Piffle. There were plenty of people in Germany and elsewhere who knew Hitler was evil just on sight. No rational human being could accept the thesis that the Jews were the source of all evil. And that is the end of the discussion.
If one removes historical context then one can make all sorts of claims about a nation. You could do the same thing with America about the issue fo segreation and racism. It would be like me saying 'Because the Americans were racist in the past century and that was wrong they must therfore always be wrong'.
We're back to degrees and kind. Segregation meant people lived apart. Nazism meant liquidating anyone but the "master race". This is a huge stain on the history of Germany, far more indelible than segregation is on America. Nazism is also a phenomenon that could not occur in America. Or Britain for that matter. We had just as desperate economic problems as Germany in the 1930's, but the Fascists and Communists were confined to the docks of East London.
This is not to say that Germany are right in their current stance towards the US, but more to say that to use the argument 'they were wrong in the past therfore it stands to reason they would be wrong now' is nothing more than an example of intellectual laziness.
Get off your high horse, professor. The Germans and French are preaching, with insufferable arrogance, about their moral superiority. It would do well to remind them that their claims to it are a joke.
The reason that I escaped the point incidently was because I thought you were making the populist link with the whole 'appeasement' argument which everyone in the 1930s was guilty of, America included. However your actual reasoning is just as weak because it is making large retrospective judgement in order to make a present judgement.
Taking everything "in context" is a leftist view of history. Hitler freaked out even some Germans - it was very clear to thoughtful people like Winston Churchill that Hitler should be made dead immediately. Your thesis that people couldn't have known bettter because of the times in which they lived is the worst sort of nonsense, an excuse for something which should not have occured.
Ivan
Using your logic, let's just hope that no one reminds America about slavery when we preach human rights and the dignity of man.