From: mstern@wam.umd.edu (Michael Stern)
Subject: Re: Jews For Germans
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 17:25:04 GMT

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have given up those outdated views, whereas a significant proportion of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
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.

>Crimes against minoritys do happen in other countries too,
>but in germany they are judged harder by foreign countries
>and the germans themselves too, because of the past.
>That is very good, so the crimes can't be silenced to death.
>But I'm very sad if I see people judging me without knowing
>me, just because I'm born in a special country.
>e
>>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. 
.
>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.  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.


>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.  Consequently, I would not be here
to debate with you.  Granted, to you that probably means nothing.
But to me it is a very sobering and frightening perspective.
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.
t

>
>Bye,
>  Christian
>
>-- 
>"Die Demokratie ist ein Verfahren, das garantiert, dass wir nicht
> besser regiert werden, als wir es verdienen."
>- G. B. Shaw
>Christian Lampl - stingray@unlisys.in-berlin.de - aka Ray at the IRC

Michael Stern	wam.umd.edu	UMCP....USDA-ARS

Newsgroups: soc.culture.jewish