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The Germans seem to have moved on; they weren't given a choice, I think. From what I can tell, they've put a lot of thought and effort into coming to terms with

The Germans seem to have moved on; they weren't given a choice, I think. From what I can tell, they've put a lot of thought and effort into coming to terms with the role their ancestors played in the first half of the 21st century, and the generation born after the beginning of the 80's, at least, seems admirably sane. The rest of Europe definitely seems to cling to nationalist illusions of some form or another, still. Edit: I should note, an entire supranational governmental entity/trade alliance was put in place to ensure Europe moves on. It is now called the European Union. After WW2, a lot of effort went into making sure WW3 doesn't start in Europe. We'll see how that goes now that the EU seems to be struggling...

coldtea 9y ago
>The Germans seem to have moved on; they weren't given a choice, I think. From what I can tell, they've put a lot of thought and effort into coming to terms with the role their ancestors played in the first half of the 21st century, and the generation born after the beginning of the 80's, at least, seems admirably sane. You'd be surprised. Not only the didn't de-nazify their higher echelons for decades post-war (tons of the establishment, politicians, business and media moguls, etc, being the same pre/war Nazi elite and sympathizers), but they've never leaved that superiority mindset either. Turkish immigrants have yet to be fully accepted and integrated there, except nominally -- after 50+ years. The far-right wing party AfD scored a big hit these elections: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/germany-elections-afd-europe-immigration-merkel-radical-right https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/german... And that's the tip of the iceberg. E.g. "More than 60% of the hate mail came from well-educated Germans, including university professors, according to their study, “The Language of Hostility Towards Jews in the 21st Century,” released earlier this year. Only 3% came from right-wing extremists." https://forward.com/news/world/188764/german-hate-mail-comes-from-surprisingly-well-educ/ https://forward.com/news/world/188764/german-hate-mail-comes...
- rebuilder 9y ago
  Oh well. I'll admit my sample group of Germans is probably not terribly representative, as it consists mainly of art students and design professionals.
  - coldtea 9y ago
    Yeah, those kind of circles would have been against the Nazi's even during the 1930's anyway.
    - mc32 9y ago
      I'm not sure of that. More than a few intellectuals supported the regime.
    - fvdessen 9y ago
      Hitler was an art student, Mussolini a journalist.
    - maxxxxx 9y ago
      No way. The Nazis had supporters from all professions including many scientists, artists and philosophers.
      - ekianjo 9y ago
        Yes, that is indeed quite true. And, we tend not to talk about it too much these days, but they even had supporters in other countries too (including the US), who admired the changes brought by Hitler as he ascended to power. Of course, hindsight changes everything.
        TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Similarly, communism in Russia / USSR had plenty of support in western intellectual circles in the early XX century and well past WWII - despite evidence being available that horrible things happen there to regular people.
        philtar 9y ago
        I think you're confusing the words communism and fascism.
        9y ago
- badestrand 9y ago
  Don't be so harsh. The Nazi-mindset does not have any support in the German society anymore. The scepticism of taking in the refugees is certainly politically "right" but not Nazi-level at all and many people that voted for the AfD party just did that out of protest. The integration of the Turkish immigrants is another topic entirely; don't forget that mostly the most uneducated, rural people came.
- mk89 9y ago
  You should know better than me that the 'anti-nazi' mentality is there and it's strong, so much that people don't even want to become policemen because it's often associated with this nazi thinking, although it's totally wrong. And yes, I have seen nazis in the streets, but you can't change life - society has right and left wings extremists always. You can try to make it better, sure. The problems you talk about are different, and they are due to several factors, one of them being the fact that Germany never had a proper immigration law. It all started out of needs and this created differences in how migrants were treated: do you really want to compare the life of a Turkish migrant to the one of a Nigerian or Indian migrant? You simply can't. Because they don't have to follow the same rules. At least not in the past, not sure about nowadays. Also, as for the integration. Seriously, this is a country that doesn't ask of you anything. Anything at all except that you of course speak a little the language. It offers everyone the same chances equally. Now, the main issue here is that in the past the greatest amount of immigrants were low educated people who didn't actually do anything to help their own kids become someone different, to study etc. The ones who did now are certainly in better positions. The so called 2nd and 3rd generation of migrants. Regarding the anti-jews part, unfortunately that's something I can hardly understand. I simply don't get these people hating them, educated or not. The superiority mindset in my opinion is due to the way they work and they are structured. It can often be confused with arrogance, I myself made such mistakes, but I think that this is simply the way many people think. Let's not forget that Germans used to have a highly hierarchical structure. And let's not forget that it's also thanks to that mentality that they were the first in all Europe to recover from the war. All other countries are still suffering from it, while they rolled up their sleeves and worked hard. I assume you are a foreigner like me. I suggest you to make some German friends who are open about this sort of topics, because not all people are, and ask them.
  - origami777 9y ago
    Your last paragraph doesn’t quite capture the whole picture. Germany didn’t rebuild into an economic powerhouse on its own. I’m no expert but even with a little search it’s clear that there were many macro economic actions taken by the allies to rebuild the entire continent. Now, you can say that Germany people maximized that assistance. But their actions alone didn’t create the outcome. And is it true that they were the first to recover?
adventured 9y ago
Poland as one example gets very upset from time to time regarding Germany and WW2. I forget the exact context now, I think it was involving the Penrose voting suggestion (or shortly after that). Germany upset Poland in a debate over how to determine voting weights. Poland's response was an angry point about how they'd have a lot more people if it weren't for Germany.
- lederhosen 9y ago
  Poland, Greece and other states that have _huge_ internal problems does use the Nazi trick---not that surprising. Its a clear sign that something is not working correctly in their own countries. The Nazi-similes from brexit politicians is also a clear sign that someone has run out of _good_ arguments. Promise too much, and then when it is obvious that you can not deliver, the other part is Nazis.
  - kgabis 9y ago
    What huge internal problems in Poland are you referring to? I'm genuinely curious, because the situation in Poland is quite stable (single party government), the economy is growing and we don't have migration problems like Germany or France.
    - outsideoflife 9y ago
      Surely you mean an 'immigration' problem. Poland must surely have suffered for the massive emigration of young working people to the rest of Europe. We in the UK have been paying the pensions gap with the toil of Polish people for a number of years.
    - lederhosen 9y ago
      The single party government. Google "democracy Poland".
      - kgabis 9y ago
        Could you elaborate? Are you implying that government in Poland is undemocratic?

coldtea 9y ago

>The Germans seem to have moved on; they weren't given a choice, I think. From what I can tell, they've put a lot of thought and effort into coming to terms with the role their ancestors played in the first half of the 21st century, and the generation born after the beginning of the 80's, at least, seems admirably sane. You'd be surprised. Not only the didn't de-nazify their higher echelons for decades post-war (tons of the establishment, politicians, business and media moguls, etc, being the same pre/war Nazi elite and sympathizers), but they've never leaved that superiority mindset either. Turkish immigrants have yet to be fully accepted and integrated there, except nominally -- after 50+ years. The far-right wing party AfD scored a big hit these elections: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/germany-elections-afd-europe-immigration-merkel-radical-right https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/24/german... And that's the tip of the iceberg. E.g. "More than 60% of the hate mail came from well-educated Germans, including university professors, according to their study, “The Language of Hostility Towards Jews in the 21st Century,” released earlier this year. Only 3% came from right-wing extremists." https://forward.com/news/world/188764/german-hate-mail-comes-from-surprisingly-well-educ/ https://forward.com/news/world/188764/german-hate-mail-comes...

rebuilder 9y ago
Oh well. I'll admit my sample group of Germans is probably not terribly representative, as it consists mainly of art students and design professionals.
- coldtea 9y ago
  Yeah, those kind of circles would have been against the Nazi's even during the 1930's anyway.
  - mc32 9y ago
    I'm not sure of that. More than a few intellectuals supported the regime.
  - fvdessen 9y ago
    Hitler was an art student, Mussolini a journalist.
  - maxxxxx 9y ago
    No way. The Nazis had supporters from all professions including many scientists, artists and philosophers.
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      Yes, that is indeed quite true. And, we tend not to talk about it too much these days, but they even had supporters in other countries too (including the US), who admired the changes brought by Hitler as he ascended to power. Of course, hindsight changes everything.
      - TeMPOraL 9y ago
        Similarly, communism in Russia / USSR had plenty of support in western intellectual circles in the early XX century and well past WWII - despite evidence being available that horrible things happen there to regular people.
        philtar 9y ago
        I think you're confusing the words communism and fascism.
      - 9y ago
badestrand 9y ago
Don't be so harsh. The Nazi-mindset does not have any support in the German society anymore. The scepticism of taking in the refugees is certainly politically "right" but not Nazi-level at all and many people that voted for the AfD party just did that out of protest. The integration of the Turkish immigrants is another topic entirely; don't forget that mostly the most uneducated, rural people came.
mk89 9y ago
You should know better than me that the 'anti-nazi' mentality is there and it's strong, so much that people don't even want to become policemen because it's often associated with this nazi thinking, although it's totally wrong. And yes, I have seen nazis in the streets, but you can't change life - society has right and left wings extremists always. You can try to make it better, sure. The problems you talk about are different, and they are due to several factors, one of them being the fact that Germany never had a proper immigration law. It all started out of needs and this created differences in how migrants were treated: do you really want to compare the life of a Turkish migrant to the one of a Nigerian or Indian migrant? You simply can't. Because they don't have to follow the same rules. At least not in the past, not sure about nowadays. Also, as for the integration. Seriously, this is a country that doesn't ask of you anything. Anything at all except that you of course speak a little the language. It offers everyone the same chances equally. Now, the main issue here is that in the past the greatest amount of immigrants were low educated people who didn't actually do anything to help their own kids become someone different, to study etc. The ones who did now are certainly in better positions. The so called 2nd and 3rd generation of migrants. Regarding the anti-jews part, unfortunately that's something I can hardly understand. I simply don't get these people hating them, educated or not. The superiority mindset in my opinion is due to the way they work and they are structured. It can often be confused with arrogance, I myself made such mistakes, but I think that this is simply the way many people think. Let's not forget that Germans used to have a highly hierarchical structure. And let's not forget that it's also thanks to that mentality that they were the first in all Europe to recover from the war. All other countries are still suffering from it, while they rolled up their sleeves and worked hard. I assume you are a foreigner like me. I suggest you to make some German friends who are open about this sort of topics, because not all people are, and ask them.
- origami777 9y ago
  Your last paragraph doesn’t quite capture the whole picture. Germany didn’t rebuild into an economic powerhouse on its own. I’m no expert but even with a little search it’s clear that there were many macro economic actions taken by the allies to rebuild the entire continent. Now, you can say that Germany people maximized that assistance. But their actions alone didn’t create the outcome. And is it true that they were the first to recover?

adventured 9y ago

Poland as one example gets very upset from time to time regarding Germany and WW2. I forget the exact context now, I think it was involving the Penrose voting suggestion (or shortly after that). Germany upset Poland in a debate over how to determine voting weights. Poland's response was an angry point about how they'd have a lot more people if it weren't for Germany.

lederhosen 9y ago
Poland, Greece and other states that have _huge_ internal problems does use the Nazi trick---not that surprising. Its a clear sign that something is not working correctly in their own countries. The Nazi-similes from brexit politicians is also a clear sign that someone has run out of _good_ arguments. Promise too much, and then when it is obvious that you can not deliver, the other part is Nazis.
- kgabis 9y ago
  What huge internal problems in Poland are you referring to? I'm genuinely curious, because the situation in Poland is quite stable (single party government), the economy is growing and we don't have migration problems like Germany or France.
  - outsideoflife 9y ago
    Surely you mean an 'immigration' problem. Poland must surely have suffered for the massive emigration of young working people to the rest of Europe. We in the UK have been paying the pensions gap with the toil of Polish people for a number of years.
  - lederhosen 9y ago
    The single party government. Google "democracy Poland".
    - kgabis 9y ago
      Could you elaborate? Are you implying that government in Poland is undemocratic?