Would Germans still be ashamed for wwr2 ?

Would Germans still be ashamed for wwr2 ?..or have they paid ther debt to the world..or if so why is the americans still punish them by having their military bases there..and denying them their own military defence ?

WW2 is several generations ago and a fading memory. Germany does appreciate its role and has recounted and are mature in this acceptance.

The presence of US troops (and British) in Germany is nothing to do with punishment of Germany, it is to do with basing rights and NATO, plus the legacy of the Cold War, which if it went hot would have been fought across West Germany.

Regards

reply to post by swecret


Germany's Military may be smaller than what they fielded during WWII but because of the above mentioned Cold War it has some pretty damned good military hardware.

Type
Main battle tank
Place of origin West Germany
Service history
In service 1979 -
Used by Germany, various nations (see table below)
Production history
Manufacturer Krauss-Maffei
Specifications
Weight 62.3 tonnes
Length 7.7 m
Width 3.7 m
Height 3.0 m
Crew 4

Armor
3rd Generation composite; including high-hardness steel, tungsten and plastic filler with ceramic component.
Primary
armament 1 x 120 mm Rheinmetall L55 smoothbore gun.
42 rounds
Secondary
armament 2 x 7.62 mm MG3
4,750 rounds
Engine MTU MB 873 Ka-501 12-cylinder diesel
1,500 HP(1,103 kW)at 2600 RPM.
Power/weight 24.2 hp/tonne
Suspension torsion-bar
Operational
range 550 km
Speed 72 km/h

[edit on 20-2-2010 by SLAYER69]

In sweden you still read about how jews hammering on the antisemit drum and anti wwr2 drum...well as long as they do that Germans dont have any peace of mind ?

The German people of today are not the same as during WW2. They should not be ashamed for what they did not do, but proud for what they can become as is with any people.

reply to post by swecret


The bases aren't there as punishment. During the cold war, West Germany was the front line. The Germans are/were more than capable of defending themselves, but not from the entire Warsaw pact. The British, French and other NATO members all had bases there. The bases are still there because they are a main jumping off point for Eastern Europe and the Mid-East.

Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

Germany can never and I mean never have it own fighting force that is not watched closely by the US. They lost and so did Japan for that matter. They are lucky we let them live there at all after the war I would have put them on ships and said go settle somewhere else that would really send a message.

And to everyone who thinks that this is way to harsh take a look at what they did to there neighbors in that time period. It would be doing nothing less than what they did. We won they lost end of story and if the want to kick us out and rebuild so be it we will see what happens in another 10 years.

Originally posted by swecret
Would Germans still be ashamed for wwr2 ?..or have they paid ther debt to the world..or if so why is the americans still punish them by having their military bases there..and denying them their own military defence ?

People are not guilty for a war over half a century ago.

I do not blame anyone.

I love my German and Japanese brothers/sisters dearly. And I am American.

Even the old timers are alright by me.

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

Because he was one of the great orators to ever live, truly a silver tongue. He knew what to say, and and how to say it, to make people believe in whatever he wanted. He knew exactly how to manipulate people, how to whip them into a patriotic fervor.

Originally posted by Subjective Truth
Germany can never and I mean never have it own fighting force that is not watched closely by the US. They lost and so did Japan for that matter. They are lucky we let them live there at all after the war I would have put them on ships and said go settle somewhere else that would really send a message.

And to everyone who thinks that this is way to harsh take a look at what they did to there neighbors in that time period. It would be doing nothing less than what they did. We won they lost end of story and if the want to kick us out and rebuild so be it we will see what happens in another 10 years.

Ok if I level with you here..i think everyone, ok not everyone but most people, do understand even me as an neutral swede that noone would be able to kick germanys ass at the time alone..it took several states full military capicity and some bad decisions by german leaders to bring them down finally..

I'm close friends with a german girl in her early 20s and I've talked with her on this matter. She told me that even in school german students are reminded of world war 2 and made to feel a certain sense of shame. It's amazing how well the allies' propaganda machine continues to work.

[edit on 20/2/10 by blerk]

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

If you read history you will see it was for the same reason they listened to Barak Obama. He talked of change and of hope. Unity of the people, strong government leadership. They bought it hook, line and sinker.

Originally posted by Fromabove

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

If you read history you will see it was for the same reason they listened to Barak Obama. He talked of change and of hope. Unity of the people, strong government leadership. They bought it hook, line and sinker.

so would it be able to happen again but with different players ??

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

It wasn't just Germany.

The entire world was impressed and awed by Hitler during the early 30's.

Hitler was TIME magazine Man of the Year. That speaks volumes of how the world community was feeling about Hitler. Before the War started of course.

At the time, it was the end of the Great Depression, and Hitler was hugely popular all around because he brought Germany out of the Depression and he got the Germans to work. He basically "saved" their failing miserable society which was a big deal because after WW1 Germany was stripped of many of it's strengths.

Most people thought that Hitler would be somewhat peaceful. Remember what the British PM did? Chamberlain took a policy of "Appeasement" and gave in to Hitler's demands to expand German territories. Although many people believe appeasement signaled to Hitler that he would face little to no opposition when the war began, many other historians believe that appeasement also bought precious time for Britain so that they could prepare for the inevitable war with Germany that was brewing.

Hitler was immensely popular because he gave the people of Germany hope, that they could be great again. He brainwashed them with illusions of grandeur causing them to believe they were a master race, thus justifying the murder of countless peoples of countless backgrounds simply because they would not bow down to authority.

Also Hitler's Catholic religious links gave him a upper hand. The priests and other clergy were totally supporting him, and they even kept supporting him after the war started. Hitler did not lose Catholic support until around 1943 or so in general according to what information I've read.

It was a combination of all of these factors that caused the German people to give unconditional support to Hitler in the lead up to the war. He appeared to be a guy who could Solve many complex and painful problems for not just his society, but around the world many leaders emulated him in hopes that they could save their nation from poverty and political obscurity as well.

Today's Germans try very hard and succesfully to make themselves and the world believe that WW2's Germans were Hitler's Nazis, and that they are anti-Nazi. So in some way trying to implant in everyone's and the collective memory that WW2 was not Germany. Hey, why you should still blame today's generation of Germans after all? After one more generation and anyone participated and/or born in the WW2 are probably all gone. They have more worries in house now with the invasion of Muslims (Turks/Morrocs etc), still difficulty to integrate the East to the nation wide's economy and so on and so on....

reply to post by swecret


Its the people that live in Germany and Japan. They are like doctor jekyll and mister Hyde. They can be peace loving under one leader and war mongers under another. History has showed us this time and time again. If they get the right leader at the right time they will do it again. We must always watch them and watch them closely.

It is a testament to the people they are hard working and single minded and can be super strong when they need it strong enough to take on many countries at once. We should learn from history and ww2 and ww1 were hard lessons.

The German army in ww2 was one of the best fighting forces the earth has ever seen. The kids grew up as soldiers and they would fight to the death and not even think twice. Germany truly has a strong people that if given the chance will take over the world or try to again.

[edit on 20-2-2010 by Subjective Truth]

reply to post by blerk


I'm German and I was certainly taught about the atrocities "my people" committed back then but I never felt any sense of shame about it. Having been born over 40 years after WW II ended I really don't see why I should.

Originally posted by swecret

Originally posted by Fromabove

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

If you read history you will see it was for the same reason they listened to Barak Obama. He talked of change and of hope. Unity of the people, strong government leadership. They bought it hook, line and sinker.

so would it be able to happen again but with different players ??

Something like this always inevitably happens in our human civilization.

History repeats itself, and history is a circle. It goes around and around. We humans have a really tough time learning our lessons, and so it is for sure going to happen again unless we can make some major changes and fast.

When people become desperate, and feel they are backed into a corner with no choices left, then a war begins.

Ask yourselves, how many people are desperate today, and how many of them are like a hurt animal backed into a corner? This is why History WILL repeat itself again and again.

Because we humans never learn our lessons. A real shame for ALL of us, not just the Germans. This is a human fault/folly, and has never been exclusive to Germans alone. We are all prone to make these mistakes.

Originally posted by swecret

Originally posted by Fromabove

Originally posted by swecret
Ok dont get me wrong here..but can someone fill me in why so many in germany listened on someone like hitler back then ??

If you read history you will see it was for the same reason they listened to Barak Obama. He talked of change and of hope. Unity of the people, strong government leadership. They bought it hook, line and sinker.

so would it be able to happen again but with different players ??

Oh yes.. From what I understand, Hitler posed himself as a man of the people. One who felt their pain and one who suffered as they did. He posed himself as one of them in the fight for social justice and true self respect and honor. He became the people's symbol to represent them and to lead them. They then trusted him as they would themselves. He was them after all. They would give anything for the man who loved them so.

Of course we see what happens when people trust a man with their whole life and welfare. The noble gestures turned into absolute dictatorship and the horrors to follow.

In today's world we see little Adolf Hitlers in Chavez, Putin, and Amedinajad of Iran (Iran btw means Aryan). Obama as well wants to follow the same way and take more and more power, but he's not doing it right and the people have gone sour on him. But he started it out the right way.