"I have more fingers than exist German citizens who were directly responsible for the Holocaust and the Second World War. National apologies for long gone (but never forgotten) historical events are worthless."
If a nation cannot feel shame or responsibility for past events, then it also cannot feel pride. And it's precisely because many Germans feel like you that, according to recent surveys, Germany has the highest rate of anti-Semitism in Europe, with 38% of Germans admitting to serious anti-Semitic prejudices, and just over 35% who do not believe Israel should exist.
The individuals may have changed, but the culture has, for the most part, remained the same. Jews are no safer on the continent of Europe in 2004 than 1934; and with Europe actively appeasing the Arabs, and both directly and indirectly supporting terrorism, I'm not convinced that Jews are much safer even in their own state.
A person can feel pride or guilt. A nation cannot. There is no mind and no heart.
If a Jewish man isn't safe in Germany (and France) still, which I don't doubt, then why are we expecting a national apology? And what good would it do when there is still a resentment towards the Jewish race in those nations? Would it make me feel better? Or the Jewish race as a whole? Not really.
Your remarks are very disturbing, but I fear, quite true. I am especially disturbed by a whole generation of younger Germans that has failed to comprehend the evils of the Nazis. I know when I lived there, there was still massive cultural denial...Nobody "knew". These current polls on anti-semitism are shameful. They also demolish the Hitler as evil aberration theory.
Joel C: If a nation cannot feel shame or responsibility for past events, then it also cannot feel pride. And it's precisely because many Germans feel like you that, according to recent surveys, Germany has the highest rate of anti-Semitism in Europe, with 38% of Germans admitting to serious anti-Semitic prejudices, and just over 35% who do not believe Israel should exist.
Nonsense, Mr. C. I agree wholeheartedly with Capt. R. I'm a Jew who spent five years in then-West Germany, and I saw some Jews make fortunes off German guilt. I also ran into German anti-Semites, old Nazis (almost all of whom have since died), and neo-Nazis. But apologies are worthless. No Nazi will honestly apologize, and why would you want an apology from someone who wasn't a Nazi? People who are obsessed with getting such apologies are pathetic bullies and opportunists.
Germany doesn't have neo-Nazis today because of a lack of contrition; many of those neo-Nazis are the product of sixty years of guilt trips.
The only thing you could do with a real Nazi, was to kill him. If somebody murders the entire family living next door, do you demand that he apologize, and then let him go? Of course, not. You give him a fair trial, and execute him. After the war, we executed the surviving Nazi leadership. Meanwhile, we subjected the population to five years of brainwashing, to counteract the preceding twelve years of brainwashing, so that we wouldn't have to figure out yet again what to do with the German people a few years down the line.
But not all Nazis were mass murderers. What to do about them? Ask for apologies? The great German writer, Heinrich Boell, dealt with this question in his novel, Ansichten eines Clowns (The Views of a Clown?, ca. 1962). The protagonist is the son of a wealthy (IIRC) family in Kologne, Boell's neighborhood, who grew up under Nazism, and can't get his act together in the postwar years. A neighbor boy was a big bully in the Hitler Youth during the war. During the 50s, the neighbor is now grown up, and as opportunistic as ever, cashing in on the postwar economic boom. He apologizes to the protagonist -- cheap words, to satisfy the apologist. The protagonist slugs him as hard as can in the gut, and the ex-Nazi keels over.
I'm sure that scene provided a wonderful cahtarsis to Boell's many German readers, not a few of whom had surely done the same thing, after the war.
I simply can't believe these numbers. Can you please quto the source ?