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Well, you can always have law punishing for that. In a couple of countries you can go to prison for saying that the holocaust didn't happen. It's Germany, and

Well, you can always have law punishing for that. In a couple of countries you can go to prison for saying that the holocaust didn't happen. It's Germany, and Poland (where Germans made the biggest camps where they killed most over 3M Polish Judes). The most funny thing is how uneducated journalists are. Or maybe that's made on purpose. They still write "Polish Death Camps" while there were "German Death Camps in Poland". Also huge number of journalists write that there were Nazis, not Germans, despite the fact that the Germans chose Hitler in elections.

restuijs 9y ago
The distinction between Nazis and Germans in that era is important. Otherwise you lose sight of German opponents of Nazis, and things like Night of the Long Knives, which is critical for all sorts of reasons. Yes, Hitler was elected, but that doesn't explain away his consolidation of power. The slide into tyranny often happens precisely because it is gradual; tyrants sometimes obtain unchecked positions of power through democratic circumstance and then use that position to circumvent subsequent democratic process itself.
Anthony-G 9y ago
I agree that that such descriptions of the death camps in Poland is very misleading. Still, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of the SS guards stationed at the death camps in occupied Poland were not German citizens. Many were ethnic Germans from conquered territories (“Volksdeutsche”) and a number of camps (Bełżec, Treblinka, Sobibór) had a high proportion of guards from Ukraine, many of whom were trained for this role at the Trawniki concentration camp[1]. (Note: I’m not singling out Ukrainians in particular. Many more fought against the Nazis and died as prisoners in concentration camps). Also, it doesn’t seem to be very well-known that the Nazi party never achieved a majority of the popular vote in the German republic. Hitler only got 30% of votes in the March 1932 presidential election. A few months later, the Nazi party reached their high point in the federal elections of July: they succeeded in getting 230 members elected to parliament, giving them 37% of the vote. No party could form a majority sustainable coalition government so this was followed by another federal election in November 1932. This time, the Nazi party actually lost 34 of their seats, giving them only 33% of the vote. Unfortunately, the chancellors that had been appointed by von Hindenburg, the victor in the 1932 presidential election proved to be ineffectual and von Hindenburg eventually appointed Hitler as chancellor in early 1933. This was soon followed by the Reichstag fire which provided Hitler and the Nazis the opportunity to consolidate their power. The rest of this history is fairly well known. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawniki_concentration_camp#Trawniki_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawniki_concentration_camp#Tr...

restuijs 9y ago

The distinction between Nazis and Germans in that era is important. Otherwise you lose sight of German opponents of Nazis, and things like Night of the Long Knives, which is critical for all sorts of reasons. Yes, Hitler was elected, but that doesn't explain away his consolidation of power. The slide into tyranny often happens precisely because it is gradual; tyrants sometimes obtain unchecked positions of power through democratic circumstance and then use that position to circumvent subsequent democratic process itself.

Anthony-G 9y ago

I agree that that such descriptions of the death camps in Poland is very misleading. Still, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of the SS guards stationed at the death camps in occupied Poland were not German citizens. Many were ethnic Germans from conquered territories (“Volksdeutsche”) and a number of camps (Bełżec, Treblinka, Sobibór) had a high proportion of guards from Ukraine, many of whom were trained for this role at the Trawniki concentration camp[1]. (Note: I’m not singling out Ukrainians in particular. Many more fought against the Nazis and died as prisoners in concentration camps). Also, it doesn’t seem to be very well-known that the Nazi party never achieved a majority of the popular vote in the German republic. Hitler only got 30% of votes in the March 1932 presidential election. A few months later, the Nazi party reached their high point in the federal elections of July: they succeeded in getting 230 members elected to parliament, giving them 37% of the vote. No party could form a majority sustainable coalition government so this was followed by another federal election in November 1932. This time, the Nazi party actually lost 34 of their seats, giving them only 33% of the vote. Unfortunately, the chancellors that had been appointed by von Hindenburg, the victor in the 1932 presidential election proved to be ineffectual and von Hindenburg eventually appointed Hitler as chancellor in early 1933. This was soon followed by the Reichstag fire which provided Hitler and the Nazis the opportunity to consolidate their power. The rest of this history is fairly well known. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawniki_concentration_camp#Trawniki_men https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trawniki_concentration_camp#Tr...