Gunther Rall has passed

[KgB]

...... Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, claimed she knew nothing of it. How can a fighter pilot on the eastern front be expected to know?...........

Thats what i would say if i were Hitler's secretary.

[Anaxogoras]

There is no misunderstanding. But, as I stated before, people who don`t have any connections to the German WWII generation, should not be allowed to make any statements that conclude into the wrong impression.

Should a German be allowed to make a statement that gives the wrong impression?

[SirFrancis]

Should a German be allowed to make a statement that gives the wrong impression?

Sorry, I lost you. My english is not that well...................

No, he should not. But he should hold his head up high and should look into thr future.

[Die Hard]

Thomas Jefferson is credited with saying “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” H.L. Mencken said the same thing, but better: "People deserve the government they get, and they deserve to get it good and hard."

In principle I agree with them. The Germans elected Hitler and the Nazis to power. They watched as the Nazis rearmed Germany, persecuted Jews and other non-"Aryan" people, "annexed" neighboring countries and put Europe and the World on a path of war. There was very little dissent and only a few brave souls like Sophie Scholl spoke up against the Nazis.

Mr. Rall shares in some of that guilt, and the regime he fought for will always taint his impressive war record. However, that does not prevent me from saluting him as an honorable, duty bound warrior.

[SirFrancis]

However, that does not prevent me from saluting him as an honorable, duty bound warrior.

 

[Anaxogoras]

I like this passage:

There is such  a thing as responsibility for things one has not done; one can be held liable for them.  But there is no such thing as being or feeling guilty for things that happened without oneself actively participating in them.  This is an important point, worth making loudly and clearly at a moment when so many good white liberals confess to guilt feelings with respect to the Negro question. I do not know how many precedents there are in history for such misplaced feelings, but I do know that in postwar Germany, where similar problems arose with respect to what had been done by the Hitler regime to Jews, the cry "We are all guilty" that at first hearing sounded so very noble and tempting has actually only served to exculpate to a considerable degree those who actually were guilty.  Where all are guilty, nobody is. Guilt, unlike responsibility, always singles out; it is strictly personal.  It refers to an act, not to intentions or potentialities.  It is only in a metaphorical sense that we can say we feel guilty for the sins of our fathers or our people or mankind, in short, for deeds we have no done, although the course of events may well make us pay for them...

--from Arendt's "Collective Responsibility"

[Yeager]

Why...... They were civilians. Were they suppose to just leave because of Hitler. You have to remember that it was Hitler that brought work and self respect back to the German populace early inhis political carear. I seriously doubt that many if any common citizen knew what Her Hitler was up to and by the time they did it was too late to leave. Please factor a little thought in your comments before throwing every German under the Hitler bus.
====
My father spent time in postwar Germany and he commented that you couldn't find a German anywhere who would ever admit they supported Hitler ever.  It was as if Hitler never existed to the post war German population.

This has been a very good thread imo.  Has brought out alot of people.  Good discussions for the most part.

Bigplay why for you no play AcesHigh?

[Yeager]

Mr. Rall shares in some of that guilt, and the regime he fought for will always taint his impressive war record. However, that does not prevent me from saluting him as an honorable, duty bound warrior.

That is a choice you make out of freewill and it is a good thing to have (freewill).  Your explanation makes sense and I for one respect that.

Does not change anything for me.  Rall was a member of the most beligerant military the world has ever had to defeat.  I cannot salute his service in that war machine but from everything I gather in this thread he was a good man in spite of it all and made amends with his victors. 

A class act.  Too bad he got caught up in that Poland thing 

[Die Hard]

I like this passage:

--from Arendt's "Collective Responsibility"

Inaction is in itself an act of choice. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing (Edmund Burke). The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing (Albert Einstein).

[Yenny]

RIP GR

[Angus]

What a thread this has become. Anyway, I will give you the point that Rall probably didn't know that much about what was going on home. He did say he was devastated when he found out after the war, and called it a betrayal or abuse of his generation. And I repeat that he was horrified with the high command and their obvious lack of realism.
"We lived like rats in bunkers and had to fight untill we died and in the meantime those ######'s were up to murder and slaughter in the backlands". Pretty much summed it up.
And by the way, KgB, the USSR was on the GERMAN side in the beginning of the war. From the outside, many nations didn't see the communism in any better light than Nazism. (Britain being a bit on it's own there). And when the Germans invaded, they simply beat the USSR at it's own game. But that is a topic for a totally different thread and has actually been touched here before.

[Anaxogoras]

Quote me an argument, not an aphorism.

Arendt discusses the question of inaction in depth in her writings.  Personal responsibility under dictatorship is one of the major themes in her work.

[Charge]

I find it very disrespectful what some of these clowns have said in this thread already so I won't comment anything. Open your own thread of whether or not German soldiers earned their respect, this is simply not the place to discuss such matters.

Salute to Herr Rall.  

-C+

[Angus]

Second to that! 

[Nefarious]

I find it very disrespectful what some of these clowns have said in this thread already so I won't comment anything. Open your own thread of whether or not German soldiers earned their respect, this is simply not the place to discuss such matters.

Salute to Herr Rall.  

-C+

Agreed.