Why Germans Can Never Escape Hitler's Shadow

[Rosselsprung]

Germans today have a hard time showing national pride because it's been beaten out of them. Two generations have grown up hearing nothing in school except how criminal the Germans were in the most recent past and that nothing that came before can make up for this great shame. Children at their most impressionable have heard this over and over again - in school, on television, in the newspapers, at every holiday in which some politician makes a speech, every time their leaders visit a foreign country. The Allies after the war wanted our warm, armed bodies to help defend against the Soviets, but our minds were supposed to be turned to Euro-mush. How could it fail? The only time we were allowed a small reward was when we kissed-up to the French, the more publicly the better.

There would have been a large problem being used as a buffer state if West Germany had been taught that way. National pride is a motivator and since Germany's national pride has been beaten down so that anything that resembles it is considered evil, why would the soldiers of the Bundeswehr want to fight and die for Germany? Also, the whole "kissing up to the French" is just another measure of revenge from the French for the defeats of the Franco-Prussian War, and the almost defeat of WWI, and WWII. Not since Napoleon's time has France beaten another nation in war single handedly. But since political correctness states all Germans should hang their heads in shame every day, I suppose continual kissing up will always be necessary to maintain face in the international community.

[panzerlied24]

thank you all for your comments.

I understand why Germans have had their pride beaten out of them. Aside from the fringe groups is there any discussion amongst mainstream Germans about regaining a sense of nationalism (not Nazism)?

[panzerlied24]

thank you all for your comments.

I understand why Germans have had their pride beaten out of them. Aside from the fringe groups is there any discussion amongst mainstream Germans about regaining a sense of nationalism (not Nazism)?

[Landser]

I think Gespenst and Beppo S.have best described the situation in Germany and why it is like that.It's the victors who like to write history and in this case prescribed a heavy dose of re-education based on an eternal guilt complex to be instilled.Especially since Germans are a very inventive and industrious people and showed it after the disasterious damages inflicted on their livelihoods.
Now this did not get unnoticed to this day, therefore influential forces have problems to acknowledge
simple facts like this.
For example were is the term "holocaust industry" derive from?

In US industry this climate of German bashing is not necessary unwelcome since it boosts their competitiveness globally.
And England with their empiristic laced attitude (mostly the media),
is also unable to recognize reality
of Germany, being what it is right now.
With other words keep pounding their ETERNAL "guilt" is a prosperous proposition for certain powerful circles.

[Jake]

Hi guys

I very much agree with all of you who are saying that there is no sense in somehow holding modern Germany and German people today guilty for the actions of Nazi Germany 70 years ago. Which nation does not have guilt and horror in its past, from all of our slavery, empires, conquests, religious and political persecution, economic exploitation, etc etc? WW2 is still in living memory, that's the only real difference, for now.

But I wonder if the (fairly) wide interest in WW2 that exists out there, and which we on this site all share, does not help German people today in 'escaping from Hitler's shadow'. I can walk into any high street bookshop in any British town and find a great many books about WW2 and the Wehrmacht, much more than there is about any other army, even the British Army. To the average person walking past (and watching on TV), 'Germany' keeps looking like panzers and blitzkrieg, and even Holocaust. Some of the Germans in history I can name off the top of my head are composers, philosophers, writers, scientists, artists, statesmen and athletes, but most of them are generals and officers from WW2. If German people today are not happy about that, I can certainly understand it. There is so much more to them. The rest is just history.

Regards
Jake

[SvenW]

Hi guys

I very much agree with all of you who are saying that there is no sense in somehow holding modern Germany and German people today guilty for the actions of Nazi Germany 70 years ago. Which nation does not have guilt and horror in its past, from all of our slavery, empires, conquests, religious and political persecution, economic exploitation, etc etc? WW2 is still in living memory, that's the only real difference, for now.
...
Regards
Jake

No, that isn't the point!

The point ist - are we able to learn from our history to prevent a repeating of it?

... The rest is just history. ...

I hope that history doesn't happens just in front of your door...

[Jake]

Hi SvenW

Learning from history so as not to repeat it would be a good thing. The 20th century had thousands of years of history to learn from. I'm not sure what exactly it learned. Maybe history IS what happens just in front of my door, and inside my doors. There's nothing more real to me than that, nothing more important, and I wouldn't have it any other way. That's what I've learned from history.

Regards
Jake

[Rolf Steiner]

How heavy is the guilt-trip thing in germany, in reality? I've only had the briefest time in Germany, but the impression I got in that time, which adds up to what I've experienced with German people I know here, is that overall, they seem to be fairly adjusted to their past - in other words, aware of it and don't try to avoid or talk around the issue (contrary to the old english 'don't mention the war' cliche).

I've never had the feeling Germans I've known from post-war generations feel obliged to be ashamed for things they weren't themselves involved in, more a responsibility to have an awareness of what went on in that time. Never felt anyone I spoke to was wearing a 'hair shirt' because of it. I'm sure Germans are confronted with uncomfortable aspects of their past more than other nations - it's rare for instance, to be in a situation as an englishman when imperial excesses have become an issue, but it's happened to me on occasion, and it's an odd feeling. But it's more removed, partly because anyone still alive today would only have experienced the empire in it's closing stage. I'm not sure how many people in britain today are aware of the history of empire and what that involved, I don't think it's a priority in the educational curriculum here unless you're going to specialise in history.

Interesting to know how Russians, as an example, are presented with their country's past... was Stalin presented to the public as the murderer he was, or was he just tippexed from the books?

[Panzerkopf]

Germans today have a hard time showing national pride because it's been beaten out of them. Two generations have grown up hearing nothing in school except how criminal the Germans were in the most recent past and that nothing that came before can make up for this great shame. Children at their most impressionable have heard this over and over again - in school, on television, in the newspapers, at every holiday in which some politician makes a speech, every time their leaders visit a foreign country. The Allies after the war wanted our warm, armed bodies to help defend against the Soviets, but our minds were supposed to be turned to Euro-mush. How could it fail? The only time we were allowed a small reward was when we kissed-up to the French, the more publicly the better.

I think that's beginning to happen here in America. Throughout high school, my exposure to American history can be summed up by the following: Slavery, and Indian wars. After twelve-plus years of being told that our history was a series of genocides and imperialistic follies, I don't know how strong or proud this next generation will be. Having an authority figure who's supposed to know all of the answers tell you over and over again that you yourself are still culpable for what your ancestors might have done in the West really screws with your head in a nationalistic sense.

[Walter Wulfsen]

Panzerkopf, I am interested as to which year you graduated from our American public school disaster? I graduated about 25 years ago and the liberal indoctrination, I can assure you, was already creeping into the school curriculum, in the form of the absurd notion that America did not belong in Vietnam, America could not possibly have defeated such an enemy (backed as it was by Communist China and the Communist Soviet Union), and America was imperialistic, misogynistic, homophobic, and racist, etc. A useful corollary to this is the pathetic idea that all the dead white men who made America great were evil (men like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, and Teddy Roosevelt, etc). Therefore, in the minds of liberals, America is evil. Mistakes may, or may not, have been made in America's past, but, nevertheless, present generations of White Anglo Saxon Protestant Americans bear no blame for the past. [Let me suggest that the same thing happened to Germany, after WWII. Due to the bad behavior of the Nazis, Germany and the Germans have been scapegoated and made to feel ashamed, second class, etc. This is unhealthy and can not go on indefinitely. This present generation of Germans, and future generations of Germans bear no guilt and should not.] This politically correct crap has gained some currency, as of late, because so many of the liberal hippy freaks from the 1960's are, unfortunately, the journalists, teachers, politicians and professors of today. Don't trust anyone in authority, verify everything, and above all, think for yourself. Best Regards, Walter

P.S. I fully realize you are duty bound, as a U.S.Marine, to obey all lawful orders in the chain of command, but, still, you can have a healthy sense of skepticism (when called for).

[Panzerkopf]

I've been out of school for about a year and a half now. And my experience learning about the Vietnam war sounds about the same as yours. Lot's of rape, slaughter, and negativity. I asked my teacher at the time to balance it out a little bit by showing "Hamburger Hill" instead of "Platoon" or to discuss some Medal of Honor winners but he balked.
And as for being a Marine, that has no bearing on me being a cynical smartass. I just have to be careful who I express my opinions around.

[Panzerkopf]

This crap in our schools really scares me when I think about it though. If things keep going the way they are, then who in this country will fight for us?

[Dr. Beat]

I know about the discrimination against Germans, and I'm only in high school. There is a German foreign exchange student, and everyone calls him a nazi behind his back and some to his face. Even being interested in German history is frowned upon.

Since I speak some German and I love German military history, a couple of times I've been called a "kraut-lover."

It's quite depressing. But, on the flipside, I've gotten several people interested in German history.

[Villers-Bocage]

I think this is a case of 'united we stand, divided we fall'. As long as there are Germans who pander to those who benefit from seeing Germany and Germans disparaged, the shadow of the past will continue to be a problem. Silly leftists and others, who think the world revolves around German participation in the Jewish aspect of the Europe-wide holocaust will continue to have a negative impact on the national psyche as it were. Personally, I would advocate certain elements of the Japanese approach to history. Japanese willingness to deny the past aside, their straightforward approach to dealing with World War 2 as an issue of 'the previous administration' which settled with the United States government thus placing all compensation in the US treasury, is the best way to shut all the whiners and losers up. To put it simply, it is time for Germans to put their differences aside, stand up and beat it into the heads of all those losers out there; that Germany and it's citizens will not tolerate the incessant barrage of nonsense that comes their way from not just the present day imperialist powers, but anyone else who has allowed themselves to be brainwashed by all the media-spun propaganda that masquerades as history in the English-speaking world.

[Beppo Schmidt]

It's certainly not in Germany's interest to deny anything, but I agree that it needs to get a backbone and tell Israel and everyone else who comes seeking handouts to bugger off.