4 ms·

I wonder if any point the Germans thought they had took it to far

by ffef 10y ago

LyndsySimon 10y ago
From my reading on the subject, many Germans did. Some of them were intimidated into silence on the matter, while others acted in support of the genocide directly or indirectly. Many Germans - whether or majority is up for debate - supported the Holocaust as they understood and/or admitted it to themselves at the time. As an aside, your grammar is incorrect in your comment. I mean absolutely no offense by this and I'm hesitant to point it out, but if it were me I would want to be corrected. "had took" should be "had taken".
- Cozumel 10y ago
  You must be a Grammar Nazi because you're anti-semantic! :p
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    The irony of correcting someone's grammar in a discussion about Nazis was not lost on me :)
    - KSS42 10y ago
      You forgot to mention the lack of a period at the end of the sentance
- Y201K 10y ago
  I don't doubt your intentions and it was nice of you to preface your correction with such reservation, but I gotta give a shout-out to descriptivism: if you can understand what's meant, maybe it's not incorrect!
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago
    That's a good point, and I don't disagree. For some background, I grew up in northern Arkansas. I have a very pronounced Southern accent if I allow myself to, and I've always made it a point to carefully enunciate and use "correct" (read: "Standard American English") grammar because my native accent is one that's generally associated with lower education or even lower intelligence. I credit my vocabulary with my reading everything I could early in life. I'm in my early thirties and there are still times when I have to ask others how to pronounce a word because I've never heard it spoken. I would much rather take the embarrassment of asking over the implicit judgement that people make if I badly mispronounce a word.
    - geoka9 10y ago
      I find this site very helpful for many languages, including English: https://forvo.com/languages/en/ https://forvo.com/languages/en/
  - inimino 10y ago
    ...and that's not even what descriptivism means.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    >but I gotta give a shout-out to descriptivism: if you can understand what's meant, maybe it's not incorrect! I can understand what is meant from 8-bit recordings of a voice. But I'd rather have 16 or 24-bit recordings and even more nuance and information.
xyzzy4 10y ago
People could think anything they want, but if they let those "we are taking things too far" opinions be known to others, they'd be removed from any position of government power at the very least.
dtien 10y ago
There's a great movie that's worth a watch if you are interested in this history. It's a fictionalized ( and likely highly dramatized ) version of a real meeting[0] that took place between the SS leaders and German governmental types at the midway point of the War to discuss the "final solution" for the Jews. But it does illustrate how regular men whether through self-interest, fear, bullying, or expediency will let themselves be talked into, or rationalize themselves into some truly horrific things by fanatical types. I believe I caught it on Netflix or HBO[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)
- jacquesm 10y ago
  Why watch movies about the past when you can observe these things in real life all around you? The biggest question in my head is where do these power types find the large numbers of people to execute their ill plans? It seems like someone is always ready to jump into the role of camp guard at the first opportunity.
  - dtien 10y ago
    Well something about history and being doomed to repeat it... But to your question, I don't think it's ever presented to the camp counselors that way initially. I'm sure there's a certain percentage that are maniacs and true believers that are itching to be the camp hall monitors, but I'd wager that's about 10% or less. I'm sure it all starts with morally defensible, likely very reasonable ideas of personal security or welfare. "I'm keeping my family safe!". Before it slowly starts devolving, and you find yourself rationalizing or being an apologist for the higher ups decisions. And then before long, you're the one pulling the trigger, or kicking someone into the chamber. I"m sure that's simplifying it by about 1000x, but I'm sure there's some truth there. Fear of the outsider and self preservation are strong motivators... How we fight that is probably a better question.
    - LyndsySimon 10y ago
vermontdevil 10y ago
If you visit Dachau, you might be surprised to learn that the camp is right in middle of the town. When I visited, there was a story about some locals taking a peek over the wall and were apprehended. They were put in the camp for a month or so (going by memory now). After they came out, they refused to talk about it and told everyone else to stay away. This was before the extermination of the Jews began though - maybe around 1935.
knz 10y ago
The Germans were certainly not universally behind the Nazi's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism
jdietrich 10y ago
Imagine you're living in Detroit in the 1970s. All around you, people are vilifying the Japanese car makers for ruining their livelihoods. Nobody would dare buy a Toyota or Honda, for fear of finding it burned out and being labelled a traitor. You might know that American manufacturing is inefficient, you might know that Japanese cars are of higher quality, you might know that your community is doomed, you might suspect that everyone around you knows it, but are you going to voice those concerns? Multiply that by a hundred and you've got Nazi Germany. The country was humiliated and impoverished after the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar crisis and the Great Depression. Hitler promised food, jobs and pride, and he delivered on those promises. The Jews were just convenient scapegoat. You might disagree with all sorts of things being done by the Nazis, but you can also see that Herr Schmidt next door has a job, that the children in the street have shoes, that people have a sense of hope and purposefulness. Kraft durch Freude gave you your first beach holiday, they put on plays at the town hall, they're teaching your daughter ballet. When the war is won, you'll get the brand new car you've been saving for, you'll have a beautiful new home in the suburbs, your son will be the first in your family to go to university. Would you speak out, or would you turn a blind eye? Would you resist, or would you just go with the flow?

I wonder if any point the Germans thought they had took it to far

by ffef 10y ago

I wonder if any point the Germans thought they had took it to far

From my reading on the subject, many Germans did. Some of them were intimidated into silence on the matter, while others acted in support of the genocide directly or indirectly. Many Germans - whether or majority is up for debate - supported the Holocaust as they understood and/or admitted it to themselves at the time. As an aside, your grammar is incorrect in your comment. I mean absolutely no offense by this and I'm hesitant to point it out, but if it were me I would want to be corrected. "had took" should be "had taken".

Cozumel 10y ago
You must be a Grammar Nazi because you're anti-semantic! :p
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  The irony of correcting someone's grammar in a discussion about Nazis was not lost on me :)
  - KSS42 10y ago
    You forgot to mention the lack of a period at the end of the sentance
Y201K 10y ago
I don't doubt your intentions and it was nice of you to preface your correction with such reservation, but I gotta give a shout-out to descriptivism: if you can understand what's meant, maybe it's not incorrect!
- LyndsySimon 10y ago
  That's a good point, and I don't disagree. For some background, I grew up in northern Arkansas. I have a very pronounced Southern accent if I allow myself to, and I've always made it a point to carefully enunciate and use "correct" (read: "Standard American English") grammar because my native accent is one that's generally associated with lower education or even lower intelligence. I credit my vocabulary with my reading everything I could early in life. I'm in my early thirties and there are still times when I have to ask others how to pronounce a word because I've never heard it spoken. I would much rather take the embarrassment of asking over the implicit judgement that people make if I badly mispronounce a word.
  - geoka9 10y ago
    I find this site very helpful for many languages, including English: https://forvo.com/languages/en/ https://forvo.com/languages/en/
- inimino 10y ago
  ...and that's not even what descriptivism means.
- coldtea 10y ago
  >but I gotta give a shout-out to descriptivism: if you can understand what's meant, maybe it's not incorrect! I can understand what is meant from 8-bit recordings of a voice. But I'd rather have 16 or 24-bit recordings and even more nuance and information.

xyzzy4 10y ago

People could think anything they want, but if they let those "we are taking things too far" opinions be known to others, they'd be removed from any position of government power at the very least.

dtien 10y ago

There's a great movie that's worth a watch if you are interested in this history. It's a fictionalized ( and likely highly dramatized ) version of a real meeting[0] that took place between the SS leaders and German governmental types at the midway point of the War to discuss the "final solution" for the Jews. But it does illustrate how regular men whether through self-interest, fear, bullying, or expediency will let themselves be talked into, or rationalize themselves into some truly horrific things by fanatical types. I believe I caught it on Netflix or HBO[1]. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wannsee_Conference [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conspiracy_(2001_film)

jacquesm 10y ago
Why watch movies about the past when you can observe these things in real life all around you? The biggest question in my head is where do these power types find the large numbers of people to execute their ill plans? It seems like someone is always ready to jump into the role of camp guard at the first opportunity.
- dtien 10y ago
  Well something about history and being doomed to repeat it... But to your question, I don't think it's ever presented to the camp counselors that way initially. I'm sure there's a certain percentage that are maniacs and true believers that are itching to be the camp hall monitors, but I'd wager that's about 10% or less. I'm sure it all starts with morally defensible, likely very reasonable ideas of personal security or welfare. "I'm keeping my family safe!". Before it slowly starts devolving, and you find yourself rationalizing or being an apologist for the higher ups decisions. And then before long, you're the one pulling the trigger, or kicking someone into the chamber. I"m sure that's simplifying it by about 1000x, but I'm sure there's some truth there. Fear of the outsider and self preservation are strong motivators... How we fight that is probably a better question.
  - LyndsySimon 10y ago

vermontdevil 10y ago

If you visit Dachau, you might be surprised to learn that the camp is right in middle of the town. When I visited, there was a story about some locals taking a peek over the wall and were apprehended. They were put in the camp for a month or so (going by memory now). After they came out, they refused to talk about it and told everyone else to stay away. This was before the extermination of the Jews began though - maybe around 1935.

knz 10y ago

The Germans were certainly not universally behind the Nazi's. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_resistance_to_Nazism

jdietrich 10y ago

Imagine you're living in Detroit in the 1970s. All around you, people are vilifying the Japanese car makers for ruining their livelihoods. Nobody would dare buy a Toyota or Honda, for fear of finding it burned out and being labelled a traitor. You might know that American manufacturing is inefficient, you might know that Japanese cars are of higher quality, you might know that your community is doomed, you might suspect that everyone around you knows it, but are you going to voice those concerns? Multiply that by a hundred and you've got Nazi Germany. The country was humiliated and impoverished after the First World War, the Treaty of Versailles, the Weimar crisis and the Great Depression. Hitler promised food, jobs and pride, and he delivered on those promises. The Jews were just convenient scapegoat. You might disagree with all sorts of things being done by the Nazis, but you can also see that Herr Schmidt next door has a job, that the children in the street have shoes, that people have a sense of hope and purposefulness. Kraft durch Freude gave you your first beach holiday, they put on plays at the town hall, they're teaching your daughter ballet. When the war is won, you'll get the brand new car you've been saving for, you'll have a beautiful new home in the suburbs, your son will be the first in your family to go to university. Would you speak out, or would you turn a blind eye? Would you resist, or would you just go with the flow?