maybe already starts with the decision to voluntarily join the army. To what degree a moral guilt results from that, again is a follow-on question depending on many variables.

You will always get the rosy cheeked recruit who believes the poster and walks out to the battlefield ignorant of the nature of war. From the young teens of Flanders fields, to the lads who go to Afghanistan today. However, they soon learn different.
Joining the army, it's a difficult decision to morally make. Once upon a time it was a religious duty, then a national one, now with so many questions asked over the point of conflict, well, you can see the difference in the size of volunteer armies over the years in western nations.
Often these days it is a family matter, the father educates the son about his military experience and instills a desire in the son to emulate his father, be it for many reasons, for recognition, for self-pride, or for a sense of community. I am the first generation for about four or five generations in my family not to have been involved in any branch of the armed forces for any amount of time. However my upbringing instilled no desire in me to emulate my grandfather, but society and my sometimes 19th century way of thinking does put a small twinge of guilt in the back of my mind from time to time.
In regards to the soldiers who think that they are building 'democracy' in Afghanistan, I think that again boils back down to believing a less painful lie rather than the truth, it makes it easier for them to go back out there and come back again. A coping mechanism perhaps. However, I cannot ultimately decide or judge their mindset since I lack the necessary first hand experience to do so. Until I have walked in their shoes and experienced their upbringing, training and warzone tours, I do not aspire to judge them or their beliefs. Do I hold them responsible for their beliefs? In a non-accusationary manner, perhaps, only in so much as I hold you responsible for yours and myself for my own. When it comes to moral guilt, the emphasis placed upon it varies from man to man, some will live their lives as morally sound as possible, others will pay little heed to it.

Accepting responsibility for your decision and actions, can plot you a course into troubled seas, that is for certain. And before we have never faced existential challenges, we cannot claim with certainty what we would do in an extreme situation. We only can say what we hope we would be courageous and honest - may I say: noble? - enough to do or to decide. As long as we have not been in such a situation, we do not know for sure.

I cannot disagree at all, and these are wise words. Our hopes and our realities often have vast gulfs between them, but sometimes, just sometimes, we can excel ourselves and create such virtues of note, such great moral deeds, and at the same time such despicable acts.

Of course, what is morally right is another big question. What judges our ethics? Society? Religion? Our own personal decisions? What is right for me may be wrong for you...so who is right and who is wrong?

[Skybird]

I think your closing questions are of greater value if being left as they are, technically unanswered in this phase of our talking. Because that way they force everybody noting them to think himself, and always new. I tend to not believe in blueprints for answers to questions like this. What is the right thing to do in times of peace and civilised orders, jmight be the wrong thing to do in times of war and chaos, might even cause more chaos and "evil" then. I tend to see both times, peace and war, by totally different set of rules. Judging the one by standards used to describe the other, for me makes little sense. A pacifist might do that, and by doing so even refuses to fight against an obvious evil. a notorious militarist might do so as well, and by that even in times of peace threatens to impose rules basing on the logic of war, in the name of protecting freedom and peace. Seeing war by moral standards of peace, and seeing peace by the standards of war, does not seem to work. The killing I do in peace, is illegal and is a crime. The killing of the same person in war, is called legitimate, and "duty". I may even get rewarded for it. Context is all.

I have little to add or reply to what you said, I agree with too much of it and we seem to be not that much apart in our views on these things. And if we would start on religion again, Takeda's two heads probably would explode.

Thanks for a decent talk done! I appreciate that.

[Rockstar]

I too appreciate this talk it was an extremely interesting discussion. Truly it opened my eyes to something new.

I had no idea Takeda had two heads.

< Ba-dum-dum-tssshhh >

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Skybird

Thanks for a decent talk done! I appreciate that.

Likewise, I always enjoy our talks.

[Takeda Shingen]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I have little to add or reply to what you said, I agree with too much of it and we seem to be not that much apart in our views on these things. And if we would start on religion again, Takeda's two heads probably would explode.

And here I was reading this thread and thinking that you've turned a corner. Nope. Even in a thread that was actually pretty good, underneath you're the same old angry Skybird.