Surely it is not ok to say this..?

[CristinaYang]

I was out with a large group of work colleagues on Friday night. They all seem to be normal, nice people.

We were talking about places in Europe we had visited, and our favourite places. I said my favourite city so far was Berlin. I absolutely loved Berlin. The people were so friendly and welcoming and, I mentioned, that on the walking tours we did I had admired how they didn’t shy away from Germany’s role in the war. I liked the way the dealt with it in terms of their monuments and the way tour guides spoke etc. Granted I was only there a couple of days and I certainly wouldn’t claim to be any kind of expert but I felt it was sensitively and honestly spoken about but there were no attempts at denial or justification. This is a summary of the conversation, a few people chipped in and agreed with me etc.

Anyway one woman then pipes up “I’m sorry, is anyone else just not ok with Germans, even now?!” I was aghast and thought oh dear that’s awkward. I was then even more aghast by the people that nodded in agreement, made comments about relatives killed in concentration camps and how they still “feel weird”, “can’t warm to them” etc.

But how can they blame Germans for that these days? It’s an entirely different generation of people and things have moved on. You can’t blame individuals for it. I realise that may be simplistic but as I said I’m no expert and I don’t want to spout off about things I don’t fully understand.

Drink was taken (not by me, i wasn’t drinking) but no one seemed to be out and out hammered.

Is this a secretly commonly held view these days? I can’t imagine that it is...

She's British and she's talking about atrocities that other countries carried out? hahahahaha good one

Being aware of your country's history and being held accountable for it are two different things. The Irish don't seem to have addressed the crimes of the Catholic Church, far easier to harp on about the English.

Quite disturbing that people do still voice those feelings, or even still have them.

My dad was friends with quite a few Germans - they were all post-war generation and to be honest, most of them were quite embarrassed about Germany's role in WW2.

I went on a German school exchange and the girl I exchanged with, her grandfather had been a POW held in the UK - we had a few conversations about stuff but mostly because he wanted to practise the English that he'd picked up when he was in the UK. There was no rancour, he was apologetic for Germany's part in the war to an extent but you know, it wasn't his fault, he didn't have any choice in the matter of taking part, he was an 18 yo draft into the army.

I don't see that we can blame ALL Germans for what a few mad people did in the war, any more than we can blame ALL Brits for what colonists did in countries around the world or, indeed, for what the Tories are currently doing.

Dh grandmothers gentleman friend fought in the German army in Russia against the Russians. He is a jolly cheerful working class man I cannot imagine he was nazi. We did ask him what it was like and answer was just "cold".

The Irish don't seem to have addressed the crimes of the Catholic Church, far easier to harp on about the English.

The Church gets "harped" on about a whole more than the English in Ireland believe me

Another great book I love to recommend is In Defence of History Paperback by Richard J. Evans www.amazon.co.uk/Defence-History-Richard-J-Evans/dp/1862073953?tag=mumsnetforum-21

In this volume, English historian Richard Evans offers a defence of the importance of his craft. At a time of deep scepticism about our ability to learn anything from the past, even to recapture any serious sense of past cultures and ways of life, Evans shows us why history is both possible and necessary. His demolition of the wilder claims of post-modern historians, who deny the possibility of any realistic grasp of history, seeks to be witty and well-balanced. He takes us into the historians' workshop to show us just how good history gets written, and explains the deadly political dangers of losing a historical perspective on the way we live our lives. This new edition contains an extensive afterword by the author.

I just saw that he has written further book specifically bout the Holocaust and Hitler, has anyone here read these?

The Church gets "harped" on about a whole more than the English in Ireland believe me
Not if you're English, even if you're visiting relatives

Not if you're English, even if you're visiting relatives

Well I'm Irish and I live in Ireland and I can confirm that the Catholic Church is definitely discussed a hell of a lot more than England is (unless it's sport of course but that's more like a joke these days tbf) I can't speak for your relatives of course but they sound quite rude to bring that up to English relatives

Not if you're English, even if you're visiting relatives

Eh? so you’re not actually Irish living in Ireland but you’re claiming to have better knowledge of Irish people living in Ireland than actual Irish people actually living in Ireland? 😂

It’s all racism.

It’s very good to remember and discuss history. I just despair sometimes that anyone would then extrapolate that all of that nation is crap and therefore be racist. Whether you are German, Jewish, Irish, English. It doesn’t matter.

I’m English. However my family is Irish and Scottish. Fought in the war. Well not me personally. That does not mean that I...

• have to put up with anyone telling me that because you were a colonial power you need to feel shamed to be English. What?
• have to put up with anyone bringing up the Irish troubles or Scotland and expect me to be apologetic.
• brand me as an upper class stiff snob.

In the same vein

• I will not treat Irish as if they are stupid or the IRA. Or the Scots as if they are from Braveheart. Or the Germans as if they are Hitler.

Can we not debate without holding people personally responsible?

Not if you're English, even if you're visiting relatives

Maybe some Irish don’t want to discuss the church in front of an English person in case that English person is a xenophobic, judgmental prick. 🤔 Just a thought.

Deadwood I was replying to her post about her Austrian relative - who I doubt was in such a camp - I may be wrong but I think THAT POST was referring to internment camps in WW2

I don't think that it is helpful to talk about 'The Nazis' as if they were some kind of other species or not quite human or intrinsically different.

Before they were Nazis they were just people.
The slow erosion of various groups rights, the rampant nationalism (after the shame and embarrassment of the Contract of Versailles), as I said upthread the othering of various groups, the 'good organisation' (who does not love employment? an end to rampant inflation? good Autobahnen?) and of course also coercion and force (or slow insidious 'suggestions' that it would be 'better' if one joined the Party) could all happen again and some would argue in some form or another at least of this IS happening across Europe and the UK.

And this happened waaaaaaay before there were camps and war and gas chambers and systematic eradication of whole groups of people.

So, othering, even of Nazis, is not constructive. They were all people, some madder and more sociopathic or even sadistic than others.

It scares me that I am quite sure this could happen again. And likely, in the whole history of humanity, will.
The only chance to prevent it is to keep talking about it, not by pointing fingers but by being alert about systematic discrimination against any group.

How do they feel about the UK concentration camps? My great grandfather was in one her in the UK because he was Austrian. Are you seriously comparing British internment camps to Nazi extermination camps? That is as ridiculous as people blaming all Germans, even those not yet born, for Nazi atrocities.

wintertime4 well said

My dad left the RCC. It caused a lot of angst in the family and the crimes of the church are most definitely discussed. In fact, it was all Dad could talk about sometimes whenever the topic of the Catholic church came up. He had some horror stories.My grandmother was heartbroken because for her the attachment to the church was a cultural statement against the Brits.

I don't hate current day Germans but whenever I meet them I can't help but wonder where their grandparent were and what they were doing during the war.

To answer some of the unforgivable myths upthread:

• British concentration camps (actually internment camps) were nothing - nothing - like the Nazi ones. They didn't have human slaughter houses in them for a start. They didn't perform experiments on children in them either.

• Germans voted in Hitler before he became a dictator and most collaborated or at the very least turned a blind eye to what was going on around them. Many dobbed in their Jewish neighbours, sentencing them to certain death, and others enjoyed looting and stealing their homes after they'd gone. Even German m schoolchildren would taunt Jewish children in class (have you read When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit?). So the idea that most Germans were themselves victimized by the Nazi regime is laughable.

And for those who are enjoying virtue signaling about "racism" towards Germans (they're not a race btw, despite the fact Hitler pretended they were), here's a pic of some women huddled around the mass grave they just dug and are about to be shot into by Nazis:

Confessions

In the 1950s, the people of Kenya decided they wanted their nation back. Unfortunately, the people they wanted it back from just happened to be the same guys responsible for every other atrocity on this list. Fearing a countrywide rebellion, the British rounded up 1.5 million people and placed them in concentration camps. What happened in these camps will turn your stomach.Under slogans like “labor and freedom” and other variations on ” Arbeit macht frei,” inmates were worked to death as slave labor filling in mass graves. Random executions were not-uncommon and the use of torture was widespread. Men were anally raped with knives. Women had their breasts mutilated and cut off. Eyes were gouged out and ears cut off and skin lacerated with coiled barbed wire. People were castrated with pliers then sodomized by guards. Interrogation involved stuffing a detainee’s mouth with mud and stamping on his throat until he passed out or died. Survivors were sometimes burned alive.

Also
In a single year, 10 percent of the entire Boer population died in the British camps—a figure that gets even worse when you realize it includes 22,000 children.

listverse.com/2014/02/04/10-evil-crimes-of-the-british-empire/

What nasty keyboard warrior type of posts there are on this thread.

Well said “perfectly*
Nobody suddenly woke up a Nazi, it was a slow process whereby the majority of people saw their lives improve and their country prosper.
THEN the rights of certain groups began to be eroded and the the real persecution began
It’s like the frog and the boiling water, drop it in boiling water and it will jump straight out but slowly heat up the water and it won’t relaid eu fil it’s too late.
DH great Aunt was in The HItler Youth and met him twice, she remembers how exciting it was to meet the man who had “fixed”their country. She said she didn’t know what a Jew actually was until she was told she couldn’t play with X because she was one
There are still families who don’t speak to each other or people singled out in villages for being/not being party members

Not sure if anyone has put this but look up the Alports Scale and Nazi Germany, it shows the step by step drip feed and how it all ended with the Holocaust.
OP tell your friends to look up Dresden or the Boers and many other sick things we have done, especially Dresden as that was during WW2

For those saying don't blame the german people, they weren't all nazis...don't you know what happened even after the war was over? When the few jews that were left tried to reclaim their homes and business and lives, they were sometimes chased out by those who had taken them. They were even killed. They were left in DP camps for months, even years.

And long before the war, jewish persecution was rife and acceptable It wasn't a secret in 1933 what Hitler and his party thought of the Jews, or that they were moving towards a firmer footing for legal discrimination. It's why they got in, in part.

I agree entirely that its not ok to blame any 21st century German for the war, but lets stop with the revisionist history, it's offensive.

complete And in the UK, how did people treat Jews at that time?

Roughly the same way, unfortunately. Discrimination was completely acceptable.

It wasn't just during that period, we have a lot of blood on our hands going back for centuries heritage.org.uk/visit/places/cliffords-tower-york/history-and-stories/jewish-massacre/

And in the UK, how did people treat Jews at that time? Roughly the same way, unfortunately. Discrimination was completely acceptable

not at all the same way, at all. What happened in the 30's in germany was not just discrimination.