Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

news.yahoo.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 85 posts

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#41

Post by selimthegrim »

usrusr wrote: post #21
ummonk wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That doesn't seem quite so straightforward actually. The Nazi regime wasn't a thing yet, as the Nazis had yet to seize power. How obvious was it at the time to Germans that the Nazis would turn out to be so horrible?

Early support only makes it worse. Later support might reasonably be explained away as pragmatism (think von Braun at Mittelbau, who, according to the accepted American interpretation, just cared a bit too little about how exactly he would to get ahead with his goal of shooting stuff to space), but early support is pure embracing of ideology and ruthlessness (see sibling comments).

I wonder how Oberth's record compares?

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#42

Post by selimthegrim »

oh_sigh wrote: post #32
vkou wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would have been obvious to anyone who actually read Mein Kampf.

Too bad it is essentially banned in Germany

I'm pretty sure you can go to any German university library and read it for educational purposes

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#43

Post by selimthegrim »

pkaye wrote: post #7
onetimemanytime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At some point the state recognizes property, even if it was seized or granted, say, 450 years ago. After that you cannot take it without compensation.

What about the British crown jewels which originated form India?

IIRC Pakistan had claimed them too

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#44

Post by rbg246 »

colechristensen wrote: post #20

The same claims are made around the world by people who no resources or prestige, sometimes they win things, sometimes they don't. Examples include Palestinians, descendants of slaves in the US, Native Americans, indigenous peoples around the world. Just about everybody has a history of their ancestors taking things in ways which weren't "legal" AND having things taken from them. It is hard to come up with a consiste…

Conflating a rich family's claim to their medieval land holdings with the above mentioned struggles is totally flippant and disrespectful.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#45

Post by colechristensen »

rbg246 wrote: post #44
colechristensen wrote: post #20

The same claims are made around the world by people who no resources or prestige, sometimes they win things, sometimes they don't. Examples include Palestinians, descendants of slaves in the US, Native Americans, indigenous peoples around the world. Just about everybody has a history of their ancestors taking things in ways which weren't "legal" AND having things taken from them. It is hard to come up with a consiste…

Conflating a rich family's claim to their medieval land holdings with the above mentioned struggles is totally flippant and disrespectful.

Why? The morality depends on the size of the group? or the present wealth of the group?

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#46

Post by rbg246 »

colechristensen wrote: post #45
rbg246 wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Conflating a rich family's claim to their medieval land holdings with the above mentioned struggles is totally flippant and disrespectful.

Why? The morality depends on the size of the group? or the present wealth of the group?

Flippant - you summarised a whole series of complicated issues in two small paragraphs which demonstrated flippancy conflating very different issues.

Disrespectful - these complicated issues involve people who have been and continue to be disadvantaged by these issues, your flippancy is disrespectful.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#47

Post by colechristensen »

rbg246 wrote: post #46
colechristensen wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? The morality depends on the size of the group? or the present wealth of the group?

Flippant - you summarised a whole series of complicated issues in two small paragraphs which demonstrated flippancy conflating very different issues. Disrespectful - these complicated issues involve people who have been and continue to be disadvantaged by these issues, your flippancy is disrespectful.

Mostly what you have to say there is that I'm flippant and disrespectful because I was being flippant and disrespectful.

The only explanation there is that I'm talking about "issues involve people who have been and continue to be disadvantaged"

Those rich folks have been "disadvantaged" by being deprived of things they have claims on. Obviously they are already quite advantaged, but you can't deny they have less advantage without the things they're claiming.

So, it only matters that one group has fewer resources therefore they have a moral advantage?

I think you are being flippant and disrespectful by calling me names instead of providing substantial counterpoints.

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#48

Post by henrikschroder »

colechristensen wrote: post #20

The same claims are made around the world by people who no resources or prestige, sometimes they win things, sometimes they don't. Examples include Palestinians, descendants of slaves in the US, Native Americans, indigenous peoples around the world. Just about everybody has a history of their ancestors taking things in ways which weren't "legal" AND having things taken from them. It is hard to come up with a consiste…

> It is hard to come up with a consistent moral and legal philosophy to deal with these kinds of things.

It is impossible, because you quickly run into contrafactual history.

Let's say the descendants of Scandinavian vikings owe repairs to descendants of people living in Normandy, because the vikings raped and pillaged.

Except, they also settled. And became Normans. And invaded England. Changed the English language forever, changed the ruling class of England. Changed the history of Europe forever. Maybe the Norman conquest was ultimately a good thing for England? Maybe the Anglo-Saxons would have been wiped out by some other conqueror if the Normans hadn't come?

There are millions of people who live today because history happened the way it happened. If the vikings hadn't raped and pillaged and settled in Normandy, those millions of people would never have been born. So do they owe money to the descendants of the vikings as thanks for their existence?

Re: Last German kaiser's heirs fight for riches lost behind Iron Curtain

#49

Post by colechristensen »

henrikschroder wrote: post #48
colechristensen wrote: post #20

The same claims are made around the world by people who no resources or prestige, sometimes they win things, sometimes they don't. Examples include Palestinians, descendants of slaves in the US, Native Americans, indigenous peoples around the world. Just about everybody has a history of their ancestors taking things in ways which weren't "legal" AND having things taken from them. It is hard to come up with a consiste…

> It is hard to come up with a consistent moral and legal philosophy to deal with these kinds of things. It is impossible , because you quickly run into contrafactual history. Let's say the descendants of Scandinavian vikings owe repairs to descendants of people living in Normandy, because the vikings raped and pillaged. Except, they also settled. And became Normans. And invaded England. Changed the English language…

Exactly.

It was, let's say 1000 years ago and most people affected descended from both perpetrators and victims. You could go as far as saying this kind of violence was important and necessary for the development of civilization; if every human respected property rights for the last 10,000 years we would live in a very different world.

So a 1,000 year old crime is wiped out in the present. When does that stop? How soon to now should the statute of limitations be?

300 year old Native American issues? 150 year old American slavery issues? 100 year old Israel/Palestine issues? 50 year old American discrimination issues?

If I go out and steal something today, obviously there is a legal remedy. How far back does it go? Does it flow through generations?

It seems impossible but there has to be a line or some distinction between historic issues which are necessarily "done" and present issues which deserve justice.

People are deciding these issues but I haven't heard or seen a justification for one way vs the other.

Post reply on HN