[squirt-gun]

Re # 9

I agree with most of what you say but not the following: The bloody XX century knows many other genocidal killings. But all of them were perpetrated by the killers that did not have reputation of being civilized.

The Russians have had high culture for centuries and yet Stalin found it easy to kill millions, white Russians Ukrainians, etc. Starving, shooting, barbarism of the lowest kind.

Also, Japan has had an elegant civilization for centuries, even defeating the Russian Navy early on with high tech and brilliant naval strategy. Yet, the Japanese looked on Westerners as uncivilized barbarians and were guilty of some of the most horrific crimes against humanity throughout China, the Dutch East Indies and elsewhere.

The Germans had no exclusivity on barbarism as has been suggested herein.

Have a nice day.

[Tolik]

I want to clarify the point:

While Russia was not barbarian, and did contribute heavily in literature and music and some in science, its total contribution to Western civilization was much much lower than German's. For the quantitative analysis I'd refer you to the "Human Accomplishment" by Charles Murray . The word "pogrom" did come to English from Russian language (despite the effort of Russian humanists to eradicate this evil itself). Communist genocide of Stalin's era was directed against some peoples: Ukrainian Holodomor of 1931-32: artificially orchestrated famine was to subjugate both Ukrainians as a nation and farmers as bearers of capitalist spirit; 1942 transfer of Chechens, Tatars and some others as alleged Nazi sympathizers with 50% mortality rate on the road to Siberia. Still other cleansings of Lenin's/Stalin's time were ethnically blind.

During the WWI/ Russian Civil War the Germans occupied large chunk of Ukraine. Their military machine was strong and brutal, but otherwise they were remembered better than waves of Reds, Whites, Greens ravaging through Ukraine. Some Ukrainian Jews did not want to believe the rumors of German atrocities in the WWII and did not escape occupation and were exterminated, just because of this relatively positive memory.

 Japan had its own distinctive culture as you rightly show, but in the self-inflicted isolationism, its effect on the Western civilization was low. They were perceived (note: perceived) as less civilized, so their atrocities were looked from the West under a prism of low expectations.

I hope you see my point. I make no excuses for anybody monstrosity, but in no other time a civilization as accomplished as German's fell so low and so quickly as under the Nazi rule.

Another point. Lots of Christians were killed during the WWII. The difference is that they were not killed BECAUSE they were Christians. Same as 300 thousand Jews soldiers of the Red Army were killed not because they were Jews, but because they were soldiers. But other millions of Jews and all Gypsies who did not escape were killed BECAUSE they were Jews and Gypsies. Same as Tutsi were killed by Hutus BECAUSE they were Tutsi. I find this difference being important.