Posted on 06/06/2004 8:34:26 PM PDT by quidnunc
In joining with leaders of World War II's victorious Allies in their commemoration of D-Day, Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has referred to Germany's presence on the Normandy invasion beaches as marking "the final end" to the postwar period and the completion of "Germany's long journey to the West."
Alongside the chancellor's argument that the Allies liberated the Germans from Nazi tyranny, what this comes down to is a kind of political assurance that Germany has forever abandoned its contemptuous notion of a mercantile, soulless West and its equally contemptuous but territorially hungry view of the lands beyond its eastern borders.
Coming in the context of Schröder's current drive to win Germany a seat on the United Nations Security Council, a statement sounding like a guarantee of its comfortable anchorage in the acquisitive, nonromantic world of capitalism finds few doubters.
But concerning Eastern Europe, Schröder's willful reading of his invitation to the D-Day anniversary as "the final end" to the postwar period is a different matter. It does not correspond entirely to current events and, for the time being, may be a bit of an imposition on history.
Germany's relationship in 2004 with the country's two major neighbors to the east — or, perhaps most precisely, that of a significant number of Germans — involves harsh, palpable difficulties.
With backing from mainstream conservative and Social Democrat personalities, politically powerful groups of expellees from former German territories in the Czech Republic and Poland are mounting newly aggressive campaigns to regain their old properties and memorialize themselves as World War II victims.
-snip-
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Mussolini was no anti-semite though he was a lot of other things!
German Ping
ping
The Germans insist they are victims for the exact same reasons as the Islamofascists insist they are victims of the Palestine mess. (Truman's Palestine mess). Both need to look in the mirror and move on.
When the delegate from Nigeria at the UN speaks or votes, who or what do you suppose he "represents"?
Do you think that an "elected government" where the average voter has an IQ of 70 and is illiterate, where each ethnic or religious group votes 100% for its own candidate, or where all candidates swear fealty to murderous barbarian cults has the same status as the Federal government of the United States, and therefore should be voting with the US on the basis of equality?
The whole postwar facade of "international law", "world opinion", and especially the UN, is a ridiculous farce which should be ended, not improved.
The only opinion that the "world" has that is relevant to us is that all the people with brains and guts want to escape their hellholes and come here.
The only international issue of significance to us (one that we can't seem to agree on) is whether we should allow this to continue, leading to a Fortress America, or whether we should help the talented tenth everywhere to overthrow their kleptocracies and make a world safe for a globalized America.
The farce at Turtle Bay has nothing to do with helping us answer this question.
Of course the average German troops were not responsible for their leaders crimes. Nobody would call Rommel a war criminal, because he wasn´t. But he too was so controlled by the Nazis, that he had nothing to decide. Soldiers in Germany were not even allowed to vote in the Weimar Republic, they were merely receiving orders. It was not the duty to refuse orders if they mean a crime, unlike today. And what would you say about the men who drafted men with the age of 17,18,19, 20 who died then - and have never had the chance to express their opposition against the regime? I say these boys were victims of Hitler, mislead in a war "to defend the fatherland", but actually it was vice versa. I´m sure noone had picked up the gun against the Brits, Americans, French, Canadians if 1. they had known what Hitler did in the East, 2. not a Nazi official had threatened to shoot them if they did not and 3. had known that after Hitlers defeat both sides realized that the enemy is in the East.
You talk about a place that needs all the help it can get!
Most moved to the United States just in time for the American Civil War.
The death of young people in war is always tragic. But Michael -- these boys did have a chance to express their opposition. If they were going to die anyway, why didn't they do so in a revolt against Hitler, rather than fighting for him? Hitler made no secret of his intentions in Mein Kampf -- why didn't the average German revolt?
UK can barely self project...they barely reach Falklands at height of spending for Cold War.
Well, it's not that easy. Families are involved as well. And in Nazi Germany knew that if YOU screwed up your entire family went into concentration camps. Yup, millions of non-jews were gassed as well.
Oh, I know it wasn't easy. It wasn't easy for our revolutionaries, either. But it's false to say that young German men had no choice at all. Was it Franklin who said, "resistance to tyranny is obedience to God"?
I understand but that was not the mindset taught in that time period. And there is a reason people were indoctrinated from a very young age in the Hitler Youth. Keep in mind a soldier 19 years old in 1944 was 7 years old when Hitler came into power and the Hitler Youths were organized. Doesn't leave much freedom of will does it?
There is a serious difference between Mussolini and Hitler. Mussolini never targeted any member of Italian for elimination. Mussolini attempted to put every Italian to work, either for commerical ventures or government ventures. Hitler simply put every man into uniform.
I agree with Francis, these boys were just on the wrong side, and probably most didn´t even know. Like a fellow French FReeper said on another thread: the German propaganda made it looking as if Germany was the victim (and especially the bombs on civilians made the soldiers feel as if their nation was at stake). Today, we hear from many German veterans that all this killing was so unnecessary, that they didn´t know that the western allies weren´t in reality how Goebbels said they were... It´s a huge tragedy, and I see no reason why we shouldn´t remember all the deads (Germans included). I don´t mourn the death of People who supported mass murder on Jews or other minorities, who treated humans like cattle, but I know that many men in the Waffen-SS weren´t there voluntary, either.
Had it not been for their anxiety over the English, they would have stood in bed.The French became envolved in the Revolution for the sole purpose of squeezing the English financially.
Hmmm.
I like and respect Rommel, but don't forget that he was responsible for the Atlantic Wall and much of the Wall was built by slave labor. I don't know if he is far enough removed from the details of its construction to escape the taint. Maybe it stops with Organization Todt, though.
That's a very interesting question, and one that can't be definitively answered. My own take is that humanity can win out, even over attempted brainwashing. Otherwise, how do you explain countries where there have been revolutions/popular uprisings against tyranny after long periods of totalitarian control? I think you can't let people completely off the personal responsibility hook, regardless of their upbringing.
Remember when President Reagan laid a wreath at the tomb of the unknown German soldier and spoke words of kindness and forgiveness? The media had a fit. But Reagan was right, of course.
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