Swastikas and Germany in the modern day...

[Gammelpreusse]

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]

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.