[Sherman Logan]

the collective memory of Germans as perpetrators started to become weaker, a collective memory in which Germans are victims starts to become stronger.” The Allied bombings of German cities became the focal point of this sense of victimhood. The aerial bombardment was graphically recounted by historian Jörg Friedrich in his 2002 book Der Brand – The Fire – in which he argued that civilian deaths were not collateral damage but the object of the exercise. The memory of Dresden, devastated by a firestorm, is honoured by neo-Nazis in deliberate counterpoint to the memory of Auschwitz.

False dichotomy. As if victims cannot also be perpetrators and perpetrators can't also be victims.

In actual fact, most humans are both in their lives, sinned against and sinners.

The notion that they can't be both is part of the idiotic glorification of victimhood. Victims having replaced heroes in our collective mythology. As if victim is not a role we all play to varying degrees, but a designation for specific people, or more accurately certain groups of people. Same being true for perpetrators/oppressors.

BTW, recent research indicates the actual death tolls at both Auschwitz and Dresden were significantly lower than the conventional wisdom.

[count-your-change]

So is murdering a thousand people less murder than two thousand? Or ten thousand murdered less murder than twenty thousand?