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It's organic political opinion. For one thing, Germans feel very real guilt for their invasion of Russia in WW2, and they don't like the idea of aiding in a war

It's organic political opinion. For one thing, Germans feel very real guilt for their invasion of Russia in WW2, and they don't like the idea of aiding in a war against it. For another, the experience of the Cold War was much more traumatic for them than it was for the US, and they're not eager to start a new one.

chihuahua 4y ago
Do the Germans not understand that they also invaded and destroyed Ukraine in WW2?
- ambrozk 4y ago
  They do. They also understand that there collaborators were Ukrainian nationalists (who were extremely anti-semitic and enthusiastically participated in pogroms) who are increasingly venerated in Ukraine. As an American, I'm able to compartmentalize this, and rationalize that Ukrainians are venerating people like Bandera for their anti-Russian partisanship, not for their anti-Jewish politics. But this is less of an option for Germans, who for very understandable reasons have a greater sensitivity to anti-Semitism than most nations.
  - kranke155 4y ago
    The Anti-Semitism stuff is just a propaganda line invented by Vladislav Surkov (Russia’s Goebbels). Like all good propaganda, it contains a kernel of truth that’s expanded and dilated until it becomes nonsense. Believing in generalised Anti-Semitism and Nazism in Ukrainian society is like believing Saddam Hussein funded 9/11. It’s just a mind trick.
    - ambrozk 4y ago
      I think everything I wrote is accurate. Bandera was a vicious anti-Semite. Bandera did collaborate with the Nazis. Bandera is venerated in Ukraine (since 2014 and especially since 2022). Maidan was made possible by armed support from neo-nazi political parties. Based on my reading, I do not think that Ukraine is a particularly anti-Semitic place, and I think that they like Bandera mainly because they see him as an anti-Russian fighter. But it's easy for me to understand why Germans are much more uncomfortable with the symbolism that I am.
      - kranke155 4y ago
        Oh I wasn't saying Bandera wasn't an Anti-semite, I have no idea. Just the idea that Ukraine is an anti-semite society, that's completely nuts. I've visited and have Ukrainian friends - they do have a big problem with racism, but not to some crazy level vs in that region. I've heard of things happening in Poland that well, are not very progressive - ie public buses not stopping for black people, racial beatings, taunting on the streets. Ukraine just had a bigger issue I believe because of the participation of certain groups (Azov) in the Maidan revolution and then in the 2014+ war. My impression is this happened quite simply because every sector of society was at Maidan, but the Azov guys were more willing to get their hands dirty/get violent, thus they became prominent. That's my impression.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    It's even more complicated that that. For example, whatever Bandera's personal ideology was, and despite his early attempts to collaborate with the Germans after they first occupied Ukraine, they quickly found the views and the goals that he was advocating dangerous enough to themselves to stick him into a concentration camp for the rest of the war.
checkyoursudo 4y ago
This is absolutely true in my experience (live in Germany; have lots of friends and extended family here), and also mind-boggling. Germans also tend to be dismissive of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics, and sometimes even express disdain for at least one of those countries. Except that Germany didn't invade Russia in WW2; Germany invaded the USSR and Ukraine suffered at least as much in WW2 as Russia did. Some would argue more. It was the German-Soviet Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact¹ that allowed the Soviet occupation of the Baltics and Poland. Yes, Germany really did the Soviets dirty² in the end, but German behavior was overall, in the opinion of many, worse for all the countries that the Germans allowed the Soviets to conquer than for the Russians directly. And yet, Germans truly seem to feel remorse only for Russians and not all FSU people. I don't exactly know why that is. My gut feeling is that Germans have more deeply ingrained respect, historically speaking, for the Russians than for Balts/Poles/Ukr/etc, so the feelings in general are deeper. Like I said at the beginning, Germans I know are really dismissive or worse of Poles/Balts/etc, though maybe not so much Ukrainians now, given current events. Edit to add: I don't believe Germans "love russia so much", as suggested in the grandparent comment. Respect, yes, but not love, though I understand that is probably not meant literally anyway. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... ² English idiom
- eternalban 4y ago
  > I don't exactly know why that is. My gut feeling is that Germans have more deeply ingrained respect, historically speaking, for the Russians than for Balts/Poles/Ukr/etc, so the feelings in general are deeper. Read this (amazing) dispatch from Berlin. Old school journalism with an attempt at analyzing the German psyche and (bonus) surprising information about the affinity felt for Russia by some Germans, including the Kaiser. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/germany/1940-04-01/problem-child-europe https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/germany/1940-04-01/p... https://archive.is/lZMnx https://archive.is/lZMnx -- snippet -- Hegel is one of the most abstruse of philosophers. He is quoted as saying, "One man has understood me and he has not." It is pretentious for someone not a philosophical scholar to discuss him. But what is important is the residue of his philosophy in the minds of the intelligentsia, who have passed it on in a sloganized form to the masses. The idea of the Volkstaat is certainly to be found in Hegel. He conceived the individual as finding himself only in the society of which he is an organic member; religion was not universal, but the spontaneous development of the national conscience; the artist was not an individual but a concentration of the passion and the power of the whole community. The deformation of these ideas is part of Naziism. The organic state is the Nazi ideal, in spite of the fact that Naziism destroyed what is organic. For one cannot create an organism by Gleichschaltung—switching into line—an idea not derived from biology but from mechanics. Reading Hegel, and observing the relationship in Nazi Germany between state and Movement, one can see how easy would be a jump to the conception of the state as a proselytizing church, an idea which possessed Byzantium and the Eastern Church, and which is given expression in Dostoevski's novels. In "The Brothers Karamazov" he makes Father Paissy say: "The Church is not to be transformed into the State. That is Rome and its dream. On the contrary, the State transformed in the Church will ascend and become a church over the whole world—the glorious destiny ordained. . . . This star will rise in the East." I quote Dostoevski here because the sympathy between the German idealistic philosophers and the great nineteenth century Russian novelists is constantly apparent. The Russian Communist state is certainly not the state dreamed of by Dostoevski who, at the end of his life at least, was deeply Christian; but it is a state that is, at the same time, a secular religion with a mission of world salvation. And so is the Nazi state. And with this it stops being a state in any Western sense of the word. The attraction between Germany and Russia is enormous, and always has been. The Russian revolution was made in Germany—it grew out of German idealism via Marx—and Russia has contributed to it, and to the German mind as well, the spirit of Byzantium. That these two revolutions, the German and the Russian, would one day merge has been anticipated by many people. It is interesting that in 1931, two years before Hitler, the German Kaiser gave an interview at Doorn in which he expressed his scorn for any pan-Europeanism that would link Germany in an economic and spiritual alliance with Western Europe, above all with France and England. In fact, he made the statement, startling from a conservative at that time, that Germany's next of kin was Russia. "Western culture has reduced itself to mere utilitarianism, but the pendulum of civilization is switching to Eastern Europe and its way of life. We are not Westerners. . . . We cling with all our roots to the East." The German belief that the West is decadent reached its clearest expression in Spengler. Utilitarianism is interpreted as a sure sign of decadence. Except in the East—to which Germany belongs—idealism is dead. The West has lost its biological vitality, its will to life and power. So run the arguments. The Nazis' revolt towards paganism as a spring from which Life can be renewed, and their systematic anti-intellectualism, are both reflections from Nietzsche, who denounced the concepts of "the good, the true, and the beautiful" as arresters of Life. Good, true, and beautiful, are only relative. They are the values of impotent, humble, feeble men with slave minds. The morality of bold, vigorous, healthy men is different. Their ethic is an ethic of strength, cruelty, combativeness, vigor and joy. Caution, humility, cleverness, pacifism, are only virtues for slaves, who can best advance themselves by the cultivation of these qualities. - Dorothy Thompson (I posted this a few months ago expecting an interesting thread of discussion but it fell through the cracks.)
fruit2020 4y ago
Aiding a war ‘against it’?? These people are just dumb about this conflict. How about we all leave the borders as they are and do something more valuable for mankind. The only people who want war are the ones blinded by power
baybal2 4y ago
[dead]

chihuahua 4y ago

Do the Germans not understand that they also invaded and destroyed Ukraine in WW2?

ambrozk 4y ago
They do. They also understand that there collaborators were Ukrainian nationalists (who were extremely anti-semitic and enthusiastically participated in pogroms) who are increasingly venerated in Ukraine. As an American, I'm able to compartmentalize this, and rationalize that Ukrainians are venerating people like Bandera for their anti-Russian partisanship, not for their anti-Jewish politics. But this is less of an option for Germans, who for very understandable reasons have a greater sensitivity to anti-Semitism than most nations.
- kranke155 4y ago
  The Anti-Semitism stuff is just a propaganda line invented by Vladislav Surkov (Russia’s Goebbels). Like all good propaganda, it contains a kernel of truth that’s expanded and dilated until it becomes nonsense. Believing in generalised Anti-Semitism and Nazism in Ukrainian society is like believing Saddam Hussein funded 9/11. It’s just a mind trick.
  - ambrozk 4y ago
    I think everything I wrote is accurate. Bandera was a vicious anti-Semite. Bandera did collaborate with the Nazis. Bandera is venerated in Ukraine (since 2014 and especially since 2022). Maidan was made possible by armed support from neo-nazi political parties. Based on my reading, I do not think that Ukraine is a particularly anti-Semitic place, and I think that they like Bandera mainly because they see him as an anti-Russian fighter. But it's easy for me to understand why Germans are much more uncomfortable with the symbolism that I am.
    - kranke155 4y ago
      Oh I wasn't saying Bandera wasn't an Anti-semite, I have no idea. Just the idea that Ukraine is an anti-semite society, that's completely nuts. I've visited and have Ukrainian friends - they do have a big problem with racism, but not to some crazy level vs in that region. I've heard of things happening in Poland that well, are not very progressive - ie public buses not stopping for black people, racial beatings, taunting on the streets. Ukraine just had a bigger issue I believe because of the participation of certain groups (Azov) in the Maidan revolution and then in the 2014+ war. My impression is this happened quite simply because every sector of society was at Maidan, but the Azov guys were more willing to get their hands dirty/get violent, thus they became prominent. That's my impression.
- int_19h 4y ago
  It's even more complicated that that. For example, whatever Bandera's personal ideology was, and despite his early attempts to collaborate with the Germans after they first occupied Ukraine, they quickly found the views and the goals that he was advocating dangerous enough to themselves to stick him into a concentration camp for the rest of the war.

checkyoursudo 4y ago

This is absolutely true in my experience (live in Germany; have lots of friends and extended family here), and also mind-boggling. Germans also tend to be dismissive of Poland, Ukraine, and the Baltics, and sometimes even express disdain for at least one of those countries. Except that Germany didn't invade Russia in WW2; Germany invaded the USSR and Ukraine suffered at least as much in WW2 as Russia did. Some would argue more. It was the German-Soviet Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact¹ that allowed the Soviet occupation of the Baltics and Poland. Yes, Germany really did the Soviets dirty² in the end, but German behavior was overall, in the opinion of many, worse for all the countries that the Germans allowed the Soviets to conquer than for the Russians directly. And yet, Germans truly seem to feel remorse only for Russians and not all FSU people. I don't exactly know why that is. My gut feeling is that Germans have more deeply ingrained respect, historically speaking, for the Russians than for Balts/Poles/Ukr/etc, so the feelings in general are deeper. Like I said at the beginning, Germans I know are really dismissive or worse of Poles/Balts/etc, though maybe not so much Ukrainians now, given current events. Edit to add: I don't believe Germans "love russia so much", as suggested in the grandparent comment. Respect, yes, but not love, though I understand that is probably not meant literally anyway. ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac... ² English idiom

eternalban 4y ago
> I don't exactly know why that is. My gut feeling is that Germans have more deeply ingrained respect, historically speaking, for the Russians than for Balts/Poles/Ukr/etc, so the feelings in general are deeper. Read this (amazing) dispatch from Berlin. Old school journalism with an attempt at analyzing the German psyche and (bonus) surprising information about the affinity felt for Russia by some Germans, including the Kaiser. https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/germany/1940-04-01/problem-child-europe https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/germany/1940-04-01/p... https://archive.is/lZMnx https://archive.is/lZMnx -- snippet -- Hegel is one of the most abstruse of philosophers. He is quoted as saying, "One man has understood me and he has not." It is pretentious for someone not a philosophical scholar to discuss him. But what is important is the residue of his philosophy in the minds of the intelligentsia, who have passed it on in a sloganized form to the masses. The idea of the Volkstaat is certainly to be found in Hegel. He conceived the individual as finding himself only in the society of which he is an organic member; religion was not universal, but the spontaneous development of the national conscience; the artist was not an individual but a concentration of the passion and the power of the whole community. The deformation of these ideas is part of Naziism. The organic state is the Nazi ideal, in spite of the fact that Naziism destroyed what is organic. For one cannot create an organism by Gleichschaltung—switching into line—an idea not derived from biology but from mechanics. Reading Hegel, and observing the relationship in Nazi Germany between state and Movement, one can see how easy would be a jump to the conception of the state as a proselytizing church, an idea which possessed Byzantium and the Eastern Church, and which is given expression in Dostoevski's novels. In "The Brothers Karamazov" he makes Father Paissy say: "The Church is not to be transformed into the State. That is Rome and its dream. On the contrary, the State transformed in the Church will ascend and become a church over the whole world—the glorious destiny ordained. . . . This star will rise in the East." I quote Dostoevski here because the sympathy between the German idealistic philosophers and the great nineteenth century Russian novelists is constantly apparent. The Russian Communist state is certainly not the state dreamed of by Dostoevski who, at the end of his life at least, was deeply Christian; but it is a state that is, at the same time, a secular religion with a mission of world salvation. And so is the Nazi state. And with this it stops being a state in any Western sense of the word. The attraction between Germany and Russia is enormous, and always has been. The Russian revolution was made in Germany—it grew out of German idealism via Marx—and Russia has contributed to it, and to the German mind as well, the spirit of Byzantium. That these two revolutions, the German and the Russian, would one day merge has been anticipated by many people. It is interesting that in 1931, two years before Hitler, the German Kaiser gave an interview at Doorn in which he expressed his scorn for any pan-Europeanism that would link Germany in an economic and spiritual alliance with Western Europe, above all with France and England. In fact, he made the statement, startling from a conservative at that time, that Germany's next of kin was Russia. "Western culture has reduced itself to mere utilitarianism, but the pendulum of civilization is switching to Eastern Europe and its way of life. We are not Westerners. . . . We cling with all our roots to the East." The German belief that the West is decadent reached its clearest expression in Spengler. Utilitarianism is interpreted as a sure sign of decadence. Except in the East—to which Germany belongs—idealism is dead. The West has lost its biological vitality, its will to life and power. So run the arguments. The Nazis' revolt towards paganism as a spring from which Life can be renewed, and their systematic anti-intellectualism, are both reflections from Nietzsche, who denounced the concepts of "the good, the true, and the beautiful" as arresters of Life. Good, true, and beautiful, are only relative. They are the values of impotent, humble, feeble men with slave minds. The morality of bold, vigorous, healthy men is different. Their ethic is an ethic of strength, cruelty, combativeness, vigor and joy. Caution, humility, cleverness, pacifism, are only virtues for slaves, who can best advance themselves by the cultivation of these qualities. - Dorothy Thompson (I posted this a few months ago expecting an interesting thread of discussion but it fell through the cracks.)

fruit2020 4y ago

Aiding a war ‘against it’?? These people are just dumb about this conflict. How about we all leave the borders as they are and do something more valuable for mankind. The only people who want war are the ones blinded by power

baybal2 4y ago

[dead]