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You say that like every single German personally executed jews and other minorities. Yes, a lot of Germans did. Yes, more Germans went along and didn't do anyt

by foepys 9y ago

You say that like every single German personally executed jews and other minorities. Yes, a lot of Germans did. Yes, more Germans went along and didn't do anything against the Nazis. But only a minority of Germans knew how bad it was. My grandmother told me that they knew about some labor camps were certain people were put. She said that she didn't know anything about the industrialized murder. If you look on the map, you will see that the extermination camps (the concentration camps constructed to kill people) were located outside of the German Reich so that the German public would not get to know about it. Hitler knew that the extermination camps could weaken his position and enrage the public. Most Wehrmacht soldiers followed orders and marched against the enemy they were told to shoot at. Yes, this is also bad and "I just followed orders" should not be an excuse. But the recent 72 years showed that most Germans were peaceful and just wanted to live their live. Homecoming soldiers didn't jump on the next minority and beat them up. The overwhelming majority was just happy that everything is over. Hitler was never elected by a majority and he came to his final power through a coup d'état.

Pica_soO 9y ago
There is a program called "Stolpersteine"- they have put little bronze-bricks into the streets before houses where Jews and others who where "Transported" lived. There are little bronze bricks in nearly every street of the town i live nearby. Yet many of the old people there claim to never have known. And many claim they have helped the prisoners in some way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein The Wehrmacht shot and torched whole villages for partisan activity. And soldiers talk- they have convoys through the hinterland- they knew exactly what the SS was doing in the conquered territories. They guarded millions of war-prisoners while not giving them food and shelter until they succumbed. Im not singling out germany. Every country, and all people on the planet are capable of this. WorldWar2 or the holocaust where not something particular unique. They where just humanity's worst behavior combined with organization skill and industrial capacity's. Stalins Holdomor, the Archipel Gulag or Maos Killing spree are similar in dimension but lacked the cultural scenes echo chamber for sentimental political reasons. These messy large scale crimes where not ended by education, a protest generation or self civilization of the species, but by the invention of the nuclear bomb, which limited the war like activities of larger, well organized nations. Among non nuclear deterred groups or within country's, such breaks of civilization can happen anytime even today. (See Yugoslawia, Iraq/Syria, The Hutu/Tutsi Genocide) I also assume some dictators started to turn away from ethnic scape-goating, after in several countrys riled up masses turned against them and China showed that even a crony-corrupt-dictatorship can be economically functional.

by foepys 9y ago

Pica_soO 9y ago

There is a program called "Stolpersteine"- they have put little bronze-bricks into the streets before houses where Jews and others who where "Transported" lived. There are little bronze bricks in nearly every street of the town i live nearby. Yet many of the old people there claim to never have known. And many claim they have helped the prisoners in some way. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stolperstein The Wehrmacht shot and torched whole villages for partisan activity. And soldiers talk- they have convoys through the hinterland- they knew exactly what the SS was doing in the conquered territories. They guarded millions of war-prisoners while not giving them food and shelter until they succumbed. Im not singling out germany. Every country, and all people on the planet are capable of this. WorldWar2 or the holocaust where not something particular unique. They where just humanity's worst behavior combined with organization skill and industrial capacity's. Stalins Holdomor, the Archipel Gulag or Maos Killing spree are similar in dimension but lacked the cultural scenes echo chamber for sentimental political reasons. These messy large scale crimes where not ended by education, a protest generation or self civilization of the species, but by the invention of the nuclear bomb, which limited the war like activities of larger, well organized nations. Among non nuclear deterred groups or within country's, such breaks of civilization can happen anytime even today. (See Yugoslawia, Iraq/Syria, The Hutu/Tutsi Genocide) I also assume some dictators started to turn away from ethnic scape-goating, after in several countrys riled up masses turned against them and China showed that even a crony-corrupt-dictatorship can be economically functional.