[WW] The German Perspective on Shame

[Arne Reuter <reuter@tse-online.de>]

Hi!

Time to rear my head and get some things sorted out ;-).

> I seem to recall a statement from somewhere saying that one of the greatest
> tricks the Nazi's pulled after the war was to instill a feeling of national 
> shame about the war crimes and so forth. This was done deliberately to 
> elude persecution after the war for their horrendous crimes against 
> humanity. The German people rarely wanted to talk or drag out these cases 
> into the public eye due to this feeling of shame.

> But I can't remember where I read this (maybe the Odessa file?) so I can't 
> confirm that. And I have very little historical knowledge.

woah. There might be a small difference between a novelist writing
fascinating books which contain all to often illuminati-like
world-spanning intrigue and historical reality.

Just for the sake of simplicity, let us group the NS-era Germans into
four groups:

1. The ideologists - Hitler and his minions, actually (?) believing in
what they said and did.

2. The opportunists - those hoping to gain personal power/wealth from
following the main-stream (this must have been quite a large group).

3. The masses in fear - after the NS movement had picked momentum it
was hard to speak out against official lines - loss of property or
life was to often an occurrence. The GeStaPo made sure of that. Those
are the ones that claim "to just have followed orders" correctly.

4. The resistance - a choice few openly (or secretly) opposing the
regime at risk of their own life (Society of the White Rose (students
in Munich), Oskar Schindler, von Stauffenberg an others).

Of course one has to assume, that a few of group 1 or 2 eluded
justice. But in all, allied occupation made sure, that Germany
developed a very strong democracy (the Marshall-Plan btw, made sure
the emotional "hangover", that had followed WW I did not occur this
time). The critical discussion of the Third Reich is deeply anchored
in all school history "teaching plans" (for lack of a better wording).

Today the new generation of Germans mostly does not react with shame,
because they don't feel responsible directly for what their
forefathers did. We (or i at least ;-)), do feel responsible for not
letting this occur again. And from this sensibility originates the
large part neo-nazi-discussion gets in Germany itself.

In my opinion, the actual power of Neo-Nazis is negligible (as a
political power - as criminal/terrorist organization they of course
have to be pursued).

To draw the arc back to the original question - no, this novelist idea
has nothing to do with reality. The crimes against humanity by all
means have been committed. But the shame is nothing such artificial.
Its in my eyes the natural consequence of the events (I'd hate it, if
it were not - we'd be beasts a lot of people portray the Nazi Germans
as). In todays world politics Germany needs to adopt a mature stance
as befits our history - in the sense that we ourselves need to be the
ones to remind the world of the horrors of the past and act from there
on.

Regards,

Arne Reuter

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