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That said, I wonder, as a German now these days, how they keep on relating to these events: posts like these, wargames, movies, you name it. Ww2 is being "explo

That said, I wonder, as a German now these days, how they keep on relating to these events: posts like these, wargames, movies, you name it. Ww2 is being "exploited" every day. I don't know. Wizo!

synthc 9y ago
Can you explain why you would call an article like this exploitation?
- ptaipale 9y ago
  I can understand that viewpoint - for Western (as well as Russian) culture, WW II is the last "big good war", with a clear set-up of good vs. evil. Later wars are much more filled with controversy: Korea, war in French Indochina, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention the many smaller conflicts where USA (and others) were involved. Of course, in reality, WW II also had many many controversies, but particularly for American and British audiences, it is simple to associate "our boys" fighting for the good and the other side being at least almost totally evil. Such a constellation is suitable for exploitation of the conflict and huge human suffering for entertainment. (Same applies, from Chinese viewpoint, to Sino-Japanese war, which I in fact see as the actual start of WW II, instead of the more traditional attack against Poland.)
jotm 9y ago
Well, the generation who lived through it is still mostly alive (most were children back then), so that's not going to stop for a couple of decades. What else are they going to entertain people with? WW1? Too bleak and short. Any American wars post WW2? Too boring and politically incorrect. Anything before WW1, nobody cares. WW2 was awesome if you watch it from a screen.
- DoreenMichele 9y ago
  My German mother grew up in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath. My American father fought in WW2. For me, this isn't entertainment. More like therapy. I imagine it is pretty common for people to be fascinated in part out of a need to come to terms with their own past in some way, even when it isn't really recognized as such.
  - musage 9y ago
    For me I'd say part therapy, part responsibility. That Germany wasn't just razed to the ground.. non-withstanding all the criticism I have of the US, NATO, Russia, and pretty much everybody, that's dumb luck rather than deserved. To get another chance after something like that is not to be taken lightly. If I just try to take in the reality of what happened in places that I can still physically see, try to realize that from some of the buildings from before the war, people were dragged screaming, surrounded by gleeful displays of sadism from their torturers, while the neighbors were either scared and crying, or grinning and thinking about how they could profit from assets that no longer have an owner, that alone is enough. > The highest what one can achieve [in regards to this past] is to know and to bear that it was like this and not different, and to then wait and see what follows from that. -- Hannah Arendt
rsynnott 9y ago
‘Exploited’? The famine happened. Nothing to be done about that. If anything, Germany’s attitude to past atrocities is healthier than most countries; see Japan’s approach to WW2, the UK’s bizarrely rosy popular view of the empire, the US’s tendency to gloss over the role and nature of black chattel slavery... Germany doesn’t go this, generally, and they’re probably better off for it.
blunte 9y ago
A _lot_ happened in direct relation to WW2. It was kind of a big thing... so unsurprisingly there are a lot of things to talk about from the early/mid 1900s that have some relation to that war. That's not exploitation, that's history.
musage 9y ago
"As a German", I think the crimes of the Nazis, as well as the horrors of war in general and that particular one, should never be forgotten. As something humans did, excusing it in the ways they did, perfecting it with the rationalizations they used, but first and foremost and as something they did to other humans. Insofar as exploitation, distortion or even glorification go, if anyone should be asked, it would be the victims.
tnolet 9y ago
As a Dutch man living in Germany I take my hat off for how active, balanced and thorough the Germans deal with the war. They should be an example to other countries.
- MandieD 9y ago
  I’m an American living here, too (in Nürnberg, even!) and I wish my own country could get as honest with ourselves about what our country did to the enslaved Africans and their descendants, and to the Native Americans, and what we’ve failed to do, as Germans are about what their grandparents did and allowed to happen.

That said, I wonder, as a German now these days, how they keep on relating to these events: posts like these, wargames, movies, you name it. Ww2 is being "exploited" every day. I don't know. Wizo!

synthc 9y ago

Can you explain why you would call an article like this exploitation?

ptaipale 9y ago
I can understand that viewpoint - for Western (as well as Russian) culture, WW II is the last "big good war", with a clear set-up of good vs. evil. Later wars are much more filled with controversy: Korea, war in French Indochina, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, not to mention the many smaller conflicts where USA (and others) were involved. Of course, in reality, WW II also had many many controversies, but particularly for American and British audiences, it is simple to associate "our boys" fighting for the good and the other side being at least almost totally evil. Such a constellation is suitable for exploitation of the conflict and huge human suffering for entertainment. (Same applies, from Chinese viewpoint, to Sino-Japanese war, which I in fact see as the actual start of WW II, instead of the more traditional attack against Poland.)

jotm 9y ago

Well, the generation who lived through it is still mostly alive (most were children back then), so that's not going to stop for a couple of decades. What else are they going to entertain people with? WW1? Too bleak and short. Any American wars post WW2? Too boring and politically incorrect. Anything before WW1, nobody cares. WW2 was awesome if you watch it from a screen.

DoreenMichele 9y ago
My German mother grew up in Germany during WW2 and its aftermath. My American father fought in WW2. For me, this isn't entertainment. More like therapy. I imagine it is pretty common for people to be fascinated in part out of a need to come to terms with their own past in some way, even when it isn't really recognized as such.
- musage 9y ago
  For me I'd say part therapy, part responsibility. That Germany wasn't just razed to the ground.. non-withstanding all the criticism I have of the US, NATO, Russia, and pretty much everybody, that's dumb luck rather than deserved. To get another chance after something like that is not to be taken lightly. If I just try to take in the reality of what happened in places that I can still physically see, try to realize that from some of the buildings from before the war, people were dragged screaming, surrounded by gleeful displays of sadism from their torturers, while the neighbors were either scared and crying, or grinning and thinking about how they could profit from assets that no longer have an owner, that alone is enough. > The highest what one can achieve [in regards to this past] is to know and to bear that it was like this and not different, and to then wait and see what follows from that. -- Hannah Arendt

rsynnott 9y ago

‘Exploited’? The famine happened. Nothing to be done about that. If anything, Germany’s attitude to past atrocities is healthier than most countries; see Japan’s approach to WW2, the UK’s bizarrely rosy popular view of the empire, the US’s tendency to gloss over the role and nature of black chattel slavery... Germany doesn’t go this, generally, and they’re probably better off for it.

blunte 9y ago

A _lot_ happened in direct relation to WW2. It was kind of a big thing... so unsurprisingly there are a lot of things to talk about from the early/mid 1900s that have some relation to that war. That's not exploitation, that's history.

musage 9y ago

"As a German", I think the crimes of the Nazis, as well as the horrors of war in general and that particular one, should never be forgotten. As something humans did, excusing it in the ways they did, perfecting it with the rationalizations they used, but first and foremost and as something they did to other humans. Insofar as exploitation, distortion or even glorification go, if anyone should be asked, it would be the victims.

tnolet 9y ago

As a Dutch man living in Germany I take my hat off for how active, balanced and thorough the Germans deal with the war. They should be an example to other countries.

MandieD 9y ago
I’m an American living here, too (in Nürnberg, even!) and I wish my own country could get as honest with ourselves about what our country did to the enslaved Africans and their descendants, and to the Native Americans, and what we’ve failed to do, as Germans are about what their grandparents did and allowed to happen.