Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Ordinary Germans didn't know about gas ovens. Maybe they heard rumours but it was something concocted part way through the war and only those involved were aware of the full details. They were not able to act because they'd be sent to the camps too. The whole point of a totalitarian regime is that there is a culture of fear and uncertainty about who can be trusted. It's a bit like saying that people in Iraq or N Korea or Cambodia or any other nasty regime, knew that terrible things happened to people arrested but didn't do anything about it. It's pretty ludicrous to think that ordinary people could stop it.

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

North Korea is a good example for comparison.

We've all seen the crowds of people frantically smiling and clapping whenever Fatboy says anything.

It goes without saying that if they didn't, they'd be unlikely to see their families again.

It would stand to reason that all the people giving Nazi salutes when Hitler said anything might have had the same concerns.

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Or Labour Party members at QT fearing deselection!

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Apparently it's wasn't quite like that .
The German people -apart from those who actively opposed them -were not bothered that much by the gestapo they still did things wrong committed petty crimes liked American music and made Hitler jokes and lots of Germans did support Hitler they had voted for him after all
So many ordinary Germans looked the other way when Jews were being rounded up and murdered in their millions .
Not out of fear but of denial and indifference .

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Perhaps you need to read the history again Muddy. This was a gradual process. At first they spead propaganda, then there was Kristatalnacht. At that point they were trying to encourage Jews to leave Germany, in the same way as some would like Muslims out of the UK. It took a while before they started forming ghettos and then when they destroyed the ghettos and started deporting people to Nazi death camps. By then most ordinary Germans had no connecition with the process, they had probably forgotten their Jewish neighbours. It's not like they'd had any say in the matter. The country was in the grip of a regime, which at first was desired by the people because it promised all the sorts of populist policies we have seen in more recent elections, then it was feared, they were caught. Either go with the flow or become one of the enemy. The Nazi planners in Germany were experts in human psychology. They studied it and refined their methods over time. If you don't agree with this then you need to do more reading. Hitler was the biggest confidence trickster in history and the most vile. The Germans are to blame for allowing him in and believing his lies.

This is why populism should have no place in democracy.

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Muddy, I am certain that nobody here agrees with what Hitler & his special forces did to the Jews, but we can't blame ordinary German people for it. I think your strong support of these poor Jewish people is making you think that all Germans were to blame, but that isn't true!

Lets assume that Russia and Syria start a war with the UK, France and USA . Britain decide to put all it's resident Muslims in boats and tell them they cannot live here so must find somewhere else to live. If any British person tries to help them they will also be put on those boats, which are likely to lead to many deaths.
How many British people do you think will try to help these Muslims rather than save their own families? Do you think that, after this war, it would be alright for the Russians & Syrians to blame all British people for the deaths, when these boats sink and kill all the people on them?

Fortunately, we are not ruled by a Hitler so are unlikely to do this...... but one day we could be

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Annie and Twink .
Sorry but you are both mistaken
Many ordinary Germans were involved .
Revisionist history tries to ignore this fact.
People become in sensitised to suffering quite easily especially if it doesn't affect them .
See the Stanford prison experiment .
There really are no excuses for 'ordinary 'Germans they knew .
They didn't just load those people onto boats and say good riddance they took them to prison camps and systematically tortured and murdered them .
Brutes and sadists had total power over defenceless men women and children
Someone drove those cattle truck trains.
This was murder of millions on an industrial scale and as seen below in my link
Many thousands of Germans were involved and complicit in it. So many in fact that they could not all be brought to book after the war .
But they were involved nevertheless if an entire nation elects, supports and executes the orders of a murderous government like that of the Nazis then they must own the crime.

The reason I am concerned about this is that if we are to learn anything from this terrible event we must not let it happen again .

Yet it does
The genocide in the Sudan where the ethnic cleansing of millions of people has gone unremarked . Have those who perpetuated that genocide been brought to book?
The Ruwanda genocide -where ordinary people turned on their neighbours ?
Ordinary people do do terrible things.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/guides/zsshhyc

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

Of course some German people were involved in the killing of 6 million Jews, it wouldn't have been possible otherwise. Nobody knows why they did it, it could have been fear of reprisals or that many had racist views towards the Jews....but we can't blame all German people for what a few did.

Where people blame a whole nation for the actions of a few, aren't we all being racist? Aren't we saying that Britain is better than Germany, yet they welcomed Muslims in to their country while the majority in Britain didn't want them.
Even if the whole of Germany supported what Hitler did to the Jews ( which is a ridiculous idea), Why do British people still hate Germans they see on holiday, 30 years later, when many of the people they hate weren't even born till after the Holocaust?
We can't blame a whole nation for what a minority of bad people did! Maybe we should all try to see things from the other side's point of view.

Re: I wonder if it's taught in schools

I don't know anyone who does hate Germans on holiday .
Unless they are pinching all the pool chairs !
The Holocaust was a unique genocide of people and the practically the whole country was complicit .
They were completely racist then against Jews !
The were not a minority they were a majority !
Without the passive agreement of the majority it could not have happened .


I don't see what them letting Muslims in to Germany today has to do with murdering Jews 70 years ago.