How can the world forgive Germany?

Monketey Ghost said:
Let's soften that.
1- largely responsible
2- completely responsible (Europe)
Click to expand...

Yes, Europe was completely responsible for WW1.
Every major combatant WANTED that war and happily marched into it.
Germany wanted to solidify their position and gain some territory
Austria-Hungary wanted a nice victory to smooth over their internal problems
France wanted revenge for the loss of the previous war
England wanted to prevent Germany from gaining even more predominace
Russia wanted pretty much the same as Austria-Hungary
The Ottomans wanted to regain lost glories and stop the Russians from dismantling their northern borders.

By the time the central powers had lost the victors happily forgot their own blame and put it all on Germany.

As for WW2, Germans learn in highschool that in their (great)greatparents time a truly horrible regime appeared that used populism and simplistic phrases to usher in one of the worst times in human history. And they learn that while it's not their fault, it WAS wrong.
I consider this a vast step up from the Japanese, who seem for the most part to consider themselves victims.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16708340

Google hits aplenty for Germany Anti-Semitism recent.
Click to expand...

From your article:
So what did he make of the research indicating that 20% of Germans harbour some anti-Semitism?​

From Wiki:
As racism in general in the U.S. persists, so does antisemitism. In the United States, most Jewish community relations agencies draw a distinction between antisemitism which is measured in terms of attitudes and behaviors and the security and status of American Jews which is measured by specific incidents. According to surveys by the Anti-Defamation League, antisemitism is rejected by clear majorities of Americans, with 64% of them lauding Jews' cultural contributions to the nation in 2011, but a minority holding hateful views of Jews remain, with 19% of Americans supporting the antisemitic canard that Jews co-control Wall Street in 2011.[1] As well, Holocaust denial in recent years has been only a fringe phenomenon with less than ten percent of Americans expressing either opposition or ignorance to the historical record.[2]​
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_United_States
 
Easy answer: time. We'll, time... and the general knowledge that being German doesn't necessarily make you responsible for German atrocities.
 
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??
Click to expand...

I suggest that you no longer think of nations and the world as individuals.

While it is possible for a person to issue forgiveness, however a nation/world cannot do so.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-16708340

Google hits aplenty for Germany Anti-Semitism recent.
Click to expand...

Doesn't say anything about anti-semitism being on the rise. It says that 20% of Germans hold some anti-semitic views (which might mean a lot of things), but not that the percentage is on the increase. It also says that the Jewish population in Germany is the fastest growing Jewish population in the world, mainly by immigration. It would then seem that the Jewish people don't share your fears.
 
When I was much younger and started learning about the Holocaust in detail (too damn much detail), I felt at times that if you had the misfortune to comprehend it fully you'd go mad. I no longer think that, but I know that full-blown eyes-forward exposure to that ghastly mass of truth can unhinge you for a while. So I know where Monekety is right now; I still have moments in which I re-experience the horror.

There's more: I've known WW2-generation Germans and their grown children, and even some of the children needed forgiveness for the approval of the Third Reich that they freely, even insolently, expressed -- well, forgiveness or a couple of three-round bursts; I don't generally bother to argue with fascists.

But: Just a few years back, right here on JREF, I asked a young German fellow in his early 20's what he personally thought of the Nazis. I was apprehensive about asking; cf. what I said above about Nazis' children.

He gave me a good, earthy, expressive German answer: "They puked in the face of our history."
 
Monketey Ghost said:
It's amazing to me, at least, that the world suffered so much and yet not so long afterwards, Germany is reunited and the same anti Semitic feelings are rising.
Click to expand...

Lukraak_Sisser said:
As for WW2, Germans learn in highschool that in their (great)greatparents time a truly horrible regime appeared that used populism and simplistic phrases to usher in one of the worst times in human history. And they learn that while it's not their fault, it WAS wrong.
I consider this a vast step up from the Japanese, who seem for the most part to consider themselves victims.
Click to expand...

Having visited Germany a few times now, and talking to Germans, I find that the average German is much more horrified by the Nazis than anyone in the U.S. They are aware of their past and have always accepted responsibility for it. There are anti-Semites, to be sure - on the same scale that there are anti-Semites in the U.S.. This probably puts Germany well at the low end of the spectrum, as most other places I have visited are much more openly suspicious of Jewish people and accepting of crazy Elders of Zion type conspiracy nonsense. What little anti-antisemitism Germany still has is (mostly) concentrated in the former East Germany, and has less political influence even than the openly antisemitic people in the U.S., who can at least influence the wacko-conspiracy theory set, which does have a good bit of political influence in the US (sadly).

Germany accepted its loss of territory after the war. East Germany accepted the loss, West Germany provisionally accepted it but did not ratify it, due to the lack of democracy in East Germany meaning that the East German people were unable to express their opinions in the matter, even if their government did show its position. As soon as Germany reunified, they accepted the loss of territory, unconditionally.

Germany was hit with reparations. They paid them. They lost industrial copyright and patent protection for a period of time, as far as I know they never tried to seek compensation for the use of German designs after the war.

As others have stated, German kids learn about the Holocaust, they visit the camps. Here in the US, we still have schools that deny that the secession of the Confederate States of America had anything to do with slavery. We have schools that still teach that the genocide of the American Indians was carried out exclusively by the US government and military, and avoid mentioning the everyday theft, violence and murder of the Indians by the settlers (who are still portrayed as heroes in our culture).

Germany in days of the Nazis was very, very bad. A great many nations have such periods in their history - the Spanish destruction of the meso-American civilizations, the American slavery of black people and genocide of the American Indians, the British role in the Irish Potato famine and development of concentration camps in the Boer war, the Belgian atrocities in the Congo, the French effort to retain control of its post-WWII empire, the Turkish persecution of the Armenians, The Soviet Union's persecution of non-Russians in the USSR and Warsaw Pact, the Chinese treatment of Tibet, South African apartheid, the Japanese atrocities in China and Korea. Most of these examples were on par with the Nazi Holocaust, some were even on a much larger scale.

I could go on, but my point is this: Nations do bad things. Germany was once an outstanding example of that. But compared to other nations, Germany has done much, much more to face its past that the average nation.

To say we should not forgive Germany would be an incomplete sentiment, unless we also choose to not forgive all of the other nations that have done such things - most of which have done much less than Germany to face up to the past.
 
Last edited:
As a Jew, I have no problem with the German people of today.

But there's a greater problem with being angry at Germans. If we think of WWI and II (and the Holocaust) as specifically German failings, we may ignore those same totalitarian behaviors in our own countries. The Holocaust remains horrific today because it teaches us that regular humans carry around the capacity for evil. If Germans were to blame, we could extinguish Germans and solve the problem. If anyone could do the same thing at any time, we must be constantly vigilant in our thoughts and actions.

Or else, how are we better than they were? They blamed all their problems on a small, identifiable, easily murdered group of people. It would be the ultimate irony if we condemned the small, identifiable group identified as Germans.
 
I should say, my revulsion is fresh from seeing the video of the bodies. The hangings of resistance fighters, the gas chambers, the pits filled with executed people, watching lines of people being shot and falling into them, the roundups, even when Germany didn't have the materiel to continue the war, it was a lost cause, and still they rushed to exterminate people.
I suppose I've learned something in this thread I already knew- forgiveness must happen. There really isn't any other choice.

But damn.
 
Monketey Ghost said:
I should say, my revulsion is fresh from seeing the video of the bodies. The hangings of resistance fighters, the gas chambers, the pits filled with executed people, watching lines of people being shot and falling into them, the roundups, even when Germany didn't have the materiel to continue the war, it was a lost cause, and still they rushed to exterminate people.
I suppose I've learned something in this thread I already knew- forgiveness must happen. There really isn't any other choice.

But damn.
Click to expand...

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.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom