Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter” (Our Mothers, Our Fathers) (1 Viewer)

[Mitch]

I think with respect that you seem more wishing to absolve Germany of its past by aligning it with other countries who have done, doing or been guilty of murdering people on an industrial scale. This was about a German programme which is very good and the struggle for Germany and the world to accept what happened has and still is a long hard road.

Historians et al have struggled as has the German nation to address these issues and, I think, they are actually beginning now to address their history without the burden of guilt associated rightly with what happened. How can you put a number on who knew what? its obvious that a great number of germans knew more than they wished to say but, in the aftermath of defeat who can blame them for not wanting to acknowledge that? any acknowledgement of what happened was almost tantamount to being guilty in the way that Germans were brought before courts or, summarily executed out of hand.

If you want to address these other nations actions individually open a thread about them in the historical part of the forum and we can discuss them. They have little bearing on the way that Germany was and by some still viewed for the actions of 12 desperate years.

I have no problem with discussing war crimes of the allied nations in conversations where the tone is that only one side was bad but, this is not the case here.
Mitch

Mitch,

I have it firsthand via my family. I have also studied this in written and other avenues.

You should really re-read my first post. This is about the collective guilt assignment, and by virtue of the word collective there is an overlap into whether "everyone knew", and further then, what could those who "knew" even do about it.

Other regimes and mass murder are relevent, because if you are going to place a guilt trip on a whole nation you had better make sure there is equal guilt place upon the others, and justice.

The simple fact is that this is not the case. There is the continued support economically and politically of a political part that has murdered more people than anyone in the National Socialist party in Germany could ever of dreamed of.
'
So are we to sustain this tirade of unjust villification against Germans on the one hand, and not do likewise where it is due elsewhere?

 

[uksubs]

I think with respect that you seem more wishing to absolve Germany of its past by aligning it with other countries who have done, doing or been guilty of murdering people on an industrial scale. This was about a German programme which is very good and the struggle for Germany and the world to accept what happened has and still is a long hard road.

Historians et al have struggled as has the German nation to address these issues and, I think, they are actually beginning now to address their history without the burden of guilt associated rightly with what happened. How can you put a number on who knew what? its obvious that a great number of germans knew more than they wished to say but, in the aftermath of defeat who can blame them for not wanting to acknowledge that? any acknowledgement of what happened was almost tantamount to being guilty in the way that Germans were brought before courts or, summarily executed out of hand.

If you want to address these other nations actions individually open a thread about them in the historical part of the forum and we can discuss them. They have little bearing on the way that Germany was and by some still viewed for the actions of 12 desperate years.

I have no problem with discussing war crimes of the allied nations in conversations where the tone is that only one side was bad but, this is not the case here.
Mitch

Spot on post Mitch

 

[BLReed]

Sounds great wonder if and when it will be available here (Australia)or down loadable off the net can't find it.

I don't know about Australia, but in the U.S. the series has/or will be called Generation War.
The rights have been purchased by Music Box for distribution in the U.S. market. Initially the series
will be shown in two hour blocks in select theaters. Then on television (A&E Channel is my guess). Also
on download [Netflix ?] and on DVD. Previously Music Box has released other acquired media on both
DVD and Blu-ray [sometimes region free].

http://variety.com/2013/film/news/u-s-distrib-music-box-nabs-generation-war-tower-1200334062/

"The six-hour series Generation War depicts the lives of five German friends from 1939-45. Most of the series is set among the German Wehrmacht -- the regular German armed forces, not the Nazi-controlled Waffen SS -- and occurs on the Eastern Front, the site of the most brutal acts of violence by the German army during the war. That violence is at the core of Generation War, something that sets the series apart from previous German WWII shows. Also central to the series is the idea of personal complicity and burden of guilt on ordinary Germans for the Nazi atrocities."

 

[uksubs]

I don't know about Australia, but in the U.S. the series has/or will be called Generation War.
The rights have been purchased by Music Box for distribution in the U.S. market. Initially the series
will be shown in two hour blocks in select theaters. Then on television (A&E Channel is my guess). Also
on download [Netflix ?] and on DVD. Previously Music Box has released other acquired media on both
DVD and Blu-ray [sometimes region free].

[that for the intell {bravo}}

 

[Rob]

First of all the series sounds superb and hope to get to see it.

I'd also say that it would be absurd to hold the current generation of Germany to account for WW2, they were not even born so they shouldn't feel guilty at all. It would be akin to blaming me for our country being involved in the slave trade....it wasn't me guv honest!!:wink2: However at the same time I don't want to hear people say that the generation of people that had to come together to destroy the filth of the regime the majority of Germany embraced do not have the right to blame the German nation as a whole. They do. It was they who for the second time in twenty odd years had to go through the horror of another War because of an aggressive nation bent on expansion led by the maniac paper hanger. Every day I thank god for the RAF for not letting them set one jackboot over here.

I believe in apportioning blame where it is justified. Its unfair for German children today to have that round their neck.

Re an earlier post. My Grandfather on my mums side was Italian,he lived with his family in Lambeth a stones throw from the Imperial War Museum. He worked as a Chef at a big London Hotel during the War. He was interned on the Isle of Wight in what was little more than a POW camp , however he and my gran missed each other so much that he could not stand it, so with help he escaped from the camp and got back to London. Not only did he escape but he returned to his job and was never caught, I guess the authorities had other things to do than to look for another AWOL Italian Chef!

Perhaps it explains why I like Pasta so much!^&grin:wink2:

Rob

 

[Mitch]

Rob...

With some of the comments so far I don't think the maniac paper hanger or. filth of the regime is very helpful and I am sure will only inflame people more. This is an interesting programme and, a interesting conversation which hopefully can keep the emotion and sound bites away
Mitch

First of all the series sounds superb and hope to get to see it.

I'd also say that it would be absurd to hold the current generation of Germany to account for WW2, they were not even born so they shouldn't feel guilty at all. It would be akin to blaming me for our country being involved in the slave trade....it wasn't me guv honest!!:wink2: However at the same time I don't want to hear people say that the generation of people that had to come together to destroy the filth of the regime the majority of Germany embraced do not have the right to blame the German nation as a whole. They do. It was they who for the second time in twenty odd years had to go through the horror of another War because of an aggressive nation bent on expansion led by the maniac paper hanger. Every day I thank god for the RAF for not letting them set one jackboot over here.

I believe in apportioning blame where it is justified. Its unfair for German children today to have that round their neck.

Re an earlier post. My Grandfather on my mums side was Italian,he lived with his family in Lambeth a stones throw from the Imperial War Museum. He worked as a Chef at a big London Hotel during the War. He was interned on the Isle of Wight in what was little more than a POW camp , however he and my gran missed each other so much that he could not stand it, so with help he escaped from the camp and got back to London. Not only did he escape but he returned to his job and was never caught, I guess the authorities had other things to do than to look for another AWOL Italian Chef!

Perhaps it explains why I like Pasta so much!^&grin:wink2:

Rob

 

[Rob]

Mitch,

Not meant to inflame at all, its only my opinion at the end of the day. I think the majority of people believe Hitler was a fruit cake, it may not be pc but its the truth. Would be a sad day if we could not call such a person in said manner. I also don't see the problem with Paper Hanger as that is what he was known as over here, along with Little Corporal and other Charlie Chaplin type insults, that's the way it was , so I don't see the point in white washing it for pc's sake. I seriously doubt there is anyone on here inflamed or offended by an insult aimed at Adolf Hitler!! LOL!

Cheers

Rob

 

[uksubs]

The ordinary people didn’t know about the mass killing. They certainly noticed when the Gestapo arrested their neighbors and friends. They realized that they didn’t come back and that these houses or apartments were given to “German” families and Party members.
But they didn’t ask loud what had happened to their Jewish neighbor. The ordinary german accepted that the Jews disappeared and went on with their lives. If you dared to ask loudly what the Gestapo did with your Jewish friend, you certainly put your and your family at risk to also being deported/arrested.

So for the question if they knew what was going on: They learned just not to think about it.

Thats the guilt my grandmom was telling me about. Looking in the other direction and trying not to be noticed by the Gestapo.

Oliver

So your telling me the Germans who worked on the railways of Germany did not know what was going on get real

 

[uksubs]

Mitch,

In the 1930s the Germans had just two political choices; the Communist party and the National Socialist party. What the Bolsheviks had done - ongoing at the time - was well known.

The few average Germans who really had any firsthand knowledge of atrocities would not be in a position to do anything. Once the war was underway it just would not be something anyone in any average town or city would have exposure to.

From what I've read the only resistance to Nazi party by Germans was the white roses group a brother and sister killed for printing papers against the nazi party , the attack on Hitler by Claus_von_Stauffenberg was only because they knew the war was lost nothing about stopping the killing of the Jews just saving them self

 

[Rob]

So your telling me the Germans who worked on the railways of Germany did not know what was going on get real

This is an interesting point, it must have been obvious to all and sundry all along the lines and stations where these poor people were put on trains.

Rob

 

[Peter Reuss]

Gents...forums are not places where people's minds are often changed on issues like these.

All have had a chance to speak and be heard. Time to move on before it devolves to insults.

 

[RPZ]

Anyone comes across a source for this series on DVD please let me know.

 

[jager7080]

Anyone comes across a source for this series on DVD please let me know.

Rolf ,

If I find out how to obtain this in a US version , I will let you know, cause I want to see it...

Joe

 

[RPZ]

Rolf ,

If I find out how to obtain this in a US version , I will let you know, cause I want to see it...

Joe

Thanks Joe. Any version will do for me; if I can not trick my DVD player into playing a euro pal or secam I am going to get a multiplayer sometime anyways.

 

[Jack]

First of all the series sounds superb and hope to get to see it.

I'd also say that it would be absurd to hold the current generation of Germany to account for WW2, they were not even born so they shouldn't feel guilty at all. It would be akin to blaming me for our country being involved in the slave trade....it wasn't me guv honest!!:wink2: However at the same time I don't want to hear people say that the generation of people that had to come together to destroy the filth of the regime the majority of Germany embraced do not have the right to blame the German nation as a whole. They do. It was they who for the second time in twenty odd years had to go through the horror of another War because of an aggressive nation bent on expansion led by the maniac paper hanger. Every day I thank god for the RAF for not letting them set one jackboot over here.

I believe in apportioning blame where it is justified. Its unfair for German children today to have that round their neck.

Re an earlier post. My Grandfather on my mums side was Italian,he lived with his family in Lambeth a stones throw from the Imperial War Museum. He worked as a Chef at a big London Hotel during the War. He was interned on the Isle of Wight in what was little more than a POW camp , however he and my gran missed each other so much that he could not stand it, so with help he escaped from the camp and got back to London. Not only did he escape but he returned to his job and was never caught, I guess the authorities had other things to do than to look for another AWOL Italian Chef!

Perhaps it explains why I like Pasta so much!^&grin:wink2:

Rob

Rob

If you get a chance read Ron Rosenbaum's 'Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil'. It is a quite magnificent book It is on my bookshelf in my office just to my right as I type this) and rather than a pure study of Hitler and history it focuses on the man himself. It discusses, among other things, what modern psychiatry has made of the man and analyses the sexual component of his makeup, his relationships with women, the extent to which he was conscious of his own evil, whether he was a true believer or a 'mountebank' (love that word!), but even more significantly, looks at what different groups have made of him. Some see any attempt to understand him as an evil in itself, others claim that he was insane (a good deal of anecdotal evidence!), and a very interesting discussion of David Irving, the holocaust denier. Rosenbaum sees him, in a narrow sense, as at times an excellent historian, but one who having insinuated himself with the survivors of Hitler's inner circle, did not draw them into the sunlight, but was himself drawn into the darkness.

Do you know the old song about members of the Third Reich having only one of something that would normally come in a pair? There is some pretty credible evidence that, against the odds, this slur was actually correct.

Jack

 

[waynepoo]

Rob

If you get a chance read Ron Rosenbaum's 'Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil'. It is a quite magnificent book It is on my bookshelf in my office just to my right as I type this) and rather than a pure study of Hitler and history it focuses on the man himself. It discusses, among other things, what modern psychiatry has made of the man and analyses the sexual component of his makeup, his relationships with women, the extent to which he was conscious of his own evil, whether he was a true believer or a 'mountebank' (love that word!), but even more significantly, looks at what different groups have made of him. Some see any attempt to understand him as an evil in itself, others claim that he was insane (a good deal of anecdotal evidence!), and a very interesting discussion of David Irving, the holocaust denier. Rosenbaum sees him, in a narrow sense, as at times an excellent historian, but one who having insinuated himself with the survivors of Hitler's inner circle, did not draw them into the sunlight, but was himself drawn into the darkness.

Do you know the old song about members of the Third Reich having only one of something that would normally come in a pair? There is some pretty credible evidence that, against the odds, this slur was actually correct.
Jack

I wonder if the lost one of the pair went missing because it got inflamed?.......:rolleyes2:
Wayne.

 

[jazzeum]

Thanks Joe. Any version will do for me; if I can not trick my DVD player into playing a euro pal or secam I am going to get a multiplayer sometime anyways.

I've found that some European DVDs will work on PCs.

I noticed you said your grandfather fought in the SCW. Was he with the Thallman Division. Where did he see action.

 

[Mitch]

As it was mentioned in here when we were talking history. I picked up a n exclusive to WHSmith publication entitled Railways and the Holocaust: the trains that shamed the world By Robin Jones. Just started having a read through this and, its excellent. Rather answers the interesting question Neil mentioned about knowledge of where all these people were going and what was happening to them.

Well worth the £6.99 if this is an interest and you have an interest in the history and facts of this
Mitch

 

[Rob]

Jack,

Thanks very much for that, I'll have to check out a copy of this. I've always wondered if he was really insane or evil or merely bent on German expansion at any cost. I'm also interested in how much input he put into the Holocaust and its technicalities and how much he left to others, and if he did leave most of the dirty work to others was this an attempt to possibly cover his arse in the future?

As for the song, apparently the other is residing in the Albert Hall if lyrics are to be believed!:wink2:

Thanks again Jack.

Mitch,

That also sounds like a good read, cheers.

Rob

Rob

If you get a chance read Ron Rosenbaum's 'Explaining Hitler: The Search for the Origins of His Evil'. It is a quite magnificent book It is on my bookshelf in my office just to my right as I type this) and rather than a pure study of Hitler and history it focuses on the man himself. It discusses, among other things, what modern psychiatry has made of the man and analyses the sexual component of his makeup, his relationships with women, the extent to which he was conscious of his own evil, whether he was a true believer or a 'mountebank' (love that word!), but even more significantly, looks at what different groups have made of him. Some see any attempt to understand him as an evil in itself, others claim that he was insane (a good deal of anecdotal evidence!), and a very interesting discussion of David Irving, the holocaust denier. Rosenbaum sees him, in a narrow sense, as at times an excellent historian, but one who having insinuated himself with the survivors of Hitler's inner circle, did not draw them into the sunlight, but was himself drawn into the darkness.

Do you know the old song about members of the Third Reich having only one of something that would normally come in a pair? There is some pretty credible evidence that, against the odds, this slur was actually correct.

Jack

 

[jazzeum]

There was a book a few years ago about German rule over Europe and it was not as tight as the perception and the pervasive image we have of Hitler directing everything is not quite correct. In certain respects, the mechanics of governing bored him.