Originally posted by Oldman731
There were undoubtedly many "ideals" of the Nazi party. As pertinent to this discussion, it seems to me that the overwhelmingly most important of those was, simply, that the Germans were better than everyone else, and deserved to have whatever they wanted - by force, if need be.
Would you go to war if someone came up to you with that line? "Americans are better than everyone else, and deserve whatever they want -by force if need be ..now invade Poland (or whatever)"? Oh, but I forgot, all Germans living in Germany in 34-45 were evil.
The face it showed before then was bad enough, I trust?
Bad enough for what? Bad enough to make German soldiers desert rather than fight a war? Even given all the consequences of such an action? Bad enough to brand all German citizens in 34-45 as war criminals or butchers guilty of crimes against humanity?
Only Germany made Jews wear yellow stars. Only Germany resettled people in ghettos.
Wrong, see what I wrote in the previous post.
I would like to expand on this a bit.
Naziism obviously was not perceived as some kind of cult of Devil-worship by the Germans of 1933-45. They thought it was a fine, forward-looking system, and subscribed to it with varying levels of enthusiasm -- sort of like the cult of fitness that has emerged in the West over the last thirty years or so. Anyone who wants to understand Germany and World War Two has to get away from the a priori notion of Naziism as some kind of concious cult of evil and understand that it was a movement that swept up Germany's best and brightest, that being 'a Nazi' would have been a compliment in most circles in the Germany of the period, and that if they were aware of precisely what the doctrine meant for Jews (Poles, Gypsies, homosexuals, Communists, etc, etc), they were able to overlook this as easily as some people can overlook exactly what will happen when welfare is abolished.
The problem with your perspective here is that you seem to assume the Nazis appeared, as an historical phenomenon, ex nihilo. The Versailles Treaty condemned the German people to massive and unfair war-guilt and crippling reparations for decades. There were French massacres of German worker-protestors in the Ruhr which they occupied and, in general, the French under Reynaud I believe it was, seemed to delight in endlessly twisting the knife and humiliating Germany as much as possible. Germany was put into a state of economic chaos, with anarchy on the streets as a result of a strong communist para-military presence manifesting itself in these conditions of extreme social instability. Versailles is not just a piece of paper, it is a decades-long vendetta against the Germans displaying ignorance as to historical effects. The Germans were swept into WWI along with everyone else and were made the fall-guy afterwards. If you treat a nation in this manner, drag them through the dirt like this, you can expect a backlash down the road, and we certainly got it.
The phenomenon of an extreme right-wing nationalism arising in Germany after this, I would argue, was inevitable. There might just as easily have been a Fuhrer without the vicious racial agenda launching a war of conquest. The world ended up with pretty much the worst case scenario with Hitler, but those were the risks we chose to run in allowing Germany to plunge into that abyss. The Americans showed true wisdom after WWII with the Marshall Plan and, I would point out, the French of course were ready to do Versailles all over again. Your perspective is too black and white, and does not deal adequately with the larger historical context.
The black and white issue I am getting from you is this inclination to tar all Germans with the Nazi brush while turning rather a blind eye to the excesses of our side in that conflict. If you want to put the Germans up there in the Guiness Book of Records for war crimes, go ahead: I don't see that this addresses the larger issue of war crimes in general, or crimes against humanity. It smacks of an hysterical witch-hunt and deflection of guilt many nations share in. My point is that the majority of Germans were no different than you or I, and we should be grateful we were not born into that time and space or we would have been swept up into it as well. It's too easy to judge in hindsight, to condemn in broad strokes and blame the Germans for everything. This good guy-bad guy stuff is passe in this post-John Wayne world we live in now.
I am out for a fair appraisal of historical truth, not a witch-hunt, not blind propaganda, and certainly not the sort of naive view of good and evil that you seem to have, one which would like to see the Germans, as exemplified by the worst excesses of the SS, as inherently evil.
Because you've stacked the deck again, by assuming that D doesn't know what's going on. My point (and, as you must surely know, it ain't original with me) is that the Germans weren't unwitting accessories. They may not have known the details of the crematoria, but, as Charon and Westy and many others have pointed out, they had to know - had to know - that bad things were happening to their erstwhile neighbors. And, of course, the invasion of the rest of the world was a well-publicized fact.
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Well, the average German soldier in the east knew because he was SEEING it, and reporting it back home to his buds. But you don't have to know about Babi Yar to know that Germany has invaded the world and that the Jews have all disappeared and their houses have new owners.
Im not trying to stack any deck. I think my example is a pretty good abstraction of the situation for any German soldier during wwii. The situation becomes even more absurd if you add person E (a civilian) who is neither a part of C, he doesnt know about C's order to A, nor did he see A shoot B etc etc.
As for your notion that the German civilian population had to know. What kind of rubbish is that? "Well, I cant prove that they did know, nor can I prove that they had any reason to suspect the true nature about what was going on, in fact, I have no evidence whatsoever to support anything I'm saying ..but they are guilty anyway, because I am of the opinion that they had to know, my gut tells me that."
I begin to feel like Ronald Reagan...."There you go again." Of course the Germans at war's end wished they'd never heard of Hitler or the Nazis. Most mass-murderers express regret somewhere down the line. What's important is what's going on in their clever little minds when they set out on their journey to oblivion.
Well, then by your own admission, the German people is innocent. In 1939 the nazis fabricated a polish attack on a German radio station. This is the official reason why Germany declared war on Poland. In his speech Hitler said something along the lines of "The Poles dared to attack us, well we'll teach them, since 0700 this morning German troops are answering the poles with bullet for bullet, bomb for bomb." 2 days later England and France declares war on Germany. Now thats the official German version of events. And you'd have to try real real hard to get a hold of any other version if you are in Germany in September 39. First, Germany is attacked, then when she tries to defend herself, England and France declares war on her.
Then what? The invasions of Norway and Denmark was motivated by the fact that England was about to invade Norway (and Sweden) to disrupt the supplies of iron ore from northern Sweden to Germany. The English and French invasion fleets had already left port heading for Norway when the Germans invaded. <-this is 100% true, but not many people know about it.
France? Well she was the one who declared war on Germany remember. Benelux countries were just a side effect of that, they had to be taken in order to defeat France.
Yugoslavia/Greece? Well those were motivated by the Italian follies in the Balkans. Cant blame Germany for bailing out her allies right?
So now we are at June 1941 and where do you have the German wars of aggression? Everything so far has been either self defence or wars against countries who declared war on Germany first.
Sorry, left my copy at home. David Irving, of course, says there's no proof Hitler even knew about the extermination of the Jews. Without going off into that discussion, I think anyone who's read "Mein Kampf" has a pretty clear idea that there was not a good future for Jews if Hitler took over.
Personally I have never read that book. I dont think I ever will either. I do know that there is no such reference in that book though. It was always pretty clear that Hitler and the nazis didnt particularly like jews, and that they would prefer if all the jews were deported from Germany. Did you know that in 1938 the SS worked together with several jewish organizations to achieve just that? The nazis wanted a Germany void of jews, the jewish organizations wanted a country of their own in Palestine. Arrangements were made to ship all German jews to Palestine. The British got hold of these plans though, and put an end to those attempts. (this lead to a somewhat guilty British conscience after the war).
I admit to having some serious problems viewing that generation of Germans the way I view other people. Some real problems....
I can see that. Perhaps you should talk to someone about this? Cant be good to carry around that much hate inside.
