Survey: Germans say fed up about Holocaust guilt [25% -Muslims should not be allowed into Germany]

Haaretz ^ | 12/11/2003 | Reuters

[dougherty]

Modern-day Germans should not feel guilty about the Holocaust. No more than modern-day Americans should feel guilty about slavery. Yes, I do think people sometimes use the Holocaust for their own agenda just as Jesse Jackson use slavery for their own agenda.

[weegee]

The Bolsheviks and Stalinists killed far more people that the Nazis did. There's no museum in the United States to commemorate those slaughters and no movement still trying to get reparations for it.

You should take that cause up with Hollywood and history professors. They still make excuses for the Stalinists in America who were "hounded" by Washington (this is now painted with the blanket term of McCarthyism but it was not the cause of one man).

[weegee]

There are no living slaves from America's past nor are there any slave owners.

There are still SS guards, death camp guards, Hitler youth, and tattooed prisoners (now free) walking the Earth.

[xzins]

If we could settle on Chryslers and Beemers, then we'd be closer to a deal.

[WackyKat]

Germans who did perpetrate these crimes and surviving victims both are still alive

Fine, then the perps should have to pay, criminally and monetarily, and many of them already have, and many of them are very old.

You know very well this discussion is about why most Germans, who were not alive during WW2 should should be the target of continued accusations and reparations claims based on acts in which they had no involvment whatever.

I don't blame them for resenting it

[LibWhacker]

And yet today's "blame free" German youth are as xenophobic and anti-Semitic as their grandparents ever were. I like what Ralph Peters said about it in Canned Kraut:

And now we hear that it's high time for an end to German guilt, that the present generation had nothing to do with the Holocaust, that Germany paid its dues for its misdeed and, anyway, it was all a long time ago.

Sorry, Fritz. It wasn't long ago. Holocaust survivors just had a reunion in Washington, D.C. When the wind's just right, we can still smell the smoke of the ovens.

And let's not forget that the Third Reich was supposed to last a thousand years. There's no reason why German guilt shouldn't last 500. That's a 50 percent discount.

Oh, sure, making anti-Semitic remarks is a crime in today's Germany. But anti-Israeli remarks are just fine. You've merely got to choose your words carefully. Don't say the J-word. Talk about "Zionists" instead.

He's not kidding about still being able to smell the smoke of the ovens. The stench at Dachau was apparent decades after the war when I was there and may take centuries to dissipate. Mass graves are like that.

[Concentrate]

This article is twisted. So Germans should not mind an inundation of Islamic immigrants, who are (also) by and large antisemitic (Judeophobes) and welcome homosexual cuture with open arms because their ancestors murdered millions of native Europeans, including Germans who happened to be Jewish? Weird.

[Concentrate]

I agree, as you say, today's Americans are innocent of criminal slavery. Those criminals are all dead.

The effects of slavery are decidedly not dead, however. But things do seem to be improving, though. Neocon philosophy is a great improvement in this area. No genetic fault is implied, yet Conservative fiscal and moral principles apply.

[superloser]

Those who cling to slavery are, actually, slaves still, but with themselves as their own masters, as strange as it seems.

[Michael81Dus]

Germany - sure, Germany is responsible for the Holocaust. However, the Germans (as a nation) ARE not. The (vast majority of) offenders are dead, and I feel not responsible for something I haven´t done.

[weegee]

There are war criminals in their midst and they have to deal with it.

[weegee]

We might as well not worry about seeing FBI sharpshooters ever brought to justice since Ruby Ridge and Waco were a whole administration (and a decade) ago.

[quadrant]

Dear Madam:

I suggest you rethink your attitude about collective guilt, for it is a monstrous and evil doctrine. Also, I must point out that the idea of collective guilt is contrary to the tenets of Judaism and Christianity.

In fact, the idea of collective guilt was a reason used by the Nazis to justify the persecution of the Jews. Despite all evidence to the contrary, the Nazis proclaimed that the Jews were responsible for the defeat of Germany in WWI.
That 500,000 German Jews served in the Imperial German Army and that many of them were wounded, won medals for heroism, and received battlefield commissions made no difference; nor did the Nazis care that many of the officers in the old Imperial German Navy were Jews; nor did the Nazis care that German Jews were far more German than Jewish.
The Nazis were gripped by a madness - demonic in origin - that required a scapegoat. Individual scapegoats are acceptable when the crime is small, but a large and imaginary crime - like plotting the defeat of a country - requires a group.
Facts do not matter. Reason doesn't matter. Emotion (feeling) is dominant.
The only requirement is that the story seem plausible. To
a nation racked by defeat, dismemberment, reparations, and economic troubles the culpability of the Jews seemed plausible, despite the fact that most Germans must have known the story was a lie.
This is not in any way to excuse the Germans of the Nazi era, nor does it excuse the anti-Semites in Germany today. The Germans of the 1920's, 30's, and 40's are for the most part dead, and their guilt - their individual guilt - died with them, just as the guilt for mistreatment of Allied soldiers on the Bataan Death March or the Bangkok to Rangoon railroad died with the Japanese who perpetrated it.

The great irony is that we consider - and rightly so - the generation that lived through the Depression and WWII as the Greatest Generation. Germans living today cannot look back upon their ancestors of that period with the same reverence.

If wishing will not make guilt go away, neither will wishing make anyone hold onto guilt they do not feel. Guilt is, after all, an emotion felt by individuals. We cannot make another feel guilty any more than we can make them feel love.

For your own peace of mind, I suggest you let go of your ideas. They harm no one but you.

WATCHMAN

[Siamese Princess]

I also think, as a Jew, that the American Jewish community is too dependant on the Holocaust as a source of Jewish identity. Far too much of what parents teach their children about "what it means to be Jewish" revolves around death and destruction and genocide-- rather than Jewish culture, Jewish religion, Jewish history pre-1932 etc. It's quite sad actually.

Fifteen years ago Republican Jews were complaining that for most American Jews, their religion was liberalism and/or Israel. Now it's the holocaust. I think it was Elliott Abrams (whoever wrote Faith or Fear) said, "in the fifties and sixties, we built synagogues. Now we are building holocaust memorials" or words to that effect.

There was a piece earlier this year in the LA Times about Assyrian Christians in America. A Assyrian clergyman was quoted as saying that he is often challenged by Rabbis for what his people did to the Jews 2700 years ago.

[HennepinPrisoner]

Why are we held responsible for what we did to the Indians? What we did was bad.

Who exactly is "we"? My oldest known English ancestor helped an Indian tribe fight off encroachers in the Northeast.

I have no idea who "we" is or why "we" should feel guilty about anything.

If anyone makes general statements using the pronoun "we" when it comes to the past actions of US citizens, I immediately lay into them and tell them that any current descendants of "victims" that whine about the past are just lazy, do-nothing leeches trying to make excuses for their current place in life.

[12B]

Since you're the resident expert on deciding who should feel guilt, perhaps you could help my kids out. They're half German, half American. Their maternal Great-Grandfather was a Feldjäger and died in Russia. Their paternal Great Grandfather fought with the "Super-Sixth" Sixth Infantry Division and crossed Patton's bridge over the Rhine.

Their maternal grandparents were small children during the war and were both orphaned. Their grandmother's train was repeated strafed by RAF airplanes during the refugee exodus from Breslau and she saw her cousin cut in half as they ran from the trains during one attack. Their paternal grandmother supported the war effort by covering for farmhands who had enlisted (in Kentucky).

At their parents wedding the best-man was an American Jew and good friend of both the Father (American) and Mother (German).

So, Emma-expert, you wanna tell me how my kids should feel? And if you think they should be made to feel guilty, at what age do you suggest I start hammering them with it? They're quite young and I don't want to wait too long you know.

[RushLake]

And while you're busy blaming "we" for what "we did" to the indians, and forgetting what the Viet Cong did to our soldiers when the opportunity arose, don't forget to throw out a giant guilt trip for the Irish immigrants. There was a time in our country when Irish people were put on more dangerous occupations because they had no value and it didn't matter if they died. Slaves had market value so were less likely to be placed in occupations where they might be killed.

[Michael81Dus]

BUMP TO THAT!

What a great post!! In fact, it´s one of the best posts I´ve seen on FR ever.

Best wishes, Michael

[MrsEmmaPeel]

I guess you didn't read what I wrote, but read in what you wanted to read.

Anti-Semitism is on the rise in Europe at an alarming rate. EU publicly funds Arafat while Arafat publicly undermines the state of Israel. An "Enlightened" French Ambasador referred to Israel as "that sh*tty little country". Kofi Anan will denounce Israel in the strongest possible terms every time a Palestinian dies, but is silent when a homicide bomber destroys the lives of so many.

The Holocaust was never over - its still on-going, and hatred of the Jewish people was simply transferred from one form of persecution to another.

One of the root causes of the Holocaust is irrational hate. An emotion which if ignored, manifests itself in other areas. If as the survey says, the Germans are fed up about Holocaust guilt, I see people who would rather ignore the root cause of their hatred, to hate anew as so much of the outbreak of synagogue violence is in Germany.

[MrsEmmaPeel]

So, Emma-expert, you wanna tell me how my kids should feel?

Teach them not to hate. Teach them that indulging in irrational hatred is not only wrong, its evil.