9 ms·

Germans Cringe at Hitler's Popularity in Pakistan

20 points by gruseom 17y ago

ugh 17y ago
“Don’t mention the war”?
- biotech 17y ago
  Are you referencing the episode of Faulty Towers in which Germans are visiting? John Clease repeats "don't mention the war" several times to his fellow English hospitality workers, but he himself fails in this endevour, with hilarious consequences.
  - sliverstorm 17y ago
    Thank you so much, that was hilarious :) (no offense intended to those of you who are German of course!)
    - eru 17y ago
      As far as I can remember the Germans in the episode aren't made fun off.
sliverstorm 17y ago
The Nazis are waging a new kind of war. The war of public opinion, in which they weasel their way into completely unexpected places... Edit: what, is it so impossible that some neo-nazis are trying to drum up support in foreign countries?
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  Also, the comments about 'but I'm Aryan'... couldn't you stymie them with the simple explanation: 'Do you look like me?' (says german). 'No, but I'm Aryan'. 'Doesn't matter, you don't look like me so they probably would have shot you on sight'. Not 100% accurate but I think it gets the point across.
- philk 17y ago
  I think that's being overly generous to modern Neo-Nazis. They, and white supremacist groups in general, seem to be from the bottom of the barrel intellectually. I doubt they'd have the wherewithal to execute such a plan.
  - sliverstorm 17y ago
    Yes, you're right. I forgot about that. I tend to assume other people are on a level playing field with me, mentally, though that doesn't always turn out so well.
- bad_user 17y ago
  That's just paranoia. We do have Nazi activists in our country, although they call themselves extreme right activists, and while being a group that spreads racist and antisemitic ideas, it's mostly harmless. Although a large percent of the population is Christian and goes to church regularly (which are also hubs for spreading racist/antisemitic propaganda), such activism has had little impact on the general population. That's because people are tired of propaganda and of empty promises and of big changes that don't bring that significant improvement in life quality that's being promised. Germany wouldn't have ended up with Hitler if they wouldn't have taken a big hit in WW1. With Germans dying out of starvation because of the British blockade, or because of the economic meltdown post-WW1, it's easier to believe the fallacies in Mein Kampf, to believe in Hitler's vision and shut your eyes and ears in the wake of a genocide. But that's only because Germany's economy and quality of life had nowhere to go but up, and it did just that (for a while anyway). But in a country where things are mostly working (i.e. there aren't many people dying from hunger) it's hard for such ideas to gain popularity, even if those ideas are spread by a champion as articulate and smart as Hitler was. That's because with a higher quality of life comes a higher moral ground, and people are mostly conservatives anyway.
  - eru 17y ago
    For all the Weimar Republic's flaws the more interesting questions almost becomes not why it failed, but why it lasted so long. The hit taken in the treaties of Versailles is just one reason. The economic crisis around 1930 is another one. Churchill made the suggestion that Germany should have become a constitutional monarchy instead of a republic to give the monarchists something to rally behind the new state.
WalkingDead 17y ago
In many places the vocal minority controls the media. I guess this popularity issue is not a Asian thing only. A significant large number of silent people in Germany I assume is supportive of Hitler's work --- that's what my impression is after personally talking with a limited few.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  The academic in me wants to ask you if you spoke with a statistically relevant sample size? :)
- thomas11 17y ago
  (Disclaimer: I'm German.) It is only a tiny extremist minority who is even somewhat supportive of Hitler. Even if the media was completely controlled by a vocal minority - not entirely possible in a free democracy like today's Germany - you would at least see these Nazi-leanings in election results. Not the case.
plinkplonk 17y ago
Two things (1) "Mein Kampf" is just another book for Indians. Sure it is available in bookstores, it isn't particularly popular. Most people have read it, and most think it is a turgid bit of prose. (2) Why should Indians (or Pakistanis for that matter) have the same level of Hitler Phobia and/or Holocaust guilt Germans have? I thought the German "guilt" was all about how Hitler and co misled their ancestors into The Holocaust and other dirty deeds. Indians and Pakistanis were colonized by the British at the time of WW2 and many of our ancestors fought against the Nazis and the Japanese. (Some of them fought for the Nazis/Japanese trying to attain independence for India from the British). Nutshell: People who had nothing to do with the Nazis or the Holocaust and for whom the Nazis and Hitler were "people far away" fighting and winning aginst an oppressive colonial power don't have as much of a bad reaction as people who were invaded/ruled/slaughtered by them. Big Deal. Genghis Khan built mountains of skulls during his invasions but would Germans blanch if they saw a Muslim with the name "Genghis" or "Timur" or think his name is inappropriate? As something to chew on, many babies born in the Middle East / Pakistan etc are being named "Osama". An American child with such a name would find social situations difficult I imagine. No such stigma in Pakistan. At some point will we see a headline "Saudis cringe at Osama's popularity in Pakistan"? To be even more controversial it could be argued that Bush and co "killed a million Iraqis" for no real purpose. Should all Americans hate and abhor W? Stalin and Mao were responsible for more deaths than Hitler Should Chinese be surprised that some few Americans think Mao was "cool"? fwiw I personally thing Hitler was a charismatic and thoroughly evil person. Most Indians who are aware of actual history feel the same way. But I am also aware concentration camps were "invented" by the British during the Boer War and the large scale deaths of non combatant Boer women and children in these camps could be called genocide if it happened today. Should we hate Lord Salisbury (and Winston Churchill for that matter) too? I don't see many Britishers being ashamed of them.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
- fh 17y ago
  In essence, you say that the Nazi cult that some Pakistanis (supposedly) entertain is no big deal, because they are not responsible for the Holocaust. As a German, who as a matter of fact doesn't feel particularly guilty about things his great-grandfathers did half a century before he was born, I'd like to know how you come to such a peculiar opinion. Evil is less evil if you can blame someone else? It's okay to revere mass murderers as long as you're not the one who let them come into power? Your point about children's names is almost the textbook definition of a straw man, and I think you know it. Many German children are named Joseph, but that name has a long cultural and religious history, and no one in their right mind would associate that with Stalin. I guess the story with the name Osama in Muslim cultures is similar. However, if Pakistani parents name their children Adolf, a name that has no cultural associations in Pakistan whatsoever except being linked to a brutal mass murderer, then that's at least a little bit cringe worthy. (I wonder if Godwin's Law applies to a discussion that's already about Hitler in the first place, and if a factual discussion about such a topic is even possible...)
stevoski 17y ago
This popularity is also in India. Although I'm not German, I live in Germany, and when in India I often answered the ubiquitous question "where are you from?" with "Germany". Then most times came the "Hitler was good" response. My theory is that what endears Hitler to Indians (and perhaps Pakistanis) is nationalism. Nationalism is rife in India. And Hitler's political party was ardently nationalistic.
- borism 17y ago
  Indian subcontinent is after all the birthplace of the original "Aryan race".
  - shishir_pandey 17y ago
    well neither AIT nor any other alternative theory has as yet been accepted as totally correct. But AIT is more often thought of as being more accurate..so Indian subcontinent may not be the birth place of aryans.
    - borism 17y ago
      I meant the concept, not the people.
mrphoebs 17y ago
As far as india is concerned... (1) like plinkplonk said "Mein Kampf" is just another book to read, except its author killed 6 million jews. (2) The conclusion that the article draws regarding 1.2 billion indians based on an art exhibit and a restaurant owner is akin to saying everyone in the United States is old after seeing two elderly people from the country.
- jbm 17y ago
  As far as India and Pakistan is concerned... (from what I recall from what my parents told me) (1) Hitler's Germany fought the British, who the common Indians/Pakistanis generally hated. (2) Germany made token efforts to "assist Indian independence". Undoubtedly meant to destabilize the British, but any assistance was undoubtedly appreciated. I don't want to talk about the elephant in the room (anti semetism), but for what it is worth, I have never heard a desi ever say "Hitler was great because he killed the Jews".
  - plinkplonk 17y ago
    "I don't want to talk about the elephant in the room (anti semetism)," There is no anti semitism in India. There are hardly any Jews here.I believe there is one synagogue in Kerala. Most of the few jews who lived in India emigrated to Israel long ago. Very hard to hate people who you never encounter! The religious faultline in India is Hindu/Muslim. Interestingly enough the image of Jews is that of ferocious and competent warriors, not meek/servile/moneylenders/fill-in-your-favorite-anti-Jewish-stereotype, largely due to the fact that Indians know of Jews mostly through the lens of Israel and its wars. Even people who are Pro Palestine/Arab anti/Israel think Israeli armed forces and the Mossad are very dangerous.
    - eru 17y ago
      > Very hard to hate people who you never encounter! That's actually one of the easier things. Areas with less foreigners tend to have more xenophobia (e.g. in Germany).
vegashacker 17y ago
The photo in the context of the article's title is a little misleading. It makes it seem like these children are lighting candles in honor of Hitler.
- borism 17y ago
  every intelligent person knows that swastika is a good luck sign in central asian cultures, especially in today's Germany
philwelch 17y ago
What's odd about this isn't Hitler's popularity in Pakistan, it's Hitler's unpopularity elsewhere in the world, particularly Germany. Most countries lionize their conquerers, even their genocidal conquerers. Had Hitler won even a limited, partial victory, it's not unlikely Germany would see him as a hero today (or at least as a "complicated figure"). Consider the attitudes of their respective homelands towards such figures as Genghis Khan, Ataturk, and Andrew Jackson. If you help your own "people" at someone else's expense, you become a hero to one side and a villain to the other, and Hitler definitely was a net gain for your average "Aryan" up until they started losing the war. It's standard us vs. them, ingroup/outgroup thinking. To total outsiders, separated by vast differences of space and time, they don't care about the victims either and assign shortsighted judgments. How many Westerners within the last 30 years probably thought Genghis Khan was a total badass? How many people basically ignore the parts of the Bible that describe God leading the Hebrews in a variety of genocidal wars? Genocidal conquest is how things were done, and it takes a very contemporary set of moral beliefs to even see that thing as wrong, as long as it wasn't committed against you. It's not even a lesson that's necessarily sunk in yet (review 2003-2008-era anti-Iraq-War rhetoric and compare mentions of US troop casualties to mentions of Iraqi civilian casualties). Powerful people in Europe bought into the concept of human rights and started building the contemporary moral view of genocide after Hitler did to Europe what Europe had been doing to the rest of the world, but if Hitler hadn't been defeated so thoroughly I suspect our very moral standards wouldn't be up to the task of vilifying him to the same extent. In a way, Hitler in WWII explicitly represented and practiced the philosophy that genocidal conquest is the way things are done, and the western allies--seeing the extreme to which Hitler had taken that idea--were forced to adopt (and develop) the contrary position. All in all, I think there's a fairly nearby possible world where Hitler achieved at least a partial victory and no one is nearly as shocked at him as we are in this world.
- lispm 17y ago
  You got that wrong. It is not about winning wars. Hitler also did not care about the wars. They were tools for him. Tools in the struggle of the 'germanic race' over all other races. If the Germans do not win the war, they were not worthy in his view as 'race' to survive. Hitler was motivated by racism and race struggle. We should have learned from these mistakes. These are not how things should be done. We should not repeat the mistakes of the past.

20 points by gruseom 17y ago

ugh 17y ago

“Don’t mention the war”?

biotech 17y ago
Are you referencing the episode of Faulty Towers in which Germans are visiting? John Clease repeats "don't mention the war" several times to his fellow English hospitality workers, but he himself fails in this endevour, with hilarious consequences.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  Thank you so much, that was hilarious :) (no offense intended to those of you who are German of course!)
  - eru 17y ago
    As far as I can remember the Germans in the episode aren't made fun off.

sliverstorm 17y ago

The Nazis are waging a new kind of war. The war of public opinion, in which they weasel their way into completely unexpected places... Edit: what, is it so impossible that some neo-nazis are trying to drum up support in foreign countries?

sliverstorm 17y ago
Also, the comments about 'but I'm Aryan'... couldn't you stymie them with the simple explanation: 'Do you look like me?' (says german). 'No, but I'm Aryan'. 'Doesn't matter, you don't look like me so they probably would have shot you on sight'. Not 100% accurate but I think it gets the point across.
philk 17y ago
I think that's being overly generous to modern Neo-Nazis. They, and white supremacist groups in general, seem to be from the bottom of the barrel intellectually. I doubt they'd have the wherewithal to execute such a plan.
- sliverstorm 17y ago
  Yes, you're right. I forgot about that. I tend to assume other people are on a level playing field with me, mentally, though that doesn't always turn out so well.
bad_user 17y ago
That's just paranoia. We do have Nazi activists in our country, although they call themselves extreme right activists, and while being a group that spreads racist and antisemitic ideas, it's mostly harmless. Although a large percent of the population is Christian and goes to church regularly (which are also hubs for spreading racist/antisemitic propaganda), such activism has had little impact on the general population. That's because people are tired of propaganda and of empty promises and of big changes that don't bring that significant improvement in life quality that's being promised. Germany wouldn't have ended up with Hitler if they wouldn't have taken a big hit in WW1. With Germans dying out of starvation because of the British blockade, or because of the economic meltdown post-WW1, it's easier to believe the fallacies in Mein Kampf, to believe in Hitler's vision and shut your eyes and ears in the wake of a genocide. But that's only because Germany's economy and quality of life had nowhere to go but up, and it did just that (for a while anyway). But in a country where things are mostly working (i.e. there aren't many people dying from hunger) it's hard for such ideas to gain popularity, even if those ideas are spread by a champion as articulate and smart as Hitler was. That's because with a higher quality of life comes a higher moral ground, and people are mostly conservatives anyway.
- eru 17y ago
  For all the Weimar Republic's flaws the more interesting questions almost becomes not why it failed, but why it lasted so long. The hit taken in the treaties of Versailles is just one reason. The economic crisis around 1930 is another one. Churchill made the suggestion that Germany should have become a constitutional monarchy instead of a republic to give the monarchists something to rally behind the new state.

WalkingDead 17y ago

In many places the vocal minority controls the media. I guess this popularity issue is not a Asian thing only. A significant large number of silent people in Germany I assume is supportive of Hitler's work --- that's what my impression is after personally talking with a limited few.

sliverstorm 17y ago
The academic in me wants to ask you if you spoke with a statistically relevant sample size? :)
thomas11 17y ago
(Disclaimer: I'm German.) It is only a tiny extremist minority who is even somewhat supportive of Hitler. Even if the media was completely controlled by a vocal minority - not entirely possible in a free democracy like today's Germany - you would at least see these Nazi-leanings in election results. Not the case.

plinkplonk 17y ago

Two things (1) "Mein Kampf" is just another book for Indians. Sure it is available in bookstores, it isn't particularly popular. Most people have read it, and most think it is a turgid bit of prose. (2) Why should Indians (or Pakistanis for that matter) have the same level of Hitler Phobia and/or Holocaust guilt Germans have? I thought the German "guilt" was all about how Hitler and co misled their ancestors into The Holocaust and other dirty deeds. Indians and Pakistanis were colonized by the British at the time of WW2 and many of our ancestors fought against the Nazis and the Japanese. (Some of them fought for the Nazis/Japanese trying to attain independence for India from the British). Nutshell: People who had nothing to do with the Nazis or the Holocaust and for whom the Nazis and Hitler were "people far away" fighting and winning aginst an oppressive colonial power don't have as much of a bad reaction as people who were invaded/ruled/slaughtered by them. Big Deal. Genghis Khan built mountains of skulls during his invasions but would Germans blanch if they saw a Muslim with the name "Genghis" or "Timur" or think his name is inappropriate? As something to chew on, many babies born in the Middle East / Pakistan etc are being named "Osama". An American child with such a name would find social situations difficult I imagine. No such stigma in Pakistan. At some point will we see a headline "Saudis cringe at Osama's popularity in Pakistan"? To be even more controversial it could be argued that Bush and co "killed a million Iraqis" for no real purpose. Should all Americans hate and abhor W? Stalin and Mao were responsible for more deaths than Hitler Should Chinese be surprised that some few Americans think Mao was "cool"? fwiw I personally thing Hitler was a charismatic and thoroughly evil person. Most Indians who are aware of actual history feel the same way. But I am also aware concentration camps were "invented" by the British during the Boer War and the large scale deaths of non combatant Boer women and children in these camps could be called genocide if it happened today. Should we hate Lord Salisbury (and Winston Churchill for that matter) too? I don't see many Britishers being ashamed of them.

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
fh 17y ago
In essence, you say that the Nazi cult that some Pakistanis (supposedly) entertain is no big deal, because they are not responsible for the Holocaust. As a German, who as a matter of fact doesn't feel particularly guilty about things his great-grandfathers did half a century before he was born, I'd like to know how you come to such a peculiar opinion. Evil is less evil if you can blame someone else? It's okay to revere mass murderers as long as you're not the one who let them come into power? Your point about children's names is almost the textbook definition of a straw man, and I think you know it. Many German children are named Joseph, but that name has a long cultural and religious history, and no one in their right mind would associate that with Stalin. I guess the story with the name Osama in Muslim cultures is similar. However, if Pakistani parents name their children Adolf, a name that has no cultural associations in Pakistan whatsoever except being linked to a brutal mass murderer, then that's at least a little bit cringe worthy. (I wonder if Godwin's Law applies to a discussion that's already about Hitler in the first place, and if a factual discussion about such a topic is even possible...)

stevoski 17y ago

This popularity is also in India. Although I'm not German, I live in Germany, and when in India I often answered the ubiquitous question "where are you from?" with "Germany". Then most times came the "Hitler was good" response. My theory is that what endears Hitler to Indians (and perhaps Pakistanis) is nationalism. Nationalism is rife in India. And Hitler's political party was ardently nationalistic.

borism 17y ago
Indian subcontinent is after all the birthplace of the original "Aryan race".
- shishir_pandey 17y ago
  well neither AIT nor any other alternative theory has as yet been accepted as totally correct. But AIT is more often thought of as being more accurate..so Indian subcontinent may not be the birth place of aryans.
  - borism 17y ago
    I meant the concept, not the people.

mrphoebs 17y ago

As far as india is concerned... (1) like plinkplonk said "Mein Kampf" is just another book to read, except its author killed 6 million jews. (2) The conclusion that the article draws regarding 1.2 billion indians based on an art exhibit and a restaurant owner is akin to saying everyone in the United States is old after seeing two elderly people from the country.

jbm 17y ago
As far as India and Pakistan is concerned... (from what I recall from what my parents told me) (1) Hitler's Germany fought the British, who the common Indians/Pakistanis generally hated. (2) Germany made token efforts to "assist Indian independence". Undoubtedly meant to destabilize the British, but any assistance was undoubtedly appreciated. I don't want to talk about the elephant in the room (anti semetism), but for what it is worth, I have never heard a desi ever say "Hitler was great because he killed the Jews".
- plinkplonk 17y ago
  "I don't want to talk about the elephant in the room (anti semetism)," There is no anti semitism in India. There are hardly any Jews here.I believe there is one synagogue in Kerala. Most of the few jews who lived in India emigrated to Israel long ago. Very hard to hate people who you never encounter! The religious faultline in India is Hindu/Muslim. Interestingly enough the image of Jews is that of ferocious and competent warriors, not meek/servile/moneylenders/fill-in-your-favorite-anti-Jewish-stereotype, largely due to the fact that Indians know of Jews mostly through the lens of Israel and its wars. Even people who are Pro Palestine/Arab anti/Israel think Israeli armed forces and the Mossad are very dangerous.
  - eru 17y ago
    > Very hard to hate people who you never encounter! That's actually one of the easier things. Areas with less foreigners tend to have more xenophobia (e.g. in Germany).

vegashacker 17y ago

The photo in the context of the article's title is a little misleading. It makes it seem like these children are lighting candles in honor of Hitler.

borism 17y ago
every intelligent person knows that swastika is a good luck sign in central asian cultures, especially in today's Germany

philwelch 17y ago

What's odd about this isn't Hitler's popularity in Pakistan, it's Hitler's unpopularity elsewhere in the world, particularly Germany. Most countries lionize their conquerers, even their genocidal conquerers. Had Hitler won even a limited, partial victory, it's not unlikely Germany would see him as a hero today (or at least as a "complicated figure"). Consider the attitudes of their respective homelands towards such figures as Genghis Khan, Ataturk, and Andrew Jackson. If you help your own "people" at someone else's expense, you become a hero to one side and a villain to the other, and Hitler definitely was a net gain for your average "Aryan" up until they started losing the war. It's standard us vs. them, ingroup/outgroup thinking. To total outsiders, separated by vast differences of space and time, they don't care about the victims either and assign shortsighted judgments. How many Westerners within the last 30 years probably thought Genghis Khan was a total badass? How many people basically ignore the parts of the Bible that describe God leading the Hebrews in a variety of genocidal wars? Genocidal conquest is how things were done, and it takes a very contemporary set of moral beliefs to even see that thing as wrong, as long as it wasn't committed against you. It's not even a lesson that's necessarily sunk in yet (review 2003-2008-era anti-Iraq-War rhetoric and compare mentions of US troop casualties to mentions of Iraqi civilian casualties). Powerful people in Europe bought into the concept of human rights and started building the contemporary moral view of genocide after Hitler did to Europe what Europe had been doing to the rest of the world, but if Hitler hadn't been defeated so thoroughly I suspect our very moral standards wouldn't be up to the task of vilifying him to the same extent. In a way, Hitler in WWII explicitly represented and practiced the philosophy that genocidal conquest is the way things are done, and the western allies--seeing the extreme to which Hitler had taken that idea--were forced to adopt (and develop) the contrary position. All in all, I think there's a fairly nearby possible world where Hitler achieved at least a partial victory and no one is nearly as shocked at him as we are in this world.

lispm 17y ago
You got that wrong. It is not about winning wars. Hitler also did not care about the wars. They were tools for him. Tools in the struggle of the 'germanic race' over all other races. If the Germans do not win the war, they were not worthy in his view as 'race' to survive. Hitler was motivated by racism and race struggle. We should have learned from these mistakes. These are not how things should be done. We should not repeat the mistakes of the past.