Hitler and Germans the laughing stock of History

 

If you blame ONLY Germans of what happened in WW II you are excusing Europeans in general for theirs common guilt.

 

WW II and the Holocaust where the consecuencies of one thousand years of bigotry in Europe. Don't put all the guilt on Germans, please. All Europeans have a good share on those tragical events.

 

That's my oppinion, anyways.

 

 

 

 

 

First, I explain you already the ideas that lead to WW II and the massive crimes commited in there were in place in Europe for a long time. Killings of Jewish populations, or pogroms, were esporadical but always present in the history of Europe. The example was in place.

 

The use of slave labour was also an example of the colonial powers these times, who exploited to dead millions of Africans in the Caribbean. Ask nations like Dutchland, France, Britain, Portugal and Spain about its history in slavery, and you will find the model followed by the Nazis.

 

For Genocide, the extermination of Native Americans, Tasmanians and many other peoples by European settlers in new lands was the perfect example of how to get rid of the people a nation considered undesirable.

Even Napoleon was planning to commit a genocide in Haiti! That mentality existed in Europe long time before WW II, and survived even after that tragic war. Just remember the war of Yugoslavia.

 

Even the model of the dictator was already in place with figures like Mussolini and Stalin in power before Hitler even appeared on scene.

 

Yes, many Europeans pretend to be innocent of what happened in WW II and want to put everything in the shoulders of Germans.

 

Just realize most common Germans were also the victims of a dictatorship that destroyed Europe.

 

And of course, many Europeans worked for the good, like the Dutchland people that hide Jews in theirs houses, for instace. Spain opened its frontiers to the Jews declaring all of them were "Sephardites" and had Spanish nationality. The Catholic church and even the fascist regime in Italy helped many Jews to be smuggled out of Europe and into the Americas. But didn't you know that even Germans helped? Remember Schidler? Didn't you know that some German diplomats helped as well?

 

I am not saying European are bigots. Most are not. But the tragic history of Europe of recent times was a consecuence of the attitudes of past centuries.

 

 

Just explain me please how e.g. Polish can be blamed for WWII and war atrocities?? If we talk about WWII Germans are responsable for this. You are right that Europe has long history of Jews killing, dictatorship etcbut we don't normally blame Chinese for japanese crimes only because they are Asians.

 

Of course almost every country comitted crimes in the past. Poland as well wasn't that innocent as You think. 

What You've mentioned with a bit of irony were problems of those countries. Nazism was German problem and I wouldn't blame others for that. Nevertheless I think people in Europe should stop blaming each other for the past. I see more interesting things to do. I think Europe is doing quite well right now.

 

Making sweeping generalizations never accomplishes anything, (not to say I don't do it, difficult habit to break) the heart of nazism and the holocaust was germany.  No one is likely to dispute this.  However that does not mean it was uniquely german.  Just look at the SS, or more specifically the Waffen SS.  You will notice many non germans fighting for the nazis.  Now looking again at germany one will (I certainly hope) see that not all germans were nazis.  Did the germans "drop the ball" and allow nazism to take over.  I think for the most part yes, though it is a large grey area.  Nazism and hitler didn't just appear in 1933 out of thin air, anti-semitism had been a part of europe for arguably over a thousand years.  Obviously the nazi's took it way further, but never the less, anti-semitism was not uniquely nazi or german.  Also, I think most will agree that when people face very difficult and miserable situations the tendency of less pleasant thoughts in all people are more likely to come to the surface.  The chances of extreme groups gaining popularity also increases.  Germany went from bad to worse from ~1916 on through the 20's.  As the nazi's got more support things got better.  Beorna's (hope I spelled that right) post does a good job of explaining why.  Now as time progresses the nazi's slowly gain more power, and unsuprisingly there attitudes become more vocal about jews/war etc.  One thing I always like to do is compare nazi germany in 1933 and 45.  One can see how the state was not totalitarian in 33 but was very much in that arena in 45.  Look at the soviet union for comparison, if nazi germany had survived for another ten years it would be right on par with the soviet union in regards to indoctrination in all levels of society, brutality towards own people, control of freedom in military etc.

 

I'm just rambling on here, but I hope my point is clear enough to see.  The period 1933-1945 is one of complexity, just like the nazi government.  One can't simply make sweeping generalizations and possibly come anywhere near accuracy.

You can't downplay the efficience of bullets and torture to break the will of people.

 

It is very nice to argue about principles like freedom, democracy and justice in countries that have healthy democratic regimens. But when the countries are controlled by criminals, and the secret police can pick you at night at torture and humilliate you to the point of losing your identity, matters are quite different.

 

What was seeing during the Nazi regime, and small scale in all the fascist, communist and totalitarian regimes of the twentieth century, it was the demostration of how modern technology plus brutality served to control large countries with a small band of criminals.

 

The only way to escape those kind of regimes is democracy.

 

In that sense, and only in that sense, the German people was a victim more of the cathastrophe that was WW II for all Europeans.

 

 

 

I repeat it, I don't want to excuse Germans for the things they did. It was not an apology I made. There were about 100.000 people who were imprisoned after the war because they commited crimes and if you ask me, there were enough people who had not to take consequences for their crimes but should to. If you blame Germany for it's history I can agree with it. But to blame all Germans just because they are Germans is wrong, especially if those weren't born at those days. What I tried to do was to bring the normal lifes of Germans close to you. Why did they vote for the NSDAP allthough they voted for democratic parties before. Why did they look away if people were imprisoned, why did people who didn't vote for the NSDAP became later supporters of them and so on. You say it is cowardice that the people in Nazi Germany showed. Well, sure it is often cowardice. There were some German wifes who made a big trouble because their jewish husbands were imprisoned. They succeded an their husbands were rescued. But there were others who were killed just because they made a joke. If you would have been in their situation what would you have done? Would you be the one who succeeded or the one who was going to be executed? Cowardice? Yes it was cowardice. Every dictatorship starts with cowardice, too. You are from the United States. Is this correct? Well, we the Western World have the human rights. They are the base of our culture, am I right? Your country is not very loved in the moment all over the world. One cause for it is Guantanamo. Your country kidnapped all over the world people whether they were guilty or innocent, just because some of you thought they were guilty. Your government led those people be imprisoned like cattle, they tortured them and I don' t know what else. Some of your soldiers commited war crimes in Iraq and in Afghanistan. I don't want to discuss here whether these wars are wrong or right. All I want to ask you is where the outcry of the U.S. society is? Oh, there are some, but the most of you are silent. What are the reasons of it? If it is so difficult to stand up against what is going wrong in an democrcy, how can you think it is so easy under an dictator.

 

Which puppet regime was supported by Poles? Don't talk nonsense. There was no puppet regime in Poland during WWII. You better blame americans who sold Eastern Europe to Russia and did nothing to help Jews.

Every country in the world is responsable for some horrendous crime in his History...

If someone try to evaluate in some type of scale the crimes, would be certainly unfair, because the real evaluation isnt the quantity of crimes (altough very important...) is the type of crime...

You cant put in the same grade the cruelty some rituals of the Spartans with the children, women and men killed at the millions in the nazi gas chambers, or the impaling of thousands by Vlad Dracul, with the confinement of Boers in concentration camps by the British...

This kind of thread is only good to suport nacionalism and xenophobia!

In my opinion should be closed.