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There are still many WWI veterans alive, my 90 year old father being one of them, and interest in WWII, including Hitler, continues to grow. It WAS the greatest event of the 20th Century.
Do I need to highlight it more, or does this at long last finally clarify it sufficiently enough for you to grasp?
I'm only even pursuing this so that you will finally get the minor joke, which you would have gotten if you'd gone back to check on what I was referring to, and so others won't think I'm misrepresenting you. If I'd had any idea your reaction would be this dense I would have just ignored it. Good lord.
He ruled by fear and yes i'm still alive, as a kid in the UK i hardly had enough food, and spent my nights huddled in an air raid shelter because of the bombing but my plight was nothing compared to the millions of people who were exterminated by a monster. We should never forget, the saddist thing is that it is still happening today.
Please write about your childhood in war. It is something that needs to be read and remembered. The people in the way are often summarized with a few sentences in history books and deserve recognition.
I didn't mean Hitler should ever be forgotten, but its ironic that it would feed his massive ego that he was. Sadly, those who see the ultimate in cruelty and evil as right don't differenchiate so long as they are noticed. Of all the invaders who terrorized Europe in earlier ages, one of the most remembered is Attila. He just raided and stole and left, unlike those who took territory. But it was his absolute ruthlessness which has rebounded down the centuries. We remember the most cruel for a long time.
When and if I ever do go and get the rest of my history degree, I'd like to concentrate on the practice of genocide, its history, its legacy and its evolution. It's highly possible that isn't going to happen, but in the meanwhile I read and study and wonder if its not something wired within us somehow since its been there from the beginning.
Hitler did one thing nobody had done, made it a cold and industrial process which enabled him to kill many many more as the bodies became 'resources'. It changed the face so it wasn't as it had been. Something about the mass execution of people in a calm, industrial style that somehow had a little extra horror to it.
(and why we won't forget so long as the pictures are around to see.)
To the OP, one thing you should consider is that Germans were really not demonized by US propaganda and as such *a lot* is blamed on HITLER in the US while the Japanese are blamed as......the Japanese.
Why? Well blatant racism of the era coupled with the fact that there are A LOT of germans here in the US, especially states like Wisconsin. (Most Americans couldn't even name guys like Hirohito, Tojo and so forth as Japanese WW2 leaders)
If you want an extremely good example, there were several WW2 era Bugs Bunny cartoons aimed as propaganda. One is titled "BUgs Bunny Nips the Nips". I saw it in my youth but it was banned as incredibly racist (and it is) decades ago in the US.
Here is a huge list of cartoons that are basically not shown anymore, the WW2 ones you have to scroll down for. The cartoons are a REALLY good way of understanding US attitudes from that era.
WELCOME TO THE HISTORICAL PRESERVATION LIBRARY OF BANNED CARTOONS AT www.mostoffensivevideo.com
It has to do with the way Japan acted postwar. Germany acknowledges the Holocaust. They teach their children about it. They took responsibility. Germans today are not blamed for it and shouldn't be.
Japan, on the other hand, does not teach about how Imperial Japan carried out the Rape on Nanking, or tortured and starved and killed its POW's, or their other atorcities. Their memorial to the dead is a respectful one to the fallen Japanese. Not a word about victums. Those who called for it were completely ignored. They lament about the bomb, but what of the children starved and killed by their own hand? Not a word. It's been said, using modern access to documents, that Hirohito was not the puppet he was said to be, and we knew it. But he was the cost of maintaining order with the new Red Menace on the rise.
Vets who survived their POW death camps have requested JUST an acknowledgement, but don't get it. My dad hated Japan and the Japanese to his dying day. Many others did too. The fact that they choose to keep the underlying belief that it wasn't anything that needed to be apologised or recognized since the belief was it was perfectly justified.
I'm sure there are plenty of people back then who wouldn't have minded one bit if Japan was wiped off the map by more atomic bombs, who have not changed their minds at all since Japan hasn't either.
That they haven't changed their minds is all on Japan's plate.
They may not have as a nation, but I've read of several instances where individuals have made apologies for their country and their actions. There was one meet up they filmed in Hawaii between a Navy vet from Pearl Harbor and one of the Japanese. It was very interesting.
Sadly, the opportunities for such meet-ups are not so much anymore.
This seems very reasonable to me at first, but then I think of Stalin. We are not fixated on Stalin, yet he killed probably more people than Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Why is it then, that we are fascinated with one hideous mass murderer, but not his contemporary who was just as evil. Can it really be that what makes the difference is Hitler's rise in a democratic system, whereas as Stalin's rise was through an established dictatorship?
Somehow, I feel that we are missing or overlooking something in this discussion.
Is it simply that Americans and western Europeans have more connexions with those people that Hitler murdered; whereas, Stalin's mass butchery took place largely among his own people in a part of the world more remote from us than Germany? And then, of course, there is some convenient ambivalence about Stalin perhaps....Russia, ruled by him was our ally against the other butcher, does that make it easier/convenient to forget his great evil I wonder.
If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then he gets a coat of whitewash into the bargain? And if this is the case, then it preserves the "unique" evil of the common enemy, because we do not have to reflect on the fact that our friend, who is our enemy's enemy -- and now one of us, also has streams of blood and gore dripping from his hands.
I think the great spectale in which Hitler lived made a great deal of difference. Stalin slipped stelthly into power. He gave speeches, but he didn't stage the displays Hitler did to define his power. In many ways they were very much alike, but it is something you have to be sufficent interested in to read and study it to know.
And Stalin killed in the dark. We never liberated a gulag. We did liberate Dacchu with its seventeen boxcars of decaying bodies by the gate. We never subject Stalin to an international court, but Hitlers executionors were. I don't think it was the people so much as the open knowledge of it.
And while Stalin killed millions, Hitler in his short time of killing did a mind bending concentrated kill. We are drawn to numbers. Later, very soon after the war, Stalin and the 'reds' became the menace but they were behind a wall and we didn't see or hear so much as we did propaganda about their 'co conspirators' here. The focus was different.
Nobody is saying that Stalin was anything but a monster, but how its done and what is seen and the way its told make a great difference to public perception of him as just another bad dictator who liked to kill where Hitler is the flashpoint.
They may not have as a nation, but I've read of several instances where individuals have made apologies for their country and their actions. There was one meet up they filmed in Hawaii between a Navy vet from Pearl Harbor and one of the Japanese. It was very interesting.
Sadly, the opportunities for such meet-ups are not so much anymore.
The movie To End All Wars begins with a meeting of two old men. One was a British POW in a Japanese camp. The other was a young Japanese soldier who witnessed the depravity of his superiors, and could not stop it. The two men met as old men to declare peace. The movie is extraordinary, and should come with a warning the violence is very explicit. Interestingly it was filmed much *more* realistically, but was pulled back because it was too much for 'normal' audiences. But as a true story it showed forgiveness is possible.
The sad thing is the young of Japan don't even know what their grandfathers did. It's not taught. The society has changed and I have to wonder if they dare not now, for in this world perhaps the 'code' would not wash as an excuse. Japan will continue to be held as lacking until they can come to grips with their past, so long as its remembered.
If the Pope can say it was wrong to burn 'witches', centries later, as an ending, why not Japan allow itself some honesy while those who want to hear the words are still alive?
I have someone in my life who did a great wrong to me. I know it will never be changed and can live with that, but would settle for a "yes, it was my fault". Sometimes all you want is something very simple.
I'm glad you know so much about my father. He was born in 1921, and was a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945.
Personally, I too would "dread' one of those "fetus assault divisions"!
Do you know which war your father fought in? Is it WWI or WWII??
This seems very reasonable to me at first, but then I think of Stalin. We are not fixated on Stalin, yet he killed probably more people than Hitler and the Nazi regime.
Why is it then, that we are fascinated with one hideous mass murderer, but not his contemporary who was just as evil. Can it really be that what makes the difference is Hitler's rise in a democratic system, whereas as Stalin's rise was through an established dictatorship?
Somehow, I feel that we are missing or overlooking something in this discussion.
Is it simply that Americans and western Europeans have more connexions with those people that Hitler murdered; whereas, Stalin's mass butchery took place largely among his own people in a part of the world more remote from us than Germany? And then, of course, there is some convenient ambivalence about Stalin perhaps....Russia, ruled by him was our ally against the other butcher, does that make it easier/convenient to forget his great evil I wonder.
If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then he gets a coat of whitewash into the bargain? And if this is the case, then it preserves the "unique" evil of the common enemy, because we do not have to reflect on the fact that our friend, who is our enemy's enemy -- and now one of us, also has streams of blood and gore dripping from his hands.
No, Stalin never killed "as many people" as Hitler did ( all those imagined humangous numbers of supposedly Stalin's victims didn't prove to be true.)
Stalin's Russia has never been the same kind of country as Hitler's Germany, even for the difference in the national character between Russians and Germans. So no consistency or efficiency, no organization German style there, no gas cameras, no shaved hair and yellow stars, no killing through senseless labor in concentration camps, no medical experiments on prisoners of war, no children pushed in "gas wagons" - things that were trademark of Hitler's Germany.
As psychotic and unpredictable as life of Russians was under Stalin, the death toll and methodical cruelty that "enemies of Third Reich" have experienced are far more staggering than crimes committed during Stalin's times.
I wouldn't say I have an "obsession" with Hitler, I have watched those documentary shows
about him. I am curious since my ancestors were both German and Polish. Who knows if some
were Nazis or some were victims in the concentration camps. Born after WWII I am interested
about that part of history.
I also am of Dutch, English and Native American (I used to call myself part Indian, with pride,
but I don't want to offend myself now) ancestry. That mix probably wasn't acceptable in some circles.....
Since many of us have European ancestors it seems natural we may want to know about that part of history.
No, Stalin never killed "as many people" as Hitler did ( all those imagined humangous numbers of supposedly Stalin's victims didn't prove to be true.)
Stalin's Russia has never been the same kind of country as Hitler's Germany, even for the difference in the national character between Russians and Germans. So no consistency or efficiency, no organization German style there, no gas cameras, no shaved hair and yellow stars, no killing through senseless labor in concentration camps, no medical experiments on prisoners of war, no children pushed in "gas wagons" - things that were trademark of Hitler's Germany.
As psychotic and unpredictable as life of Russians was under Stalin, the death toll and methodical cruelty that "enemies of Third Reich" have experienced are far more staggering than crimes committed during Stalin's times.
This is largely a problem of Cold War historiography. Soviet archives dealing with Stalinist repressions were inaccessible, and so historians and publicists often resorted to exaggerations, making up wildly varying figures (20 million? 40 million?? 60 million?!?!?) for deaths under Stalin. Really, it's only since the fall of the USSR that we've started to get some reliable figures; and those are still subject to controversy.
But yeah, none of this should be seen as mitigating Stalin's guilt or viciousness. "Psychotic and unpredictable" is a good way to describe it. I find Stalin comprehensible as a gang boss on a global scale; whereas Hitler was an ideological fanatic par excellence.
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He was born in 1921, and was a staff sergeant in the Army Air Corps from 1942 to 1945.
