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On the Record  Posts: 5624 Joined: 14 Sep 2008     | |
Copy Clerk Posts: 74 Joined: 18 Jun 2008    |
I can understand your rhetoric on cowardice evn though I don't necessarily agree. You were/are a soldier therefore you have a mindset the makes you want to answer to a higher calling than simply saving yourself. Quite respectable I daresay. The problem lies in the fact that not everyone is courageous, actually most people aren't. Simply put, The soldiers who pulled the trigger on jews could have refused. True! But they would have been shot and replaced. If i was there, I could have told myself, I shall do what is right, the problem is that this would have been followed by: If I do what is riht, I will die and the evil deed will have been done by someone else. So I really don't know what I would have done. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2079 Joined: 1 Jan 2008     | It's basically a way of making the public feel better about going to war. German resistance was pronounced "Nazi", and now, Iraqi resistance is pronounced "terrorist". |
Muckraker  Posts: 274 Joined: 19 Aug 2008    |
Well your right to a degree. Most of the civilian Germans didn't know about the hideous things he was doing. Even more than that the Nazi party had come and "saved" Germany during that time. Even more than that was that the Nazi party got into power on the backs of the "Jewish Menace." What I mean is that after world war 1 the Germans were left in bad shape. They slowly started to blame Jews for it and then the Nazi party came along and used that paranoia to increase their following. Despite what we know the Nazi party for they really helped out the German economy and general way of life at the time. So if someone came along and saved you (I mean really pulled your ass out of the fire), but they had a real nasty side to them (most of which you didn't get to see) would you confront them on it. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 4581 Joined: 22 Jun 2008    | The united retardeds, brits, beret wearing cheesing sniffers(I kid.), can't bitch about the nazi's. They had a hand in creating them. You do not kick a country while its down by making them pay huge war crimes just because you won. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 804 Joined: 9 Oct 2008 | I just have to say, Valkyrie (did i spells it right?) is about as accurate as a drunk marksman with a flintlock pistol. |
Pulitzer Laureate  Posts: 868 Joined: 4 Jun 2008   | I think Hitler's rise to power is pretty understandable. You can't blame average German for it. WWI's peace treaty fucked up Germany and Hitler just used the opportunity to manipulate Germans blame Jews and others for it. Angry people are easy to manipulate.
German townspeople in French town?
Hitler was Austrian. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2502 Joined: 15 Aug 2008  |
In which one? I played road to Hill 30 and about half of Earned In Blood and I didn't see a single German civilian. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 489 Joined: 9 Dec 2008    | My boss' father was forcibly conscripted into the German army during WWII but apparently he never considered himself a Nazi. Grey area? |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 4233 Joined: 27 Apr 2008   |
Hells Highway, I think they were German |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 3937 Joined: 17 Feb 2008    | To be honest with you the same people who think all Germans are Nazis hardly sound like the same people you want liking you anyway, what I'm trying to say is if I were you I'd actually judge how good i was by how much they dislike me. I know it doesn't work very well but it's okay for me. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1155 Joined: 26 Nov 2008  | All in all I will conclude that no one entire group of people are evil, and there is an enormous gray area in there. Yes, Germany was responsible partially, however not entirely per the moral code of civilians. It was an immense gray area, and people have thankfully moved past it. If only the Black VS White conflict would reach the amiable and highly respectable level of the Israeli's and the German's understanding of each others past... I salute both nations nontheless. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 2113 Joined: 15 Jun 2008    |
But what if they do not know it to be right? Remember the propaganda of the time? The superstition surrounding Jews? Antisemitism was not invented by Hitler, Jews were already disliked. Germany was in a bad way after The Great War. They needed a champion, and they needed a scapegoat. I didn't ask if you would just risk your own life. What about the lives of your family, though? Would you put those in risk for a stranger? If your answer to this is yes, then I'm glad you weren't a German alive during the Nazi regime. Free will does not mean having the responsibility to make the "right" choice. That defeats the purpose of free will in the first place. There's no divine agreement along the lines of "You have the freedom to do whatever you want as long as you only do what's right". Free will is not a gift, given with provisions, it's a result of our sentience. There are no universal laws governing what should and should not be. And you can insist that X should be and Y should not, but at the end of the day Y still is and X is not. You can call it cowardice, that makes the majority of humans cowards. I'm not so judgemental. Would you condemn a Roman for watching a gladiatorial contest and enjoying it? Despite it being in his culture to like it? He honestly does not know that it's "wrong". Would you judge him to be a monster because he is raised to believe it is right? Would you, given a time machine, go back to Rome and declare at the top of your lungs that blood sports are immoral and should be put to an end? The situation in Nazi Germany is a little different, but not as much as you'd expect. The government everywhere insists that Jews are evil. Little kids are brought up to believe them to be subhuman monsters. Education and propaganda are both powerful tools, and Goebbels was a master at the art of utilising them. You can't hate a trained attack dog. You can try and re-train it, you may have to put it down, but you can't blame it for biting you when that's all it knows to do. And if you think the metaphor isn't valid, you don't know how powerful education and propaganda are. If you still don't agree, then there's nothing I can do. I've made my points, you can insist that they're wrong, but that won't change a thing. I'm not condoning what the Germans did, I'm just not condemning them for being human. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 407 Joined: 28 Apr 2008 |
I don't agree, but I understand the fact that we disagree on basic assumptions and philosophies. Leading to our disagreement on the issues. |
Muckraker  Posts: 292 Joined: 27 Sep 2008   |
You can't blame the German people for the crime of their government. You can blame only one person, and that's Hitler. Like any politician worth his salt, he used people's fear to keep them all in line. You were either with the Nazis or against them, and in a situation where nobody is against them openly, it's difficult to be the first one. Often, the first one is not followed by others and killed. I'd like to see what you would do in such a situation. I think as brave as we like to pretend to be, the motivation to not die would be enough to feign support for Hitler. You and I would follow orders. There were fifteen attempted assassinations of Hitler. Is that not enough for you to realize that they don't all share the moral responsibility? |
Infamous Scribbler  Posts: 532 Joined: 22 Jan 2008 | Hmmm... My grandmother was a young woman, recently married, when the war started. She saw the propaganda machine in full swing - children as young as ten or eleven would be recruited to the Hitler Youth and then, all that said child need say is that their parents wouldn't let them go to the movies (to see patriotic films) and BAM! Parents would disappear in the night. You didn't speak out, because you couldn't risk the lives of your family and loved ones. Thankfully, my grandparents got out and emigrated safely to Australia. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1155 Joined: 22 Dec 2008  | You know operation Valkyrie? The July 20 plan has a little family history in it. My great great uncle Wilhelm Adam was a planner of the bombing plan. After it failed (a few people died, Hitler got away with a ripped up pant leg and a sprained wrist, others got more or less injured), all of the planners were found out and sent to military prisons. Some were executed. I don't know about concentration camps. There, I just ruined the entire movie for you. I haven't even seen it yet and I know how it ends. Hitler lives. |
Beat Writer  Posts: 208 Joined: 24 Jun 2008    |
So what your saying here is that All Germans are essentially Nazis, I take offense to that being German myself, so how about we look at America by your logic, that makes you guys slavers and murderers of millions of black people, starters of murderous war for oil, you also get responsibility for the deaths of many Japanese in your internment camps, the killings during race riots, etc... so shut the fuck up about my country you racist bastard |
Gone Gonzo Posts: 1155 Joined: 22 Dec 2008 |
Amen. |
On the Record  Posts: 6111 Joined: 25 Jan 2008  |
Clem, no, not a gray area. As Nekolux beat me to saying, being German is not synonymous with being a Nazi. The Nazis were a political party, not a culture, and as such you actually had to be enlisted as a member of the party to truly be a Nazi. The SS and Gestapo were special organizations that were exclusive to party members, but the regular forces were just that, the German armed forces. Not saying all army regulars can be held as innocents, many were party supporters or just plain cruel bastards themselves, but you really can't condemn them all as a whole the way you can condemn the SS. And yes, Valkyrie wasn't historically accurate to the degree I'd have liked, but they made one very VERY good point in it. Heinrich Himmler was as much the puppetmaster of the Reich as Adolf Hitler was, and it always baffled me how downplayed Himmler's role was. Between the two, Himmler and Hitler, I'd say Heinrich was worse than Adolf. Heinrich Himmler was the head of the Schutzstaffel, Kriminalpolizei, Sicherheitspolizei, and Gestapo. Essentially, he ran the civilian and military police forces, an elite unit of military fanatics, AND the secret service. Add to all that, he was the driving force behind, and organizer/administrator of the death camps. Next to Himmler, Adolf looks to be a fucking saint. |
Gone Gonzo  Posts: 1663 Joined: 15 Oct 2008   | I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet. Hitler was voted into power by 33% of the population. |
Press Junketeer Posts: 407 Joined: 28 Apr 2008 |
If you knew how to read you would notice in the text you quoted that I'm saying that while they WEREN'T Nazis, they are still accountable to the actions of Germany at the time. And while I'm not American and so have nothing to do with whatever they are doing, I'm an Israeli and fully believe I'm to be held responsible for the Israeli-Plastenian situation. Last thing. Racism is bias against a race, you idiot. Germany is a nation. There is no more a German race then there is an American race. There is the Germanic race, that includes all the Euro-Germanic tribes, But unless I state an opinion against a large part of northern Europe it's not racism. |
On the Record Posts: 6111 Joined: 25 Jan 2008 | You know, this was a thread with some promise of good discussion, but petty squabbling just leaves me with a headache reminiscent of the last week I was back home with my family and had to put up with all their bitching. And then those fighting always wonder why the locks come in. |
Press Junketeer  Posts: 400 Joined: 7 Apr 2008 |
Aye, to this i STRONGLY agree. Himmler was running the secret service, the elite nazi army and multiple other organizations which were the ones that were mainly involved in the genocides. And yes to those people who thought the german army killed the jews. You're wrong. It wasn't the regular army. It was the SS. In a way that caused part of the downfall of the nazi regime because hitler focused so much of the elite group on the massacre of the jews. It is even suspected that himmler let a few assassination plots slip past the gaze of the gestapo so he could gain power. ( This is all speculation on hindsight, we'll never know for sure. But there is a certain amount of evidence, because himmler didnt get the gestapo to look through all the leads in an assassination plot. Had he done that, further assassination attempts might have been stopped ) But yeah, all in all. Himmler was rather the more cruel one. Had he taken over control of the regime from mid - end war. The nazis would be able to hold out much longer. |
Paperboy Posts: 14 Joined: 1 Jan 2009  |
Not all nazi's were german. :P The austrian government was pressurised into anschluss by rioting within the country. Just had to pick a hole in your statement. ^o^ Also, after the fall of france, a large portion of german forces were penal regiments. I suggest reading sven hassel's "legion of the damned" :D |
Paperboy Posts: 14 Joined: 1 Jan 2009 |
You're Israeli? O.O Cool. :3 Personnally, i believe whilst you're country is engaging Palestine far too aggressively, i can understand that getting spammed by rocket artillary for the 2nd time in 17 years must be fairly depressing. :/ And the US and EU handling of Afghanistan and Iraq didn't exactly set a good example. :P Oh well. :D |
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Of course not every German is evil Nazi. Same as not every Polish or Russian men is a heavy drinker and not every Japanese has a calculator in his pants.
Even my grandfather once had an "adventure" with German soldiers before the WWII, but after WWI. He was young back then, 9-11 (don't know how exactly, as I've heard this story from my mom). He was wandering around the town and he spotted an open truck. Inside, there was a barrel full of liquid honey. He jumped on it and started drinking (it was one of the only sweet things that the poor could afford... and it was free, or so it would seem). Suddenly, someone grabbed his feet and pushed him into the barrel. After few seconds he was pulled out and he noticed German soldiers. They didn't shoot him or anything, just laughed at him, soaked to bone in honey and told him to scram.
Stereotypes are wrong, and people telling them should be hit in the head. With a shovel.