Has Germany payed for its WWII sins?

jonniebgood1

Having recently visited Germany and marveled in particular at its great public transport and the obvious high standards of living a question emerged. On same trip I visited the Dachau concentration camp museum. On returning to Ireland the Germans seem to be trying to alter the Lisbon treaty to allow them more controls over other sovereign nations.

The question is therefore as a new generation of Germany emerges that is not in living memory of the WWII atrocities- Did Germany really ever pay for its sins in WWII? Having read many memoirs by survivors of their terror, particularly in eastern Europe, I think that in learning from history we should be very wary of this. A country that democratically elected the Nazi party less than 100 years ago cannot be trusted. The cold war meant that after Nuremburg the Western powers basically put very little control on West Germany in return for their support on Cold war issues. All views welcomed...

Johnmb

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Having recently visited Germany and marveled in particular at its great public transport and the obvious high standards of living a question emerged. On same trip I visited the Dachau concentration camp museum. On returning to Ireland the Germans seem to be trying to alter the Lisbon treaty to allow them more controls over other sovereign nations.

The question is therefore as a new generation of Germany emerges that is not in living memory of the WWII atrocities- Did Germany really ever pay for its sins in WWII? Having read many memoirs by survivors of their terror, particularly in eastern Europe, I think that in learning from history we should be very wary of this. A country that democratically elected the Nazi party less than 100 years ago cannot be trusted. The cold war meant that after Nuremburg the Western powers basically put very little control on West Germany in return for their support on Cold war issues. All views welcomed...

I think this shows a very poor understanding as to both what happened back then, and what is happening now.

PatsytheNazi

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Having recently visited Germany and marveled in particular at its great public transport and the obvious high standards of living a question emerged. On same trip I visited the Dachau concentration camp museum. On returning to Ireland the Germans seem to be trying to alter the Lisbon treaty to allow them more controls over other sovereign nations.

The question is therefore as a new generation of Germany emerges that is not in living memory of the WWII atrocities- Did Germany really ever pay for its sins in WWII? Having read many memoirs by survivors of their terror, particularly in eastern Europe, I think that in learning from history we should be very wary of this. A country that democratically elected the Nazi party less than 100 years ago cannot be trusted. The cold war meant that after Nuremburg the Western powers basically put very little control on West Germany in return for their support on Cold war issues. All views welcomed...

As for the Germans seemingly altering the Lisbon Treaty etc, cann't blame them. Since their mainly going to bail out the Gombeen state, Greece etc, who can blame them for laying down ground rules on how the European banana republics spend their money.

Judgement Day

If it hadn't been for the Soviet threat the Allies shouldn't have left two bricks on top of each other in Germany at the end of WW.II. - as a lesson to any future despotic regimes.

jonniebgood1

Johnmb wrote: »

I think this shows a very poor understanding as to both what happened back then, and what is happening now.

Please expand on this, i.e. back up your opinion.

jonniebgood1

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

As for the Germans seemingly altering the Lisbon Treaty etc, cann't blame them. Since their mainly going to bail out the Gombeen state, Greece etc, who can blame them for laying down ground rules on how the European banana republics spend their money.

I agree, if it were my money I would want to know where it was going. The questionable point is letting them have a say in other countries affairs given their history. Do you think that is wise?

ejmaztec

Judgement Day wrote: »

If it hadn't been for the Soviet threat the Allies shouldn't have left two bricks on top of each other in Germany at the end of WW.II. - as a lesson to any future despotic regimes.

In view of the state that Germany was left in after WW1, and what it led to, I think the Allies didn't want another bunch of disgruntled Germans having another go later on, so decided to invest in Germany's future (with the exception of the Russians, who nicked all of the machinery in their sector and sent it east as part of war reparations.)

Rabble Rabble

The answer is YES. The German's have paid for their history, and actually teach it ad naeusum for the last 3-4 generations. 7 year olds hear about it. Meanwhile, in good old blighty the Empire never existed, except perhaps to end slavery. The French think colonialism was grand, the Americans rarely discuss the ( clearly racist and equally lebebsraum) manifest destiny, the Russians think that they are victims of history though the occupied more than half of Europe until a mere generation ago, and I doubt the OP has even thought of any of this.

That Nazis are the major bugbears of history because they lost. That's all.

Judgement Day

Yes, I was only playing Devil's advocate there and I do fully understand why Germany had to be rebuilt. That said, it's a pity that a line wasn't drawn in the sand back then and we might have seen a lot less facist thugs emerge to takeover countries around the World. Pinochet, Galtieri, Amin, Gadaffi, Saddam etc.etc.

Rabble Rabble

Judgement Day wrote: »

Yes, I was only playing Devil's advocate there and I do fully understand why Germany had to be rebuilt. That said, it's a pity that a line wasn't drawn in the sand back then and we might have seen a lot less facist thugs emerge to takeover countries around the World. Pinochet, Galtieri, Amin, Gadaffi, Saddam etc.etc.

The sum total of all the dead caused by all these dictators would be a pre-breakfast toll on a quiet Tuesday in Mao's China. In other words the West was hardly going to spend too much time on fascist, or "fascist" dictators with the threat of the East. A very real one too, although ignored now.

Johnmb

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Please expand on this, i.e. back up your opinion.

Where to start.

On returning to Ireland the Germans seem to be trying to alter the Lisbon treaty to allow them more controls over other sovereign nations.

Not really the correct place for this, but in any case, that is not what they are trying to do. They have simply decided (along with a number of other countries) that since nobody is enforcing the current agreements, new ones that will be enforced should be made. Much better than enforcing the current ones as far as Greece etc are concerned, and it won't give Germany any control over other sovereign nations, just like we won't have any control over them. In fact, it will take away a certain amount of their power as we won't have to go begging to them to bail us out if we get into any more trouble.

The question is therefore as a new generation of Germany emerges that is not in living memory of the WWII atrocities- Did Germany really ever pay for its sins in WWII?

They lost, they were made to pay for everything they did. The winning side on the other hand have never been held accountable for any of their sins during the war...

Having read many memoirs by survivors of their terror, particularly in eastern Europe, I think that in learning from history we should be very wary of this.

If you read memoirs from survivors, then you'll be fully aware of all the atrocities, not just those of the Germans.

A country that democratically elected the Nazi party less than 100 years ago cannot be trusted.

They elected a number of Nazis, just like they elected a number of Communists, just like everyone in a democratic country at the time elected many National Socialist and Communist representatives. Nazis, despite modern belief, were nothing evil or special. They happened to be infiltrated by a few evil people who manipulated events in order to get themselves into a position of power, firstly within the party and then within Germany. They effectively staged a coup to get power, they weren't freely elected to an overall majority. If those few people had not infiltrated the party at that time, it would be more akin to the modern Tory party rather than the modern BNP. They were nationalist, but not the racist party they were to become once they had establish themselves under the control of Hitler et al.

The cold war meant that after Nuremburg the Western powers basically put very little control on West Germany in return for their support on Cold war issues.

While the fear of the spread of Communism played a part, I'd like to think the Allies had simply learned from their own previous mistakes at the end of WW1. They tried to break the German people back then, and that was what lead to the events that allowed a number of evil people to manipulate the ordinary people. After WW2 they realised that to avoid future conflict they needed to address those issues to be sure that it would be much more difficult to manipulate the people in future. Since the war ended (and there are arguments that both WW1 and WW2 were in fact part of one larger war), it would seem to have worked.

jonniebgood1

Rabble Rabble wrote: »

That Nazis are the major bugbears of history because they lost. That's all.

Unbelievable comment. Would you not accept that the Holocaust may have been a slight "bugbear"

Rabble Rabble

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Unbelievable comment. Would you not accept that the Holocaust may have been a slight "bugbear"

It was one of many holocausts, most of whom I mentioned in my original post. In 1943 Churchill killed 3 million Indians. Becuase he wanted their food. And because they were unter-menschen.

The naive child's fable of the Evil Wacist Gewmans against the Upright non-racist Allies is a myth for idiots. The Americans were clearly racist in law at the time to, at the State and Federal level. As were the AUstralans etc.

( In fact most of the allied democracies were more racist than catholic fascism)

brianthebard

Not a history issue.