I have always wondered...

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by Karle94

Don`t mentzion zhe war!

Maybe the third time a charm....?

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by nikimcbee

Maybe the third time a charm....?

Hey...USA 2 Time World War Champs....

It could go either way with a new world war.... We're so messed up right now...

[em2nought]

I don't think I even want to know what "we" teach our kids about our history. I think they probably paint us as racist evildoers. I really hate applying our "PC" current attitudes to history or even to old people for that matter.

[Red October1984]

Originally Posted by em2nought

I don't think I even want to know what "we" teach our kids about our history. I think they probably paint us as racist evildoers. I really hate applying our "PC" current attitudes to history or even to old people for that matter.

Where are you from?

[em2nought]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Where are you from?

USA, and once upon a time PA thus that last bit I guess.

My mom asked me if I ever watch porn because it's illegal after watching some Bush comment about underage porn a few years back. I had to explain that not all porn is illegal. She's 87, old folks shouldn't have modern standards applied to them, as they're from a different time.

Luckily she didn't ask if I've ever been "in" porn.

[Catfish]

Obviously, regarding the OP i can only speak of Germany

I went to school in the 70ies and 80ies, and we learned of the 'Nazi' atrocities in a lot of courses and lectures, including visiting some of the concentration camps, and seeing original footage of the time, and of the liberating armies.

Which certainly led to some questions regarding our elders .. it is certainly convenient to be born long after this time, and to think of oneself as an all-knowing superior being, and of surely having been a would-be hero against dictators, if only born in those times. You usually do NOT have the hindsight of the time you are living in.

There are also a lot of memory sites, museums and graveyards, along with the holocaust memory sites, and also 'monuments of shame', if you like to call it that.

I do not know though, how and if that much is being told today in Germany, about this time. And after all there is even more german history, than the 12 years of Hitler's dictatorship.

The problem is also the allied re-education project in Germany, there was also a lot of propaganda in it, e.g. WW1 was just explained as the typical german way to declare war to the world and be generally the bad guy. If you look a bit closer it's a lot of smoke and mirrors though. Niall Ferguson's 'The pity of war' is a real eye-opener in that respect. WW1, mind you.


When i look at what is done today in the name of 'freedom', 'helping' other nations or 'defense', and how the media report about atrocities internationally (atrocities and breaking of international law depending on who did it, otherwise it's the road to freedom), and how willingly people wage wars and join them for the 'right cause', i really do not think that people have learned much.

IMHO the problem is that people die too soon - when they have learned enough about how things and propaganda really work they die, and the new kids are as dumb as those in generations before, and they make the same errors again. And again.
How can you know as a kid, that your education is 'right' ?


That said, i think there is still more thinking about the bad old times in Germany, than in most other countries of the world. I do not want to attack our english or american friends, but i seldomly see a national monument of shame about anything, in their special imperial histories.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Catfish

The problem is also the allied re-education project in Germany, there was also a lot of propaganda in it, e.g. WW1 was just explained as the typical german way to declare war to the world and be generally the bad guy. If you look a bit closer it's a lot of smoke and mirrors though. Niall Ferguson's 'The pity of war' is a real eye-opener in that respect. WW1, mind you.

Thanks and greetings,
Catfish

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?

[Schroeder]

Over here each state has it's own regulations about what is tought in school. The Nazi time was quiet a big part of our history lessons where I went to school.
Even without that everybody knows about the Holocaust and war atrocities committed by German forces here, the topic is pretty omni present. TV shows, memorials etc.

[Red October1984]

Thank you for your posts Catfish and Schroeder. I appreciate it. It answers my question.

One of these days, I hope to go to Germany....I want to go to all the memorials and museums and stuff. I really want to see the U-995.

[Gargamel]

Originally Posted by Red October1984

Hey...USA 2 Time World War Champs....

That's sad. To think one country alone won either of those wars.

[Stealhead]

Originally Posted by Gargamel

That's sad. To think one country alone won either of those wars.

The US only got involved in April 1917 and it took us a long time to get fully mobilized so we where not a real threat until 1918.What "won" WWI was the fact that the other powers had been fighting for four years and their nations where on the verge of collapse.

All I can say for WWII is it is a good thing that Hitler was stupid enough to attack the Soviet Union and then turn around a few months later and declare war on the US two nations that had nearly unlimited manpower(and woman). Logistics the real war winner or loser if you lack it.

Also as you say no one nation alone "wins" a war of such scale.In fact no war is truly "won" one side usually achieves its goals or both sides tire and sue for peace.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Stealhead

The US only got involved in April 1917 and it took us a long time to get fully mobilized so we where not a real threat until 1918.What "won" WWI was the fact that the other powers had been fighting for four years and their nations where on the verge of collapse.

All I can say for WWII is it is a good thing that Hitler was stupid enough to attack the Soviet Union and then turn around a few months later and declare war on the US two nations that had nearly unlimited manpower(and woman). Logistics the real war winner or loser if you lack it.

Also as you say no one nation alone "wins" a war of such scale.In fact no war is truly "won" one side usually achieves its goals or both sides tire and sue for peace.

x2. Although the extra manpower of the US in 1918 helped to retake the ground lost in the Spring Offensive faster than it could have been done without. It was all about manpower in those final days.