Not according to Gunther Grass one of the foremost authors credited with great “insight” into the mass German psyche. Read his latest book Crab Walk. It is so titled because of the German tendency to sidle past their, well, past.
Well fred, I dare to claim that any population of any country can be manipulated to engage in such activities - a strong leader and some good reasons given should be enough. Experiments have shown this - ironically one conducted in the US.
Thus I would say it won’t happen now, not because there have been any dramatic changes effecting the population to become “better” but rather as long as people are happy and not bothered (or should I say threatened?) they have no reason - give them one and you will see how quick things can change, no matter if it’s Germany, the US or anywhere else on this planet.
That said I do not agree that Germans are trying to sidle their past - instead today’s Germans are tired of being blamed for something they weren’t part of.
However I am open to your suggestion what Germans, like myself, should do to satisfy the people that claim we sidle the past and think we are “just waiting for an opportunity to restart WW2”?
Not saying Germans are going to start a new war but I find the dogmatic self-righteous militant pacificism and militant environmentalism of some of the “New” Germans a bit unsettling. It seems oh so militantly militant and dogmatically dogmatic in the same ways that communism, Naziism and imperialism were adopted before. This is the premise of Grass’s book. Why don’t you read it and see what you think. Maybe he is wrong. Maybe he has a point. Did you like the Tin Drum? Do you think that he was able to capture the essence of that period?
I also find a desperation in other Germans to find anyone (usually the US and Israel) to find and offer up as a new target to deflect the attention away from their historical misdeeds quite common. I mean if the “liberator” the US were to be smeared and if the Bush administration was “no better than Hitler” than that absolves many of these Germans and satisfies this need to prove that “others were just as bad.” Ditto for the Israelis and that tendency stems from the fact that it is precisely the biggest victims of the Holocaust, the Jews, are involved. See what I mean?
I am not saying this is true of ALL Germans. I am saying that there appears to be this tendency to engage in the above. Now, is this unique to Germans? Certainly not. The French are laughable in their efforts to extol the Resistance. Just something to keep in mind, don’t you think. Cannot hurt to just keep one’s eyes open and recognize dogmatism and militancy for what they are. Ditto for the blame shifting efforts mentioned above. That is all I am saying. Anyway, when you do read Crab Walk, I would genuinely be very curious to see what you have to say.
Fred could be right that blaming others is a nice way to escape from being responsible. Note in “Royal Nazi” threat I wrote some German sources blame Harry for wearing that stupid swastika so much, it sounds they want to blame whole WW2 and more on him.
But even if this is a psychological factor, I strongly disagree to include the whole environment/peace movement and political spectrum of Fischer and Schroeder in this, as Fred loves to do.
Antiamericanism has its roots in the cold war, where people felt like helpless victims of the two big super powers and their nuclear arms aiming at Germany. Another root is in the late 60’s, where Germans of Fischer’s generation discovered old nazis like Globke (justified the Nuernberger racial law as a lawyer in the Nazi time) in the leadership of the “new” Germany. In a kind of immune reaction they swang to the radical left. Some swaung back to normal again, some not. And those who did not swing back, considered capatalism, the post-WW2 republic of Germany and its father-figure, the US, to be evil.
And I am sick and tired to discuss this Rumbsfeld/Bush/Schroeder clash again, to which Fred is probably referring. Both sides are to blame there.
Bob Honest:
Fair points BUT the Germans marching in the streets to the tune of hundreds of thousands were NOT marching against both the US and USSR and their respective military build ups. They marched and protested against ONLY the US. Now, please explain that to me at a time when Eastern Germany was a captive and occupied country with NO freedoms while Western Germany was prosperous and free precisely because the US had been so generous and forgiving. Did you ever read what the French wanted to do to Germany after WWII. You were to never be allowed to industrialize again. How’s that?
Moderator’s note:
The topics above have been split off from the following thread: forumosa.com/taiwan/viewtopic.php?t=27291
Yup. France had some agressions, but some people like General DeGaulle outlined a new Europe where France and Germany worked together in peace. OK there were such plans, also from US (Marshall vs. Morgenthau plan). And if Screaming Jesus nags anything nasty angainst jews now I be really angry (Morgenthau). Because first the shock about the Holocaust and Germans aggression was so deep, this de-instustrialization plan was discussed. Shortly.
US gave us a a lot of money to rebuild our country. Thanks for that. And we were protected in the Berlin crisis and that is why I call US a loyal friend.
Yes, even I marchend against US nukes and not against the Sowjet nukes, although I noticed this paradox situation.
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It is really difficult to influence the enemy, so we only nagged about our friends.
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I still do not understand myself why in our eyes the Sowjet union appeared more peaceful those days. Maybe because Reagan seemed so much a hardliner.
Nowadays our Chancelor of those days, Helmut Schmidt, explained that Reagan (with his assistance) HAD to put up the damned Pershing nukes, because the Sowjet side (Breshnev) totally insisted on their SS20 or whatever. He kinda said the truth about being peaceful was the other way round then the protest marchers thought. But I thought those days both sides had enough nukes anyway, so nobody needs the Pershings. A little naive considering different qualities of rockets, I admit.
But Breshnev only kissed foreign men with his Vodka breath, Reagan seemed more like the John Wayne type.
As I am a John Wayne fan I must note now
a) I am full of contradictions
b) Yes, we treated US unfair
Was it a kind of Stockholm syndrome? We felt threatened and even held captive (east Germany) by the Sowjet Union gangster, but blamed the police (US). I guess so! Interesting thought.
[quote=“fred smith”]Bob Honest:
Fair points BUT the Germans marching in the streets to the tune of hundreds of thousands were NOT marching against both the US and USSR and their respective military build ups. They marched and protested against ONLY the US. Now, please explain that to me at a time when Eastern Germany was a captive and occupied country with NO freedoms while Western Germany was prosperous and free precisely because the US had been so generous and forgiving. Did you ever read what the French wanted to do to Germany after WWII. You were to never be allowed to industrialize again. How’s that?[/quote]
I remember the chorus of a song - I think it was from the infamous T
But why protest against the US and NOT Russia. I think when Brezhnev visited Germany in the 1980s, maybe MAYBE 10,000 protestors showed up but when Reagan came the streets were athrong with protesters. How in the name of God does that make sense? And if Germans were capable of such stupidity then (perhaps a headline? How can 59,610,738 Germans be so stupid?) with regard to the totalitarian threat posed by communism and the Soviets, perhaps, they are equally wrong about the threat and way to deal with the threat offered by Islamofascism? Just a thought. Obviously, the German track record is much worse than, say, the American one?
That is exactly right and his worry is that Germans do not understand what they espouse but merely engage in the same kind of unreflective dogmatic militancy that they did when they were pro-communist, pro-Nazi, pro-Bismark, and now pro-environment and pro-PEACE. No one seems to get the irony of behaving in such an unbending, uncompromising approach with regard to the new paradise that Germans are building. The Jews are gone. Now, we must fight to get rid of air pollution and trash and to have peace at all costs even if it means banging you on the side of the head with a make love not war protest sign or shouting and screaming down all arguments to the contrary. See?
Germans may sidle past their past but the USA just makes it up to claim credit.
BroonU571
[quote=“fred smith”]
But why protest against the US and NOT Russia. I think when Brezhnev visited Germany in the 1980s, maybe MAYBE 10,000 protestors showed up but when Reagan came the streets were athrong with protesters. How in the name of God does that make sense?[/quote]
It is just easier to protest against your own government, or your ally, than against the other side. You rather fight with your friend or parents about an irrellevant topic than against your enemy about a relevant one, especially if he holds your brother hostage.
[quote=“fred smith”]
And if Germans were capable of such stupidity then (perhaps a headline? How can 59,610,738 Germans be so stupid?) with regard to the totalitarian threat posed by communism and the Soviets, perhaps, they are equally wrong about the threat and way to deal with the threat offered by Islamofascism? Just a thought. Obviously, the German track record is much worse than, say, the American one?[/quote]
I don’t know what the right way is to deal with radical Islamists, but there is a pluralism of opinions in the western hemisphere and that’s one of the few things that are so good about it. Right and wrong is always a historical perspective made up by the winners.
[quote]
That is exactly right and his worry is that Germans do not understand what they espouse but merely engage in the same kind of unreflective dogmatic militancy that they did when they were pro-communist, pro-Nazi, pro-Bismark, and now pro-environment and pro-PEACE. No one seems to get the irony of behaving in such an unbending, uncompromising approach with regard to the new paradise that Germans are building. The Jews are gone. Now, we must fight to get rid of air pollution and trash and to have peace at all costs even if it means banging you on the side of the head with a make love not war protest sign or shouting and screaming down all arguments to the contrary. See?[/quote]
well, again; I don’t think that this is at all specifically German. And here is nothing wrong with banging you on the side of the head with a make love not war protest sign. It is definitely better than to bang somebody else’s head with it.
Shouldn’t it be about protesting to make something right not because it is more convenient?
so if Hitler had won, he would have been right? And no one condemns Stalin or Mao because they won?
More on the German approach… Why no fevered protests?
[quote]It is not an isolated instance that verbal threats and physical violence are used in interrogations in German police stations, during arrests or police raids. There is the case of 31-year-old Stephan Neisius, who died in May last year after spending two weeks in a coma as a result of the serious injuries he sustained when arrested by police officers from the Eigelstein station in Cologne.
Over the preceding year there were 37 preliminary investigations against police officers from this station alone, all of which were discontinued because the victims could not provide sufficient evidence or witnesses for their abuse, or because the accused police officers were protected by colleagues or superiors.
The brutal treatment of refugees and foreigners by the German police and state authorities is already the subject of numerous investigations by Amnesty International, the special correspondent of the UN Human Rights Commission or the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).
Even a 1996 study conducted on behalf of Germany
Let’s look at what passes for an acceptable debate about torture in Germany and then pose the question? Why can Germans debate the use of torture but not Americans? And for those Germans who do feel galvanized to wax righteous in their indignation against supposed American use of torture (actually abuse all of which was illegal and is being punished) what do they have to say about what is going on in Germany?
[quote][b]Oskar Lafontaine
Yup. Looks like Abu Ghraib is a particularly American problem stemming from Bush and his administration. Are we the de facto rulers of Germany as well?
[quote]There is a persistent pattern of alleged ill-treatment and excessive use of force by police officers in Germany according to a new report by Amnesty International. The human rights organization is calling on the German government to establish without delay an independent body to examine complaints of serious police misconduct.
“All too often complaints against police officers are not investigated promptly or impartially. Although some cases do make it to the courts, others do not, even though there is compelling evidence to suggest that they should,” Amnesty International said.
Back in the Spotlight - Allegations of police ill-treatment and excessive use of force in Germany highlights Amnesty International’s concerns about ongoing allegations of police ill-treatment and excessive use of force. A significant proportion of the allegations continue to come from foreign nationals or members of ethnic minorities in Germany. The report looks in detail at a number of individual cases.[/quote]
Two wrongs don’t make a right. There’s not a police force in the world that doesn’t beat the crap out of prisoners every so often. I’m not going to speculate about Germany because I don’t know anything about it other than they like beer cars and travelling abroad to appropriate Englishmen’s beach towels, but I can’t understand how America is going to establish a credible foreign policy that other nations can understand.
And I’ll use the example of internment in Northern Ireland again. At the time it was considered fundamentally wrong by a majority of people in the UK and Ireland and the USA to lock people up without trying them. In hindsight even the most hardened loyalist (I think) can see it didn’t work. And beating the living daylights out of prisoners doesn’t work either - it didn’t work in Northern Ireland. The hard men of the IRA took all that was dished out and stayed schtum. The little men, thugs and ragamuffins, common scum that were often lifted too, sang like canaries when beaten, and would have told you anything you wanted to hear.
All internment did was turn moderate nationalists away from having anything to do with the police or the establishment. Why has that lesson not been learnt? And these suicide bombers are much more committed to dying than the IRA were. Wouldn’t you accept, Fred, that it was the insufficient number of troops initially committed to the invasion that made the US intelligence people believe that torture was the only way to break the back of the insurgency? Is it not possible even now to say “we were wrong” and send in 200 or 300 thousand more troops to restore order? (Perhaps it is too late?)
I think the protests against the conduct of the war in Iraq continue because of the way it has been conducted, rather than the legitimacy of the war itself. I think if the US had gone in with the sort of troop levels General Eric Shinthingummy recommended and the whole thing was tied up nicely by Christmas, the voices of protest would have been silenced by now.
It’s easy to talk about this sort of thing in times of relative plenty and security. Wait until the next depression and World War, and then perhaps we can compare our various societies to see what our values really are.
[quote=“fred smith”]
Shouldn’t it be about protesting to make something right not because it is more convenient?[/quote]
Well, maybe. I didn’t say I believed the protesters back in the 80s were right to be biased. I just try to explain their behaviour.
[quote]
so if Hitler had won, he would have been right? And no one condemns Stalin or Mao because they won?[/quote]
History books would look different today if Hitler had won, that’s for sure. And before you or anybody else says anything, I do NOT think Hitler was right.
[quote]
More on the German approach… Why no fevered protests?[/quote]
I don’t know. Perhaps because people think, that these things are being taken care of without the need of running into the streets banging signs against their heads. Because people think that these cases are isolated cases. But seriously I don’t know. Perhaps the Germans are just stupid.
[quote]It is not an isolated instance that verbal threats and physical violence are used in interrogations in German police stations, during arrests or police raids. There is the case of 31-year-old Stephan Neisius, who died in May last year after spending two weeks in a coma as a result of the serious injuries he sustained when arrested by police officers from the Eigelstein station in Cologne.
Over the preceding year there were 37 preliminary investigations against police officers from this station alone, all of which were discontinued because the victims could not provide sufficient evidence or witnesses for their abuse, or because the accused police officers were protected by colleagues or superiors.
The brutal treatment of refugees and foreigners by the German police and state authorities is already the subject of numerous investigations by Amnesty International, the special correspondent of the UN Human Rights Commission or the European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI).
Even a 1996 study conducted on behalf of Germany
I dunno, Fred is doing the same thing is accuses Germans to do. To justifiy some thing people blame Bush for by searching for similar things in Germany. This is getting a “who has the longer willie” discussion again and I will not take part. I rather bang my head with this Schmock Screaming Jesus in the other thread.
Got it Screamin’ … that was a Jiddish word!
I am outa here … miss my friends back home and to meet them for a bottle of wine and have an intelligent discussion.
As my wife is not really the person to do it (she thought Hitler was cool recently) I try a little self-talk now.
Peace to all of you!
French television said: “Americans and Germans make up most of the visitors to Auschwitz”.
See? You are just as good as each other.
Now, though I don’t know that, I have to guess that Americans here are essentially American Jews.
While of course Germans here have to be, well, non-Jewish Germans.
So is there a German tendency to sidle past their past?
Who is saying that again?
EB
when i was in germany this summer i talked to a few people who were upset about people always bringing up the nazi past. when i was there i was amazed at all the history and buildings etc. it seems to be forgotten all because of a few years in the 30’s and 40’s. a couple thousand years ruined by a few years, and people dont want to let them forget it. so are the people of germany today always supposed to walk around with head down and full of shame because of what happend long before they were born? by not letting them get on with their lives and make their own history it will just cause more problems.
Fred Smith, i dont know where you are from but iam sure your countries history isnt clean. if you are american, should people constantly put you down because of the natives that were killed back in the settler days? how about all the slaves that were used, if you were from a southern state it makes you even worse. would you like to be reminded of that all the time? how about the brits and be reminded of how they had colonies and exploited people. doesnt matter if it happend long ago, it still happend and they should be made to feel shame over it. if thats the way you really feel about germany, maybe we should start saying thngs about your country and everytime we see you or someone from your country we should bring up their past. or better yet, move on. whats done is done and lessons have been learned. well except for some countries that havent learned anything from past empires. hubris gets them all