Patriotism in Germany after a Nazi Past?

You are British, huh?

And so was Stalin, who somehow managed to make a Hitler look like a choirboy. And that is a tough task.

As a retired choirboy, I’m now 83% triggered

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Lol! My bad
I hope the 17% can forgive me.

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I wouldn’t go that far.

My understanding is that the Great Depression came about at the 1930 mark. the German economy I thought was severely drained by the end of WW1, 1918. Unemployed soldiers were hiring themselves out to whatever political party would pay to go down the street and take shots at their rivals. the allies had their losses, but they sorely stuck it to the Germans to repay them, on top of the German economy having been battered. (I thought a little bit of the reason was the after effects of the German navy having lost a strategic defeat at the battle of Jutland, limiting their merchant ships doing international commerce, a bit gray area in my mind).

It took at some points a wheel barrow full of money to buy a loaf of bread, such was inflation. Extremists can capitalize on people looking for an icon to blame, and another to lead them out of it.

Stalin was pretty much on Hitler’s level but somehow he gets a pass in popular culture, despite leaving a triple body count.

The extermination of millions of Ukrainians through old-fashioned starvation instead of gas, sending of Jews from Eastern Poland that was occupied by the USSR to Hitler as a “present”, not to mention the Katyn massacre of Polish intelligentsia


People in the West usually don’t know that Nazis are Soviets were best buddies up to 1941 when Hitler decided to launch Operation Barbarossa. When Germany invaded Poland, Moscow’s Pravda announced that capitalist-imperialist Poland attacked peace-loving Germany.

They even held a joint Nazi-Soviet victory parade in Brest (then Poland) after successfully carving up the country, under both the red star and swastika:

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and pursued their favorite hobbies together

Not only that, but many Eastern European Jews who survived the Holocaust (including members of my family) were directly shipped to the Soviet Gulags just for the hell of it. After the war ended, he had a bunch of Soviet-Jewish intellectuals who compiled a book of Nazi crimes against Jews, the so called “Black Book”, executed.

Related, but actually just an excuse to post Burr’s stand up routine:

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I can’t remember off the top of my head and won’t Google. Wasn’t Mao pretty high up there with Stalin and Hitler in body count? I guess it depends if you count the “accidental” starvation of the first 5 year plan.

It wouldn’t look quite as great if, in defeating Hitler, one allied with someone that killed more. You have to remember that, in popular culture, the United States was fighting with Germany solely to save the Jews in Nazi concentration camps.

Ehhhhh I feel like revenge against Japan (all Axis) was a pretty good one too

My grandfather who lost his older brother in WW2 said popular opinion in 1945 was that the US should keep producing nukes and level everything in Japan and continue fire-bombing Germany. And salt the earth afterwards. Full “Sherman’s March to the sea.” Type of attitude.

The axis started the world war, and the US should make sure nobody ever started one again.

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Even though we turned Jewish refugees away.

If Hitler invaded Hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons.

Winston Churchill

In case you guys didn’t know, Hollywood churned out a few Stalinist movies justifying his crimes, the most notorious being this one:

That was the plan, but the British and the Americans shelved it immediately after the war.

Only in the French post-war occupation zone did the French settle old scores, mostly on German PoWs

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In war right and wrong don’t matter unless you are on the losing side. Its not like a crime done in your local area, where you have to face consequences. The victors write the history. It might be truthful and unbiased, but its just as likely to have bias some obvious and others not so obvious. That is basic high school history.

Some people today(a minority) say that Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes.
Most people at the time and even to this day thought it was a necessary evil, ended 6 years of global conflict on a scale never seen before or since.

Not British, but Australian. Don’t think I’m not grateful for the USA saving my country from Japanese invasion, for I am eternally grateful. The British had their hands full in Europe at the time, and really couldn’t provide much aid.
Depending upon who tells the story (insert country) they take credit for winning WW2.
Russians think they were the reason for the defeat of Germany(though they did play a significant role). Americans think they were the reason for beating Germany(they also played a significant role). They’re not wrong but its not the entire story. Americans definitely were the reason for winning the war in the Pacific.
The Canadians always seem to get a raw deal regarding their contribution which was absolutely massive, in Europe. They were equipped like the British. The British happily claimed their success without giving any credit. Americans also downplay the role of the Canadians, and probably lump them in as British.

The Germans were still the bad guys. And history is not only written by the victors. A lot of what we know about Germany during Hitler’s reign came from the Germans themselves.

I don’t think I ever said Germany was in the right, or didn’t do bad things in WW2. My now deceased relatives fought against both the Germans and the Japanese. They had a particular hatred of the Japanese for how they treated their prisoners. The Japanese of today that I have met are lovely people, one of the most reasonable, and easy to get along with. I don’t hold them responsible for the sins of their ancestors.
It sounds like you are getting a bit triggered perhaps from one part of what I said and ignored the broader context of what was said.
If a war isn’t fought over territory or resources its usually fought over a difference in ideology. The Muslim terrorists of today think they are totally justified indiscriminately blowing up innocent strangers( I don’t agree). In a broad sense you need to stop a threat with force. It also helps you win, shorten the conflict or avoid it in the first place if you can understand why they are doing what they are doing.

The Jews suffered horribly in WW2 from the Germans. But was it “good” or fair to arbitrarily give the Jews a state like Israel? Well if you are Jewish it was a great idea, to reclaim what you consider your spiritual homeland, even though your ancestors have lived in Europe for a thousand years or more. The state of Israel is not a “good” thing so much if you were an Arab that had been occupying it. Their perspective is they were invaded and dispossessed of their land. Who’s right depends on where your sympathies lie, because they both think they were in the right.
I happen to sympathise more with the Israelis, not because I think their claim is more morally justifiable. They have been able to fight off all comers, and still retain the territory. I think they are more reasonable than most of the Arabs, and were very willing to compromise for peace in the 1980’s. Unfortunately it was all or nothing for the Arabs. If they had taken small steps its almost certain there would be an Arab independent West Bank/Gaza, as well as a safer Israel.
To dismiss the complications of a conflict all you do is perpetuate the conflict, rather than try to find peace.

Given your essay length posts, it doesn’t look I’m the one who is triggered. The Germans did terrible and depraved things to not only Jews but other racial/ethnic groups. They even did horrible things to non Jewish Germans. They were brutal, barbaric and depraved. The roots of their anti-Semitism was the myth of the Jewish global conspiracy. Hitler believed the Protocols was true even though they had already been proven false.

We know that German officers were concerned about their soldiers who took part in mass executions. They said that the men who enjoyed it were becoming psychopaths and those who didn’t were becoming emotional wrecks. So even they knew what they were doing was wrong. We even know what Himmler’s, I think it was him, reaction was to witnessing a mass execution. He didn’t like it but he didn’t stop them.

What Israel has to do with it is beyond me.

Israel probably wouldn’t have existed if the Allies lost the war. The UN was created by the Allies, they decided to allow Israel to form, partly in sympathy for the atrocities against the Jews by the Nazis. It was well intentioned, these people in the UN after all had been fighting the evil Nazis., on the side of “good”. Unfortunately, and unintentionally it has helped to lead us into our current radical Islam vs the West ideological war. Those that chose to support the founding of Israel for good reasons failed to take into the account that the Arab residents didn’t want Israel. It was always going to lead to conflict, despite the good intentions. Unsurprisingly no Arab states belonged to the UN at that time, they didn’t have a say in the matter.
To spell it out, if you haven’t already worked it out, its another example of how things are more complicated than just a black & white view of the world. I’m not really trying to attack you personally, so I apologise if that’s how you feel. I sometimes wish things were more straight forward. The older I get I find it more useful to see the world as it is, rather than like how I wish it was. Hope you have a good weekend.

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I don’t feel personally attacked, it’s an anonymous forum and I’m an adult.

With Germany it’s only a non black and white issue if you can come up with a rational and reasonable defense for genocide, slavery, unprovoked war, the removal of civil rights for all citizens including non Jewish Germans, euthanizing the handicapped, so called medical experiments on human subjects, and more depraved actions that any sane person would find revolting.