BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 11 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

Refresh

Pity if this slipped away too soon

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 08:28 PM

Pow!

It really is a privilege to read this kind personal commentary. It's value is quite simply immeasurable.

Thanks sincerely to both you and Wolfgang for prising my mind open another notch.
_____________


I watched a documentary about Hess and the Nuremberg trials in which he let the world in on the terrible "news" that The only reason the concentration camps could have happened was that (in short) the Jews had everyone hypnotized.

In other words, the jews were responsible for their own extermination.

You simply cannot take it for granted that reason will prevail.

Germans were ruled by these idiots ruthlessly. Hess was Hitlers deputy. Hitler himself was dependant on amphetamines which he took intravenously.

Kim Jong Il has the bomb.

What the f**k ...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 07:49 AM

Some more thoughts: Where have all the Nazis gone? long time ago ...

Even the people failing the denazification returned after a while to average civil life, forgetting everything. With anger, fury and rage I think of a higher military judge who wrote the commentary to the anti-semitic laws in 1935, sentencing young desperate soldiers to death in the last days of the war, and ending as a respected secretary of state in the young republic. Argument: those were the days, and those were the laws. Such guys having mislead an entire young generation earned a lot of money afterwards, and the sufferers got nearly nothing!

Others started in big business, like the Support Organization of Former SS Men.

But locally their deeds were not forgotten. I heard a lot about Nazis in my home town, and I never did business with them afterwards. A gentleman keeps silent and retains himself.

Others repented sincerely; so I knew a teacher who organized meetings for students and other young people of all races and nations. His aim was that we got to know each other in all our heterogeneousness and to learn to live together in peace. So he made good for the sins of his youth "in the party."

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: catspaw49
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 06:40 AM

What alanabit just said.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 05:48 AM

Thanks for a magnificent post. It is these personal reminiscences, which give us the most insight into other generations.
I don't think what you wrote contradicts or detracts from what Wolfgang wrote in the slightest. Your views and your reactions to the tragedy are rooted in your own personal experience. How could they not be? Whenever I speak to or read a witness of those years, I always get a slightly different angle. I believe you grew up in South Germany, occupied by the Americans, which inevitably left you with slightly different impresssions to Wolfgang, growing up in the Northern British sector some years later.
All these memories help to fill out our impression of what happened and help us to go beyond sweeping statements and and glib assumptions. You sure can learn a lot here on Mudcat!

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 10 Oct 06 - 05:24 AM

Since I'm some years older than Wolfgang let me tell you some more about those years in question.
Wolfgang's pessimistic reports about his youth cannot stand without correction.
Many never had the chance to get a "Persilschein" because they were murdered in the camps before. Every two years my fraternity meets in a concentration camp to remember one of our brethren (may be you have heard of Paul Schneider , the "preacher of Buchenwald", a fervent opponent of Nazism).
The "Persilschein" was often given with good cause. A lot of Germans found themselves in the concentration camps on political grounds because they opposed the Nazi system in the open; others were sniffed out and caught. In my home town I knew two of them; one of them a tiler, a fellow fire fighter. He never told me why he was there - he wanted to forget. The other one was a communist who came back minus 1 eye.
This man attested the certificate of anti-Nazi activities for my grandfather. It could be proved by an article in the anti-Jewish hate paper "Der Stuermer" (=hotspur).
In bold letters the Nation could read what my grandfather had done:
When he saw some pupils in the school building where he taught mocking a passing Jew out of the windows of this ancient and proud school he rebuked them in harsh words, was denunciated, and kicked out of the school service without further payment. I think he was to well known to put him in the camps.
An old pupil of his told me how often they stopped their breath when he told them in class: "I won't have anything said against my Jewish companions at arms in the trenches."
My father had to join the SA to get admission to the final exams at University. He qualified but was not admitted to the necessary apprenticeship because he was such a bad Nazi. He was good enough to serve in the army and was killed in action as a young lieutenant two days before his 27th birthday, half a year before I was born.
It took a long time for me to learn that there might be fathers, and what they were.
So I often say in bitter irony: I am of the heroic age-group of 1943 - conceived before Stalingrad.

And now something about the occupying forces of the US Army since you have asked for it.

My first reminiscence is the big bombing of my home town by the USAF in March 1943 when I was just over 2 years old. I remember some short scenes before an in the air raid shelter.
My grandparents guarded me while my mother had to earn our living since a junior officer's pension was too meagre. They lived near the Ray Barracks (where Elvis later on served his time) and let a room to the girl friend of an American NCO who waited for his permit to marry her. He worked in the officers mess and every evening he brought something for me and my younger cousin. The first chocolate I ever ate was Hershey's. When playing in the street near the backside of the mess he or one of hie fellows often came out and handed us sweeties through the fence. God bless you, Sgt Tuohy.
When 7 years old I had an argument with an American boy which ended in a slight fist fight. He ran home crying and his father had nothing better to do than to call the MP. Did he take me for a werwolf, the silly bugger?
The care rations we received were handed out by the army from great trucks before the post office; another memory of the fine guys in the army.
The best the army ever did for the young people was the German Youth Association (GYA). In a big commandeered house they formed a club where we poor orphans could play, sing, and learn English. So we were off the streets and had a warm place to stay. Sometimes we were loaded on a big truck and driven through the sunny region, and in some barracks we were fed. Gorgeous times.
I can't remember that I ever felt bitter hunger; my mother worked as a house maid for officer families with children, and they saw that I was fed like their own.

My other grandfather had to look for subsistence, too, and so the first Jews I met as a boy were involved in the black market.
Experiences like Wolfgang's I never made at school. When we were old enough the problems of race and hate were taught extensively; we learned the whole sad history. Our teachers were mostly gentlemen not concerned with Nazi activities; the humanistic tradition of our school forbade it. The director (a former colleague of my grandfather) himself was kicked out of the service very soon by the Nazis, too, because he declined to divorce his wife, a half Jew (and sister of the communist mentioned above).
What I loathed grewing older in this republic was the changing of the algebraic signs before the Jews - what was the worst minus was now changed to the highest plus. Unreflected the conquest of parts of Palestine was now praised similar to the conquest of Poland. As an orphan who had seen a little bit of war and (still) missing his father dearly I couldn't help to feel sympathy with the disenfranchised.
That is what I learned at school and by my grandfather: A man's worth isn't defined by his race or nation, but only by his character and deeds.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 06:54 PM

“There are two types of people who will tell you that you cannot make a difference in this world: Those who are afraid to try and those who are afraid you will succeed.â€쳌
Ray Goforth

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:46 PM

Precisely. Who else practiced the doctrine of "pre-emptive war" and used it to attack smaller countries that presented no real threat to the attacking power?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:37 PM

Yes - I saw a documentary recently (panorama or dispatches - I can't be sure) all about how the money that was intended to be used in the reconstruction of IRAQ was deliberately mispent before the Iraqi government came to power to make sure that only a tiny percentage of it was left for them to use.

Bush got to say "look how generous I am" while the institutionally racist mechanisms that were meant to put the relief programme into effect played a game, not dissimilar to those played in abu gharaib, where people were teased with what they desperately needed only to have it callously and criminally destroyed in front of their eyes.

There is something evil in the way that Iraq has been treated that is less reminiscent of tha America that instituted the Marshall plan than it is of the regime that the allies had toppled.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 05:29 PM

Wolfgang: Which brings us to 2 truly important events which, had we learned from history, would show us the way to a people is through constructive ideas and not subjugation. Lincoln knew it after the Civil War, MacArthur (with all his faults) knew it re: the Japanese, and, finally, the Berlin Airlift and Marshall Plan to re-construct the former enemies and hope for peace.   All positive and constructive actions that created a feeling of better (I won't say good) will.

          I think if we were to recall this history it might help in today's sad situation---in the Middle East.


Bill Hahn

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 04:26 PM

I forgot yesterday one question I wanted to respond to.

Beachcomber, I don't know what the the older generation thought, but I have never personally heard a bad word about the occupying (Western) armies. But I may have been too young to hear such remarks. The then adult Germans must have had some resentment between 1945 and 1948, because daily life was sometimes made a bit difficult (my father and my mother were in different zones and it was often s a bit difficult/forbidden to meet).

But in our language the "occupying forces" soon became the (more neutral) "Allies". Two things made a big (emotional) difference: (1) The care-parcels sent from 1946 on up to 1950(?) also to the German Europeans. (2) The Berlin airlift (1948/49) in which West-Berlin was supported by allied planes, called in German the "raisin bombers". 41 British and 31 Americans lost their lives to feed hungry West-Germans.

For us kids it never felt like an occupation, very different from Ireland and Iraq. One can only wonder if there had been a "sealift" with some British seaman losing their lives in 1845/48 to feed the starving Irish how much of a difference that might have made.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 08:09 AM

If you don't take proper care of your kids, you can't act all surprised when they start smashing the house up.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: alanabit
Date: 05 Oct 06 - 01:29 AM

Those little brass plaques, which Wolfgang mentioned, are in most streets of Cologne too. I will walk over some today. I would say that there is far more taking into account of the past than there was when I first got to know Germany at the end of the seventies.
The generation, which knew the war first hand, is now on the way to disappearing. The politicians, whose ideas were rooted in the experience of the post war years, has now almost gone too.
We have all heard of Germany's "economic miracle" of that time, but perhaps not enough about the "Wohlstand", which was perhaps Germany's most potent post war idea. In short, Germany felt that there should be a minimum standard of living, below which no one should fall. This would both guarantee a market, in which goods and services could be exchanged and it would also innoculate the population against the collapsed economy, which had made such a fertile breeding ground, for the extremists in the thirties.
One of my worries, is that the concensus behind the Wohlstand may be breaking down. That is possibly one of the factors behind the rise of the new extremist parties, especially in the East.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 07:04 PM

Beautifully put McGrath,

I agree wholeheartedly, except in as much as our pasts are shadowed in similar ways, whether it be with regard to anti semitism, slavery, subduing the colonies or other spurious excuses for barbaric militarism.

Ultimately of course this serves to strengthen your point with regard to smugness.

Being Irish, one of my sources of national pride was that on the one hand we have never gone a conquering and on the other, we have never had slaves.

We butchered ourselves fairly comprehensively in the civil war, and the troubles up north hardly need referring to, but generally as a people we were always on the side of the underdog. We've never been bullies.

There is a certain smugness in that knowledge as one grows into a trendy young right on adult, but the reality is that now Ireland has a bit of cash at their disposal, and we have been required to open our doors to refugees and asylum seekers, we have suddenly become very defensive.

I have heard uncles and aunts, who I had previously seen through rose tinted specs, talking about "them" and how they "come here and bring their crime with them" etc.

The first step is to blame the face that don't fit for problems that have always been there and to pretend they are new ones that didn't exist before the arrival of jonny foreigner.

Alf Garnet'isms suddenly abound where having something in common with the downtrodden used to reign supreme.

You're doing great Wolfgang - we're all learning something.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 06:36 PM

My feeling has been that there was a failure to admit and face up to the truth for a long time, both among Germans and among others. Perhaps that was how it had to be because the truth was so terrible. Maybe denial of involvement by the older generation and by those who needed to work with them was the only way of getting on with life and rebuilding society.

It must have been very painful for young people growing up in the way Wolfgang described - the "mellow faces" with a history behind them that no one dares to examine too closely. I think I would feel the same as he does when he writes "I can better live with it when the past is not swept under the rug". The stumbling stones idea is very moving, an inspired idea - reminding people individually about individuals.

And those of us who are not German should always remember that the fact that our past is not shadowed in the same way is not our doing. It is something to be grateful for, not something about which we have any right to feel smug.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:42 PM

That is also my viewpoint on it, lox.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:22 PM

Wolfgang,

I don't know whether I am being presumptious on this oint or not, but I feel strongly compelled to make it none the less.

Just as it was our tragedy, it was also our sickness. Germany was where it's worst symptom grew.

If we continue to view it according to political institutions (state lines) nationality and race we will get no where, but be allowing the same disease to grow in us again.

We all as humans are capable of this kind of stuff and we all as humans live with the horror of it and we all as humans must learn from it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Wolfgang
Date: 04 Oct 06 - 05:14 PM

I've not read this thread for a couple of days for I wanted to read it at full length in a single 'session' and I have read now for about one hour. Sorry if I do not respond to all questions for I then would have to write a book as alanabit remarked. I'd rather respond to other themes in new threads (Ron, yes there is still a big East-West split; Dr. Norman Winstanley, I'd say that today there are more wrong prejudices against Roma in Germany than against Jews but I don't know about that specific case)

Ebbie, yes, all German soldiers wanted to surrender to the Western Allies and if my father wouldn't have led his unit against Allied orders (German units, only surrender to that army you have fought against) across the Elbe during the night and pretend having fought on the Western front I wouldn't exist.

Ebbie (once more) and Bill, my comparison of the GDR with Austria was a bit clumsy but both countries did steal away from responsibility. As McGrath has said, most Germans of that generation have been supporters of the Nazis and the three countries all had their share of murderers, supporters, and those who did not like what they saw but looked away. As Mick, Ernest (and someone else; Ron?) have said I have repeated communist propaganda mockingly.

M.Ted, you have used a very appropriate word: 'disturbing'. So let me use this word as a start for another shorter tale.
When I grew older (from 16 onwards, perhaps) I always found it 'disturbing' to live in this country. It took me a long time to find out why. It was the contrast between the murderous and bloody past and the happy and (at the first glance) innocent present. A clean country with nice people who are (mostly) friendly to foreigners. That perception just did not fit into the truth of the films about the Nazi time of which I have see each I could.

Those nice elderly people (which are now in their 80s or 90s) must have at least tolerated the violence against fellow Germans and other countries. I look into the mellow old faces and think "have you whipped a Jew to make him run faster", "have you reported a homosexual hoping to get his flat", "have you looked the other way when a train with doomed to die people begging for water came by". These are minor crimes in comparison to industrialised genocidal killing and burning. But whereas only a fairly small minority of Germans was involved in those grand scale crimes, the majority of them must have been involved in at least one of those "minor" crimes and this way have supported the muderous regime so it could last 12 years. Why didn't they withdraw the support to the Nazis at least after the Kristallnacht (a Nazi euphemism) which we now call in German with its real name: Pogromnacht.

I always found these contrasts disturbing. I now can accept that as something to live with and I can better live with it when the past is not swept under the rug. I go to my local supermarket and I see the small plaque telling the passer-bys that on this place in 1941 (exact date given) some three hundred Jews were rounded up to be deported to Theresienstadt and that after the war, only 17 of them were still alive. There are always fresh flowers on that spot.

I cycle to work and pass a medieval tower and when I stop I can read a plaque telling that the Gestapo has tortured prisoners in that tower. I think the present has to be permanently disturbed with reminders of this past lest we forget.

A German artist (Gunter Demnig) has started to place 'stumbling stones' in the towns. Not in a verbatim sense stumbling stones but little plaques in the pavement in front of the houses simply telling what has happened to the inhabitants of this house:

Picture of such a stumbling stone. It reads: Here lived Horst Lothar Koppel, born in 1924, deported in 1943 with the 29th transport to the East.

If you walk through a street with these plaques you will be surprised about the number of them. And then one can get a start of an understanding of the scale of the genocide.

The contrast between the past and the present still disturbs me but I accept it now as unavoidable and even helpful.

Wolfgang

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 10:26 AM

Ron - you seem to be admitting what you would claim to be denying.

"Some of us can control ourselves--some don't try--but some do"

What exactly are "some of us" controlling?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 03 Oct 06 - 05:49 AM

If you clink on this linky you will find a list of what The Serial Bully is.

It easy to recognise a lot of the things listed in others. No so easy to recognise them in ourselves first. But hopefully we will not recognise all of the things on the list in ourselves......

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:12 PM

Yes, I know, Ron. It was my impression that the topic had just taken an interesting new turn, however, and I was talking on the basis of that, not on the basis of what had gone before. I am speaking here as a philosopher, not a politician, and I am not all that interested in the endless, divisive, efforts of both the Right and the Left to each prove that the other is totally wrong about everything.

They are both deeply chauvinistic and pretentious in espousing such prejudicial attitudes toward one another, and they both tend toward absolutism when they do so.

I say that despite the fact that I am instinctively well on the Left. That does not blind me to the fact that the Left, as well as the Right, is fond of posturing grandly, and deluding itself about its own supposed moral purity.

And that? That is what I call the "little Hitler" within. The ego, in other words.

The definition of ego, in spiritual terms, is this: It's the one who thinks, "I am apart from all others. I'm alone. Everyone else is either an opportunity or a threat. I must find a way to get what I want and survive and WIN, and hopefully DOMINATE, because I am NUMERO UNO. I fear, I desire, I want, I cling to, I hate when I don't get what I'm after, and I fight for it."   That, in a nutshell, is what causes all the pain and trouble on this Earth. It can be found percolating busily in both the Right and the Left at any given time, which is why I'd much rather be a philosopher than a politician! ;-)

A philosopher is willing to confront his own darkness, see his own struggle reflected in all others, and attempt to heal it. A politician is not willing to do that...his business is divide and separate....to yell about someone else's darkness and to attack it...to conquer and plunder.

That's how we get into our wars. Mad raving egos, searching for supremacy.

It's also how we generate an awful lot of heat on this forum much of the time, and very little light.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 11:00 PM

well, that was easy....searched on "Olberman + 9/11"

Listen to THIS one http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6210240/#060911a

(got it from here, where they say in part,

" Keith Olbermann is without a doubt the best news anchor on television today. Two weeks ago, echoing the spirit of the legendary Edward R. Murrow, Olbermann took Donald Rumsfeld to task for comparing critics of the
Iraq war to Nazi appeasers. "

well, hmmm I feel like this is drifting and coopting Wolfgang's thread & topic. Maybe this should have its own thread.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:55 PM

Olberman had a similar piece on the 9/11 anniversary awhile back....same tone, just as well said. I'll see if I can find it.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:51 PM

Ah, but consider the topic of the thread---and we have in fact speculated on how we would have behaved. You may well be correct that it's a question of semantics--but as you are no doubt aware-- the name Hitler is a red flag.

The argument also sounds perilously close to something the Left is constantly accused of--moral relativism.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:49 PM

Yeah. Excellent video! He really says it straight out for a change, and we don't get much of that on the media, do we?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:47 PM

Just to clarify... that video of commentary on the Clinton interview was with Keith Olberman, of MSNBC - who nightly gives some pretty clear insight on events, as well as some humorous pokes at things.

I usually stop everything to watch him.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 10:42 PM

Ron, I'm just saying the tendency is in every human being to be thoughtless of the rights of others at times (specially when under great stress). The ego thinks of itself first, and others after that. That's where we get the word "egocentric" from. This is very noticeable in very young children, for example, but they learn to control it as they mature (hopefully).

Is that so hard to grasp? I'm not saying that it predominates in all of us, or that we can't control it and rise above it, I'm saying the tendency to be selfish and negative is there...and the process of gaining some maturity is to overcome those tendencies.

Hitler was a man who fell deeply into control of his darker impulses. We ALL have some darker impulses, and those are what I mean by "the little Hitler" within everyone. Merely their tendency to be destructive.

And I think that is what Roger is saying also, in all probability.

I'm not saying anyone IS a Hitler in any exclusive or all-embracing sense, I'm saying they have some negative tendencies in their makeup as well as some positive tendencies. Would you mind if I also say that we all have both a "little Hitler" and a "wondrous Angel", within us? That would be another way of putting it. It's a metaphor. Which one wins out in any given moment is the vital question.

You are taking issue with a semantic interpretation of my words and Shambles' words that is strictly your own, and has nothing really to do with what was meant by them, as far as I can see.

I am in no way talking about the third Reich, I'm talking about the potential for light and darkness that is within every human being ever born...and I'm calling the darkness by a metaphor "little Hitler". I could just as well call it "Little Al Capone", "Little Blackbeard", "little dictator", "little bully", "little devil" or anything else like that, but they don't seem to fit as effectively or carry the image as well as "little Hitler", that's all.

As Jesus is reputed to have said, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." ( And not one stone will be cast, I can assure you! Because in every breast hides both the Angel and the Little Hitler.)

Oriental spiritual disciplines aim for the egoless state because it is the only way to completely eliminate the vicious side of human nature. In a given human generation on this planet, a mere handful of people reach that state. It is virtually unknown, in fact, but it does exist. I haven't achieved it, needless to say. I'm not even close. I doubt that anyone here on this forum is, judging by what I see here every day. (which, let me tell you, is not too encouraging...)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:39 PM

Last time I heard something like this on Mudcat, it was the specious argument, made in dead earnest, that "We are all Martin Gibsons". We are neither all "Martin Gibson"s nor all Hitlers.

Some of us can control ourselves--some don't try--but some do.

As I said, that does not negate the point that we could not with certainty predict how we'd behave as Germans in the 3rd Reich.

If I had to guess, it would likely be those who are susceptible to propaganda--and especially those who don't recognize it-- who would be most likely compliant citizens in the 3rd Reich--and I think we have a good idea who they might be on the current political scene.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 09:15 PM

I agree with Shambles on this one. Everyone has a "little Hitler" inside...their own ego. How well they can control it determines how well they can relate to others and avoid acting in an aggressive, unscrupulous, dysfunctional manner.

McGrath - Agreed. I just mean that it's very common for people to do that, and it's the source of the needless acrimony on this forum.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Ron Davies
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 08:58 PM

In my view the phrase "little Hitler" is meaningless--unless by that you mean ego--or perhaps, actually, in psychological terms, id. And in that case the phrase is needlessly incendiary. For people who are otherwise aggressively anti-religion , some on this thread seem have an amazing insistence that others--not just they--should wear hairshirts.

It's certainly true, as McGrath points out, that none of us could predict with certainty how we would have behaved as Germans in the 3rd Reich.

But that all of us are "little Hitlers" is a bit much.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 07:57 AM

I agree with Shambles on his last post:

I think part of growing and becoming mature is accepting that being human includes having questionable traits as well as good ones, and somehow trying to nurture oneself so they/we grow in a positive way. We need to understand and accept all of ourselves, and nurture the parts of ourselves that are growing unhealthily etc etc

... before this turns into full on psychobabble I'll make it relevant ...

I think that the hitlers of this world are those who don't accept the possibility of a little hitler inside them. They are those who will not see the damage they do and stick to their guns no matter what the consequences.

An unwise way of being.

______________

Also, yes it is true that too many people enter into debate to hear their own loyalties and prejudices confirmed by those who share the same views, and to defend them at all costs against anyone with different views.

It makes it very difficult for those such as yourself, McGrath, and myself to know whether discourse we enter into in good faith is actually meaningful or whether we are simply butting our heads against a brick mantra (whatever a brick mantra might be). It is often very difficult to know whether somebody is merely spouting their jargon or if they simply disagree and wish to subject their views and those of others to rigorous testing - especially as there are some (such as myself) who are quite simply passionate about the whole process.

I hope this post has generally been helpful to the thread and not just self indulgent.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:41 AM

Too many people do indeed carry on discussion in that way, Little Hawk.   But it's not the only way nor the best way.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: The Shambles
Date: 02 Oct 06 - 06:24 AM

If we could only accept the 'little Hitler' that resides within all of us and were prepared to always challenge and never to tolerate or encourage the many 'little Hitlers' we see displayed in our daily lives - perhaps we will never again have to face the real thing and have to try and come to terms with the consequences?

For we don't always challenge and we do tolerate and encourage - mainly out of a wish to lead a quiet life - which is of course the reason no one ever gets to lead a quiet life.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 08:34 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:50 PM

;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:49 PM

I'm not sure whether to agree or disagree with you Little Hawk

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:44 PM

People like it when you say stuff they agree with, and they praise you for it. They dislike it when you don't say stuff they agree with, and they question your thinking, your intelligence, and your character. There's really not much more to it than that.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:39 PM

"Cynicism is when you want that to be true, and would resent it if it turned out things were better than you had predicted."

Doesn't your post imply a willful preference for things to go wrong?

I think a cynic would be more of the view that there is no point in caring either way.

though as I write this I am considering the various ways that it can be used ... and I remain open minded ...

Because this is mudcat and we grow strong from this kind of stuff I am going to cut and paste a dictionary definition - there's probably more than one ...

"cyn‧i‧cal  /ˈsɪnɪkəl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[sin-i-kuhl] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation

â€"adjective 1. like or characteristic of a cynic; distrusting or disparaging the motives of others.
2. showing contempt for accepted standards of honesty or morality by one's actions, esp. by actions that exploit the scruples of others.
3. bitterly or sneeringly distrustful, contemptuous, or pessimistic.
4. (initial capital letter) cynic (def. 5)."

Hmmm...

looks like we've each got half of the same sixpence.

"a cynic is a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing" - Oscar Wilde

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:28 PM

And I'd say that's another way of making the same distinction. So an elaboration rather than a disagreement.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:28 PM

Quite possibly. I do feel fatalistic and somewhat bitter about what has happened to the political system in North America in the last few decades. I hold out no hope of its redemption....but that doesn't mean there is no hope. There may be.

I do not expect to see everything somehow work out before I die, needless to say. It never has before, so why would it this time?

It's only in movies and TV shows that everything wraps up neatly at the end of the show. This is real life, and real life is messy.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,lox
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:20 PM

I disagree about definition of cynicism -

I would have said skepticism is cynicism without the bitterness, disaffectation and fatalism

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 06:08 PM

Two excellent links emma B, surprised no one has remarked on them, I learned a lot from them.

From: Emma B
Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:33 PM

England had it's own period of infamy in it's treatment of Jewry
http://ddickerson.igc.org/cliffords-tower.html

and Britain was the first to institute Concentration Camps during the Boer War
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concentration_camp

I don't believ subsequent generations can take the blame for their forbears but neither should we forget........

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: GUEST,beachcomber
Date: 01 Oct 06 - 05:55 PM

I'm an elderly man , also living in a tiny village,( like 'Spaw ?) and a soon to be septuagenarian( well a couple of years more).I was, of course, subjected to the particular propaganda to which Irish school children generally were, from the War years on until the 60s. It was a combination of anti- British and anti-German but all in a historic context. However that is incidental.
What I would really like would be some more insight from Wolfgang about how the Germans of his generation, and the older one, re acted and interacted, with the "occupying forces" of the Allied Armies in Germany after the War?
I am curious also about any difference between those relationships in Urban as opposed to small towns and rural places ? Was there any ?

Do you feel like giving further info Wolfgang?

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:52 PM

I will not resent it in the least if things turn out to be better than I expect! ;-) By no means. I keep hoping things will work out somehow, and that the wars will end.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:47 PM

Being sceptical isn't the same as being cynical. If I'm sceptical it's because I think things are going to work out badly, or someone is worse than they claim to be, for example. Cynicism is when you want that to be true, and would resent it if it turned out things were better than you had predicted.

Nothing at all cynical about anything Little Hawk wrote there. Sceptical, yes, cynical, no.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:34 PM

Bill, I watched the whole Oberman thing. Very, very good. I'm glad to see someone speak out like that. Good for him.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:19 PM

Yes, Bill, I am completely cynical about the American 2-party system. I have utterly no faith in it anymore whatsoever. If I were an American, I would despair of the situation at this point...and I would prepare for the worst.

(Certainly in 1964 Goldwater appeared to be an extremist, but appearances can be deceiving, as you said. Johnson appeared to be someone who would not expand the war in Vietnam. That appearance was equally deceiving.)

I think a corporate decision was made to go into Iraq quite some time ago, orchestrated by thinktanks like the PNAC. They first had to transform Saddam from being a friend and ally into being a monster. That was easily achieved. They then had to wait for (or arrange) a violent crisis that would so anger and alarm the American people that they would sanction unprovoked wars of aggression on small countries which had not themselves attacked America and could not do so even if they wanted to. That was achieved.

You bet I'm cynical. I'm living next door to the most aggressive empire building nation in the post-WWII world, a nation that attacks anyone it wants to whenever it wants to, regardless of world opinion on the matter, and I consider your elections to be utter nonsense arranged to give ordinary American citizens the very false impression that they still have a voice in Washington.

However, there are any number of other things in life I am not cynical about. It just depends what the subject is, that's all.

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Amos
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 07:07 PM

Bill Hahn:

Thank you, thank you.

Amos

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:48 PM

"by today's standards" Which, of course, are the true and valid standards...

Subject: RE: BS: Growing up in post-holocaust Germany
From: Bill Hahn//\\
Date: 30 Sep 06 - 06:31 PM

LH: That last sentence is truly a sign of great cynicism.   As I said earlier we have to put things into the perspective of the time--

Goldwater at the time seemed quite the hard line Hawk compared to others. The sands of time have shifted things again and now, not in hindsight but by today's standards, seems the realist. His grandaughter has written a new bio on him

As to Kerry v Bush--well, as to staying in Iraq I think that there you have the problem of someone getting us into a fine mess (As Stan Laurel used to tell Oliver Hardy) and were Kerry elected--or anyone else--it was not feasable to just get out. The fat (not from Pork) was in the fire. It being so the decision to exit has to be thought out and evolved. Something that an administration refuses to acknowledge subterfuge and mistakes would be incapable of doing. As an earlier writer noted--from my favorite musical duo Gilbert & Sullivan---Things Are Seldom What They Seem.   

Actually Bush seems more like the PooBah character---if I say something is so it does not have to be in fact because my saying it makes it so and, therefore, it really does not have to be so since it is stated that it is. ( paraphrase from Mikado on the non-beheading of KoKo).

I heartily recommend all to watch this segment by Oberman ( if you have not seen it---and hopefully this link will work) that was sent to me by a person I trust and respect      

http://websrvr20.audiovideoweb.com/avwebdswebsrvr2143/news_video/ClintonInterview512K.mov

I guess this discussion has veered as most do from the original intent and which, I believe, I addressed with some historical and personal reminiscences. But--this thread like political sands shift.

Bill Hahn