It is interesting to hear a younger persons point of view.  I met many older Germans who were patriotic, not nazi, who fought for their country, not the nazis, and who were still proud to be German.  My landlord in Lampertheim was a prisoner of the Russians for ten years after the war was over.  He didn't like the government or some of the leaders but he fought bravely and honorably for his country.  Erich Jaeger and many like him deserve to be honored.  There are memorials in many towns and villages all over Germany with a depressing number of names listed who fell during both wars.  Not all Germans were Nazi, not all German soldiers committed war crimes.  I am glad to see the kind of joy and pride that the world cup brings to you guys, your history is rich in culture and shouldn't be overshadowed by a small chunk of it.  We all have periods in our histories that we are not so proud of. 

Hmm. That is a very soldierly view, doing your duty to your country.. but what if your country orders you to attack a helpless and unsuspecting neighbour? Germany attacked first to conquer and vanquish land in the east for Hitlers dream of a 1000 year empire. He wanted the land and to kill the people living there or well, turning them into a slave labour force.

I know that not everybody who fought was a Nazi, I had a good friend, Walter, who joined the Wehrmacht voluntarily when he was 18, he wanted to be a medic, and joining voluntarily spared him from being drafted and sent to the russian front; that was like getting a death sentence. He was in Krete and on the balkans and the horrors of what he saw never left him. He'd come to visit every Sunday and showed the pictures he drew - mostly pictures of destroyed cities and skulls and falling bombs - and told of his experiences. I loved that old man, he as unique. He passed away a few years ago.

My hometown has one of those memorials as well, it is a favourite destination for taking walks. The dead there honoured are from WW1+2 and other conflicts. There is a memorial for WW1 victims in Freiburg - but commemorating those who fought and died is never done with pride but rather a feeling of sadness and remorse that they had to die at all, along with the silent vow to try to stop future wars from happening.

This is changing, slowly but surely, as Germany takes on a new role in the world, again sending out soldiers - which is a new experience.

German culture has alot of things to be proud of, and I am very proud of them. But it will stay an ambigous issue for a while. You always have to clarify what exactly you are proud of and what you aren't.. otherwise you run the risk of being misunderstood.

I am perfectly fine with this. Germany should send out soldiers and fight along her allies.

The Nazis' crime was not to fight a war. The crime was to start the war.

 

I was just out walking and pondered this issue some more.. patriotism, what it means to stand absolutely behind your military, and the military doing what the government asks it to do is not worth anything if the cause isn't just. Being a warrior or fulfilling a mission is not an intrinsic value in itself, otherwise the SS deathsquads would have to be honoured in the same fashion.

It is also not possible to seperate an army into individuals. If some US soldiers commited crimes in Iraq or Afghanistan or elsewhere, the Us military is POed about it not only because of the crimes but because it also reflects badly on every soldier and the whole of the US military. But the same principle works also in the other direction. If the whole war would be unjust, it would reflect on every single individual soldier in it as well in a negative way.

Germany is in the unfortunate position that we caused WW2 and had to take the sole blame for WW1, and we did not fight to defend ourselves but attacked and started the war in the first place. There simply is no honour at all to be found in doing your duty in an attackwar to conquer and dominate new territory, unless you are an imperialist. Even if a lot of soldiers in the Wehrmacht did not kill innocents or rape and pillage civilians, they still didn't fight in a just war because their orders were never just. How can you honour men that followed unjust orders from a fascist regime that preached white supremacist ideology? That is the dilemma in Germany.

 

Yes, another issue that comes up every February in Germany, because of the allied bombing raid on Dresden on February 9th, 1945. The casualty estimates vary from 30 000 to 100 000 to 200 000, the city was full of refugees and nobody really knows for sure how many died. The war was already lost so there wasn't really any military need to destroy the city but Dresden was a transportation hub.. the airwar was waged to crush the civilian spirit. I doubt that similar circumstances will occur again, or I sincerely hope they don't. They still find unexploded ordenance from WW2 on a regular basis in Germany, 500 to 1000 pound bombs. Sometimes I think it would be poetic justice if one was found on a US base in Germany .. but im a humanitarian and don't really want anybody to get hurt.

It is nearly impossible to fight a war against a regime but not against a people, and it is admirable that the US takes so much care in trying. Civilian casualties occur despite all efforts though.

Yeah. Good advice I am all for letting the past not influence the present or future, but sometimes if the events in question are important enough they just do, wether you like it or not. I enjoy every day, I live in a way cooler country than the USA lol (sorry folks, I know it's the 4th of July and all but still) and we are a great nation. Just saying what I just said is already enough for some to point fingers though. As long as that doesn't change, it is prudent to be careful of what you say just to not be misunderstood.

And then there is the case of turning the whole thing against certain political parties when certain laws are debated because Germany will bend over backwards to avoid looking anything remotely neonazistic or apologetic. Making laws against illegal imigration e.g. will be interpreted as being racist etc. - but that is a whole set of other problems.

You're right. It is a a weapon of convenience, I didn't want to imply otherwise. It is used in domestic policy making. If a politician so much as appears to be apologetic or overly nationalistic and antisemitic in a domestic debate his career is over. Take the example of Jürgen Möllemann

By February 1945 there wasn't a huge loyal fanatic nazi majority in the population anymore. The war was all but won by the allies. Most  wanted the war and the airraids to stop, the Russians were advancing steadily from the east and the  westfront was crumbling, cities surrendering everywhere. I am not really in a good position to call bombing Dresden a warcrime.. puh, but it was certainly not a waressential tactical necessity.

It is probably difficult to really condemn the airwar over Germany because hey, the nazis started it and bombed Coventry and London - it was eye for an eye.

Juergen Moellemann was an anti-Semite and a tax evader. When he started with his anti-Jewish pamphlets his career really took off.

It was over when it was discovered that he financed his anti-Semitic advertisements with illegal monies and when he went a bit too far with the anti-Israel angle where he finally annoyed even the Green party who are usually fine with "legitimate criticism" of Israel.

 

Yes there was enough to keep the death camps going.

Thanks to every single soldier who followed orders and was "not a Nazi", the Nazis had the power to transform Europe into hell for six years.

"He didn't like the government or some of the leaders but he fought bravely and honorably for his country.  Erich Jaeger and many like him deserve to be honored."

That's the point. They don't.

There is no honour in serving evil.

 

It's easy to say that now. In 1945 the allies didn't know how soon the war would be over or how long German terrorists would continue to murder people in Europe.

 

That's true. And the people of Dresden had a choice. The people of London did not.

 

The bombing continued until the war was over because the war wasn't over!  The Germans were very clever in moving their factories out of the industrial areas and into residentual areas and smaller villages.  The FW 190 production numbers actually increased in 44 and 45 in spite of continued attacks on what the allies thought were the production centers.  Not a justification, just a fact. 

We had a big trial in the US in the 60s to determine if a soldier had a right to disobey an unlawful order.  Until that case was settled, it was a point of LAW in the UCMJ that a soldier followed orders without question.  That in spite of the Nuremberg trials and all that "Following orders" defense.  The court held that soldiers are not required to follow illegal orders, but how many privates or PFCs can figure that out?  Corporal Jaeger did not have the smarts or the power to determine if what he was ordered to do was moral or immoral.  Morality in combat is usually determined by the winners after the fact.  Holding individual soldiers responsible for the evil intent of their leaders just doesn't pass the common sense test.  Individual soldiers who take it upon themselves to commit crimes are criminals.  They should and ususally are dealt with (speaking for USA ONLY here, folks).  There is a huge difference between the SS gefreiter who throws a Russian baby in the air and catches it on his bayonet and a bombadier in the nose of a B-17 placing his load on the designated target.  One only kills one, the other kills hundreds, maybe thousands.  Which is moral?  In a war of conquest, like WWII, the leaders of the agressor nations are the one responsible, the soldiers don't usually have the luxury of picking and choosing which battles they will participate in.  Most of the time they don't even know any more about the battle than what is in front of them.  Hitler staged an attack to look like Poland was attacking Germany, then went in and cleaned house.  The soldiers thought they were protecting the Fatherland.  Prior to that, they had been in Austria and the Sudetenland and annexed other "Germanic" areas of their neighbors'. 

I'll tell you how well informed the average German soldier was, I got in an argument with Herr Jaeger one evening because I mentioned that Rommel had committed suicide.  Erich was furious because he still believed the party line that Rommel had been killed in an air attack.  He wanted to beat on me for besmirching the good name of their hero.  This was twenty two years after the war was over!

Leauki appointed himself expert and conscience of JU on all things pertaining to war and military.  Unfortunately he has also come to believe that he is always right.  He's not.

Oh? What choice did and do all the elederly, woman and children have that die in all wars? Refugees, that fled from the russian advance? And I think Stalin preferred uneducated peasants as Stormtroopers that would be cruel and rape and pillage (maybe I can understand their rage and thirst for revenge, but it doesn't justify what they did either). It wasn't really up to those to stop the war, anyone who even hinted at that was shot without a trial for Vaterlandsverrat. And Hitler would rather see everything destroyed and burned to the ground than give up.. if germany couldn't win the war then his people didn't deserve to survive and should be destroyed was hit motto. Have you seen the movie "Der Untergang"? It is soo spooky and terrifying and baffling to watch

I don't really disagree with you, BFD. But whose fault is it in the end? Hitlers alone? Or the upper echelons of the Wehrmacht who planned the attack on Russia, Poland, helped plan the HOlocaust and murder of the civilian population? I think the plan of the Wehrmacht was to starve the people of Whiterussia, 25 million or so, but that wasn't really doable because people were creative in organizing food. Are those soldiers who knew what they were doing was wrong on some level but did as ordered anyway guilty? Does naivite work as an exculpative argument? Navigating all those arguments without appearing like you are defending Nazicriminals is what makes it difficult and ambiguous. If you are public figure you'd better be advised not to touch that issue with a flagpole because the media will twist everything you say to appear like you are excusing and defending soldiers who did that with their bayonet to the baby.

Möllemann was not an antisemit. All he said was "Ich fürchte, dass kaum jemand den Antisemiten, die es in Deutschland leider gibt und die wir bekämpfen müssen, mehr Zulauf verschafft hat als Herr Scharon und in Deutschland ein Herr Friedman mit seiner intoleranten und gehässigen Art, überheblich. Das geht so nicht, man muss in Deutschland Kritik an der Politik Scharons üben dürfen, ohne in diese Ecke geschoben zu werden" The media twisted it around to make it look like Möllemann accused the Jews for it being their own fault that  antisemitsm existed and started a campaign against Möllemann that drove him into suicide. And Michel Friedmann was an arrogant jewish bastard  that loved to riddicule others but whom noone could critize without being called an antisemit. That is also Germany.

The holocaust became constitutive of a new geopolitical global order, WW2 determined who would be in the permanent security council of the UN for example, and the cold war did the rest. It has become a mantra of western democratic nations to condemn the holocaust, and those who don't toe that line are not invited in or cast out. That is why it won't be forgotten and moved on beyond it. The other massmurders did not have the same consequence for global politics and that is why they are not treated the same way. Plus, a strong Germany is still seen as a threat by some, so it is also a easy tool to remind Germans of their place by bringing it up.

Don't be so selfrighteous. It is really easy to say "they should have done something and because they didn't they deserve everything they got". My dad was born in 1940, did he deserve to be killed while being on the run from the Russians because he didn't stop Hitler?

And why can't I call Friedmann a jewish bastard? He IS! oh because I am german and therefore it makes me an antisemit, I have to say that he is a bastard who happens to be jewish by chance. I am so happy the world was able to just what sort of person he was when the whole thing with the call girls and cocaine came out.

I really really don't like Michel Friedmann. He used his being jewish as a shield and/or free pass to attack others because nobody could say anything without being called a Nazi.

And incidentally, I personally know a few jews who happen to be really arrogant lol, friends of my brother, they're all russian musicians from St. Petersburg. I really don't have anything against other cultures or ethnicities, Iam not 100% german myself.

Möllemann was just an example to show the inner workings of german media and policy making. I disagree with you, I think he was made into something worse in public perception than he actually was.

I have yet to meet anyone who thinks like that, and all those who were old enough to have made a choice are dying of old age or are already dead.  The young generation today has a dangerous tendency to pretend like they have no repsonsibilty to the past because they weren't alive back then. That is something that has to be fought and the naziregime and ww2 are on the school curriculum almost every other year all through school.

It was Friedmann himself who made being jewish an issue, otherwise I wouldn't care at all. But he did and used it like a weapon and THAT is what I criticized. If one said something critical about him he would act like him being jewish was the reason for the criticism and called you a antisemite. It is almost like being jewish in Germany makes you untouchable to criticism because everything you say can be interpreted as being antisemitic. That is what being jewish has to do with it in that context. 

It doesn't, sorry.

 

Der Untergang - Downfall trailer - It is really worth watching.