How can the world forgive Germany?

[Jrrarglblarg]

An 18 yo in 1945 would be 87 today.

Yep. So what's the problem? Who, other than the emotionally reactive OP actually feels this generalized resentment toward a homogenous Germany? Those of us born in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and 90s surely don't have any personal axe to grind, either in or out of Germany?

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Yep. So what's the problem? Who, other than the emotionally reactive OP actually feels this generalized resentment toward a homogenous Germany? Those of us born in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and 90s surely don't have any personal axe to grind, either in or out of Germany?

I think the problem is "The only thing new is the history you don't know yet."

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Is it that explicit in what it shows?
Just asking because I know I will then have to watch it some time without the Mrs in the house.

It's disturbing in exactly that way. Lots of atrocity photos.

I've studied WW2, the battles and such, but have always avoided watching this sort of documentary for just this reason.
Scores of hangings, videos of head-shot victims collapsing, thousands of bodies. Combat video, an amazing amount of combat video taken by both sides.

Overall, horrific. Bodies partially buried by collapsed buildings, etc.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I read Rise and Fall of the Third Reich when it first came out in paperback. My teacher tried to get it banned from school because it had a swastika on the cover.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

Yep. So what's the problem? Who, other than the emotionally reactive OP actually feels this generalized resentment toward a homogenous Germany? Those of us born in the 50s 60s 70s 80s and 90s surely don't have any personal axe to grind, either in or out of Germany?

I don't have an axe to grind.

I'm simply horrified. And for what it's worth, video interviews of an einsatzgruppen officer, taken in his comfortable home in the 1970's, sort of shocks.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

I don't have an axe to grind.

Okay, "freaking out and slandering an entire country." That's dead bang.

 

[aggle-rithm]

Let the country that has never started, nor participated in a war, run the business of keeping life going, on Earth.

Switzerland? Already done; it's called the ISO.

 

[Monketi Ghost]

The whole world held that country responsible, it's hardly slander to question the fact of what they did, what they allowed to happen, and wonder, in the fresh light of the filmed, documented horror, if the punishment fit the crime.

I'd imagine the Jews of Israel would answer "**** no, it wasn't nearly enough."

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

The whole world held that country responsible, it's hardly slander to question the fact of what they did, what they allowed to happen, and wonder, in the fresh light of the filmed, documented horror, if the punishment fit the crime.

I'd imagine the Jews of Israel would answer "**** no, it wasn't nearly enough."

I don't know of a country that is susceptible to the same thing. The Americans killed millions of indigenous people. England is blamed for the famine in India during WWII. Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Unit 731, the kulaks "counting trees", the list never ends.

 

[aggle-rithm]

The whole world held that country responsible, it's hardly slander to question the fact of what they did, what they allowed to happen, and wonder, in the fresh light of the filmed, documented horror, if the punishment fit the crime.

I'd imagine the Jews of Israel would answer "**** no, it wasn't nearly enough."

After WWI, the victors took the position that the losers must be punished, and they imposed harsh penalties that did nothing but raise feelings of resentment that led to Germany's resurgence as an aggressor.

After WWII, there was a more conciliatory approach taken. The winners helped the losers rebuild their infrastructure. True, the motives behind this weren't completely altruistic; the Allies needed Germany and Japan back on their feet so they could help defend against Communism. However, the healing approach seemed to work much better than the punitive approach when it came to keeping them from becoming a threat once more.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

I don't have an axe to grind.

I'm simply horrified. And for what it's worth, video interviews of an einsatzgruppen officer, taken in his comfortable home in the 1970's, sort of shocks.

The most horrific thing I've seen from WW2 was a picture of a man in a village who decided to kill off the Jew himself with an ax handle. The picture was him posing with his townsfolk, surrounded by dead bodies. The name given to him was 'The Death Dealer' of whatever his town was.

Pretty hard to forgive action like that, but that man and his townsfolk aren't "Germany," any more than the Mormon extremists who dressed as Indians to raid wagon trains and kidnap women and children are "Utah."

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

After WWI, the victors took the position that the losers must be punished, and they imposed harsh penalties that did nothing but raise feelings of resentment that led to Germany's resurgence as an aggressor.

Versailles gave Hitler an easy cause de celebre. Vengeance is a bad way to prevent future wars.

After WWII, there was a more conciliatory approach taken. The winners helped the losers rebuild their infrastructure. True, the motives behind this weren't completely altruistic; the Allies needed Germany and Japan back on their feet so they could help defend against Communism. However, the healing approach seemed to work much better than the punitive approach when it came to keeping them from becoming a threat once more.

I like to point out that the Japanese went to war to avoid the conditions they found themselves in in 1945. If they had started from their 1937 position and took the same route they were forced to take post-war I can only imagine how strong they would have been by 1975.

 

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Pretty hard to forgive action like that, but that man and his townsfolk aren't "Germany," any more than the Mormon extremists who dressed as Indians to raid wagon trains and kidnap women and children are "Utah."

And let's not forget the officially sanctioned slaughter of Mormons here in Missouri.

 

[crescent]

After WWII, there was a more conciliatory approach taken. The winners helped the losers rebuild their infrastructure. True, the motives behind this weren't completely altruistic; the Allies needed Germany and Japan back on their feet so they could help defend against Communism. However, the healing approach seemed to work much better than the punitive approach when it came to keeping them from becoming a threat once more.

That is half true - Germany at the end of WWII lost much more territory than they lost at Versailles. The Versailles treaty stripped Germany of areas in the east where Germans were not the majority. After WWII, they lost areas where Germans were the majority, and had been the majority for hundreds of years.

The reparations after WWII were significant, they were only finally paid in full just a few years ago.

The plan to rebuild Germany was not the first option. The Marshall Plan was preceded by the Morganthau Plan, which was not implemented but did influence post-war policy.

You are correct that the post WWII planning was in many ways more conciliatory that the post WWI planning - but that was only in regards to getting the economy going. Other issues which Versailles are faulted for were implemented on an even greater scale after WWII - the territorial loss and the need to pay reparations.

 

[I Ratant]

Because the communists were considered the bigger threat.

.
One of my neighbors was born in Germany in 1950, and he asked me why the Allies and the Wehrmacht didn't unite, and go to fight the Soviets at the end of the war.
That was also a common question in Germany at the time.
My response was -politics-... the Soviets were our allies, and the nazis were lucky all the men weren't castrated, and the country turned into a goat pasture, another theme at the time of the end of WWII.
I think all in all, what happened there after the war is the best solution possible, being beneficial for all concerned, not the usual.. kill all the men, rape the women, enslave the children of the past.

 

[I Ratant]

Truly. Well noted.
And maybe what I feel is from having watched this documentary.
There have been other genocides, but I want to talk about the German Nazi genocide.
"Let's not argue about who killed who..."

.
It's no different than the Deuteronomic atrocities endorsed by "god"... or, really, his charismatic "prophets".
These went the whole 9 yards, killing even the livestock!

 

[I Ratant]

Following the guidelines of the treaty of Versailles and not allowing Germany to rearm...

.
Unrealistic. A permanent occupation force would have been needed.
That treaty was just the typical European "our country is red hot, your country ain't doodly squat" repeat of any of the "treaties" from the past.

 

[I Ratant]

...
On the other hand the writer also remarks upon the history of Germany (the Luther to Hitler thesis) where it is written that the German people were especially susceptible to a totaliarian regime as eventually rose up. Until the Weimar republic never having had a truly democratic government.

.
We see that problem today, trying to force democracy on countries where the word itself has no existence in their language, and the population has never had a free voice to do anything.
The concept is inconceivable there, and resisted.. quite effectively.. with the eons long tribal conflicts.

 

[Jrrarglblarg]

And let's not forget the officially sanctioned slaughter of Mormons here in Missouri.

Just so.

 

[I Ratant]

The alternative was what the Allies initially tried to do - completely pastorilise Germany and forcefully evict Germans from the invaded countries. Further, Germany was split into 4 areas, with each of the Allies responsible for the administration of their own section. This quickly resolved itself into the East/West split.

A further step down this path would have been to allow the annexation by surrounding countries of the entirety of Germany, essentially causing Germany to cease to exist.

.
.
I told my German neighbor of visiting East Berlin and East Germany in 1953, and noting the WWII destruction had not been repaired. West Berlin was up to date and no damage left.
He said when the Wall came down in 1987, East Germany was still like that.
The Russians had no interest in fixing anything German. For good reason.