There's something about the line of thinking which absolves the German footsoldier that bothers me. I'll try to come back to it when I've got more time to think about it. I think it comes out of my deep conviction that political power is derived directly from willing cooperation. I wonder if fear and ignorance are any better than outright complicity? This may be a very American view. At some point the citizens are required to stand up to their governments or face more dangerous consequences. If WWII isn't a lesson in that, then I don't know what is. If WWII contains that lesson, then we all had best pay very close attention to it. Of course this is the excuse our war protesters (both European and American) are using now. But the Coalition doesn't have its Waffen SS standing behind its footsoldiers threatening to shoot them if they don't buck up and unleash our modern day equivalent of a blitzkrieg.
I'm still convinced that there was only one patriotic thing for German troops to do in 1938. There are bitter diary entrys written by veteran Japanese troops in the field and upon their return to civilian life that bemoan the fact that they were duped by their worship of Hirohito. Without these duped troops, there wouldn't have been a WWII.
I'm not convinced that we aren't responsible for what our leaders require of us. "I was just following orders" did not hold up at the Nueremburg trials. "I didn't know!" was the frequent comment made by citizens forced to walk through deathcamps just after they had been liberated. In a significant way, both were the same diabolical lie. Hitler spelled out his plans and he was elected to execute them. Most troops were loyal not just to the defense of Germany, but the idea that Germany could be a third empire. The rest is history.
Have you a proof or strong hints for that claim?
"I was just following orders" did not hold up at the Nueremburg trials.
No, not for those who did more than the average, who did more than they needed. But serving in the army was the average, and they had not chosen to kill people. My Grandpa joined the German army in 1930. From that moment, he was no longer eligible to vote. He had no influence on the political leadership, and the Nazis suddenly had the key positions in Germany. There was no escape for the people. The people as well as the army didn´t want the war. And when we see the pictures of happy people hailing Hitler then we should not forget that this was exactly what the propaganda wanted to show.
What WW2 tells us is, that people should stand up early to fight coming-up dictators until it´s too late.
Fact is, there were even soldiers and many private citizen who tried to kill Hitler. And even high-ranking soldiers tried to prevent WW2 in 1938.
Still, like STFrancis said on another thread that there was an entirely different thinking, which changed because of WW2!
You are absolutely right in your observation about democracies. However, people who have never lived under a totalitarian regime cannot imagine what life was like, what pressures existed. Thus they lack empathy. Some never attempt to understand. Worse, lazy thinking and other agendas result in a doctrine of collective guilt that the Magna Carta was designed in part to prevent by prescribing due process for accused individuals.
A blanket condemnation of any one people is no more valid than the charge that all our countrymen were responsible years afterward for slavery or the eradication of Native Americans. We should always be careful as to what lessons we draw from history.
I'm not so naive as to believe that there were "good" Nazis. A case in point would be Albert Speer, who probably should have followed Adolf Eichmann to the gallows but was spared because of political expediency on the part of the Allies.
Yet, when you view it from the prism of a grunt in the Wermacht, the issue is not nearly as simplistic. Just read the "Moon is Down", or view "Europa, Europa", and you'll get a sense of what I'm trying to convey in my posts on this subject.
There were Japanese pilots who severed their thumbs and sent them to the seat of government in Japan as a form of political protest.
Likewise, there were people from Nazi Germany who risked their lives to save innocent human beings, one of them living in China during the days when Japanese troops "raped" Nanjing.
I'm not trying to equate these singular acts with the shameful silence in the wake of-or active participation during-Nazi/Japanese atrocities, which was the norm for most people living in these nations.
I'm simply trying to state that even members of these countries militaries could not all be painted with the same broad brush.