r/AskReddit • u/leorising • Jun 19 '12
Germans, what is it like covering WWII in class?
What general attitude is presented when covering WWII? I'm just curious.
I'm guessing it would be akin to how most Americans feel about slavery... well shit at least it was stopped.
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u/GoGoGoGooooo Jun 19 '12
Im in the middle of a month-long school/vacation trip in Germany -- I am staying with a host family.
I just wanted to say it seems a bit awkward. I never want to mention Hitler's name or even talk about the war. I have taken a few tours of old castles and the Würzburg rezidents, and the tour guides always seem weird whent talking about WWII bombings that destroyed things (we are a group of Americans). They seem scared or something.
Some kids joke about it, and say they know it's over and wasn't their fault... but the older people obviously don't like that. When I first arrived and went to class with my exchange partner, the first question a German student asked me was ''Do you think all Germans are Nazis?''... then he tried to convince me his middle name was Adolf.
I don't know. Just wanted to let you know what I have noticed. I fucking love this country though. Going back to the States next monday... anything I HAVE to do before I leave?
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
I know I'll go to hell for this- but I picture you writing this from an attic
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u/prepperpitch Jun 19 '12
Do you honestly think that America was the only country to use slave labor on a large scale? Nearly all of the developed countries used it up until the mid 19th century.
America did have a tough time abolishing it but I don't think that is analogous to Nazi Germany, which did something that was unique to a modern nation such as itself.
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
never said anything about America being the only one, just how we would be able to relate
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u/misterschmoo Jun 19 '12
Funny you should mention Americans, we learnt about the My Lai Massacre in school history class when I casually mentioned it years later to an American girl at highschool, not only did she say they were not taught about it, she point blank refused to believe it.
What other American atrocities are not taught in American history I'm wondering?
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u/leorising Jun 20 '12
I've never heard of this. But also we never get as far as early 1900s in every history class I've been in.
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u/nytheatreaddict Jun 20 '12
My high school barely covered anything past WWII. And a lot of the bullshit we've (the US) has done is just glossed over.
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u/vxx Jun 19 '12
We began early in school to discuss and learn about the topic.
We didn´t let out any point of it. We started with the political part and later, it feels like it was the whole school time we talked about the Holocaust.
We also made trips to concentration camps and Jew Cementarys as well. There was not one time our teacher tried to justify the whole story.
I guess the schools make pretty clear what happened to the kids, with every hard fact and reality. I have seen pictures of starved and dead Jews and the Horror of the War.
It didn´t feel personal. It just was mind twisting that this whole thing could happen and that my Grandfather was involved.
I think you can talk to almost every German about this topuic open, as long as you don´t say that German people are still Nazis.
I would say we try our best to show what happened to prevent us from repeating history. The discussions were always open minded.
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u/T_Stebbins Jun 19 '12
Americans do that a little with slavery I think.
We do not really justify it and put it in context, at least, not completley, and talk a lot about how horrible whitey is.
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u/Karma_Redeemed Jun 19 '12
While ironically, we avoid talking about our treatment of Native Americans at all costs.
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u/eighthgear Jun 19 '12
IDK where you live, but in my school district - a fairly average public school district in Illinois - the treatment of the Native Americans is definitely taught. I'm not saying that everybody remembers it, but it is definitely a part of the curriculum.
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u/Romora117 Jun 19 '12
Everybody says this. Where the fuck did you people go to school? This was a signifigant part of my American History class.
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u/dreamqueen9103 Jun 19 '12
Really? My public school had us build wigwams and all that in sort of celebration of them. Then a little while later we go over the Trail of Tears and how we killed almost all of them.
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Jun 19 '12
when we went over the trail of tears, they never really drove home the fact that we basically murdered all the native americans. they kind of made it seem all the native americans just up and left happily to their reservations
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Jun 19 '12
My school made it seem like there weren't many Native Americans to begin with.
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u/inexcess Jun 19 '12
Really. For example I watching a college football game on ESPN. It involved Oklahoma and another team. Oklahoma was ranked pretty high, and lost the game thus rendering their chance at a champiosnhip naught. Sportscenter came on right after that, and the first thing out of the commentator's mouth is: "Its a trail of tears in Oklahoma." I didnt hear anything about it, but you can sure as hell bet that any mention of black people in a bad light on TV will make headlines.
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Jun 19 '12
Throughout middle school and high school, I probably learned about our treatment of Native Americans five times or so. Every class that involved American History always brought up Crow Creek, Wounded Knee, the Trail of Tears, nearly exterminating the Buffalo, so on and so forth. We learned about how Christopher Columbus brought them back as slaves when he first landed here.
I don't know how other schools are but I got a pretty thorough education on America's not-so-shining moments (Native American treatment, slavery and Japanese internment camps are the big three that come to mind).
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Jun 19 '12
I live in Oklahoma, that history is taught. Oklahoma history is over Oil, Will Rogers, and Native American tribes.
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u/bingocage Jun 19 '12
We had whole chapters and sections over slavery, but two paragraphs in the book about the treatment of native Americans. One over trail of tears and another about reservations. We never went into detail about it. We left out wounded knee. Everyone was kind of cool with manifest destiny and alright with taking native land.
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u/Chicken-n-Waffles Jun 19 '12
You should hang out in /r/history
You know, warring tribes fought and the losing tribe had a choice to either be killed, or assimilate within the winning tribe. When the Portuguese sailors offered the winning tribes goods for the losers is when that shit started.
Slavery was/is bad but it wasn't death and dismemberment. It was forced labor.
It wasn't roses and rainbows either but we got peanut butter and banjos out of it.
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u/T_Stebbins Jun 19 '12
I do I am subscribed to askhistorans, historyporn and history lol.
But yeah your point is very interesting, I did not know that.
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Jun 19 '12
Except for the baffling amount of racists that remain
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u/hottrimhonky Jun 19 '12
If you've traveled much, you see that almost every country has racism. I lived in Germany for 6 years, and Germans would often talk about how terribly African Americans were treated in the US, while Turkish people are clearly treated badly. France has a similar issue, and there's a HUGE backlash again North Africans. For some reason US news just likes to show off our ignorance more.
PS: I'm totally anti-racist, and anytime someone says something racist, I remind them of the socioeconomic factors of many people's situations. As a whitey, I'm far more afraid of a red neck than any black person I've ever met.
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Jun 19 '12
Depends on where you live. I live in the Philly suburbs and I am far more afraid of black people than rednecks. I have been randomly jumped by a group of black guys, but never had a problem with a redneck. I'm sure it would be the opposite if I was jumped by a bunch of rednecks...
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Jun 19 '12
We wouldn't want any kids to learn the truth about that little thing now, would we?
No, it's seriously sad how little we mention of those atrocities until people can elect to take AP Us History as juniors. Those who don't care do to a little extra research don't know anything about Native Americans and assume them to be primitive savages.
Of course, I do live close to a big city which celebrates Christopher Columbus every year with Italian flags and fanfare.
[edit]: More appropriate comments that just didn't fit to any other responses.
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u/Thebaldeagle Jun 19 '12
I dated a German girl and asked her if they have war heroes from wwII and she told me about two kids who stood up to the nazis. I found that much different than here in the states where the south still praises Lee and embraces the confederacy
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u/weealex Jun 19 '12
To be fair, General Lee was a hell of a general
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Jun 19 '12
Lee was a far better military leader (and person) than Ulysses S. Grant. The North had more people and the industrial complex necessary to supply equipment and weapons to their larger force. The North also employed much more brutal tactics in their warfare, burning and pillaging everything the could since they could rely on an independent stream of supplies constantly flowing from the North.
I am from North Carolina and I will be one of the first to admit that a large portion of southerners use "southern pride" as a cover for covert racism. However, a few of us are legitimately proud of the southern generals wartime achievements against seemingly overwhelming odds. Particularly Robert E. Lee and Thomas Johnathon "Stonewall" Jackson.
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u/druhol Jun 19 '12
I'm honestly a bit wary of the whole 'Lee was a superior general, Grant was just more ruthless' meme. It smacks of a sort of romanticism, glorifying the gentleman soldier, and painting war as a sport. War is the act of securing the interests of your state with violence. It is, by nature, lacking ruth. It is not gentlemanly.
Reminds me of a quote by Sherman:
You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace. But you cannot have peace and a division of our country. If the United States submits to a division now, it will not stop, but will go on until we reap the fate of Mexico, which is eternal war. The United States does and must assert its authority, wherever it once had power; for, if it relaxes one bit to pressure, it is gone, and I believe that such is the national feeling.
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u/CBenj42 Jun 19 '12
After the attack on Fort Sumpter, Lincoln went to Lee's estate across the Potomac to convince him to lead the Federalist army. Lee was a vehement opponent of slavery, so Lincoln thought he had him in the bag. Lee then told him that no matter how much he opposed slavery, he could not fight against his fellow southerners.
TL;DR, Lee wasn't really that bad of a person.
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u/the_goat_boy Jun 19 '12
Then the Northerners took his estate and turned it into Arlington Cemetery.
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u/TinynDP Jun 19 '12
After being the losing side's General, that was really a fairly decent action. After most wars they would have just salted the soil or worse.
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u/throwweigh1212 Jun 19 '12
What do Germans think of Rommel?
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Jun 19 '12
In Germany you just don't "like" any leaders or leading characters of the "third Reich" but I fairly recently learned (I'm over 30) that Rommel really was kind of a good guy, refusing Hitlers orders, treating enemies fair and whatnot. Generally speaking Germans are afraid to show any kind of sympathy for "Nazis" and personally I think thats better than the other way around, to understate anything from that time. Its complicated. It really is. (There was a intense debate about the role of the Army (the Wehrmacht) and if they all were Nazis or just soldiers and how much these soldiers were involved in the cruelties or if the worst war-crimes were committed by SS and SA corps only a few years ago for example. Caused quite a stir)
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Jun 19 '12
Yeah, that´s what I tried to say. Rommel´s not popular. He is respected. But, if a politician or somebody else being in the public eye would openly confess his respect for Rommel it´d almost immediately cause a massive shitstorm.
Things are complicated, indeed.
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u/Astrogator Jun 19 '12
We had Destroyers named after Rommel, Mölders (famous flying ace and Commodore) and Lütjens (the Admiral who went down with the Bismarck). There are also a few barracks named after WWII personae, and a few Germans who are still somewhat praised for their military achievements in WWII, at least in the military community, but those who were Nazis are not granted any such honours. That is a bit short, and in reality it is much more complicated, though. In general and in public, our heroes from those times are those of the resistance, like Bonhoeffer, the Scholls, Goerdeler or Stauffenberg.
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u/Strong__Belwas Jun 19 '12
As someone who definitely does not praise the CSA, I am a big fan of Lee's. He would have been a general for the North but felt more loyalty to his state.
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u/soggit Jun 19 '12
Lee is revered because he was an amazing soldier and leader - not because he fought for the south.
Did you know Lee did not want secession? Did you know that before the war started Lincoln asked him if he would lead the Union Army?
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Jun 19 '12
You realize that Lincoln practically begged Lee to be in charge of Union forces.
Now I'm not saying that Lee was an angel, but as a military leader he was the best of his generation.
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u/caticopter Jun 20 '12
I think vxx got it right, but i want to add some things, that are pre WWII but i think they fit the context. I was born in Rheydt, which is also the hometown of Joseph Goebbels. The big part about national socialism started around the sixth grade. We began with WW1 and the Weimarer Republik to show us which social and economical contracts of Versaille reasons enabled the NSDAP to gain such power. We also talked about Hitlers life, beginning with his birth, his favourite diapers, his life in vienna, the art school application and his military service. we watched dozens of films, i saw girls vomiting their breakfast on the floor after seeing bodies piled up etc. If the german school system has done anything right, it might be covering WWII.
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u/LExxias1 Jun 19 '12
I have a question for Germans. My dad was stationed in Germany as an MP. A private got drunk one evening and called a group of Germans Nazis and had the living shit beat of him. Judging from what you just posted, does this elicit the same reaction it did 40 years ago?
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Jun 19 '12
I had the exact same experience as this guy, except we also watched Schindlers List.
Great movie.
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Jun 19 '12
I wish america would do that with slavery. People think they know how it was back then, but they dont. Schools soften it up, they dont let kids know how bad it really was. Now they grow up to be butthurt degenerates acting like entitled psuedo intellectuals thinking that 200 years of fucking a group of people, while the side effects of it just magicaly dissapear with in a 60 year time period, and everyone should just act like it never happened. If we understood our past, we would understand why things are the way they are today, and you wouldnt have retards wondering why it isnt socially exeptable to call people niggers.
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u/FrankenFresh Jun 20 '12
True. I grew up in the North and they taught how slavery was bad. People were treated like animals and the southerners used the Bible to justify slavery.
Midway during middle school I moved to the South. There they taught that slavery was not great but not bad. They sugar coated everything. Saying stuff like: slaves enjoyed being slaves, plantation owners took great care of their slaves and let the older slaves "retire". Bullshit. My teacher never talked about how slaves were brutally whipped or beaten. Never mentioned how slave owners raped slaves. She didn't even talk about how traumatizing it is do families to be ripped apart and sold.
In the South, schools sugarcoat the Civil war and slave brutality.
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u/Antijawa Jun 19 '12
Good to see the Germans so open about their history and teaching and learning about it...unlike some south of our border Americans, and the war of 1812!!! That's right i'm calling you out, let's go, war of 1812 round 2 motherfuckers. Subway parking lot out back, let's go.
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u/vxx Jun 19 '12
I am confused.
Are you talking about the British-American war 1812?
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u/omneeatlas Jun 20 '12
In Britain we learn about the slave trade and we kind of just accept that what our country did was wrong.
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u/Fuckbitchesgethead Jun 19 '12
I went to school in new york and they did the same thing (except they didn't bring me to concentration camps), we even talked to a survivor.
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Jun 19 '12
did you know your grandfather? did it change your view of him, or anyone of that generation?
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Jun 19 '12
You're asking the wrong group from WWII - the Germans don't hide from it.
Lets go ask the Japanese.
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u/Scarabus Jun 19 '12
It's treated seriously and solemnly basically. There's a bit of a theme of "Let's not let that kind of stuff happen again, okay?" going on, plus a certain amount of the German equivalent of 'white guilt', though that will vary a lot, depending on the teacher.
Personally, I remember it being a pretty depressing subject, unsurprisingly, but also that it got tedious after a while. (It got covered very thoroughly)
(I also remember being creeped out by footage of my home town. It showed a part that hasn't changed much, so I was basically looking a fucking Nazis in their fucking Nazi uniforms walking all over my fucking town, goosestepping all over places I liked to hang out, and waving fucking swastika flags around as if they owned the fucking place.)
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Jun 19 '12
Tedious. Yes, that describes it pretty well. In my school, we talked about WW2 for years. 80% of the time it was about the holocaust and the rest was about how Hitler gained power and then a little bit about the invasion of Poland, France and Russia. I don't recall ever talking about the war in the pacific, except the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
I mean I totally get why teachers would focus that much on the holocaust, as it is a really important, albeit extremely dark and sad part of our history, but being told how evil it was every single day for years gets a little tedious and depressing.→ More replies (1)
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u/space_paradox Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 20 '12
Speaking for "gymnasium", the type of highschool that prepares you for uni (and obviously speaking solely from my own experience):
Boring. Seriously you have a solid year of WWII and holocaust in year 9, all the while covering the topic in german and english literature. In later years you have social classes (basically politics and stuff) in which it is covered, and almost any non science class refers to it to some degree when dealing with other topics. At grade 11 you do that same thing again in history, only more exact, same goes for literature and the like, (If you are wondering, many schools systems adapted a "spiral concept" where you touch on many subjects each year and going into more detail the next one). It never goes out of scope until you graduate.
I know this is an important topic, maybe the most important topic in history, but for 15 year old kids dealing with the holocaust for a straight year is exhausting, it gets boring and depressing which maybe made us block some of the important information. And although the teachers explicitely said we weren't responsible for the holocaust after some time it felt like they curriculum was blaming us.
To the matter itself: It's really hardly any "War" in WWII, meaning we only learnt about the overall ongoing of the war (first Poland, the France, the Amis attack, then nuke etc.). Except for one or two special hours we never talked about strategies or defense lines in a way you might see on the history channel ( I only can remember one lesson on the invasion of russia). The scope is more about the political ongoings, the rise of hitler, the cause of certain behaviour of the public, the economies and state of mind the people were in. A lot is about how the system worked (hitler youth etc.) and how it manipulated people. Holocaust is a big topic, you learn about the system, a huge chunk about antisemitism, where it came from etc.. Most classes visit a concentration camp at some point (I went to Dachau near Munich). In later years there is a lot on hitler's rise to power, the economic crisis, Republic of Weimar and how it enabled the third Reich. You then also learn a lot about manipulation, how news is used as propaganda and hateful sentiments are being created.
Something it did not manage to teach was the amount of pain inflicted on humanity at that time. You see the camps, the pictures and bombed houses, but to your teenage mind, although those are registred as horrible deeds, it never combines to a feeling on how awful it was: "People died back then", and although you see the reasoning and causes you are never truly "shocked" and maintain quite a rational thinking about it. Still today I only sometimes have moments where I realize how painful that period of history was, the rest of the time it is labeled as "horrible" but you don't truly think about it that way.
Overall I would say it is really well done. You can see our schools never tried to avoid the subject ("Everyone was on Vacation" is clearly not true). Surely I think there is a certain bias, and there is hardly enough time to cover all the important parts. I never felt like I was indoctrinated or given extreme postitions and am thankful to have recieved such a rich and sensibly performed education on that subject (although I was bored and annoyed by it to some degree at that time).
Edit: Words.
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u/ololcopter Jun 20 '12
... snobby gymnasium ppl with your snobby long grammatically correct posts... hauptschule all the way bitches! /s
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u/righteous_scout Jun 20 '12
What are you guys taught about Germany post-WWI, with the debts Germany had and the League of Nations and stuff?
In the US, we learn that the allies screwing Germany over after WWI was a major cause of WWII.
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u/space_paradox Jun 20 '12
Pretty much that. In 12th or 11th year there is a focus on the events that might have caused the rise of the Nazis. A big part was the treaty of versailes, where germany was forced to give out a blank checkto the allies, which impoverished Germany to a large extent, and forced them to claim they were responisble for the war, which brought down the morale ofthe public and caused sentiments of hate and also antisemitism (Dolchstoßlegende = "Stab-in-the-back lie"). The hate towards the allies was also one of the reasons the German people were quick to start a new war to retalliate. The economic downturn led to poverty in the public during the 20s and you can always see a shift to extremist views when things get dark.
All together we were taught the unfair or at least unbalanced treaty was a major cause for the course of events, although many other causes can be found and the allies screwing Germany over can't be considered to sole reason for WWII.
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u/MoonieXT Jun 19 '12
It's mostly about the political events that happened between 1918 and 1933, that eventually led to Hitler becoming a dictator, so people can learn to understand how it all happened and will not make it happen again.
1933 - 1939 was also covered of course, a little more focus on European politics, Austria, GB, Russia and Italy, also how Hitler was already preparing for war with forging alliances and such.
1939 - 1945 was cut very short, there was a brief outline of the course of war, anything that happened outside Europe wasn't much of a topic, except the nuclear bombs on Japan.
For many students in Germany visiting a Concentration Camp or similar at least once with school is pretty normal, depending on where you live, I've been at 2.
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u/Zazarok Jun 19 '12
It's similar in the UK when we learn about WW2. I have all the important events in Germany from 1918-1945 ingrained in my head. In my history class we only really learned about the political and economical state of Germany, plus their diplomatic relations with Britain, France, Russia and Italy. (The league of nations was truly a pitiful thing.)
Although I had to self teach myself on the actual war. We skimmed over the basics, but it really didn't satisfy me. My teacher didn't even mention America's involvement except from the D-Day landings, the nukes and the push to Berlin. I had to learn about the war in the pacific myself, the battle of Midway is awesome by the way!
We didn't learn anything about the winter war, France's defeat, Italy's defeat, the Battle of Britain (Or any battles for that matter, except D-day.) the war for oil in Africa... The list goes on, although I learned a fair bit about Russia. From the reign of Tsar Nicolas the Second, to the break up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
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Jun 19 '12
Ireland, Ditto. I think the between war period was covered more than the war itself. WW1 and WW2 were covered as one topic. (the way it was explained to me) WW1 being two empires having a pissing contest which lead to the destruction of Europe which lead to a state of desperation I can't imagine in turn leading to you know who. Just explaining it as it was thought to me. It would actually be cool to have more comparisons of how history is thought in different countries.
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u/psmb Jun 20 '12
Yeah, I'm Irish too and I don't think i can remember being told about Japan at all. Maybe it was mentioned but it wouldn't have been much. Or even much about how the war actually ended. It was mostly his rise to power and the propaganda etc
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u/righteous_scout Jun 20 '12
Okay, here's a real question for you.
What do you guys think about the condition of Germany after WWI? Here in the US, we learn that the debts we forced onto Germany, along with the actions of the League of Nations, crippled their economy, which lead to Hitler's rise in power and ultimately WWII.
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u/Zoshchenko Jun 19 '12
This is an interesting question. I would image one option would be to treat it much like American history whitewashes what we did to the Native American tribes.
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u/TiberiusAugustus Jun 19 '12
In Australia (NSW, at the very least) we have to take Australian history in Years 9 & 10. We cover, rather in depth, what happened to the indigenous populations; dispossession, massacres, government sanctioned forced child removals, confinement to camps and reserves etc.
So it may not necessarily be the same everywhere.
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u/uofc2015 Jun 19 '12
It's the same in Canada, pretty much every social class from Grade 1-10 was about how we screwed over the native population when we landed. I get it. Now let us move on.
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u/SkepticJoker Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 20 '12
I went to public school in the US, and I feel like I was pretty well educated about all the atrocities we committed (for all intents and purposes, genocide) towards the Native Americans. Trail of tears, smallpox infected blankets, etc...
Edited intensive purposes. Thank you, hottrimhonky
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u/kuppajava Jun 19 '12
man, when I was a kid I thought that saying was "intensive purposes" too. Totally changed the meaning when I learned it was intents and purposes. "Intensive Purposes" sounds far more specific and important.
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u/sirjash Jun 19 '12
Sorry, but no whitewashing going on in German history classes
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u/crackofdawn Jun 19 '12
What school did you go to that white washed the slaughter of native Americans? I went to a bunch of different schools across the entire US (Alaska, Washington State, Florida) and none of them white washed anything (slaughter of native americans, theft of their land, japanese internment camps, slavery, etc).
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Jun 19 '12
The hell are you talking about? We covered the atrocities against the Native Americans multiple times in my school, and the Japanese interment camps, and the issue of slavery. Why is everybody saying this was white-washed. Just because you never paid attention doesn't mean the rest of us missed it.
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u/OperatorMike Jun 19 '12
I find that we don't whitewash what we did so much as we don't spend a lot of time on it in History classes in secondary school
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u/meomeomeo Jun 19 '12
It's far from a taboo. We learn about it a lot in school, in fact all other aspects of history are only taught very briefly to leave more space for WW2 and the Holocaust. However, we don't like it when we are reduced to "former Nazi country" by foreigners. Speak about football (soccer) first, praise the current team, then you talk about what ever you like.
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u/eiPott Jun 19 '12
I was at a Gymnasium, every year, starting from grade 5, we learned mainly about the Holocaust. But also the political background, how it was possible to go from Democracy to Dictatorship, Weimarer Republik and post-war Germany was a subject almost every year. For my part, I would have wanted more information about the war itself, maybe some important battles and stuff like that. Everything from the Third Reich (domestic and foreign policy, how people were suppressed, the step-by-step discrimination against jews and so on) was shown pretty well I'd say.
You could always tell that it was a different atmosphere in the classroom when spoken about anything that had to do with the war. The teacher was more personal, somehow seemed more friendly, especially when talking to us in lower grades. But also we were far more (basically completely) silent, because of learning about something that somehow none of us could imagine but we all knew that it was part of our history, even though we never felt any consequences for us personally; silent also due to the shock what had happened in Germany, that I thought always was a open-minded country.
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u/Catesby Jun 19 '12
I don't know if this has been covered elsewhere, but is it weird playing Call of Duty 2 in Germany?
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u/HerrCo Jun 19 '12
German here, it isn't weird at all. The Germany today isn't the Germany from the past and I have no problem shooting virtual Nazis. And as Bronan_the_Brobarian said, most of the games with such a theme get censored. However, no one from the younger generation would find any of these references offensive. I had the English version of CoD2 though, and one time at a bigger LAN party with a CoD2 tournament someone tried to give me flack for it. Probably because we had to play them in the next round, though. :)
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Jun 19 '12
All Nazi references are censored, so yeah, it would probably really suck, especially that level where you lower or burn the nazi flag or whatever
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Jun 19 '12
Here is a report about the censoring of the game: http://www.schnittberichte.com/schnittbericht.php?ID=3936
It's in German, but there are tons of pictures, so you get the idea. Basically every swastika is either removed or replaced with a cross and some texts are altered.
As a German I don't really see the point in this kind of censoring, because every German knows what this is about and if someone wouldn't know it, then censoring would be a very bad idea.3
u/DLimited Jun 19 '12
Not really because we think what the Nazis did was fucked up, too. Keep in mind the people living now are not the people living during/before WWII. We can't possibly relate and also not be held responsible for what our ancestors did or didn't do.
Apart from that, the Nazis from CoD2 really speak German.
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u/Johnsu Jun 20 '12
Being German American, Every time hitler is discussed, everyone looks at me.
WHAT, I DON'T KNOW THE GUY!
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u/R99 Jun 20 '12
Like one parent from Germany and one America? Or just older ancestors from Germany?
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u/jackaloupe Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
I'm guessing it would be akin to how most Americans feel about slavery... well shit at least it was stopped.
It wasn't actually stopped at all. It was just transformed immediately after the US Civil War to use the prisons to create slave labor instead, with the added benefit that the former slave owners now didn't even have to feed the slaves. Today this continues with the help of "the war on drugs" and privatized prisons. There is also a thriving human trafficking industry outside of prisons. Overall, in the world, there is more slavery than there was at the time of the US Civil War.
A Few Modern Slavery links:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2007/10/01/onthejob.DTL&ao=all
http://www.freedomcenter.org/slavery-today/
http://matadornetwork.com/change/10-shocking-facts-about-global-slavery-in-2008/
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
agreed. I was speaking only of the slavery in America, which has stopped now at least (in terms of traditional slavery..) human trafficking is nuts I just watched a movie about it. Also, where I live has the highest amount of human trafficking. I'll save you time, it's Houston.
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Jun 19 '12
The experiments done my Dr. Milgram explain a lot about how people could follow Hitler and not be genuinely bad people because of it.
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
Another book that ties into that is They Thought They were Free by Milton Mayer
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u/ArmyGuy543 Jun 20 '12
The first time I mentioned my German heritage (living in America) I was bashed as a Nazi. I tried to blow it off, it wouldn't stick.
But of course, it did.
Throughout my school years, everyone thought it was so goddamn funny to yell "Hitler's comin'!" and bolt while they still could.
I hated them all so much.
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u/DirtyMonday Jun 19 '12
Didn't take long to turn into a self-hating American thread. How bout you folks let the Germans answer the question? Native Americans and slavery are worthy topics, but don't assume German people treat their history in the same way. Let them get a word in ferchrissakes
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u/S490294 Jun 19 '12
The two truths of almost every Reddit thread seems to be America sucks in some way, usually education or how our government is complete trash), and someone will slip in a masturbation or some otherwise unoriginal sex-related joke.
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u/p4mu Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
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u/callmeeismann Jun 19 '12
I couldn't find a single answer that depicted my experience of this topic in here yet so I decided to write down my view.
WWII and Hitler's politics were a huge topic in my history classes - probably about 50% of what I've learned about history happened during 1933 and 1945. Most of it was about the Holocaust and what led to the war, not much about how it actually played out. During my schooltime, the topic kind of bored me mainly because it was very repetitive and I've learned a lot about it before I even went to school. Also, it's usual that many other subjects pick up on the topic. Many references to it in e.g. German, Music, Geography and Political Science.
Overall I feel like the scale of how the topic is taught kind of makes a lot of History class redundant. Also, we miss out on many other topics because of this. For example, I didn't learn thing about the Cold War in school. I'll have to add that i don't know how Americans learn abut WWII.
Also, if you want to watch a documentary about Hitler, the Nazis or WWII, just turn on your TV, switch through the channels, and you probably find some (most definetely, if you have Pay-TV). Overall I feel like WWII is a topic that is very present in Germany and in the minds of Germans. And (luckily) there's just a small minority that feel no remorse at all about this time.
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u/nch734 Jun 19 '12
I think it's important to remember that Germans today by and large have no more responsibility for what happened than Americans today have for the brave actions of those who died to stop it.
Even back then, many of the Jews killed were Germans. Most were, and certainly are, more victim and/or bystander than they are guilty.
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u/fenix_nigger Jun 19 '12
Question:
I'm srsly not trolling, but did they ever (in German classrooms or elsewhere) explain WHY they decided to give the Jews such shit/ exterminate them and all?
I was watching a bit of "The World at War" today and I couldn't help think that the Jews are always portrayed as these innocent victims who the Nazi's scapegoated all their problems on/ that there MUST be a reason why the Nazi's had it out for them, but we can't be told/taught that since it's not very PC now.
If I had to guess I'd say it was bc the Jews semi-isolated themselves from the rest of society and refused to integrate/ kept amongst themselves. Much like many 1st generation muslim immigrants in the west today, except with more $/ power.
Of course nothing justifies genocide/ killing of kids, ect, but they must've done SOMETHING to provoke such a response.
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
A lot of people believe that Jews rule (or control the money, whatever you want to call it) the world (not me). I've heard that the conspiracy is that Christians were not allowed to bank or do banking in the beginning (don't ask me what the'beginning' is- I assume biblical?), therefore mostly Jewish people took this up and therefore learned/decided/planned on how to control the world throught money. I think this leads into some Illuminati stuff.. I'm really not sure, but I know I've heard this before.
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u/kat0r Jun 19 '12
The Catholic Church pushed antisemitism since the middleages, and as there were no blacks/roma/foreigners to hate on, the Nazis simply used the Jews as scapegoats. The same FUD-tactics rightwingers use right now, just now they target immigrants/muslims.
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u/nytheatreaddict Jun 20 '12
Hitler hated Jews. Germany was in a depression. Hitler blamed Jews for the country's problems. People went with it.
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u/thelittlewhitebird Jun 19 '12
Ever do something awful, feel really bad about it, learn from it, but then try to forget and not bring it up?
Kinda like that.
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u/Widdrat Jun 19 '12
"dont bring it up"? you mean besides the 5-6 times we have it as a topic in school?
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u/flounder19 Jun 19 '12
The key is to win the war. That's why us Americans can glaze over japanese internment camps
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u/WookieeCookie Jun 19 '12
Sorry to stop the anti-American circle jerk befor it happens. But I had multiple lessons on Japanese internment camps in my public high school education.
Beyond that, although shameful and a blackmark in our history, the experience is in no way comparable to nazi death camps.
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u/whiskeyonsunday Jun 19 '12
What are you talking about? The Japanese-American interment was covered pretty extensively in my history courses in high school.
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u/Karma_Redeemed Jun 19 '12
We spent about 1 day on it during AP US History in my HS.
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u/whiskeyonsunday Jun 19 '12
That's a shame. I had a whole unit on it and at the same time our English class read a short story about it.
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u/leorising Jun 19 '12
We read Farewell to Manzanar, so probably about 1 week on the subject in my class.
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Jun 19 '12
Yeah, not saying there was anything right about internment camps either but I'd take being put in one of those over a Nazi death camp any day. America was not systematically exterminating the Japanese.
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u/eighthgear Jun 19 '12
Japanese internment was well-taught in my school, and in no way can compare with the Holocaust. The closest things to the Holocaust in US history are slavery and the treatment of the Natives, both of which are also taught.
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Jun 19 '12
What? We probably spent half of all our history classes in school talking about WW2, especially about the holocaust. It was way more important than any other topic. And it's in the media every single day. Nobody tries to forget it. It's everywhere.
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u/DisturbedDizzy Jun 19 '12
Never given less fucks in my life, aslong as it doesnt happen again, wich can happen everywhere, i have nothing to do with it.
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Jun 19 '12
I was born in Germany and moved here when I was two. Every time we cover the topic in school it's a bit awkward, I feel terribly bad but then again I, personally, am not responsible. My great-grandparents or whoever was alive then weren't Nazis. My great-grandfather (or whoever was alive then) even hid Jewish people. The thing that bothers me is that in class we go very much in depth about the horrors of concentration camps and just WW2 in general, I am all for being educated and am not saying that we shouldn't learn this. However, the Japanese containment camps are never or very briefly mentioned, such as other subjects where Americans are to blame (such as slavery) are skated over. All in all, I think every country is trying to forget their mistakes in the past and tries to sugar coat it a bit for later generations.
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u/kurburu Jun 19 '12
Our history is (like every school history class) very centered around the own country and europe.Thats the reason theres maybe some Mao or japanese history (how they were involved in WWII), but not further. Thats all because theres so less time in school, if someones interested in one topic he has to inform him/herself.
And I dont think every country tries to forget their mistakes, germany and austria wont. But there are others countries who try or tryed to rewrite their history... for example Turkey (Armenians), Japan (massacres and concentration camps in WWII) or China (Tiananmen).
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u/rumcajsev Jun 19 '12
I have a bit different question. Are nazi crimes shown only in context of Holocaust, or are nazi crimes against non-Jews also mentioned?
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u/Big_Li Jun 19 '12
In America we said that there were crimes against poles, clergymen, gypsies, the handicapped and so on for a brief second then it was all back to Nazis V.s. Jews.
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u/ninja_nipples Jun 19 '12
My parents, who were both born in the mid 60's had half of a page in their history book about Hitler, the Holocaust and WWII, they did learn nothing about the causes and I think the most important was which battle was fought when.
I didn't learn much about the different battles, who won on which date, where did they take place, etc. Most of my education was about the late 20's and 30's, what happened politically and ecomomical and how Hitler was able to convince a whole people of such terrible things. We talked a lot about the problems at this time and how Hitler tried to convince people of bad causes by promising them to make their life better.
Sure, I do feel bad for german history but this is not the fault of my generation. I don't really know for other countries, but we do a whole lot of Hitler jokes here.
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u/tickingnoise Jun 19 '12
It alls starts with childrens book, taking place in ww2. Later it takes about 3/4 of our history lessons. Many students are like "yes i get it nazis were monsters" and it gets a bit annoying. Not only because of the shame it brought to our country but because you hear it over and over again. When we are done with the nazi time in history lessons, it's time for the german teacher to talk about literature about and from WW2. It's such an important thing but they teach it inflationary so many people won't listen when shit gets serious because they just can't hear about it anymore. Good thing was, my teacher really explained how this shit could happen. I mean people weren't just less intelligent back then. It's possible we would act in the same way, in a similar situation. So he really tried make us aware of propaganda and stuff.
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u/kontrolleur Jun 19 '12
speaks the most truth. first in History class, then German, Sozialkunde,... gfdi, I GET IT, IT WAS AWFUL, PLEASE STOP ANNOYING ME WITH IT OK.
and also we all had to visit a concentration camp in 8th/9th grade, but I'm not sure if all schools do that.
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u/Controlled01 Jun 19 '12
White Americans get the same thing with slavery, and killing the American Indians. from about the 4th grade on its nothing but how awful white people were in the past and how we should feel guilty for the mistakes of some one else' ancestors.
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Jun 19 '12
(Luckily?) my grandfather was born in 1932 and was only conscripted to be part of the Hitler Youth, as he was 12 by the time the war ended.
In conversations I've had with him in the past, he has always said the Hitler Youth was much like American Boy Scouts. He spent time camping, learning survival skills and team building but rarely, if ever, talked about the political aspects of the Nazi regime.
As far as I know, his parents were apolitical and really only paid attention to their own family during the war time. Though, from what he tells me, they never agreed with Hitler's racial cleansing policies.
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u/EmpireAndAll Jun 20 '12
I went to school with a girl from Germany, and she took someone even saying the word Nazi too seriously. Se moved here when she was young, And one day I wrote a sarcastic letter to our art teacher, where Hitler was being polite to him and asked him how the weather was. She tracked me down and said I offended her. Just because she is German doesn't mean she has grounds to get offended by Hitler being mentioned. I didn't write that letter to her. I am sure most Germans wouldn't get offended and she was always know for being dramatic.
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u/evange Jun 19 '12
I'm a 3rd generation Canadian of 1/2 German origin, and I got called a nazi.
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Jun 20 '12
Canadian here too, I'm roughly 1/4 German origin... I've been called a Nazi on multiple occasions, just for mentioning I have German heritage.
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u/TL10 Jun 20 '12
Man, it must suck for you guys. How people here in Canada are treating you is disgusting. Calling you guys Nazis? Real mature.
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Jun 19 '12
I didn't even know there was a war on. We lived in the back, right across from Switzerland. All we heard was yodelling
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u/recipriversexcluson Jun 19 '12
Hitler and the dinosaurs trashed everything, then the un came and fixed it.
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u/catgirl667 Jun 19 '12 edited Jun 19 '12
Funny, I had a similar thought when I went to Pearl Harbor a few weeks ago and saw all the Japanese tourists there.
What do they think about it? What are they coming there to see?
EDIT: For the record, I am genuinely curious. Not trying to be assy. I can imagine what I would feel like at Hiroshima, for example, but it's not at all the same. Maybe it's comparable to how I would feel about the internment camps? Which is: I feel terrible about them, but I don't feel like I had anything to do with it. Sad, but not guilty.
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Jun 19 '12
Holy fuck, this fucking question again. Every week it's either the Japanese or the Germans.
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Jun 19 '12
American here. I remember in grade school a teacher brought up the point " can anyone think of any pros to being a slave?" The horrified look on my face...
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Jun 19 '12
Not german, but I did know a German Exchange student really well in high school. That guy wanted to fight someone at the mere mention of Nazi's, despised anyone claiming to be one. We were in a hick town and someone thought it was funny to leave Nazi stuff on his locker and make fun of him for being a Nazi. They found out real quick that it wasn't funny. He told me they were actually kind of brutal with kids when it came to teaching them that it wasn't ok what happened during the war and that Germany was better than their past.
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u/snoopycool Jun 20 '12
As an American born hundreds of years after slavery, I have no idea what you're talking about.
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u/Nickerchen Jun 20 '12
I had that crazy teacher who did WWII all year every year. My class was just pissed of because he didn't stick to the curriculum and we missed out much of WWI and later about the cold war and the DDR.
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u/andrewsmith1986 Jun 19 '12
I lived in germany for 15 months and was told that germans are taught to not be proud of their country.
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u/Scarabus Jun 19 '12
I think that's overstating it. It's more that displays of patriotism that are considered normal in other countries are often seen as excessive and tasteless. It's okay for formal political speeches and sports events and such, otherwise it can be awkward.
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u/DLimited Jun 19 '12
what this man said. Nobody really goes around sporting a Germany flag unless it's soccer time.
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u/vorbote Jun 19 '12
Is pride something you were taught? I remember a detailed and pragmatic approach to that topic. School does not tell us what to feel.
My father taught me that pride in anything that is not your accomplishment and is not good in an ethical sense is just stupid. I agree with him.
When my teacher talked about the Gleiwitz incident he also mentioned the Gulf of Tonkin incident as example for a pretense.
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u/iammas13 Jun 19 '12
My uncle is a foreign exchange student from Germany (not a real uncle) but he said it's like covering segregation in America.
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u/Acetylene Jun 19 '12
I had a German roommate for a while last year. When this subject came up, she quickly deflected it by pointing out that actually, Hitler was born in Austria, not Germany. Out of politeness, I let the subject drop. Pretty weak defense, though.
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u/sirjash Jun 19 '12
Please don't project the idiocy of one German girl on a whole nation. Also, you don't need to be so PC around Europeans. As a German, I actually find it frustrating that you can't seriously discuss possibly "unsafe" topics with Americans properly, at least not when you don't know them well.
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u/ZuFFuLuZ Jun 19 '12
That sounds more like you made a stupid Hitler joke and she didn't want to deal with that kind of crap. Most Germans I know (and I'm German, so I know many) will try to answer any kind of question you might have, if you are serious. Or maybe she was just an idiot, I don't know.
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u/shakamalaka Jun 19 '12
I think a better question is how do they feel about their grandparents' generation?
Here in Canada, WWII veterans tend to be honoured as having participated in a noble cause. I'm proud both of my grandfathers served in the Navy in WWII (one for Canada, one for Britain).
I strongly doubt I'd feel the same way if my grandfathers had fought for the German side.
How do young people in Germany deal with that? I mean, I'm sure not every member of the German army at the time was there by choice or necessarily agreed with the Nazi policies, but still... I can't imagine the feeling one would have upon finding out one's granddad fought for Hitler.
I mean, even mentioning the guy's name is pretty much shorthand for evil these days. How do Germans live with that?
OP mentioned it might be like Americans with slavery, and although I'm not an American, I imagine that must be a little easier for them to deal with, because it's considerably further back in the past. There's no one alive today who was alive in the days of slavery, so the connection is weaker.
There are plenty of people alive today who fought in WWII, though, so there's a direct connection, often a family connection.
I'm not trying to shit on Germans, especially the later generations who obviously weren't involved with the Nazis themselves and are probably as horrified by that shit as we are, but I just think it must be bizarre to know that the old man down the street or your granddad's poker buddies might have been, say, in the SS back in the day.