Posted on 05/10/2005 6:23:48 PM PDT by M. Espinola
BERLIN _ Germany opened a Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin on Tuesday, marking the 60th anniversary of the Nazi regime's capitulation, as many young people here ponder over whether they should be continually apologetic for crimes they did not commit.
Even though German politicians, such as Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, do not hesitate using terms like ``shame'' for its past and even asking for ``forgiveness'' for Adolf Hitler's atrocities, many of the post-war generation in Germany seem to think the country has already done enough to come to terms with the past.
"Germany made many apologies and I think that's enough," Thilo Weber, a 36-year-old resident in Berlin, said in front of the monument, which is composed of 2,711 undulating, concrete columns at a site almost the size of three football fields, near the central Brandenburg Gate.
A recent poll shows that as many as 60 percent of Germans say they are tired of being reminded of Nazi's killing of 6 million Jews, according to a May 5th article of the Economist. The U.K. weekly added that much German media coverage of the 60th anniversary of the end of the war has focused on German suffering.
German people's hopes of shaking off the guilty feeling about the past also led many of them to oppose construction of the Holocaust monument. ``Historic events should be commemorated,'' Weber said, ``but Berlin is already crowded with monuments remembering German atrocities and the Nazi era.''
Hundreds of memorials can be spotted in Germany, from museums for concentration camps, such as Auschwitz, to brass bricks embedded in the pavement outside houses, naming the Jews who once lived there.
The design of the new Holocaust monument, which a tourist described as a ``stone garden,'' has also been a subject of hot debate. Manfred Schrof, who was born in West Germany in 1946, carped at the 35.5-million-dollar memorial, saying it will be good only for young couples to play games of ``hide-and-seek.''
``The monument is composed of nothing but chunk of cement,'' said Schrof, who works in construction in Berlin. ``The gesture of apology should rather come in the form of building universities or hospitals for the poor so that the next generation can get help and learn the past.''
Such complaints on the unattractive design, huge construction costs and politicians' ``excessive'' low-profiling toward the past might explain why those large-scale, right-wing demonstrations have been held in Berlin over the past few days.
Thousands of skin-heads and neo-Nazis held a series of protests near the Brandenburg Gate, shouting ``an end to the cult of guilt.'' In one march near Alexander Platz in the city center, the number of protesters reached 3,300, according to police.
German media said the number of participants in peaceful candlelight vigils in central Berlin had dwarfed that of right-wing marchers. But the situation could reverse later, given that the young generation in Germany are not aware of the painful history.
According to a poll conducted in April by the independent research institute Forschungsgruppe Wahlen for public broadcaster ZDF and the newspaper Die Welt, only 51.4 percent of Germans under the age of 24 were able to identify the Holocaust as the Nazi's campaign to eradicate European Jews.
Dr. Peter Prufert, director of the International Institute for Journalism in the Capacity Building International, a private think tank in Berlin, however, said that the result of the poll is ``not very surprising.''
``This is simply due to the fact that many of today's youngsters might not understand the meaning of Holocaust, an English word which had not been used in German up to five years ago,'' he said. ``They might know when they are asked about the extermination campaign against the Jews during the Nazi time though.''
If he is right, is theory is right, we are unlikely to see larger right-wing demonstrations in future, even though the hopes of average Germans to be free of Holocaust guilt might become stronger over the next decades.
Photos added
Its not about making German feel guilty but about remembering what happen, and not repeating the same mistake.
Personally I think their are enough Holocaust monuments already, the real problem is educating people about what happen.
Germany today still has a Jewish population and now has to deal with a growing Muslim population that hates them. Will the German goverment be willing to educate them about the Holocaust?
I am a German citizen, age 23. I have been to 3 KZs. We learned what happened between 1933 and 1945. Our Jewish population is rising, about 100,000 today. But tell me why you refuse to acknowledge that Germans were victims, too?
2 million were murdered or died on the run after being expelled from the former East German areas. Hundreds of thousands died in the bomb raids, and many German PsOW were tortured, killed, died of hunger in the Soviet Union and several hundreds were shot by the western allied without sentence - many many Privates among them.
Do you think that someone who has the same passport with a criminal loses his basic rights? Do you think that it would have been ok to bomb Bagdads houses and flats in 1991 because Saddam attacked Kuwait?
Certainly, many Germans then were brutal criminals who committed atrocities. But if you had learned how daily life and oppression under the Nazi dictatorship was in Nazi Germany, you would know that speaking up was quite riskful. And you didn´t risk to lose your job - you risked your life! Many Germans did so - and have been imprisoned for that, or were executed.
It is not like that Germans wanted a dictatorship. Actually, at no time Hitlers party got more than 43% in a free election, but Germany slowly drove into that regime. The SA which has been nearly as large as the German Army then (thanks to the Versailles Treaty) was helpful for Hitler, too.
No, by far not all Germans who died or lost all in WW2 "deserved" their fate.
Thanks for promising me to inform yourself a bit more about the rise of the Nazis and the daily life (possibilities of resistance) in Nazi Germany.
"I would like to see China and Russia build memorials to the at least 60 million innocent people murdered for their revolutions. No one seems to care or remember that."
I completely agree.
"One of the reasons for WWII was the resentment and humiliation of the armistice treaty at the end of WWI. Will the resentment and humiliation of the Germans cause a repeat of these events?"
What if Germany had won both World War I and World War II?
In terms of today's Germany. There should be major public alarm resulting from the rise of German neo-Nazism in the very nation which elected Hitler which plunged the world into World War II, resulted in millions being slaughtered.
As a country, Wwe don't even remember our own mistakes, how and why should we expect others to remember theirs?
"Do you think that someone who has the same passport with a criminal loses his basic rights? Do you think that it would have been ok to bomb Bagdads houses and flats in 1991 because Saddam attacked Kuwait?"
I am very proud of the American troops which captured Saddam Hussein. What actions did Germany take in forcing Saddam to abide by countless UN resolutions?
"But tell me why you refuse to acknowledge that Germans were victims, too?" I never stated Germans which opposed the Nazis were not victims of Hitlers madness. When Germany was beating the living Hell out of every nation the 3rd Reich's storm troopers invaded, there were frenzied celebrations all over Germany. Their leader was producing a greater German Reich for them, correct?
"2 million were murdered or died on the run after being expelled from the former East German areas."
While I never defend the despicable, barbaric actions of Stalins communist horde, you need to ask yourself who invaded whom, even after both beastly tyrants, Hitler & Stalin signed their 'Nazi-Soviet Pact' in 1939 after they carved up Poland and other eastern nations and then what happened in 1941?
The toast to evil -Nazi Germany & Red Russia
One bastard stabbed the other in the back. Hitler and his Nazi goons already thrilled with blitzing the lowlands, France & Norway, plus bombing England decide to invade Stalin's Soviet Union.
Would Stalin have attacked Germany, most likely given a few more years of arming to the teeth, but the Berlin beat Moscow to the punch.
Both nations had monsters in control. Germany elected there monster, while Stalin bullied his way to communist power murdered anyone in his path, same as Hitler.
"No, by far not all Germans who died or lost all in WW2 "deserved" their fate."
Every cold blooded Nazi, if there were ever brought to justice, deserved everything which was coming to them, and more, after butchering millions of people.
..."several hundreds were shot by the western allied without sentence - many many Privates among them."
Remember Malmedy? I do.
Nobody is alive in 2005 can remember Southern slavery, but the subject must remain in books so those which soft soap or attempt rewrite history should be countered with the truth, whenever they try to peddle their deliberate distortions of historic realities.
In terms of Nazi Germany, they are those which state the 'Holocaust never happened" but there are living victims, survivors of the Nazis, most in advanced age, buy many victims continue speaking out regarding their first hand experiences of the broad-based diabolical crimes committed against humanity, in an effort to remind people about those horribly murdered & adversely effected by the ruthless regimé of Germany's 3rd Reich.
Your observations are most correct.
The term you used "'racism of religion'" is so applicable. Today among radicalized Islamic terrorist whom by the way idolize Germany's Nazis for exterminating the Jewish people, they exist in a 'the culture of the death cult' and have recently demonstrated to the world how far their insanity extends with all the suicide (homicide) bombings in Iraq.
At least 73 Iraqis killed bombing spree - May 12th, 2005
Nazi Roots of Modern Radical Islam
Florida Islamic group under scrutiny for neo-Nazi ties
"I'm not saying they aren't sorry for anything... but they certainly 'got over their sins' awefully quickly (probably has something to do with the permissive socialism)"
You must run for public office! Bravo to your keen insight!
Keep blasting with YOUR hatred and everything will be just fine! It might even bring back the "dead".
With neo-Nazis staging numerous pro-Nazi marches in the Germany of today, evidently apologizing has not functioned.
How many more years do you feel Germans and all those which collaborated with the Nazi system of organized mass murder should be held to account?
I firmly believe the same. Although the majority acts as like somehow Germany was a only 'victim' in World War II, when it was Hitler's Germany that started the war in Europe.
Preventing more dead will suffice. No one but God can bring back the dead.
The Germans will have to pay lip service to the holocaust until the end of time, but the youngest Germans who were even alive during the war are in their 60's now, and had nothing to do with the crimes of their parents. I wonder how long the Russians will be held responsible for the crimes of the USSR, which murdered far more people than Nazi Germany. As far as I can see, the Russians haven't been held responsible at all.
You make the fault that you set German equals Nazi. This is plain wrong. The very most people weren´t Nazis, they kept silent, even because they were oppressed by the regime. It´s not like that the NSDAP asked the voters and the President (who appointed Hitler to Chancellor): "Do you want a global war, do you want us to kill all Jews, do you want to lose your rights to opposition, free speech, regualar fair elections?"
Of course, everybody who actively and voluntary followed the Nazi course against minorities (not only Jews, though they were the highest number) deserves what he has got.
But tell me why the German Private at the front in Russia deserved to die of hunger or a disease as a POW in a Sibirian camp in 1955 (!), or why the German women deserved to be expelled from her home in East Prussia? Tell me why the Hitler Youth member with 14 years deserved to be killed by a British grenade in the last days of war? They didn´t deserve their fate.
Learn that we practise the principle of individual guilt.
Compare Iraq of 1991 with Germany of 1939. When you think that the German people as a whole deserved to be destroyed, do you think that the Iraqis should have been bombed out in 1991? Do you think that intentional destroying of houses and flats (=killing civilians) is a proper way of leading a war?
I hope your answer is no. Then please use this measure for your view on the WW2-history.
This whole holocaust thing would be so much more convenient if it just hadn't happened.
- is the typical German sentiment toward it, in my observation.
But I must qualify though; I know some Germans who are deeply grieved and remorseful for it.
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In terms of the young Germans I have met (I have met maybe a hundred in my visits) they have been shamed to the core of their soul about their countries past. Even the sight of a Nazi uniform will turn their stomachs.
If there are Germans that think the Holocaust would be more convenient if it did not happen then they are right.
I wish it had not happened. I wish World War Two had not happened. But it did and we should commemorate those that died both in the camps and in the trenchs. For the Europeans that died and for the Americans who crossed the world to help save Europe from tyranny. I think the young German population do not have to apologise for the actions of their forefathers but they must recognse them.
"....This is simply due to the fact that many of today's youngsters might not understand the meaning of Holocaust, an English word which had not been used in German up to five years ago,'' he said. ``They might know when they are asked about the extermination campaign against the Jews during the Nazi time though...."
This is completely wrong. The word holocaust has its roots in the greek "holókauton" which means complete "burnt offering". The word is used since 1979 in Germany, when the US-television series "Holocaust" was shown on German TV. All youngsters in Germany know exactly about the meaning of the shoa (or holocaust). It is a fixed part on every German school curriculum. Most Germans have visited a former concentration camp. Every (! - that is no joke) day there are documentations or films about the holocaust in the German TV. All important political German magazines like the "Spiegel" work on the issue in every edition.
There is maybe another problem: Those young people playing neo-nazi now, are so overwhelmed with the dark German history, that they are getting sick of it. There is not just the necessary information for the German people released. It turned into a pseudo-religion of the German left, that uses the issue arund the clock for continuous self-depression and whining. This is very problematic, since the young ones understand the lack of truthfulness in those plump attempts.
Another reason might be, that the best way to shock the political correct members of their father's or mother's generation (the 68-generation in Germany - the guys like Schilly and Fischer) is, to mutate into a little Nazi or Skinhead. The funny thing: Exactly those people like Fischer or Schilly used the refurbishment of the German history in turn, to shock their own parents, who where usually really involved into the system of the nazis.
Personally I can not give you any real solution of this problem. My belief is, that the holocaust issue should be transfered in a more honest way to the German public and youth. Of course it is nessecary to keep the information alive, to prevent the oblivion of the shoa and to teach the political conclusions. On the other hand we have to accommodate to the fact, that the real guilty generation will not survive the next 10 years. This will change the handling of the subject in Germany completely. Germans will not forget the guilt of their grandfathers, but they will change to a more future-minded consort with their history.
BTW - Just the really interesting discussion around the new monument made it worth building it. I.e. Other victims like the Roma and Sinti ("gypsies") accused the jewish community of being racist, because Eisenmans' monument is only for the jewish victims. There were other "free riders" like the expelled German persons who tend to revision the outcomes of WWII. They got a clear rejection of their requests through the complete political German class (apart from very few idiots). It turned out that this problem (which still spoils the relationship between Poland, Czechia and Germany will be solved within the next 10 years biologically (like the problem with the last guilty nazis).
The premise, that "some" young germans are sick and tired of having to apologize for the holocaust has some merit..
Repeated and constant apologies become rote, and meaningless after they have been heard too many times.. They lose their meaning, and true spirit of atonement..
Having said that, there is still the recognition of a horrible abuse of one's fellow man..
Accepting responsibility, acknowledging history, committment to never allowing such atrocities to happen again, is a much better response than apology...
Germany has at least, recognized it's responsibility, and acknowledges it's part in the holocaust..
The rest of europe has yet to come to terms with their own part in a history of anti-semitism that was not only common but rampant throughout europe throughout the 19th and early 20th century..
As someone pointed out in another post, there were those "europeans", ( not just germans ) that were complicit in the internment of the jews.. that turned in their neighbors for financial and political gain.. and for favorable treatment from the nazi occupational government..
This was not just a german phenomenon, but a european one.. and it was a perspective that was common in the Soviet empire as well..
Even in America, jews were denigrated and mis-characterized.. And let's not forget the Arab nations, where jews were often treated no better than dogs, considered "dhimmi", second-class citizens, sub-human..
So one cannot blame the germans exclusively for what was an almost global consensus, especially among the lower and middle economic classes, and the uneducated..
The jew was a common target, to blame for many of the ills of the world..
So, why should Germany be alone in offering apologies for the actions of a regime 60 years gone?
In addition, where is the world's demand to see Russia, Japan, China, etc.. live up to their own obligations to recognize their own crimes against humanity??
Do we hold these other nations to the same standard?
What I would like to see Germany (and germans) do, is simply what has been done.. acknowledge their past..
I would also like to see Germany (the state) more involved, in a leadership role, in the issue of Human Rights..
I would suggest that a true reparation for historical wrongs would be a dedication to the principles of Human Rights, the Right to Life, and other such principles and their promotion throughout the world..
In this way, Germany and the german people could show that they, at least, have learned from history and are committed to insuring that that history is never repeated..
Apparently, you have tried!
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