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Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

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Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#91

Post by chadlavi »

eruci wrote: post #89
mercer wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What are you arguing for, exactly? It sounds like you're somehow trying to justify extermination?

I'm not. I'm just stating the sad fact that acknowledgement of past crimes is mostly done in western democracies. I've never seen, for example, a similar speech by a Turkish, Chinese or Pakistani politician about the crimes committed in the name of their nation state and the collective myths used to keep it all together.

Those nations also haven't lost a war in which the rest of the world told them, "hey, stop, you're being really evil and you're wrong."

There's probably nothing special about Western Europeans/Germany in this regard except for the fact that they were forced to come to terms with their crimes.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#92

Post by eruci »

mengibar10 wrote: post #77
eruci wrote: post #64

Guilt over past crimes is mainly a western thing. There is for example, no such thing in modern Turkey over the extermination of the native peoples of Anatolia which led to the formation of the Turkish state with a uniform religious/ethnic composition. On the contrary, that is a source of national pride these days. Other examples abound (India, Pakistan, China, etc)

That's how it looks if you oversimplify history and do it with only one sentence. Turks started to migrate into Anatolia about 600 AD. However, the most defining moment and the most known turning point is the Battle of Menzikert in 1071. This puts at least 1000 years of slow demographic change. We can argue a lot of details about how it happened. But it is better to stick to your main argument that the guilt over pas…

Regardless of when the first Turk appeared in Anatolia, it does not change the fact that the native populations were completely wiped out mostly in recent history. Is the state organized extermination of Armenians taught to Turkish schools like the crimes of colonialism are in major western former colonial powers? How about the current treatment of Kurds in Turkey and even in neighboring countries?

It is you oversimplifying and throwing around numbers to over-justify.

I stand by my main claim the revisiting past crimes of nationhood, is mainly a western thing.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#93

Post by SuoDuanDao »

gspr wrote: post #54
SuoDuanDao wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

thank you for clarifying. Is it fair to say that it is a faux pas to be hyperbolic around charged issues in public?

> Is it fair to say that it is a faux pas to be hyperbolic around charged issues in public? I wouldn't call it faux pas per se. Just that you can't be expected to be taken seriously if you are.

Perhaps the confusion is about what 'taken seriously' means in the two cultures.

Let me put it this way: would being a known member of the AFD affect one's job search irrespective of one's reasons for being a member?

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#94

Post by mengibar10 »

eruci wrote: post #92
mengibar10 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's how it looks if you oversimplify history and do it with only one sentence. Turks started to migrate into Anatolia about 600 AD. However, the most defining moment and the most known turning point is the Battle of Menzikert in 1071. This puts at least 1000 years of slow demographic change. We can argue a lot of details about how it happened. But it is better to stick to your main argument that the guilt over pas…

Regardless of when the first Turk appeared in Anatolia, it does not change the fact that the native populations were completely wiped out mostly in recent history. Is the state organized extermination of Armenians taught to Turkish schools like the crimes of colonialism are in major western former colonial powers? How about the current treatment of Kurds in Turkey and even in neighboring countries? It is you oversimp…

I am deliberately avoiding the Armenian issue not to overlook it but not to lose focus. I wanted to reply to your "mainly a Western thing" argument. All my examples were only to enforce the argument and not to divert the attention. That is why I am not dignifying other threads by replying since they are doing exactly what they accuse me of.

It was probably my mistake not to make my point clear enough. I would like to restate my argument is that we only hear German war crimes at this high amplitude and frequency but almost never about the crimes committed by French or Belgian or any other Western nation. Not on the front page of HN nor on NYTimes. French and Belgian atrocities were also a nation-state crime including the one committed in the Americas.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#95

Post by mcguire »

eruci wrote: post #64

Guilt over past crimes is mainly a western thing. There is for example, no such thing in modern Turkey over the extermination of the native peoples of Anatolia which led to the formation of the Turkish state with a uniform religious/ethnic composition. On the contrary, that is a source of national pride these days. Other examples abound (India, Pakistan, China, etc)

Take care, you may summon the ghost of Serdar Argic (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serdar_Argic).

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#96

Post by weinzierl »

selimthegrim wrote: post #42
weinzierl wrote: post #35

Just a little background from a German perspective: Weizsäcker here is not the physicist but Richard von Weizsäcker, his brother. Richard von Weizsäcker was President of Germany from mid 80s to mid 90s. The President of Germany is, simply put, like British Monarchy. In practice he has mostly a representative role. As a president Weizsäcker was well popular in Germany and neither was reclusive nor caused any scandals,…

Is being reclusive bad?

If you are the representative of country, I suppose so.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#97

Post by goto11 »

ihm wrote: post #61
coldcode wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Saying that the German people all knew of what was being done is not historical, nor the experience of my family. When my great grandparents were taken from their home in 1943 along with all the other Jews in town (other than my Grandmother who was married to a non-Jew, and my mother) they had no idea where they were being taken. Of course they all died but no one had any idea until after the war was over and even to…

> To say everyone knew is incorrect; to imagine you could change things if you knew is also wrong. Can we today stop our government from cramming children into cages and then forgetting them? Yet we have modern media and still horrific things are done in our name and we either ignore it or feel helpless to do anything. I agree with this point and take your criticism that I painted with too broad a brush in terms of w…

Careful now. Everybody knew the Jews were persecuted, had their rights and belongings taken away and were rounded up in ghettos and camps, from where they eventually were "evacuated to the East". What civilians could justifiably claim is they didn't know where or how the killing happened. Information about this was kept vague. While the concentration camps where public knowledge, the extermination camps were kept secret. So German civilians could say they didn't know about Babi Yar or Treblinka and the gas chambers - but that is a far cry from saying they didn't know about the persecution and genocide.

It should also be noted that the T4 euthanasia program was scaled back due to public protests. This shows not only that people actually knew it happened (even if it was kind-of secret) but also that protest could actually work. The Nazi party actually cared a great deal about public opinion which is why propaganda was so important to them. One of the reasons the extermination camps were kept secret is they feared protests.

There were also the Rosenstrasse protests, where (non-Jewish) wives of Jewish men protested against deportation of their men. This actually caused the men to be released.

So "we didn't know and couldn't have done anything anyway" is ahistorical. I can understand why people cling to it, but it is a dangerous myth.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#98

Post by dang »

burger_moon wrote: post #25

Since we're on the topic of Germany WWII. I read a couple books about Treblinka over the weekend. The atrocities that happened there were sickening. To read about what these people were forced to do there in this death camp is painful. The Germans and Ukrainians who did these horrific acts of murder and torture were unaffected by it, as told by two authors who survived. It leaves me with more questions than answers.…

It's extremely difficult to look at that suffering. The mind can't handle it, so we put filters between ourselves and it.

I recently read a memoir by a woman who survived Auschwitz and eventually became a psychotherapist in the US. (Hint: if that sounds like Viktor Frankl, it's not by coincidence.) Her story is astonishing. But the chapters about the camp and the death march after it are not easy. I had to pause a lot.

https://www.amazon.com/Choice-Dr-Edith-Eva-Eger/dp/150113079...

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#99

Post by hef19898 »

SuoDuanDao wrote: post #93
gspr wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is it fair to say that it is a faux pas to be hyperbolic around charged issues in public? I wouldn't call it faux pas per se. Just that you can't be expected to be taken seriously if you are.

Perhaps the confusion is about what 'taken seriously' means in the two cultures. Let me put it this way: would being a known member of the AFD affect one's job search irrespective of one's reasons for being a member?

German national, but still take it just my personal opinion. I would say maybe, of course not officially. Depends on your public profile, if you tending towards the extremes it would have a greater impact. Same would go for being on the extreme left, so. It also depends on the company you apply to.

Just being a known, but bot very outspoken member, wouldn't have too much of an impact.

Re: Weizsäcker's speech on 40th anniversary of WW2's end (1985)

#100

Post by luckylion »

chadlavi wrote: post #91
eruci wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not. I'm just stating the sad fact that acknowledgement of past crimes is mostly done in western democracies. I've never seen, for example, a similar speech by a Turkish, Chinese or Pakistani politician about the crimes committed in the name of their nation state and the collective myths used to keep it all together.

Those nations also haven't lost a war in which the rest of the world told them, "hey, stop, you're being really evil and you're wrong." There's probably nothing special about Western Europeans/Germany in this regard except for the fact that they were forced to come to terms with their crimes.

> Those nations also haven't lost a war in which the rest of the world told them, "hey, stop, you're being really evil and you're wrong."

The Ottoman Empire did, they were allied with Germany in WW1, lost and Turkey was all that remained of the empire. It hasn't change the tune, though. Japan did as well, and they're also ahead of the world average, but I believe it's still quite a way off from the Western approach. They have become more pacifist than Western countries though.

> There's probably nothing special about Western Europeans/Germany in this regard except for the fact that they were forced to come to terms with their crimes.

I don't think that's accurate. The US, France or the UK did not lose a war either, yet they very much did look at their past atrocities. Not enough, I'm sure some will argue, but still a lot more than the world average.

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