UN Court Ruling Assures Impunity for Nazi War Crimes
In a decision that has been little noted by the American news media – and misreported by those news outlets that reported it at all — the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled last Friday that Germany enjoys immunity from liability for crimes committed by German forces on foreign soil during WWII. (The full text of the ICJ decision is available here.)
The ruling stems from several recent cases in which Italian courts ruled that Germany must pay indemnities to Italian victims of Nazi war crimes or surviving family members. The ICJ found that Italy had “violated its obligation to respect” Germany’s “state immunity.”
The most sensational of the Italian cases involves the Civitella Massacre, so-named for the village in Tuscany that was at the center of a series of indiscriminate “reprisal actions” undertaken by German forces on June 29, 1944. The “reprisals” were carried out by units of the German Wehrmacht’s “Hermann Göring” Division after Italian partisans shot and killed two German soldiers and mortally wounded a third days earlier. Over 200 civilians were killed in the massacres, including women and children. Many of the victims were killed at the Santa Maria church in Civitella, where they had gathered to celebrate mass. Most of the parishioners are reported to have been shot in the back of the head. Germany does not contest the facts of the case.
An AP report on the ICJ ruling, however, fails even to mention the massacres. Instead, it gives the impression that the ruling merely concerns the case of Luigi Ferrini, an Italian civilian deported to Germany to work as a slave laborer. (An abridged and even less informative version of the AP dispatch also appeared as a “news brief” in the New York Times.)
In a bizarre touch, the AP report goes on to note that “although Italy was a German ally during the War, many Italians were deported by Nazi forces, interned in camps and used as slave laborers.” It fails to mention that Italy in fact changed sides during the war, suing for peace with the Allies in September 1943 and then itself declaring war on Nazi Germany. Like thousands of other Italian civilians, Luigi Ferrini was deported to Germany after September 1943. It was likewise between September 1943 and the end of the war that German forces committed numerous massacres on Italian soil.
After the Civitella Massacre (Source: Province of Arezzo, Imperial War Museum)
Germany has been playing various versions of this game since the end of the war. They were very happy to expose the Katyn massacre to the outside world, and let everyone know about Soviet war crimes. After the end of the war, there was no end of whining from Germans about war crimes committed by Allied forces during the war (typically the bombing of German cities by the Allied Air Forces, and the rape, pillage, and looting of Eastern Germany by Soviet forces) but when the crimes of German troops were brought up, if they acknowledged any guilt at all, most Germans would then assert that all the Nazi officers and men who’d committed the crimes had been killed in combat. As a for instance, none of the officers or men in Kampfgruppe Peiper would admit to participating in the infamous Malmedy Massacre: instead, they insisted that the perpetrators had already been killed by Allied forces, one and all.
And the international community, for the most part, wants these criminal prosecutions to go away. Typically you have a country like Italy which wants those criminals prosecuted, but the French or Poles aren’t supportive. Then, there’s a French crime to prosecute; Italy and Poland aren’t interested. Guess what happens when the Poles bring something up…The enthusiasm for these prosecutions lasted about 3-5 years; after that, only Klaus Barbie, Adolf Eichmann, and that old autoworker they extradited from Detroit (can’t remember his name) were prosecuted enthusiastically, and it appears the last guy wasn’t guilty, at least not of what they accused him of doing. Beyond that, for the msot part the international community has let these guys go, figuring that their crimes were heinous enough and widely condemned enough that that was sufficient punishment.
Sort of sad, isn’t it? I guess not even sort of…
say that in Europe we haven’t the possiblity to make a “class action” like in the US, where many complainants can ally for bringing a case into Justice, therefore the individuals are weak, though in the Barbie’s case, it was Klarsfeld supported by the Jews survivors associations that brought the case in a mediatic Trial court
In the Barbie case , he refused tocomply with his threat : to tell all about his french partners in genocide
did you ever see a German acknwledge that he is wwrong?
No Barbie said it was war and that he had a duty, what you say is BS, Bluff that his advocate, Jaques Verges ( the FLN advocate too) imagined as a trick to destabilise the accusation, who was represented by his survivors Jews !
Decades of “reparation payments” were the immediate cause for the rise of the NSDAP and eventually the inevitable start of WW2.
Those involved and responsible are dead, let them rest. Anything going on now is just a moneygrab by lawyers and other greedy people trying to make a fortune over the backs of dead ancestors.
That’s the PC version of history: that the Germans only elected Hitler and went to war because insufferable reparations were forced upon them by the Allies of WWI.
That’s revisionism designed to help us hate Germany less after they started WW2.
In reality, the Allies were too easy on Germans after WW1, allowing them to re-arm and avenge their humiliation.
After WW2 we weren’t so easy on them. Our troops still occupy their soil and they’ve been quiet and obedient ever since.
The Allies did in fact blockade Germany for 6 or 7 months after the end of the war, forcing the treaty and starving perhaps tens of thousands of Germans after the war was over. This bitterness and the economic collapse that followed caused WW II.
Can someone explain to me the difference between what the wehrmacht did in the village of Civitella and what Arthur “Bomber” Harris did to Hamburg in July, 1943 or what General Curtis “bomb-them-back-to-the-stone-age” LeMay did to the cities of Japan or what Harry Truman authorized in August, 1945?
Please don’t reply by telling me of “collateral casualties”. In some of these raids the target was the civilian population itself. The purpose of those particulr raids was to undermine the enemy’s morale, their will to keep fighting. The tool was “terror bombing”. The method was perfected by Sir Arthur Harris while he was serving as ranking RAF officer in Mesopotamia (Iraq) in the 1920s, after the British received control of Iraq from the Ottoman Empire after W.W.I. In that conflict he conducted reprisal air raids against the Arab villages which were known to support enemy guerilla fighters. (He even requested from the War Office, to use chemical gas against those enemy villages.)
How was this different from the reprisal attacks the Germans carried carried out against villagers who were materially suporting the partisans?
I’m certainly not trying to excuse all of the tactics that the Nazis employed in the occupied countries; but reprisal attacks –even against civillians– is a fairly common tactic in the suppression of enemy guerrilla action.
Just wondering.
I see another factor involved: punishment for allowing such leaders to come to power and stay in power. How many deaths would’ve been required to take out Hitler? Did no one have the courage? Certainly many Germans were executed by the Nazis for being “traitors.” At some point civilians bear responsibility for what their leaders do.
Fail — you may want to rethink your position that the people should be held responsible for the actions of their leaders … I assume that you would be in wholehearted support for …
— Reparations to descendants of slaves
— Reparations to Indian tribes for deaths of their ancestors from starvation while on a reservation
— Trials for any living WW2 Pacific vet, esp those who were on Saipan & Okinawa and did not “give an opportunity for the Japanese to surrender” (quote from a revisionist history text)
— Trials for US bomber crews who bombed French towns & villages [we were not at war with France]
Granted, there is no one alive who committed the ‘crimes’ for the first two examples so there should be no liability, but that is a small matter for a legal system that has in the past twisted itself into multiple pretzels to achieve their desired outcome (‘penubra’ or Kelo anyone?)
After World war I Germany had to get rid of the Kaiser and of all kingdoms(your order). However, the kingdoms of Baden, Württemberg, Sachsen and Bayern had always brought stability to our country. We had some democracy, but the communists and conseratives hated each other dearly. My mother often reported of battles between the communists and the men of Hitler. By the way, the first followers of Hitler had been losers and even looked like that. However, there was no stable government and so the conseratives wanted to use the idiot Hitler as a puppet Kanzler. In the end there even was no Verein (club) without a Hitler leader. Hitler used to speak of the Volk, but the old communities had been destroyed. Everybody who criticized Hitler was imprisoned and the writer Hans Fallada was right when he wrote “Jeder stirbt für sich allein”. Individuals cannot make a revolution. That is a fact. Furthermore, Mr. Hitler, the man of the year in 1938(sometimes I do not believe it) got the Saarland back, the Rhineland free and was a very respected man while Erzberger, Stresemann etc. always got treated like fools or criminals. Somehow my father’s and my mother’s family escaped Hitler, but they could not escape war. My father was saved by a Russian woman and her daughter in a cold winter night. Somehow I owe them my life. Therefore I always will keep these women in my memory.
Bismarck had already gotten rid of all the kingdoms, Landern lords… in 1871
I’m sure that would be a great surprise to the Kings of Saxony, Wuerttemberg and Bavaria as well as the Grand Dukes of Baden, Hessen, the 2 Mecklenburgs, Oldenburg and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and the 15 or so states within the German Empire.
The only kingdom that was eliminated in 1870s was based out of Paris
No, you are wrong. In 1871, the former king of Prussia did become the first Kaiser of Deutschland: Kaiser Wilhelm I. The kings have been a level lower. I know that the children in Stuttgart greeted the king with ” Grüß Gott, Herr König.” According to my aunt the king had to go in 1918. At least my aunt was very sad. Bismarck, on the other side, was the Kanzler of whole Germany. In 1918, Austria wanted to join Germany, but was not allowed to. Therefore, we did not invent the mess, we simply could not control it.
For one thing, Joe LM, Germany invaded other countries, bombarded the UK, and tried to blockade the UK with naval warfare. Arthur Harris didn’t force them to do that, they chose to. Would the bombing of Tokyo and many other Japanese cities, and the atomic raids, have happened had the Japanese decided not to attack the United States?
For another, the German and Japanese were brutal occupiers who set about the massacre of civilians in countries they conquered. Most of the Jews the Germans killed weren’t from Germany but other countries like France, the Netherlands, the USSR, and Poland. When the British and the Americans conquered a country, they didn’t kidnap millions of them for slave labor the way the Germans did. Occupation by Britain, the USA, or France produced nothing like Babi Yar or the Nanking Massacre. Your idea of moral equivalence between the Allies and the Axis is absurd both on grounds of who the aggressors were and of what the various countries did to their defeated enemies.
Are you for one-world government or not? If the nation-state is not soveriegn, then there must exist some entity above the nation-state with the authority to punish transgressions. Transgressions determined by this supra-national body, and guilt determined by them also. If you believe in world government, that’s fine, but be so kind as to frame your arguments accordingly. If the UN wasn’t lesson enough for you, then you’re truly hopeless.
Our former president von Weizäcker argues that one cannot speak of the expansionism of Germany in the 20th century without mentioning that in all those centuries before the German states have been the battlefield for English, French, Russian and Swedish interests. With the Swedish we get along rather well now, but the rest…Most dangerous are former would-be powers who are reduced to their normal size now. History flows…we know it, but do you know it too? Together we could manage the future, however,you and the French(though I should be careful here – personally I still have many friends in France) do not seem to want a strong Europe of the Vaterländer.You only want to dominate us, nothing else. Personally I do not wish Europe any longer.And somehow I understand the Germany before World war I and afterwards. I have no difficulty to imagine the hate of the French and the English because we have been so successful when we have been united the first time. And now again. The hate and the rest. And you think you are superior. Oh, I think I mentioned it before: I have an Indian brother-in-law. He is not very impressed of the English, though you think you cultivated those “territories”.
“Most dangerous are former would-be powers who are reduced to their normal size now.”
yeah, and what size did they have before that is no longer registered in geographical maps?
Britain is still Britain, France is still France, like they were for centuries !
“You only want to dominate us, nothing else”
ach so, wie so?
or may-be you ignore the hidden german right party agendas?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/world-war-2/8424749/MI5-files-Nazis-planned-Fourth-Reich-in-post-war-Europe.html
May-be that the Allies were generous, and forgive Germany and nullified all her war reparations, thing that Germany can’t imagine for the Mediterranean club, that must be punished !
Sorry, Marie Claude, you probably should look at historical maps before saying that little, peaceful France has always had the same borders.
Perhaps we can agree that France’s borders should be those of before she conquered the Duchy of Lorraine? Just to be fair, I’d say we could return Wallonia to France. Or perhaps we should acknowledge the independent nations of Burgundy & Gascony? Perhaps also an independent Normandy and return France to its natural borders in Ile de France?
Up until the image of an aggressive Germany was created by WW 1 French propaganda, the historical war creator on the Continent was France.
“Perhaps we can agree that France’s borders should be those of before she conquered the Duchy of Lorraine? Just to be fair, I’d say we could return Wallonia to France. Or perhaps we should acknowledge the independent nations of Burgundy & Gascony? Perhaps also an independent Normandy and return France to its natural borders in Ile de France?”
hmm I’m sure that Bismark didn’t make war to conquier them all, but rallied a part of the left non conquierred ones to make war against France for Alsace Lorraine, according to his pan germanism agenda, after that their fate was tied to Germany !
“Up until the image of an aggressive Germany was created by WW 1 French propaganda, the historical war creator on the Continent was France.”
No, The aggressive Germany was ready to make war to France, it had a Schliffen plan for that, since the tripe alliance: fight France first, (it would be soon vainqued like in 1870, then turn onto the Russians), France didn’t decleare war on Germany, it was Germany who didit after that Austria declared war on Serbia, Pointcaré, our president was returning from a official visit in st Petersburg and had the surprise to learn that our country was mobilising after the declaration of war
Check the true historians, not your french-bashing sources
Perhaps we can agree that France’s borders should be those of before she conquered the Duchy of Lorraine? Just to be fair, I’d say we could return Wallonia to France. Or perhaps we should acknowledge the independent nations of Burgundy & Gascony? Perhaps also an independent Normandy and return France to its natural borders in Ile de France?
Ok we could go until Charles Martel, and of his relative Charlemagne, the Franks, then the whole holy Empire should be Frank !
Hmm Alsace Lorraine became French with Louis XIII wrs gains,more than 4 centuries ago
And Wallonie wouldn’t mind to join France with your ethnical quarrels Flamish vs Walloons
“or may you ignore the hidden german right party agendas”? The most right-wing party we have is the CDU (Adenauer’s party), now Angela Merkel’s party. People claim that during Merkel’s government the CDU moved to the left. The liberals can be ignored(they would get only 3 per cent at present). Then we have the SPD, the Green ones(multicultural and anti-German)and die Linke(left one). The Piraten is a new party and they love computers. No Forth Reich either. The Forth Reich only does exist in the likes of Mrs. Thatcher. You mean Hitler is our bible? All wrong. “The allies were generous”? Really? It depends who you are. Perhaps they had been generous to the Nazis . Or to those women who wanted silk stockings. “Nullify the debts of Greece? You seem to have no idea of the difficulties Greece is in. If we would pay all debts of Greece, the Greek would still need money. All those years they did not create a functioning government. Merkel does not throw them out. On the other hand, rich Greek have billions in Switzerland but the Greek government does not care to get it back. Oh they reduced the wages of the poorest ones? Why of the poorest ones, for heavon’s sake? There are many former Greek citizens in Germany. And they all do not want to give their hard-earned into the black hole called Greece.
London Agreement on German External Debts 1953
“The agreement significantly contributed to the growth of the post-war German economy and reemergence of Germany as a world economical power. It allowed Germany to enter international economic institutions such as the World Bank, International Monetary Fund and World Trade Organization.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agreement_on_German_External_Debts
The money that Germany “lended” to Greece was for repaying german banks, and not gratuitous, Greece had to repay interests on the loan. This money didn’t benefit to the Greek population, but served in a certain way the greek elite to remain in their priviledged position.
Those that put their money in Swiss accounts aren’t from the popular classes, and in any case don’t represent the majority
Mark E the historic maker of war on the continent were countries, including England, shifting alliances with one goal: to not let any one country dominate unchallenged. This was standard foreign policy.
I don’t recall Britain or France goose-stepping into the same territories as Germany did in the 20th Century and building death camps or perpetrating genocide.
I hope most Germans aren’t as tone-deaf as you are when they speak of comparative history.
You refer to me? I cannot follow you. Please explain. Goose-steping was in the first world war I think. My father did not know to goose-step, I am sorry.
http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/58978722
Marianne whether you live in deney, whether you’re innocent
about the origin of the right party in Germany
“After World War II ended with the defeat of fascist militarism in these two nations, the early election returns in both under United States occupation so favored socialist candidates that US occupation authorities had to quickly release fascist war criminals from prison and back them with funds and political support in order to save both Japan and West Germany from democratically elected leftist governments. Fascism was reconstituted under the guise of capitalistic democracy to fight socialism, notwithstanding that the pre-war rise of fascism was brought about by the same flawed strategy that eventually led to World War II.”
“Within Germany, there was much discussion about what kind of government should emerge out of the political vacuum and chaos and how to rebuild the collapsed economy. But the principle of the Atlantic Charter notwithstanding, it was soon clear that the decision was not for the German people to make, but for the victors to impose. De-Nazification came to a screeching halt and a neo-fascist regime was put in place under four years of US occupation that eventually transformed itself into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) in 1949. West Germans could have any type of government they wanted as long as it was not communist”
CDU was Created by Conrad Adenauer, former nazis were members of his governments
http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-11882-8/adenauers-germany-and-the-nazi-past
I don’t support the idea of moral equivalence between the axis powers and allied powers, and I fully understand that they (the axis) were the aggressors.
I’m talking about the actions of PARTICULAR military officers of both sides, and how we are supposed to judge their actions.
Normally, we don’t blame ordinary soldiers and officers for the policies of their political masters.
The defense counsel for these Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS officers will assert that reprisal attacks (such as that inflicted on the villagers in Civitella) can be justified as a legitimate response to the partisan attacks the officer’s soldiers had to endure. After all, hadn’t the allied military commanders carried out similar reprisals against German and Japanese civilians (in an effort to terrorize them into submission)?
We don’t want to hamper our own officers by accepting rules of war that leave our own forces at a disadvantage whenever we find ourselves needing to suppress an enemy guerrilla campaign, do we?
you’re mixing with the wars that happenned after WW2
Quite elementary – we won and they lost! You should know by now history is always written by the victors.
“Quite elementary – we won and they lost! You should know by now history is always written by the victors.”
If history is always written by the victors, then why are there so many American books about the Vietnam War? Why so many histories of the Civil War by former Confederates? Was “All Quiet on the Western Front” written by a German?
Germans wrote plenty of histories of WWII. I read, in German, “The Illustrated History of WWII” by Kurt Zentner (Sudwest Verlag, Munchen, 1951) and couldn’t help noticing that it included one–count ‘em, one–page on the war in the Pacific. Albert Speer wrote a series of books about the war. Paul Carrell’s series of histories, written from the German point of view, are less well known but much more comprehensive. Many of these books are self-exculpatory but they were undeniably written by the defeated.
The USA did not start the war against Japan.
Japan was defeated after january 1943 but remained in war to avoid any concession.They never had a chance to win anyway
The estimate of casualties of a invasion : 2.5 millions to 15 millions japaneses and 1 million american soldier in a war already won
On august 15 the parliament tied a vote to end the war. After two atomic bombs
Have you heard about Nankim? 300k people killed in China or the long march of Bataam?70 k tortured and murdered while forced to walk without food and water for a week.
Dresde? V1 and V2?
From a Western viewpoint, yes Japan had already lost the war, but to say they were defeated is not quite true. Internal documents from Japan leading up to the planned US invasion showed that they correctly predicted the location and time of the invasion. Furthermore, techniques that Japan had used in the Pacific up to that point that weren’t that effective, such as Kamikaze Planes and suicide subs, would have been devastating on US assault shipping trapped close to the main land of Japan. The actual geography of Japan made radar very problematic for the US navy meaning a lot of flat tops were going to be sitting ducks. Even the US recognized it was going to be a blood bath as the number of Purple Hearts estimate required for the first 3 months and produced are still being handed out to our military members today. The US has never minted another Purple Heart since WWII.
Still, despite the US worst fears, it was going to be worse. The Emperor of Japan was briefed just prior to the Atomic Bombings that the Japanese military was prepared for around 9 million Japanese casualties to force the US to negotiate. Japan had at most 2.5 million military members left on the main land. Basically the military was going to force 6.5 million civilians to take on US landing forces with little or no military support. The stark truth, and I do not say this lightly, the atomic bombings of Japan not only saved US lives, it saved a LOT of Japanese civilians.
A great book dealing with the subject is “Hell to Pay” which covers the internal military documents of both the US and Japan leading up to the planned invasion.
“The US has never minted another Purple Heart since WWII”
According to this, the US ordered another batch in 2000:
http://hnn.us/articles/1801.html
But only because of inventory concerns. So it’s not entirely true. But they still come close to using up that 1945 supply.
I didn’t know that about the planned invasion. That’s a heck of a thing.
It was called Operation Downfall. Studies by the DOD predicted 1.7-4 million American casualties, including 400,000-800,000 fatalities, and five to ten million Japanese fatalities.
And again, this turned out that the US had really bad intelligence in terms of what the Japanese Government was willing to put their people through. The amount of planes already destroyed by the US had actually forced the Japanese to build up a fleet of slow, wooden planes. In the open ocean, no threat at all, but up against a mountainous Island nation, against a multi destroyer radar picket line, those planes would have been difficult to see coming.
Oh and thanks for updating me on the Purple Heart thing. Its been a long while since I have read up on military history (last semester of engineering here). I’m always amazed how little the end of the Pacific War is actually covered in schools. Most people I know don’t even realize that the Japanese had to put down a military coup to prevent the war from going on even after the atomic bombings.
Yes. Attack on a defended position filled with armed men and war material is not a war crime, even if the position is a city. Hiroshima was the site of a major Japanese army HQ (II Area Army, which commanded the defenses of all southern Japan), war industries, and a chemical-warfare center.
Killing unarmed and defenceless civilians is a war crime, even if some of them at some time in the past provided support for armed attack.
No German airman was charged with war crimes for the “Blitz” against Britain or the bombing of Warsaw.
However, the Luftwaffe commander who led the bombing of Belgrade was so charged (and punished)- because Belgrade had been evacuated of military personnel, declared an open city, and left undefended. (Belgrade was bombed out of Hitler’s pique that Yugoslavia had dared to refuse to join the Axis.)
I’m Italian and I don’t understand what good would come to anyone if a demented old man in his 90s is jailed.
What the article forget to mention is the fact the “reprisals” are a common tool in war even today and the use of reprisals against the hostile civilians for what the insurgents and terrorists in their mids did was common and accepted by all parties of the war.
The Soviet and the American, Canadian, French retaliate against the civilians also with impunity for the actions of Germany partisans. I don’t think any of them was punished.
The youngest Nazi criminal possible is 82 now (if he was born in 1930 and have 15 years in the 1945). How useful and reasonable is to jail people that is near a century old, it is not dangerous to anyone and will die anyway in a few years?
“The Soviet and the American, Canadian, French retaliate against the civilians also with impunity for the actions of Germany partisans. I don’t think any of them was punished.”
never heard that the Allies did remove a whole village from their inhabitants, like the Nazis did
Google “Dresden fire bombing” and get back to us on that.
sorry for Dresden, but our harbours were as much bombed
“Never heard that the Allies did remove a whole village from their inhabitants like the Nazis did”. I do not agree. At least Stalin did. Remember the Krim-Tartars, the Russian-Germans, the Kulaken etc. Countless are the people who disappeared in Siberia or died on their way to Siberia. My father’s mother wanted to adopt a Russian boy whose parents had been killed by Stalin. However, Churchill sent all Russians home though many of them faced death simply for having seen Germany.
Hitler and Stalin won the award for mass murdering
Joelm-
Simply this: The wehrmacht spread it. The actions of the 8th Air Force reduced it. Truman ended it.
That is the fact. You cannot take an event out of its context, or you might as well say there is no difference between getting sick, or recovering- either way, cells kill other cells.
“The “reprisals” were carried out by units of the German army’s “Hermann Göring” Division”
Actually the “Hermann Göring” Division (Fallschirm-Panzer Division 1 Hermann Göring) was part of the Air Force, not the Army.
Thanks. As far as I know, the units involved in the Civitella Massacre were ground troops. But, as you suggest, it appears that for reasons pertaining to the division’s namesake, it remained formally part of the Luftwaffe. I’ve changed this to Wehrmacht.
Anyone old enough to have voted for Hitler (1932/33) would have been born about 100 years ago. There can’t be many of them left. The vast majority of Germans alive today became adults during and after the war. Most Jewish and other survivors have received, or are still receiving payment. It is simply time to let the matter drop.
These endless demands just fuel the dark anti-semitic strain in German society. Sure, you can beat the reparations drum for another 25 or 50 years, but a lot of Germans might be ready for Hitler redux if the economy collapses. It would be a lot more serious this time. How long do you think it would take modern Germany to build nukes? About two weeks.
You can’t hide from the truth, although that’s exactly what Germans have been doing for the last seventy years.
You can threaten all you want about Germans going back to war. Nazi Germany is still the most hated society in the history of the world. If Germans ever want to get warlike again, people will be ready this time. Hell, I’d enlist myself in whatever nation’s army Germany decided to go to war against, and I doubt I’m alone.
“Hell, I’d enlist myself in whatever nation’s army Germany decided to go to war against, and I doubt I’m alone”
Why just germany? Why not enlist and go fight the taliban? Why wait?
Settle down the tough talk. Germany’s not about to go on the warpath again. War guilt is practically written into germany’s constitution, and the chances of anyone militaristic getting the numbers needed to get into government are impossibly small.
A little embarrassing fact that the rest of europe would like to also forget is that hitler would have had a much tougher time of it if he hadn’t encountered quite so many accommodating sentiments in western europe. The grievances left over from the WWI settlement (of which reparations were only one part) reached far and wide. Quite a few leaders saw in hitler a chance to roll the dice again and get a better deal for themselves. And anti-semitism was hardly confined to germany. Or europe, for that matter.
I’m no expert, but it does seem to me that europe has written for itself a few convenient myths since the 40′s. It must have been very hard to wake up one day and discover that a particularly widespread, comfortable and nasty form of bigotry had been declared beyond the pale, and realize that only a few days previously that they’d all been up to their armpits in it. So everyone decided it was mr hitler’s fault, and those dreadful nazis. He made them rat on their jewish neighbours. And everybody suddenly discovered that they’d had an underground resistance movement, of unknowable size or extent. Thank goodness for that – otherwise it might have appeared that the entire country (pick one, any one) had simply gone along for the ride.
Still, it WAS nearly 70 years ago. Sooner or later we do have to move on. We can all beat up on europe, but I don’t think any country has completely clean hands. Not in an historical sense.
the Europeans aren’t alone to have a selective memory, Europe wasn’t only freed by the Americans (and or the Brits), but also by the Soviets, who beared 75% of the Allies war casualties
Agreed (I’ll take your word for the casualties).
Russia’s role was rather important. Had hitler how decided to open a two-front war things might have dragged on a lot longer (although once the US had La Bomba the outcome would probably have been roughly the same – except for one or two german).
The problem with russia, though, is what they did along the way. Let’s not have any illusions about russia “freeing” anybody. By the time they started to march on berlin, that was an army of revenge and destruction. If I’m to belive Anthony Beevor’s account of what happened next, the russian occupation of their bit of berlin constitutes one of the significant war crimes of the 20th century (hint – it was VERY bad for women and girls, and when they heard what happened, more than a few russian wives did not let their husbands back into the house when they got home). He relates one episode when germans were trying to escape the russian sector over a bombed bridge, literally clambering over the girders, while the russian army was firing on them with machine guns and tanks – the US soldiers had to look on, furious, having no mandate to fire back.
Russia pulled out all stops to get to berlin first primarily so that it could get hold of some stuff that was being developed there. They created indiscriminate destruction of anything or anyone that happened to be in the way. “Liberation” was not their objective.
But yes, russia experienced incredible hardship, and fought astonishingly well. They also developed some impressive weapons, and some that were just very well suited to the conditions. Let’s not ignore the humanity of the troops who had to dig in at places like stalingrad. But the political regime they fought for were still a mob of total bastards.
The country that really wore it the worst was poland. Every time the front moved, they experienced another round of scorched-earth retreats. It’s a miracle that any poles survived.
Had not the Nazis armies been crual with the Russian POWs, probably that such a retaliation on the Berlin population wouldn’t have been so harsh
http://www.historynet.com/soviet-prisoners-of-war-forgotten-nazi-victims-of-world-war-ii.htm
Poland had a complicated history with Russia since centuries, and there’s a not well-known war of 192O between the Bolcheviks and those who opposed to communism, that was the cause of old grievances between the both countries
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Soviet_War
Yeah, ok. I’m going to bow out of this one, but you’re on a hiding to nothing.
Russian troops raped women en-masse in germany. It was systematic, and russian troops bragged about it in letters home. Nazis were cruel to all sorts of POWs, but nothing justified what happened when russia took berlin.
It was revenge. It was undisciplined. It was inhuman. And it pretty much characterized everything they did afterwards.
This conversation is over.
hmm, western allies POWs had a much better treatment, we are not talking of the concentration camps then !
Oh, I agree with your account of how virtually all of Europe jumped at the chance that the Nazis offered to get rid of their Jews, and that antisemitism was a way of life in the continent one minute, and then all of a sudden it was verboten. One moment the Jews were Germany’s and Europe’s scapegoat, and the next minute the Nazis were the scapegoats. The Nazis invented the Final Solution, but they didn’t invent the antisemitism that fueled it.
As for the “tough talk,” I wasn’t the one who brought up the passive-aggressive threat that Germans might get angry and decide to go to war again if people don’t stop complaining about Nazi war crimes.
“The Nazis invented the Final Solution, but they didn’t invent the antisemitism that fueled it.”
of course, it dated since the middle-ages
http://www.slate.com/articles/business/the_dismal_science/2011/05/the_persistence_of_hate.html
“Germans might get angry and decide to go to war again if people don’t stop complaining about Nazi war crimes”
you can’t imagine how they don’t care, and don’t feel guilty !
“And everybody suddenly discovered that they’d had an underground resistance movement, of unknowable size or extent”
there have been legends on surrender-monkeys that have been entertained for political reasons !
Dday wouldn’t have happened without the french resistance that prepeared the ground in sabotaging communications, and in ruining bridges and railways…
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/d-day/the-resistance
I have to agree with with comments #2 and #7. It’s time to just let go of the hatred of Germans for things that happened well beyond the memory of most people alive today.
“The ruling means that individuals cannot sue states for war reparations. Thus if reparation compensation is paid to one nation from another and individuals derive no part of it, they have no right to sue on their own behalf or on behalf of their relatives. According to Der Spiegel “no court has the jurisdiction to force a foreign country to pay reparations, no matter what the transgression.”
Amnesty International has condemned the court’s ruling, saying it puts countries’ interests above the protection of human rights.”
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/318984#ixzz1m0Byltpa
Grmany is “protected” by the Allies !
The right party of Germany was funded early after the german defeat with former Nazis, because the Allies needed them to conterbalance the “lefties” that were winning the elections then.
I don’t remember that the inhabitants offsprings of Oradour sur Glane obtained any compensation from Germany too, nor those of Maillé that is less known as Oradour
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maill%C3%A9_massacre
Also there’s a similarity within the german reaction, it was because of resistants former attacks, and the Germans were on their retreat way, and wanted to avenge their soldiers
I don’t know if a court would take these barbaric actions into account now, though the Jews managed some reparations.
I remember inhabiting in a cure station, where in summer the place spoke yiddish, the concentration camps survivors were allowed a 3 weeks cure, all charges paid by Germany 5my man was the Hotel director, and used to send the bills the the german embassy in Paris)
Really, Italy? Do you want the Balkan countries or Ethiopia/Eritrea suing you for what Mussolini did?
The Third Reich died a well deserved death in 1945. The DFR replaced it had nothing to do with the crimes. The individuals involved are either dead or in their late eighties or older. Is it justice? No. Is there any additional purpose to be served? No. Unless it becomes possible to spring these creatures from their place in Hell that they so richly have earned let the matter rest, IT IS OVER!
The Third Reich may have died in 1945, but only because the Allies killed it, not because Germans themselves wanted it to end. In fact, most Nazis went right back to work for the newly created Federal Republic of Germany just as they had under the Nazis.
While the Allied occupation forces demanded denazification and sentenced thousands of Nazis to prison, the first thing the newly minted Federal Republic of Germany did was to release them from jail and whitewash their crimes.
You are wrong. And Adenauer was no Nazi. However, the Beamte(state-employed) have been Nazis, at least most of them. For a functioning state Adenauer took some former Nazis, all of them have been very Ami-friendly. However, one could argue that most Beamte (they had to join the Nsdap to stay employed ) focused more on their careers than on anything else. On the other hand, the state-employed have been a disaster for Germany. Even a few days before the end of the 3rd Reich young boys have been sentenced to death. However to indicate that we still long for a person like Hitler or all Germans ever did I see as an insult. 12 years of a 2ooo year old history, 6 years of which have been war, not even our neo-Nazis want Hitler back. I know that some historians claim that all Germans could have known the truth, there have been diaries etc. However it took them rather long to study those sources. Neither the English nor the French mentioned KZs or Ausschwitz, though Dachau was known. Why did they not keep the Jews who wanted to escape? Why did they send them back to Germany? Why? No answers but always accusations. Why did the Brits bomb a ship on which the Nazis did hide some thousends of jews. Oh they thought these people would be Germans. I am 50 + (though in reality I would never admit it). I was 4 years old when the first Ami called me Nazi. I was so blond. And I should always excuse myself for things I did not do and even my family had only some faint ideas of. Yes, my father hit hundreds of Russian tanks and he killed those people in the tanks – though he was not aware of the people inside. He never killed civil persons and till 1944 he did not know about Jews. He was told so in a hospital and till the war ended he was in hospitals. My aunt was raped in Mannheim and I have an oncle who does not look very German. Shall I say thank you. You make me angry.You treat us as Hitler addicts. And you install a Raketenabwehrsystem without asking our permission. Nobody in Germany needs such a system and nobody wants it. We want you to go.
“Neither the English nor the French mentioned KZs or Ausschwitz, though Dachau was known. Why did they not keep the Jews who wanted to escape? Why did they send them back to Germany? Why? No answers but always accusations. Why did the Brits bomb a ship on which the Nazis did hide some thousends of jews.”
The facts became known at the end of 1942, priests started to preach in churches against these barbaric measures, though if you were hiding Jews and or resistants, you were under the threat to be shot too, Barbie and his peers were ruling with the Gestapo. Note that quite a number of “justs” managed to hide Jews in spite of the real danger.
People don’t hate the german population but its actual elite that governs, and that seems to forget empathy with the people that are losing their jobs and live in the streets in Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal
“only 12 years out of a 2,000 year history.” Unfortunately, in those 12 years, Germany destroyed countless millions of lives. There was also a 2,000 year old Jewish history in Europe, and in only 12 years, the Germans murdered every Jew they could find and turned Europe into a Jewish graveyard. !2 years is not a long time, but extermination is forever. The Germans exterminated Europe’s 2,000 year old Jewish community and did so with smiles on their faces and enthusiasm in their hearts.
Ever since Germany became a nation in the mid-1800s, it started a terrible European war every 20 years or so. But since the Allies began the occupation after WW2, Germany is obedient and not starting any more wars.
“Ever since Germany became a nation, it started a terrible European war every twenty years or so”. Germany was a nation for a long time (Heilige Römische Reich Deutscher Nation).The Kaiser was elected by the German kings. However, seen the French way we became a nation in 1871. Some historians call Germany a “verspätete ” nation, that is Germany could not become a nation in due time, because there have been two obstacles: the rivalry between Prussia and Austria and the objection of the French. In 1870, the French declared war and the Prussians did not come alone but brought along even the south German countries, countries who had fought with the Austrians against the Prussians 4 years ago. This was a significant mark in German history. Prussia succeeded in uniting Germany, while a civil meeting in the Paulskirche in Frankfurt failed in 1848. The war in 1914 was wished by all countries and all Germans felt very bitter that Germany had to accept to be the only guilty one, though we have been an ally of the Austrians. I know it is a rotten argument but in 1914 Germany was really united on the battle-field: There was no difference between religion or tribe. I knew at least two Jewish citizens who had received the iron cross I and II. However, after the war there was a small civil war and the most promising politican of the Zentrum party was short: M. Erzberger, who had accepted defeat. It should be mentioned that war-relations between Jews and other Germans seemed to stay very solid: At least farmers had no problem to help or hide their Jewish comrades(during the war). I know my version of history makes you angry, but this is the way I see the past. I simply cannot accept that members of a certain “Grande Nation” see her attacks towards Württemberg not only as justified (war gains) but describe any action of a German state as attack. And some of my family had not only to go to Russia because of Hitler, there was a little French called Napoleon… Please excuse my mistakes, but I have problems with my new computer.
In case I have time I try to answer the other part of your accusations. However I can tell you in advance that Germans failed in two points very badly. Firstly, they should have protested against any bad treatment of any citizen in advance and so given a signal and secondly, somehow everybody expects us to do what other people tell us. I do not share this idea.
The fact is, Germany started war after war after war. I’m sure many Germans such as yourself believe in the justness of these wars, otherwise there wouldn’t have been so many wars.
The mistake the Allies made after WW! was allowing the Germans to re-militarize and start beating the war drums again, and hoping that by ignoring the little Austrian midget and his goose-stepping minions the problem would go away. But no. Ignoring the Germans only made them bolder. First Czechoslovakia, then Poland.
After WW2, the Allies didn’t make the same mistakes. They forced German people to go into the concentration camps and see the murder and cruelty that their zeal for superiority unleashed. Of course, every German denies ever knowing anything about the crimes they perpetrated, but most people realize now that they are liars. There is simply too much evidence of what the Germans did.
Germany started WW1 and WW2, but it won’t start WW3, because it has been neutered by occupation forces. Today, America and Britain occupy Germany, and Germany is obedient. Instead of making gassing vans, they make cars.
Germany made Europe judenrein. They turned the 2,000 year old European Jewish community into a graveyard in just a few short years, grabbing every last Jew from every corner of Europe they marched into and shooting them into pits or gassing them, including 1.5 million children. It’s an unimaginable crime that these smiling Germans committed. And afterwards, they tried to burn the evidence of their crimes just like they burned the bodies of the children they rounded up.
But they can’t destroy history. People will always remember what the Germans did, and it will always make them sick.
“Ever since the Allies began the occupation after WW2, Germany is obedient and not starting any more wars”. The last part of this sentence is very unfair. Most German tribes only fought when they got attacked. (French, Swedish, Turks etc.) Without Nato or the US, Germans gladly would have avoided any war.My mother cried when my brother had to go to the Bundeswehr. In 1939 everybody, well nearly everybody was desperate. Nobody wanted war. Oh yes,some time ago, our government abolished the Bundeswehr and they do not seem to get enough young men, only women now. “Germany is obedient”. Well, I make it short then it is not so painful. Yes, that is why we have all those problem now.I hate it.
“In 1870, the French declared war and the Prussians did not come alone but brought along even the south German countries, countries who had fought with the Austrians against the Prussians 4 years ago. This was a significant mark in German history”
In 187O, the French have been blackmailed into war by Bismarck,
http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Ems_dispatch.aspx
Bismark had the goal to annex Alsace & Lorraine which he considered german as they spoke a german dialect, according to his pan-germanism policy, aimed at unifying the german speaking lands under his control, to make Germany a power that could challenge Britain and France. Also because of sulfurous Aryan legends, aimed at titillating the superiority of the Germans’ ego (also the leitmotiv of the Nazis)
-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V%C3%B6lkisch_movement
a bit like today Merkel is blackmailing the EZ counties into her austerity plan, otherwise, punishment. Be sure if that that happened decades ago, Germany would have sent troops in Greece again. It seems that this behaviour for punishment is a remnent feature of the Germans, some old lutherian dogma caused this trauma?
“The war in 1914 was wished by all countries and all Germans felt very bitter that Germany had to accept to be the only guilty one, though we have been an ally of the Austrians”
The war of 1914 was wished by Austria and your Kaiser, but expected by the “Alliés”, though not so soon for the french, who had to mobilise in a hurry, while Germany was ready since a couple of years, but was waiting for a opportunity,that the Austrians gave her on a tray. If the war had only concerned the Balkans, France and UK were determinted to not commit into it. Bismark perfectly knew that if the serbs were attacked, the Russians would mobilise, and according the Schlieffen plan (already in german forecasts for decades), if the Russians had to be fought (France’s and Britain’s alliés), it would be a more benefitful strategy to attack France first, then the Russians, which Germany did, but the conflict with france lasted longer than expected, the war was stalemating, Germany couldn’t put all her energy on the eastern front, though had the chance that Russia ws undertaking its Bolchevik Revolution, the irony was that this bolchevik Revolution gained the german workers afterwords too.
“It should be mentioned that war-relations between Jews and other Germans seemed to stay very solid: At least farmers had no problem to help or hide their Jewish comrades(during the war)”
then you can count them on one hand !
“but this is the way I see the past. I simply cannot accept that members of a certain “Grande Nation” see her attacks towards Württemberg not only as justified (war gains) but describe any action of a German state as attack. And some of my family had not only to go to Russia because of Hitler, there was a little French called Napoleon…”
WTF are you talking? Napoleon never reach the Hitler genocidal casualties, he is responsible for the soldiers death, not for eliminating populations. But he had to make war with the MittelEuropa kingdoms (3 coalitions), they were plotting a attack on France for reputting the King on his throne, Russia Czar wasn’t spared by such coalitions.
Did you know, that Goethe was proud to wear the Legion d’Honneur, cuz Napoleon freed the german lands from their petty land and church lords, he brought with him the human right constitution, and a code of civil laws, which became the marks on which Bismarck based his design for a german populations unification
I must say, that in reading your prose, you’re still living in 1914, and if the americans weren’t neutralising your country, you would start another conflict with France, but this time we would be prepeared !
Well, I intended to answer your last accusations, it was important to me. However, then I saw your latest answer. You seem to wish to press me in a collective form with the label Hitler = all Germans who do not agree with me. Under this conditions I am not ready to write any further. WW III, I never heard a more absurd idea. Smiling Germans? A horror vision in this case. You use stereotypes. You want to see the German monster you have internalized. And if I would agree with everything you say, you would yell: the devote German. Hitler was a monster. And not he alone. But to describe me as a Hitler follower??? It is more than an insult. Somehow you changed identity. I never will come to this place again. This is no forum for discussions. This is a formum for hate. It does not seem to matter to have wrong ideas and to deliver wrong statements. Everything to o.k. as long it is anti-German. Anyway, I wish you the best. Good-bye.
“But to describe me as a Hitler follower???”
When?, just someone who lives in the deny !
as for changing of identity, sorry, I sue the same pen-name since years
If so-called “Amnesty” International thinks that it is a wrong decision, then I support the ruling 100%.
.
The French surrendered after a fews weeks of fighting, then went on to be one of the nazi’s biggest allies in rounding up the Jews and producing war materials. This was of course forgiven because France was ‘on our side’.
Francs-tireurs (aka ‘the resistance’) knew that they were operating beyond the laws of war and that they (and the populations that supported them)were subject to immediate execution and reprisals. Very similar reprisals in fact to those undertaken by French during Napoleon’s wars of conquest, France’s invasion of Mexico and actions in their African colonies.
The point being is that no nation is ‘clean’ when it comes to war.
The victors set the rules after the fact and have the ability to punish the losers as they see fit using ‘law’ as a cloak to justify the punishments
“The French surrendered after a fews weeks of fighting, then went on to be one of the nazi’s biggest allies in rounding up the Jews and producing war materials. This was of course forgiven because France was ‘on our side’.”
The French didn’t surrendered before that the whole Britain army had retreated in Dunkirk, 1oo OO french soldiers died in the operation, fighting like the Dday heros, but of course the Victors didn’t notice that in their legend of the heros !
and excuse me, the supposed biggest Nazis allie allowed that 7O% to 75% of its Jews survived, whereas in the so called good friends of neocon America, only 5% managed to survive
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2012/01/wilders-dutch-government-should-apologize-for-passive-attitude-to-wwii-deportation-of-jews.html
as far as Petain:
“Petain was the lesser evil that avoided that the French army would be enrolled within the Nazy army.
But Petain proved to be too clever by half. While he fought against a close Franco-German military collaboration, and fired his vice premier, Pierre Laval, for advocating it, and secretly urged Spain’s dictator Francisco Franco to refuse passage of the German army to North Africa, his attempts to undermine the Axis while maintaining an official posture of neutrality did not go unnoticed by Hitler, who ordered that Laval be reinstated as vice premier. Petain acquiesced, but refused to resign in protest because of fear that France would come under direct German rule if he were not there to act as a buffer. But he soon became little more than a figurehead, despite efforts to manipulate events behind the scenes that would advance the Free French cause (then publicly denying, even denouncing, those events when they came to light).
-http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/marshal-petain-becomes-premier-of-occupied-france
and had not Churchill backstabbed us in the back at Mers el Kebir, Admiral Darlan would have opted for the allies, since then the Brits appeared as the enemis and had to lift american banners to accost in our colonies harbours
so, your flight on WW2 is very short-sighted and ill documented
No, in reality there was only a Dunkirk because the French army broke, forcing the BEF to retreat to the Channel ports.
The French peoples have never forgiven the British sailors and merchant seamen for not dieing to the last man so that more French soldiers could escape onto British ships.
The 100,000 or so soldiers in the Vichy army keeping order in France allowed a similar number of German troops to be sent against Field Marshal Montgomery and other allied armies.
I am certain that Petain thought that he was doing the correct thing at the time, which is why France later convicted him of treason.
OK, then the Brits were on vacations, and expected that the French made the whole work ! BS, it was churchill that ordered the retreat, and the french troops were protecting it.
unfortunately your relative didn’t told you that this was a Brit defeat too
“Adrian Hamilton: ‘A great escape? Dunkirk was actually a humiliation for British forces’
The Evacuation of Dunkirk, which began 70 years ago, was no military miracle. It was a humiliation for British forces, writes Adrian Hamilton, whose father was there”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/adrian-hamilton-a-great-escape-dunkirk-was-actually-a-humiliation-for-british-forces-1978769.html
and there was any french army anymore from the armistice, it was DISMENTLED,
The France libre fighters were volontaries ! And Montgomerry had one of the french valorous soldier with him, General Leclerc that rejoined his army in Libya !
BTW
The report shows that German foreign ministry diplomats in Nazi-occupied Paris and throughout Europe played an active role in deciding whether Jews should be deported and sent to the gas chambers.
“If the French Resistance killed German soldiers, it was the diplomats who immediately deliberated whether to deport a thousand or 2,000 Jews to the extermination camps as a punishment,” Mr Conze said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/german-foreign-ministry-helped-nazis-flee-country-after-the-war-had-ended-2116414.html
Sort of funny that Italy and the other countries want these murders and criminals to bail the rest of europe out of their economic messes
the complaints were undertaken before the euro crisis
One last chance for Jews to milk another sympathy crisis from WW2. Must maintain the myth that Jews were the only civilians who died, and Germans were the only people who perpetrated any sort of war crime.
It’s been 70 years since WW2, you guys only have a few years left of this guilt trip. Unless you plan on being as insufferable as Jesse Jackson, complaining about slavery all the time.
and your grand-mother rided on bicycle !
I’m not sure I see what any of this has to do with jews or the holocaust.
In Europe today, the anti-fascist and protect-the-oppressed-minority laws, and the UN itself, created in response to the crimes against humanity in WW II, have ended up having the effect of stifling any criticism of Islam, and jailing/fining those who speak out against Muslim terror. Meanwhile, Muslims can commit rapes, attacks and the vilest hate speech without hindrance, and Jews are being killed and driven out of Eurpean cities by Muslims in numbers not seen since WW II, yet if you speak out against this, you risk arrest for a hate crime. If the court ruling went the other way, you may have seen a few octagenarian war criminals tried but released for health reasons, but in the future, you would have seen Israelis and US soldiers arrested for war crimes by Muslim states, I guarantee you. The OIC has the upper hand at the UN, and the only war crimes after WW II that the UN would concern itself with would be those “war crimes” against Muslims committed by Americans and Israelis retaliating for Muslim terror attacks!
It doesn’t seem all that odd, really. Germany’s claim to the ICJ is that italian courts were trying to rule against germany as a state in italian courts. And they can’t. Just as american courts can’t sue the queen of england in their own jurisdiction (as a head of state – if she mugged somebody in times square, that might be different), and indonesia can’t sue new zealand in indonesian courts.
Whatever anyone might happen to think about what happened, or how much the grandkids of the people who were abused might like some reparations, they can’t resolve that in italian courts. At the very least they’d have to pursue it in german courts or, more likely, in european courts. According to germany’s submission to the ICJ, the italian courts acknowledged this from the outset – they admitted they weren’t following international law, and they were openly trying to create new law which would allow them to do it. They weren’t even suing or prosecuting individual perpetrators – they were going after germany itself.
But that can’t. That’s not how sovereignty works. Every country with a beef against the US would otherwise just sue the US in their own local courts, inevitably winning and therefore claimming a legal right to start seizing assets. Think it through.
UN court ruling assures impunity for Nazi war crimes. You should be aware that the UN never, never intended to protect the German state. The way countries, people and individuals see history varies widely. Recall Vietnam or Iraq, or Afganistan. The version that the US will only bring forward democracy is not shared by everybody. Out of experience I would even argue the US is far more hated than Germany. It only depends where you are. The same with France, Britain and many other countries on this earth. Italy and Greece got some money, however seen from today (the rich Germans), the individual might have not got enough or even nothing (the countries kept the money). Furthermore, 100 DM may have been a fortune in 1951, now 1000 Euros = 2000 DM are simply nothing. More difficulties: The father of Terence Hill (Italio-Western) was a Italian, his mother a German. Terence Hill did remember the day Dresden did burn and he(4 years old or so) did stand with his mother in the window and waited for his father. Was he a slave-worker or simply a worker? Was the man in Prag who threw the 2 day old baby of a German woman out of the window(the house is German -free)a hero or a criminal? The hundreds or so Croatian soldiers who have been walled with dozens of German children in in the Slovenian mountains, criminals or victims? I am sure that wars create more victims than wrong-doers. And somehow I do not wish that even wrong-doers get killed. This is not my world. Oh yes, the Greens and the left criticized the UN. However, they could compensate these people on a private level. This never will happen, because they hate Germany just as much as the average reader of Pj media. I lived in the homes of KZ victims but I was treated very friendly and somehow everybody shared my opinion. The hate exposed here I experience as very shocking.
So a country allies itself with murderous Nazis and then wants to sue murderous Nazis for being murderous Nazis?
Yeah, but they changed their mind first …
And as they saying goes – those that forget history are condemned to repeat it….
http://articles.cnn.com/2012-02-10/us/us_marines-nazi-symbol_1_1st-reconnaissance-battalion-flag-symbol-marines?_s=PM:US
Slightly off topic I know, but PJMedia has been ignoring this one -I wonder why?
Seriously?!? You are comparing a small group of individuals within a unit of the Marines, arguably doing something stupid from a political point of view, by posing in front of a flag that can be argued looks like the symbol of the Schutzstaffel, with the rise of Nazi Germany, and the brutal war that it launched?
As a military member for six years, from 2000-2006 in the USN, and I hear people acted shocked that any US enlisted member would be stupid enough not to know about the history of the Nazis and their symbols, I laugh. I served with kids that could barely read and write, let alone understand a conflict and its causes from 50 years ago. Or you could look at it from the perspective that its an insanely retarded for these men to be sent overseas to fight and die for us, and the public gets their panties in a bunch about an F-ing flag.
Either way, this story distracts from the much larger issues we face both locally and internationally and doesn’t warrant the amount of attention it has already gotten.
I guess my point is, that the adoption of SS regalia by an elite unit of the armed forces IS a serious concern. The SS were not just a group of enemy soldiers, they were the idealogical shock troops of Nationalist Socialism. They were the people that designed and implemented the Final Solution. They were directly accountable and responsible for war crimes (against US POWs amongst others – remember Malmedy) and Crimes against Humanity.
The fact that this unit is a small group is missing the point. This unit has officers who are in a position of responsibility and they should have some appreciation of history. the fact that this is being written off as a bit of a misjudgement is indicative of the large problem. The regalia is symbolic and by placing it next to The Flag, gives credibility and support to the philosophy that lies behind it.
I’m not sure what is scarier, the fact that these guys posed with an SS flag knowing what it was, or posed with the SS flag NOT understanding it. Either way, their officers should have been across it. Would it have been acceptable for these guys to pose with a piece of SMERSH iconography?
To Marie-Claude: I cannot avoid it. This time I have to address you personally, the first time today and the last time forever. I do not live in denial. I live in the world of today. Hitler is history. A bad one, but history. This person is not worth to be remembered.Only what he did. In reality I lived some years in France, most in Paris. But never, never I met a person like you. Otherwise I would have fled to Germany the very day. Sorry to say so but this is exactly how I feel towards you. Oh I forgot. There even was a TV film unter Bauern or so. (Among farmers). The woman concerned spoke in TV too. A real woman, no fiction.I try to tell the truth. That is my message.
I’m afraid you will find more these days, and from the whole Europe
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9077586/Germanys-Carthaginian-terms-for-Greece.html#disqus_thread