Were you ever stationed in FRG? You are wrong about Germans coming to understand their War Crimes. You are absolutely wrong. You, could not be more wrong, ever.
“We did not know about the camps”..... oh, yeah? A map of the camps would put the lie to that, that and the smell that had to be known for it’s source.
It was culture wide— the easy acceptance of “sub-human” status of Gypsies, Poles, Hungarians, Russians, and Jews of any country of origin, and the justification for “removal”.
“Were you ever stationed in FRG? You are wrong about Germans coming to understand their War Crimes. You are absolutely wrong. You, could not be more wrong, ever.”
I served in the GDR and I believe that some Germans of the war generation did not understand, but they accepted. Younger generations have fully embraced their history.
Not all Germans of the war generation approved, but were unable to resist. Don’t overlook Claus von Stauffenberg, for example.
The US has not decisively won a major war since WWI, because we have sought to avoid the killing necessary to do so. Bombing civilians in Hamburg, Dresden, Berlin and other major German cities, helped us win.
Likewise bombing Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki helped win as well.
My father was a young Marine, who enlisted at age 17, and after 45 days on Okinawa, was seriously injured, evacuated to Honolulu, recovered and was ready for full duty when the two bombs ended the war.
Was plans and casualty estimates for invasion of the Japanese mainland predicted far more casualties, than the two bombs.
Hence Pres. Truman was a great humanitarian, and wartime leader.