Something needs to be said

[Dmmoore]

Having a discussion such as this is healthy and may lead to a better understanding of different cultures / nationalities points of view.

Flaming other members will cause a thread to be locked, specific posts removed or as in the previous thread, no redeeming value remained after the worst offending posts were removed, the entire thread was removed.

[Vinco]

Airbus_A320/Crunk415balla,
I agree, ultimatelly, we're all saying the same thing. Hitler was not a good guy and lessons can be learned by studying Nazi regime. Which is true for history overall since it generally does try to repeat itself.

If you want to discuss it further as it relates to world we live in today, either start a new thread or present your argument.

[flyboy2548m]

Give it a thought. It will come to you.

Very well, I guess we've both got some thinking to do.

[flyboy2548m]

Having a discussion such as this is healthy and may lead to a better understanding of different cultures / nationalities points of view.

Flaming other members will cause a thread to be locked, specific posts removed or as in the previous thread, no redeeming value remained after the worst offending posts were removed, the entire thread was removed.

Thanks for the reminder, Don. I don't think any of us harbor any doubts whatsoever with regards to your skills in locking threads, removing posts and/or banning people. You have proven yourself worthy time and time again in that regard.

[Bok269]

I don't believe a thread with good natured debate should be closed, or eliminated. The other thread was nothing but mudslinging. This one started that way, but with PK's departure, has evolved into what I view as a pretty intelligent, civil debate between members.

Despite what ensued, I never intended to start this as a mudslinging thread. I don't question the decision to remove the comments from the other thread. However, I also felt that what was said needed to be addressed not in the form of an attack on a user, but rather in an attempt to educate everyone on the use of the word "Jew" as an adejective. I regret that some mudslinging resulted, but I am glad that an intelligent debate resulted.

Rob

[flyboy2548m]

I am glad that an intelligent debate resulted.

Where?

[Airbus_A320]

Where?

From all the posts made by yourself and Peter_K.

[Bok269]

Where?

The whole Evil vs. Brilliant debate, etc.

[Alex - Spot-This !]

Hi everyone,
I’m just back from a few days in the mountains and had a great time reading all your posts. This is for me one of the best debat we had here on JP for a long time…
Many of you have made very smart and mature remarks about the whole subject and I’d like to thank you all for that.

As some of you know I’m a history teacher here in Switzerland. I grew in Argentina during the “bad” years of military dictatorship, my father being part of the army during those years, then I moved to the USA and finally to Switzerland. Since living in Europe I’ve spend countless hours reading about XX century history and more important talking with my swiss gd-parents and many old people who actually lived during the 30s and who had all their memory to share which was for me great “direct” source of information.

My very 1st remark would be that we really should be careful not to see history as good or evil. Only very dumb people think this way (they do exist and even lead some countries or churches today…) and that’s something we do need to fight against. Intolerance always leads to some kind of human disaster. From Peter the Great to Hitler, Mao, Stalin or Castro and many others, history has taught us that we need to study all what they did in a very objective way.

There’s always a question that comes back to my mind when I think about the whole nazi period in Germany. “what would I have done ?” and ask yourself this question too. What would have been your reaction ? I strongly wish I would have been able to resist and even die in a Gestapo jail but… I have doubts…
It’s easy in 2008 after growing in a world where I never had to fight to have something to eat, where I got all the info I wanted, where I could read any book I wanted to read without risks, to say that nazi were just total nuts and that Hitler was pure evil but…
Growing in a ruined country, where all Europe looked as you a responsible of WW1 (which was the case in a large part but WWI was also “needed” for a lot of other countries, France included), where most of the money was used to pay the clauses of the Versaille treaty, and then supporting the Nazis is something we can and must understand.
From 1916 to 1930 there were 2 very strong opposition to the old regim who promise they will change everything. Those were the communist and the nationalists (not only the Nazis). At some points Germany wasn’t far to become a new communist country if they weren’t fought with violence by groups of paramilitary who for the most part were supported in their murders and acts by a very “comprehensive” justice system… and who later would become the main force of the SA and the Nazi party.
Unfortunately it looked like only with the Nazis, Germany was able to get out of this almost civil war situation. And remember that people love nationalism and are ready to accept the worst aspect of it (look at the situation in countries like Russia, Austria a few years ago, France, USA and Switzerland today) People love when we tell them they are the best and that their country deserves a big place in the whole picture. And even if the Nazis pushed it very far with all the race theories they were very smart the way they did it, thanks to the new technologies used by their propaganda (Radio, Cinema, huge parades). Also remember that those same theories were highly supported in many countries in Europe. Very very few people in England, France or Russia saw Hitler’s regim to be a real threat to peace, and most of all they didn’t care much about all the anti-semitism that was growing in Germany.
Yes German people elected Hitler… But at first what did he do ? Accept it or not but he brought back the hope that Germans had lost. People had something to believe in. Situation was improving every day, Other countries in Europe started to look at Germany as a country they could respect and they were PROUD of it… they were again proud to be German. Proud to be able to go to work and buy food to their kids, proud to have a whole new army with great technology, proud of their scientist and so on…
Brillant ? I don’t know if it’s really the right word but they certainly understood very well what was needed to the people at that time. For that the Nazis and their leaders were at some points brillant I guess. And like Jordan said “Brillant and smart does not always mean good.” Going back to Stalin he’s another perfect example. We all know he killed millions of people and did so many terrible things to the Russian people but… nobody can say he was dumb.
My post is now long enough so as a last note I’d like to add that we all can be considered as the evil of someone else. What would an Iraki or an Afghan think of me and my American passport ? What would I think about Israelis if I grew in a Palestinian camp ?
One thing is sure there should be no taboos about it. Chasen should have been able to create his German club at school (the school’s reaction is for me pure stupidity and intolerance) and we should all be able to talk about these subjects and learn about the mistakes that have been done so we don’t repeat them today. Sadly history shows that we, as human, have a tendency NOT to learn from our past mistakes…

Again thank you for bringing some smart conversation to this forum

Take care
Alex

[Airbus_A320]

^^Very good post.
Basically sums up everything I was trying to say with my posts in a much better way, and from a person who teaches history for a living.

[Peter_K]

Very well, I guess we've both got some thinking to do.

I was only hoping for a civilized debate on your statement from post #3, but of course since you wish not to go there, that's fine with me.

[Peter_K]

(...) In my opinion Germany got off easy considering they started two World Wars in less than 40 years resulting in millions dead and wounded. Vast occupied territories were raped and pillaged. (...)

Why would you blame Germany for starting a WWI? It was more of a domino effect with various international thretreaties aties kicking in. Even simplyfing it, I would say it was more Austro-Hungarian empire than Prussia.

[Crunk415balla]

Why would you blame Germany for starting a WWI? It was more of a domino effect with various international thretreaties aties kicking in. Even simplyfing it, I would say it was more Austro-Hungarian empire than Prussia.

Right. Germany was just an ally. Why are there British troops in Iraq? They're just backing us up as they feel obligated to do. I remember when France had the "balls" to not come to our aide in Iraq, and everyone went all crazy here. I think it was a good decision on their part, but it must have been difficult as a country is expected to more or less "blindly" support its allies, as Germany did in WWI, and the Allied countries did soon after.

[Mungous]

Hi everyone,
As some of you know I’m a history teacher here in Switzerland.

Ah that explains the long, but interesting post.

Apart from that I haven't a clue where this threads at

[Alex - Spot-This !]

Right. Germany was just an ally. (...), as Germany did in WWI, and the Allied countries did soon after.

That's quiet wrong. Germany was more than an ally. Everything depended on the German reaction and they were behind every Austro-Hungary decision. The Austro-Hungarian empire wasn't crazy enough to start a conflict without the strong support of their German ally. Why did the Germans give the green light to the Austro-Hungarian empire is quiet complicated and mainly based on 2 bad assessment of the situation. They believed that :
- UK wasn't going to react.
- There were strong chances that Russia wasn't going to react neither

This way Germany thought they would be able to obtain a very quick victory over France and that if they were quick enough it wasn't going to be a generalized conflit... but yes they were wrong... and badly.

Alex