Swastikas and Germany in the modern day...

[CCIP]

I just don't understand what there is to be proud of, besides some tactical successes and individual cameraderie under fire. And that's always been acknowledged. Otherwise, it was an offensive war started by Germany, and it ended in total strategic failure. Had they not taken up arms and followed orders, millions would've lived. It was a pointless, stupid exercise started by a fascist madman, and people should be rightly ashamed for following him. That's the only right lesson here.

IMO even in the West, the myth of the "good war" or "moral war" needs to be buried. World War II was a horrible excercise in mass murder, on all sides. Romanticizing it isn't what we need to do. We need to remember it. We need to know the veterans stories. We need to respect them for being human, not for anything else. And we need to take care of old, sick, traumatized people regardless of what they did during the war, or whether they were even there.

As for national pride, I fail to see what we have to gain by that, because we live in a global world today. National pride and ambition was what led everyone into WWII to begin with, so why suddenly romanticize it?

I think Germany learned the right lessons. And the results have been good. Why assume that something is missing there today?

BTW, I personally don't agree with the swastika bans in the form that they exist, but if there's public support for those, so be it.