Posted on 11/14/2018 5:26:09 AM PST by SJackson
A dispatch from Vienna.
I've always enjoyed being in German-speaking cities, even though my German isn't what it used to be (and wasn't even much back then), and even though it's hard not to be reminded, now and then, of, well, you know. In Germany, to be sure, they go out of their way to remind you of that unpleasant interval from 1939 to 1945, filling their cities with hideous examples of what you might call the architecture of atonement – brutalist eyesores that we're supposed to perceive as heartfelt proclamations of sincere Holocaust remorse. At the same time, however, paradoxical though it may sound, they're determined to put their past behind them.
And behind you, too. In Berlin, that once gray but increasingly shiny city, you get the distinct impression that the inhabitants desperately want to pretend that the world was reborn anew after World War II and that a dynamic, hyper-contemporary Deutschland, its sins washed entirely clean by all those flagrant public gestures of apology for Auschwitz, is leading us all into a post-national, post-historical utopia, hoisting the EU banner aloft and singing Beethoven's Ode to Joy in joyful chorus. Yes, if you're visiting Berlin, by all means do your duty by wandering around that dreary landscape of stone near the Brandenburg Gate that purportedly memorializes the dead of the Shoah – but then get your ass out of there, head down the Eberstraße, and start shopping like crazy at the high-end boutiques of ultra-glitzy Potsdamerplatz.
Vienna, where I am right now, is of course a German-speaking city, but it's different in key ways from Berlin – or, for that matter, from any burg I know in Germany. Like Rome (also a Catholic capital), Vienna has a feel of being utterly at ease with its history, its cultural heritage, and its national identity. Around the corner from where I'm staying is a shop crammed with immense early nineteenth-century portraits of Austrian aristocrats. In the front window of a nearby chocolatier is a big poster of a court painting of the same period. And a local taproom is decorated with framed photographs of Franz Josef-era military officers. All over town, national, but not EU, flags abound – the opposite of Germany.
These differences make sense. They can be traced, in part, to the fact that after the war, the Allies treated Germany as a vanquished enemy but Austria as an innocent land that had been the Nazis' first conquest. The fact that most Austrians cheered the Anschluss, that many fought in the Wehrmacht, and that Hitler was one of them, born and bred, was delicately overlooked. Hence Germans born after the war grew up saddled with guilt – which is why so many of them hate their flag, adore the EU, and continue to embrace the self-destructive immigration policies pursued by the soon-to-retire Frau Merkel. If Germans seem even more prepared than other Western Europeans to accept Muslim “refugees” at a well-nigh suicidal rate, I suspect it's because, on some level, they want to turn their Bundesrepublik as fast as possible into something as different from the Third Reich as possible, even if it spells their own doom – and their children's and grandchildren's.
Austrians grew up without that guilt, however – which helps, I think, to explain why, last year, they elected to the post of chancellor a young man, Sebastian Kurz, who is thoroughly unapologetic in his independence from the EU as well as in his determination to prevent his country's Islamization.
When Germans and Austrians are compared, Austria doesn't always come off better. Vienna-born Walter Slezak, who became a Hollywood character actor (cf. Hitchcock's Lifeboat), said that Germans had been Nazis once, but that Austrians still were Nazis and always would be. Was he right? Or was he just baring some childhood wound? Yes, the Austrians did elect a former Nazi, Kurt Waldheim, as their president – but, then again, the nations of the world installed that same Kurt Waldheim as Secretary-General of the UN. Kurz has been smeared mercilessly by the left, but nowadays what brings the Nazis to mind in these parts isn't Kurz's strict views on immigration but the reckless arrogance of Merkel, the sinister muscle-flexing by European Muslim leaders, and the ever-burgeoning tyranny of Brussels.
Granted, fond as I am of Germany and Austria, every time I run afoul of some surly service worker in this part of the world, my first thought is inevitably: yes, I can see this one as a concentration-camp guard. I was going to add, “At least the Austrians don't have that Prussian stiffness,” but then I realized that Hitler didn't, either. Look at casual snapshots of him: he doesn't have that starchy, rigidly tucked-in look perfected, then as now, by real Germans. At times he even looks kind of rumpled. Indeed, one thing that hits you while walking the streets of Vienna is that none of these people look even remotely like the tall, glamorous blonds whom Hitler prized as Aryan archetypes – and whom Leni Riefenstahl captured by the thousands on celluloid. In fact, while such Hitler Youth types are quite thick on the ground in Scandinavia and the Netherlands, the average Viennese guy today, in height, build, hair color, and facial features, falls into pretty much the same category as the Führer himself.
But that's neither here nor there. Nor is the fact that, judging by several meals at well-reviewed eateries, the Wiener schnitzel in the city that gave it its name isn't nearly as good as what you can get at the Munich train station. (By the same token, New York pizza beats Rome pizza by a mile.) The point I want to close with is that, judging by what I've read and seen and, yes, felt in recent days on the streets of Vienna, this is a city whose people cherish their culture and history – with that one mammoth exception – and who are definitely not on board with the project by other Western European countries to surrender to the imams. Which, needless to say, is something to cheer.
They cherish the glossed over past because they have no future
They are in a irredeemably declining Europe
If Germans seem even more prepared than other Western Europeans to accept Muslim “refugees” at a well-nigh suicidal rate, I suspect it’s because, on some level, they want to turn their Bundesrepublik as fast as possible into something as different from the Third Reich as possible, even if it spells their own doom – and their children’s and grandchildren’s.
...
At least they’ll get to keep their Jew hatred with the Muslims.
If THAT’S their motive then importing a religion that Hitler thought better suited Nazi ambitions than the Christianity he had to push aside to pursue them is none too bright.
Nah.
Europe has alternatingly risen and collapsed for thousands and thousands of years, with a bloodbath at each turning point.
Its due for another brutal cleansing followed by balkanization into smaller nations.
The muslims will likely be butchered most places along with the EU bureaucrats, but retain Albania.
Insightful article and having lived in Vienna briefly (and longer in Innsbruck), having lived in Germany twice and since I speak German, I wholeheartedly agree. The countries that have most embraced the multi culti suicide pact are generally those like Belgium or Germany which both have....shall we call it “issues” with their own nationality. Germans due to their past. Belgians because they are two different language and ethnic groups which hate each other. Ergo both embrace the EU as a means of burying their national identity.
The Swedes are just hopelessly naive Leftists. The French elites - as usual - have the most cynical of motives. They’re trying to harness Europe under their own control to provide them the kind of power France hasn’t been able to muster since the days of Napoleon. Italy knows its dysfunctional so the voters figured they’d try trusting the Eurocrats instead of their own hopelessly corrupt civil servants. Now they have woken up to the fact that they can’t. The Spanish, Greeks and Portuguese are just looking to see what goodies they can extract from richer Northern Europeans for going along. The Irish have a case of little brother syndrome wrt Britain and will do anything just to say they’re different. The Eastern Europeans won’t even pay lip service like the Southern Europeans - but hey, they got no Marshal Plan and go stuck with 45 years of communist tyranny instead so they’ll pocket the cash and not feel the least bit bad about it - I can’t say I blame them.
There’s the EU for ya.
“They are in a irredeemably declining Europe”
Kind of like here.
. . . the irony of trying to break with your Nazi past by importing more Islamonazis seems to be completely lost on them.
That is also my expectation. No idea when it will happen, but you can see it coming. Europe has never been a peaceful place.
I’ve been saying for a long time that ethnic cleansing is inevitable. If it happens soon, the Europeans will kill the Muslims. If the cleansing is delayed, the Muslims will eventually kill the Europeans.
No, USA is not in decline.
We are in economic expansion in the midst of a political war. That is a far piece from decline.
Back in the mid-1970s my husband and I were in Germany on a business trip. I saw a muslim man strutting around like he owned the place and asked our driver how he felt about it. He told us that the Germans were forced to accept the muslim immigration into their country. That was 45 years ago!
Probably the most concise Euro description I’ve heard.
I’ve visited there but never lived there. I think you nailed it better than any mere visitor could.
One thing I remember about Germany and Austria is that they are so clean you could eat off the floors.
“No, USA is not in decline.”
If all you think about is money then maybe you’re right. Culturally we live in the midst of depravity. I was born in 1950 and what I see these days I would call a decline.
Germans come in a poor third in the mass murder competition. Do Russians or Chinese feel guilty for the millions murdered by their governments? German guilt was manufactured by members of the OWI whose members returned to the U.S. to run the U.S. media. Their successors are using the same techniques of Americans of European descent.
He had me until he said NY pizza was better than Rome pizza. No way.
Pay close attention, because if the democrats have their way we will have no future either.
You overlook one pertinent detail
The Democrats are out of power. They are in fact floundering in internal dissention.
The country is red except for the cities and urban north east and west coast.
Democrats stealing elections is not new, not even presidential elections............can you say Kennedy?
Your holding on to The country is red except for the cities and urban north east and west coast. Well keep holding on to that for as long as you can because illegals are, and have been spreading through every state, just do a Google or if you prefer DuckDuckGO search for population numbers in each state and pick a factor to multiply it by because it's low.
And then there are the muslim imports and conversions that keep multiplying, the rot is spreading and as of yet there is no real action to stop it.
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