From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Jews For Germans
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 1993 05:05:53 GMT

In article <1993Jan10.172504.25008@wam.umd.edu> mstern@wam.umd.edu (Michael Stern) writes:
>In article <46253@unlisys.in-berlin.de> stingray@unlisys.in-berlin.de (Christian Lampl) writes:
>>mstern@wam.umd.edu (Michael Stern) writes:

>>>To a certain extent that is true.  I would imagine that the blacks of
>>>today have a hard time forgiving the whites for the crimes that were
>>>once perpertrated on them.  However, the majority of whites in the US
>>>have given up those outdated views, whereas a significant proportion of
>>>the Germans still favour the Nazi ideas.
>>And there I think you are wrong. Many people are afraid that
>>foreigners who come to Germany would take away their jobs
>>and their existence. That is why they want them to stay out.
>>Closing the borders for asylum seekers because of economic
>>reasons is imho not a good reason, but I wouldn't call it
>>rasistic or a thing just Germans do. 
>>So the number of the people who identify themselves with 
>>Nazi ideas is vy small

>IThough the number of people who _identify_ themselves with
>the Nazis is indeed small, the number of those who do not 
>demonstrate, loot or beat up foreigners yet share their ideas
>regarding German supremacy is quite large.  Let's

More nonsense.  Where do you get this stuff?  I know of no poll,
no study, no publications in current Germany that would suggest
this sort of thing.  Can you name me a single writer of the German
mainstream who has voiced any opinion like this? You are confusing
a portion of a small band of right-wing loonies with the majority,
probably because they're the ones that get the headlines.

>face it - extreme nationalism and aspirations to global hegemony
>have a prominent place in German history.  The recent news from
>Germany demonstrate that there now exists an opportunity for
>those ideas to be brought to the forefront again.  That, IMHO,
>is a dangerous trend.

Right.  That's why Germany has been speaking of a New World Order.
No, wait, that *wasn't* the Germans!  It was someone else.  Who?

Germany has, in recent times, made no moves whatever toward the 
things you claim -- to the contrary, it has avoided getting involved
in more than one conflict that affects it directly.  The "ideas"
you speak of are not at all common in Germany, and even the skinheads
and neo-Nazis don't talk about world domination, just about bashing
the foreigners *in* Germany.  The talk would seem to be mainly in 
your head.

>>>Does it surprise you that people who were once subject to mass
>>>extermination (that is Jews) still hold a grudge against the 
>>>former exterminators (that be the Germans), some of which have
>>>led a comfortable existance in post-WW2 Germanies.  When I was 
>>>a child my grandfather used to tell me bedtime stories of how 
>>>he and a band of Russian partisans would fight the German 
>>>occupants by blowing up the tracks on which trains carrying the
>>>Jews condemned to death camps would travel.  What do former 
>>>German soldiers tell their grandchildren - how they would torture
>>>and rape Jewish women maybe?  Or maybe about how they would tear
>>>the newborn Jewish babies limb from limb in front of their 
>>>mothers?  Nice legacy.

>>Well, I think the German soldiers who did those cruel things 
>>won't tell it. Just like the Russian soldiers who raped german 
>>women won't tell it to their children as a bed-time story.
>>My grandfather was a member of the SS and a long time he never
>>talked with me about it, because he was afraid I would
>>judge him just because of the fact he was an SS member and
>>not because of his deeds

>Precisely!  Maybe if former SS henchmen would tell the truth to
>their children and grandchildren, these offspring would realize
>the magnitude of the horror that their family members one unleashed
>upon the world, and we would not be going through the re-birth ofteh
>Nazi school of thought. 

a) What rebirth?  Repeating it makes it no less untrue.

b) What makes you think that many former Nazis have *not* spoken 
of their past?  MAny went to jail, a few were executed.  Some escaped
punishment -- too many -- but once again, your stereotype is based
only on your fantasies, and not on the realities of German life.

>>At the age of 17 he had problems with his parents and so he he joined the
>>army to escape from home. I don't think that he ever 
>>changed his mind about murdering people or raping 
>>women just because he joined the army. There were not more
>>cruel people in Germany from 1932 - 1945 than anywhere else.

>I disagree.  When it came to non-Aryans (Jews, Gypsies, etc),
>germans of that era were VERY cruel.  

All of them?  Some of them?  A few?  

There were also more than a few who risked their lives to save such
people.  By merely saying "Germans" you commit the lie of stereotypes.

Say what you mean.

>There have been plenty of
>documented evidence (which I will provide sources to, if you wish)
>of average middle-class Germans turning their longtime Jewish
>friends into teh Gestapo.  I do not need to tell you what happened
>to those people.  In my view, that qualifies as utmost cruelty.

Did *all* Germans do that?  Did they do it because they were German?
Did no non-Germans do the same or worse?  Would no American ever do
that?  Again, say what you mean: do you expect the typical 30-year-old
German to be more capable of doing such a thing than the typical
30-year-old Frenchman or Israeli or Chinese?

What does Germanness have to do with it?

>>The difference was that the state promoted those cruel
>>people and used them. 
>>In fact I think there are much less Germans who hate Jews
>>nowadays than Jews who hate Germans.
>>I don't know why people hate me for things somebody else
>>did half a century ago.

>If your grandfather (the SS officer) captured my grandfather
>(the partisan peasant) during WW-2, he probably would have 
>tortured and killed him.  

You have no way of knowing this.  Why do you persist in such bigotry?

>Consequently, I would not be here
>to debate with you.  Granted, to you that probably means nothing.

When you don't have anything to say, just hurl an insult.  

>But to me it is a very sobering and frightening perspective.

Answer the question: why should you hate the grandson for it?

>I do not hate you - I pity you, and your people who in 50 years
>have not reconciled themselves with the horrors that were once 
>committed, and seem hellbent on repeating them all pver again.

Those people exist mainly in your head.  Now take your hands away
from your eyes, and read what he said -- he HAS reconciled himself
as best he can.  What more do you want -- mass suicide?   

Your pity is pretty meaningless, especially since you aren't even 
well-informed about those horrors.

Roger