Your use of the comma in the repeat of the question changes its scope entirely. Which one do you want answers, answered, the first scope or the second scope? -
This post was edited by Randy D at January 21, 2018 9:02 AM MST
You are "The Man!" So true. The power of the comma is very apparent. It not only changes the mental tone in which you read the question but the answer you might give.
I'm pretty sure most of the German population never wanted to go to war with the world........ English sailors of yesteryear were pressganged into joining Royal sailing ships under threat of death if they refused......It was the same for the army as well .
I would think most conscripted German soldiers hated killing people and were mostly forced to kill on order and frightened for thier own lives and that of their families to.....
Im pretty sure all victorious armies commit such awful attrocties,such as rape ,brutality and murder..... With hardly any exceptions....
Well, we've got to have someone to hate. What about the Turks then. What they are doing to Kurdish people deserves our condemnation if not a whole lot more. Yet another Turkish program of genocide is underway behind the blood-smeared curtain of political expediency. Like the world shutting its good eye to American carpet-bombing of villages of simple raggedy peasants just trying to scratch a meagre living from the earth. Seeing what the Kurds did to ISIL, initially, virtually unaided, my sense is that this time the Turks may be stirring up a hornet's nest.
This post was edited by rattbagge at January 21, 2018 8:54 AM MST
Yeah. We all talk about the second world war and say "Never again", and yet it's happening again right now. When there was the war in Yugoslavia, there were things happening that mounted up to what the Nazis were doing in Europe years earlier, but it went on for years, hardly being talked about, before we intervened.
The Germans were never guilty. It was the Nazis and Hitler all rolled into one. The Germans were the pawns just like the Democrats and now the Republicans are.
All that rules is Trump's base. No one can stand them and they gotta go.
They are the ones who need to have guilt heaped upon them and they don't have the sense to even realize it. Just like the Nazis of yore.
The English invented the concentration camps in Africa to kill the Boars.........Whinston Churchill had a hand in it when he was a soldier out there.....
Which victorious county hasn't committed atrocious in its time .....which countries are still doing it as well...?
Some of my best friends are German. Actually, I have a lot of German DNA in me, so should I be shamed also? I was in Potsdam Platz last year and saw the exhibit in Nazi atrocities and thought, enough is enough, those people aren't even around any more. It's a bit too late for them to learn their lesson if they haven't already. In a word, my answer is yes.
I wouldn't worry too much about your DNA. The Germans have proved over and over again since the war that they're pacifist. I've been there several times and I've found they're amongst the most hospitable and helpful people that i've ever met.
Germans today are not responsible for WW II. Most were not even as the war raged. The Germans paid immediately following the war in several ways: by deliberate shaming; forced labor of both POWs and some civilians; gutting of infrastructure, manufacturing, technology, and talent; and, of course, reparations, which continue to be paid today. For that matter, reparations for WW I were only paid off in October of 2010.
The German Guilt and Angst instilled in citizens yet today is simply wrong. Even worse, it has helped to create a society where immigrants today are given a pass on things native Germans can be imprisoned for. I do not think that bodes well for Germany, the EU, or Europe overall...or for the immigrants, for that matter. It is making an already volatile and dangerous situation potentially worse.
I thought this an interesting account from a German man who has both English and German heritage. One grandfather fought for England, a great-grandfather ended up in a concentration camp, yet he was raised in a society that demands he own the guilt. He rejects that premise.
I think everyone should stop pointing fingers and start living in the now. Stop beating eachother up about what HAS happened and make today a better day for everyone. We can all make that positive step.
Most Germans aren't monsters - and they weren't monsters in the 1930s, either. With the economy stuck in reverse, a hyperinflating Mark in free fall and war reparations from the First World War bleeding Germany white, Hitler seemed like a good idea at the time. Germany's Jewish population didn't make any friends during the Depression, either - so " the Jews getting their comeuppance" seemed like a good idea too, the majority of the population was oblivious to the atrocities of the Holocaust. I'm prepared to forgive Germany a lot - they brew magnificent beer, and the best car I ever owned was German - actually designed by a Czech who was in Hitler's employ.
So the Holocaust was about the Jews getting their "comeuppance" - what does that even mean? Congrats - sounds like you would've made a terrific Nazi yourself, ready at the drop of the hat to go with the flow and blame the evil Jews for every problem under the sun.
Try reading every word of my answer before flying off the handle. "The majority of the population was oblivious to the atrocities of the Holocaust". They didn't know what was happening after the Jewish people were shipped out, nor care - much like Trump's Americans feel about the Mexicans. During the dying days of the Weimar Republic, with the Mark undergoing hyperinflation, the goverment was selling everything it could in a desperate attempt to remain solvent - and privatised the water supply. It was purchased by a consortium of Jewish businessmen who immediately drove the price up exponentially and were brutal about cutting people off who couldn't afford to pay - unless you were Jewish. It made the rest of the population resentful. The Great Depression - mass unemployment, there were a multitude of families who were literally starving to death, being unable to afford water was the last straw.
Sure, the Jews controlled the water supply just as they controlled the banks and the press. Typical Nazi propaganda of the time used to justify persecution and extermination of Jews and other undesirables. It's right out of MeinKampf...
"The nationalization of our masses will succeed only when, aside from all the positive struggle for the soul of our people, their international poisoners are exterminated. If at the beginning of the war and during the war twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the nation had been subjected to poison gas, such as had to be endured in the field by hundreds of thousands of our very best German workers of all classes and professions, then the sacrifice of millions at the front would not have been in vain."
And you're ready to buy right into it. As I said, you would've made a terrific Nazi.
This post was edited by Stu Spelling Bee at January 21, 2018 8:57 AM MST
Like most propaganda, it has some roots in truth - which then gets blown out of all proportion. If it didn't, people would have called him on it. The Weimars were broke, they sold the water, that's who bought it. Fact. The Banks weren't and the press certainly wasn't, else Hitler couldn't have been elected. Yes, he was democratically elected Chancellor in 1933. The press backed him. The German people took a lot of Hitler's rhetoric as hyperbole, most of those who voted for him hadn't read Mein Kampf and wouldn't have taken it literally if they had. It was easy to blame all Jews for the water squeeze (because of the actions of a few), and thus extend that to everything else. The NSAP initially brought stability to the economy (with stolen funds), further endearing its leader to the electorate. He was charismatic. Persuasive. Had a lot in common with DJT, in fact. The point I'm making is that Germans in general aren't much different from anybody else. They carry a national guilt complex over the Holocaust - there's no need for anybody else to blame them, they blame themselves.
This post was edited by Slartibartfast at January 21, 2018 2:57 PM MST
Whatever can be said about Trump, he's nothing like Hitler. He's a blowhard with no backbone, but not a genocidal madman.
This post was edited by Stu Spelling Bee at January 21, 2018 9:18 AM MST
Randy D 