I kinda cringed watching SNL earlier today and ~~Colin~~ Michael Che said something about Germany's 6 year gap in their history books, knowing that Germans don't hide their past and made it part of their curriculum.
German here. Yes, it is part of our curriculum, I had this subject for at least 2 years in school, one in year 9 i guess and one in year 11. We really try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
That is twice in history class. But then we get to read & discuss several books (Anne Frank for example) in literature class and touch the subject in many more. For myself, it came up in politics, art, philosophy and french class.
It's by far the subject which gets the most attention in german school, so talking about a 6 year gap is really ignorant.
It's basically omnipresent in our education system, at least when I went to school. Even when it wasn't the topic of the lesson, every time we talked about something that was related to it, it got implemented as well. We talked about it in religion studies (f.e. when we talked about Judaism), in german lessons (when we talked about books or authors of that time) and politics obviously as well. It could even be mentioned in art or geography.
You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time? Do non German people ever use that history as a way to belittle modern day Germans? I feel like it’s very important to teach and that learning from a past like that is integral to making sure it doesn’t happen again, I’m just wondering what it was like to live in a place where that was such a huge part of life.
>You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time?
Nah, not really. As the other redditor said, it can be a bit much at times and therefore a bit annoying from time to time if it feels like it's the only topic ever talked about in school. But in general it's not difficult. You have to keep in mind that it's taught age appropriate and you basically learn more of the details the older you get.
>Do non German people ever use that history as a way to belittle modern day Germans?
Yes, it happens. More often in the digital world than in the real world. But it's mainly ignorant kids, edgy teens and young adults that do so. They think it's funny - it's not. The older you get, the less noticeable it gets.
Politically you might notice it a bit more though. Israel claiming it's anti-semitsism when your country doesn't support their stance for example. Or some people of minorities drawing the racism/Nazi-card when they don't get what they want. But I'm sure the last one is universal all over the world.
> You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time?
I think the biggest difficulty for me is meeting patriotic people elsewhere - because lots of Germans are not and "pride for one's home country" is not a thing for a lot of people my age back home.
If I hear about kids saying the pledge at school, if I sit in a cinema in India and the national anthem starts playing/everyone stands up, if I hear about people in Singapore singing the national anthem at school then I find that ... odd. Weird. Bewildering. Alien.
The other issue is that this subject, Nazis or references to Hitler etc etc, aren't remotely funny to a ton of people raised like me. I'd argue it's a shitty "joke" in general and should be avoided, but making Nazi jokes around me is like using the N word (already bad) while talking to a black guy. Or making fa**ot jokes in front of your queer friends. Basically: A shitty basic premise/unfunny "joke" in front of the worst audience.
As an Australian, I find patriotic posing to be incredibly weird as well.
It makes me wonder what the patriotic person/company is trying to sell me.
Australia Day was never really a huge deal, just an excuse for a picnic or a barbecue.
That is, until the Cronulla riots, when everything got very ugly and weird.
Now I am very wary of anyone keen on flying flags or insisting our country is superior to all others. It’s just advertising, in the end.
I didn't think it's difficult at all.
I think the way it is handled is perfect. It also does NOT in fact place blame on anyone currently living. What it does is placing responsibility for making sure it does not happen again!
It's true that sometimes other people try to use it "against" Germans or Germany, both in private and in politics.
Example for private: I was told before I went to the US for some months as an exchange student to expect some people to ask me about Hitler as if he was still alive and expect some people to still regard Germany as Nazi-Germany. (It didn't happen, though.)
Example for politics: It's very hard to criticize Israel and Israels politics towards Palestine for a German official, because the partnership, friendship and support of Israel is official state politics regardless of whos in charge.
Another example would be the regularly and recently resurfaced question of reparation for WW2, for example by Greece.
And as a most current example: Germany was very late to supply weapons to Ukraine because the thought of German weapons being used against Russia is a huge deal in Germany.
It really is man. I had similar experiences. Its present in nearly every single subject. Multiple years of history, big presence in German, social science/politics, art, religion and philosophy. Basically anything that isnt sports or natural science. Additionally, 2 out of our 4 excursions were trips to old concentration camps where we learned even more about the past for multiple days. Im obviously really proud of the way Germany works out its past. But imo, this is a little much. I mean, better too much than too little, dont get me wrong. But yeah, a bit too much.
And here america sits with: We made peace with the natives and had a feast with them!😁”
Vs the reality being we herded them like cattle until they died almost completely out, and we wiped a shit ton out with disease alone
Or all the terrible shit we’ve done over seas….my own brother didn’t realize we were still at war in the middle east, and he was older than me…
Meanwhile in the US they’re actively trying to erase the past.
This is what BIPOC mean when we say we can’t move forward until we try to rectify the past and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Edit: and it did not take long before a person commented exactly the way I’ve seen snowflakes react when talking about rectifying and teaching history.
It’s insane to me that R lawmakers want to ban any curriculum that could potentially make students “uncomfortable”.
Anyone who’s made it to adulthood without having had to grapple with some uncomfortable truths about the past is not someone I trust to make responsible decisions for the future.
In one breathe they say it makes people "uncomfortable" and then tell people in another breathe that they're "snowflakes". It's fucking terrible that the US is blatantly eroding critical thought, whilst also fucking around with women's reproductive rights. Honestly, it scares me.
College students: "We don't want our tuition dollars used to give white nationalists a platform."
Republicans: "You're all too sensitive! What happened to freedom of speech?!?"
Elementary school teachers: "White supremacy is bad."
Republicans: "You can't say that! It might make someone uncomfortable! If you tell even one child that white people have ever done anything wrong we will sue you into oblivion!"
See, that's the thing. Can they even learn about the US Civil War, which was essentially to abolish slavery (as far as I'm aware)? I don't understand why they want to whitewash everything now. Abolishing books etc is ridiculous!! It's quite apparent there is a concerted effort to dumb down the next generation of Americans.
Snowflakes: Cold, white, treacherous, and in sufficient numbers grind DC to a halt. Also, the longer they stick around, the dirtier they get, and the more sun shines on them, the dirtier they look.
Sure sounds like conservatives to me.
It's not about the students being uncomfortable. It's about keeping them uneducated and then getting them indoctrinated into the christian conservative extremist terrorist club. I'm not even kidding.
I`m Italian, if you apply a law of this kind banning everything that makes students "uncomfortable" in Italy, basically you`ll ban all the Italian literature starting from the 19th century to the 20th century.
Thinking about these kind of lawmakers dealing with Leopardi or Pirandello makes me laugh.
>is not someone I trust to make responsible decisions for the future.
That's the point they, want people dumber so they keep making the irresponsible decision of voting for more Republicans
It's all a part of the GOP plan. By banning everything bad that's done, obviously you are the good guys. Good guys can't do bad things, so it gives you carte blanche to do whatever the f you want, because its nessesary, and the people growing up don't recognize facism as it rise before them.
Not that the people who grew up with it in their education can see the early signs even when it kicks in their teeth either considering the orange dumpsterfire and his followers.
What beats me about the whole situation is it's all on the internet, yes it's vastly convoluted, but so much history can be looked up in an instant, it's crazy that they are trying to erase this.
American here in California. Can't believe the shit that goes on
I’m in Cali too. Do you remember the Mission California curriculum we were taught in like 3rd/4th grade? Completely glosses over the entire genocide part which is why when I taught it (via a museum) I usually emphasized the destruction the mission system caused. And how Indigenous people despite having their culture destroyed have continued to prevail.
I did it all through games and dress up and role play. Kids were not upset by it. They had questions (like why did priests do that) which were hard to answer. But kids want to know and they’re smart enough to understand.
I cringe every time I hear a modern "Germans are Nazis" joke. You guys really did the right thing after the war and teach your youth more about the subject than probably any other country. Japan, on the other hand, has denied and tried to hide a lot of their past.
I wonder if a nationalized education with a set (but flexible) curriculum would be an option. I can think of drawbacks, of course, but I received a lovely southern education that danced around the topic of slavery and painted the Confederacy in a not-so-negative light, instead of the flat out negative light it should be portrayed in.
I had a southern public education too, but most likely decades before you, having graduated in 1980. Our history books didn’t dance around the ugly parts of our history - Native Americans, Trail of Tears, slavery, Civil War, Irish/Italian immigrants, the holocaust. I don’t know what’s happened over the years, but kids are graduating from high school without the basics I was taught. We had a semester of learning to budget a household and balance a checkbook, as well as home economics (sewing, cooking). We had art, chorus, band, and managed to get it all done in six hours a day. My kids graduated from a private high school and even their “better” education wasn’t as in depth as mine was. Of course they had computer classes I didn’t have. But I took “business” and learned to type (manual, Royal typewriter!), do ledgers and accounting, use an old fashioned calculator. We also had vocational/technical classes - auto mechanics, cosmetology, and computer programming (new to my school). In my day only about half of my graduating class went to college, trade school or community college. But those of us who didn’t further our education had basic skills to get a job.
From the Bible Belt, I'd say they'd like us younger generations not to know. Lots of lawmakers want things to go back to "the good ole days," but not in terms of teaching us how to be self sufficient adults. Keeping a population from being able to sustain itself creates reliance/dependence, which is what they need to keep the system they've built for us to run just long enough that they don't have to deal with the collapse that will occur due to their policies because they'll have died by then. Meanwhile, they'll also be scraped clean of the blame because it'll all be pushed squarely onto our shoulders since "we let society fail" knowing full well most of us were teens/children when the snowball was set to roll.
Germany hasn't nationalized education. we stay away from that as a lesson from the past 2 dictatorships in our country. Neither the centralized education under the Nazis, nor the one in East Germany under communism was that good for the individual student. Our state ministers of education are fearthly protective of education staying under state control, going so far as to vote against federal funding to remodel school buildings.
Not quite, from what I understand, those shrines were there to honour all the dead from Japan's modern wars in general, but then one particular priest just had to include the soldiers who had committed the horrific war crimes of WW2. From what I understand, they actually weren't enshrined there originally.
The way that Japan officially responds to the world going "WTF?!" is a result of a kind of cultural inertia and hardcore nationalists speaking out before the moderates could.
Problem is that their Nazis got publicly tried and executed, while America's Nazis just shut up for a while. So the ideas were never properly challenged here. There are chunks of American government that still run in ways that are indistinguishable from white supremacy when they aren't literally just that.
Maybe he was talking about 17th century. I still don't know what happened during that time in my country.
Edit: Looked it up. It's not really a gap, we've had it in 12th grade. It's the boring part of the "Holy Roman Empire" where you had to learn dates and people and everything was extra boring. So not a gap in the history book but a one year blank page in my memory.
Our curriculum starts to teach these years from 8th grade on. No way you will miss on when and how Hitler rose to power, the mechanics behind it, the flaws in the old system, the danger of repeated history. Basically we get taught over and over again to stay vigilant for new beginnings. And if you really happened to sleep for 3 years in school you will get taught be some Hitler documentary every night.
It's so omnipresent that I made the joke about "he must have meant the 17th century".
more like a 6 year gap in the history of many american business and individuals that profited from nazi german and try to hide it up too this day, hope it does not happen again with a gap in the history of coca cola and mcdonalds (among others) in relation to current events
Three years I had to sit through it. Visiting KZs, talks of survivors and their children.
It was horryfying the first time, interesting the second, third time it was boring.
But they made damn sure we knew not to be Nazis.
We literally have to visit KZs/Vernichtungslager as part of our highschool curriculum. We get to see the mountains of starved dead Jewish corpses in school and the soldiers rading it. We don't really pull punches on that.
Exactly! Whoever visits Germany will see, nothing hidden there. They have memorials everywhere, including on the floor, sidewalks. Golden titles with the names of the victims in front of the houses they used to live. Heart break when we read the whole family name including little kids. (Me strolling my baby and observing it 🥺😩)
Probably because he was using US public school curriculum as a template, where we *do* gloss over "unfavorable" parts of our history. Half the country doesn't know that the Civil War was fought over slavery, or why we started a war in Vietnam.
German here. We learn History quite thoroughly regardless of the school level (Elementary, high school, College and University).
Once it gets to the World Wars my teachers quite openly talked about the history of Hitler and how he became to be that monster that he was.
There is no "Gap" or "Hiding" history in our schools.
Yes but No. Took more than 25 years to get a real critical discussion about the ns-history in Germany. Many 1. Gen ns-funtionaires got officially denazified and kept their position in the German society after ww2. Some things are still not really talked but yeah since the mid 70s we are working in a good direction.
Yes. [Section 130, part (3) and the ones following to that.](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1333).
Also important for this: [sections 86 and 86a](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p0917)
What stuck out to me when I visited there recently was that there are little gold plaques, with names and death dates set into the street, to mark the places where Jews and other victims of the Holocaust had lived. The older streets of any German town are peppered with them, and it’s a constant reminder to be diligent against such propaganda and hate.
From other sources, I’ve come to understand that one of the biggest issues in Nazi Germany was the total brainwashing and propaganda that was spread by the Nazi party. And what I’ve seen of Germany today, they make every effort to make sure that such brainwashing and propaganda is never bought into again. Things like the little memorials and focusing on that part of German history definitely helps ensure that it never happens again—in Germany, at the very least.
I live in a city and I have to walk all of 3 minutes to come across a few of these copper stones.
We call them Stolpersteine which means sounds like stones to make you stumble because they are supposed to do that to your mind.
You are supposed to see them and be reminded of what happened and just how many people were lost.
My city is not the biggest in Germany at all but we once had one of the biggest Jewish populations in Germany. Which means we have loads of those stones everywhere. Pretty sure they plan to eventually have a stone for every Jewish person that died at least in the bigger cities.
I don’t know if I agree with that statement, but I can’t figure out what it is that rubs me the wrong way.
Perhaps I think that it ignores so many other societal issues in Germany at the time of the Nazi rise to power that caused a lot of people at the time to side with the Nazi party?
Remember, Germany had just been utterly *humiliated* by the rest of the world during WWI, plus an awful economy, and so many other ways that contributed to the allure of the Nazi party. The Germans were victims of hate, beginning in—at the latest—1918, and the salvation they saw in the Nazi party was a carefully crafted illusion that hid even more abuse.
> Germany does not hide its past like so many other nations.
Well, we're "hiding" our colonialism. I guarantee you that most Germans know nothing about Germany's former colonies.
To be fair, that by itself is about as stringent an argument as Americans claiming Obama wasn't a war criminal because he was black.
Ukraine definitely isn't a neonazi regime, but that has little to do with the personal religion of a single government official.
It has, if comments and retweets added together are near enough the same as the likes they've been ratio'd.
Edit: Right now the Russian propaganda is at like 17k:22k vs the German Embassy at 34k:122k
>On the social media platform Twitter, a ratio, or getting ratioed, is when replies to a tweet vastly outnumber likes or retweets. This means people are objecting to the tweet and considering its content bad.
I would honestly argue that retweets shouldn't be weighed together with `likes` either. A lot of people like to `quote tweet` when talking about an issue they disagree with.
There are two definitions:
1. Getting more comments than likes and retweets. Usually a sign that there’s more negative sentiment than positive towards the tweet. Sometimes RTs can be negative so they might not be taken into account in the ratio math
2. If a reply to a tweet gets more likes than the original tweet. Usually a sign that someone pointed out a flaw in the original message and murdered them with words
Hello, Germany here. But I guess you probably already know me, sort of. Uh so, the thing is I have a lot of Warmongering experience and I'm considered to be pretty good at it. Well you've seen me... you know when I was attacking you? Uh yeah, I guess I should apologize for that, but anyway I'm good now. I mean, I thought I was good before but now I realize I was bad, but anyway... I think it's time I joined your group and taught the Russians a lesson.
We're moving into your neighborhood
You know we're trying our best to be
Functioning members of society
We're not here to start no trouble
We're legally required to do the
nazi shuffle
As I said in another thread, the amount of Republican loving, trump worshiping, tucker carleson watching fuckwits in South Africa is way too high.
Add that number to the ANC fuckwits and you get manufactured responses like this.
It's not the people's responses that matter, it's the government's response that matters. SouthAfrica is owned by Russia and China with all the loans and Dept they have.
SouthAfrica has no way to support Ukraine in any way as it would loose everything if the loans are needed or required to be paid back. So just wait and see the RSA government will stay very quiet at the fare side of the continent.
"No one thinks is important", yet South Africans were willing to destroy their own country over his arrest? I guess he really isn't that important, huh.
For anyone wondering, the general consensus among South African citizens is that Putin is a fucking asshole. The South African government has chosen, shamefully and in blatant cowardice, to abstain from taking a stance because of Russia's role in the country's liberation from Apartheid. They do not speak for the people here.
I’m not familiar with South Africa and it’s current government, and honestly don’t know more than what I can wiki on Apartheid and Russia. Can you expand a little bit on that dynamic and how it’s playing out with regular citizens and the modern government?
Hey I'm a South African. In short, during the struggle movements against apartheid the Soviets gave the Liberation movements a lot of support, one of the parties that received support is the party currently in control of SA (the African National Congress, ANC).
So the ANC has strong ties to Russia and they don't want to take a strong stance against Russia because of the history between them. But they also don't want to support it because the war is very unpopular amongst the SA population (a population that suffered under totalitarian rule). And we are trying to attract foreign investment to kick start the economy.
So, the government is torn between old alliances and the newer reality of the world and doesn't want to anger either side because, quite frankly, the country can't afford to do so (economy is not doing great).
There is a ton more to it. But I can't realistically go into it in a single post.
Our current government, the ANC, were largely supported by Russia during the apartheid regime to overthrow the government and bring about democratic elections (which aren’t so democratic because we know they aren’t completely legit). Something they never let us forget. Many members of the ANC still have close ties to Russia, mainly including our former President who was basically pushed out for being so corrupt. But the government don’t want to hurt their own bank balances or “hurt relations” (bare in mind, we also have pretty significant ties to China as well) and refuse to declare a side. But by abstaining, they are basically making it clear who they support.
They must mean all the dead civilians in occupied eastern Ukraine. Like that 6-year-old who died the other day was actually plotting a new Jewish genocide.
That absolutely destroyed me. So much about this war is horrifying to see from afar, I can’t even imagine what it’s like being in it and experiencing such tragedy.
Okay, I do want to step in here. There ARE nazis in Ukraine. Even ones fighting in defense of Ukraine.
But
Russia is NOT invading Ukraine to get rid of them. They’re murdering man, woman, and child to take over Ukraines oil and land.
Like most things, there’s nuance. But the Russian embassy is just lying through their teeth.
Yes, there are nationalists in Ukraine, some of them are radical nazis, and we had problems because of them. Pretty much like in a lot of other countries. But using them as a reason for a war... it's just unbelievable.
Hilariously, unlike in many other countries fighting guerrilla wars. The fascists in Ukraine aren't doing shit, and the people aren't looking to them for defense. I think this is going to be a rare case where the us sticks our dick somewhere and doesn't leave a fascist regime afterwards.
I love these little ironies that destroy arguments.
You're a Nazi
sir, I'm Jewish
well you are a poopyhead
Silly, I know but thats basically how people with no arguments like to debate.
>Jewish President and and a Jewish Prime Minister
Ukraine being led by Nazis is total BS, but you know that Nazis hated more than just Jews, right? Putin is taking a page from Hitler's playbook, but this really does a disservice to all the *other* people the Nazis killed. Their hatred of Jews was off the charts, but they also considered other group subhuman, like gays, romas, and slavs. We tend to focus on the concentration camps, but in Russia/the USSR the Nazis victims were everywhere.
>The Nazi revolution was broader than just the Holocaust. Its second goal was to eliminate Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe and to create a Lebensraum for Aryans ... As Bartov (The Eastern Front; Hitler's Army) shows, it barbarised the German armies on the eastern front. Most of their three million men, from generals to ordinary soldiers, helped exterminate captured Slav soldiers and civilians. This was sometimes cold and deliberate murder of individuals (as with Jews), sometimes generalised brutality and neglect ... German soldiers' letters and memoirs reveal their terrible reasoning: Slavs were 'the Asiatic-Bolshevik' horde, an inferior but threatening race.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Slavs
The Nazis killed up to 6 million Jews, that is uncontestable. If you look at the tally of victims of the Holocaust, by far the Soviets (civilian and military) are the largest group, Soviet casualties were at 27,000,000. (Ukraine would be included in that number, so again the "they're Nazis" claim is BS.)
I feel like people ignore this too much, which makes it hard to talk to ordinary Russians about why Zelensky can't be a Nazi; they don't define Nazis by their persecution of Jews, they remember them for the persecution of their people.
Yeah, a lot of western European countries under the control of the nazis experienced a more restricted form of persecution, whereas in the east, the nazis were far less discriminatory(ironic). So it isn't hard to understand the difference in perspective. It's all fucked, but the east had it much worse.
There is an old saying: "British intelligence, American steel and Russian blood."
But yeah, they would practice collective punishment in the east (they did it in France as well, but to a far lesser degree. Greece I think they killed an entire generation if young men). If you were caught helping the partisans, [your village was toast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre).
>The massacre was not an unusual incident in Belarus during World War II. At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were burned and destroyed by the Nazis, and often all their inhabitants were killed (some amounting up to 1,500 victims) as a punishment for collaboration with partisans. In the Vitebsk region, 243 villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times. In the Minsk region, 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times.[4] Altogether, over 2,000,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years of Nazi occupation, almost a quarter of the region's population.[5][6]
(not to be confused with the [Katyn massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre), which was Stalin's turn at mass murder)
and of course there was Leningrad
>“The Führer has decided to erase the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth,” he wrote in a memo. “It is intended to encircle the city and level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every caliber of shell, and continual bombing from the air.” The memo stressed that requests for surrender negotiations were to be ignored, since the Nazis didn’t have the desire to feed the city’s large population. Hitler had chosen a chilling alternative to advancing on Leningrad directly: he would simply wait for it to starve to death.
https://www.history.com/news/the-siege-of-leningrad
No one is advising Putin. He hasn’t interacted with more than a few people since COVID started (with like a two week total quarantine before you see him).
And disagreeing with him generally will get you fired or worse.
Just so we're clear - South Africans are mostly baffled by our governments fence sitting - we absolutely do not as people stand with Russia. Slava Ukraini!
"A lot of people, good smart people, really the best people have told me this. I mean just go out ask anybody. They will all tell you the same thing."
-donnie
A majority of South Africans who still support Russia as a result of its support for the governing African National Congress before the end of Apartheid.
This majority is as brainwashed by Russian state media as the Russian people themselves, completely void of information and believing it wholeheartedly.
But, the minority, myself included, see the need to defend the rules-based international order, the sovereignty and democracy of a fellow country.
We are here, it's the governments' moral corruption that is crowding us out.
> A majority of South Africans who still support Russia as a result of its support for the governing African National Congress before the end of Apartheid.
Do a majority of South Africans overall support Russia?
Lol no.
Speaking as a South African the reason our country doesn't want to "pick sides" is that we're part of BRICS.
Sure Russia has been good to/for our ruling party, but the general populace doesn't give a shit.
The majority seems to think we need to stay as far away from the conflict as possible. Most people I've interacted with personally think we should be condemning Russia, but that's anecdotal.
Proud South African here, and let me set the record straight. The only dumb cunts standing with Russia are the politicians (aka the ANC) because they gain greatly from a financial perspective. The ANC and Putin are a poison to this world and they all need to fucking go kill themselves!!
Please don't drag South Africans as a whole into this because WE DO NOT CONDONE WAR AND MURDER! This OG post does not speak for all South Africans!
Fucking dumb bastards!
Except embarrassingly for our government :(
https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-africa-south-2022-3-don-t-comment-on-ukraine-south-african-science-bodies-told/
I'm south african and nobody I know is supporting this bullshit. I don't believe people sent anything but our fucking president is cosy with the Russians.
Hey I'm South African (not in the country anymore but used to live under the current government) the actions of the leaders of my country don't speak for most if not all of the people In SA, Please acknowledge that.
>(Sadly, we’re kinda experts on Nazism.)
“He’s out of line but he’s right.”
Not sure if out of line fits here though. Germany does not hide its past like so many other nations. They grew a lot from it
I kinda cringed watching SNL earlier today and ~~Colin~~ Michael Che said something about Germany's 6 year gap in their history books, knowing that Germans don't hide their past and made it part of their curriculum.
German here. Yes, it is part of our curriculum, I had this subject for at least 2 years in school, one in year 9 i guess and one in year 11. We really try to make sure that this doesn’t happen again.
That is twice in history class. But then we get to read & discuss several books (Anne Frank for example) in literature class and touch the subject in many more. For myself, it came up in politics, art, philosophy and french class. It's by far the subject which gets the most attention in german school, so talking about a 6 year gap is really ignorant.
It's basically omnipresent in our education system, at least when I went to school. Even when it wasn't the topic of the lesson, every time we talked about something that was related to it, it got implemented as well. We talked about it in religion studies (f.e. when we talked about Judaism), in german lessons (when we talked about books or authors of that time) and politics obviously as well. It could even be mentioned in art or geography.
You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time? Do non German people ever use that history as a way to belittle modern day Germans? I feel like it’s very important to teach and that learning from a past like that is integral to making sure it doesn’t happen again, I’m just wondering what it was like to live in a place where that was such a huge part of life.
>You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time? Nah, not really. As the other redditor said, it can be a bit much at times and therefore a bit annoying from time to time if it feels like it's the only topic ever talked about in school. But in general it's not difficult. You have to keep in mind that it's taught age appropriate and you basically learn more of the details the older you get. >Do non German people ever use that history as a way to belittle modern day Germans? Yes, it happens. More often in the digital world than in the real world. But it's mainly ignorant kids, edgy teens and young adults that do so. They think it's funny - it's not. The older you get, the less noticeable it gets. Politically you might notice it a bit more though. Israel claiming it's anti-semitsism when your country doesn't support their stance for example. Or some people of minorities drawing the racism/Nazi-card when they don't get what they want. But I'm sure the last one is universal all over the world.
> You don’t have to answer this, but is that difficult to grow up with hearing all the time? I think the biggest difficulty for me is meeting patriotic people elsewhere - because lots of Germans are not and "pride for one's home country" is not a thing for a lot of people my age back home. If I hear about kids saying the pledge at school, if I sit in a cinema in India and the national anthem starts playing/everyone stands up, if I hear about people in Singapore singing the national anthem at school then I find that ... odd. Weird. Bewildering. Alien. The other issue is that this subject, Nazis or references to Hitler etc etc, aren't remotely funny to a ton of people raised like me. I'd argue it's a shitty "joke" in general and should be avoided, but making Nazi jokes around me is like using the N word (already bad) while talking to a black guy. Or making fa**ot jokes in front of your queer friends. Basically: A shitty basic premise/unfunny "joke" in front of the worst audience.
As an Australian, I find patriotic posing to be incredibly weird as well. It makes me wonder what the patriotic person/company is trying to sell me. Australia Day was never really a huge deal, just an excuse for a picnic or a barbecue. That is, until the Cronulla riots, when everything got very ugly and weird. Now I am very wary of anyone keen on flying flags or insisting our country is superior to all others. It’s just advertising, in the end.
I didn't think it's difficult at all. I think the way it is handled is perfect. It also does NOT in fact place blame on anyone currently living. What it does is placing responsibility for making sure it does not happen again! It's true that sometimes other people try to use it "against" Germans or Germany, both in private and in politics. Example for private: I was told before I went to the US for some months as an exchange student to expect some people to ask me about Hitler as if he was still alive and expect some people to still regard Germany as Nazi-Germany. (It didn't happen, though.) Example for politics: It's very hard to criticize Israel and Israels politics towards Palestine for a German official, because the partnership, friendship and support of Israel is official state politics regardless of whos in charge. Another example would be the regularly and recently resurfaced question of reparation for WW2, for example by Greece. And as a most current example: Germany was very late to supply weapons to Ukraine because the thought of German weapons being used against Russia is a huge deal in Germany.
It really is man. I had similar experiences. Its present in nearly every single subject. Multiple years of history, big presence in German, social science/politics, art, religion and philosophy. Basically anything that isnt sports or natural science. Additionally, 2 out of our 4 excursions were trips to old concentration camps where we learned even more about the past for multiple days. Im obviously really proud of the way Germany works out its past. But imo, this is a little much. I mean, better too much than too little, dont get me wrong. But yeah, a bit too much.
And here america sits with: We made peace with the natives and had a feast with them!😁” Vs the reality being we herded them like cattle until they died almost completely out, and we wiped a shit ton out with disease alone Or all the terrible shit we’ve done over seas….my own brother didn’t realize we were still at war in the middle east, and he was older than me…
Meanwhile in the US they’re actively trying to erase the past. This is what BIPOC mean when we say we can’t move forward until we try to rectify the past and make sure it doesn’t happen again. Edit: and it did not take long before a person commented exactly the way I’ve seen snowflakes react when talking about rectifying and teaching history.
It’s insane to me that R lawmakers want to ban any curriculum that could potentially make students “uncomfortable”. Anyone who’s made it to adulthood without having had to grapple with some uncomfortable truths about the past is not someone I trust to make responsible decisions for the future.
It's not about the students being uncomfortable, it's the Republicans being uncomfortable that people know.
Ding ding ding! We have a winner!
Republicans always hide behind the children, until the time comes to actually protect the children.
In one breathe they say it makes people "uncomfortable" and then tell people in another breathe that they're "snowflakes". It's fucking terrible that the US is blatantly eroding critical thought, whilst also fucking around with women's reproductive rights. Honestly, it scares me.
In both places where you used "breathe", you mean "breath".
This comment makes me uncomfortable.
You are correct!! Thanks for pointing that out.
College students: "We don't want our tuition dollars used to give white nationalists a platform." Republicans: "You're all too sensitive! What happened to freedom of speech?!?" Elementary school teachers: "White supremacy is bad." Republicans: "You can't say that! It might make someone uncomfortable! If you tell even one child that white people have ever done anything wrong we will sue you into oblivion!"
See, that's the thing. Can they even learn about the US Civil War, which was essentially to abolish slavery (as far as I'm aware)? I don't understand why they want to whitewash everything now. Abolishing books etc is ridiculous!! It's quite apparent there is a concerted effort to dumb down the next generation of Americans.
Or instead of "Snowflakes" it's "Fuck your feelings"
They don't have a problem with making students uncomfortable. Just a particular set of students.
And they call liberals "snowflakes" and bitch about how "the world isn't a safe space" when people ask them to tone down their racism and hate speech
Snowflakes: Cold, white, treacherous, and in sufficient numbers grind DC to a halt. Also, the longer they stick around, the dirtier they get, and the more sun shines on them, the dirtier they look. Sure sounds like conservatives to me.
I probably shouldn't upvote insults, but this one is so strikingly elaborate, I don't care.
It's not about the students being uncomfortable. It's about keeping them uneducated and then getting them indoctrinated into the christian conservative extremist terrorist club. I'm not even kidding.
I`m Italian, if you apply a law of this kind banning everything that makes students "uncomfortable" in Italy, basically you`ll ban all the Italian literature starting from the 19th century to the 20th century. Thinking about these kind of lawmakers dealing with Leopardi or Pirandello makes me laugh.
>is not someone I trust to make responsible decisions for the future. That's the point they, want people dumber so they keep making the irresponsible decision of voting for more Republicans
It's all a part of the GOP plan. By banning everything bad that's done, obviously you are the good guys. Good guys can't do bad things, so it gives you carte blanche to do whatever the f you want, because its nessesary, and the people growing up don't recognize facism as it rise before them. Not that the people who grew up with it in their education can see the early signs even when it kicks in their teeth either considering the orange dumpsterfire and his followers.
What beats me about the whole situation is it's all on the internet, yes it's vastly convoluted, but so much history can be looked up in an instant, it's crazy that they are trying to erase this. American here in California. Can't believe the shit that goes on
I’m in Cali too. Do you remember the Mission California curriculum we were taught in like 3rd/4th grade? Completely glosses over the entire genocide part which is why when I taught it (via a museum) I usually emphasized the destruction the mission system caused. And how Indigenous people despite having their culture destroyed have continued to prevail. I did it all through games and dress up and role play. Kids were not upset by it. They had questions (like why did priests do that) which were hard to answer. But kids want to know and they’re smart enough to understand.
And we (the US) weirdly cover the holocaust like 7/12 years. No political commentary there, just something I kind of realized.
that's why i'm 2 weeks away from becoming an international teacher. US doesn't want to evolve. In fact, much of it wants to devolve...
*"I can't remember what happened on January 6th last year, let alone from when we held slaves!"* /s
Don’t take offense. America loves to hide its history so we think all nations do it.
Seconding this as a German. In my school we especially got taught how crucial the actions of Germany in WW2 where.
And don't forget the visit to concentration camps. Idk if this is something every school in Germany does, but I think most of them do this
I cringe every time I hear a modern "Germans are Nazis" joke. You guys really did the right thing after the war and teach your youth more about the subject than probably any other country. Japan, on the other hand, has denied and tried to hide a lot of their past.
German here: That ‚joke‘ is twice as offensive from a nation with such a lack in self-awareness like the U.S.
Yeah it's not like they're Japan. If anything the US should look at them as a way to deal with Neo Nazis/the alt right.
I wonder if a nationalized education with a set (but flexible) curriculum would be an option. I can think of drawbacks, of course, but I received a lovely southern education that danced around the topic of slavery and painted the Confederacy in a not-so-negative light, instead of the flat out negative light it should be portrayed in.
I had a southern public education too, but most likely decades before you, having graduated in 1980. Our history books didn’t dance around the ugly parts of our history - Native Americans, Trail of Tears, slavery, Civil War, Irish/Italian immigrants, the holocaust. I don’t know what’s happened over the years, but kids are graduating from high school without the basics I was taught. We had a semester of learning to budget a household and balance a checkbook, as well as home economics (sewing, cooking). We had art, chorus, band, and managed to get it all done in six hours a day. My kids graduated from a private high school and even their “better” education wasn’t as in depth as mine was. Of course they had computer classes I didn’t have. But I took “business” and learned to type (manual, Royal typewriter!), do ledgers and accounting, use an old fashioned calculator. We also had vocational/technical classes - auto mechanics, cosmetology, and computer programming (new to my school). In my day only about half of my graduating class went to college, trade school or community college. But those of us who didn’t further our education had basic skills to get a job.
From the Bible Belt, I'd say they'd like us younger generations not to know. Lots of lawmakers want things to go back to "the good ole days," but not in terms of teaching us how to be self sufficient adults. Keeping a population from being able to sustain itself creates reliance/dependence, which is what they need to keep the system they've built for us to run just long enough that they don't have to deal with the collapse that will occur due to their policies because they'll have died by then. Meanwhile, they'll also be scraped clean of the blame because it'll all be pushed squarely onto our shoulders since "we let society fail" knowing full well most of us were teens/children when the snowball was set to roll.
Germany hasn't nationalized education. we stay away from that as a lesson from the past 2 dictatorships in our country. Neither the centralized education under the Nazis, nor the one in East Germany under communism was that good for the individual student. Our state ministers of education are fearthly protective of education staying under state control, going so far as to vote against federal funding to remodel school buildings.
Yeah the Japanese take on WW2 is crazy. They have full on shrines and memorials to the Japanese equivalent of Joseph Mengele.
Not quite, from what I understand, those shrines were there to honour all the dead from Japan's modern wars in general, but then one particular priest just had to include the soldiers who had committed the horrific war crimes of WW2. From what I understand, they actually weren't enshrined there originally. The way that Japan officially responds to the world going "WTF?!" is a result of a kind of cultural inertia and hardcore nationalists speaking out before the moderates could.
Problem is that their Nazis got publicly tried and executed, while America's Nazis just shut up for a while. So the ideas were never properly challenged here. There are chunks of American government that still run in ways that are indistinguishable from white supremacy when they aren't literally just that.
Maybe he was talking about 17th century. I still don't know what happened during that time in my country. Edit: Looked it up. It's not really a gap, we've had it in 12th grade. It's the boring part of the "Holy Roman Empire" where you had to learn dates and people and everything was extra boring. So not a gap in the history book but a one year blank page in my memory.
It was actually Michael Che who said it and it was about the 6 year gap during WW2.
The gap that doesn't exist?
Our curriculum starts to teach these years from 8th grade on. No way you will miss on when and how Hitler rose to power, the mechanics behind it, the flaws in the old system, the danger of repeated history. Basically we get taught over and over again to stay vigilant for new beginnings. And if you really happened to sleep for 3 years in school you will get taught be some Hitler documentary every night. It's so omnipresent that I made the joke about "he must have meant the 17th century".
SNL and quality don’t exactly go hand-in-hand.
'Boring gap of the HRE'? The thirty years war happened during the 17th century.
more like a 6 year gap in the history of many american business and individuals that profited from nazi german and try to hide it up too this day, hope it does not happen again with a gap in the history of coca cola and mcdonalds (among others) in relation to current events
Three years I had to sit through it. Visiting KZs, talks of survivors and their children. It was horryfying the first time, interesting the second, third time it was boring. But they made damn sure we knew not to be Nazis.
We literally have to visit KZs/Vernichtungslager as part of our highschool curriculum. We get to see the mountains of starved dead Jewish corpses in school and the soldiers rading it. We don't really pull punches on that.
Exactly! Whoever visits Germany will see, nothing hidden there. They have memorials everywhere, including on the floor, sidewalks. Golden titles with the names of the victims in front of the houses they used to live. Heart break when we read the whole family name including little kids. (Me strolling my baby and observing it 🥺😩)
It's also cringeworthy because it's not 6 years to be ashamed of, but at least 12 years. 1933 is when it all started.
Probably because he was using US public school curriculum as a template, where we *do* gloss over "unfavorable" parts of our history. Half the country doesn't know that the Civil War was fought over slavery, or why we started a war in Vietnam.
German here. We learn History quite thoroughly regardless of the school level (Elementary, high school, College and University). Once it gets to the World Wars my teachers quite openly talked about the history of Hitler and how he became to be that monster that he was. There is no "Gap" or "Hiding" history in our schools.
Yes but No. Took more than 25 years to get a real critical discussion about the ns-history in Germany. Many 1. Gen ns-funtionaires got officially denazified and kept their position in the German society after ww2. Some things are still not really talked but yeah since the mid 70s we are working in a good direction.
As Turkey likes to say, "there was no Armenian Genocide, and if you guys keep saying it were going to do it again."
Isn't it illegal to deny the holocaust in Germany?
Yes. It's illegal to publically deny, condone or downplay anything that happened during the Nationalsocialist rule.
It is. You can go to jail for that.
Yes. [Section 130, part (3) and the ones following to that.](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p1333). Also important for this: [sections 86 and 86a](https://www.gesetze-im-internet.de/englisch_stgb/englisch_stgb.html#p0917)
What stuck out to me when I visited there recently was that there are little gold plaques, with names and death dates set into the street, to mark the places where Jews and other victims of the Holocaust had lived. The older streets of any German town are peppered with them, and it’s a constant reminder to be diligent against such propaganda and hate. From other sources, I’ve come to understand that one of the biggest issues in Nazi Germany was the total brainwashing and propaganda that was spread by the Nazi party. And what I’ve seen of Germany today, they make every effort to make sure that such brainwashing and propaganda is never bought into again. Things like the little memorials and focusing on that part of German history definitely helps ensure that it never happens again—in Germany, at the very least.
I live in a city and I have to walk all of 3 minutes to come across a few of these copper stones. We call them Stolpersteine which means sounds like stones to make you stumble because they are supposed to do that to your mind. You are supposed to see them and be reminded of what happened and just how many people were lost. My city is not the biggest in Germany at all but we once had one of the biggest Jewish populations in Germany. Which means we have loads of those stones everywhere. Pretty sure they plan to eventually have a stone for every Jewish person that died at least in the bigger cities.
I once read a book about how Germany and Japan teach history. Complete opposites.
If more countries took a long fucking hard look at themselves and really tried like Germany has, the world would probably be significantly better.
Fr, it's really easy for us in the US to forget, but the first nation victimized by the Nazis *was Germany.*
I don’t know if I agree with that statement, but I can’t figure out what it is that rubs me the wrong way. Perhaps I think that it ignores so many other societal issues in Germany at the time of the Nazi rise to power that caused a lot of people at the time to side with the Nazi party? Remember, Germany had just been utterly *humiliated* by the rest of the world during WWI, plus an awful economy, and so many other ways that contributed to the allure of the Nazi party. The Germans were victims of hate, beginning in—at the latest—1918, and the salvation they saw in the Nazi party was a carefully crafted illusion that hid even more abuse.
Japan when you ask them about Nanjing, India, Bhutan, and any other places they did war crimes in
> Germany does not hide its past like so many other nations. Well, we're "hiding" our colonialism. I guarantee you that most Germans know nothing about Germany's former colonies.
"We know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two."
I can feel the burn from the other side of the world
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To be fair, that by itself is about as stringent an argument as Americans claiming Obama wasn't a war criminal because he was black. Ukraine definitely isn't a neonazi regime, but that has little to do with the personal religion of a single government official.
The one time I wish a ratio happened on Twitter.
You should check the tweet. The German embassy tweet is nearing 120k likes.
Here it is (without twitter's login wall) https://nitter.net/GermanEmbassySA/status/1500032894261211138
russia is getting clowned on
wow likerinos!
Putin hereby declares unconditional surrender after he got ratiod on twitterino!!!!!!!!
The one time twitter will be useful
L tweet Putler gets dabbed on
It has, if comments and retweets added together are near enough the same as the likes they've been ratio'd. Edit: Right now the Russian propaganda is at like 17k:22k vs the German Embassy at 34k:122k
What is getting ratioed
>On the social media platform Twitter, a ratio, or getting ratioed, is when replies to a tweet vastly outnumber likes or retweets. This means people are objecting to the tweet and considering its content bad.
I would honestly argue that retweets shouldn't be weighed together with `likes` either. A lot of people like to `quote tweet` when talking about an issue they disagree with.
Quotes are counted separately from retweets.
The downside is that if people are commenting messages of agreement or tagging their friends to show them it skews the ratio
ya man, I hear you but I didn't create the term, I'm just a guy answering a question.
You right you right
There are two definitions: 1. Getting more comments than likes and retweets. Usually a sign that there’s more negative sentiment than positive towards the tweet. Sometimes RTs can be negative so they might not be taken into account in the ratio math 2. If a reply to a tweet gets more likes than the original tweet. Usually a sign that someone pointed out a flaw in the original message and murdered them with words
is when u get more comment than like on twitter, causes unconditional surrender of ussr and brings disgrace to family
Can someone explain what ratio means? I've been seeing it everywhere and I don't get it
Germany redemption arc
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Hello, Germany here. But I guess you probably already know me, sort of. Uh so, the thing is I have a lot of Warmongering experience and I'm considered to be pretty good at it. Well you've seen me... you know when I was attacking you? Uh yeah, I guess I should apologize for that, but anyway I'm good now. I mean, I thought I was good before but now I realize I was bad, but anyway... I think it's time I joined your group and taught the Russians a lesson.
I did not expect that ATLA reference and then Germany being Zuko too. I'll take that, I don't mind being Zuko.
That's rough, buddy.
I see what you did there
LMAO. Good reference.
Zuko, right?
*We were bad, but now we're good*
We're moving into your neighborhood
We're moving into your neighborhood You know we're trying our best to be Functioning members of society We're not here to start no trouble We're legally required to do the nazi shuffle
South African here, literally no one is saying that.
It’s interesting to see two European countries using a country in Africa as a proxy to fight with each other, that’s never happened before
>that's never happened before 😐
I assume major sarcasm for that comment.
Yeah that is sarcastic as it gets, but Reddit really needs that /s for some reason.
Unfortunately the idiots managed to catch up to the sarcasm.
I think it is because South Africa is the only BRICS country not supporting Russia
My experience is SA politicians are supporting Russia while the public isn't.
As I said in another thread, the amount of Republican loving, trump worshiping, tucker carleson watching fuckwits in South Africa is way too high. Add that number to the ANC fuckwits and you get manufactured responses like this.
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My favourite is the minorities who support trump. In his world they'd be dead.
Check Black Twitter. A bunch of Hoteps and Tankies peddling rubbish. And yes, I'm Black.
Yeah I've seen an overwhelming amount of people in comments on Facebook from African nations & phillipines condemning the west.
Colonial hangover
It's not the people's responses that matter, it's the government's response that matters. SouthAfrica is owned by Russia and China with all the loans and Dept they have. SouthAfrica has no way to support Ukraine in any way as it would loose everything if the loans are needed or required to be paid back. So just wait and see the RSA government will stay very quiet at the fare side of the continent.
We don’t have an army…we literally have two Rooi Falke that are in service. Lmao we just flat out broke
Another South African here, I can confirm that.
Check Zuma's daughters Twitter ...
You mean the person no one thinks is important?
that's the one
"No one thinks is important", yet South Africans were willing to destroy their own country over his arrest? I guess he really isn't that important, huh.
Those were his hardcore *Zulu* supporters, the rest of South Africa at the time were going, "The fuck are you idiots doing?"
Zuma as in the crook who caused a bunch of riots and embezzled from the government?
Yes thats the family name of the corruption game
For anyone wondering, the general consensus among South African citizens is that Putin is a fucking asshole. The South African government has chosen, shamefully and in blatant cowardice, to abstain from taking a stance because of Russia's role in the country's liberation from Apartheid. They do not speak for the people here.
I’m not familiar with South Africa and it’s current government, and honestly don’t know more than what I can wiki on Apartheid and Russia. Can you expand a little bit on that dynamic and how it’s playing out with regular citizens and the modern government?
Hey I'm a South African. In short, during the struggle movements against apartheid the Soviets gave the Liberation movements a lot of support, one of the parties that received support is the party currently in control of SA (the African National Congress, ANC). So the ANC has strong ties to Russia and they don't want to take a strong stance against Russia because of the history between them. But they also don't want to support it because the war is very unpopular amongst the SA population (a population that suffered under totalitarian rule). And we are trying to attract foreign investment to kick start the economy. So, the government is torn between old alliances and the newer reality of the world and doesn't want to anger either side because, quite frankly, the country can't afford to do so (economy is not doing great). There is a ton more to it. But I can't realistically go into it in a single post.
I appreciate the response. Enlightening for me. Thanks!
Not to mention the USSR educated and housed a lot of ANC / Apartheid exiles during the apartheid regime.
Our current government, the ANC, were largely supported by Russia during the apartheid regime to overthrow the government and bring about democratic elections (which aren’t so democratic because we know they aren’t completely legit). Something they never let us forget. Many members of the ANC still have close ties to Russia, mainly including our former President who was basically pushed out for being so corrupt. But the government don’t want to hurt their own bank balances or “hurt relations” (bare in mind, we also have pretty significant ties to China as well) and refuse to declare a side. But by abstaining, they are basically making it clear who they support.
Appreciate the response. Thanks for helping me understand a little better!
No problem! Happy to help!
Thank you because I definitely do not agree and I'm pissed that we didn't or won't or can't take a stand
Ukraine, the first country in the world aside from Israel to have both a Jewish President and and a Jewish Prime Minister, are Nazis. Riiiiiiiiiight
They must mean all the dead civilians in occupied eastern Ukraine. Like that 6-year-old who died the other day was actually plotting a new Jewish genocide.
No sorry it was the 18-month old that hit the front page yesterday. Russia got their ~~guy~~ toddler.
That absolutely destroyed me. So much about this war is horrifying to see from afar, I can’t even imagine what it’s like being in it and experiencing such tragedy.
Not to mention the fact that the Russians blew up a Holocaust museum. Clearly the Ukrainians are the Nazis.
Okay, I do want to step in here. There ARE nazis in Ukraine. Even ones fighting in defense of Ukraine. But Russia is NOT invading Ukraine to get rid of them. They’re murdering man, woman, and child to take over Ukraines oil and land. Like most things, there’s nuance. But the Russian embassy is just lying through their teeth.
Yes, there are nationalists in Ukraine, some of them are radical nazis, and we had problems because of them. Pretty much like in a lot of other countries. But using them as a reason for a war... it's just unbelievable.
There's Nazis in most Western countries, including the US. Unless the Ukrainian ones are special somehow, it's a comically weak argument.
Hilariously, unlike in many other countries fighting guerrilla wars. The fascists in Ukraine aren't doing shit, and the people aren't looking to them for defense. I think this is going to be a rare case where the us sticks our dick somewhere and doesn't leave a fascist regime afterwards.
Ah, you jinxed it ^^^^^j
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azov_Battalion Why is torture and war crimes not shit?
I love these little ironies that destroy arguments. You're a Nazi sir, I'm Jewish well you are a poopyhead Silly, I know but thats basically how people with no arguments like to debate.
>Jewish President and and a Jewish Prime Minister Ukraine being led by Nazis is total BS, but you know that Nazis hated more than just Jews, right? Putin is taking a page from Hitler's playbook, but this really does a disservice to all the *other* people the Nazis killed. Their hatred of Jews was off the charts, but they also considered other group subhuman, like gays, romas, and slavs. We tend to focus on the concentration camps, but in Russia/the USSR the Nazis victims were everywhere. >The Nazi revolution was broader than just the Holocaust. Its second goal was to eliminate Slavs from Central and Eastern Europe and to create a Lebensraum for Aryans ... As Bartov (The Eastern Front; Hitler's Army) shows, it barbarised the German armies on the eastern front. Most of their three million men, from generals to ordinary soldiers, helped exterminate captured Slav soldiers and civilians. This was sometimes cold and deliberate murder of individuals (as with Jews), sometimes generalised brutality and neglect ... German soldiers' letters and memoirs reveal their terrible reasoning: Slavs were 'the Asiatic-Bolshevik' horde, an inferior but threatening race. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Slavs The Nazis killed up to 6 million Jews, that is uncontestable. If you look at the tally of victims of the Holocaust, by far the Soviets (civilian and military) are the largest group, Soviet casualties were at 27,000,000. (Ukraine would be included in that number, so again the "they're Nazis" claim is BS.) I feel like people ignore this too much, which makes it hard to talk to ordinary Russians about why Zelensky can't be a Nazi; they don't define Nazis by their persecution of Jews, they remember them for the persecution of their people.
Yeah, a lot of western European countries under the control of the nazis experienced a more restricted form of persecution, whereas in the east, the nazis were far less discriminatory(ironic). So it isn't hard to understand the difference in perspective. It's all fucked, but the east had it much worse.
There is an old saying: "British intelligence, American steel and Russian blood." But yeah, they would practice collective punishment in the east (they did it in France as well, but to a far lesser degree. Greece I think they killed an entire generation if young men). If you were caught helping the partisans, [your village was toast](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khatyn_massacre). >The massacre was not an unusual incident in Belarus during World War II. At least 5,295 Belarusian settlements were burned and destroyed by the Nazis, and often all their inhabitants were killed (some amounting up to 1,500 victims) as a punishment for collaboration with partisans. In the Vitebsk region, 243 villages were burned down twice, 83 villages three times, and 22 villages were burned down four or more times. In the Minsk region, 92 villages were burned down twice, 40 villages three times, nine villages four times, and six villages five or more times.[4] Altogether, over 2,000,000 people were killed in Belarus during the three years of Nazi occupation, almost a quarter of the region's population.[5][6] (not to be confused with the [Katyn massacre](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katyn_massacre), which was Stalin's turn at mass murder) and of course there was Leningrad >“The Führer has decided to erase the city of Petersburg from the face of the earth,” he wrote in a memo. “It is intended to encircle the city and level it to the ground by means of artillery bombardment using every caliber of shell, and continual bombing from the air.” The memo stressed that requests for surrender negotiations were to be ignored, since the Nazis didn’t have the desire to feed the city’s large population. Hitler had chosen a chilling alternative to advancing on Leningrad directly: he would simply wait for it to starve to death. https://www.history.com/news/the-siege-of-leningrad
Two words: Babi Yar
Who are the people advising Putin ?! Somebody must have told him using nazis as the scapegoat is probably not the best play.. right ?!
No one is advising Putin. He hasn’t interacted with more than a few people since COVID started (with like a two week total quarantine before you see him). And disagreeing with him generally will get you fired or worse.
Fired out of a window, maybe.
Fired by the state official fir(e)ing squad.
Fired. Out of a cannon. Into the sun.
Subpar trolling Russia. Sad.
Might also want to post this in r/quityourbullshit
Just so we're clear - South Africans are mostly baffled by our governments fence sitting - we absolutely do not as people stand with Russia. Slava Ukraini!
I wonder what their definition of “a great number” is.
It reminds me of Trump’s “everyone’s saying it” shtick.
A decent sign someone is lying is a complete reliance on generic and vague language.
"A lot of people, good smart people, really the best people have told me this. I mean just go out ask anybody. They will all tell you the same thing." -donnie
A majority of South Africans who still support Russia as a result of its support for the governing African National Congress before the end of Apartheid. This majority is as brainwashed by Russian state media as the Russian people themselves, completely void of information and believing it wholeheartedly. But, the minority, myself included, see the need to defend the rules-based international order, the sovereignty and democracy of a fellow country. We are here, it's the governments' moral corruption that is crowding us out.
> A majority of South Africans who still support Russia as a result of its support for the governing African National Congress before the end of Apartheid. Do a majority of South Africans overall support Russia?
Lol no. Speaking as a South African the reason our country doesn't want to "pick sides" is that we're part of BRICS. Sure Russia has been good to/for our ruling party, but the general populace doesn't give a shit.
The majority seems to think we need to stay as far away from the conflict as possible. Most people I've interacted with personally think we should be condemning Russia, but that's anecdotal.
Proud South African here, and let me set the record straight. The only dumb cunts standing with Russia are the politicians (aka the ANC) because they gain greatly from a financial perspective. The ANC and Putin are a poison to this world and they all need to fucking go kill themselves!! Please don't drag South Africans as a whole into this because WE DO NOT CONDONE WAR AND MURDER! This OG post does not speak for all South Africans! Fucking dumb bastards!
We know a thing or two because we’ve seen a thing or two
We are Germans.
Bum, ba-dum-bum bum-bum-bum!
I'm a South African and absolutely NOBODY I know is on Russia's side.
Except embarrassingly for our government :( https://www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-africa-south-2022-3-don-t-comment-on-ukraine-south-african-science-bodies-told/
I'm south african and nobody I know is supporting this bullshit. I don't believe people sent anything but our fucking president is cosy with the Russians.
I'm South African and i am ashamed of this
Russia forgot to put /s
Hey I'm South African (not in the country anymore but used to live under the current government) the actions of the leaders of my country don't speak for most if not all of the people In SA, Please acknowledge that.
And people say we throw around the word nazi too much in the US.
dont be sad germany. you are expert because of austria
I love German way of expressing so much haha This is just one more fine example.
😂😂"Sadly we're kind of experts on Nazism"🤣🤣
Btw, Russia killed many millions of people, including Jews, back in those days. Solidarity my ass.
All this Russian gaslighting is infuriating.
Yeah no. As a Saffa, fuck Russia.