Because to them the workings of the "free market" don't constitute colonialism. They have issued the second most foreign debt in absolute terms, but they also think the German republic does not bear responsibility for the colonial actions of a government, which does not have direct continuity with the one that exists now.
I've had earnest debates with Germans that say it's not their responsibility to return cultural artifacts to Benin, because they didn't take them in the first place.
Ok Hanz, if I steal your grandpa's favorite lederhosen and sell them to my buddy for a deutschmark, does he get to keep them? No Fritz, he's gonna have to give them back regardless, and if he knew I stole them, which, by the way, your... frankly awful ancestors totally knew, then he's committed a crime himself. Dieter, isn't this sposed to be a country of laws?
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Because to them the workings of the "free market" don't constitute colonialism. They have issued the second most foreign debt in absolute terms, but they also think the German republic does not bear responsibility for the colonial actions of a government, which does not have direct continuity with the one that exists now.
I've had earnest debates with Germans that say it's not their responsibility to return cultural artifacts to Benin, because they didn't take them in the first place.
Ok Hanz, if I steal your grandpa's favorite lederhosen and sell them to my buddy for a deutschmark, does he get to keep them? No Fritz, he's gonna have to give them back regardless, and if he knew I stole them, which, by the way, your... frankly awful ancestors totally knew, then he's committed a crime himself. Dieter, isn't this sposed to be a country of laws?
It ain't