How can the world forgive Germany?

Monketey Ghost said:
In another thread I'd mentioned watching the series The World at War.

It's appalling what the Nazis did, in every country they occupied. It's horrible that so many German citizens ignored it, or were happy to benefit from it.

I understand that an entire generation had been conditioned by Nazi propaganda to think Jewish people inferior, and the German people naturally better.

But the systematic atrocities. The infrastructure and bureaucracy built to carry out those atrocities.

Combined with the war just two decades gone by... how can the world ever forgive the German people??
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I went to germany last year looking to kick some NAZI arse, but I couldn't find any NAZIs! I even went to the local Police Stations and inquired about where I could find some NAZIs, and they said they didn't know, but if I did find any then please let me know because they would like to help me kick thier arses.

So...I drank beer and ate weinerschnitzel, did some sightseeing and mellowed out. It was a good trip.
 
Donald MacDonald went up to his friend Colin Campbell and punched him in the mouth. Reeling, Colin asked Donald why he had done that.

"The Massacre of Glencoe," was the reply.

"But that happened more than three hundred years ago!" said Colin.

"Yes but I only found out about it yesterday," replied Donald.

I think the OP is in roughly that position.

Rolfe.
 
Nessie said:
If we did not forgive we would still be fighting.
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Yep.

I'd say the Treaty of Versailles is a pretty good example of "not forgiving" Germany, and of the consequences for not forgiving after a war. I'm not qualified to arm-chair quarterback the Treaty, maybe it was written in the only way it could be to end the fighting of WW1 but I've read a number of historians' take on it that WW2 was a pretty predictable German response to not being forgiven for WW1.
 
We didn't "forgive" in the forgiving sense.
We found as many of the instigators as we could, and hanged them.
Too many of them followed their leader into suicide before we got to them.
And many were jailed.
The mansions we lived in there were taken over from their nazi owners.
The formal occupation of West Germany halted in late '52 or so.
It was in pretty good shape then, compared to the conditions we saw in 1950 when we got there.
 
I Ratant said:
We didn't "forgive" in the forgiving sense.
We found as many of the instigators as we could, and hanged them.
Too many of them followed their leader into suicide before we got to them.
And many were jailed.
The mansions we lived in there were taken over from their nazi owners.
The formal occupation of West Germany halted in late '52 or so.
It was in pretty good shape then, compared to the conditions we saw in 1950 when we got there.
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We gave the nation the benefit of a doubt and they proved we were correct to do so.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
-I'm not sure how this makes sense in context.
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The world has to forgive Germany or else what kind of a future do we have? One of hate, revenge and more fighting.

In any case many were not forgiven and were punished. Just not the whole country as that is unreasonable.
 
Nessie said:
The world has to forgive Germany or else what kind of a future do we have? One of hate, revenge and more fighting.

In any case many were not forgiven and were punished. Just not the whole country as that is unreasonable.
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The North could have kept a heavy boot on the South's neck after the ACW. Instead there was serious effort expended to reintegrate them into the Union.
 
erwinl said:
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.
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Very, very few countries even pretended to have a democratic government before 1919.
 
I'm an American expat living in Germany now. I can no more imagine holding my current neighbors responsible for the Holocaust than I can holding myself responsible for the slave trade or killing Native Americans. This is a very pacifist culture with severe misgivings about projecting national power beyond their borders. The forces that supported the rise of Nazism simply don't exist here anymore. The Prussian and Austrian Officer classes were completely destroyed. Whatever happened before, these people didn't do it.
 
Craig4 said:
I'm an American expat living in Germany now. I can no more imagine holding my current neighbors responsible for the Holocaust than I can holding myself responsible for the slave trade or killing Native Americans. This is a very pacifist culture with severe misgivings about projecting national power beyond their borders. The forces that supported the rise of Nazism simply don't exist here anymore. The Prussian and Austrian Officer classes were completely destroyed. Whatever happened before, these people didn't do it.
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Squares with my experiences, dating back to the mid-'70s.
 
ApolloGnomon said:
Yep.

I'd say the Treaty of Versailles is a pretty good example of "not forgiving" Germany, and of the consequences for not forgiving after a war. I'm not qualified to arm-chair quarterback the Treaty, maybe it was written in the only way it could be to end the fighting of WW1 but I've read a number of historians' take on it that WW2 was a pretty predictable German response to not being forgiven for WW1.
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The treaty of Versailles confiscated 10% of Germany's territory but left it the largest, richest nation in central Europe.

It was largely unoccupied and financial reparations were linked to its ability to pay, which mostly went unenforced anyway.

The treaty was notably less harsh than treaty that ended the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian War. The German victors annexed large chunks of two rich French provinces, part of France for between 2-300 years, and home to most of French iron ore production, as well as presenting France with a massive bill for immediate payment.

Versailles was not harsh but was portrayed as such by Hitler who sought to create a tidal wave of anti-Versailles sentiment on which he could then ride into power.
 
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Captain_Swoop said:
Versailles was not harsh but was portrayed as such by Hitler who sought to create a tidal wave of anti-Versailles sentiment on which he could then ride into power.
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Britain also seemed to think it was too harsh. In their case, I believe they felt saddling Germany with all the reparations debt kept them from being a profitable trading partner.
 
crescent said:
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.
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True. One of Hitler's grievances was the separation of East Prussia from the rest of the country by a swath of Poland. The Allies fixed that by taking East Prussia away from Germany.

ETA: Of course, the destruction of the infrastructure and the "everybody being dead" situation probably took their minds off of a lot of the territorial and reparations issues.
 
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aggle-rithm said:
(Incidentally, this is how the Allies justified bombing cultural centers like Hamburg and Dresden during the war ...)
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Hamburg and Dresden were not just 'cultural centers'. There was plenty of military-industrial significance to both cities which put them on the target lists.
 
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