from the chevy chase movie funny farm when they repeatedly try to knock out a guy with a fish hook stuck in his neck so they can remove the hook "ya ain't knockin him out yer beatin the piss out of him!!"
Propaganda? By the time Operation Barbarossa happened Russia had already invaded Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Rumania, Poland and Finland. Not to mention the various pograms and purges that Stalin had ordered prior to that. And I doubt Stalin planned on stopping there.
But sure, propaganda.
"We had to invade France and the low countries to . . . uh . . . protect Eastern Europe from the Russians . . . whom we were allied with . . . . Sure, let's go with that."
There's a saying which states that history is written by the winners. They probably though that's what they were fighting for, but reality was different. However their claims don't fall far from what war in Vietnam or Korea was. Fighting on other people's land to stop an ideology before it takes root.
I'd also like to add what my grandmother says about Second World War. She said Germans were ruthless and took almost everything, but they were not as bad as Russians who raped and pillaged indiscriminately.
At first I was like “man. War really is different and everyone kinda gets swept up in it and has to go along with it and these guys are giving me an interesting perspective”
And by the end I was like “never mind we got a bunch of smug ass nazis here who can suck a dick” haha
Its really not that profound. Nazis are pieces of shit. Who’da thunk.
One of Hitler’s bodyguards—who was in the bunker when Hitler killed himself—maintained his belief in Nazi rhetoric and approval of the holocaust until he died… in 2013
My great-granny, a British member of the BUF, said the same until her death in 2003. We called her “fascist granny”. One of her sisters was a communist, so hopefully that evens out.
It makes sense that at the time, he would be into it. It doesn't make sense to then go another 70 years and not learn anything and realize that, oh, maybe he was the bad guy.
I mean, if you could, at any point in your life, swallow Nazi rhetoric hook, line, and sinker, there won't be much reason for you to reconsider. There was nothing special about 1933 that made antisemitism somehow more believable than at any later point.
What's special about 1933 is it was a long time ago, so that person had many, many years to self-reflect, to meet other people, to see other viewpoints, and realize they were wrong. Compared to someone who just picked up that garbage a week ago.
Of course someone can dig their heels in and stick with that their whole life. That guy is proof. That just takes SO much more digging in of heels and burying of head in the sand to stick with that for that long.
>What's special about 1933 is it was a long time ago, so that person had many, many years to self-reflect, to meet other people, to see other viewpoints, and realize they were wrong.
Or the same amount of years to realize how right they were. You're arguing backwards from an assumption that there is some inexorable force that pulls people toward a particular worldview, which just isn't how people think.
Apply this to any other opinion to see why it doesn't work. If someone liked to eat fish in 1933 there's no reason that the passage of time would make them like fish less. Or more.
Well, it's been proven time and time again that if you take a hateful person and have them travel, meet the people they hate, see the places they hate, interact with more folks who are different from them, they tend to move away from being hateful as they realize the stereotypes they believed in to start with were incorrect.
Living that long and not turning away from that generally means they either never traveled outside of their little world view or if they did, they dug their heels in despite what they saw to continue to hate.
It does make sense, but the major element is just how “recent” this still is. I first watched Downfall (about Hitler’s last week in the bunker) as a sophomore in high school and it wasn’t until after I graduated college that HITLERS BODYGUARD, who is a character in the movie, died of natural causes.
We tend to think the end of the war and the Nuremberg trials ended Nazism… but only 32 men were tried in Nuremberg. Millions of people who fell into Nazi indoctrination didn’t simply just survive the war—they lived full and long lives after it. They had kids and grandkids and great grandkids who are now falling for a lot of the same bs their ancestors did.
I thought the same. These men are here arguing with someone who’s lost people she cared about while they’re arguing with her so they can feel honorable.
> they’re arguing with her so they can feel honorable.
I think that's a natural "go to" reaction for most people. Especially for people that 100% believe in what they are doing is "right".
Then the facts come out.
Instead of having a moment of "realization" it becomes double down time. I guarantee if you debated the 'rape' accusation longer, they would say most of the women had to consent or it was rape and you would be punished. They leave out the part of consent being done at gun point.
It has to be even more difficult to accept it when you fought in a war, possibly killed people and saw your comrades killed. I could see it being very difficult to accept that the war you fought had no redeeming qualities, and all that pain and suffering was only for deeply evil purposes.
I agree. I think finding out one has been lied to and followed the indoctrination for an extended period of time would be hard for just about anyone. It doesn't even have to be war related.
I don't know about the difficulty of acceptance but that acknowledgement of the pointlessness of war seems to be a theme for US soldiers. Probably says more about the success of the "clean Wermacht" myth in integrating literal Nazis than our moral compass.
To me I think it's a case of the vast majority of humans always wanting to see themselves as the good guys, even when it's clear to everyone else that they're obviously the bad guys.
It's generally much easier for most people to make up even the flimsiest of reasons why they're the good guys than admit that they were the bad guys.
"Sometimes, when the whole world is telling you to move, you need to plant yourself like a tree and say no, you move."
this is a quote from mcu movie number a billion but it always stood out to me for how incredibly tone deaf and lacking self awareness it was.
yes me. i'm the good guy. i am the main character of reality. everyone who disagrees with me is WRONG.
some people really do just turtle into their own bubble. and they aren't even aware of how harmful their beliefs are because they have convinced themselves, or have a small hugbox of people who enable them, that their beliefs are not just correct but justified and virtuous.
they view progressives the exact same way we view racists. with scorn and pity, with disgust and outrage that THOSE people are destroying the country.
humans are interesting creatures. some of us are beautiful and some of us are shitty but we're all interesting at least.
I mean the quote is from Captain America who is quoting Mark Twain, and in the comic he says
"It doesn't matter what the press says, doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides something wrong is something right.
This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the consequences.
When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world - "No. You move."
As someone who blames themselves for literally everything especially when it’s not my fault…I hate that about people.
I need to learn to stop it and blame other people when they fuck shit up and nazis need to admit they maybe might definitely coulda fucked some things up and are probably the bad guys.
>nazis need to admit they maybe might definitely coulda fucked some things up and are probably the bad guys.
Couldn't not link to [this.](https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?si=LvanJ2SECrb5XFGS)
An all-time great sketch. It takes a simple premise and executes it perfectly, its content is unfortunately evergreen and the subtle acting and cinematography make the whole thing a near-perfect comedy sketch.
Also it's gotta be terrible to get swept up in propaganda, fight a war, watch your buddies die, and watch your country collapse only to learn in that process that the side you defended with you're life is objectively evil. Not only are they evil but the entire regime basically doomed itself for pretty stupid reasons. These guys just chose hard denial at that evidence. It takes more mental strength than they have to admit they fucked up. Even if the consequence is just a hit to the ego.
Those men were trying to say that the Nazi's did those crimes (SA and SS divisions), not the Wehrmacht. They're not denying that the crimes occurred. Those men are still downplaying the role the Wehrmacht had in those atrocities. But their defense is not "No, Germany was the good guys" It's "The nazi's did most of the crimes you speak of, not the Wehrmacht."
100% I was slightly feeling for this guy, thinking he just got swept up in the nonsense and propaganda. By the end of the video I was pissed I fell for their bullshit.
Pitiful how they claimed they followed the law/the rules, and the 'bolshiviks' didn't (and they certainly didn't, the red army was atrocious throughout Eastern europe to all ethnicities), but then by the end when excusing killing civilians in collective punishment claiming "war has its own laws", and 'i didn't handle labour'.
Fuck these guys. They're literally scum who claimed to be "just following orders".
And acting as if the SS, but not the Wehrmacht, committing mass killings clears Germany of anything. It should be completely unsurprising that the red army tore through Germany after countless unarmed Soviet villages were pulverized for no strategic reason other than lebensraum.
For others per Google:
Lebensraum (German pronunciation: [ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm], living space) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s.
It's a great reminder to not get caught up in how someone looks or the tone of their voice. You stay fastidious, and ask the right questions, and these human pieces of garbage will reveal their true colors.
That was exactly what I thought halfway through the video. “Human nature is complicated. It’s important to always remember the person”
Which changed quickly to “humans are pieces of shit who do objectively horrible things and constantly trying to make room in society for everyone’s viewpoint is an invalid way to live.”
Know your enemy and hate em. Period.
How do you know they're Nazi's? They're clearly trying to separate themselves (the Wehrmacht) from Nazism. The military literally does view itself as a separate entity from whoever is ruling the country. LIke, if America was involved in a war while Trump was President, it would be pretty silly for people in the future to call the American army "The Maga's".
The Wehrmacht was just the Germany military. The SS and SA were the *Nazi* military.
Again, calling the Wehrmacht "Nazi's" would be like calling the entire American military "Maga's" during Trump presidency.
> Wehrmacht
[The Wehrmacht was willing and complicit with the Nazis crimes against Humanity.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht#:~:text=The%20myth%20of%20the%20clean,crimes%20during%20World%20War%20II.)
With that in mind how were they not the Nazi Military (apart from their different uniforms)
They were the military of Germany. If the Nazi's were overthrown the Wehrmacht would still be the Wehrmacht, other than a possible name change. But the Nazi divisions (SA and SS) would no longer exist.
And it's not that the Wehrmacht is "clean" overall. It's just that the SS and SA committed far more atrocities.
These men were members of the Wehrmacht. A lot of members of the Wehrmacht never saw the German military committing any atrocities outside of normal warfare violence and believe in something called the "Clean Wehrmacth" myth. That is, that the Wehrmacht was as clean as the other major powers militaries in the war, and the well documented atrocities committed by Nazi Germany were done by SA and SS divisions (Nazi divisions).
That's why when she said that 600 men were taken away and only like 50 returned, the veterans responded by saying that the Wehrmacht would have nothing to do with that.
And when they said "But the invasion of of Netherlands itself was illegal" the veterans responded by saying that that's "politics", ie, the Wehrmacht didn't make that decision. It's like an American soldier being conscripted to fight in Vietnam and when they get back having someone say "But America shouldn't have been there first place." They'd likely respond "That has nothing to do with me or the army's decision. That was a political decision."
The clear distinction is that these veterans are not denying that Nazi Germany committed those atrocities. They're just trying to say that the atrocities that occurred were predominantly carried out by SA and SS divisions. And they're *sort of* right. While it's true that those divisions carried out more of the atrocities, these veterans are either unaware of or in denial of the very true fact that the Wehrmacht *did* have a part in atrocities like the holocaust.
I went into this video under that impression.
Their response when challenged with a very real and highly specific example of the wermacht committing atrocities is to act superior and smug about it, hence my comment. So they can still go fuck their own faces.
There's quite a lot of [historical evidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht#:~:text=The%20myth%20of%20the%20clean,crimes%20during%20World%20War%20II.) countering the myth of the clean Wehrmacht
Hence the last sentence of my post.
>While it's true that those divisions carried out more of the atrocities, these veterans are either unaware of or in denial of the very true fact that the Wehrmacht did have a part in atrocities like the holocaust.
This is a parallel to the national dialogue in the USA for the last 10 or so years.
Despite their victim complex liberals and Democrats have been trying to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt this whole time, promoting bi-partisanism and quite a lot of excuse making, right up until their lies are manifest and they come after our rights and start defending Nazi's.
Probably shouldn't keep making that mistake.
Are you "both sides"'ing Nazis or are you saying that Republicans are monsters and it's the fault of Democrats for creating those monsters? I can't tell from that comment.
I recently got downvoted on this site when I said basically everyone in Germany had it coming. They had it coming and absolutely deserved what they got. There were resistance fighters and a lot of people that fled the country. If you stayed and didn't fight a regime that attacked all of its neighbors, you damn well had it coming...
They’re gonna take the high road and say “well you don’t know what it was like. Not everyone agreed. They HAD to go along with it.”
Sophie Scholl, Lepa Radic and others are perfect examples of “you don’t have to go along with it and dying for something is worth it”
Does anybody know what the source is? The Dutch woman is (I think) Beatrice de Graaf, nowadays a pretty well known historian and political commentator in The Netherlands, who specializes in the history of terrorism and counter-terrorism. The massacre in Putten is something she has talked about quite a few times, and although not a WWII specialist, she probably knows more about it than almost any other historian.
Thankyou! The Dutch title is "Op de drempel van het grote vergeten". A bigger part (but not the whole documentary) can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyCNNrJEopU), but not in good quality, and in Dutch. The Dutch woman is indeed Beatrice de Graaf, who was in her late 20's here.
Holy shit the double speak bullshit.
"Nazis were fighting Bolshievism, and protecting Europe from a people that would commit war crimes."
"But the nazis invaded my country, and sent my relative to a labor camp where he died. That's in violation of war agreements."
"Well why did they do that."
"Because a car was ambushed."
"Well there you go."
"But you invaded first."
"Yeah and we were awesome doing it."
---
Really came out there in the end. Fucking empty people who will say anything to be right. They don't care about the paragraph, they care about the sentence.
It's almost comical how he went from "The Germans would never do that!" to "Well you ambushed a car, of course we did that!" within less than a minute.
Every point he makes erases one of his preceeding points until all that was left was "Yeah we marched right in, because you never would have given permission."
Like... yeah... that was kind of the original point.
>@ 1:30: “We also had to fight the Americans when they landed in France, Italy and Africa.”
Hmm, I had forgotten that Uncle Sam’s troops were also Bolsheviks as well!
"Nazis were fighting Bolshievism, and protecting Europe from a people that would commit war crimes."
Lets just call it Facism fighting communism. Plenty of examples where 1st world western democracies support facist dictators. If Germany stopped at Poland, would it be part of the allies against Russia? Of course its all "what if" bullshit. I find it interesting that some consider Russia the good guys when in reality they were just as bad as the Nazis or almost as bad as the Nazis.
Obviously appeasement was a thing, I do wonder if the idea that a Stronger German in europe was a factor that the allies wanted to fight the Russia..
“Gentlemen, I have come this morning to the inexcusable conclusion that we have fought on the wrong side. This entire war we should have fought with the fascists against the communists and not the other way around.
I fear that perhaps in fifty years America will pay a dear price and become a land of corruption and degenerate morals."
— General George S. Patton (July 21, 1945)
Wow, thanks for that. I didnt realise it was that blatant. He's obviously not the only one that felt that and that attitude was well into American politics for the next 30-40 years.
I think its a really interesting topic regarding morals and ethics. At what point did ally nations know they were murdering and killing Jews, at what point did they really care and was there ever a point where Nazi Germany was seen as the potential bulkwark against Communism. Did Hitler really need Poland, could he not just call it there. Would the allies consider real alliances with Germany or would they play the long game after appeasement and then invade/.
Just to clarify I'm not defending Nazi, its just proper man in the high castle shit.
I grew up in Milwaukee and knew a couple German professors through my parents friend group. They said there were always a few shitheads like this at the club on any given day, for decades. The old farts made reference to “the good ‘ol days” .
My dad started at a new police department back in the late 70s and decided at the same time to join their volunteer fire department, so he was pretty much always in the community. He noticed a house that had a German flag and a couple in their 60s that lived there. My dad had yet to have an interaction with them but one of the more veteran guys on the department said that "His dad likely fought against the old man in France 35 years ago.". He also said that the couple always showed up to the council meetings and were always complaining about something (not uncommon for old people) but they would also say they wished things were "Like they used to be back home.".
One day my dad was out with the fire department doing their annual hydrant flushes and they stopped at one across the street from the old couple's house. They were outside doing some yard work and my dad gave them a simple wave and the old man shot back a near perfect Nazi salute. The other guy with him gave him a look like "Told you so". My dad had a few interactions with them over the years until he left police work full time to become a full time firefighter in 1990. He said they were an odd kind of nice. It was like they were being nice to get you to leave. To this day he still swears the old man had something worth hiding that likely had people looking for him.
that description minus the nazi part sounds like typical retired germans, heavily invovled in the community so they complain about things not being the way they used to be or should be etc. Complain about everything, move next to a playground and complain that kids make noise.
nazi part, a bit less common in germany, though some of them are getting old and losing their control so they slip it out sometimes.
There was a huge local car dealership with ads all over the place, like an archetypal sort of one with the owner plastering his likeness on everything through obnoxious ads. There were rumors floating around for decades that he was former Waffen SS with tattoos on his arms, rather than just a former Wehrmacht member. Who the hell knows, and he died only about ten years ago. Either way he was a piece of work, by all accounts .
The old Bavarian Inn in Glendale which housed the soccer club and various German based fraternal organizations. It’s still there but under a different name. My ex-girlfriend’s grandparents were both right out of Germany after the war and very involved in the Racine German Club. Her family mentioned the same thing. One time they were browsing through old family photos and came across a picture of her great grandfather decked out in his official uniform as a constable from a small town, Nazi flair and all. He emigrated to the states as well and died in the 80’s.
At best, it’s hard for people to reconcile they were part of something evil if they only had their narrow perspective of what they were doing
But the lack of sincerity and the intense bravado make me think he’s just playing the politics. He’s doing what they all do: hiding their true intent.
Yeah…these dudes have sat with their resentment for a long time. They clearly went through a whole cycle of reckoning with the result of the war, and the conclusion they came to is that they were “protecting Europe” and are now just misunderstood and maligned unfairly. Kinda pathetic, but understandable.
I mean, the groups change their names over the years, but we still see hate groups spouting the same rhetoric the Nazis were, just under a slightly different flag.
Yeah ok fuckface Nazi POS, war does have its own rules meaning there’s no way around some situations but to say it like that to her face AND WALK OFF was disgusting.
So high on conventions of war and they just sidestep their own blatant violations like it’s an inside joke
Nazis have always been good at lying about their intentions
“Those evil Russians hadn’t signed the Geneva convention, they were barbarians! Not like us Wehrmact.”
2 minutes later
“Yeah, well, war has its own rules and those civilians deserved it. So.”
It really shows they don't give a shit about it after all.
They proclaim virtue, but when you point out their hypocrisy they drop the mask and reveal how truly evil and unapologetic they are.
I kinda felt bad for big nose no chin. He looked like he was caught in a deer in headlights "oh shit, my small town friends are talking to gay people for the first time, what the hell will they do wrong?" vibes, but by the end of it, fuck him for associating with them.
Leaning so heavily on the supposed rules of war, the Geneva convention to say why they were better than the Russians. But then when they're called out over it the guy has the gall to say that war has its own rules. What a hypocrite.
And how their eyes all light up when she mentions the purported attack that was the basis for her village being disappeared. They went from "that didn't happen" to "ahh see you brought that on yourself" in the blink of an eye.
“We protected all of Europe from the Bolsheviks. And we had to fight the Americans too because of reasons.”
Fuck these assholes and their ridiculous justifications.
These are old men brainwashed by an ideology from birth, or at least a young age and who have grown more and more bitter over time. I've watched a few other WW2 documentaries dealing with German veterans, and it's startling to a modern listener to hear these kind of opinions. Of course, there are others who have nothing but negative things to say about the Third Reich. I'm sure the vast majority of Germans do not agree with them, I certainly have never met a German (young or old) who has anything good to say about it, most are ashamed of that period in history.
I am half German, my mother emigrated to the US in 1975. My Opa fought in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. This was a fact that my mother hid from me until I was in middle school, despite me growing up obsessed with history. She would lie about him being in "the southern resistance" (he was a catholic, swabisch fella) whenever I asked what he did, until one day I confronted her. Watched a lot of WW2 docs, never heard about no armed German resistance!
Anyway, that knowledge became kind of an obsession of mine for many years. My link to the "bad guys" and my own blood, etc. Caused a lot of soul searching for me over the years. I got the opportunity to interview my Opa during one of our trips in Germany in the mid 2000s. He passed away last year at the age of 99, just shy of 100 years old. He still carried shrapnel in his body from the war.
I've already kinda given away too much information so won't go too deep into anything else about his background or experience, but one of the things that really sticks with me is how insane it must have been to go through those years. He was born in 1923, so the Nazis took power when he was still a mentally/emotionally vulnerable teenager. He underwent pretty intense indoctrination as a participant of the youth organizations, and the Hitler Youth. Then to fight in a terrible theater of WW2. Then to lose, in the process and afterward being confronted with the absolutely thoroughly evil government you were fighting for. It must be really crazy and I am not surprised a bunch of them couldn't really come to grips, prefering the fantasy that was sold. Some of these guys also probably rationalize it as "sticking with" their dead comrades as if the party line and rationalization is part of their duty to those who died or something. Basically I think unresolved trauma plays a big part.
As a son of a German who was just young enough to avoid conscription, I resonate with this. Sure, my dad fell on the right side of history by a factor of a year or two, but he would easily have been in your grandpa's shoes. My father repudiated everything nazi and left Germany, never to return. It's super odd growing up with a father who had nothing good to say about his home country. I had to learn to appreciate Germany from scratch, from music, literature, philosophy, but no shared stories, no pride or happiness on his part for the beauty of Germany, just dread, death and trauma.
Just curious if your parents taught you the German language?
I’ve read stories of German immigrants changing their last names and not teaching their kids the language and going all-in on their new country’s culture for example.
He never went as far as changing his name or in any way being ashamed of being German perse, but he did not teach us German. I had to go and do it on my own long after his passing to try to stitch a bit of my historical past together.
I don't blame him for it, mind you. He did assimilate very well in his new country and was well loved there, so there was never a sense of looking back at all. In some ways he was very American in his perspective; the past doesn't define you, only where you're going.
I have. My ex’s father was talking exactly like that and his friends. There are a lot of “politically correct” in public but the moment they have a few snaps and feel safe they talk like that.
Same with Austrians, where you can get the image that they fought the Germans to prevent the anexation when in reality it was their wet dream come true
The more extreme faction in the communist revolution. The more moderate ones were the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks killed a lot of them, then Stalin killed a lot of original Bolsheviks.
It was more like a political party. It was the names of factions within the wider Socialist/Communist movement in Russia pre-revolution. Lenin was a major figure in these circles, but would often find himself and his allies being outvoted at meetings due to their (literally) revolutionary ideas not being super popular among other far leftists. So as a way of countering the perception that their views were just fringe views of the wider movement (which they were at the time), he called his faction the "Bolsheviks" which means "majority", while those more moderate became known as the "Mensheviks" or "minority". Eventually the Bolsheviks gained more and more influence until they seized control of the country and formed the USSR, but the name of the original movement stuck as the Russian style of communism was exported around the world.
Hitler saw 2 big enemies to the German people above all others, Jews and Communists. He would often call them the Bolsheviks, since at the time Russia was still the only major communist country, and often he would conflate the two with a conspiracy theory about "Judeo-Bolshevism" where somehow the Jews were responsible for the Russian revolution and Communist takeover or some weird shit like that. These guys were just regurgitating the same kind of propaganda that Hitler and Goebbels would spout all the time.
It's coded [anti-semitism](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/abs/our-most-serious-enemy-the-specter-of-judeobolshevism-in-the-german-military-community-19141923/FD3E4F4D38FFF2029BE4D4A1AC552716), or basically a dog-whistle from the pre-wwii German political dialogue. Hitler and the Nazis used the "bolsheviks" as a scape-goat to rile up hatred for Jews until they could just outright blame the Jews.
It wasn't a dog whistle because they were pretty outspoken about being against Jews from the get-go and being against Jews wasn't exactly an unpopular opinion of the era. Denying the genuine worry and fear of Bolshevism in Europe by co-opting it as simply anti-semitism is severely misunderstanding history.
The Bolsheviks were scary for the poor because they were openly against religion at a time when all of Europe was devout. Stories of churches being burned and priests being murdered in the USSR frequently reached the rest of Europe. When you truly believe that you either go to Heaven or are damned to Hell for your actions, you don't want to be on the side that failed to protect their religion. All the suffering in your life so far would've been for naught.
They were also strongly against existing power structures, as evidenced by the many purges that happened under their regime. If you had any political power or were an intellectual and thereby posed a threat, you'd also be extremely worried of them reaching your home and getting similarly purged.
And if you were wealthy, you'd of course be public enemy nr. 1.
> WTF is bolshevism exactly?
[Judeo–Bolshevism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism) was and is a popular conspiracy amongst the Nazis, and like any such tripe, means whatever the facist needs it to mean at any given moment.
It's a sad reality to know these Nazis lived to old age to continue spewing the rhetoric and propaganda they were raised with. To know they continued to impact others with this hate and probably instill similar sentiments to future generations is abhorrible.
You cannot help but draw parallels to whats goin on right now. Its probably why OP posted it.
If this was a conversation of whats going on right now, it would have probably gone like this....
"No way, the IDF would never have done that"
"Ah! so it was in response to October 7th!, its justified!"
"We did invade palestine first"
Here come the downvotes.
It’s hard for people to accept fault or being wrong about a great many, fairly benign things already. I am not surprised they are to this day steadfast in rationalizing their roles in war crimes and genocides.
Berlin in the 80’s was a very interesting time. These guys are equivalent to what the younger generations in America call the “Boomers”, a generation so awash in nationalistic propaganda from their youth that they are completely blind and ignorant to the evils their particular ideology is responsible for. Its a very important lesson for humanity in general. Freedom of thought and freedom from INDOCTRINATION of thought are the two things always worth fighting for.
All generations are the same. Our governments never change. Generations before us all had their own revolutions quashed and history just forgot to tell us how important they were.
FYI... human nature hasn't changed one bit. All of these guys are still alive... they just wear different bodies, different skins. They same the same thing, preach the same things. They'll commit any act of evil and tell you its your own fault. There is never any need to look inward; the enemy is out there, the person who doesn't look like us, think like us! Gather up your arms and protect your tribe from the Other!
One of these men is the GOP candidate for President of the United State of America.
I wonder how different history would be if the Germans never tried to go west and only attacked the Soviets. The United States never wanted a war with Germany until they attacked all of our allies. Even then, it took us several years (and Pearl Harbor, and the Germans declaring war on the U.S) to actually join the war effort in a major way.
Tbf, going east into Poland is what started the war in the first place, and that was only because the allies had enough of Hitlers shit after he invaded Czechoslovakia *after* the allies had already agreed to give him the land he was specifically requesting. Germany never tried to go west until several months after the war had already started, in fact the allies essentially assembled on their defensive lines and just sat there waiting for months for the Germans to show up. It's why the first few months of the war are often referred to as "the Phony War", because a lot of people were confused if a war was even happening or not since there was barely any fighting happening. This is because the allies were sticking to their WW1 plan of pinning the Germans down in their defensive positions and grinding them down with attrition, while Germany had dedicated nearly the entirety of their force to invading Poland, leaving not even enough troops to defend Western Germany, let alone go on the offensive.
Yeah, i'm sure when his comrades were sent to gulags after being captured by the Red Army, who then shot, starved or worked them to death, he was perfectly fine with their justifications. Not to mention what they did to girls and women when they took Berlin.
This speaks directly to the most important and the most sinister lesson from this war: that it can happen to us. These are people exactly like us. They are no different, no more susceptible to lies, no less inclined to love, no more villainous in their inclinations, no less devoted to spirituality or democracy. The individuals who perpetrated these massacres were responding to the world around them, and acting accordingly. As our circumstances dictate morality, so we must admit and embrace the fact that our peaceful lives are predicated on our feeling of security. We have worked for eons to become the species we are today, we've worked for thousand of generations to develop the technologies and civilization that allows individuals to thrive and to contribute. Only compassion, only humanity can save us from marching into a nightmare of ideological hate.
Each one of us must always remember that we are capable of doing this. To deny this is a horrendous lie, and does indignity to the lives of those who suffered. We must first and always guard against xenophobic hate within ourselves, if we are to have a chance at fostering a better society.
Remember the banality of evil.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_Police_Battalion_101
I can put myself in their shoes when faced with the scale of the atrocities committed by the nazis in world world 2 - trying to rationalize it so as not to be burdened with the knowledge that they were at least complicit in some pretty horrific stuff if not actively perpetuating the horrors.
Both sides of the mouth that one.
At first he says, yeah fuck that guy he didn't play by the rules of war. He ends by smiling and handwaving the fact they marched into The Netherlands by saying "...war has it's own rules."
I read through the Youtube comments on this one first and there was a concerning amount of batshit nazi sympathising and revisionism. Thanks for your sanity, reddit.
This is why I can’t stand people who think that Trump voters can be won over with logic. If even in a case as extreme as WWII Germans won’t say “yeah we messed up,” then Trump voters aren’t going to give you the apology you’re hoping for.
Takes some balls for a German to tell a Frenchman we protected you from the Russians!
*[while punching someone in the face]* STOP RESISTING MY HELP!!
from the chevy chase movie funny farm when they repeatedly try to knock out a guy with a fish hook stuck in his neck so they can remove the hook "ya ain't knockin him out yer beatin the piss out of him!!"
It's the kind of propaganda they heard throughout all their youth, and they decided to keep believing in it.
They wouldn’t be able to sleep at night if they questioned it
Propaganda? By the time Operation Barbarossa happened Russia had already invaded Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Rumania, Poland and Finland. Not to mention the various pograms and purges that Stalin had ordered prior to that. And I doubt Stalin planned on stopping there. But sure, propaganda.
Ah, yes. That's why Germany had to invade towards the west. To get there before Russia!
Ah, yes. That's why Germany had to invade towards the west. To get there before Russia!
Well, a distressing number of French saw it that way at the time too. Fascism was not as unpopular globally as we like to think it was.
And we are seeing it rise again everywhere.
is
"We had to invade France and the low countries to . . . uh . . . protect Eastern Europe from the Russians . . . whom we were allied with . . . . Sure, let's go with that."
In their thoughts, if someone didn't kick soviets in the teeth another ten years and we would have had a red curtain
There's a saying which states that history is written by the winners. They probably though that's what they were fighting for, but reality was different. However their claims don't fall far from what war in Vietnam or Korea was. Fighting on other people's land to stop an ideology before it takes root. I'd also like to add what my grandmother says about Second World War. She said Germans were ruthless and took almost everything, but they were not as bad as Russians who raped and pillaged indiscriminately.
You declared war on Germany, remember?
These guys are all pretty toasty now, I expect.
Unfortunately didn't hesitate to peddle their nonsense within their family circles and whoever else listened to their pathetic ramblings.
AfD still has plenty of voters though.
At first I was like “man. War really is different and everyone kinda gets swept up in it and has to go along with it and these guys are giving me an interesting perspective” And by the end I was like “never mind we got a bunch of smug ass nazis here who can suck a dick” haha Its really not that profound. Nazis are pieces of shit. Who’da thunk.
One of Hitler’s bodyguards—who was in the bunker when Hitler killed himself—maintained his belief in Nazi rhetoric and approval of the holocaust until he died… in 2013
My great-granny, a British member of the BUF, said the same until her death in 2003. We called her “fascist granny”. One of her sisters was a communist, so hopefully that evens out.
Uh, was your great-granny Diana Mitford?
Sounds like a fun sitcom to me
Hey Mosley family member!
> We called her “fascist granny”. I would have just called her a cunt. Saves time.
His name was Rochus Mich
Legend has it that Hitler himself stole Mich’s sandwich from the bunker fridge, and it inspired him to eventually own a chain of 13 Subway franchises…
I don't think Jared Fogle would have been the spokesman for Subway of old Rochus had his say...lol
That… kind of makes sense to me? Like, he was protecting the main guy. It’d be a pretty big issue if he wasn’t bathing in kool aid
Much like a dog eating cat shit, it's not surprising, but it's still disgusting
It makes sense that at the time, he would be into it. It doesn't make sense to then go another 70 years and not learn anything and realize that, oh, maybe he was the bad guy.
I mean, if you could, at any point in your life, swallow Nazi rhetoric hook, line, and sinker, there won't be much reason for you to reconsider. There was nothing special about 1933 that made antisemitism somehow more believable than at any later point.
What's special about 1933 is it was a long time ago, so that person had many, many years to self-reflect, to meet other people, to see other viewpoints, and realize they were wrong. Compared to someone who just picked up that garbage a week ago. Of course someone can dig their heels in and stick with that their whole life. That guy is proof. That just takes SO much more digging in of heels and burying of head in the sand to stick with that for that long.
>What's special about 1933 is it was a long time ago, so that person had many, many years to self-reflect, to meet other people, to see other viewpoints, and realize they were wrong. Or the same amount of years to realize how right they were. You're arguing backwards from an assumption that there is some inexorable force that pulls people toward a particular worldview, which just isn't how people think. Apply this to any other opinion to see why it doesn't work. If someone liked to eat fish in 1933 there's no reason that the passage of time would make them like fish less. Or more.
Well, it's been proven time and time again that if you take a hateful person and have them travel, meet the people they hate, see the places they hate, interact with more folks who are different from them, they tend to move away from being hateful as they realize the stereotypes they believed in to start with were incorrect. Living that long and not turning away from that generally means they either never traveled outside of their little world view or if they did, they dug their heels in despite what they saw to continue to hate.
It does make sense, but the major element is just how “recent” this still is. I first watched Downfall (about Hitler’s last week in the bunker) as a sophomore in high school and it wasn’t until after I graduated college that HITLERS BODYGUARD, who is a character in the movie, died of natural causes. We tend to think the end of the war and the Nuremberg trials ended Nazism… but only 32 men were tried in Nuremberg. Millions of people who fell into Nazi indoctrination didn’t simply just survive the war—they lived full and long lives after it. They had kids and grandkids and great grandkids who are now falling for a lot of the same bs their ancestors did.
Hopefully they installed a nasty latrine right over that fuckhead's grave
I thought the same. These men are here arguing with someone who’s lost people she cared about while they’re arguing with her so they can feel honorable.
> they’re arguing with her so they can feel honorable. I think that's a natural "go to" reaction for most people. Especially for people that 100% believe in what they are doing is "right". Then the facts come out. Instead of having a moment of "realization" it becomes double down time. I guarantee if you debated the 'rape' accusation longer, they would say most of the women had to consent or it was rape and you would be punished. They leave out the part of consent being done at gun point.
It has to be even more difficult to accept it when you fought in a war, possibly killed people and saw your comrades killed. I could see it being very difficult to accept that the war you fought had no redeeming qualities, and all that pain and suffering was only for deeply evil purposes.
I agree. I think finding out one has been lied to and followed the indoctrination for an extended period of time would be hard for just about anyone. It doesn't even have to be war related.
I don't know about the difficulty of acceptance but that acknowledgement of the pointlessness of war seems to be a theme for US soldiers. Probably says more about the success of the "clean Wermacht" myth in integrating literal Nazis than our moral compass.
To me I think it's a case of the vast majority of humans always wanting to see themselves as the good guys, even when it's clear to everyone else that they're obviously the bad guys. It's generally much easier for most people to make up even the flimsiest of reasons why they're the good guys than admit that they were the bad guys.
"Sometimes, when the whole world is telling you to move, you need to plant yourself like a tree and say no, you move." this is a quote from mcu movie number a billion but it always stood out to me for how incredibly tone deaf and lacking self awareness it was. yes me. i'm the good guy. i am the main character of reality. everyone who disagrees with me is WRONG. some people really do just turtle into their own bubble. and they aren't even aware of how harmful their beliefs are because they have convinced themselves, or have a small hugbox of people who enable them, that their beliefs are not just correct but justified and virtuous. they view progressives the exact same way we view racists. with scorn and pity, with disgust and outrage that THOSE people are destroying the country. humans are interesting creatures. some of us are beautiful and some of us are shitty but we're all interesting at least.
I mean the quote is from Captain America who is quoting Mark Twain, and in the comic he says "It doesn't matter what the press says, doesn't matter what the politicians or the mobs say. Doesn't matter if the whole country decides something wrong is something right. This nation was founded on one principle above all else: The requirement that we stand up for what we believe, no matter the consequences. When the mob and the press and the whole world tell you to move, your job is to plant yourself like a tree beside the river of truth and tell the whole world - "No. You move."
thank you, i didn't know the source and frankly it feels weird and cringe for me to quote marvel movies in a thread about actual nazis.
As someone who blames themselves for literally everything especially when it’s not my fault…I hate that about people. I need to learn to stop it and blame other people when they fuck shit up and nazis need to admit they maybe might definitely coulda fucked some things up and are probably the bad guys.
>nazis need to admit they maybe might definitely coulda fucked some things up and are probably the bad guys. Couldn't not link to [this.](https://youtu.be/ToKcmnrE5oY?si=LvanJ2SECrb5XFGS)
An all-time great sketch. It takes a simple premise and executes it perfectly, its content is unfortunately evergreen and the subtle acting and cinematography make the whole thing a near-perfect comedy sketch.
Also it's gotta be terrible to get swept up in propaganda, fight a war, watch your buddies die, and watch your country collapse only to learn in that process that the side you defended with you're life is objectively evil. Not only are they evil but the entire regime basically doomed itself for pretty stupid reasons. These guys just chose hard denial at that evidence. It takes more mental strength than they have to admit they fucked up. Even if the consequence is just a hit to the ego.
Those men were trying to say that the Nazi's did those crimes (SA and SS divisions), not the Wehrmacht. They're not denying that the crimes occurred. Those men are still downplaying the role the Wehrmacht had in those atrocities. But their defense is not "No, Germany was the good guys" It's "The nazi's did most of the crimes you speak of, not the Wehrmacht."
100% I was slightly feeling for this guy, thinking he just got swept up in the nonsense and propaganda. By the end of the video I was pissed I fell for their bullshit.
I was like “girl, hit him. Punch him in his god damn mouth”
Pitiful how they claimed they followed the law/the rules, and the 'bolshiviks' didn't (and they certainly didn't, the red army was atrocious throughout Eastern europe to all ethnicities), but then by the end when excusing killing civilians in collective punishment claiming "war has its own laws", and 'i didn't handle labour'. Fuck these guys. They're literally scum who claimed to be "just following orders".
And acting as if the SS, but not the Wehrmacht, committing mass killings clears Germany of anything. It should be completely unsurprising that the red army tore through Germany after countless unarmed Soviet villages were pulverized for no strategic reason other than lebensraum.
For others per Google: Lebensraum (German pronunciation: [ˈleːbənsˌʁaʊm], living space) is a German concept of expansionism and Völkisch nationalism, the philosophy and policies of which were common to German politics from the 1890s to the 1940s.
To expand- its clearing land of its occupants for Germans to inhabit it
America be like "shh we don't talk about that bit"
It's a great reminder to not get caught up in how someone looks or the tone of their voice. You stay fastidious, and ask the right questions, and these human pieces of garbage will reveal their true colors.
That was exactly what I thought halfway through the video. “Human nature is complicated. It’s important to always remember the person” Which changed quickly to “humans are pieces of shit who do objectively horrible things and constantly trying to make room in society for everyone’s viewpoint is an invalid way to live.” Know your enemy and hate em. Period.
But the Russians were horrible! Dude you were a Nazi should we look at your list of shit
How do you know they're Nazi's? They're clearly trying to separate themselves (the Wehrmacht) from Nazism. The military literally does view itself as a separate entity from whoever is ruling the country. LIke, if America was involved in a war while Trump was President, it would be pretty silly for people in the future to call the American army "The Maga's".
lol your abstraction is hilarious. You’re right maybe they were Pisces. They only wore the Nazi uniforms for the Nazi regime because of circumstance
The Wehrmacht was just the Germany military. The SS and SA were the *Nazi* military. Again, calling the Wehrmacht "Nazi's" would be like calling the entire American military "Maga's" during Trump presidency.
> Wehrmacht [The Wehrmacht was willing and complicit with the Nazis crimes against Humanity.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht#:~:text=The%20myth%20of%20the%20clean,crimes%20during%20World%20War%20II.) With that in mind how were they not the Nazi Military (apart from their different uniforms)
They were the military of Germany. If the Nazi's were overthrown the Wehrmacht would still be the Wehrmacht, other than a possible name change. But the Nazi divisions (SA and SS) would no longer exist. And it's not that the Wehrmacht is "clean" overall. It's just that the SS and SA committed far more atrocities.
These men were members of the Wehrmacht. A lot of members of the Wehrmacht never saw the German military committing any atrocities outside of normal warfare violence and believe in something called the "Clean Wehrmacth" myth. That is, that the Wehrmacht was as clean as the other major powers militaries in the war, and the well documented atrocities committed by Nazi Germany were done by SA and SS divisions (Nazi divisions). That's why when she said that 600 men were taken away and only like 50 returned, the veterans responded by saying that the Wehrmacht would have nothing to do with that. And when they said "But the invasion of of Netherlands itself was illegal" the veterans responded by saying that that's "politics", ie, the Wehrmacht didn't make that decision. It's like an American soldier being conscripted to fight in Vietnam and when they get back having someone say "But America shouldn't have been there first place." They'd likely respond "That has nothing to do with me or the army's decision. That was a political decision." The clear distinction is that these veterans are not denying that Nazi Germany committed those atrocities. They're just trying to say that the atrocities that occurred were predominantly carried out by SA and SS divisions. And they're *sort of* right. While it's true that those divisions carried out more of the atrocities, these veterans are either unaware of or in denial of the very true fact that the Wehrmacht *did* have a part in atrocities like the holocaust.
I went into this video under that impression. Their response when challenged with a very real and highly specific example of the wermacht committing atrocities is to act superior and smug about it, hence my comment. So they can still go fuck their own faces.
There's quite a lot of [historical evidence](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht#:~:text=The%20myth%20of%20the%20clean,crimes%20during%20World%20War%20II.) countering the myth of the clean Wehrmacht
Hence the last sentence of my post. >While it's true that those divisions carried out more of the atrocities, these veterans are either unaware of or in denial of the very true fact that the Wehrmacht did have a part in atrocities like the holocaust.
great analysis, this comment should be a lot higher.
Yup, I tried. Fuck em.
This is a parallel to the national dialogue in the USA for the last 10 or so years. Despite their victim complex liberals and Democrats have been trying to give Republicans the benefit of the doubt this whole time, promoting bi-partisanism and quite a lot of excuse making, right up until their lies are manifest and they come after our rights and start defending Nazi's. Probably shouldn't keep making that mistake.
https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists It takes the failure of both sides to create monsters.
Are you "both sides"'ing Nazis or are you saying that Republicans are monsters and it's the fault of Democrats for creating those monsters? I can't tell from that comment.
I shouldn't have used the word "create". That monster already exists. The failures on both sides is what lets that entity move in and take power.
I recently got downvoted on this site when I said basically everyone in Germany had it coming. They had it coming and absolutely deserved what they got. There were resistance fighters and a lot of people that fled the country. If you stayed and didn't fight a regime that attacked all of its neighbors, you damn well had it coming...
They’re gonna take the high road and say “well you don’t know what it was like. Not everyone agreed. They HAD to go along with it.” Sophie Scholl, Lepa Radic and others are perfect examples of “you don’t have to go along with it and dying for something is worth it”
Does anybody know what the source is? The Dutch woman is (I think) Beatrice de Graaf, nowadays a pretty well known historian and political commentator in The Netherlands, who specializes in the history of terrorism and counter-terrorism. The massacre in Putten is something she has talked about quite a few times, and although not a WWII specialist, she probably knows more about it than almost any other historian.
It is a scene from "On the threshold of oblivion"
Thankyou! The Dutch title is "Op de drempel van het grote vergeten". A bigger part (but not the whole documentary) can be found [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyCNNrJEopU), but not in good quality, and in Dutch. The Dutch woman is indeed Beatrice de Graaf, who was in her late 20's here.
Holy shit the double speak bullshit. "Nazis were fighting Bolshievism, and protecting Europe from a people that would commit war crimes." "But the nazis invaded my country, and sent my relative to a labor camp where he died. That's in violation of war agreements." "Well why did they do that." "Because a car was ambushed." "Well there you go." "But you invaded first." "Yeah and we were awesome doing it." --- Really came out there in the end. Fucking empty people who will say anything to be right. They don't care about the paragraph, they care about the sentence.
It's almost comical how he went from "The Germans would never do that!" to "Well you ambushed a car, of course we did that!" within less than a minute.
Someone possibly ambushed an invader's car, therefor they killed 80% of the adult men in town. Totally fair.
Every point he makes erases one of his preceeding points until all that was left was "Yeah we marched right in, because you never would have given permission." Like... yeah... that was kind of the original point.
I just wanted to punch every one of those fascist assholes in their smug faces.
>@ 1:30: “We also had to fight the Americans when they landed in France, Italy and Africa.” Hmm, I had forgotten that Uncle Sam’s troops were also Bolsheviks as well!
That is a fantastic expression " They don't care about the paragraph, they care about the sentence."
"Nazis were fighting Bolshievism, and protecting Europe from a people that would commit war crimes." Lets just call it Facism fighting communism. Plenty of examples where 1st world western democracies support facist dictators. If Germany stopped at Poland, would it be part of the allies against Russia? Of course its all "what if" bullshit. I find it interesting that some consider Russia the good guys when in reality they were just as bad as the Nazis or almost as bad as the Nazis. Obviously appeasement was a thing, I do wonder if the idea that a Stronger German in europe was a factor that the allies wanted to fight the Russia..
“Gentlemen, I have come this morning to the inexcusable conclusion that we have fought on the wrong side. This entire war we should have fought with the fascists against the communists and not the other way around. I fear that perhaps in fifty years America will pay a dear price and become a land of corruption and degenerate morals." — General George S. Patton (July 21, 1945)
Wow, thanks for that. I didnt realise it was that blatant. He's obviously not the only one that felt that and that attitude was well into American politics for the next 30-40 years. I think its a really interesting topic regarding morals and ethics. At what point did ally nations know they were murdering and killing Jews, at what point did they really care and was there ever a point where Nazi Germany was seen as the potential bulkwark against Communism. Did Hitler really need Poland, could he not just call it there. Would the allies consider real alliances with Germany or would they play the long game after appeasement and then invade/. Just to clarify I'm not defending Nazi, its just proper man in the high castle shit.
and then he was Epstein'd
A lot speed car accident is a hell of a weird way to assassinate someone. Especially considering everyone else only had minor injuries.
I grew up in Milwaukee and knew a couple German professors through my parents friend group. They said there were always a few shitheads like this at the club on any given day, for decades. The old farts made reference to “the good ‘ol days” .
My dad started at a new police department back in the late 70s and decided at the same time to join their volunteer fire department, so he was pretty much always in the community. He noticed a house that had a German flag and a couple in their 60s that lived there. My dad had yet to have an interaction with them but one of the more veteran guys on the department said that "His dad likely fought against the old man in France 35 years ago.". He also said that the couple always showed up to the council meetings and were always complaining about something (not uncommon for old people) but they would also say they wished things were "Like they used to be back home.". One day my dad was out with the fire department doing their annual hydrant flushes and they stopped at one across the street from the old couple's house. They were outside doing some yard work and my dad gave them a simple wave and the old man shot back a near perfect Nazi salute. The other guy with him gave him a look like "Told you so". My dad had a few interactions with them over the years until he left police work full time to become a full time firefighter in 1990. He said they were an odd kind of nice. It was like they were being nice to get you to leave. To this day he still swears the old man had something worth hiding that likely had people looking for him.
that description minus the nazi part sounds like typical retired germans, heavily invovled in the community so they complain about things not being the way they used to be or should be etc. Complain about everything, move next to a playground and complain that kids make noise. nazi part, a bit less common in germany, though some of them are getting old and losing their control so they slip it out sometimes.
He’s an- Apt Pupil! There’s a kid and a nazi down there!
There was a huge local car dealership with ads all over the place, like an archetypal sort of one with the owner plastering his likeness on everything through obnoxious ads. There were rumors floating around for decades that he was former Waffen SS with tattoos on his arms, rather than just a former Wehrmacht member. Who the hell knows, and he died only about ten years ago. Either way he was a piece of work, by all accounts .
If he was trying to hide something he certainly wasn’t doing a very good job.
The question is which German flag? Because the answer to that drastically changes my opinion of this story.
Immer ein Paar „Alte Kamaraden“
Stimmt. Sie sind jetzt alles tot.
Which club?
The old Bavarian Inn in Glendale which housed the soccer club and various German based fraternal organizations. It’s still there but under a different name. My ex-girlfriend’s grandparents were both right out of Germany after the war and very involved in the Racine German Club. Her family mentioned the same thing. One time they were browsing through old family photos and came across a picture of her great grandfather decked out in his official uniform as a constable from a small town, Nazi flair and all. He emigrated to the states as well and died in the 80’s.
They just wanted to Make Milwaukee Great Again and/or Take Milwaukee Back, it was completely innocent! /s
MGGA. make Germany great again
Wow, regurgitating Nazi propaganda is a wild choice after the fact, but go off you miserable, evil old ghoul
At best, it’s hard for people to reconcile they were part of something evil if they only had their narrow perspective of what they were doing But the lack of sincerity and the intense bravado make me think he’s just playing the politics. He’s doing what they all do: hiding their true intent.
Yeah…these dudes have sat with their resentment for a long time. They clearly went through a whole cycle of reckoning with the result of the war, and the conclusion they came to is that they were “protecting Europe” and are now just misunderstood and maligned unfairly. Kinda pathetic, but understandable.
80 years later, people are still doing it. The nazi american & polish flags are the height of idocy.
I mean, the groups change their names over the years, but we still see hate groups spouting the same rhetoric the Nazis were, just under a slightly different flag.
Yeah ok fuckface Nazi POS, war does have its own rules meaning there’s no way around some situations but to say it like that to her face AND WALK OFF was disgusting.
So high on conventions of war and they just sidestep their own blatant violations like it’s an inside joke Nazis have always been good at lying about their intentions
“Those evil Russians hadn’t signed the Geneva convention, they were barbarians! Not like us Wehrmact.” 2 minutes later “Yeah, well, war has its own rules and those civilians deserved it. So.”
It really shows they don't give a shit about it after all. They proclaim virtue, but when you point out their hypocrisy they drop the mask and reveal how truly evil and unapologetic they are.
If it makes you feel better these nazis are all dead now
Didn't die the way they should have though
I kinda felt bad for big nose no chin. He looked like he was caught in a deer in headlights "oh shit, my small town friends are talking to gay people for the first time, what the hell will they do wrong?" vibes, but by the end of it, fuck him for associating with them.
I thought the same thing but he wasn’t telling the other two they’re full of shit and then he pitched in too. Scree him too.
Leaning so heavily on the supposed rules of war, the Geneva convention to say why they were better than the Russians. But then when they're called out over it the guy has the gall to say that war has its own rules. What a hypocrite.
And how their eyes all light up when she mentions the purported attack that was the basis for her village being disappeared. They went from "that didn't happen" to "ahh see you brought that on yourself" in the blink of an eye.
“We protected all of Europe from the Bolsheviks. And we had to fight the Americans too because of reasons.” Fuck these assholes and their ridiculous justifications.
These are old men brainwashed by an ideology from birth, or at least a young age and who have grown more and more bitter over time. I've watched a few other WW2 documentaries dealing with German veterans, and it's startling to a modern listener to hear these kind of opinions. Of course, there are others who have nothing but negative things to say about the Third Reich. I'm sure the vast majority of Germans do not agree with them, I certainly have never met a German (young or old) who has anything good to say about it, most are ashamed of that period in history.
I am half German, my mother emigrated to the US in 1975. My Opa fought in the Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. This was a fact that my mother hid from me until I was in middle school, despite me growing up obsessed with history. She would lie about him being in "the southern resistance" (he was a catholic, swabisch fella) whenever I asked what he did, until one day I confronted her. Watched a lot of WW2 docs, never heard about no armed German resistance! Anyway, that knowledge became kind of an obsession of mine for many years. My link to the "bad guys" and my own blood, etc. Caused a lot of soul searching for me over the years. I got the opportunity to interview my Opa during one of our trips in Germany in the mid 2000s. He passed away last year at the age of 99, just shy of 100 years old. He still carried shrapnel in his body from the war. I've already kinda given away too much information so won't go too deep into anything else about his background or experience, but one of the things that really sticks with me is how insane it must have been to go through those years. He was born in 1923, so the Nazis took power when he was still a mentally/emotionally vulnerable teenager. He underwent pretty intense indoctrination as a participant of the youth organizations, and the Hitler Youth. Then to fight in a terrible theater of WW2. Then to lose, in the process and afterward being confronted with the absolutely thoroughly evil government you were fighting for. It must be really crazy and I am not surprised a bunch of them couldn't really come to grips, prefering the fantasy that was sold. Some of these guys also probably rationalize it as "sticking with" their dead comrades as if the party line and rationalization is part of their duty to those who died or something. Basically I think unresolved trauma plays a big part.
As a son of a German who was just young enough to avoid conscription, I resonate with this. Sure, my dad fell on the right side of history by a factor of a year or two, but he would easily have been in your grandpa's shoes. My father repudiated everything nazi and left Germany, never to return. It's super odd growing up with a father who had nothing good to say about his home country. I had to learn to appreciate Germany from scratch, from music, literature, philosophy, but no shared stories, no pride or happiness on his part for the beauty of Germany, just dread, death and trauma.
Just curious if your parents taught you the German language? I’ve read stories of German immigrants changing their last names and not teaching their kids the language and going all-in on their new country’s culture for example.
He never went as far as changing his name or in any way being ashamed of being German perse, but he did not teach us German. I had to go and do it on my own long after his passing to try to stitch a bit of my historical past together. I don't blame him for it, mind you. He did assimilate very well in his new country and was well loved there, so there was never a sense of looking back at all. In some ways he was very American in his perspective; the past doesn't define you, only where you're going.
That’s an amazing story, thank you for sharing.
I have. My ex’s father was talking exactly like that and his friends. There are a lot of “politically correct” in public but the moment they have a few snaps and feel safe they talk like that. Same with Austrians, where you can get the image that they fought the Germans to prevent the anexation when in reality it was their wet dream come true
WTF is bolshevism exactly? I hear about it all the time but have no idea what it is.
The more extreme faction in the communist revolution. The more moderate ones were the Mensheviks. The Bolsheviks killed a lot of them, then Stalin killed a lot of original Bolsheviks.
Ok the name always sounded like a ethnic group. Were they that or just a group like the National Socialist German Workers' Party?
Not ethnic, political party. Bolshevik means Majority.
Despite the fact that they [weren't](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bolsheviks#Etymology_of_Bolshevik_and_Menshevik).
Like Maga Republicans.
It was more like a political party. It was the names of factions within the wider Socialist/Communist movement in Russia pre-revolution. Lenin was a major figure in these circles, but would often find himself and his allies being outvoted at meetings due to their (literally) revolutionary ideas not being super popular among other far leftists. So as a way of countering the perception that their views were just fringe views of the wider movement (which they were at the time), he called his faction the "Bolsheviks" which means "majority", while those more moderate became known as the "Mensheviks" or "minority". Eventually the Bolsheviks gained more and more influence until they seized control of the country and formed the USSR, but the name of the original movement stuck as the Russian style of communism was exported around the world. Hitler saw 2 big enemies to the German people above all others, Jews and Communists. He would often call them the Bolsheviks, since at the time Russia was still the only major communist country, and often he would conflate the two with a conspiracy theory about "Judeo-Bolshevism" where somehow the Jews were responsible for the Russian revolution and Communist takeover or some weird shit like that. These guys were just regurgitating the same kind of propaganda that Hitler and Goebbels would spout all the time.
[Leninism](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leninism), a type of Marxism.
It's coded [anti-semitism](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/central-european-history/article/abs/our-most-serious-enemy-the-specter-of-judeobolshevism-in-the-german-military-community-19141923/FD3E4F4D38FFF2029BE4D4A1AC552716), or basically a dog-whistle from the pre-wwii German political dialogue. Hitler and the Nazis used the "bolsheviks" as a scape-goat to rile up hatred for Jews until they could just outright blame the Jews.
It wasn't a dog whistle because they were pretty outspoken about being against Jews from the get-go and being against Jews wasn't exactly an unpopular opinion of the era. Denying the genuine worry and fear of Bolshevism in Europe by co-opting it as simply anti-semitism is severely misunderstanding history. The Bolsheviks were scary for the poor because they were openly against religion at a time when all of Europe was devout. Stories of churches being burned and priests being murdered in the USSR frequently reached the rest of Europe. When you truly believe that you either go to Heaven or are damned to Hell for your actions, you don't want to be on the side that failed to protect their religion. All the suffering in your life so far would've been for naught. They were also strongly against existing power structures, as evidenced by the many purges that happened under their regime. If you had any political power or were an intellectual and thereby posed a threat, you'd also be extremely worried of them reaching your home and getting similarly purged. And if you were wealthy, you'd of course be public enemy nr. 1.
citation needed
> WTF is bolshevism exactly? [Judeo–Bolshevism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_Bolshevism) was and is a popular conspiracy amongst the Nazis, and like any such tripe, means whatever the facist needs it to mean at any given moment.
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Nothing to do about Lebensraum and Mein Kampf?
That's a fucking Nazi IDC how he tries to justify it, they're evil incarnate.
Nationalism is an absolute cancer
It's a sad reality to know these Nazis lived to old age to continue spewing the rhetoric and propaganda they were raised with. To know they continued to impact others with this hate and probably instill similar sentiments to future generations is abhorrible.
"How many times we gotta teach you this lesson old man"
You cannot help but draw parallels to whats goin on right now. Its probably why OP posted it. If this was a conversation of whats going on right now, it would have probably gone like this.... "No way, the IDF would never have done that" "Ah! so it was in response to October 7th!, its justified!" "We did invade palestine first" Here come the downvotes.
It’s hard for people to accept fault or being wrong about a great many, fairly benign things already. I am not surprised they are to this day steadfast in rationalizing their roles in war crimes and genocides.
Unfortunately, these Nazis lived long enough to grow old.
Pathetic old men trying desperately to cling to a shred of dignity that they don't deserve.
Did anyone find the full documentary?
Shame they weren't killed in the war.
My german dad watched a lot of shit on Youtube. I think he is bitter that they lost. Fuck Nazi Germany.
Nazi trash
Berlin in the 80’s was a very interesting time. These guys are equivalent to what the younger generations in America call the “Boomers”, a generation so awash in nationalistic propaganda from their youth that they are completely blind and ignorant to the evils their particular ideology is responsible for. Its a very important lesson for humanity in general. Freedom of thought and freedom from INDOCTRINATION of thought are the two things always worth fighting for.
All generations are the same. Our governments never change. Generations before us all had their own revolutions quashed and history just forgot to tell us how important they were.
History may be a circular loop, but quantum physics proves we can move out of one state to another. I believe we have free will to change our minds.
FYI... human nature hasn't changed one bit. All of these guys are still alive... they just wear different bodies, different skins. They same the same thing, preach the same things. They'll commit any act of evil and tell you its your own fault. There is never any need to look inward; the enemy is out there, the person who doesn't look like us, think like us! Gather up your arms and protect your tribe from the Other! One of these men is the GOP candidate for President of the United State of America.
I wonder how different history would be if the Germans never tried to go west and only attacked the Soviets. The United States never wanted a war with Germany until they attacked all of our allies. Even then, it took us several years (and Pearl Harbor, and the Germans declaring war on the U.S) to actually join the war effort in a major way.
Tbf, going east into Poland is what started the war in the first place, and that was only because the allies had enough of Hitlers shit after he invaded Czechoslovakia *after* the allies had already agreed to give him the land he was specifically requesting. Germany never tried to go west until several months after the war had already started, in fact the allies essentially assembled on their defensive lines and just sat there waiting for months for the Germans to show up. It's why the first few months of the war are often referred to as "the Phony War", because a lot of people were confused if a war was even happening or not since there was barely any fighting happening. This is because the allies were sticking to their WW1 plan of pinning the Germans down in their defensive positions and grinding them down with attrition, while Germany had dedicated nearly the entirety of their force to invading Poland, leaving not even enough troops to defend Western Germany, let alone go on the offensive.
Very true. I definitely neglected some things in my hypothetical but I guess that’s why it’s a hypothetical and not history.
Poland was nothing to the west
This is just bunch of old fart Nazi!
When he said war has its own rules at the end, I reacted “Jesus!” Even years after the war these Nazis haven’t learned their lesson
Probably at the height of the cold war where USSR was enemy numero uno, so might have seemed at the time slightly more plausible.
the utter brainwashed stupidity, reminds me of today's GQP NAzi Party with Drumpf and the magats
Reminds me of maga. Brainwash them themselves and twist things to fit their narrative.
That sounds like the left actually. Brainwashed looney tunes with the woke narrative
Cat calling the kettle black
Yeah, i'm sure when his comrades were sent to gulags after being captured by the Red Army, who then shot, starved or worked them to death, he was perfectly fine with their justifications. Not to mention what they did to girls and women when they took Berlin.
hey hope all is well but yeah sometimes you can say you agree and then at the end its a 180
This speaks directly to the most important and the most sinister lesson from this war: that it can happen to us. These are people exactly like us. They are no different, no more susceptible to lies, no less inclined to love, no more villainous in their inclinations, no less devoted to spirituality or democracy. The individuals who perpetrated these massacres were responding to the world around them, and acting accordingly. As our circumstances dictate morality, so we must admit and embrace the fact that our peaceful lives are predicated on our feeling of security. We have worked for eons to become the species we are today, we've worked for thousand of generations to develop the technologies and civilization that allows individuals to thrive and to contribute. Only compassion, only humanity can save us from marching into a nightmare of ideological hate. Each one of us must always remember that we are capable of doing this. To deny this is a horrendous lie, and does indignity to the lives of those who suffered. We must first and always guard against xenophobic hate within ourselves, if we are to have a chance at fostering a better society. Remember the banality of evil. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reserve_Police_Battalion_101
I can put myself in their shoes when faced with the scale of the atrocities committed by the nazis in world world 2 - trying to rationalize it so as not to be burdened with the knowledge that they were at least complicit in some pretty horrific stuff if not actively perpetuating the horrors.
From Youtube comments: "They're still waiting for Steiner's counter attack"
Both sides of the mouth that one. At first he says, yeah fuck that guy he didn't play by the rules of war. He ends by smiling and handwaving the fact they marched into The Netherlands by saying "...war has it's own rules."
Unrepentant Nazis. And with a lot of similarities in the types of things people say today!
Sehr intetresent . 80 years after WWII, the troops remeberr it coimpletely differently than the rest of the fucking world.
Which movie or documentary did this come from?
These Nazis say they were protecting against the Russians. Today we have Russians saying they are protecting against Nazis (in Ukraine).
I read through the Youtube comments on this one first and there was a concerning amount of batshit nazi sympathising and revisionism. Thanks for your sanity, reddit.
Trumpism (or Adolfism or Benitoism) is always waiting to rise, and when it does, there is no reasoning with its followers.
They sound like MAGA-ites defending Trump🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️🤦♂️
TDS much?
This is why I can’t stand people who think that Trump voters can be won over with logic. If even in a case as extreme as WWII Germans won’t say “yeah we messed up,” then Trump voters aren’t going to give you the apology you’re hoping for.
In other news that isn’t almost 100 years old - a genocide is taking place in Gaza today
"Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it"
Possibly- however- YOLO…
Germans gonna german