American reacts to How Germany Deals With Its Dark Past
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- Thank you for watching me, a humble American, react to Hitler And World War II: How Germany Deals With Its Dark Past
Original video: • Hitler, Nazis And Worl...
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Kinda sad how people take offense because of the memorial stones on the ground. The idea behind placing them on the ground was that every person looking at them had to sort of bow down to read the inscriptions. This was intended as some form of respect for the victims. But as always you can't make everyone happy.
It's also good to spark conversations with your kids. When they see them everywhere they get curious eventually.
at least there found a good solution for the problem so everyone is happy.
Well, it was mostly about people walking over them. Like, trampling on this memorial. It should be mentioned, Munich was one of the most important Nazi basecamps in Germany. You have leftovers of them there everywhere.
Not to mention that it's easier for kids eyes to see and learn
And since they are "Stolpersteine" or "stumbling stones" you can really ignore them (its a methaphor, you dont stumble over them). They are bright gold and very noticable, they almost force you to react and think about them. I think a plaque on the wall has less impact.
And i also like how they are installed at the house of the victim and tells the name. That makes them appeal like a real person. It didnt happened somewhere in a history book, it happened right here, in this country, in this city, in this house!
As that one man said... we don't have personal responsibility in what happend in the 1930s and 40s... our responsibility as germans is to carry the history of what happened and to never let it happen again....
One of my all-time favorite quotes is from former Bundespräsident Richard von Weizsäcker:
"Wer aber vor der Vergangenheit die Augen verschließt, wird blind für die Gegenwart."
["If you look away from the past, you will become blind to the present"]
@@ngotemna8875 Dir ist aber schon bewusst, dass er selbst eine nicht unbedeutende Rolle bei Militär hatte?
@@eartlostfreak2 sein Vater, das ist ein Unterschied
It seems, since 2020 we had opportunities and failed. Usually we see Nazis everywhere, but not where they are. We are easy to call someone antisemitic, but not Palestinian protesters who burns Israel flags. We are easy to call new parties Nazis, but not the parties who are in government and create a new law, that allows the government everything. We recognize, that Jews go to Israel, but doesn't want to see the elephant in the room. Sorry, it's not the few people who stuck in the 1933 thinking, but the people who wants to be called Muslim and that harass Jews and nobody says anything against it.
@@arnodobler1096 Da sagt Wikipedia und mein Geschichtsbuch was anderes
For people who think it can't happen anymore, I recommend the book "The Wave" by Morton Rhue, especially for Americans, it could be interesting. =)
Or the US-movie from 1981 "The wave"
or just pay attention to the news.
German here: we had to read that book in our class. We even watched the movie in the cinema. It was traumatizing for some of us.
I mean it is already happening, just not in Germany
German here too. We had the option to go to a theatre play of this by professionals and by another school. Our teacher also suggested we read the book but it wasn't mandatory. I still had the book from my sister because she had to read it in school and I went to both plays as part of the theatre club and it was really eye opening and interesting.
The guy at 4:18 really gets to the point. Awareness is the price everyone has to pay, and that literally means everyone in every country, not only in Germany.
Yes. To feel guilty for the death and damage is not enough! The perpetrator has to compensate for it!
@@erykbaradziej3639 Of course a Pole says that
@timbuktu8936 yeah but a minute later he calls it a total taboo which doesnt even come close to the truth
This is why the whole CRT thing in america is surreal to me. I am German, i was born here, though my parents are immigrants from ukraine with jewish heritage. I never knew any other home than germany and I think it is a great place. Knowing it´s history and how horrific a part of it is doesn´t mean i must come to hate my country. Learning about the dark parts of history and coming to understand how that could have happened to begin with and how it developed after it has past makes me appreciate my country more. Germany today has come a long way in a, historically speaking very short time of today almost 80 years. To accept your dark past and taking that into account moving forward is in my opinion what has to be done to better your society.
Americans seem to me when it comes to their own historical atrocitys in regards to slavery and Black history incredibly uneducated and sadly enough they seem proud to be so. Learning about these issues and trying to understand how the woes of today have a line connecting them doesn´t appear to me as "hating" america.
But the German learning curve was a very wild ride.
I am from Germany, too.
Remembering our past can make us more careful. What sometimes makes me sad is the fact that people think it was only because of some symbols or a specific party. And that our ancestors just were victims.
People on the streets were unsafe before, had to face a downgrade of the value they earned within hours. People got beaten down because of their views.
Then one party came and promised to make things better. What they did in the beginning. Until it was too late.
It is sad to see some of the developments starting again.
And why do we tend to forget the next oppressive system that followed? The GDR... We hardly talked about what let to the next system of little freedom.
@@jochenrudiger Die Konsequenzen der beiden totalitaristischen Systeme waren aber doch ein wenig andere. Oder kennen Sie Konzentrations- oder Vernichtungslager im Ostblock?
@@voluptaslaborandi No, I would never compare these two systems at all.
But both were very suppressive. And yes, there were work camps... ehmmm..m education camps in the GDR, there was the StaSi, the secret police and its collaborators.
The deeper you dig into the subject, the worse it becomes.
@@jochenrudiger Comparison is a standard procedure in political science. It is common to compare democratic systems, to weigh advantages and disadvantages. Comparing the dictatorships gives a completely different meaning and consequence. It is probably no coincidence that the two dictatorships had completely different endings. The Nazi regime ended in total defeat. Defeated by 2 great powers (US; RU and local powers GB, F). The GDR imploded almost peacefully. Despite all the personal tragedy, the number of victims has completely different dimensions.
About the homosexuals: It was not a big topic for a long time, because of its very dark circumstances (when I went to school in the 80/90 we talked over years in different courses about the war and Nazideutschland, the impact on Jews and Sinti/Roma, but that was not mentioned). As being homosexual was illegal by law in many of the countries where the "Konzentrationslager" was located (like Germany, Poland and also in the US for example). After all the survived inmates had been freed by the allies at the end of the war, most of the Homosexuals went directly to prison. Not really a "good and fair" end to their story.
I've met a man who was in concentration camp for being homosexual and after the war was in prison for the same reason. It was a shame. So it was more than time, homosexuals got the rights to live and love like everybody else and I am proud (yes, that's a point I am very proud as a German) to have given my 2 cents to it. (Not much, but as much as a non-politician is able to .....)
Sometimes the same judges that sent them to the camp later sent them back in prison. Because our state could forgive a nazi judge for being a horrible racist pos, but it couldn't forgive gay people loving who they want.
@@AbteilungsleiterinBeiAntifaEV no ' court' send at the end someone to the concentration camps. There was no judicial qualification left. It was a dictatorship. It's easy to blame the system for all bad, but in this case the system was dictatorship and fashism
Yes, the paragraph 175 fell very late.
5:40 that's a really dangerous belief to hold.
Let me tell you, as a German, I look at the US with ever-growing concern...
Florida now banning books from school libraries (because they might contain subversive messaging) for example...
The parallels to Weimar are extremely worrying
Here in the USA CRT is a very controversial topic because people are afraid of making their kids uncomfortable with the facts about the past and its relationship with race. All i can say to that is "what if German children were never taught about ww2 or were made to never feel uncomfortable about it? Imagine the slap in the face to my family and I that the country wont acknowledge the atrocities."
Well said. As a South African who was born and raised during Apartheid, I also view the US with ever-growing concern: the MAGA movement, Charlottesville, the Proud Boys, the storming of the Capitol, Florida as you mentioned, the rise of the incel movement. They seem to be sleepwalking into a nightmare.
Yup exactly.
I wrote an article about those parallels shortly before Trump's election. I wonder if some of the Americans who laughed about me remember that I also wrote that a coup by Trump fans if he would lose the election is quite possible.
and everyone mentioning this is called a leftist...
I think Germany does way more prevention than one could hope for. The first time I visited a "camp" was when I was a kid and during my scholar career I visited 3 in total. Even abroad in Czech! It really puts you on the ground seeing the dense rooms they had to sleep in etc. I live in a place in Berlin where plenty of jews lived so I'm very familiar with the "Stolpersteine" These inlays are all over the place. I personally disagree with the take of Munich, I prefer them in the ground as thats where they get spotted the easiest and it also humbles you when you imagine you are on the spot where these people walked their last steps in freedom...
That is a perfect way of looking at it
I didn't read the book, but I watched the movie "Er ist wieder da". The first half was kinda funny, but the second half slowly shifts in tone, it becomes really unsettling and outright scary at the end, because it feels like this actually could happen.
What I found a bit weird is that some people left the theater early and even a friend of mine said afterwards, that she didn't like the movie, because it ended with Hitler becoming powerful again, BUT THATS THE POINT OF THE MOVIE!! It's NOT for glorification, it's supposed to be a WARNING!
It's a satire. Most people don't understand that that word actually does not mean it is funny, it says 'strongly exaggerated'.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is also a satire (and not as a manual as some places now seem to use it …).
Yeah, but it’s also valid to dislike the movie because of it. My thought process would be: well, objectively it was a good and smart movie, but I never want to watch it again, so I didn’t "like" it.
@@Cau_No And the farm of the animals was a Anti-Communism book, which of course meant Americans banned it for glorifying communism.
Thinking is so hard for so many people...
@@steemlenn8797 While Animal farm was strongly against Stalinismus, the at the time dominating form of communism, the author, Orwell, was a communist who even fought in the Spanish civil war.
The movie is just pure horror. It scares me for one simple fact: Do you remember the interviews? The ones between Hitler and people he meets that are not main characters?
Yeah, these interviews are real. The people they talk to aren't actors and speak their mind. They actually agree with Hitler.
Do you remember the scene at the Brandenburg gate where people pose with Hitler and take selfies doing the Hitler salute? These people aren't actors.
This simple and inexpensive trick elevates the movie from being a comedic drama to being genuinly scary, showing how the authoritarian views of my people are not gone, but just hidden.
And looking at our current state of politics, they are more and more in the open.
Each country has its past, and surely the todays people cannot be blamed for that. But it’s necessary that all people learn about the history ( at school ) so that we all can try to prevent that such thinks will happen again
Unfortunately in some countries younger people don’t even know the history of their own country
You mean killing the native People and made it forget cause your "History" started after that?
Russia
Lets not forget that the US practically never stopped being at war with a lot of countries...
@@Wasser-fz9ub USA
Japan
How we deal with our history about WW2 is actually one of the things that makes me most proud as a German. I've learned quite a bit about other countries by now, and I have to say that I've not seen a single one that openly acknowledges what it did wrong in the past like Germany does. I'm quite certain this awareness of our past is also the reason why Germany was one of the last countries in Europe to have an extreme right-winged party in parliament after WW2. Most other countries here have been dealing with this issue for quite a while now, and some even have an alarming number of nationalists in their parliaments and now even in their governments. Unfortunately, the nazis we've got now are saying exactly the opposite and claim that anyone who wants to remember what happened during WW2 is not a real German. Luckily, their numbers don't seem to be growing too much any more at the moment.
That being said, I think most people underestimate how easily something like this could happen again. If you had asked anyone in Germany a year before WW2 started whether something like the holocaust could ever happen in their own country, I'm sure almost everyone would have said that it was never ever possible. Now we know that it was possible, but still think that it could never happen again. However, if you compare the events that lead to it all to what's happening today, it's actually shocking how many similarities there are, especially in other countries where people are not trying to avoid the mistakes that we already made in our past.
"Ethnic cleansing" has been going on before WWII and is still going on today (china, Africa). The only reason why it was recognised and stopped was in fact the war. Hitler wanted too much. Decimate the country's population and war. Maybe Germany would have won if every Jew would have been drafted instead of enslaved and killed. Maybe he could have killed a few million more people and no german would feel bad about it today, same as in other countries, if he didn't attack several nations at the same time.
er schreibt eif roman💀
"Die Welle" ist gerade dementsprechend die Lektüre, die verpflichtend an allen Schulen behandelt werden sollte. Sie zeigt im Grunde perfekt auf, wie aufgeklärt man doch sein kann und dennoch in kurzer Zeit wieder in ähnliche Verhaltensmuster verfallen kann. Daher zu sagen "wir sind schlauer, uns kann es nicht noch einmal passieren" ist so weltenfremd, dass es schon wehtut. Und gerade derzeitige Verhältnisse zeigen doch erst, wie schnell doch eben wieder solche Dinge eskalieren können. Es ist im Grunde nur eine Frage der Zeit.
@@chellmamue is auch n film
@@tartamors ja, ist mir bekannt. Hab ich ebenso schon häufig gesehen. Und auch wenn gerade für die Jugendlichen der Film ansprechender sein mag, so kann das Buch den Ansprüchen des Bildungauftrages der Schulen vielleicht eher gerecht werden. Man kann auch einfach beides miteinander kombinieren, so hatten wir es zumindest damals gehandhabt.
For the question if this could happen again, there is a book I would recommend to read (or one of the movies they made from it).
The Wave: The Classroom experiment that went to far.
It shows how incredibly easy it is to recreate a structure like this.
I just checked the book and it's a true story!
Oh we watched it in school, here in Czechia. Nice reminder to see it mentioned here.
It is the movie with Jürgen Vogel right?
The German public patriotism, or the lack of, is the reason why channels like yours grow and grow. We are proud of what our country is doing for the most part. But we are for sure how we got out of our troubled past. But we let others praise that instead of praising it ourselves.
I personally just find it interesting how others react to our peculiarities. ^ ^
Would disagree. Im Not proud of what Our country is or was doing. Also im Not proud what Our government is/was doing or think that the government made most parts of politcs well. Since unification germany doesnt work well and still lives from the achievments germans did 200-300 years ago(for example the reason why germany came out of Ruins that fast, wasnt the billions from america (which they have stolen first from german and italy Banks lol) or cause Erhard was such a great Minister. It was cause german states had the best educated people in europe with over 350 (in parts 400) years of compulsory education(britain/france around 1880, first german states 1590 i think) which wasnt made by the church. The unified germany did only one Thing. It destroyed everything Our ancestors had built up and made all germans to the "staatshörigen"(what is a english word for this) prussians u can See in the two worldwars. No own thinking, no questioning, just do what Ur Supervisor commands u. Well Do i have really to explain why i am Not proud of the german governments after ww2, lets say ex-nazis in the government, Stealing from east germany, corruption, nepotism, lobbyism and before we Do something a fast question to papa america 'are we allowed to do this?'. Im proud of the original idea of a german state, Not the ethnic sh*t later came out and also Not of the unworldly ideology we have in these days. Im proud that (the majority of) germans are nowadays anti-war, pro-europe, always questioning, dont hide german Mistakes, no rascists. But im always only proud of the people, Not of government or country. Sorry that this Text is so long hope u can understand it, but im really to Lazy to proofread it.
„We are proud of not being proud“ - Jan Böhmermann.
We cannot be proud of our history. But we take pride in standing together to prevent its repetition.
Oh god I love that song. Did Ryan ever hear it? If not, I highly recommend it!
"Will dich lieben, doch muss dich hassen"
It would be really cool if he watched that music video
I think we can be proud on some parts of our history and certainly we cannot be proud of some other parts.
Die deutschen können auf ihre Geschichte Stolz sein. Deutsche Truppen retteten die Briten bei Waterloo, kämpften im britischen Heer gegen Napoleon und waren ein wichtiger Faktor zur Niederschlagung des französischen Kaiserreichs. Deutsche Wissenschaftler, Schriftsteller, Dichter und Philosophen haben über Jahrhunderte großes geleistet.
Nur wegen der Nazizeit zu sagen, dass man nicht stolz auf die Geschichte seines Volkes sein kann, wäre traurig. Klar, niemals sollte man stolz auf die Verbrechen der Nazis sein. Aber das war nur etwas mehr als ein Jahrzehnt deuscher Geschichte.
14:12 - He didn't write a book joking about the war. His book jokes about Hitler's ego, in a fictional scenario, where he wakes up in modern times, and people think he's cosplaying, and he has no idea what's going on.
Its really great political commentary
I had only seen the film but I found it interesting how it shows how charismatic a monster can be without forgetting to show that he remains a monster in the end. The moments when people realise who he really is but are not taken seriously gave me chills.
Yesterdays r/ich_iel review included a meme from the movie.
Thats quite an important difference in my opinion, glad i already see it mentioned.
Anyway it's true that jokes about those times were taboo for a long time and are still looked at sceptical
@ryan, I disagree. It can also happen in modern times in western countries. And the internet makes it even worse. There is more and more radicalisation. If you want to read something about the danger of recreating a fascist regime, then give Morton Rhue - The Wave a try. In my humble opinion a good book dealing this topic. Or watch that German movie: The Wave (2008 film)
Definitely agree. AND if you take research on that book...it is based on a social experiment made by a history teacher in Palo Alto, U.S. in the lates 1960s...
Also: Look at russia and ukraine. I dont think a third world war is that unlikely, as the elderly man said. We're not really that smart.
As a contrast I'd recommend "The Act of Killing" it's a documentary about the genocide in Indonesia, there almost nothing happened to "rehabilitate" that past so many offenders aren't really aware of what they've done and even proud of that, we tried to forget about that for the first two decades after WWII (although the first Frankfurt Auschwitz Trial began in 1963, so 18 years later, finally in 1968 it really began).
When I walk trough the city and see a "Stolperstein" I always take a big step over them so I dont disrespect them actually. My mother thought me one time that I shouldn't step on them, since then I've been avoiding it. I also have some jewish ancestors and I think its a good thing, thanks for reading ^^
When i'm not in a hurry or something I stop to read them
@@DieserPanda161 thats nice, Im nearly always in a hurry when Im outside so I dont really have the time for it
@@miko_013 true. I think also my mother told me about these stones and to not step on it. Kind of like your mother would teach you to take of your shoes in the house or great people in a friendly way. Meaning respecting these stones and thinking about what they mean, as a very basic thing of respect and some sort of "politeness" She showed them to me, and when we were outside together she read them with me, which is why I also started doing that when i'm alone or with someone else. I guess you always pick up habits from parents
@@DieserPanda161 Which isnt a bad thing, I really love how your mother teached it to you and that you give such great respect to them. Also I know that one stone of my ancestors is somewhere I hope I will be able to finde the one but the chances are small haha
@@miko_013 i hope you will find it😊
Roma and Sinti are two "tribes" (in lieu of a better word) of a population group formerly called "Zigeuner" (gypsy). They each have their own language and culture. Both have in common their general ancestry and -- in our world -- the lifestyle of living in camper trailers.
Is the engliash translation as offensive as the german counterpart? Gypsy seems like a new word while Zigeuner is made from the words "ziehen" - (moving) and "Gauner" - (rogue).
@@VollPsycholord Gypsy ist auch super abwertend und steht quasi auch für „schmutzige“ Menschen
@@sophiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiie Oh, gut zu wissen
Funny thing, friend of mine worked at an adventure playground that also hosted many gypsy kids. And they told him that they preferred to be called Zigeuner because the Roma didn't want to be called Sinti and the Sinti didn't want to be called Roma. So Zigeuner was a good all encompassing word without pissing them off.
@@bjorntantau194 interesting bc today the word Zigeuner has a negative connotation to it and the food Zigeuner Schnitzel had to be renamed 🤔
It's kinda amusing how you go into the video talking about controversy and it being heavy which is absolutely not how the typical german would think.
We're all in the mode of "yeah, what else would you do?". What would be controversial about the atrocities? It honors you that you are afraid to commit a blunder and therefore seem to be more afraid of the topic than any decent german would every be.
and then there is knowledge that makes you Angry.. later just tired.
like the fact that we never had a proper de-nazification.
and that the ones that where responsible for a great part of the atrocities an a daily basis just got back into politics
and they're successors (NPD,CDU(CSU)) sold our future to Russia and coal-mining companies.
As much as i hate CDU calling them descendants of the Nazis is just wrong and stupid. I have to say it this drastically i hate CDU but u cant name them together with nod. The early CDU wasn't even bad Ludwig Erhard was a fantastic politician who brought German back to it's glory. CDU just went rly shitty in the 70s 80s and now modern CDU leader came from former DDR. So overall what u say is utter crap xD
@@Klonbold danke!
@@Klonbold but you forgot the AfD, the third way, junge Identitäre. Etc etc etc etc more Nazi Squads in Germany than proper Public Transportation
That was my reaction too: "Huh??? What is controversial here?"
Some perspectives:
The documentations she mentioned are mostly US or GB produced and are cheaply bought in a bundle together with other war time documentation.
The artist behind the "stolpersteine" initially wanted this project to receive financial support from the government, but was rejectet. Financing year after year, every stone through private sources and fighting against communes which would remove the stones after finding them, fighting in court against the courts for allegations of theft or property damage because he had to either remove another stone or open up space for the stone, he finally got the public on his side. And through pressure from the public, the government started founding this project.
At that time, he was already 7000 stones in, if I remember correctly.
Sinti and Roma are the two main groups of gypsy.
Unfortunately something similar like the holocaust happens as we speak in China with the Uiguren and the world knows but ignores it.
"Hinter dem Faschismus steht das Kapital."
If somebody wanted to do something about it, they would have to give up their trade and financial connections with China. And, given how powerful China has become in the world economy, those who earn money by buying labour in China do not want to do that.
Everything comes from China today. We would have to rebuilt our own production capacities first, then find the people to do the labour, and then convince the public to still buy the goods even though they are 5 times as expensive now.
Could we do that!? Sure, and it would probably even be a good idea.
Would the capitalist class want it? No. It would cut into their bottom line.
Would workers (middle and lower class) want that? No, because they would have to fight for higher wages in order to still be able to afford things. And we would probably have to restructure our entire economic and political system to make it possible to produce stuff without exploiting anybody. And the idiot masses are too lazy to and brainwashed to even consider attempting this.
I can just speak for my country but I personal hear about this all the time.
I still remember how terrifying it was when I found out - being a school kid - that my beloved grandpa was an Nazi officer of quite high rank. I came across some photos of him bearing symbols ... and having learned in school, I suddenly understood what they meant. I couldn't convey my good relationship with him ... I mean: I still loved him, but I couldn't forget abouth what he was capable of. And: he didn't regret. So, being 15, I decided to cut off my contact - not with the grandpa, but with the murderer. I saw him next on his funeral.
You mean SS officer?
@@MaticTheProto jupp
@@dorotheamoesch846 oh, yeah in that case he definitely had done somw awful stuff, sorry to hear that :/
Holy shit.
That must have been hard. Particularly when he didn't regret what he did.
I feel you. One of my grandfathers never forgave the russians for what he had to go through during his imprisonment, the other was really in that nazi ideology of us being the superiour race, never got rid of racism and anti semitism. It wasn't easy with them.
Ryan, I wonder if you can see any parallel to modern day USA and especially the Republican party, Trump's personality and DeSantis' lawmaking.
I lived in Germany for a few years, and have visited the country many times since my first time there in 1959. By today, younger Germans will speak about the recent dark history of their country, in the 30s and the War years. Older Germans, of my baby-boomer generation or older are generally still uncomfortable doing so. Btw, please remember this video was produced by DW - Deutsche Welle - Germany's public broadcasting network.
You mean the Atlantic-Bridge Television which was installed after the war?
🙂
I dont think its by deutsche welle tbh it was popular in the 70s so today jts not existing
German here. The time this book "look who's back" got published, all TV and radio Stations talked about it. Some against some not and some... you know, but as a normal person I must say I only listened to the audiobook, and it was fantastic, funny and entertaining. On that Note I still have to say it was scary not in a horror sense but because if you read it or listen to it and the story about him rising to power again you just know it would happen like that and what comes after is not hard to imagine
I Love the Stolpersteine. They’re super unique and I’ve never intentionally stepped on them. They’re a great conversation starter for children and tourists and I always read them when I can. I think I’d miss them if they were on walls.
Now how about, "How the US is dealing with its dark (recent) past...?"
Would be a very short video, wouldn't it? *cough* Guantanamo *cough*
For a brief moment i thought i knew the video 😅 cause of the thumbnail
As far as the US is concerned, slavery is of course an issue. More than that, however, one needs to talk about the genocide of the Indians, which the United States has never officially recognized as a crime to this day. And this despite the fact that military actions were justified at the time by saying that the aim was to exterminate the indigenous population in order to take their land. They even wiped out the buffalo so the Indians would starve.
Yeah. Whenever I have interactions with Americans which have a strong accusatory nature I can't help but think "he who is free of sin throwest the first stone" or... something something biblical. 🤷♀️
Not saying our ancestors didn't fuck up badly. I mean yes, we Germans can "pride" ourselves with the industrialization of genocide, but we know of it. We're aware, we carry the burden, we work on avoiding repeating the past. What are THEY doing in that regard? Let's pretend it didn't happen and find someone else to be the big bad evil guy. Sounds kinda like... societal narcissism.
@@asaris_ Even worse, native americans are "subhumans" even today. The united states shit on their rights and existence.
My grandfather taught me a lot about World War II when I was a child. I learned much more from him than I did at school. He told me about technical and political things and also about the crimes against the Jews. He had Jewish friends in his village. Many of them were killed, some managed to escape the country. He visited with me Jewish cemeteries, concentration camps and other remains from the Second World War (like Verdun). But just the stories he told me after dinner were interesting. Better than watching TV. In January of '45, he turned 16. So he got orders to join the military. On his birthday he swung on his bicycle and hid with various relatives and friends until the end of the war in May.
Just out of curiosity: What happend in Verdun in WWII ? I know much about it´s importance in first WW, but absolutly nothing about it in the second WW... Did the German army invade Verdun or something like that?
Later generations do lern a lot about WWII. Maby not in the former east, though
@@karinland8533 Even in the former west there were still teachers in the late 1970s trying to evade the hard themes prescribed by the curriculum, for example by exploring the military campaigns of WW II instead of Nazi (interior and exterior) politics or the sparse internal resistance by some Communist or Christian groups or - very late - some members of the military.
Reminds me of my grandfather. He used to tell my mom war stories instead of fairy tales when she was little.
I got some as well, but she tried to shield me from most of it. Though it wasn't politically or historically interesting/important stuff.
Unless you think that a story about how he ended up eating a dog he had accidentally shot the night before when he was alone because he got separated from his unit and then ended up breaking into a resource depot to steal a handful of salt to season the dog with as historically relevant. And THAT was one of the "fun" stories he had to tell...
He ended up being captured near Stalingrad and spend a couple years as a Russian POW. Until 48 or something... He pretty much hated Russians for the rest of his life. And something tells me he kinda didn't give a shit BEFORE he was captured.
My oldest granddad was 14 and he must stay in the cellar for over one year. Because my older Grandparents dont want to loose him in the last years of war. I am born 1978, and only one of my older Granddads are dont death in war. Sorry 😅my English. Only one of mx Grandmas wont speak abaout his father... But I know he was a member of the Gestapo.... I saw some pictures of him... It is so.... Discusting.... But Is its Reality... One of my Older Granddads were one o the Gestapo, one of them hide his children in the cellar, one died in Russia, and one of them came back... He was in eastern Germany and we, his family, were in west Germany... Thats our history... And we have so much to learn
Rammstein made a great Music video about this topic: "Deutschland"🤘with epic pictures and really great lyrics
Sinti and Roma are a ethnical minority that were called the derogatory term of Gypsis. The Nazis killed around 150k of them.
Other victims were around 15k homosexuals and an somewhat unspecified amount of political enemies.
Another often overlooked group were mentaly handicaped people they were around 200k-250k killed but the explanation was to "end the cruelty of their existence " and it was called ethunasia therfore.
Another often overlooked group are the german soldiers, often called Kraut or nazis but in reality they were also victims
Often people dont know that there were Moslems in the KZ, mostly in KZ Neuengamme not especialy of the religion often because of the political resistance bytheway
Good to mention Euthanasie.
We are catholics, my mother told me she heart as teenager
(born 1926, so 7 as Hitler starts, 19 when WW2 ended) that Hitler had plans, that after all jewish are killed, the catholics should be the next group.
The killing of the homosexuals, political enemies, especially intellectuals is nothing specially german.
That happened and still happens in a lot of country.
Also Hitler's hate and murdering of jews is not a special german thing and happend since hundreds of years in a lot of countries.
The special thing of the Holocaust is how thoroughly, organisted, scientific and well engineered the killing was. The same attitude, technical knowledge, doing things best they could, that make germans great inventors, engineers, scientists made that enormous overkill possible.
In star trek voyager the hologram doctor m.d. was shocked when an admired exterrestian medicine made big studies with a lot of people letting them suffer for the greater good of new medicine knowledge.
The holodoc dived into the data source of the ship and found the similar history of medicine archievments of 20th century all over the earth researches that was heavenly grounded on studies of Nazi M. D. In Konzentrationslager. And he sayed it kind of gives him a shiver then in a treatment of patients he is aware he could not help them without the studies based on Knowledge of nazi cruelity. Ethical dilemma.
Here in Germany you can’t even show the German flag in parliament (Bundestag) or in churches.
We have problems with the the patriotic way of thinking of Americans
I heard this week somewhere: The American´s don´t realize how culty and weird all the flag obsession and pledge of allegiance stuff is. Imagine the Germans would do this - the world would shit their pants.
I think there is a truth to this.
3:03 They are. One of my uncles was a Paratrooper in the wehrmacht(army).
His best friend was stationed in one of the concentrationcamp. He had to close the door of the gaschambers.
He did it day after day; knowing that if he refused; there was a good chance of him beeing on the other side next time.
I will never forget his facial expression as he told me that. Torment sounds to nice.
He did something horrible but he payed for it with a part of his soul.
We all wish our relatives were resitance fighters against the nazis but the harsh truth is they were not resistance.
They were nazis, some followed out of fear but a lot of them were really convinced about the rightousness of their cause.
So, NEVER AGAIN! has a special meaning for most of us germans.
Yes my grandfather never talked about his war experiences except once when as an innocent child I asked him if he was scared during the battles and he smiled and said "I didn't fight battles, I made maps." And I went "oh you were really lucky" and his face froze and he said "I'd rather die in battle than see those villages after SS went through them". I felt so cold and desperate in that moment and I could feel his shame and horror.
My grandmother once told me every night of his life he had nightmares and she had to calm him down every night like a little child.
He never forgave himself for being a coward and not standing up against the Nazis and he forbid all his sons to ever join the army and wouldn't allow toy weapons around, even only a wooden stick.
In 1939 my grandfather joined the infantry of the Wehrmacht voluntarily. Being not very tall he was fearing he would be drafted to a tank division (rolling coffins). He told me a couple of things he experienced at that time - but never in a heroic way. He had learnt to speak english, french, italian and russian before the war already. That saved his life more than once and made him understand the hardships people had to suffer under German occupation. When in the late 1970ties and throughout the 1980ties more and more documentaries about the Nazi era and the holocaust were shown in German TV I got into a couple of very heavy debates with my grandfather. Our relationship deteriorated.
Only quite some time after his death I learnt that he, his mother and his siblings had to live through a quite difficult time in the Third Reich.
Different parts of my family gathered quite different experiences during the Nazi era. I was lucky to get a little glimpse into that.
It was a choice to work at a KZ. There were no punishments for not working there.
Research shows people weren't persecuted if they refused to join death squads or work at a KZ.
Imagine You are not a Nazi, but You have a wife and a baby and are pressed to fight for Hitler. Honestly, what would You do?
One big no-go that happened to me once: never call a German friend a Nazi (as a joke or "light" insult). It is NOT funny and not acceptable and might end the friendship. Americans seem to use the word Nazi pretty often, but we don't. A Nazi is still an atrocious murderer and no laughing matter.
I'm always amazed how Americans think they should not ask a German about the Nazi times, the war, the holocaust. You should! We are very open to discussing it, it's not considered a taboo. We are very aware of the crimes committed by the regime, and we are appalled that it happened. Regarding being "proud" of your own country: that's a different matter. You are born into a country by mere coincidence. Something that simply happened to you. So, there's nothing to be proud of. My understanding of pride is that you can only be proud of your own achievements, of the things you did well or came to completion by your own effort. Such would be school graduation, getting a university grade, complete your vocational training successfully, run a marathon (or something similar), and so on.
One thing that's not quite covered in their video is how we deal with it in our schoolsystem. At the moment I attend the 12th grade in an "Gymnasium" in Bavaria and will probably graduate this year and I can say, that we don't only talk and learn about the Nazi-history of Germany once but every year since grade 9. We learn about every littler part of it, from the origin of those beliefs, what happened and how Germany dealt with it after the war. We also visit a KZ, so that we really get the feeling of what horrible things happened back then.
Best wishes from Germany!
Yes, it's good but however IMHO the communism/socialism came a little too short (maybe it was because I repeated 10th class on Realschule after failing the 10th on Gymnasium; at both we didn't do very much after 1945 in History yet), I knew that Stalin was also not very good and that they've done things like the Katyn massacre, and the Gulags (that were basically the inspiration for the KZs), and that the GDR was surveilling it's citizens very intensively, but I wasn't really aware of that they've ran the Buchenwald Camp as "Speziallager Nr. 2" for another 5 years, that Stalin and Mao both got more victims than Hitler and how cruel the Gulag system was, this three part arte documentary opened my eyes in that matter:
ruclips.net/video/Jvop-FTTXvo/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/j-ZkL2lbB_o/видео.html
ruclips.net/video/i-hJMNNhw1Y/видео.html
After that I see commuism/socialism a little more critial than before and a stupid apology of some lefties is "That was no real communism/socialism!" ah yes, IMHO these had enough tries (almost all of them failed and often cost Millions of Lives; China changed it's economy to capitalism, if they hadn't done so, they would have perished like the GDR and USSR) in the last hundred years - Capitalism and Democracy aren't perfect but compared to those others they're the best compromise.
Other victims mostly forgotten : mentally and/or physicaly disabled people. Also a reason (i guess) why you don't use the term of "euthansia" often.
Because Nazis referred to murdering diaabled or mentally ill as "euthansia"
"Nebel im August" (Fog in august) is a 2016 Film about that topic, we watched it in nursing school. Afterwards we discussed how you could deal with that part of history in health care and the general question wether it's ethical to help somebody die (so help for suicide) or to kee somebody alive even if they want to die (would jt be ok if they are incurable sick? or is their wish to die valid if not?)
etc.
I find it a very hard question considering the past
Thanks for the movie recommendation. I have not know about its existence before and certainly will look into it.
The fact that they had the audacity to 'cover up' horrible experiments, torture and murder, mostly causing children harm, under such a euphemistic term pains me immensely.
@@jessican.7295 definitely! I study medicine know and was shocked that we currently still use several Nazi scientist/doctors names to referred to syndroms etc (or just quit using them)
Shure they found them aka wrote them down but the "patients" had no say it that or experiences needed (wich often times where also cruel and unethical)
In 2 years of uni we never spoke about it.. We watched the movie within the first 6 month of nursing school.. thats a shame to be honest
Have you watched The Man in the High Castle? A high-ranking nazi's son had a physical disability and he turned himself in, believing he was unfit for society. America had an era of negative eugenics, which I imagine was often carried out on the orphaned children hospitals tested drugs on, damaging them for life.
@@miss_nerdy1716 some basic understanding even goes back to the atrocious wrong doings of Dr. Mengele and his inhumane experiments that nobody can rightfully "backtrack" (
There is a pretty heavy music album by the band Samsas Traum, called "Poesie: Friedrichs Geschichte", that is exactly about this topic. Extremely good music, but no easy listening. I highly recommend it, just take your time and don't rush it.
Günther Grass The Tin Drum a book and a movie worth getting into! Can only recommend it!!
Also as germans we can be proud of our history i think... yes for many many many many years and decades it was the worst place on earth... but germany also has been home to some of the greatest philosophist, architects, artist, fashion desingers, musicians and inventors in western history i think it's important to know both... you should know Hitler but also Kant... you should know what Himmler was but also who Goethe was... You should know that germans caused the holocaust... but also that we invented the TV and the car.... you should know that pretty much every german person and company was complicit in the attrocities that happend and that those families to this day still benefit from that... you should also know that Bismark basically invented universal healthcare
Günther Grass ist das schlimmste was einem in der Oberstufe passieren kann... obwohl im Krebsgang ganz gut war ^^
Warning: The movie has some moments not suitable for everyone.
Otherwise it certainly is an excellent work of art.
2:00 Honestly, I feel like the US has a much bigger Problem teaching about and talking about the "genocide" of native Americans by the first settlers. That in my mind Was horrific and you still put these tribes is "conservations" which is just so tone-deaf and unacceptable
The dad of one of my friends had Adolf as his name, he hated it so much, with his 18th birthday he changed his name to Alf
Many men changed first names after ww2. Today no one names their son Adolf. That's an absolute taboo and I assume that the registry office doesn't just let it get away with it either.
my grandparents were friends with a family called hitler.. they changed their last name into Hiller.
Harpo Marx's real name was Adolph. He changed it to Arthur. Though his name change happened in 1911, so long before Hitler was even known. But I'm sure he thought "whew, dodged that one" later.
For me, the most important thing is to talk about the family history. Of course I can't change the fact that in my family (and in almost every other German family) there were all kinds of Nazis. It's about coming to terms with my own history... and about recognizing the horror that my family also helped to cause. And for me personally it is also about understanding why my grandparents are the way they are. They where born at the end of the war, but when your own parents are strict Nazis, that influences a person. Fortunately, both of them always knew that National Socialism was a horrible part of history, but it still left its mark on them. And me somehow too. I think without this part of history, most people in Germany today would be different people.
I've read "Er ist wieder da", and it's great. It can be described as very funny until it gets very scary.
Thanx a lot for your reaction. Maybe a very brief history of the murdered queer/gay people. 5000 to 10 000 men killed in the KZs. The men with the pink triangle. After the war they still were punished by law because homosexualty was illegal - till 1994 ..... And no redemption till today. Every year during a ceremony the German Bundestag remind of the Holocaust - and this year is was the first (!!!) time in the post war era that they remembered of all the queer people killed by the Nazi. Liebe Grüße aus Deutschland. ☘
I'm German and I encountered hundreds of stumbling stones in my life, I never step on them, always read the names, so they don't get forgotten, put away leaves on them and never ever saw even one german or anybody else step on them, spit or what ever to show disrespect.
She mentioned seeing the Germany flag mostly during World Cup. I know in our town, they will announce in the paper a week or so before flying the German flag (and other flags) at the town hall. It’ll say when and why it is being flown. At our Rathaus you will normally see the town, state, and EU flag. Rarely the actual German flag. I haven’t really taken notice of other places🤔. Is this normal?
I'm used to seeing the German flag, the federal state's flag and the municipality's flag in front of some municipality buildings on some holidays , and sometimes "auf Halbmast" (at a lower altitude above ground) after some catastrophies / tragic events.
When I went to school in the 1990, there were also 3 large flagpoles near the school building (which belongs to the municipality), where these three flags (German, federal state, and municipal flags) were flown at the occasions.
What I like about the “Stolpersteine” being in the ground is you can somehow read the current atmosphere from how they are treated. Are people just stepping on them or do they go around it? Are they kept clean? There are even community walks to go and clean them.
I live in Japan for a year and the non-observance of one's own fascist past is very hard to bear. I get the feeling that people here generally avoid any serious topic. But in Germany, it sometimes feels like we do nothing but talking heavy stuff.
Another thing I find worth mentioning: That New Zealand, of all places, exhibits glorifying, larger-than-life soldier figures in the capital Wellington. It was about fighting in the First World War in Turkey. You have to imagine that. Completely absurd.
I myself try not to step on them, when I see them.
Sometimes there are days the community cleans the stones. Most times it is on the 9th of November the Reichskristallnacht (Reichs crystal night). The Reichskristallnacht ist the day the Nazis started destroying Jewish stores and burning down synagogues. There are also instructions on the internet how to clean the stumbling stones.
@@Sunabe77 Yeah, I noticed that, too, about New Zealand. Especially around ANZAC (Australian and New Zealand Army Corps) Day there'll be red poppies made from paper literally everywhere, but the rest of the year it's noticeable, too. I think the story of Gallipoli just appeals to the Kiwi "David vs Goliath" spirit.
The "stolpersteine" are slightly higher than the regular stones. The idea is that you trip against them so you are "forced" to recognice them.
Regarding German humor and memorials... Björn Höcke is a controversial politician in Germany and a member of the far-right party Alternative for Germany (AfD). He has made remarks regarding the Holocaust Memorial that are widely considered to be disrespectful and revisionist. So a funny group rented the house next to Höcke's house and rebuilt the Holocaust Memorial in the garden - for Höcke to enjoy it! Just search in RUclips for Höcke and Holocaust-Mahnmal
Just in case anyone reads this comment above:
His disrespectful and revisionist remarks were simply saying that he doesnt like big things like this that simply put shame onto germans.
So he is basically as much of a far right extremist as the average american which also doesnt want things like this.
@@imrengarotp3802 Well, there were several lawsuits against him and one of it allows people to call him a fashist. That's a bit more than just "not being a fan of" big memorials of the Holocaust. Source: Jörg Köpke: Es ist amtlich: Björn Höcke darf “Faschist” genannt werden. Landeszeitung für die Lüneburger Heide, 28. September 2019.
@@imrengarotp3802 That's definitely not the case.
@@imrengarotp3802 Yep, Bernd is worse for sure. Even the "Verfassungsschutz" (Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution), has an eye on him. It is the German domestic intelligence agency that is responsible for monitoring and reporting on activities that may pose a threat to the country's democratic constitutional order. In 2020, Höcke was declared a "threat to the democratic constitutional order" by the Verfassungsschutz, and the agency has been monitoring his activities since then.
The stones on the ground are called stumbling blocks, which is also the reason why they are lying on the ground. so no one can overlook these names.
My favourite teacher in school was a man who had such an incredible amount of knowledge about these times and also had an impressive collection of original maps, texts, coins, soldier tokens and much more he would always bring in the history lessons. He really taught me so much about world war 2 and the nazi regime
The Stolpersteine are awesome exactly BECAUSE they are on the ground: it allows you get involved and pay individual respect simply by not stepping on them.
Ok, here's my grandpa's story: He was the 2nd youngest of 9 brothers. His three oldest brothers made a career in the nazi-ranks, one of them being direct assistant to Hermann Göring, chief of the nazi airforce. He was never one to question authorities (prussian virtues like discipline and obedience were still big back then), he just played ball for his own sake. A typical "Mitläufer" as we call em. On the other hand, he never listened to the nazi ideology much, so he could never really be "indoctrinated" like his older brothers were. So he went through Hitlerjugend, got introduced to the Wehrmacht and was stationed in Norway. The first time his base was attacked, his foot was injured and he spent 4 weeks in a mash-unit. Prior to getting reinstated, he went AWOL in the middle of the night and fled ON FOOT over the course of six months, hid in barns and woods until he reached home, where he hid until the war's end. 4 of his brothers died in the war. He was the greatest influence in my life making me a firm anti-fascist. It scares me that his generation is almost gone and there'll be nobody left who can give firsthand advice to kids on why hate destroys everything
Yeah, there has been much point lately too keep out the word guilt and replace it with reponsibilty. Because you really cannot blame my generation or barely even my grandmothers generation. My Grandma was 13 when the war ended, you can hardly blame her for anything going on. Though it is a fact that my Great grandfather was not only a soldier, but an officer of rank. The way my Grandmother tells it, he saw which way the wind was blowing pretty early and decided to volunteer rather then being drafted. this gave him an early opportunity to rise and more or less choose his regiment, which according to my Grandmother was a fairly moderate one. Now. I cannot deny or verify any of this. I know my Grandmother and i believe her in saying that her Father was a very tolerant and moderate man, but he died when i was 4, so all i can go by are her recollections and It is very clear that he delberately left a lot of things out of his stories, not even necessarily to make himself look good, but just to shield his children from what he had done and seen.
There is the undeniable fact that he never seemed to have done anything actve against the regime. But in all honesty, i cannot really blame him. he had a wife and four children, scattered over the country because Hamburg had been mostly evacuated of kids. Would i do something to put my family in danger? I don't know, but i suspect i might not. _That_ I think is the terrible truth that german people do face more and more. We all _wish_ we could be sure hat _we_ would be rebels, _we_ would hide jewish people, _we_ wouldn't look away... but i am not so sure and more and more people in my generation seem to come to that conclusion. That WWII Germans weren't all monsters, they were people. People who did monsterous things or closed their eyes to them. People who ognored smokecoming from concentration camps. People who taught their children to hate jewish people, becaue it would keep them safe.
_That_ is why most of us know about Hitlers rise, about the reasons why, about the rebels, about the concentration cmps, but very few people in germany could tell you which battles were fought when. That is not what we learn. We don't learn about the war, we learn about the ideology and how we got there and what we can do to not get there again.
What I wonder:
How can you be "proud" of your country's history?
Especially, is there any country that could really be "proud" of its history?
The USA for example: slavery was not the only problem. What about the natives (Indians), or the atomic bombs?
England, France, Spain, or Portugal were colonial powers. I hardly think that any country should be really proud of its history.
Besides, why should it be important to be proud of any history?
School in germany: "Hey, watch out! We were the bad ones and have to take care, it wont happen again."
School in some other countries: "Yeah, we were the good. Awesome."
I think this "We should take care of bad things like ww2/holocaust wont happen again" is something the whole mankind should be aware of. In my opinion we are not responsible, for what happend, but we are responsible, that it doesnt repeat, like the young man in the video said.
As german I HATE it very much, if peoples bleat that they had nothing to do with the war and the holocaust.
Yes baby, I know it, you know it and everyone else too. 🙄But you have the goddamn duty to learn about the history. And you have to fight, that something like this doesn't happen again.
It`s not so difficult to understand.
What happens when people ignore their country's mistakes in the past and the lessons of the second wold war, can be seen in the current war from Russia.
Or on many other places today, inclusive USA where Trump was elected.
Somehow I now feel like sharing how I came to understand what had happened in our past.
I live in a small town.
We have a castle up on a hill and there's a road that goes along the river, past that hill. Right underneath the castle there was a particularly wild and ungroomed patch of forest when I was a kid. It was odd to me, because all the other forest is, well, "maintained", as far as you can say that about a forest. It was also weirdly placed in-between the old town and a newer residential area. I couldn't say what was putting me off about it, but something really felt strange to me.
At one point, when we were driving past, I asked my mother about it.
She told me that it's the old Jewish cemetery.
Turns out, our little small town had one of the largest Jewish cemeteries (and I guess small town communities of Jews. At some point 10% of the population were Jewish. Mind you, at that time the town was so small, 10% were about 100 people. Still. 🤷♀️) in Southern Germany.
And somehow that wild patch of forest really got me thinking. Because, if you've ever been to a cemetery, you'll realize that they're places for the living, not for the dead and are therefore strangely quietly... alive, in a weird way.
But that place, was abandoned. No one would voluntarily abandon their dead. Not collectively.
That's when I realized what holocaust means.
Gone. Just gone.
Whole generations ripped out of society.
We'll never know how much art, literature, music, science and inventions died along with it, because it's not just the people that are gone.
Everyone dies at some point.
But that's a whole lot of people that didn't get to live the lives they were supposed to live.
For no good reason whatsoever.
That's why I like the Stolpersteine. Some things are hard to fathom in an abstract way. Being able to walk around a town or city and being able to see, to count them, gives you a different perspective. It makes it a palpable reality, not just invisible, untouchable, uncomfortable, somehow abstract knowledge.
Btw: it's a living cemetery again now.
It's well groomed, people visit again and there's burials happening.
There's a small Jewish community here again now.
You have to come to Germany soon! I watch all your videos. I was born in the 70's and we didn't talk about WW2 in family much, but at school it was a very big part of the lessons. I went to demonstrations in front of Covic because the Nazis are increasing in Germany and have continued to commit crimes in recent decades. There is still enough old contaminated thinking in the old leadership structures. This also applies to the next generations. It's not over and we need to look harder. We can't let that happen again. There are already enough dictators and criminal regimes in the world. And by the way: We're smart enough now???... we thought so too about Putin, huh?
Die Welle... "classic" german movie about how we're definitely not smart enough nowadays... Putin, Trump and Johnson also very much show that we're not.... i think Putin less so because he's been in power so long... but Hungary... the Afd... there's plenty example in and outside of germany how we haven't learned anything
@@LoFiAxolotlfunnily enough it's based on a US novel which itself is based on an "experiment" a high school teacher in the USA did.
Why should i be blamed for something i didn't commit?
Are the French blamed for Napoleon? Are the swedish blamed for the Vikings?
It's not like germany still holds on to the territory hitler conquered unlike lets say the US that still keeps all their stolen land.
I know a couple of people with the middle name Adolf, they are all like 70-60 years old, some of them even changed it. One of them said it was actually a bit of a normal name but afterwards nobody really names their kid like that
Nobody wears Adolfdas trainers for a reason, there was a rise in people called Adi.
And think of the moustache that one person has ruined for all the others forever and evermore.
@@DenUitvreter
;-) Yes, most people don't know the past of Adidas and Puma. And also don't know that most sportsneakers are based on the company of the father-in-law of "Adolf Dassler" (called Adi - so Adidas ist the short version for "Adolf Dassler - the CEO of Puma was the brother of Adolf Dassler).
The roots of Adidas/Puma/Framas are in Pirmasens, a city south of Ramstein.
Some American blacks got away with such a moustache I noticed. Jaguar changed it name from SS, a mainly Asian symbol for fertility or peace has gotten a bad name, football clubs all over Europe have changed their colours from red and black, upper armbands aren't used in many countries. On the other hand, the pink triangle, the equivalent of the yellow jew star for homosexuals, has become a symbol for gay rights.
In a town in the East of the Netherlands there was a lighting and lamp shop called "Adolfs Verlichting" (Adolfs lighting) that refused to change it's name and has always remained in business. The locals often referred to it as "Mein Lampf".
In our region a lot of people don't use products of this brands. Reason: their past and still present.
My family suffered a lot during WWII, and I've been raised to hate Germans, but when I did meet them and learn about Germany I am impressed with the effort made to understand their past and change it made. I am not afraid of them any longer, and see Germany as a leader in European Union. I trust them.
10:10 Never having heard of something doesn't make you stupid, being too lazy and choosing to not even take a minute to look it up does. My geography and English teacher always said "Selbst nachsehen macht schlau" ("Looking it up yourself makes you smart"). You have the tools, use them.
Only in america would "dealing with your dark past" be considered controversial.
Students in there 9 or 10th Grad are going with there classes in a Konzentration Camp to learn about the passt.There are still many Bombs from WWll after almost 80year found in the ground.
I grew up just a mile away from a very small gas chamber. I am not 3 times as old (compared to the school trip) but I still remember the *extremely* nice feeling of fresh air when we came out of the building again.
I am German and my grand parents were Nazis. In fact most Germans relatives were Nazis. In school, when I was 12 we had to watch videos taken in Auschwitz showing piles of dead bodies. And the teacher said it was our fault. She showed us examples of how nationalism is still a part of our culture. I take no pride in being German, in fact I see it as a big burden of responsibility. If I see a German flag hanging out of a window it probably means there are right wing people living there. And the vast majority of Germans would never ever call themselves a patriot. But I wouldn`t have it any other way. Being proud of the past is just stupid and blinds you for seeing the present. I would rather take responsibility to make the present better and than be proud of it than be proud of a hypothetical great past that never existed (in any country).
OK, i read the book "Er ist wieder da" nad watched the film ... the book was good - the film ... scary as hell. I was in the army and went with a few officers. We laught a lot - until the end where they showed that not all parts were fiction. Some parts were real people reacting to this great actor. The room went from "fun" to "WTF" in sec.s ... We didn´t notice it while watching the movie and that gave us pause and scared us more then our Hauptfeldwebel back in basic
Oh yes!
I think in the afterword of the book is also written that some parts are taken from real people during his research.
The book doesnt joke about the war it jokes about hitler. It doesnt tries to make funny how millions died
I like the stumbling stones as they get immediately into my heart and soul in everyday life. Sthg on a wall is just sthg official and feels like it has nthg to do with me.
Maybe the people opposing this don't walk around much in their private lives and so don't know how it makes you pay emotional attention immediately.
I think it's cuz they don't want to think about the war, so the opposite reaction to the purpose of the stolpersteine.
Yes, I have already said how very moved I was by reading the inscriptions on these stumbling stones, and I don't think I would have paid attention to a notice on a wall, although I can understand why some may think it is disrespectful to walk on them. The brass is kept clean and polished by local people, so their memorial message stands out among the stone cobbles.
Take a look to china and the uyghurs. Thats everyday life
In Germany, many of our communities created their own ways to remember the fallen soldiers of WW1. The village I grew up in had a big stone pillar with the names of the local fallen engraved on it. I distinctly remember that for a long time, while growing up, I found that pillar haunting and it made me uncomfortable, because there were those names I did not know of people who died I never knew. But they somehow were a part of this community that had been ripped away from us. The thought of it made me very anxious and it took me quite a while until I could look at the pillar, read the names and feel only sadness. For the dead men, for their family and the children in my age, that belonged to one of those families.
As a German I look at these monuments for the fallen in WWI in two different ways. The obvious one, to remember these people who were killed in action on the battlefield in a war "that should have end all wars".
The other viewpoint is quite different. It shows off the "heroism" for an army that wasn't "beaten on the battlefield" and only lost the war due to the lack of support from the politicians, which forced them to surrender. The infamous "Dolchstoß Legende" (Backstabbing Tale). Told to the public by the most honored generals of the german army and later head of state (Paul Hindenburg), which was the ultimate groundwork for the upcoming nazis 15 years later. You won't find any memorials for fallen soldiers of WWII.....only cemetries. And they only changed the inscription on some monuments: To the fallen of the war 1914 - 1918 and (added) 1939 - 1945. But you won't find any names....
So you see that our history with our armed forces isn't that easy, since overambitious militarism lead us into two wars...
Heavy? Yes.
Controversial? No.
I mean, the topic can become controversial, but it isn't in itself.
People who want to visit Germany often seem to wonder how to approach the topic here and often settle for something like "don't talk about the war!".
To those people I usually give the following points of advice:
- Take the topic seriously. It is no laughing matter. Don't make jokes, even if the intent is to lighten up the mood.
- Don't be judgemental or rub it in. Nobody likes to be blamed for stuff that happened before they were born. If it concerns recent events: follow rule 1.
- Don't bring it up too often. If you have serious questions about stuff you want to know about, please go ahead. But don't make it you favourite topic of conversation all of the time.
Personally, I think following those three rules is just a matter of common politeness.
One should rather think that something like this can happen again at any time, because only then do you have the necessary attention to prevent it.
Roma and Sinti are an ethnic people. It is the correct term used. The N-word equivalent to call them is Zigeuner or gypsy.
Nazi is the N-Word for Germans 🙂
13:10 Yes, i have read it and watched the movie. Brilliant crazy concept. Its worth a watch.
to what you said at 5:42 - you should definitely watch the movie Die Welle (The Wave, the german one), its a great movie exploring just how easy it is for it to happen again
I think Ryan should probably read The Wave in English: ) It was classroom reading in my husband's English class.
6:25 The mankind would repeat. I noticed it since 2020. There are other arguments, other motivation, the only similarity is the claim, to prevent damage. Interestingly, they say "You can't compare this, you would humble yesterday's victims", people who usually doesn't care for this and frequently call people "Nazis".
The stolpersteine are made of brass. In my eyes a very fitting choice - it is noticeable and looks sophisticated and of high class when it is freshly laid. But over time, the metal tarnishes and becomes grey and nondescript. The stones need to be cleaned and polished several times a year, so their purpose is consciously attended to.
My parents were about 15/16 years old when the Second World War ended. They experienced it as children and teenagers. Older generations in our family were also in the war and died or were so badly injured (e.g. lost both arms) that they never forgot it. We also had 1-2 NAZIs in the family (a great uncle), but since they died in the 50s and 60s, I don't have much knowledge about them. My mother is now 95 years old, so there is practically no one left in our family who personally experienced the war. My father was traumatised when his family had to flee Silesia in 1945. He was 15 years old at the time.
But when I look at today's world. I'm absolutely not a right-wing radical, but I see more and more problems in the country because we have so many immigrants who don't follow the normal rules here (to put it mildly). So I'm not surprised that suddenly a lot of right-wing radicals are appearing again and that we also have a right-wing radical party in the Bundestag. Many former East Germans (GDR) also have a completely different way of thinking (due to the Russian doctrine) and unfortunately a lot of right-wing radicals also come from there. How will this continue? I don't know. If things go the way they are at the moment, I see a bad future! Then what happened before will happen very quickly again!
BTW: 10:10 Roma and Sinti were colloquially known as Gypsies (Zigeuner) in Germany. However, the word was used more in a negative sense. There was even something like a gypsy schnitzel (Zigeuner Schnitzel [more or less a slightly spicier Schnitzel with a pepper - onion sauce - very tasty] - sometimes you can still find it under this name in some restaurants!). But today it is no longer politically correct in Germany to use the word "Zigeuner". Just like Indians, Eskimos and many other nonsensical things. Unfortunately, "banning" words doesn't change anything in people's thinking. In my personal opinion, this exaggerated political correctness is not only nonsensical and destroys the German language, but it is simply a denial of things by banning them. In my opinion, it doesn't change anything!
German patriotism regional:
Country: it’s alright.
County: it’s nice, I guess
Region: quite cool
Kreis: it’s so nice here
City/Town/Village: OMG SO AWESOME AMAZING!!
Kinda.. some more some less xD
My biggest complaint about how we deal with the topic here in germany is that in my last 8 years of school, I learned NOTHING else in history class. It was 8 years of Weimarer Republic, Third Reich, Rise of the NSDAP, WW2 and the occupation of germany afterwards, up to the fall of the Berlin wall.
'Schindler's list' is my most watched movie, and I never watched it outside of school!
I know nothing about the UKs history. I don't know about the civil war in america. I had no idea about Pearl Harbor until the Movie of the same name came out... The list goes on.
I understand the topic is important, but do we REALLY need to harp on and on and on about it for 8 years?
What bundesland are you in? Cause i did learned about pearl harbor and american civil war
@@ddm_gamer NRW, and I guess it had something to do with the teachers I had. New teacher every other year and OF COURSE we have to make sure the kids know this chapter and can learn other stuff later!
Doesn't change the fact that I only learned about german history in school, and everything else later.
They seem really paranoid, you would think dedicating 4 or 5 weeks to this subject would be enough. I come from Denmark we had a lot about the subject, but no were near what you got, we read a bit about it, watched the boy in the stripped pajamas and had the mandatory pilgrimage to autswitch(spelling), but watching Schindlers list that is based on a fictional book is stupid, the boy in the stripped pajamas is at least somewhat historically accurate.
I believe the current trend in the US is that people are protesting that we "talk too much about slavery." That's a big part of the current anti-CRT movement in parts of the US. In our reaction to the shame of slavery, we put up statues to those who fought against the US government to keep the institution.
The really insidious fact about the statues celebrating so-called "Southern tradition" is how so many of them were put up in the late 50's and 60's. In other words, not so much celebrating any real "tradition" (Really? The beloved tradition you hold so dear is a gritty, grimy mix of treason, sedition, and blatant racism??), but weaponizing legal oppression and violent subjugation to intimidate local Blacks beginning to seriously push back against white supremacy and Jim Crow, and raising (not only) their voices for their own equality.
Funny, too, how those who say removing the old Confederate statues, or renaming public schools and buildings, etc., named after Confederate "heroes" is actually "...erasing history...". By that same token, because there are no Heinrich Himmler High Schools, Hermann Göring Stadiums, or Adolph Hitler Squares here, Germans should have completely forgotten the whole story of WWII by now.... *shrug*
I like your videos a lot. I want you to introdruce you to my other favorite youtuber. It´s "Everjo Entertainment". They are an american husband and the german wife. Their best series is "An american quarantined in germany". it´s not about rona (mostly) but the german everyday living. And of cause the topic of nasi germany is also covered (in Episode 19). But please start at episode 1. It´s about bead. Watch till end the boopers are gold.
@5:42 That‘s exactly why it could happen again. There‘s more and more right wing nationalist politicians being elected in democracys (US, Brazil, Italy,…). The way they talk and their actions are similar to what the Nazis did before they came to power. Simple explanations for complex issues, creating an enemy image, be it „left wing extremists“, „fake news media“ or immigrants and so on. That and people saying „ah it couldn‘t happen in any western countries“ is exactly why I‘m worried about the democracy in the US.
About being proud or not of 'your' history is something i never could understand. What is there to be proud of? What is there to be ashamed of? History is just something that happened in the past. And it happened long before you were born. You had no part in it, neither did you have any influence over it. No matter how you look at it, history is something that was already over before your life began.
But maybe it's easy for me to say because i don't really feel any countries 'history' as my personal history. Yes, i have a german ID and i live and work in Germany. I grew up here and went to school here and if i had to choose one country that i would identify myself with, it would most likely be Germany. But i don't have only german ancestors. I was not born in Germany. I did not learn german as my first language, nor as my second. I went to Kindergarten in 3 other countries first. I learned to read and write in another language with another alphabet first. I spent the first 5 years of my life in the UDSSR, from Saha (former Yakutia), over Siberia, to Moscow in Russia and Kryvyj rih (formerly Krivoy Rog) in Ukraine. I lived in a place where kindergarten and school was cancelled when it got below -50°C in winter (very common) and in the 4 weeks of summer it could reach over +40°C. I lived in a place that was, compared to it, like a paradise with eternal spring and fruit trees everywhere, with mild summer rains and fertile soil. And all that in the last years of the UDSSR when children were dying from hunger in those places while the Kreml was feasting. From there i moved to Germany in the 90s, the 'golden age' of capitalism here where middle class was deep diving into high class luxuries. Learning yet another language, another alphabet and another set of rules for living in society. All that while looking like an adopted asian child to my blond, blue-grey eyed family (i wasn't btw, my grandma and my aunt on my fathers side look the same, we have some mongolian, kazakh and korean blood from different family lines).
So, to me each of these nations feels equally close yet equally estranged. And yet, if i had to choose where to live and why, it would be right where i am. And one of the many reasons is exactly that, how the germans cope with the dark history of their ancestors, hot they raise their kids to be responsible - not for what happened long ago, but be responsible to remember the dark side of recent history and what lead to it.
10:15 to your question what, or better, who, Roma and Sinti are. Roma and Sinti are different kind of groups of people who have been wandering around europe since like the 13 hundrets. They originate from slaves that fled during the turkish invasion into europe in the 15th century if i remember correctly. You might know them under their third-party designation "gypsy". But obviously they dont really like that. Interestingly, the discrimination against them is, just like it started with jews, founded in religious believes, often associating them with witchcraft and the devil during the middle ages.
About the strong fascist movement in the US until 1941 (Charles Lindberg) and the problems for Jews to become permission to immigrate there is not much attention either. Don´t forget Jews were more or less allowed to leave Germany until about 1942 but hardly anybody let them in.
There were a lot of groups who were targeted. Political opposition as in communists and socialists, disabled people as well as mentally ill and people with uncurable conditions like diabetes, gays and lesbians and trans women, religious people who spoke up against the regime, the homeless and beggars, addicts, travelling folk like the Roma or the Sinti, the list goes on and on. And the most known, as you said yourself, the Jewish people. Not all were persecuted the same, some went to work camps, others to death camps, others to psychiatric institutions, some groups were forcibly sterilised. The Nazis had a system of 'othering' and persecuting groups. And as in the poem "First they came" described, people didn't speak up against it, because it wasn't them the Nazis were after --- until it was. This fear to be 'othered' was one of the driving factors for a lot of people to conform and just go with it. And a lot of times you couldn't even speak out in your own home, by the time the children were indoctrinated to report on their own parents.
@Ryan Roma and Sinti are what you would call gypsies I believe. In Nazi Germany not only the Jews were persecuted and killed but also Roma and Sinti, homosexuals, political opponents, disabled. If you dive into the issue you will see at the prisoners that the Jews had the star on their chests, the other people I mentioned before had other symbols.
I also think you are mistaking patriotism with nationalism when you say you notice less patriotism in the last years. The definition of patriotism is that you question and critisize your country so changes may come. Nationalism is the pure devoted support of the country, no matter the mistakes it is making.
And don´t ever think this wouldn´t happen again because we are globally more connected via media.
We see the shift to the right and to facistic tendencies all around the world, also in the US. The people only don´t want to acknowledge that because it is a terrifying thought.
Hi Ryan I just wanted to mention that you got some appearances in Malternativs Video: Euer Ernst? - Was das Ausland über uns Deutsche denkt #2! It is really surprising to See you there and funny to see how your content become part of the german yt culture :3
Roma and Sinti are commonly called "Gypsies" in America - suggesting that they originated in Egypt, which they did not. They are a late migrating group probably from the Indian subcontinent.
Sinti and Roma belong to the 4 officially recognized national minorities in germany.
All of the stereotypes, are btw highly racist. For Example the stereotype"They live in camper trailers" exists, because western countrys forced them to, since they were excludet from the society.
USA take notes!!
I never undestood why USA Americans always think patriotism means waving the flag all the time screaming USA USA.
Would be interesting to know how the USA address their dark past including slavery, committed massacres and genocides in regards to native Americans, internment of Japanse during WWII etc. Are these topics taught in school?
And how do we in America deal with our dark past?
We still teach kids in Texas with history books that call Native Americans 'savages' and selective history. Not what we call acknowledgement.
Another word for Roma&Sinti is Gipsy but thats more like a curse word so you shouldn't use it.
At least thats what I am told on the other hand Tyson Fury calls himself the Gipsy King so I don't know.
Not only jews were killed during WW II, homosexuals, and Roma and Sinti (often called gypsies, but that seems to be a derogatory term, so I try not to use it) were also hunted and sent to concentration camps.
6:35 Yea rights that's why Russian war propaganda is talking about genocide of the Ukrainian people, and that is neccessery and so on!
PS: Sinti and Roma are the not racist name for "Gypsies"
I am German and I’m surprised that other countries arn’t that open about there past…here we have many ways to remember our past and in a few seconds you can find a documentary about Hitler and the NS
I'm from Germany and I never had Problems with this era of our history, but people also need to understand that the History of Germany does not start with the Nazis.
I dont know if you found out yet but "Roma and Sinti" is a respectful term for "Gypsies" or "Zigäuner" in german.