They may not.
Personally, I will make jokes about these wars, and these jokes are no offenses for the deads and victims.
That is because you are a tactless boor.
Obviously, the mass-slaughtering, bombings and expellings were military actions, but not in the military part of the war.
Denial is not a river in Egypt. They were, by every measure, military actions. The plans were conceived in the military and executed by military personnel for military gain.
My Grand-Pas had nothing to do with these actions. They even didn´t know it. The one fought in Russia as a tank engineer and the other was sailor.
Then they were blameless. They still might want to refrain from Holocaust jokes, though.
I have every right to make the same jokes like anyone else. And I have noone to apologize for my words.
Yes, I do not deny that you have every right to be an offensive clod with utterly no tact whatever.
There is no collective guilt.
Untrue. In America, we bear a certain collective guilt as to the way we dispossessed the Indians from their land and infected their populace with European diseases on purpose. There aren't a lot of 'smallpox in blankets' jokes over here.
Btw, WW1 was NOT the fault of the Germans alone. It was the fault of whole Europe. All Europeans wanted that war in 1914, and they celebrated the beginning in London, Berlin, Paris and Moscow.
Strange.
But we are talking about WWII, and Germany can certainly shoulder much of the blame for that one.
Besides, German comedy - any German comedy, should be supported with the full extent of our abilities.
Jerry Lewis must not cross the Rhine!