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Delusions, delusions...

http://www.expatica.com/source/site_article.asp?subchannel_id=53&story_id=3131&name=%27Stumbling+blocks%27+mark+the+Holocaust

@your alleged Germany hate: it sure seems so from some of your other postings (I am a long time lurker), but of course, I could be wrong, it´s just an assumption after all

@Israel:
I am VERY much pro-Israel, which has nothing to do with holocaust or anything like that. It is very simple: There is a country, surrounded by MORTAL enemies that have no goal other than to completely wipe out that country. Its citizens are subject of terrorist attacks on a weekly, if not daily basis. It has survived several wars, fighting for the very existence of its nation and people. Honestly, if my people would be subject to all those terrorist attacks, I would wholeheartedly agree with every wall built to increase the safety of my people. Unfortunately I have to admit I am in the minority here in Germany. Though I do know A FEW staunch supporters of Israel the majority tends to side with the Palestinians. Nothing to do with antisemitism, it´s just the way the Pal. are always shown as the "victims" of aggression in our media... I just wish all those wacko European liberals would live in Israel for a while to see what it´s like...

The King Fahd Academy is indeed a disgrace. If it was up to me I´d close that place today and tear it apart.

I know the kids in Germany are not told about this in school and when its brought up was told "Please we dont talk about it, dont mentioned it again!"

Sorry, but this is wrong. The holocaust is taught very much in German schools. For further info see this thread, were another guy claimed this myth to be truth.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1289777/posts

Yet again you fail to reply to arguments. The only deluded person here are you, and others in this thread have also corrected you on this.

I read all you wrote and linked and responded to your arguments. If you´re ignoring mine (for example the list of books on the holocaust read by German school children) I can assume that you are not finding a way to rebut them? Remember, your initial statement was that the holocaust is not being taught at allin Germany, while even YOUR links prove that is not the case. How about admitting that you were wrong regarding this?

F##K the germans and their courts. This is the same nation that now wants England to apologize for the bombing campaign during WW II. Can you believe the gall of the be-aches?
Besides a serious attitude problem you seem to be having a hard time to actually understand the essence of a given text. Read it again veeery slowly. Now you should understand that a group of Americans is planning to sue before a German court. There you go.

You are take ONE example out of all of the German population. I went to the HC museum in D.C. and I basically knew EVERYTHING there already from school and self-study. Does this mean all Germans know that much about the holocaust? Think about it.

For what it´s worth: When I lived in the US for a year, I had a highschool junior drawing swastikas in my yearbook, just because I was "German". He didn´t mean to insult me by this, he just connected the swastika to Germany because of the movies. He didn´t even KNOW what it STANDS for. I´d make a point for the US youth being much more ill-informed about this than the German youth (you remember the other quote from this thread, were a US mom said that the German exchange student she had was very well informed about this subject?).

As for your links:

How does this prove your point?
In teaching German the topic is frequently found in classroom reading, mainly in the age group 11 to 15. The best know books are e.g. "Damals war es Friedrich" for the lower grades, of course "Das Tagebuch der Anne Frank" and others like "Ich trug den gelben Stern". . Sometimes you will find the use of comics: Spiegelman`s "Mouse" and Bedürftig / Kalenbach`s "Hitler", which is also used in history lessons. Other Subjects

In other subjects the holocaust is a theme also, but rather in special projects like Schneider's teaching module about "Schindler`s List", which integrates ethical educa-tion, film analysis and English language teaching.
http://www.civiced.org/german_conference2000_boge.html

It rather proves mine, doesn´t it?

As for the other links (I checked all of them, but don´t have the time to respond to each one in detail): There´s some info in it that´s correct, as for instance the OLDER generation not being to eager to talk about this subject, but if you read it closely, you will find out that your initial statement "The holocaust is not being taught in Germany" can not be made. For instance, the once link you provided had a German exchange student in California comparing THE WAY the holocaust was taught (in Germany: very matter of factly, in the US focusing on individual suffering), but not stating that it wasn´t taught at all in Germany. That of course is also very dependant on the teachers themselves, my world history teacher in the US had less of a clue about the holocaust than I had, a then 16 year old student from Germany...

From on of your links:
49 percent approve of the German parliament decision to authorize the building of a national Holocaust memorial in Berlin, and 27 percent disapprove. Support is highest among young people, of whom 55 percent approve of the memorial with a disapproval level of only 18 percent. In general, the older the respondent, the more likely they are to express negative attitudes toward Jews and other minorities. There are consistent correlations in the poll between higher levels of education and lower levels of prejudice
Doesn´t this rather suggest that something is being done RIGHT in educating the young people?

I am not quite sure why you linked the "Deutsches Historisches Museum" article (www.dhm.de), as the info it provides doesn´t seem relevant to this topic (though it´s very interesting and true).

As for the link to the "game that shifts blame on WWII on Poland": Sorry to be blunt: This is one of the stupidest arguments I have ever heard in my whole life. The article at the link provided by you knows NOTHING about the game itself and PC games in general. I am an avid gamer, so let me help out: First of all, the game was NOT programmed in Germany, but somewhere in Eastern Europe (heck, it might even have been Poland, but I think it was in the Czech Republic or Russia). It is only published by German publisher CDV. I have read about the "blaming it on Poland" thing only on FR, and German public is hyper sensitive to something like this. I have NOWHERE read HOW the game "shifts the blame" on Poland, and I´d be really intersted in how it´s supposedly done. Can you help here? I know that this is a "big market" title, so the company would have to be crazy to jeopardize it by a "blame the war on Poland strategy". The only thing I can think of is sort of a mission briefing before the game starts, with some Nazi officer telling the player that "the Poles have attacked our radio station at Gleiwitz, we must take revenge" (the original "excuse") to remain "in character". I don´t know however.
I did a search and came up with a discussion on this, half of it in English. It is very much like I expected it to be:

http://www.cdv-board.de/deutsch/showthread.php?threadid=19249

In 1994 (?) American company SSI had an even bigger commerical success with the game "Panzer General", which let you assume the role of a German general and let you conquer the whole world, even letting you park your panzers at Pennsylvania Avenue in the last mission. The game was probably the best selling strategy title ever. Care to enlighten me about the difference between the two games? Oh, now I remember another detail. The game actually got BANNED in Germany, because you could WIN WW2 as Germany. Not so in the US or Poland however.

To make my point: Just go out in the streets and ask an average US citizen/pupil the questions asked by the Jewish poll in your link, and judging from my experience, you might be very surprised. I am quite sure that none of the people I met at highschool would have known the exact six million figure.

They also played host to Mohammad Atta and his cronies.

So did the US IIRC.

I have read a couple of your comments. It is very clear that you are hating Germany with a passion. However, you should learn to get your facts straight before making blatant assumptions:

I don't have enough evidence for that, though we might remember their dealing with the 1972 Olympics terror attack
There WAS no anti-terror police force before the 1972 incident. This incident was the reason for one to be created. So how is comparing today to 1972 even remotely relevant?

In addition, Germany allows the militant Islamic ideology of terror unhindered activities in its boundaries under the pretext of political correctness and diversity.
This is rich. The "unhindered" activities include more and more police razzias in recent times and increasing arrests of terrorists and hate preachers. But the best part of your post is the "pretext". IF "political correctness and diversity" are only the "pretext", then you can surely tell me what the real reason is? And, don´t just claim it, provide SOURCES!

Sorry, but it was in particular NAZIS who committed theses crimes in the German name. The German opposition, the resistance -even at the beginning of the war within the military- were certainly victims of the Nazis as well as the misguided children and those who couldn´t vote. Anyway, the main reason for Hitlers rise can be seen in the treaty of Versailles. Nobody in Germany (except the Neo-Nazis) is running away from historic truth. Hi Michael! While I agree with about 95 % of what you wrote in this thread, this particular piece caught my attention. We must refrain from talking about "the Nazis" as if they had been some sort of alien culture taking over Germany in the 30s and 40s. I am not blaming you for this, I am more concerned and annoyed with a general tendency in Germany to do this. It´s much easier to say "the Nazis" (because clearly noone in Germany wants to belong to those) as saying "Germany" (governed by the Nazis). Also, about "victimization": I wrote a longer reply about this in some other thread, but I feel the need to point it out again: Most of the Germans talking about their sufferings are not saying that they were the "victims" of WWII, they are just pointing out that they have suffered TOO. A large part of them doesn´t try to use this to get rid of their "guilt". Sure, some revisionist groups are trying to jump that bandwagon, but in general it´s nothing more than the people who have suffered saying that they have suffered (too), something they were forbidden to say for decades.

My post is not plain wrong. I have relatives who live in Germany. I also speak German fluently and was able to converse with the population. I also spent over half my life living over there. Travel around Germany and you will find most of the younger individuals know nothing of WWII and the atrocities committed by the Germans against the Jews and others. My cousins and other extended family members have attended or are attending school in Germany and they have told me that WWII is not in their curriculum. So you with your rantings and ravings have shown just how educated you are...and as my relatives would say "Du hast doch nicht mehr alle Tassen im Schrank". You ARE wrong. Just take a look at German school books of today. The holocaust is a HUGE stand-alone chapter in those. Holocaust related topics make it into art class, music class and German class. So you are either ill-informed or deliberately saying wrong things. I can´t judge THAT. I sure can judge that what you are saying is WRONG. You DO have a point that Germany´s youth is a little ill-informed about the ACTUAL war (World War II), because when talking about WWII about 50 % are spent on the Holocaust, 35 % on why Hitler was able to come to power, and the remaining 15 on the war itself.

In Germany they don't speak of the Holocaust. It is not even taught in their schools. Very few young people even know what Germany did in WWII to the Jews. At Dachau (Munich) the visitors to the concentration camp are mostly people from different countries who have been educated about WWII and the horrendous atrocities committed by the Germans against the Jews and other people that they felt were inferior. Sorry, but you are completely and horribly wrong and have absolutely no clue what you are talking about. There is no other way to say this.

This by a guy named "FloridaRolf"... By the way, this has nothing to do with being a social parasite, it is just a different perception of personal freedom, I don´t want to be forced to pay a lot of € each month for a TV program I hardly use, I glady pay for my PAY-TV channels, because I CHOSE to do so. I did not choose to pay for state run TV and I could very well live without it. Maybe you should do some additional reading on what actually constitutes "parasitism".

This by a guy named "FloridaRolf"... By the way, this has nothing to do with being a social parasite, it is just a different perception of personal freedom, I don´t want to be forced to pay a lot of € each month for a TV program I hardly use, I glady pay for my PAY-TV channels, because I CHOSE to do so. I did not choose to pay for state run TV and I could very well live without it. Maybe you should do some additional reading on what actually constitutes "parasitism".

I haven´t payed my whole life. I simply refused to and threw away the threatening letters. And guess what - nothing happened.

I am sorry, but regarding WW2 you are simply wrong. Germany was on the defensive LONG time before Normandy ´44. It was not Stalingrad or El Alamein that broke the German army, it was Kursk in ´43, where the German army was finally put into the defense. Calling the defense of ´44 a "retreating guerilla war" is nonsense, sorry to put it that clearly. Surely the US did not "kick Germany´s ass", as the other joker put it. IIRC there is a study that said that Germany imposed a casualty rate of 1.2 or 1.4 US/UK losses for every lost German, and something like 3.0 on the Russians. I can of course come up with the source (American historians) if needed. The German army of 1944 was bascially a beaten one.

"Russian weapons technology was a joke."
Care to elaborate?

"America is certainly made up of individuals, but since America consistenly produces the finest examples of humanity, it is logical to extrapolate that America is the best at producing the best."
This is nationalist bs.

You are right regarding the Olympics though.

For what it´s worth, my take on the whole situation:

It´s absolutely right from a US point of view to do this. The US doesn´t really need their troops to be in Germany any more, and it is not the job of the US or any other country´s army to provide employment for people in German towns.

And you guys are absolutely right by saying that Germany should be required to pay for their defense, instead of relying on the US. The Socialists here are not liking this, which is why I am liking it very much, it is a shame by how much our defense budget has been cut over the past years.

I do find the on display Schadenfreude by most here a little childish though.

I watched during the lead up to the war -- and it was right around the time Schroder was being re-elected and the news-people were showing these shops all over Germany with the signs in the windows. It stayed with me because I think it was the first it sunk in that the people we'd helped save really hated us. I surely can´t speek for all of Germany, but I live here, and I have never in my life seen a single example nor heard of one. So "all over Germany" certainly doesn´t hold up to reality. We all know what the media can do... Most Germans (I know) still appreciate Americans, they just didn´t appreciate the current US administration, and thanks god, they don´t appreciate OUR current administration any more.

The Germans chose to continue selling weapons to Iraq. Your sources? This has been stated a million times and has been proven wrong as often. So, YOUR SOURCES?