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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All those people are dead, man.
 
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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Frankly if the world has not forgiven germany when the oldest person in germany was born after ~1935 (heck frankly even before), then the world is wrong.

I find that assigning the "sins of the father to the sons" to be more than utterly abhorrent.
 
Isn't there some famous book that suggests we punish the sins of the fathers upon the children, and grandchildren, to the seventh generation? I don't believe that book.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
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..."
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I'm wasn't referring to genocides. Many of us live under governments who have done what could at best be described highly questionable yet we rationalize and/or ignore them. For the Germans, or those in occupied France for that matter, add to that the consequences that you and your family might have faced if you spoke out.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
And the feeling of national humiliation due to the treaty ending WW1- that was a big reason the Nazi party got popular, the promise of a strong Germany.
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And Hitler. Don't forget Hitler.
I'm reading 'Rise and fall of the Third Reich' by William L Shirer, right now.
It's an oldie, first printed in 1960, so it misses something of the knowledge we have now. On the other hand. The writer had met Hitler before the war.

It seems Hitler truly was something special, concerning the persuasion of other people. There were some moments in time when the nazi party actually had some moderating voices in itself, but they were all squashed by Hitler in the '20s.

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.
 
sphenisc said:
There is something about the German people that allows them to do this...they're human. They suffer the same human frailty that the rest of us do when surrounded by peer pressure, social expectation, misplaced loyalty, propaganda etc. etc.
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Exactly. This is the real lesson of the Nazis. Not that the Germans were monsters, but precisely the opposite: that they were ordinary people like the rest of us. Ordinary human beings perpetrated all that horror, and if we forget that, it will just keep happening.
 
kedo1981 said:
What was the alternative?
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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.
 
paiute said:
Are you giving the Japanese a pass?
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It's interesting to compare contemporary Australian positive attitudes to Japan, despite the past atrocities and threat by that nation, with the way some other countries manage to hold centuries old grudges. With my background it surprises me when I am faced with attitudes that reference the crusades.
 
Since we are in History, Literature, and the Arts, perhaps someone could recommend some good literature or films that deal with this question.
 
Sideroxylon said:
I'm wasn't referring to genocides. Many of us live under governments who have done what could at best be described highly questionable yet we rationalize and/or ignore them. For the Germans, or those in occupied France for that matter, add to that the consequences that you and your family might have faced if you spoke out.
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Well, as I said, Germany set up a huge, detailed infrastructure, not only in Germany itself but in the occupied territories, and used railroad lines to carry people to work camps, to be shot in huge numbers and gassed.

Yes, speaking out would get you trouble.
In fact one of the interviews was with an ordinary German citizen who witnessed Kristallnacht and the disenfranchisement of German Jews, and muttered that it was a national disgrace, and was overheard by an SS commandant who ordered him to reeducation the following day.

It's difficult to watch this documentary without being sick. Another interview was with Himmler's adjutant... who witnessed many mass gassings... And returned to public life with no consequence.

It's incredible.
 
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Monketey Ghost said:
Well, as I said, Germany set up a huge, detailed infrastructure, not only in Germany itself but in the occupied territories, and used railroad lines to carry people to work camps, to be shot in huge numbers and gassed.

Yes, speaking out would get you trouble.
In fact one of the interviews was with an ordinary German citizen who witnessed Kristallnacht and the disenfranchisement of German Jews, and need that it was a national disgrace, and was overheard by an SS commandant who ordered him to reeducation the following day.

It's difficult to watch this documentary without being sick. Another interview was with Himmler's adjutant... who witnessed many mass gassings... And returned to public life with no consequence.

It's incredible.
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Not everyone would have all of the pieces of the puzzle. You might see your neighbors taken away but know not where. You may see masses of prisoners boarding trains and not have certain knowledge of their fate. You may hear rumors but people are very good at explaining away and ignoring all kinds of things.
 
Sideroxylon said:
Since we are in History, Literature, and the Arts, perhaps someone could recommend some good literature or films that deal with this question.
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What do you like to know?
The start? I can recommend 'Rise and Fall of the Third Reich'
Or do you want to know more about the aftermath. The reshaping of Germany after WWII? In that case I have no idea.
 
How can the world forgive Germany?

By realising that the Germans are very like us indeed, and that what happened there could very easily happen to us the same way. And that's why knee-jerk shouts of "Godwin!" can be a problem.

By realising that nobody alive in Germany today participated in any of that, and on the contrary most ordinary people are deeply ashamed of what happened. To the point where Germany is probably the least likely country for anything like that to happen in again.

By visiting Germany and meeting and talking to German people, as real people. By visiting their wonderful historical sites and learning about their rich cultural heritage going back many centuries.

By staying with German people in their own homes, and by preparing to welcome them into my home later this year (this is in my case, an exchange visit with a choir in the wonderful town of Wurzburg).

We must never forget the lesson, but we and the world will be a poorer place if we harbour anger and bitterness to a nation that once again are just people very like us. And the place to apply the lesson may be a lot closer to home than Germany.

Rolfe.
 
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Sideroxylon said:
Not everyone would have all of the pieces of the puzzle. You might see your neighbors taken away but know not where. You may see masses of prisoners boarding trains and not have certain knowledge of their fate. You may hear rumors but people are very good at explaining away and ignoring all kinds of things.
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There's plenty of evidence that many ordinary Germans knew; many benefited directly from the disenfranchisement.
The official anti-semitism push started early, and progressed. Neighbors dehumanized by the State and sent away-
And the towns near the labor camps could smell the death.

There's an interview with a soldier who showed a disbelieving German woman piles of bodies in one of the camps. The woman looked at the photo and remarked, "But it's only the Jews."
 
I always think of my grandfather in these things.

He had a clear distinction. Germans during and just after the war were all 'moffen' (krauts) to him.
Later (we're talking the 70's here) they were just Germans to him and he went happily on holiday there.

If that man, who had lived the last year of the war as a slave labourer in Rees (and suffered the rest of his life from those hardships), while his wife was giving birth to my father, more or less between the English and German frontlines in Arnhem, can forgive the Germans. Who am I to not do it as well?

Edit for clarification.
When talking to me about Germans in the now, they were Germans. When talking about them in the war they all were 'moffen'.
 
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