The "damnit...not all Germans were Nazi's in WW2" thread.

[bodyklok]

To be honest with you the same people who think all Germans are Nazis hardly sound like the same people you want liking you anyway, what I'm trying to say is if I were you I'd actually judge how good i was by how much they dislike me. I know it doesn't work very well but it's okay for me.

 

[Arsen]

All in all I will conclude that no one entire group of people are evil, and there is an enormous gray area in there. Yes, Germany was responsible partially, however not entirely per the moral code of civilians.

It was an immense gray area, and people have thankfully moved past it. If only the Black VS White conflict would reach the amiable and highly respectable level of the Israeli's and the German's understanding of each others past...

I salute both nations nontheless.

 

[Graustein]

Choosing self-preservation over what you know is right is cowardice.
Would I risk my life for strangers? Yes. I have.
Served in both the military and volunteered for the police.
It's easy to say "I won't change anything, better do nothing" But it's never right.
Finally, we are not loins or zebras, we are humans, we are better. Free will, remember. Having the freedom to choose means having the responsibility of choosing right. Sorry.

But what if they do not know it to be right? Remember the propaganda of the time? The superstition surrounding Jews? Antisemitism was not invented by Hitler, Jews were already disliked. Germany was in a bad way after The Great War. They needed a champion, and they needed a scapegoat.

I didn't ask if you would just risk your own life. What about the lives of your family, though? Would you put those in risk for a stranger? If your answer to this is yes, then I'm glad you weren't a German alive during the Nazi regime.
It's easy to talk about "right and wrong" as if they were concrete things, set in stone. Right for you might be doing everything in your power to stop one stranger from dying. Right for me would be doing everything in my power to keep my family safe. You can insist it's cowardice all you want, but that won't make me value those I care about above those I don't.

Free will does not mean having the responsibility to make the "right" choice. That defeats the purpose of free will in the first place. There's no divine agreement along the lines of "You have the freedom to do whatever you want as long as you only do what's right". Free will is not a gift, given with provisions, it's a result of our sentience. There are no universal laws governing what should and should not be. And you can insist that X should be and Y should not, but at the end of the day Y still is and X is not. You can call it cowardice, that makes the majority of humans cowards. I'm not so judgemental.

Would you condemn a Roman for watching a gladiatorial contest and enjoying it? Despite it being in his culture to like it? He honestly does not know that it's "wrong". Would you judge him to be a monster because he is raised to believe it is right? Would you, given a time machine, go back to Rome and declare at the top of your lungs that blood sports are immoral and should be put to an end?

The situation in Nazi Germany is a little different, but not as much as you'd expect. The government everywhere insists that Jews are evil. Little kids are brought up to believe them to be subhuman monsters. Education and propaganda are both powerful tools, and Goebbels was a master at the art of utilising them. You can't hate a trained attack dog. You can try and re-train it, you may have to put it down, but you can't blame it for biting you when that's all it knows to do. And if you think the metaphor isn't valid, you don't know how powerful education and propaganda are.

If you still don't agree, then there's nothing I can do. I've made my points, you can insist that they're wrong, but that won't change a thing. I'm not condoning what the Germans did, I'm just not condemning them for being human.

 

[asiepshtain]

Choosing self-preservation over what you know is right is cowardice.
Would I risk my life for strangers? Yes. I have.
Served in both the military and volunteered for the police.
It's easy to say "I won't change anything, better do nothing" But it's never right.
Finally, we are not loins or zebras, we are humans, we are better. Free will, remember. Having the freedom to choose means having the responsibility of choosing right. Sorry.

If you still don't agree, then there's nothing I can do. I've made my points, you can insist that they're wrong, but that won't change a thing. I'm not condoning what the Germans did, I'm just not condemning them for being human.

I don't agree, but I understand the fact that we disagree on basic assumptions and philosophies. Leading to our disagreement on the issues.
You follow your assumptions to their logical conclusions. I just happen to work on different assumption. However, you express yourself clearly and with reform, so a tip of the hat to you.
I think a discussion of our base philosophies would be off-topic so were just gonna have to agree to disagree.

 

[Azeban]

True, but, and this is one huge fucking but...

While not all Germans belonged to the Nazi party, and obviously not all of them were with the SS. They all share the moral responsibility of allowing the Nazi party to rise to power. They all share the moral responsibility of the silent concession of the murder of millions of people. Not just Jews, also intellectuals, gays, communists, the disabled and many more.

It is true that not all Germans were Nazis, but they are all to be held accountable for the crimes of their state.

You can't blame the German people for the crime of their government. You can blame only one person, and that's Hitler.

Like any politician worth his salt, he used people's fear to keep them all in line. You were either with the Nazis or against them, and in a situation where nobody is against them openly, it's difficult to be the first one. Often, the first one is not followed by others and killed.

I'd like to see what you would do in such a situation. I think as brave as we like to pretend to be, the motivation to not die would be enough to feign support for Hitler. You and I would follow orders.

There were fifteen attempted assassinations of Hitler. Is that not enough for you to realize that they don't all share the moral responsibility?

 

[BlueMage]

Hmmm...

My grandmother was a young woman, recently married, when the war started. She saw the propaganda machine in full swing - children as young as ten or eleven would be recruited to the Hitler Youth and then, all that said child need say is that their parents wouldn't let them go to the movies (to see patriotic films) and BAM! Parents would disappear in the night. You didn't speak out, because you couldn't risk the lives of your family and loved ones.

Thankfully, my grandparents got out and emigrated safely to Australia.

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

You know operation Valkyrie? The July 20 plan has a little family history in it. My great great uncle Wilhelm Adam was a planner of the bombing plan. After it failed (a few people died, Hitler got away with a ripped up pant leg and a sprained wrist, others got more or less injured), all of the planners were found out and sent to military prisons. Some were executed. I don't know about concentration camps. There, I just ruined the entire movie for you. I haven't even seen it yet and I know how it ends. Hitler lives.

 

[Siegreich]

True, but, and this is one huge fucking but...

While not all Germans belonged to the Nazi party, and obviously not all of them were with the SS. They all share the moral responsibility of allowing the Nazi party to rise to power. They all share the moral responsibility of the silent concession of the murder of millions of people. Not just Jews, also intellectuals, gays, communists, the disabled and many more.

It is true that not all Germans were Nazis, but they are all to be held accountable for the crimes of their state.

So what your saying here is that All Germans are essentially Nazis, I take offense to that being German myself, so how about we look at America by your logic, that makes you guys slavers and murderers of millions of black people, starters of murderous war for oil, you also get responsibility for the deaths of many Japanese in your internment camps, the killings during race riots, etc...

so shut the fuck up about my country you racist bastard

 

[Xpwn3ntial]

True, but, and this is one huge fucking but...

While not all Germans belonged to the Nazi party, and obviously not all of them were with the SS. They all share the moral responsibility of allowing the Nazi party to rise to power. They all share the moral responsibility of the silent concession of the murder of millions of people. Not just Jews, also intellectuals, gays, communists, the disabled and many more.

It is true that not all Germans were Nazis, but they are all to be held accountable for the crimes of their state.

So what your saying here is that All Germans are essentially Nazis, I take offense to that being German myself, so how about we look at America by your logic, that makes you guys slavers and murderers of millions of black people, starters of murderous war for oil, you also get responsibility for the deaths of many Japanese in your internment camps, the killings during race riots, etc...

so shut the fuck up about my country you racist bastard

Amen.

 

[sheic99]

I'm surprised nobody mentioned this yet. Hitler was voted into power by 33% of the population.

 

[asiepshtain]

True, but, and this is one huge fucking but...

While not all Germans belonged to the Nazi party, and obviously not all of them were with the SS. They all share the moral responsibility of allowing the Nazi party to rise to power. They all share the moral responsibility of the silent concession of the murder of millions of people. Not just Jews, also intellectuals, gays, communists, the disabled and many more.

It is true that not all Germans were Nazis, but they are all to be held accountable for the crimes of their state.

So what your saying here is that All Germans are essentially Nazis, I take offense to that being German myself, so how about we look at America by your logic, that makes you guys slavers and murderers of millions of black people, starters of murderous war for oil, you also get responsibility for the deaths of many Japanese in your internment camps, the killings during race riots, etc...

so shut the fuck up about my country you racist bastard

If you knew how to read you would notice in the text you quoted that I'm saying that while they WEREN'T Nazis, they are still accountable to the actions of Germany at the time.
WEREN'T NAZIS, I would recommend English lessons you stupid bastard. I also stated numerous time my appreciation for current day Germany so your response is uncalled for.

And while I'm not American and so have nothing to do with whatever they are doing, I'm an Israeli and fully believe I'm to be held responsible for the Israeli-Plastenian situation.
A Country isn't a real thing, it's a creation of it's citizenship, a shared consensus that exists only by the will of all it's members. therefor, the German citizens who allowed the Nazi party rise to power by consent or simply by silence are to be held accountable for the crimes of the Nazi party. Their blame is off course much less then those of active SS members, but they are still responsible. Just as I am to be held accountable for the alleged crimes of my state, the fact I don't think of what we are doing as criminal is an issue for a different time.

Last thing. Racism is bias against a race, you idiot. Germany is a nation. There is no more a German race then there is an American race. There is the Germanic race, that includes all the Euro-Germanic tribes, But unless I state an opinion against a large part of northern Europe it's not racism.

 

[nekolux]

The only real nazis were the schutzstaffel and the gestapo.

My boss' father was forcibly conscripted into the German army during WWII but apparently he never considered himself a Nazi. Grey area?

Clem, no, not a gray area. As Nekolux beat me to saying, being German is not synonymous with being a Nazi. The Nazis were a political party, not a culture, and as such you actually had to be enlisted as a member of the party to truly be a Nazi. The SS and Gestapo were special organizations that were exclusive to party members, but the regular forces were just that, the German armed forces. Not saying all army regulars can be held as innocents, many were party supporters or just plain cruel bastards themselves, but you really can't condemn them all as a whole the way you can condemn the SS.

And yes, Valkyrie wasn't historically accurate to the degree I'd have liked, but they made one very VERY good point in it. Heinrich Himmler was as much the puppetmaster of the Reich as Adolf Hitler was, and it always baffled me how downplayed Himmler's role was. Between the two, Himmler and Hitler, I'd say Heinrich was worse than Adolf. Heinrich Himmler was the head of the Schutzstaffel, Kriminalpolizei, Sicherheitspolizei, and Gestapo. Essentially, he ran the civilian and military police forces, an elite unit of military fanatics, AND the secret service. Add to all that, he was the driving force behind, and organizer/administrator of the death camps. Next to Himmler, Adolf looks to be a fucking saint.

Aye, to this i STRONGLY agree. Himmler was running the secret service, the elite nazi army and multiple other organizations which were the ones that were mainly involved in the genocides. And yes to those people who thought the german army killed the jews. You're wrong. It wasn't the regular army. It was the SS. In a way that caused part of the downfall of the nazi regime because hitler focused so much of the elite group on the massacre of the jews.

It is even suspected that himmler let a few assassination plots slip past the gaze of the gestapo so he could gain power. ( This is all speculation on hindsight, we'll never know for sure. But there is a certain amount of evidence, because himmler didnt get the gestapo to look through all the leads in an assassination plot. Had he done that, further assassination attempts might have been stopped )

But yeah, all in all. Himmler was rather the more cruel one. Had he taken over control of the regime from mid - end war. The nazis would be able to hold out much longer.

 

[albinoterrorist]

I'm Jewish (hahahahaha). But i have 1 motto and that is that "all Nazis were German but not all Germans were Nazis", you'd have to be a really messed up dumbshit to disagree. I have a German friend, one of the most intelligent people i've ever known.

Not all nazi's were german. The austrian government was pressurised into anschluss by rioting within the country.

Just had to pick a hole in your statement. ^o^

Also, after the fall of france, a large portion of german forces were penal regiments.

I suggest reading sven hassel's "legion of the damned"
Porta makes the war seem almost like a joke.

 

[albinoterrorist]

And while I'm not American and so have nothing to do with whatever they are doing, I'm an Israeli and fully believe I'm to be held responsible for the Israeli-Plastenian situation.
A Country isn't a real thing, it's a creation of it's citizenship, a shared consensus that exists only by the will of all it's members. therefor, the German citizens who allowed the Nazi party rise to power by consent or simply by silence are to be held accountable for the crimes of the Nazi party. Their blame is off course much less then those of active SS members, but they are still responsible. Just as I am to be held accountable for the alleged crimes of my state, the fact I don't think of what we are doing as criminal is an issue for a different time.

You're Israeli? O.O

Cool. :3

Personnally, i believe whilst you're country is engaging Palestine far too aggressively, i can understand that getting spammed by rocket artillary for the 2nd time in 17 years must be fairly depressing. :/

And the US and EU handling of Afghanistan and Iraq didn't exactly set a good example.

Oh well.