The Nazis have definitely entered humanity's Jungian collective subconscious. We dream with them, we fantasy with them, we masturbate with them. The murderous seriousness of real Nazis has evaporated and in its place we have a phantasyworld of sartorial clowns. Their defeat couldnt be more complete.
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You ever watch the movie "Cross of Iron", J?
No. But I saw The Dance of Ghengis Cohn. As you may not remember, Police Chief Schatz, of the city of Licht, is haunted by the spirit of a Jewish comedian named Genghis Cohn, only one of the many who met their deaths 24 years previous, when Schatz, then a storm trooper, shouted the order Feuer! at the edge of a trench. Cohn made a gesture of defiance which intrigued Schatz enough to find out who he was, a dreadful mistake for a mass murderer -- now Cohn is bound to Schatz as his own personal dybbuk. Schatz sees him wherever he goes, hears him speak; sometimes, in ventriloquial fashion, is made to speak by him. Cohn in his turn resides with Schatz with all the good-nature & pointed solicitude expected of the master comedian he is, one who is determined that Schatz be made to see with both sets of eyes for as long as he lives.
Observed that somehow Adolf crawles everywhere. He defines modern world more then any single individual.
Most of what we do in humanist field of activity is a sort of anti-adolf. He is always present, haunting us.
Not in the way he might have wished, but I have the distinct feeling we still carry the murderous psycho with us.
We are still afraid of him. The ones who defeated him were more at ease with his legacy, they had smashed the guy and his ideology.
Defeated obliterated he was but managed to leave deep scarrs. Mankind is not the same. Everything he touched became forbidden in a rather religious sense. Even logical commen sense stuff became haraam if Adolf approached the subject. (Haraam is the highest status of prohibition given to anything that would result in sin when a Muslim commits it.)
In a sense we are still fighting him.
I mention CoI because it's the best representative of a minor tendency that existed in the West during the Cold War, that tended to view the Wehrmacht (only the Wehrmacht, never the SS or Nazis) as a kind of "Lost Cause", in the same way that some Americans have viewed the Confederacy.
Das Boot was another movie that showed the Germany military with a sympathetic eye. In general, all of the institutions of Germany were infected from top to bottom with Naziism and violent anti-Semitism and this included the military. Maybe there were a few aristocratic German officers who never cottoned to the low class Nazis or their program but most of them were very pleased by Hitler's "revival" of Germany and its great Judenrein future, at least as long as the war was going well.
A friend of mine in Greece inherited her family's ancestral village home from a childless uncle. This uncle had been an urban planner and received his degrees from TU Berlin (the German Technion or MIT) during the war (what a story he must have had). His diplomas were still up on the wall. The 1st degree he received was from 1940 and there were Swastikas plastered all over it (TU Berln was a hotbed of Nazis - von Braun, Speer, etc.) His 2nd diploma was from 1944 and by then the Swastikas were all gone. After the war, you were hard pressed to find anyone in Germany who had ever been a Nazi. It turned out that NO ONE in Germany ever actually supported Hitler of their own free will and they were all acting under orders or in fear of their lives.
K
"In general, all of the institutions of Germany were infected from top to bottom with Naziism and violent anti-Semitism and this included the military."
I'd say it is a little more complicated.
We are able to mantain complex societies because we subject to authority and go with the flow. Whatever it is.
We had for example a decade of wars manufactured by the US. And it seems it is not going to stop. It's accepted by everyone they were based on lies and deceit. Should we believe that normal law abiding US citizens are somehow infected with a sort of virus of hatred towards fellow human beings?
They just go with the flow. US goverment legalised torture, making the first step towards takings the legal system back to the middle ages. Is there anything normal citizens, be they military or civilian , could have done?
Reality has a tendency of being more complex. We can not reduce the american people to wolfowitz , obama or albright.
Just as we can not generalise about the german people.
It's a far cry between, for example, US academia which keeps its distance from Washington "war mongering" (which BTW, I happen to agree with) and German academia which embraced it. As I mentioned yesterday in my post on the Poles, there are always 3 camps - those who embrace with enthusiasm, those who dissent and the majority in between, but in Germany's case, the dissenters were few and far between and the majority were happy to go along with Naziism when they thought it was bringing them benefits and just as willing to pretend they never had when the winds shifted.
I'm reminded of the Tom Lehrer song:
You too may be a big hero,
Once you've learned to count backwards to zero.
"In German oder English I know how to count down,
Und I'm learning Chinese," says Wernher von Braun.
von Braun, by the way, is an example of why skills (like J's) are BETTER than the hard assets that capitalists possess. All the factories in the East Bloc had to be left behind by their owners, but von Braun and his crew were able to sell their skills to the highest bidder. And they were too valuable to be tried as the war criminals they really were (the rockets that rained on London's civilian population were built by Jewish slave labor under inhuman conditions - they were war criminals coming and going but no one touched a hair on their heads).
K
Das Boot was a German movie. If the Germans want to commemorate their valiant submariners, I shan't begrudge them.
Antisemitism is simply part of the greater European folklore, there was nothing specially German about it.
Also the "Good Germans" didn't know about the camps until the war was over, don't forget that those were secret military installations outside the country.
But they did know they were back stabbed and that Poland shot first, remember the Gleiwitz incident?
"It was intended to create the appearance of Polish aggression against Germany in order to justify the subsequent invasion of Poland."
Even for Americans, Jews were not part of the war equation, they regularly turned away ships full of Jewish refugees...
it was only later picked up as an issue, so yes, it's complicated.
The subject if they knew has been much debated. My opinion that every German knew that the Jews were being punished, sent to concentration camps, etc. which were in Germany and near cities. They knew everything and approved it. When there was something they did not approve, they protested and the practice was stopped. Like the killing of institutionalized people (wheelchairs, morons, mentally ill). It was stopped immediately as the people became aware of it. Also the deportation of Jewish husbands of German women, the women protested and the husbands spent the war unharmed.
They didn't know, most went a lifetime without ever meeting a Jew at all, especially on the countryside. There was no free media, hell even the allies and their intelligence didn't know until very late the war.
There simply is no back channel from behind enemy lines, be it Poland, Iraq or whatever, so defacto no way of knowing.
For example, look at how long, even today with the Internet, so called free speech and all that, they could keep Abu Graib secret, and that got only out because some soldiers were fooling around with cameras. Did the average Yankee know before that? Of course not, because there was no way of knowing, that's my point.
The Holocaust was such a large event that everybody is right. German people knew that Jews were being incarcelated and sent to the East. It did not bother them at all. On the other hand, I can say for sure that in Hungary no one knew that Jews were being killed in Poland, because Hungarian Jews entered almost voluntarily the Ghetto and climbed without resistance to the wagons to Poland. In Germany, I heard, some Jews actually bought their train tickets. And these were the middle class educated jews, so the mass of Germans and Hungarians may have had little information and less interest in the fate of the Jews.
It is difficult to establuish who knew what. For example, Auschwitz was a huge camp and I have to believe that some technicians and foreign detainees did not know what was going on in the Jewish parts of the camp. Moreover, even nearby villages had only a vague idea of the scale of the horrors going on. Anyway, it is all past.
...in the past and already forgiven, according to a 29,000 people BBC World Service Country Rating Poll:
"Germany was the most positively viewed nation overall, with 63% of those surveyed rating its influence as positive."
While Israel is among the least positively viewed nations, Egypt and Turkey dislike you most, more here and here.
What people know and what they are going to do about it if they do is something very difficult to asses.
An example is needed.
For example is the american public aware of the fact that US power structures practice torture and killings at will?
Are they aware that US broke untill now 2 secular states and replace the state structures - lybia and irak - with a sot of african hell dominated by bloody militias?
That the embargo policy directly led to the death of at least 500 000 children in Irak ? ( madeleine albright accepted publicly the number and said it was worth it, no secret about it)
The answer is positive , the information is public. And yet this does not make american citizens bloody beasts. It is a little bit more complicated. And they continue to even go to vote. I mean normal sane people go and vote for the democrat party after hearing albright that no if we kill through desease hundreds of thousands of children it's no big deal. And no need to justify that in the end. i have no republican sympathies either, absolutely no diference anyway.
At least germans didn't go to vote again and again for the killings and destruction to continue.
So in the end we don't care about sufferings of others. If the leadership says we should care then well we care. If they stop we stop caring of course.
And if they say we should rejoice well we are going to be happy those little bastards died of disenteria.
I am not antiamerican. They are in the empire business and that is what empires do. The republic morphed into the empire. Different animals. The only thing worth mentioned is they are so very opened about it.
Soviets tortured and killed. But they were ashamed of it. Tried to hide. Americans feel so strong they don't see the need for hypocrisy any more. And this is something quite new for the last few hundred years.
Of course we are violent as a specie and empirial security uses torture. But why legalise it and take us back to the legal system from the inquisition's time? Even adolf himself avoided this.
I agree with J. Germans knew about the holocaust and it didn't bother them. That the leadership kills and tortures doesn't bother nomal citizens at all. Of course if there is a split at elite level and they are told it's wrong things start to change. Like it happened during the vietnam war.
Some part of the elite decided that treating children in south east asia with napalm is wrong. And a part of the people agreed with them.
But no part of the elite in US considers that destroying secular states and their health care, water distribution systems, electricity supply in hot climate which leads to a lot of death at young ages is wrong. So if nobody tells them it's wrong what would you want the people to do?
After the war the new german elite told the people that killing all others ...well is was discovered is wrong. And of course the people concluded that yes it was wrong.
Hope it makes sense, it was pretty long. Used examples to underline human behaviour. Easier to use actual facts and characters which everybody knows. No political statements made.
Apparently the crematoria at Auschwitz were rather smelly affairs. Every day trains arrived full and left empty. So it did not require one to be a von Braun (rocket scientist) to put 2 and 2 together.
The Nazis made no secret of their desire to make the Reich Judenrein and most Germans heartily approved. That the Jews were disappearing in "the East" vs. being murdered was just a detail but in any case they were glad that those greedy Jews were no longer around to cheat the honest German Volk.
There is a big difference between saying that an embargo has public health effects (Saddam of course could have ended the embargo at any time by adhering to international norms and I'm sure that he and his leftist enablers exaggerated the death toll for propaganda purposes) and herding people into gas chambers. I'm hearing the same kind of moral equivalency stuff being touted regarding Iran and Israel (Israel assassinating nuclear scientists whose work could result in the death of millions is just the same as Iran killing innocent Israeli diplomatic wives)and it makes me sick. There really are good guys and bad guys in the world and they are not the same. Intentions do matter in law and morality - a killing in self defense is no crime and no sin. Even if the policeman's bullet goes astray and hits an innocent bystander, he is still not a murderer.
K
And yet no one says boo about the Communists who are operating right this minute.
Lay off the euro-lefty propaganda, Teo. It consistently mars your insightfulness. Like with America's and Cuba's (:-D) alleged health care comparison!
Problem is that I wanted to attract atention on something by making a comparison. It seems I was not able to make me understood at all.
I wasn't expecting anyway to be easy.
Cuba is obsiously a basket case. It is absolutely disfunctional.
Having worse reuslts then those means theft. Not free market but robbery. Organisations using political power in order to extract a rent from society.
There is a difference between capitalism and organized theft.
The entire line was about this, not about any sort of cuban efficiency, but I wasn't explicit enough.
It reminds me of a game I never understood. the one with paper cuts steel, steel cuts stone, but hmmm paper cuts stone whatever.
Capitalism is stronger then socialism, but crony capitalism is stronger the capitalism. Crony capitalism is in exchange weaker the socialism. That is why it could not develop until the alternative system was defeated and eliminated.
It was about contemporan social/economic/political changes. Evolution was gradual, so almost undetectable.
The difference is between free market and rent seeking cartels. That is why I made the comparison, in order to underline how very inefficient from an economic and social point of view is todays form of crony capitalism, closer to feudal guilds then to free market.
Hope it's ok now, no lefty or whatever euro bubbles. It was about being able to deliver the goods at an acceptable price. If you receive money for a Porsche Cayenne but deliver something similar to a Ford Fiesta - a second hand one - and pretend that's how it has to be, then is clear it's a fraud.
"(Saddam of course could have ended the embargo at any time by adhering to international norms and I'm sure that he and his leftist enablers exaggerated the death toll for propaganda purposes)"
Have absolutely no sympathy for the guy. Couldn't care less about him. But hmm you made me curious. What international norms? LOL
Well in Irak after the US intervened hmm Al qaeda showed up. In Lybia hmmmm with heavy finance and a lot of weapons from the gulf and after it was not enough with US, french, british special forces and air forces well hmmm who shows up in lybia? incredibly al qaeda.
Now who bombs in syria and receives heavy financing from the gulf - and weapons of course - and for the time being only strong diplomatic suport ... well guess who?
So hmmmm might there be a connection? Until now US air force due to some diplomatic problems can't yet lend a hand. So brave al qaeda has to do all the bombing by itself.
Of course there is no connection, they just show up when US destructures a state. Has to be something connected to international norms.
Also no political statement. Just observing a proxy in action. Like Iran uses hezbollah and many others, US has it's own proxys. The one mentioned above seems to be one of them, like jundullah and others. It's something states with hegemonic tendencies do. And will always do. I have no stake in it , pls don't intepret in this manner.
For disagreements I am open, but political statements have no place in this discussion. I wasn't accusing the empire of being an empire. Just observing how it morphs under our own eyes, from a democracy to a republic, now from republic to hegemonic empire. And I am very curious what the future holds for us. As a historic and social study is absolutely fantastic, I am glad to live through this interesting times.
Normally it would be quite boring, US shows al signs of empirial decay. It happened before so of no great interest.
But now... it's the first time we see this evolutions in the nuclear age. And this is absolutely new. In the entire history of mankind. It's fantastic for someone interested in history. Everything brand new. old norms put to test in a new enviroment.
PS. Of course I would like everyone to be like brothers ad sing together etc but humans don't work like this. Not my fault.
Al Qaeda is a US proxy? Did we get them to destroy the WTC on 9/11? Puh-lease.
Dictators like Saddam and Assad destroy civil society - anyone decent flees or is expelled or killed and those that remain are either sheep or wolves allied with the dictator. In such contaminated soil, is it surprising that noxious weeds like al-Qaeda spring up? Keep in mind these were places that never had democratic traditions to begin with. Not a single Afghan ruler in the 20th century left office in an orderly succession - most lost their heads . The US never had the time, money or (in the post Vietnam era) the cultural confidence needed to repeat the successes of post war Japan or Germany (not that Afghanistan was ever going to be Japan or Iraq, Germany - they don't have the same human capital). But correlation is not causation.
K
Saddam was a toothless tiger when GWB destroyed him in 2003. In retrospect it turns out that Hans Blix was correct: Saddam had no nuclear weapons. And no I do not believe GWB did it for Israel. Already by 1995/6, the Israelis had identified Iran as their greatest threat. Why would they wish to see Saddam removed when he was a decisive buffer with Iran? Paul Wolfowitz thought that many Muslims desired a Western life like his girlfriend, or would turn out be harmless syncretists like the Indonesians he was familiar with. Israel did benefit from the first Gulf War in 1991. I remember the good cop bad cop routine played by the Shamir - Arens duo. Plucky Israel was going it alone in hunting the Scuds; the awesome IAF was going to show the US, UK and French jocks how it is done. George Bush Sr and James Baker must have shaken their heads ruefully when they handed over the multi-billion dollar housing guarantees. Though of course billions mean nothing these days. It is one of the ironies of 2003 that George Bush an undoubtedly devout Christian set in train a process the end result of which seems to be the extinction of the ancient Christian communities of the Middle-East. He should have listened to the Pope.
Ivan
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