-
Hey Guest. Check out your NeoGAF Wrapped 2025 results here!
Will Germany ever live down Hitler?
- Thread starter Jack Scofield
- Start date
- Status
As already pointed out, you'd be quite the hypocrite if you buy a PS4 then.
You'll have a hard time finding a nation that didn't commit some horrible crimes in the past
dapperbandit
Banned
Was reading an article today since apparently it's the 75th anniversary of kristallnacht.
Apparently anti-semitism is slowly increasing according to polls and crime statistics.
Kristallnacht and the subsequent exterminations are just one of the more recent and glaring example of attacks on jews.
Take a look at the timeline on this page
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/HistoryJewishPersecution/
What is it about Jews that inspires so much hostility? That's almost two thousand years of hatred there.
Apparently anti-semitism is slowly increasing according to polls and crime statistics.
Kristallnacht and the subsequent exterminations are just one of the more recent and glaring example of attacks on jews.
Take a look at the timeline on this page
http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/HistoryJewishPersecution/
What is it about Jews that inspires so much hostility? That's almost two thousand years of hatred there.
If you go around proclaiming you're the chosen people (and thus implying everyone else is inferior), you aren't going to make many friends.
dapperbandit
Banned
I think that's definitely part of the issue and is a big factor in a lot of the early to early modern violence. But there's more to it than that. The reaction the Protocls of the Elders of Zion for example. People wouldn't have fallen for that hook, line and sinker if the Jews didn't have a long stnading reputation for deceipt, manipulation and sabotage: but where did that come from? Is it just one of those chicken and the egg things, wherever the jews went they were blamed for calamities.
SniperHunter
Banned
I've never understood hatred of the Jewish people, I've always just put it down to the fact bigots will be bigots. If all of humanity was completely homogenous they would still find something to discriminate against
I don't have anything against the Germans. The nation will probably never completely lose its association with Hitler, but in my experience they are a friendly bunch and the country is awesome. I don't judge Americans on what their Ancestors did the the Native Americans, or blame the Italians for the Roman Invasion of Britain, just as I would hope the rest of the world wouldn't hold me personally responsible for the many atrocities of the British Empire.
I don't have anything against the Germans. The nation will probably never completely lose its association with Hitler, but in my experience they are a friendly bunch and the country is awesome. I don't judge Americans on what their Ancestors did the the Native Americans, or blame the Italians for the Roman Invasion of Britain, just as I would hope the rest of the world wouldn't hold me personally responsible for the many atrocities of the British Empire.
Wiktor
Member
Allies thought germans could be just appeased. Even after Germany invaded Poland allies just forgot their treaties with Poland and again did nothing.
Except declare war.
Wiktor
Member
On paper. They declared war and then did absolutely nothing. Hence the name Phoney War.
DonasaurusRex
Online Ho Champ
perhaps the biggest just because everyone is doing it , doesnt make it right example in modern times. We are inclined to let majority and might justify our views because the truth is hard man... I think Germany is so much more than WWII and Hitler but its going to be infamous ...for generations.
Chuckie
Member
You're thinking about Czechoslovakia probably.
edit:
Maybe not
Adam Blade
WWKC
Excuse me?
Are you saying that the atomic bombs killed millions?
Citation please.
Sorry, but this is a load of shit.
There should have been a bit more widespread accountability in WWI, as there were atrocities on both sides but there it’s a bit stupid to believe that the people who created the treaty could have known what would have happened two decades later. Measured historical analysis of the German economy at this time clearly shows that the Germans could have kept up with the reparations payments but you have to take into account the Weimar Republic disastrously mismanaging the Mark (the German currency at the time) as well as the great depression occurring in this period as well. At worst you have the nations who drawn up the Treaty of Versailles accidentally creating the environment that led to Germany being unable to pay reparations. You should also note that Germany didn't even pay their reparations most of the time, calling the bluff of war weary countries such as Britain or France after the damage done in WW1.
The treaty wasn't even that bad sure it was the worst thing imaginable for contemporary Germans, but WWI ended before it got to Germany. Germany wasn't ever invaded unlike France and Belgium thus leaving it's industry and economy intact in addition Germany didn't have the crushing external debt that Britain had post WWI. Yeah, the Germans lost some territories that it usually occupied but the Russian empire and Austria-Hungary empires had crumbled during the war and had been divided into a number of smaller states, all which could be politically and economically dominated by Germany post WWI.
The German military was limited, but they quickly found some ways around this (building tank factories in Soviet Russia, for example), and they had a large reparations burden imposed on them. However, these reparations in the end did not amount to very much, because the British had a vested interest in keeping reparations low (a better German economy meant a better British economy), and the hyperinflation in Wiemar Germany meant that the actual amount paid by the Germans was revised downward several times. The Germans lost 10% of land in the Versailles treaty and they gained 40% of Russia's population in the German imposed treaty of Brest Litovsk.
The whole notion that the Allies being the whole reason for Hitler's rise of power is ludicrous.
One of the main reasons Hitler is so reviled is that his crimes were so well documented. If it weren't for those images of the Allies liberating death camps with piles of corpses and walking skeletons everywhere I doubt he'd be any more hated than Wilhelm II. Without the Holocaust, he'd probably be remembered as a sort of second Napoleon who tried to save Europe from the godless Bolshiveks.
dapperbandit
Banned
have you heard of the Dreyfus Affair? Basically in the 1890s a French soldier was accused of espionage by passing intelligence to the Germans. There was no conclusive proof he did it but he was found guilty because jews are supposedly notorious traitors. A few years later, after he'd been sent to some island in the Pacific, it was discovered that someone else had done it. He was retrialled and even with the evidence in hand that he hadn't done it, a big chunk of French society wanted him punished essentially for being a jew.
Something of this magnitude that divides scoiety doesn't just happen because jews happened to be a minority group. The distrust and hatred of jews goes way beyond normal xenophobia.
Wiktor
Member
Not just any minority. Extremely successful minority. Big difference. They were usually the wealthiest group around. So whenever lean times came people just looked at them and blamed their sheming on country's economical problems, since jews were smart enough to avoid losing money even then.
Well, it affected millions. Dropping two nukes is a biiiig deal. Either way, my point still stands. Every country has blood on their hands, not just germany.
Cow Mengde
Banned
Look at Japan. They were with Germany in WW2 but no one talks about the atrocities they've committed. Ironically, most people will remember the atomic bomb being dropped on them.
The hatred for jews is one of the most "easy to understand" type of hate, I think:
- Different race? Check
- Different religion? Check
- Different language and cultural background? Check
And most importantly:
Different economic status as in, superior to the one of the societes where they live in? Check
The only thing left for them would be to have a third Jewish-exclusive gender and then they would be the perfect "all you can hate" package for bigots world wide.
The race thing has always been a bit weird to me. I mean, they look like white people (at least those living in Europe). Multiple times in history were Jews forced to wear certain signs or clothing to identify themselves as Jews because otherwise people couldn't even tell them apart.
Their neighbors talk about it all the time and Japan's refusal to own up to their atrocities, unlike Germany, is why tension between Korea and China remains so high.
I was kidding. It was a stupid comment.
I like everyone
Can't shake my head hard enough at the people who took your post seriously and went out of their way to rant at it, makes me wonder how hard it must be for them out there in the wild with those broken sarcasm detectors.
Cow Mengde
Banned
I know, but the rest of the world don't care. I think in the same way, most Jewish people will never forget what Hitler did.
The irony is that Germany is probably one of the strictest countries in the world when it comes to nationalist movements. Germans don't want to be associated with what happened 70 years ago, and to be honest, I feel like they have more than paid for something that, arguably, the majority of their ancestors could do absolutely nothing against. It is true that the FRG came to be again relatively soon after the fall of national socialism, but the German nation was effectively destroyed in spirit for almost 50 years after the war, and the economic consequences of that divide can still be felt today.
In the larger scheme of things, it seems to me that, although the movement that was led by Hitler was essential in causing WW2 and the holocaust, it is utterly naive to believe that it was the only factor playing into the rise of fascism and the start of the war. In a way, the poor handling of the end of WW1 by the allied nations basically set up Europe for another war in the near future. Extremist views normally don't come to fruition unless something is horribly wrong with the structure of a nation's economy or political identity.
Today, even though nationalist movemnts still exist in Germany, they do so in a very limited fashion, and are heavily frowned upon to the point of most major political parties trying to declare them unconstitutional. At the same time, hateful organisations of various political backgrounds can operate freely in many other nations under the pretense of freedom of speech and expression.
It is thus all the more saddening to see people who probably don't understand what really happened back then to pass judgement on people who have as little to do with it as them, if not less. But still, it will be decades before this war becomes what it should be - a part of history. Part of me wonders whether the reason it remains so fresh in our minds is the fact that none of us have lived to see a major war on our own ground (for surely then that would be all we could talk about, and whoever was our enemy would be the new evil). I hope it never has to come to that, and that all of us will eventually learn to forgive and forget, or perhaps more fittingly, leave the past in the past.
In the larger scheme of things, it seems to me that, although the movement that was led by Hitler was essential in causing WW2 and the holocaust, it is utterly naive to believe that it was the only factor playing into the rise of fascism and the start of the war. In a way, the poor handling of the end of WW1 by the allied nations basically set up Europe for another war in the near future. Extremist views normally don't come to fruition unless something is horribly wrong with the structure of a nation's economy or political identity.
Today, even though nationalist movemnts still exist in Germany, they do so in a very limited fashion, and are heavily frowned upon to the point of most major political parties trying to declare them unconstitutional. At the same time, hateful organisations of various political backgrounds can operate freely in many other nations under the pretense of freedom of speech and expression.
It is thus all the more saddening to see people who probably don't understand what really happened back then to pass judgement on people who have as little to do with it as them, if not less. But still, it will be decades before this war becomes what it should be - a part of history. Part of me wonders whether the reason it remains so fresh in our minds is the fact that none of us have lived to see a major war on our own ground (for surely then that would be all we could talk about, and whoever was our enemy would be the new evil). I hope it never has to come to that, and that all of us will eventually learn to forgive and forget, or perhaps more fittingly, leave the past in the past.
I've stood in the gas chamber at Dachau. It's as unpleasant as you would imagine. However, and this illustrates the point I want to make further on, there is nothing to suggest that this particular gas chamber was ever used. There is plenty of evidence that people were murdered in other ways at Dachau, but not through the use of the gas chamber. Certainly, the guides at Dachau emphasised that point.
Historians see concentration camps and death camps as two separate entities. Concentration camps were set up in 1933 to hold communists, political opponents etc - Dachau being the first, as you say - however it was not until (at some point during) 1941 that Himmler and Hitler made the decision to murder Jews on a mass scale. The Einsatzgruppen's attempts at mass killing were seen as inefficient and the decision became a plan at the Wannsee Conference in 1942 - the quantum leap to industrialised, systematic, murder became reality as death camps were erected and became operational.
That is to say - Dachau and Aushwitz for example, are seen as two different types of camps.
There are many excellent books on this topic - for something historically solid but entirely readable - Peter Longerich's The Unwritten Order is very good.
Its sometimes very hard to understand sarcasm when you dont see the person sitting next to you.
Romars202129
Member
Man I hope this is trolling.
Real answer, is even though their religion spread like wildfire among white people, it came with this sinking interpretation that the jewish people murdered Jesus. That's it.
You'd think Italians would have been blamed, cause Romans, but since the Romans spread christianity, they controlled the message to an extent.
To the original topic; In a sense, they already have. Anyone still holding Hitler against the Germans, seriously, is a dumbass.
In terms of associationg though... probably never. Hitler is a name on par with Jesus, Lincoln, Genghis Khan in terms of name recognition. He's the most famous person the small country will ever produce. Germany will never lose that association.
Romars202129
Member
That's mostly because of american guilt over nagasaki and hiroshima.... which was really fucking awful on our part...
Civilian targets.
Romars202129
Member
Pizza was invented in America. By italian americans, but in America. lol, sorry for the triple post,and the off topic bs.
"Most arrogant"
I'm still wondering why Italy holds Spain in such high regard so as to (incorrectly) vote it as the least arrogant.
The_Hitcher89
Member
I think the UK at least spent that time in the interim ramping up munitions and equipment manafacturing, enlistment, military training, resource management, self-preservation plans, chain of command-smoothing, and research.
I assume the same was true of the others with treaties with Poland, and those with no official allegiance to them as Nazi Germany made the definite step from 'slightly imposing political party who can be ignored for now' to 'Empire-building threat to the entirety of Europe.'
In the end, that period was vital for the UK to have a chance in the war I think. I believe its also when Churchill was drafted into a position of genuine influence in the military, which in turn allowed him to throw his hat into the ring for the PM position when Chamberlain resigned.
(That could all be wrong, I'm no history buff, but it sounds about right to me)
Boom Boom Pow
Banned
i'm gonna go ahead and say 95% of jews in the world are not like this
95% of nazi germans were pretty normal people.
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
There were no major actions in France, although there was some fighting in Norway too. There was no way to actually ship soldiers to the Poles because they would have had to go through the Baltic all the way to Danzig to actually drop soldiers off, even assuming they had been 100% prepared to launch an amphibious attack the instant war was declared. An offensive against the Germans in the west would not have prevented the fall of Poland. People make historical arguments to the effect that the Sigfried line could have been penetrated in a couple of weeks, but there were no preparations made for such an offensive and one does not improvise the movement of millions. Certainly the allied armies were not prepared, doctrinally speaking, to carry out the kind of rapid offensives that the Germans were in the east, at least not in 1939.
With all that said, on the seas they were not so inactive. The blockade began almost straight away and numerous clashes at sea occurred during the period.
D
Deleted member 98878
Unconfirmed Member
Do Americans seriously think they invented fucking everything?
Even battlefield 4.
Frankenstein
Banned
Don´t know but it would be blatantly wrong because Germans invented everything.
Frankenstein
Banned
Whiskey and Dynamite are not everything.
Everything important.
The French army did take some limited action across the border soon after the invasion of Poland, but it was half-hearted at best and withdrew after advancing 20 miles into Germany.
As an actual italian, I always get so pissed off when I read this shit.
Seriously, why are there so many americans who think this?
Pizza as we know it was invented in Naples back in 1889 by Raffaele Esposito, these are the facts, stop trying to change history because ''AMERICA FUCK YEAH''.
- Status