> My village in Greece was burned to the ground and the Nazis executed 30 people
Could we please stop using the term "Nazis" when referring to WWII Germans? A nazi is a member of (Hitler's) NSDAP party, while the war was conducted by GERMANS, not just party members. When you read any texts from say the fourties, no one is speaking of fighting the Nazis - they're fighting the Germans. People who still remember the war also don't ever use term Nazis. It was introduced later to dissociate the German nation from probably the most unimaginable attrocity in human history. Don't fall for the manipulation.
Maybe it's true where you live, it is certainly not true in the English-speaking world. Fighting the Nazis was the primary way of describing the European war in contemporaneous popular and political writing.
Very interesting. In my reading of war-related English language literature from that period (Steinbeck, Orwell) I don't think I've encountered the term "Nazis", but that's hardly a representative sample.
Where I live (Poland), people referred to German occupiers as "Germans", and it is also how they spoke of themselves. For example, the sign on streetcarts said "only for Germans", not "only for Nazis" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nur_f%C3%BCr_Deutsche).
Also, on your chart, you can see an over 50% drop of the usage of term "German" in 1945 (without any significant change for "Nazi"). It might have been caused by the US realization that the Western Germany will be an ally from now on, and change of rethoric.
At least here in Holland we tend to use 'Nazi' and 'German' interchangeably some of the time, and most of the time in the context of WW2.
The meaning of 'Germans' is much more context-dependent of course, to the point that I've noticed others and myself disambiguate by saying 'from Germany', because 'German' (Duitser) in itself has connotations (similar to jew/jood, or perhaps negroe/neger I guess).
Of course, being Dutch, many people will intentionally opt for the more rude version to get a rise out of people or 'be edgy'.
This is a reason of serious miscommunication when talking about this topic with the non-English native. I'm pretty sure English-speaking world doesn't mean fighting Slovakian Nazis, Latvian Nazis, or French Nazis, but those of two other very specific nationalities.
If this is about who should bear the blame I think "Nazis" is too narrow but "Germans" is too broad. Hitler won barely 33% of the vote in the last free and fair elections. Even after seizing power and after a violent campaign of intimidation Hitler only got 44% of the vote.
It is also doubtful that those who did vote for him expected him to kill all Jews and Romani people. The threats were certainly there but most people believe politicians to be hyperbolic and not follow through on everything they say.
At least I can say that my own ancestors who were murdered in Auschwitz did not expect that to happen.
Bush lost the election preceding the Iraq War, but, it was sure as shit the Americans who pointlessly invaded Iraq, not the Republicans.
I see both sides of the point being made here and we may have said all that needs to be said about it at this point but I just want to speak up and say that it's not in fact the norm to attribute a war to a political party, no matter what the electoral numbers.
I agree with you about the war. But I see it a bit differently when it comes to the Holocaust, not least because many of the victims were also Germans, Jewish or otherwise.
> Hitler won barely 33% of the vote in the last free and fair elections. Even after seizing power and after a violent campaign of intimidation Hitler only got 44% of the vote.
I wish there were polls for support for Hitler after the successful conquest of Poland and France. The accounts from that period speak of enthusiasm bordering on mass hysteria.
In George Kennan was stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Berlin from 1939 through 1941. In his Memoirs: 1925-1950, he writes of the Berliners that "they witnessed with a reserved, sullen silence the victory parade of the troops returning from the successful completion of the Polish campaign. Not even the most frantic efforts of professional Nazi agitators could provoke them to demonstrations of elation or approval. The news of the fall of Paris was received with the same inscrutable silence and reserve. I rode miles, that afternoon, on the enclosed upper deck of a bus, where practically everyone's conversation was audible. I heard no one as much as mention the event; the talk was all of food cards and the price of stockings." To be sure, he speaks of them as the least Nazified among the German population.
Yes in reality if you go up to him and ask him in person, or me, I won't use the term Nazis but the term Germans. I just felt it wouldn't be right to blame it on the newer generation of Germans reading yc news etc. I hope that they understand and remember what happened almost half a century ago.
It's very convenient to put blame on something so immaterial as "instrumentation" and "instincts".
You can feel good, moralize as long as you like, take stabs at political opponents.
But it does nothing towards avoiding repeat of tragic events. How would anyone learn on "crime without punishment"? And that's exactly it, you're not punishing any people, not proportionally to damage done anyway, and ideas don't feel pain.
Contemplating the fact that you could be manipulated to perform similar misdeeds may not be pleasant, but it is very important.
We all have tribal instincts, and we are "predictably irrational", meaning that we can be manipulated by skilled pupetteers.
Tribalism is on the rise once again right now and I find it unsettling.
Edit:
>But it does nothing towards avoiding repeat of tragic events. How would anyone learn on "crime without punishment"? And that's exactly it, you're not punishing any people, not proportionally to damage done anyway, and ideas don't feel pain.
I totally disagree. The punishment of Germany post WW1 lead directly to WW2. The extended hand that followed WW2 is largely responsible of the peace we've had for 70 years in Europe.
It turns out that punishment and preventing recidivism do not always go hand in hand.
Contemplating the face that if I perform similar misdeeds I might go without accountability or punishment may lead to conclusions, but not the ones that you would like.
Moralizing people doesn't prevent them from behaving badly when it's convenient to them. The perspective of punishment works much better.
For the Holocaust, very few people were punished. For Turkish genocide, noone was punished. Makes genocide a low-risk tool on a political table, if you ask me.
> It turns out that punishment and preventing recidivism do not always go hand in hand.
I utterly fail to understand how do you imagine it to work.
Imagine I'm a politician in power and I have an idea that some of my country's residents are eligible for genocide.
What's there to deter me and my fellow citizens? Certainly not the perspective of punishment. Then what?
Hell, in recent history, Croats got away with ethnic cleansings. You just have to be buddies with right countries.
> Croats got away with ethnic cleansing. You just have to be buddies with right countries.
I seriously doubt you know enough about break up of Yugoslavia to make such statements.
And furthermore, for war crimes such as genocide it is hard to tell who is to be punished, the officers, the regime, the soldiers, the population? They all took part in some way. So who exactly should we blame?
Who should we blame for Srebrenica? Netherlands? UN?
Or should we instead work towards rehabilitation and educate people and help people rather then just give out punishment?
If the punishments always work, there would be no need for jails.
Maybe I don't know enough, in this case you will surely correct me by providing input.
Ethnic Serbs and Serbia are already blamed for Srebrenica, they were bombed and part of their country occupied.
But, Croats and Croatia are not blamed for ethnic cleansing in Srpska Krajina, they got what they wanted (mono-ethnic Croatia) and had no consequences by being friends with EU.
This tells us, "be sure that you're friends with powers before doing your genocide"
"Or just be strong and unyielding like Turkey was"
UN could have stopped Srebrenica massacre but didn't and still didn't get bombed or punished.
Having friends with connections always helps, same way USA is "spreading democracy" all over the world without consequence. Winners write history.
Also Belgrade was bombed due to issues on Kosovo not over Srebrenica which was done by Bosnian Serbs.
Srpska krajina was part of Croatia and full of all kinds of militia, a lot of people would have left out of fear of reprisal if nothing else when Croatian troops came in or just to live on Serbian controlled territory (which makes sense, you rarely want to stay on occupied territory unless you need to).
That is not to say there were no crimes committed, But killing people en mass and putting them into a big hole is much different then shelling a city. If you want to talk about Croats doing genocides go back to 1940ies.
Why Gotovina and Markac were not put in jail for ethnic cleansing is another story. Some could argue that it didn't happen some have other accounts.
To be honest most of the blame lies with Tudjman and Milosevic which together planned a lot of stuff that happened in Balkans both of which died without even a small punishment but managed to get people rallied up. I think punishments that extend to following generations just make the hate live longer and possibility of another war more real.
The point is we should not call out who is to blame 25 years later, but figure out how to continue to live together, and no, not all family of victims want retaliation and punishment, some people actually understand that bringing this up and finger pointing will just further the divide and make room for another war, all they want is bodies of their family members back and for this to never happen again. This can be made sure with dialog and education not just punishment.
I might be wrong, but I think punishment should always be last resort. Same when bringing up kids for example.
People look very closely to what happens in their neighboring countries when deciding what to try and what to avoid. It is not true that one politician, who does not expect to get caught, is a sole responsible and everybody else is passive.
"Country Y had revolution and country X didn't. Turns out country Y never recovered economically and didn't make much progress. I will probably cut down on protests"
"Country C had ethnic cleansings and country B had reasonable ethnic policy. Country C did not suffer any punishment and is now successful. Country B suffers serious ethnic tensions and is an undesirable place. I would demand going harder on minorities"
You may be shielded from those narratives, living in a stable country. Guess what, not all of us do.
1) Human bonding (mother-child, family, and extended, symbolic tribes) is mediated in the brain by oxytocin. It turns out oxytocin also boosts xenophobia. Someone who claims to hail patriotism without being racist is therefore full of shit. They are two sides of the same coin, enlarging one enlarges the other.
2) Stigmatizing people for belonging to a group strengthens their tribal attachment to said group [a]. By punishing or threatening to punish a group of people, you enhance their tribal bonds and, per 1) their xenophobia, the very thing you're trying to rein in.
It's not about being moral, it's about effectiveness.
The only way to dispel tribal identity is to dilute it in a larger, weaker one, by being open to their members.
---
a. Which is why laws against "the public display of religious signs" are counterproductive. Likewise, ostracizing people who vote for extreme, hateful politicians is counterproductive.
You are right about "punishing or threatening to punish".
However, the goal of genocide or ethnic cleansings were not to punish, it was to make said people go away from you. To make them physically disappear.
Turks has no problems with Armenian tribal attachment because there are no longer any Armenians in Turkey (They however still have the problem with Kurds). The same thing with Croatia and Serbs. We have to admit that the plan worked.
The problem here is that tribal attachment among Turks got haywire. I don't know enough about the tribalism tendencies of Armenians at the time. Victim groups can have developed a strong tribal identity, but that's not always the case (tribalism was strong among Jews and Gypsies, but AFAIK being gay was quite confidential during WW2).
Regardless, the story is the same all over the place. People's tribal instincts are amplified and manipulated by a few hateful/interested people, which turns peaceful crowds into genocidal herds.
The danger is the potential for excess that we have when thinking in terms of ingroup/outgroup, not a specific group (which is why it keeps happening all over the place, and sometimes victim tribes later become perpetrators of bigoted violence).
A desire for justice/vengance is understandable, BTW, but our intuitions are wrong when dealing with populations rather than individuals.
Edit: Whether strong tribal identity among small groups lead larger groups of otherwise neutral people to resent them is an interesting question as well, BTW. I don't know if it is the case. Gypsies and Jews are historical examples, I don't know if there are counterexamples.
Now that's interesting. I must admit that I know little about Jews and their history.
I know that Ashkenazim have a high prevalence of certain recessive diseases, which suggests that they tend, to this day, to be somewhat endogamous. I don't know how much of it is due to their own culture, and how much is due to the fact that they were up to WW2 stigmatized by the Catholic church for being, as a people, responsible for the death of Jesus (without which Christianity wouldn't exist, yet it was held against them, go figure...).
I also know that there's an derogatory Hebrew word, goy, for the out-group. But at the same time AFAIK before WW2 Jews were portrayed by racist nationalists as "filthy internationalists", i.e. an existential threat.
Regardless of the prior strength of the Jew identity prior, WW2 gave us a fiercely nationalist/tribal Israel (defined as constitutionally as a Jewish state, where interfaith or non-religious marriage are not possible, etc...), which in turn gave us the rise of the modern Jihad as a reaction to the oppression of Palestinians and the support of US/Europe to Israel (well, the Irak wars didn't help either).
I wish we could dispel that madness. At this point, territorial and tribal fights are a net loss, to every one but weapons merchants.
I'm not saying that they didn't define themselves as Jewish. I'm saying that that was one part of their identity and that the German part was also important. NB I'm speaking about averages and generalities. I'm sure that different individuals held a full range of opinions.
As you can see, in Turkey this vendetta was not unending - it ended when all the Armenians were dead or driven away. So I fail to understand what's the long-term downside for Turkey, given they were never punished.
Yes, the world became more violent and hateful (Armenian terrorists blew something turkish up in France AFAIR), but that's outside of their borders. Inside borders they were a pretty successful country to date.
I suppose that resentment among Armenians towards Turks is still high to this day, I'm not saying that there will be more violence, but the threat is still there.
Note that I come from Belgium, whose historians are so ashamed of the Congo Free State genocide that they consider it a controversial topic that should not be taught in school. Were it not for Internet conversations, I'd be blissfully unaware of it as most Belgians are. There were more Congolese people killed under Leopold II than there were Belgians living at the time. There's been little to no backlash. So, indeed, sometimes it pays.
I sometimes wish I could have a more cynical take on things, but I have a strong fairness drive, spontaneously.
Punishing Germany almost directly led to massive instability in Europe. Helping Germany recover led to extended peace for the first time (ever?) in western Europe. That narrative is the one the western Europeans thank for their stability.
I think what's missing in your assessment is time.
Yes, in the short term allowing X in country Y might make country Z feel like they can get away with X. But I think people generally have short memory, and anything beyond a generation (or two?) doesn't quite work that way.
To be clear, I'm not saying you're wrong or proposing an alternative theory. I just think there's lack of evidence that you're correct, and personally I'm deeply uncomfortable with any form of punishment that isn't well-supported by evidence.
>The Germans suffered virtually nothing for conducting WWII and The Holocaust.
Except for the millions who died in combat or were murdered by the allied forces and the fact that we are still paying today for something we had no involvement in.
Anyway, it's almost the same for the U.S. today. All the crap they've pulled in foreign countries since after WW II has no consequences for them at all. U.S. politics are directly responsible for the deaths of millions.
> Except for the millions who died in combat or were murdered by the allied forces and the fact that we are still paying today for something we had no involvement in.
It's not the question of whether there were consequences, but if there were proportional/appropriate. After the war, there were talks on the highest international level of destroying all of German's industry and turning it into an agricultural-only country. That maybe would've been extreme, but what has actually happened - financial help from the USA (instead of help for Germany's victims) and the Nazis/Gestapo staff transitioning to the ruling class of the West Germany was also extreme and deeply unfair.
What I ask for is just to have a minimum of respect for the victims and not say that there were murdered by "Nazis". I'm pretty sure they haven't even heard of the term back then.
The U.S. gave substantial help to everyone in Europe, not just Germans. The Soviet occupation zone, as well as Finland and Yugoslavia, would have none of it, because U.S.S.R. was hostile to it.
The largest recipients of Marshall Plan aid were the U.K. (26 %) and France (18 %), with West Germany third at 11 % of total aid amount in this plan. So claiming that financial help went to Germany instead of Germany's victims is, in my opinion, disingenuous.
There were also other American aid programs besides the Marshall Plan.
By Germany's victims I mean for example Poles, who fought on the allied side against the Germans and were later conveniently abandoned to become a part of Stalin's empire. Poland suffered losses far beyond the material (although in this area they were still greater than France or UK's) - Germans and Soviets both had executed targeted plans to murder educated Poles (imagine large percentage of people with bachelor or higher degree being rounded up and executed - that's far bigger blow than even destruction of many cities and factories). No help was extended though.
Polish elites' philosophy was that, although our country is occupied and we can no longer contribute weapons and other material goods to the war effort, we can still contribute blood (by fighting both on both Eastern and Western fronts, as well as organizing a massive military resistance in Poland). It turned out to be extremely naive on our part, as at the end we got discarded like an used tissue.
Marshall Plan was offered to Poland by the U.S. but not accepted by the U.S.S.R. so the Poles were left without. I can't blame the Americans for that. (I'm Finnish, and we also got none of it, for same reason: Soviets. Edit: However, there was some more covert aid, such as the ASLA program which converted an old loan from 1919, which Finns had been paying back throughout the Winter War, into university scholarships for Finnish students.)
Edit: And yes, the Polish suffered particularly badly between Germany and Soviets. But the Germans/Nazis were not the only ones responsible for that. We know of Katyn Forest, we know of the fate of the Warsaw Uprising where Soviet advance deliberately stopped, allowing Nazis (this time I'd really use that word) to crush the independent Polish resistance.
The Marshal Plan offering was actually a bluff by the US - they knew that the USSR would never accept it on priciple, so they took the free good PR and offered it anyway.
The bigger point here though is that Poland didn't just magically end up being ruled by Stalin (via local proxies). Allied forced gave it up to him in part of a political deal, even though 200,000 Polish soldiers fought on the Western front
with an idea of returning to free Poland after the war. (actually, upon hearing of this betrayal, dozens of Polish military officers committed suicide).
Sure, but they gave the help to practically anyone who could receive it. The agreement on Oder-Neisse line was indeed not due to magic, it was due to geography and military power.
The alternative? Let Patton have his way, and once Germany had surrendered, ally immediately with the Wermacht and attack the exhausted Soviet troops to force a downfall of the other mustached dictator, using the atom bomb if necessary? That wouldn't have gone down too well in the public opinion in the U.S. -- or Britain or France for that matter. Even today, there's still a Stalingrad, in the Paris metro...
I don't think it's actually true. Hitler had two major causes: eradication of Jews and eradication of Slavic people, and none of them were rooted in rational economics.
He of course wanted to eradicate the Jews because he believed they were the cause of much of evil in the world - hard to find much rationality there. For the Slavs, it's a bit more complicated. Hitler was hugely fond of and inspired by America's colonization of the West (which required extermination of Native Americans to make room for settlers) and wanted to repeat that in Eastern Europe - murder all the Poles, Ukrainians, Bellariusians and Russians in the territories that he manages to conquest, raze all cities to the ground (hard to find economic justification for that) and then move German settlers in their place. The goal was to make Germany large and powerful enough that it could later tackle America. The joke here was that his thinking was largely antiquated at this point - in the XX century a country's military power was determined by its industrial capabilities, and not population/territory. So again, the entire genocide was motivated by one man's delusional view of the world, and not rational thinking.
Eastern lands were important for them for other reasons - they had they own "idyllic" vision of them. High officials and officers were promised as an compensation for being sent to dreaded Eastern Front a large plot of land and Poles/Ukrainians as slaves. Eastern Poland and Ukraine are among most fertile agricultural lands in Europe.
At that times agriculture looked completely different and being feudal lord was considered prestigious. Nowadays one can grow (or rather produce) food in tiny greenhouses in overcrowded Netherlands.
What Hitler wanted is basically getting a huge slab of agricultural land. But as we all know, in second half of XX century both fertility and agriculture prices fell sharply, so even if he was ultimately successful Germany will have neither people to populate these territories nor economical reason to do so. The settlers will probably be leaving the area en masse towards "mainland Germany" creating "human deserts" of depopulation while being a drag economically. Even now it happens in these territories (Poland, Baltics, Ukraine) as people move west for better life.
Perceived excessive reparations for World War 1 were one of the grievances used by the Nazi party to gain power. It was possibly a good idea not to repeat those circumstances.
One more point on the reparations. In general,
any harm done can only be forgiven when the culprit makes a genuine attempt at redeeming it. In case of Germany, there was relatively little of such attempts (some slave labor by german POWs and loss of some territory to Poland). It does not make up for the crimes committed, and thus Polish people have not truly forgiven Germans. In fact, I have friends who fantasize about Poland becoming an economic superpower and then taking out a revenge on Germany. It's truly terrible that this vicious circle was not stopped by an attempt at redemption/reparations back in the forties.
Yep I totally agree. The reparations wouldn't need to excessive - let's say Germany would pay 2-4% of their GDP every year to the victims until all damage they caused was repaired. That would probably take hundreds of years, but would be very bearable for the Germany and also pretty fair.
How would you even define these damages? I understand property damages, those are easy enough to calculate.
But you're talking about money/financial compensation for - in my world - invaluable things (grief, trauma, loss of life).
Judges have a hard time coming up with these on a much smaller scale and expectations for compensation vary wildly (my impression is that you can get a loooot of money in the US while the amounts would be a magnitude or two lower in Europe).
I'm not saying that we should forget about everything that happened (and people around me don't as far as I know), but I feel that your suggestion isn't easily done.
- resources robbed during occupation (Poland was heavily deforested for example).
- value of slave labor
- predicted lifetime economic output of people who were killed during the war (this prediciton could be tricky)
There should also be individual payments for people who suffered hardships during the war, such as:
- malnutrition (Germany's central planning had entire Polish population on 700 kcal per day, which wasn't much more than Auschwitz's daily ratio. Luckily, Germans didn't manage to totally control the Polish agrarian economy so, thanks to the black market, we didn't quite starve as quickly as the plan assumed).
- slave labor
- torture
- loss of health
- loss of family members
For the above section, I'd argue for amounts proportional to the standard of living in Poland back in 1939, which wasn't very high (i.e. I wouldn't want modern US-style $10m per head settlements).
The hardest part to estimate are the reparations for murder of political, economical, scientific, social and artistic leaders/talents. I'm really at loss here.
As well as loss of substantial amount of German property to Soviet Union and its satellites. In effect, Poland was shifted left on the map by 200 km or so, and the space and property claimed by U.S.S.R.
Also, lots of industrial capacity of East Germany was moved to U.S.S.R. For instance, my dad's first car was a Moskvich 401, which was effectively the same as the pre-war Opel Kadett K38 whose plans and tooling were transferred to a plant in Moscow.
I have a very nice KMZ Industar 50-2 camera lens which has similar heritage to that car, a Zeiss Tessar design made using plans and tooling moved to Moscow from Germany.
Could we please stop using the term "Nazis" when referring to WWII Germans? A nazi is a member of (Hitler's) NSDAP party, while the war was conducted by GERMANS, not just party members. When you read any texts from say the fourties, no one is speaking of fighting the Nazis - they're fighting the Germans. People who still remember the war also don't ever use term Nazis. It was introduced later to dissociate the German nation from probably the most unimaginable attrocity in human history. Don't fall for the manipulation.