Teh Nazis!

[CaptHawkeye]

Oh I would too. I'd just be picky about what I took from him. Donitz remained an ardent nationalist (Hint: not national socialist) his entire life. I generally dislike people who place meaningless national pride ahead of lives.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by CaptHawkeye

White Rose and Rossenstrasse all occured during the 40s, the height of Nazi power. They didn't let the Nazi bogeymen scare them.

You are aware that most members of the White Rose were executed? How many people are willing to risk there very life for something they can hardly change?
Several thousand Germans were executed by the Nazis. Sometimes for as small acts as telling a joke that made fun of Hitler or voicing out there opinion (like the White Rose people did). That usually keeps people in line. If you don't know who you can trust you better stay silent because a wrong word to a wrong person could be your end.
Are you from an east European country? If so then ask yourself what did your ancestors do against communism? By all means Stalin's thugs are responsible for at least as many dead and they had installed a terror regime which could challenge the German one in terms of cruelty.

[CaptainHaplo]

My mother, a naturalized US citizen - was born in Germany in 45. My maternal grandfather was a Nazi. It took me over a year longer than normal to get my security clearance because of that fact. Turns out he was a party member on the basis of being asked if he was, with a gun to his head. He gave the only answer that meant his immediate survival so he could care for his family. I never met the man, he died well before I was born. But I think no less of him because of his answer.

To say that every German was a Nazi is a gross distortion of reality. Many were - at the point of a gun. In a country being torn apart by war, when your asked by thugs who you know will pull the trigger if they don't like the answer, and you have children and one on the way - what would your answer be?

To claim that Germans did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler to power is pure fallacy and demonstrates a total lack of understanding history.

Now - as to the question of how to move past the issue of Nazi-ism in today's youth hero worship world. First off the German government needs to stop trying to suppress the reality - swastikas exist. Nazi-ism exists. History - exists. What you tell youth they cannot see, display, learn about, etc, only makes them want to do wo. But here is the key. Not one German leader today was part of the Party Heirarchy that led Germany in those terrible years.

Today in the US some people still agitate for "reparations" to blacks for the history of slavery this country has. My response - "If I ever have a slave, then I should pay.". Simply put - it wasn't me that did it, and it won't be me that pays for it. I have never owned a slave, I recognize every person's equality as a human, and thus I owe nothing to the descendants of those who were enslaved.

Same thing applies to Germany today. The SOCIETY of Germany has to learn to stop feeling sorry for the actions of people other than themselves. They didn't create the Nazi menace, they didn't allow it to build power. What they must do is learn to stand tall and say "We are smarter, we are wiser, and we are united in not allowing it to happen again - we learn the history lesson and will not repeat the errors of OTHERS - for these errors were not our own."

Only then can German society put that period of history in perspective. Once they do, then they can look any accusation referring back to nazism in the eye - and respond with pride that they have learned the lesson of history, matured as a society, and that it is sad to see their accuser has not matured as much in this day and age.

Nationalism is strong in the German heart. Its hard to look at your grandfather and think what they may have been a part of. But its time to stop living in their shadow. Do that and you open doors for true pride in things worth being proud of.

[Platapus]

Well put.

[Jimbuna]

Great reading Haplo

[Aramike]

I live in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, a city built on its German heritage, and very proud of it.

Truth be told, even in my travels abroad I rarely encountered any hostility against Germans due to Nazism. I think this is a case of considering the source - only a moron would consider modern day Germany to be derivative at all from Nazi Germany.

You should consider where you're encountering these idiots who make the comparison. For instance, if its online in a forum such as this consider that it may just be someone trying to get under your skin. My advice to you is to not let them be effective at that.

[Jimbuna]

The only thing about Germans that gets "under my skin"

[CaptHawkeye]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

You are aware that most members of the White Rose were executed? How many people are willing to risk there very life for something they can hardly change?

This does not address the point. The fact is White Rose would not have even been necessary had the Nazis been bared from power and acceptance in the first place. But the fact that White Rose existed indicates their were people in Germany who knew fully what the Nazis were doing and even called for people to join them against the party. It's just too bad they came too late.

Several thousand Germans were executed by the Nazis.

8 million Jews and other non-aryans were executed by the Nazis. Many uncountable millions of Slavs were executed by the Nazis. Do you see why I find opinions like yours ridiculous?

Sometimes for as small acts as telling a joke that made fun of Hitler or voicing out there opinion (like the White Rose people did). That usually keeps people in line. If you don't know who you can trust you better stay silent because a wrong word to a wrong person could be your end.

Unfortunately for the Jews, they didn't even have the choice to just stay silent. But hey, Germans were threatened...by the party they chose to support. The party that threatened mass violence to all of its neighbors.

"We didn't know" is not a sufficient excuse. That's the end of it.

By all means Stalin's thugs are responsible for at least as many dead and they had installed a terror regime which could challenge the German one in terms of cruelty.

By all means Stalin and his regime were equally cruel and sadistic. The difference is no one covered for him after death. The Post-Stalin Soviet Union actually went out the way to discredit Stalin and his public image for good reason. The man was a tyrant, and the Soviet and modern people of Russia never liked him. If the Nazis hadn't been so brutal to the western Slavs, they would have actually risen against him and joined the axis.

[CaptHawkeye]

Haplo that's a good read, but it still contains largely what i've come to expect from people regarding this topic. To say "we were threatened and couldn't speak out against the Nazis" doesn't work. Hitler didn't end up in control by magic. Millions of German citizens did not enlist in his armies and enthusiastically conquer Europe by chance.

I agree Germans did oppose the Nazis. My point is that not enough of them did. White Rose was mostly made up of a few scattered college students. If German citizens were as opposed to the Nazis as you claim, White Rose and Rossenstrasse would have been much larger and more frequent regardless of threats. We would have seen more men like Oskar Schindler.

But we didn't. Because the reality is German citizens were not staunchly opposed to the Nazis until the Nazis ironically started to turn against them as the war came to a close. Which is probably what she means by German opposition to the Nazis. The problem is, opposing the Nazis in 1945 and not in 1935 is the epitome of "day late and a dollar short".

Now - as to the question of how to move past the issue of Nazi-ism in today's youth hero worship world. First off the German government needs to stop trying to suppress the reality - swastikas exist. Nazi-ism exists. History - exists.

Neo Nazis exist. I agree the suppression of Nazi party hints in Germany is a bit extreme at times but their is a logical reason Germans try to avoid it. They don't want Nazi memorabilia to be collected or sighted and used as a rallying point for contemparary National Socialists.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by CaptHawkeye

This does not address the point. The fact is White Rose would not have even been necessary had the Nazis been bared from power and acceptance in the first place.

You are aware of the political and economical situation in Germany back when the Nazis took over? Hitler promised freedom an food for the people. Not everyone liked him and he wasn't voted into his office. He was just another chancellor, like we had so many during the Republic of Weimar. When the people finally realized what was going on it was already life threatening to do something against it.

8 million Jews and other non-aryans were executed by the Nazis. Many uncountable millions of Slavs were executed by the Nazis. Do you see why I find opinions like yours ridiculous?

The Germans were killed because they opposed the Nazis. The tried to resist and got killed. What does this have to do with the Holocaust?
If your neighbour resists and ends up at the graveyard you surely think twice about resisting yourself.

Unfortunately for the Jews, they didn't even have the choice to just stay silent. But hey, Germans were threatened...by the party they chose to support.

Did you read the other posts? Hitler's party has lost votes at the last free election. But of course it is way more convenient to belief that all Germans voted for him....

By all means Stalin and his regime were equally cruel and sadistic. The difference is no one covered for him after death.

Who is covering Hitler?
I think Germany would be the last country that is covering him!
No one who is sane wants that bloody idiot back (except for those Neo Nazis but I don't call them sane).

The Post-Stalin Soviet Union actually went out the way to discredit Stalin and his public image for good reason.

Germany didn't do the same with Hitler and his thugs?

The man was a tyrant, and the Soviet and modern people of Russia never liked him.

Same goes for most Germans in regards of Hitler and the Nazis.

[Happy Times]

I undertand what the OP is getting here. I can relate to the blaming as a Finn at small degree.

What are you tought at school for exsample? I think the inter war and ww2 period should be described as a sad event. A time when Germanys great potential to be one of the leading countries in the world, in a positive way, was destroyed by the Nazis.

I dont know about other countries but in Finnish schools, the WW1 victors treatment of Germany, is seen as a direct link to WW2.

Germany for centuries has often been biggest, richest and developed country in Europe and target of envy by Britain and France. Every possible way has been taken to weaken it. This has to be recognized as a constant undercurrant of European relations trough centuries.

That why many people feel that the European Union is a must, we have to make it work, or we will shoot each other once again.

[Schroeder]

Originally Posted by Happy Times

What are you tought at school for exsample?

They don't teach anything about WWII here at all (almost, we watched the movies Schindler's List and the Diary Of Anne Frank, but that was it practically).
I had history as one of my main subjects for my graduation. We were doing National Socialism only from 1933 until 1939.
When the real nasty stuff started we either changed the subject or the year was over (don't remember any more what of that happened).
We also didn't learn anything about WWI except that it happened (hey, at least we watched the movie "All Quiet On The Western Front", but it doesn't explain WHY anything happened.
This is the point were we come back to the original topic. I think one of the biggest mistakes is not to teach anything about WWII in school (at least not where I went to school 10 years ago, maybe that's different in other states here). I think even superficial knowledge of the war should be enough to destroy any good image of Hitler. All the big mistakes he has been making should be enough to identify him as a total idiot. Add that up with all the crimes that happened and no one with a brain should be willing to follow someone like him anymore.

I dont know about other countries but in Finnish schools, the WW1 victors treatment of Germany, is seen as a direct link to WW2.

Same here. The Versaille Treaty was one of the main reasons why the Republic of Weimar never had a chance.

[Thomen]

Originally Posted by Schroeder

They don't teach anything about WWII here at all (almost, we watched the movies Schindler's List and the Diary Of Anne Frank, but that was it practically).
I had history as one of my main subjects for my graduation. We were doing National Socialism only from 1933 until 1939.
When the real nasty stuff started we either changed the subject or the year was over (don't remember any more what of that happened).
We also didn't learn anything about WWI except that it happened (hey, at least we watched the movie "All Quiet On The Western Front", but it doesn't explain WHY anything happened.
This is the point were we come back to the original topic. I think one of the biggest mistakes is not to teach anything about WWII in school (at least not where I went to school 10 years ago, maybe that's different in other states here). I think even superficial knowledge of the war should be enough to destroy any good image of Hitler. All the big mistakes he has been making should be enough to identify him as a total idiot. Add that up with all the crimes that happened and no one with a brain should be willing to follow someone like him anymore.

Must be different from state to state or even city to city. The school I went to covert WW2 quite extensively, and to some detail even WW 1.
I remember writing a couple of essays about WW2 and asking my Grandparents for details.

[heartc]

It's very simple, really. It were difficult times back then, and after WWI, Germany wasn't dealt with all that fairly (which however is to be expected when loosing a f*cking World War), the Weimar Republic was unable to conduct policy in a believable and meaningfull manner, the country was threatened by communism from the outside as well as the inside, which most people soundly rejected, so when a man appeared who gave hysterical speeches (I still don't get all this "he was a great speaker" BS) who pretended to know the solution to all problems, people a) fell for it or b) considered him to be the lesser of evils. They all failed to see that you cannot build something on the basis of hatred, though. Or they tried to ignore those parts, which is difficult to imagine though because then there's not much of a Hitler speech left. Anyway, that is what happened and we have to accept that, end of story.

But OF COURSE, that DOESN'T mean that Germany today should belittle itself in international politics or take the Nazi blame card when someone else is running out of proper arguments. And frankly, I don't see that happening all that much, anyway. And if it does, we shouldn't take it all that seriously, as it is usually for domestic reasons of the other country as it tries to appeal to her lowest-in-intellect demographic group, and nothing else.

Those guys on "YouTube" that you talked about, Bewolf - they are usually the dumbest creatures to populate the internet since recently. On international YouTube but especially country-specific YouTube, because they are those guys who haven't even discovered that one of the points of the internet is to be an international platform or they can't even speak basic English that would suffice for their one-liners. I'm not surprised at all when YouTube commentators think they are onto yet another global and/or probably Jewish world conspiracy. I wouldn't even talk to them, they should go f*ck themselves. They are those people where I wonder how they even survive each day with so many trucks on the roads.

But I know that this dumb crap is unfortunately not only limited to YouTube, you also can hear it in on other - real life - occasions. Well, this is the result of the retarded way how this country and many parents dealt with our history.

Pretending that "the Nazis" had nothing to do with "the Germans" but fell down from Mars is how not to deal with it. Whining that some 70 years after, people are still remembering the Nazis and the fire that swept through all of Europe, is how not to deal with it. They will remember it in 1000 years. Pretending that other countries are using the Nazi card against us when *we* f*cked up, is not how to deal with it. Comparing Israel's struggle in the ME against people that think Dead Jew = Good Jew to the wars of aggression Nazi-Germany fought, is not how to deal with it. Whining that the US are running Konzentrationslager when they hold captive illegal combatants, is not how to deal with it. Comparing Bush to Hitler is not how to deal with it.

But suggesting to young children that they are somehow guilty by birth is not how to deal with it either. Suggesting that conservative values are always somehow on the brink to fall off into Nazism, is not how to deal with it either. Suggesting that "Left/Green" is always good and "Right" is always bad, is not how to deal with it either. Suggesting that any notion of national pride or the wish to keep national / cultural identity is somehow evil, is not how to deal with it either. When you try to stop people from becoming Nazis / irrational by fighting their very own identity and declare evil their very basic, natural and human notions of "my culture", "my country" and "my people", which have been with humans since ever, then you will instead make them RECEPTIBLE for another madman who will step into the void that was left open irresponsibly by a lot of dumbasses who were busy with trying to be "less Nazi" than the next guy or their political opponent.

Originally Posted by CaptainHaplo

My mother, a naturalized US citizen - was born in Germany in 45. My maternal grandfather was a Nazi. It took me over a year longer than normal to get my security clearance because of that fact. Turns out he was a party member on the basis of being asked if he was, with a gun to his head. He gave the only answer that meant his immediate survival so he could care for his family. I never met the man, he died well before I was born. But I think no less of him because of his answer.

To say that every German was a Nazi is a gross distortion of reality. Many were - at the point of a gun. In a country being torn apart by war, when your asked by thugs who you know will pull the trigger if they don't like the answer, and you have children and one on the way - what would your answer be?

To claim that Germans did nothing to stop the rise of Hitler to power is pure fallacy and demonstrates a total lack of understanding history.

Now - as to the question of how to move past the issue of Nazi-ism in today's youth hero worship world. First off the German government needs to stop trying to suppress the reality - swastikas exist. Nazi-ism exists. History - exists. What you tell youth they cannot see, display, learn about, etc, only makes them want to do wo. But here is the key. Not one German leader today was part of the Party Heirarchy that led Germany in those terrible years.

Today in the US some people still agitate for "reparations" to blacks for the history of slavery this country has. My response - "If I ever have a slave, then I should pay.". Simply put - it wasn't me that did it, and it won't be me that pays for it. I have never owned a slave, I recognize every person's equality as a human, and thus I owe nothing to the descendants of those who were enslaved.

Same thing applies to Germany today. The SOCIETY of Germany has to learn to stop feeling sorry for the actions of people other than themselves. They didn't create the Nazi menace, they didn't allow it to build power. What they must do is learn to stand tall and say "We are smarter, we are wiser, and we are united in not allowing it to happen again - we learn the history lesson and will not repeat the errors of OTHERS - for these errors were not our own."

Only then can German society put that period of history in perspective. Once they do, then they can look any accusation referring back to nazism in the eye - and respond with pride that they have learned the lesson of history, matured as a society, and that it is sad to see their accuser has not matured as much in this day and age.

Nationalism is strong in the German heart. Its hard to look at your grandfather and think what they may have been a part of. But its time to stop living in their shadow. Do that and you open doors for true pride in things worth being proud of.

This is the one entry, especially the part I put in bold, mirroring my own attitudes to this myself the best. I completly agree. A democracy will survive because people are convinced of the principles behind it, not because the alternatives are banned. And we all now the fascination of prohibition. Banning the smybols of that time simply does not work as a deterrant. If at all, it enforces it.