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> No. The notion that all soldiers fighting on the Germany side in WW2 were monsters is, however. If the world subscribed to your ideology, there'd be a catacom
by mopsi 3y ago
> No. The notion that all soldiers fighting on the Germany side in WW2 were monsters is, however. If the world subscribed to your ideology, there'd be a catacomb of millions buried under Nurnberg (there's no such thing, if you wondered).
This is known as "the clean Wehrmacht myth", a belief that somehow, somewhere in the German military, there were units that did not have the blood of innocents on their hands. At least in Germany, that myth was shattered by an influential exhibition in the 1990s that showcased photos explicitly selected to display atrocities that were not committed by special squads in death camps hidden away in the woods, but out in the public, by regular units, on the streets and roads of cities and villages across Europe. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht
And despite that, there indeed is no catacomb beneath Nürnberg. Virtually all German war criminals received no punishment whatsoever. Out of millions of people involved in the extermination of Jews and other crimes against peoples on occupied territories, only 6656 were ever convicted in Germany, and the vast majority received a sentence of 2 years of imprisonment or less. Only 164 were convicted of murder, yet millions had died. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-minute-number-of-convictions-for-nazi-war-crimes/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-examines-germanys-mi...
- klibertp 3y ago> but out in the public, by regular units, on the streets and roads of cities and villages all across Europe. Interesting, I just posted a family story illustrating one of these crimes: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38460975 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38460975 I couldn't believe in the "clean Wehrmacht" myth even if I wanted to. I'm still not convinced all the Wehrmacht soldiers were inherently bad people or monsters. I'm not defending them - what they did across Europe, what led to millions of graves, was wrong. What I'm cautious about, though, is the hatred and emotional judgment that leads to more, not less, bloodshed. The lack of a catacomb is good. The absence of any punishment for people outside those 7k convicted, however, is not.