Nazis etc
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- mikotondria3
Would be interested to hear from anyone 20 or under on how they perceive german nazis - I'd roughly assume that anyone that age does or did not have grandparents who fought in wwII, and so did not bring up parents who spoke of nazis, etc. Also being brought up in the 90s and 00s, I guess there were less wwII films, depictions of nazis, and they were generally less present as time went on, taught about less in schools etc.
Being just about twice the age of 20, I have recently found a new - not fascination, but increased genuine interest following for example, the finding of those color photos of hitler, films like Valkyrie, Boy in the Striped Pyjamas etc - all of which show Nazis from a very different perspective than that that was prevalent in the 70s and 80s, when of course there were many terribly 1st person recollections of nazism.
I have a German relative of that age who was of course living under nazism in the 30s and 40s, and it shocked me to hear her talk about it. Similarly to see nazis 'humanised', though certainly not vilified to any extent in films such as I mentioned is very much an eye-opener for people of my generation - it shows that the childhood education we had of nazis being something less than human, certainly crazy and definately evil, was not entirely correct, and that germans in the 1930s were people exactly like us - prone to being manipulated en masse, gradually desensitised and brutalised to be encouraged to permit terrible acts, to be manipulated with fear, and the gradual breakdown of civilised society by a massively corrupt and morally bankrupt leadership. There were of course, of course, a massive number of people in germany at that time who saw that what was going on was terribly wrong, but who were fearful and powerless to do anything about it, and yet others who fought against it, with vary degrees of success. People of all types, in a society very similar to ours today, victims of a terrible idea and leaders.
Do people of 20 and under have any meaningful understanding of what happened in the world in my grandfathers generation, just a few decades ago, are the lessons of history, which cannot be afforded to be repeated, being taught and learned ?
- ukit0
Although I am not under 20, I am pretty sure their perception of Nazis is pretty much the same as our generation. Although my grandfather was in WWII, he never saw combat, so I assume he never met a Nazi in real life. Also, popular culture is filled with depictions of Nazis (Indiana Jones, new Tom Cruise film etc).
- PonyBoy0
watched this film this morning actually...
And to answer your question about 20 and under folks...
...yes and no.
:)
It all depends on what part of the world you live in and your parents political / educational views...
- ismith0
Both my grandparents saw combat in WWII.
- And I am under 20.ismith
- wow...shuts me the fuck up then :)....mikotondria3
- monNom0
do they make movies about wars other than WWII?
there were a few about vietnam, but they were more or less a rationalization of and delivery mecanism for CCR
- ukit0
Anyway, the ideology lives on
- they just like the leather and jackbootsmonNom
- yeh, sometimes I waste a whoe day arguing with fuckers like this.mikotondria3
- airey0
what amazes me is that if you started to be interested in any of the tennents included in that thread, surely you'd think "wow, i'm a little unhinged" when you start reading a fucking nazi.whatever website for info yeah? interest in ideologies is one thing but fucking nazis are nazis?!? surely?! anyone?
- Pupsipu0
I watch a shitload of history channel and can't say I have a clear understanding of what the fuck people in Germany were thinking. A lot of the movies and even documentaries about the Nazis are simplistic and one sided, with this assumption that Nazis were evil human beings.
- ukit0
What is interesting is that in historical terms someone like Hitler is actually par for the course in terms of leading a country - militarize society, aggressive invasion of your neighbors, enslave and kill off racial minorities. Think about someone like Alexander the Great, who was about a million times worse than Hitler.
It's only set against the backdrop of modern history that Hitler and Nazism seem evil and abnormal, not that they shouldn't be viewed that way.
- mikotondria30
exactly my point, pupsipu - or rather, it exposes the thinking behind my point - I'm old enough now that I pretty much think I know people. I know not to be too surprised by their kindness, their tenacity, their stupidity, or their ability to be mean to one another - and naturally I am learning not to be surprised by my abilities to do all these things either. Nonetheless, I've got a fairly accurate notion of how people behave under what circumstances - It is important that we weave the nazi 'experience' into the history and the present of our culture, because the moment it is 'forgotten', it is more likely to be repeated..
- exador10
I'm mixed...dad is Canadian, mom is from Germany...
I'm 37 yrs old, and have grandparents that fought on either side of the equation...
both are awesome guys...
my Opa in germany is truly an amazing guy...
he was an officer in the german army (used to fire the anti aircraft guns) and a lot of folks may not know this, but once you were in the army, if you rose to officer level, you were automatically inducted/name entered into the nazi party.....
i guess it'd be like, if you were in the army in the U.S., if you became an officer, you suddenly had to be a republican....that sort of thing....anyhow, so yeah....he was a nazi officer....
he and a few friends devised a system of speeding up the loading and firing of the antiaircraft cannons, and it was so succesful, the army paid them for it, and sent them around teaching it to all the other battalions ....
towards the end of the war, as the fronts were starting to push into germany, he took all his men up into the mountains and said basically 'ok...we are FUCKED....we're not going to win this one....it's over....and (he pointed) 'that' way is switzerland...so get the fuck out of here before you all get killed.then, once his men were safely running away, he walked down the mountain himself..but unfortuantely in the wrong direction it seems...
he ran right into an american division...he spent the next year and a half or so in a Yankee POW camp....my Oma and my mom on the other hand, survived (barely, and luckily) the fire bombing of Dresden....
there are some very amazing stories in my family about the war, but mainly the ones from germany...
and the post-war ones are just as good...:)
ex
- airey0
read 'slaughterhouse 5'. kurt was a survivor of the dresden firebombing as a pow. the book pulls from his actual experience.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sla…
- nocomply0
I wrote a paper in 2004 during my senior year of college that I think you might find interesting. It's examines the morality of German soldiers and the banality of evil that was prevalent among Germans during WWII.
I haven't looked at it since I turned it in, but I have thought about it from time to time. I'm pretty sure I got an A in the class. I figured I might as well post it here:
http://www.designedbyevan.com/HI…As for your questions, I think your raise an interesting point. It's something that I've begun to consider as I get older. I come from a Holocaust surviving family so I'm a bit of an exception, but I think like anything given enough time, it sort of fades from a society's collective memory. Sad to say.
- airey0
anyone else seen the Curb Your Enthusiasm episode with the 'survivors'? hilarious.
- cannonball0
I find it interesting that generations of germans have disappeared under the waves of history still tacked with the dehumanized stigma you're describing.
A large portion of German at the time were not Nazis, and a large portion of the Nazis were in all likelihood human beings that were caught up and dragged along in the zealotry
History remembers WW2 as the last war when there was a certain good and evil side, but history is also written by the survivors of war.
I mean, Stalin killed just as many people or more systematically, (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hol…) but people get indignant about nazis because they're easier to point to as a brand. A result of not wanting to think and just be indignant IMHO.
- flashbender0
there may not be a lot of WWII movies being made, but it is still an extremely popular topic for video games. So Nazis are pretty much painted in the same light for every generation.
- pascii0
we should definately put that back in the history shelf
- Amicus0
If anyone is wondering why so many WWII films are coming out at the moment it is probably related to the celebrations last year of 60yrs of the state of Israel.
We have:
The Boy with Striped Pyjamas (great film if you ignore all the germans with English Accents)
Defiance
Inglourious Basterds
Valkyrie
AustraliaObviously these are only the big budget English language productions.
- pascii0
if you had school in europe, you've heard all those storys a gazillion time. and germans seem to have a bad feeling about themself since 50 years now. and still there are facists and anti-zionists all over the world in 2009. so why don't we give this whole nazi/hitler thing a rest? it has no impact on our daily life
- NAZI APOLOGIST! BURN HIM!flashbender
- but yeah, the Germans as a people are filled with self loathing about WWII and what went on - even todayflashbender
