The “best” part about the “Hitler hypnotized us” narrative promoted by the krauts in their bloviating, soporific lectures is how it presents a completely counterfactual history devoid of the violent opposition to and clashes with fascists that characterized the Weimar Republic, all in order to pretend grandpappy didn’t deserve to be blown to a million pieces because everyone supported the Nazis and nobody knew right from wrong and morality wasn’t invented until 1945. Once upon a time I thought maybe there was some element of sincerity in German repentance culture, but no - it’s all self-serving, self-absorbed, self-flattering, self-interested, self- this and that; self-centered hagiographic self-praise that treats their unspeakable crimes as elite status cards to trot out.
These fucking krauts just can’t shut the fuck up about how they have some specialized knowledge of fascism because they’re krauts. Were you there? Were you around during the Nazi era? No? Then I fail to see how you know anything more or have any more expertise on the matter than Joe Pissmonger from Montana. Maybe if you picked up a fucking book sometime instead of insisting that being a kraut gives you special privilege to speak with no prior investigation.
But apparently Teutonic blood gives you divine insight into how fascism works. Looks like they haven’t moved past their Nazi genetic woo after all.
“I’m a German and I’m here to teach you how to avoid fascism by supporting the status quo” how about you deal with your own rapidly Nazifying shithole American province before lecturing others.
Be grateful the very idea of “Germany” wasn’t razed to the ground and scattered to the wind after your dear leader escorted himself off the premises.
I was raised to understand that the "excessive" punishment of Germany post WW1 was the reason we ended up with Hitler, the third reich, the holocaust and WW2. The proud German people were humiliated and degraded by the hardships imposed. And who can blame them? Didn't the German people suffer in the soggy trenches of WW1 like all other stupid pre-democratic people who had no choice but to accept to conscription? They weren't the ones who signed the foolish treaties which led to WW1.
So they looked for an explanation and inevitably someone started talking up this whole "scapegoat" idea which is like human nature or something and for whatever reason it just happened to be jewish people. It happened to be adolph hitler, but it could have been someone else. The manner of concluding WW1 set the trajectory. With the wisdom of hindsight we see it is inevitable.
So this is why Germany, nazis and the others couldn't be punished very badly after WW2, except for just a few figureheads. Who knows what would have been caused by such indignity? An even worse holocaust.
That's the story anyway.
I find it quite effective. It justifies all kinds of post WW2 actions which might seem contradictory, like operation paperclip and Germany still being a G8 country with oodles of power. It also sets up a world view where large scale horror can never really be addressed in any way because it would only serve to create an even worse horror down the road. So pre-justifies any and all crimes as long as they are committed on a national level.
Yeah, it is pretty standard lib reasoning. But it's striking to me that this is what's taught in Germany. It would be one thing for some other country to point at us and say "I wouldn't trust them to know genocide is inherently bad, if we had withheld treats they would have just done it again", which would be understandable especially if it's a country we oppressed. It's nonmaterialist lib reasoning that mystifies the holocaust and opens up all sorts of other fascist backdoors, but I wouldn't be surprised if that's what e.g. the french are taught. But when its a german saying it, it gets a whole other dimension of "look man if we don't get our treats then I cannot guarantee for what we might do next" which is just baffling in the best case, but really is frightening. You should listen to people when they threaten abuse and take necessary steps.