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I've seen that, too. 2 months after obliteration, Berlin is on its way. People are cleaning it up. Removing rubble, people going about their business, ironing the wash, going to the office.
Then I think about Port-au-Prince. 10+ years after an earthquake, and it looks like it happened yesterday.
I look at Detroit. 30 years since The Big Three left. It looks worse than Berlin in 7/45. Weeds, even trees growing on factory roofs. Acre upon acre of bare, bulldozed land. Dirt and filth everywhere.
Who won the war again?
A great testament to the human capacity to pick up the pieces despite utter devastation to rebuild and go forward. And on the flip side social, economic, urban and cultural decay holding various other societies back.
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Originally Posted by msgsing
Ah yes. Berlin in the 30’s. Privilged Christian elites enjoying the good life. Behind the facade the others are being fitted with the yellow badges and readied for the cattle cars and “relocation camps”.
Obviously a terrible pall was cast with the Nazi regime. And the situation worsened once the '36 Olympics was over with. Such as Kristallnacht. One can still appreciate the beauty of Berlin and the neatness and orderliness of the German capital.
Yes of course the atrocities against German women cannot be justified. But the German perception of total war and the absolute destruction and humiliation of the societies they conquered paved the way for the kind of revenge mindset of the Russians who took Berlin.
Mass rape is never "justified". Being as that may Germans and that includes their women knew what was coming from "the East", and at least the men/military knew why; German/Nazi military had done pretty much the same to Russian women/girls so it was going to be pay back time. Hence all those convoys of (mostly) women and children trying to reach the west and or at least American held zones. Not that always made much of a difference.
To put it bluntly it was war time and military both Allied and Axis did what they always have done. While the Russians take much of the heat (deservedly), Germans, British, French, etc... and yes even American military committed acts of rape.
Mass rape is never "justified". Being as that may Germans and that includes their women knew what was coming from "the East", and at least the men/military knew why; German/Nazi military had done pretty much the same to Russian women/girls so it was going to be pay back time. Hence all those convoys of (mostly) women and children trying to reach the west and or at least American held zones. Not that always made much of a difference.
Yes. The people peddling that repugnant notion believe in group guilt.
Some Germans did bad things, therefore all Germans are subject to vengeance. Even the young pre-teen German girls who were raped. Yeah, they bore responsibility for the Third Reich...
I wonder what the Poles did to justify their rapes? Yes, the Red Army committed mass rapes in Poland when they retook territory there. Oh, that's right - there was collaboration in Poland by Poles! That means other Poles deserved to pay for the actions of the collaborationists!
Of course, the whole 'group guilt' thing is routinely used to justify all manner of horrors. The Germans practiced it widely in reprisals. The IRA understood the concept when they bombed civilians. Terrorists certainly understand the concept - thousands of Americans who died on a day in September some 17 years ago were held responsible for actions of the U.S. government in propping up certainly Middle Eastern despots of various stripes.
It's not a matter of feeling sympathy for Germans. It's not even a matter of thinking that there won't necessarily be civilians who suffer and pay the ultimate price during war. It's just a matter of knowing right from wrong.
And some people haven't figured out yet that rape is inherently wrong, always.
Despite the atrocities of Nazi Germany, there was no justification for the mass rape of German women and girls by the invading Red Army troops. It has been estimated up to two million were raped, from girls as young as eight years old to women 80 years old. And deaths connected with the rape of German females estimated at 240,000. Many were repeatedly raped, some up to 60-70 times. At least 100,000 were believed to have been raped in Berlin alone.
Oh boohoo!
Not.
They had it coming. The Russian soldiers knew full well what the Germans had done to their wives and daughters.
Payback is a *****. Someone had to put the Germans in their place and the Russians did.
If the Germans had been raping American women it would have been bayonets instead of candy bars the GIs gave them.
We can both be right. I have no sympathy for the German population suffering in WW2, in fact they are very lucky we didn't develop the A bomb earlier and turn there country into a glass sheet. I would not have shed a tear.
On the other hand, there is a difference to the fire bombing of Dresden to a population that was still at war, to the pillage and rape done by the Soviet union to a population that had surrendered, or for that matter the mass execution by Nazis done to the surrendered population in the rest of Europe. Same distinction can be made vs the A bomb in Japan vs. Japanese atrocities done to an occupied and surrendered population in China. Once the country surrendered, hostilities should end. What Russia did was brutal and unjustified, what Germany did was brutal and unjustified.
Also I am amused that every so often we hear from a person in this forum from Germany, and they ALWAYS claim that "no my grandfather/family never supported the nazis, they were never part of that". Yeah, after the war every German was suddenly an anti-nazi and, like Sgt. Shultz, "I know nothing". Even those that lived a few miles from the extermination camps and had ashes from the furnaces falling on there house like snow flakes. I don't buy it.
Poor OT, he just wanted to show some cool pictures of a pre-war Berlin, and they are cool. Didn't know what he was bringing up.
We can both be right. I have no sympathy for the German population suffering in WW2, in fact they are very lucky we didn't develop the A bomb earlier and turn there country into a glass sheet. I would not have shed a tear.
On the other hand, there is a difference to the fire bombing of Dresden to a population that was still at war, to the pillage and rape done by the Soviet union to a population that had surrendered, or for that matter the mass execution by Nazis done to the surrendered population in the rest of Europe. Same distinction can be made vs the A bomb in Japan vs. Japanese atrocities done to an occupied and surrendered population in China. Once the country surrendered, hostilities should end. What Russia did was brutal and unjustified, what Germany did was brutal and unjustified.
Also I am amused that every so often we hear from a person in this forum from Germany, and they ALWAYS claim that "no my grandfather/family never supported the nazis, they were never part of that". Yeah, after the war every German was suddenly an anti-nazi and, like Sgt. Shultz, "I know nothing". Even those that lived a few miles from the extermination camps and had ashes from the furnaces falling on there house like snow flakes. I don't buy it.
Poor OT, he just wanted to show some cool pictures of a pre-war Berlin, and they are cool. Didn't know what he was bringing up.
You're right about the OP. Although it's likely Nazi propaganda if it's 1936. See how wonderful things are under National Socialism? Just normal life, only better. Like someone else said, meanwhile a few blocks away the Jews were being rounded up..
My own opinion is that the a-bomb was meant for Germany but it surrendered too soon. So Japan got it instead.
There's no question that every German knew what was going on with the Jews. It went on right before their eyes. Of people over 14 years there might have been 5% of them who didn't know exactly what was happening to the Jews. Maybe not in 1941 - 1942. But but by 1943 - 1944, yes.
They had it coming. The Russian soldiers knew full well what the Germans had done to their wives and daughters.
Payback is a *****. Someone had to put the Germans in their place and the Russians did.
If the Germans had been raping American women it would have been bayonets instead of candy bars the GIs gave them.
They were NEVER justified. What justification is there to rape including the rape of children as young as 8 years old and the rape of elderly women? What about an invading enemy taking the higher ground instead? Rape is not justified by ANY party to a conflict.
If the Germans had been raping American women it would have been bayonets instead of candy bars the GIs gave them.
Americans were fairly magnanimous to the Japanese people upon surrender, and this was with the knowledge that Japanese were executing and torturing our prisoners of war. I mean, during the heat of battle it was no quarter on either side, that was understood and it was directed to the Japanese soldier, not the civilians. Once hostilities ended and Japanese was under military occupation, America turned to, not rape and pillaging, but aiding Japan and helping them rebuild.
Interesting alright. Bet that's a summer some Germans would like baked into their memory as "idyllic" (for some). Based on my limited German, listening to the Hitler Jugand or other from Goebbels' offices extol Hitler "und der Reich" was rather...enlightening.
If the colors are real or not, seems well preserved for sure.
Great to see the Reich Chancellory, Brandenburg gate, and a few other structures as they were. Versus the Soviet Hammer and Sickle flying over one of them, fought for every inch, spring 1945.
Guessing half or more those civilians were dead by '45, it was old people and teen boys at the and the end there in Berlin manning barricades with panzerfaust.
The Berlin Zoo footage was sad, as I recall those animals were dead, starving, or running loose by about '45.
Oh, at the last, the SS Changing of the Guard at the Luftwaffe Ministry (under Goering) was pretty trippy, too.
Yeah, "a shame," were it not for that whole Thousand Year Reich thing. Oh, and Waging Aggressive War (Nuremberg Article), Crimes Against Humanity (etc)...
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Yes, the Red Army committed mass rapes in Poland when they retook territory there. Oh, that's right - there was collaboration in Poland by Poles! That means other Poles deserved to pay for the actions of the collaborationists! 
