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German here. Before the comment gets misunderstood, after WW2 West Germany became a democracy, it was no longer a Nazi state. What the commenter is probably tal

by _ph_ 7y ago

German here. Before the comment gets misunderstood, after WW2 West Germany became a democracy, it was no longer a Nazi state. What the commenter is probably talking about is, that a lot of the administration officials from Nazi Germany would still work in the democratic Germanys administration in various roles. Some of them definitely were Nazis and should not have had a place in any official job, others were just people doing their job under the old and new government.

einpoklum 7y ago
The National Socialist party was outlawed; and a few of its top officials were sentenced to death or prison terms. But - it was "no longer a Nazi state" in a somewhat superficial sense. It stopped being a Nazi state because a foreign occupier threw them out of power, not because it had undergone a deep internal social process. As for "just doing your job" - that's actually rather complex. If you were delivering mail or sweeping the streets then, obviously, you have nothing to answer for. But what if you were, say ,a high-level municipal official in a town where the Jewish population was rounded up under your watch? What if you were a police officer? A judge? A manager in Deutche Reichsbahn (the state railway service)? A department manager in a government ministry? A faculty member in a university from which subversives and undesirable-race people were cleansed? It's not as simple as just doing your job. I'm not preaching to _ph_ here, just emphasizing that for a lot of people, they were industriously pushing forward the Nazi state, and then at some point the flags changed, the ideology changed, the rhetoric changed and now we were all "no longer Nazis".
- _ph_ 7y ago
  It stopped being a Nazi state. As I wrote, yes, there were too many people left in administration, who played to too important role in Nazi Germany, the example you name is a very good one. But it also is very difficult to judge in each case until you can prove the guilt of a person. So a lot of Nazis managed to go unnoticed. But Germany was a functioning democracy ever since. I am so picky on that point, because saying "Nazi Germany just continued to exist" is very likely to give people, who are not familiar with Germany the wrong impression[1]. Nazi Germany did not continue to exist. There is a lot of valid criticism how society dealt with the Nazi regime, but it was (as a regime) in the past. [1] Some months ago, an American friend of mine was surprised to learn that the whole continental Europe does drive to the right.
  - fishnchips 7y ago
    I think there's a bit more here than a small bunch of Nazi holdouts in various positions of power. What's really surprising to me is that the captains of industry haven't been held accountable until today - many of today's household names (BMW being a great example) were like best buds with the Nazis, grew thanks to military contracts and used forced labor to multiply their gains.
  - einpoklum 7y ago
    I didn't claim it remained a Nazi state, but that the transition was superficial. My point is, that - unfortunately - there isn't such a unbridgeable chasm between a Capitalist democracy and a Fascist autocracy as people would like to imagine. Ruling elites can turn the dial this way or that way without that much change, even on the level of top personnel and organizational structures. If faced with significant social upheaval, or other structural threats, many democracies would very likely turn more authoritarian, more nationalist, more racist, more corporatist - would become Fascistic. In fact, they do.
    - fishnchips 7y ago
      > unbridgeable chasm between a Capitalist democracy and a Fascist autocracy Exactly. Alas, that’s what we’re seeing in Eastern Europe right now. Hungary being the best example, Poland also though luckily slightly less so. I wouldn’t call it Fascism specifically, more like conservative authoritarianism, but still.

by _ph_ 7y ago

einpoklum 7y ago

The National Socialist party was outlawed; and a few of its top officials were sentenced to death or prison terms. But - it was "no longer a Nazi state" in a somewhat superficial sense. It stopped being a Nazi state because a foreign occupier threw them out of power, not because it had undergone a deep internal social process. As for "just doing your job" - that's actually rather complex. If you were delivering mail or sweeping the streets then, obviously, you have nothing to answer for. But what if you were, say ,a high-level municipal official in a town where the Jewish population was rounded up under your watch? What if you were a police officer? A judge? A manager in Deutche Reichsbahn (the state railway service)? A department manager in a government ministry? A faculty member in a university from which subversives and undesirable-race people were cleansed? It's not as simple as just doing your job. I'm not preaching to _ph_ here, just emphasizing that for a lot of people, they were industriously pushing forward the Nazi state, and then at some point the flags changed, the ideology changed, the rhetoric changed and now we were all "no longer Nazis".

_ph_ 7y ago
It stopped being a Nazi state. As I wrote, yes, there were too many people left in administration, who played to too important role in Nazi Germany, the example you name is a very good one. But it also is very difficult to judge in each case until you can prove the guilt of a person. So a lot of Nazis managed to go unnoticed. But Germany was a functioning democracy ever since. I am so picky on that point, because saying "Nazi Germany just continued to exist" is very likely to give people, who are not familiar with Germany the wrong impression[1]. Nazi Germany did not continue to exist. There is a lot of valid criticism how society dealt with the Nazi regime, but it was (as a regime) in the past. [1] Some months ago, an American friend of mine was surprised to learn that the whole continental Europe does drive to the right.
- fishnchips 7y ago
  I think there's a bit more here than a small bunch of Nazi holdouts in various positions of power. What's really surprising to me is that the captains of industry haven't been held accountable until today - many of today's household names (BMW being a great example) were like best buds with the Nazis, grew thanks to military contracts and used forced labor to multiply their gains.
- einpoklum 7y ago
  I didn't claim it remained a Nazi state, but that the transition was superficial. My point is, that - unfortunately - there isn't such a unbridgeable chasm between a Capitalist democracy and a Fascist autocracy as people would like to imagine. Ruling elites can turn the dial this way or that way without that much change, even on the level of top personnel and organizational structures. If faced with significant social upheaval, or other structural threats, many democracies would very likely turn more authoritarian, more nationalist, more racist, more corporatist - would become Fascistic. In fact, they do.
  - fishnchips 7y ago
    > unbridgeable chasm between a Capitalist democracy and a Fascist autocracy Exactly. Alas, that’s what we’re seeing in Eastern Europe right now. Hungary being the best example, Poland also though luckily slightly less so. I wouldn’t call it Fascism specifically, more like conservative authoritarianism, but still.