Against Oblivion or the Denazification of the Mind

We should never forget the past, we should never forget all the lives lost, however, we should also not rule out any discussions on the subject. I do not mean petty topics such as "was Hitler a good commander," but more insightful topics into understanding all the circumstances that led to WWII, and the Holocaust, shutting out completely such a topic, or becoming overly apologetic is not exactly beneficial either. I am not accusing you of it, however, I have lived in Germany as well, and I do find it odd that the entire school system is bent on blocking out 1939-1945. I understand that it is hard to deal with such events, and have your nation be involved in such events. However, such a stance seeps into the public as well, I remember two years ago when visiting my family in Munich, I was with my uncle as some school event for his kids, and we talked with a aquiantance of his, at some point during the conversation we paralleled into WWII, and he got uncomfortable with talking about it, and quicly jumped out of that whole era altogether. It is not denial, but blocking out, and that is not healthy.

Originally posted by red clay We can interpret, we can argue, we can rationalize, but it was what it was.  It was pure evil in control of an entire people, government and it's resources.  Don't attempt to glorify or legitimize anything they did.

One thing I have learned throughout reading and schooling is that Hitler was not the most violent anti-Semite, rather he just used it as a platform to unite other right-wing leagues, racist people, and to find a scapegoat to blame who was universally hated (Germany was practically the safest place in Europe for a Jew at that time. France witht the Dreyfus affair less than 100 years prior and Russia with its pogroms 20 years earlier seemed like much scarier places). There were much more violently racist people in Hitler's bureaucracy and Hitler just turned a blind eye to it and let his government run amok with it. I think a functionalist view is much more feasible than an intentionalist, not to say Hitler was a good man who didn't want Jews to be destroyed, he was terrible. I wanted to ask anybody else in this thread if they agreed that Nazi racial policy was not Hitler's brainchild, but rather a result of those under him being violently racist.

Cezar wrote-

Originally posted by red clay Dazzel me on this one edge.�How do you answer this and not come off as an apologist? What were the "real catalysts"?

Well, as for the apologist bit, I resent that. It's not an attempt to excuse anyone from their actions, which I thought I made clear. If they had not been Nazis they obviously would have found alternative solutions to genocide, right? If you find horrors that are the result of state and party politics and military events agreeable or excusable, I think you have an extraordinarily warped sense of morality. Are you saying that if the Holocaust were a product of German state politics - which obviously it was - you think it would then be just fine? Does it have to be couched in some supernatural aura of evil out of a comic book or Hollywood film before you can see it as a horror and abomination? The real horror is in the fact that Germans were not some subhuman species or a group of people affected by some strange drug, but normal human beings with all the faculties of reasoning that you and I have - and they permitted this. Dehumanizing them is just a way for us to feel more comfortable, at the expense of vigilance over ourselves.

Genocide was not a feature of the Nazi program until about 1942, after the Wannsee Conference, and it was a Nazi reaction to a certain set of circumstances. Other countries would not have responded to those circumstances in that way; the Nazi response was unique. The British had faced similar catalysts as a result of their camp systems in South Africa, for instance, yet they did not turn to extermination as a solution. I am sure, given human nature, there were some - even in high positions - who harboured sentiments in that direction, but the nature of British politics wouldn't have permitted such a development. German politics of the time did.

As for the catalyst itself, it was the acquisition of Jewish populations of Eastern Europe and the particular characteristics of those populations and the logistics of attempting to extend the ghetto and camp system to the east. This was a failure and resulted in an epidemic outbreak in the camps, which the Nazis responded to by simply exterminating the inmates. If the Germans never went east, or failed to achieve penetration beyond Poland, I'm not sure that the holocaust would have taken place - things probably would have continued on as they did prior to Wannsee, with Jews a heavily persecuted minority stripped off all rights and criminalized for being Jewish. But probably no gas chambers.



Edited by edgewaters - 25-Jun-2007 at 23:22

someone explain the problem of German school text books and WW2. I've heard reference to denial or 'ignoring it' but not much else

So the conclusion is to never trust Germans ever again and now even the Brits are a bit suss? Where does it began and where oh where does it all end? 

The German case is no different from Japan's case. Both States want to forget their destructive past and both States try to minimize the war in educational systems ( i am no so sure to what extent for Germany, people who have lived there or currently live there may verify this).In Japan they use anime cartoons in order to show the horror of the war! You cannot hide your past. You must live and learn from it, so you cannot do any mistakes in the future. But, forgetting it is one thing , getting preoccupied only with it is another. WWII was full with the emotion of revenge against the French and British by the German people. The Balkan Wars was full of hate against the Turkish "barbaric" occupation. The past was used to jusitfy present actions.

If we talk abou German atrocities, then we must talk about the ones carried out by others as well. Genghis Khan. The Turks. The Brits and the Americans. The allies did not fight for freedom and they were just as guilty of genocide as the Nazis. In the Bengal on '43 and '44 there was a famine which killed 20 million people. Thats 3 times the number the Nazis killed in the Holocaust. This was occured since food was diverted away from India to Europe. In the Bengal villages were wiped out who had actually had a bumper crop, yet the right to life of people in Devonshire was more important than of those in Dacca (words to the effect of what Lord Wavell, Viceroy of India said, Wavell was against the diversion). The purpose of this example is not to demonize Britain or anyone else, but it is ridculous to expect only the Germans to be sorry for their crimes and conviniently forget others. Genocides have occured both before and after. The German or the Japanese should not singled out, or Jews, Roma, Poles, or Bengalis be singled out for special status as victims.

I stand by what I said. A totalitarian state is where many of mechanisms of good government have been disabled. Under international law to change the system of jurisprudence to suit individual interests is to nullify the legality of state rulings. Hitler introduced a code of laws that for instance made the killing of anyone that stood against the Nazi party as legal; there was no need for those who did to go to trial. Under such circumstances no other country could rightfully recognize the Nazi Party as a legal entity, therefore their state rulings were invalid.