German TV drama confronts a nation's wartime guilt

When the soviets on 20th June 1944 captured Viipuri (Viborg) - then the 2nd largest city in FInland - they murdered all the Finnish wounded in the military hospital (and others outside of it) and the doctors as well.

The soviet partisans raped and murdered Finnish civilians in Northern Finland. No doubt the soviet rapist army would have raped and murdered in Finland too - had they managed to conquer the country - like they did EVERYWHERE else in Europe, regardless of the nationality of the women.

That is a FACT which no soviet propaganda can whitewash.

 

One does not have to rely only on "the Nazi" sources.

Partisans were NOT always ordinary soldiers with uniforms and definitely DID NOT always fight "according to the rules"(?). They were sometimes under the NKVD, had plain criminals from the prisons among them, did not always wear uniforms and sometimes murdered purposefully mainly civilians - women, children and elderly.

 

That's exactly my point: he couldn't get away with shades-of-gray defence it in ta court within sophisticated law system.

I've tried to give you a "like" but I still have empty pockets.

 

Even more interesting than the points raised in this thread, is a look at the nationalities making these points. We represent the descendents of people from every side of this fray - Germans, German allies, occupied nations, nations at war with Germany, etc. And yet, we have a fairly unanimous point of view.

People are not evil. Extremist politics is evil.

 

I've always maintained that there is no equality sign among the ethnicity and ideology. There are no entirely corrupt people but there was an utterly corrupt ideology.

 

Well said. And the same applies to Stalinism, Islamic extremism, colonialism or the American "Manifest Destiny." People can be led astray like lemmings...

 

urgh, I understand and fully agree about the rules of war. I just wish the reality was different. From the begging of time, to present day Syria, total war is barbaric.

 

Yep mate....and current wars if we can call them that...show the rules as they supposedly exist...Are flouted willy nilly...my post was just to remind all that the Geneva Convention still exists...Its having a tough time existing...but its still there.

I was not having a go. When I have a go....I break into Swahilli mate...

 

Count me out or send a shot over my bow ! I do enough of that with the unions at work !

I'm curious if this series ever mentioned the Milice Volunteers or the LVF ?

 

"Led astray" simply does not apply to NAZIism after 1933.
JEffinMNUSA

 

I'd argue otherwise. People are basically herd animals and will believe any nonsense or do anything as long as the greater herd commands them or even just approves. There have been studies on this.

 

What happened in1933 or even 1934 that would have sent a clear signal of how things were going to go in Germany?

 

Quite a few are-but the rest got dragged along into NAZI idealism whether they would or not. After 1933 the only real option became assassination-which was tried quite a few times and SHOULD have worked at some time-too bad Herr Hitler had the devil's own luck.

What happened in1933 or even 1934 that would have sent a clear signal of how things were going to go in Germany?

Power shifted inexorably into the hands of the dictator-the Riechsdag fire was about as clear a signal as you could have. Of course modern totalitarianism was a relatively new phenomenon at the time having only started with the Bolsheviks.
http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/burns.htm
PS. Catholicism anyone? It seems the Fatima visions were heavy on "Russian Errors"; http://www.fatimamovement.com/015_TheMiracleofFatima.htm I assume Fascism (and for that matter Ayn Randism) would also be included as a "Russian Error"? After all, Bolshevism in reverse is still Bolshevism. For the people who have to live under the various totalitarian systems there is a remarkable simularity in these terroristic systems of control.

 

That's indeed an interesting question.

It is difficult to state with certainty when the first signal has been sent but culmination of the pre-war process of revealing intentions was the Kristallnacht. For clarity, it should be stressed that that terror against the Jewish population was entirely a deed of civil population. This makes the crime even heavier and inexplicable with simple: "We were just executing the orders."

Spontaneous or not, organized or not, there were no orders. It is impossible to organize those who refuse to be organized.
It was “spontaneous” people's justice, an Embryo of Auschwitz.

EDIT: Perhaps the first signal could have been send on April, 1st 1933: officially sanctioned boycott of Jewish shops and stores throughout Germany.

 

Look around the world. Totalitarianism is an almost inevitable outgrowth of severe economic distress because people will gravitate towards authoritarian politics just for the perceived stability. Who ends up in control is more a function of whose propaganda is best organized.

The communists could only point to the USSR where the standard of living was even lower than in Germany. Hitlers propaganda centered around patriotism, nationalism and thence into racism. I suspect most Germans, at first, only bought off on the Nazis as a way of avoiding the communist direction. I doubt they were much impressed by the racism thing - it was a civilized and well educated country. But, once the herd is all going in the same direction the extremists begin leading the pack and the rest of the herd follows.

There are "buffalo jumps" in the western US where the Indians would get an entire herd to run up an incline and jump off a cliff to their deaths. People are more sophisticated than buffalo, but the same rules apply. Once you get them moving in the same direction, they will tend to get more and more extreme because that's where the leader of the pack is going.

 

Here's a great book on totalitarianism written in a fictional format; http://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/magazine/vasilygrossman/
Grossman-like nearly all the people of Eastern Europe-chose communism over fascism. Which is not to say that there weren't massive problems with Soviet communism!

 

And the frist followers of Hitler and Nazism...were mostly vetrans...The patriotism angle shows itself.

 

Communism and fascism are the same thing. The state ran industry under both governments. In Germany, Hitler allowed private profits, but he still directed what would be produced, at what cost, under what conditions - all industry served the state.

The only real difference was the strong nationalist angle.

Nobody "chose" communism in eastern Europe after the war. They were just told they were communists and those who openly disagreed, were shot or hauled off to the gulag.

 

I would agree it's a signal but one that would have been hard to interpreate at the time. Mein Kampf was also a signal but again it wasn't clear IMO where it would lead. I'm not sure there was much clarity in the matter until 38 or so and perhaps later.

Antisematism was hardly a new phenomina in Europe in any case.

 

Nobody "chose" communism in eastern Europe after the war. They were just told they were communists and those who openly disagreed, were shot or hauled off to the gulag.

DURING THE OCCUPATION Eastern Europeans had the stark choice of supporting Hitler or supporting Stalin. If you took arms in the forests you had just joined the Red Army behind the lines. There was an extensive supply effort, along with intelligence, trainers and technical experts flown in from Moscow. If you were a guerrilla supporter? Incredible as it seems after the depredations of NAZI the Reds looked pretty good to the downtrodden peoples of Eastern Europe! The Red Guerrillas performed extraordinary services during the occupation; their achievments including striking at enemy supply and communication, tying down numerous Axis forces, denying the enemy effective exploitation of the conquered territories, controlling populations, sabotage, out and out combat with Axis forces etc- but the activity Grenkevich credits as being the most effective against the Hitlerite was INTELLIGENCE. In all the Red Partisans were a deadly threat to Axis forces during the occupation and for the most part inducted into the RKKA after liberation.
There were some nationalist movements but they received no support from Moscow during the guerrilla phases and were wiped out by the NKVD Armies after the RKKA had passed through.
SO after all this devastation and war the last military forces standing in the postwar era were the NKVD armies. The civilian survivors-ie. 1/4--1/3 of the population GONE in Belarus- did as they were told or as you say were shot or sent to the GULAG. Or maybe they did what was expected and were shot or sent to the GULAG anyhow-Stalinist rule was quite capricious. At any rate-amongst many the REDS remained the heroes who had saved them from NAZI-and to a degree this is an absolute truism.