Former Chancellor Schmidt: "Germans not guilty"

[Bleipriester]

Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt stressed that there is no collective guilt.
Helmut Schmidt Die Deutschen in ihrer Gesamtheit waren nicht mitschuldig ZEIT ONLINE

 

[ESay]

I wonder if people elect a government which declares publicly about their nation’s superiority and support the government in realisation of its policies toward other nations then it may be called collective guilt?

 

[Bleipriester]

I wonder if people elect a government which declares publicly about their nation’s superiority and support the government in realisation of its policies toward other nations then it may be called collective guilt?

No, it may not. The NSDAP was elected due to its promises to liberate Germany from the Versailles Treaty.
German federal election November 1932 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

 

[ESay]

No, it may not. The NSDAP was elected due to its promises to liberate Germany from the Versailles Treaty.
German federal election November 1932 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Was it the only reason? Okay, maybe it was. But your compatriots decided to elect a man whose ideas were somewhat crazy. Didn’t they know about his ideas? I assume they did, but nevertheless they decided to support him. Should they bear responsibility for their choice? I think they should.

I don’t understand German at all, unfortunately, and therefore I read the article in English. There isn’t much information there.

 

[Ravi]

The former chancellor is full of shit.

 

[Iceweasel]

This isn't Old Testament times. Sons are not guilty of their father's sins. My mom grew up there, then. I suppose I'm supposed to feel halfway guilty?

 

[ESay]

This isn't Old Testament times. Sons are not guilty of their father's sins. My mom grew up there, then. I suppose I'm supposed to feel halfway guilty?

I don’t know to whom you addressed your question. Maybe it was a rhetorical one. If you want to know my opinion, then I think you shouldn’t. Every person must answer only for their own deeds.

 

[Iceweasel]

I just threw it out there for the 6 billion humans on the planet.

 

[Bleipriester]

No, it may not. The NSDAP was elected due to its promises to liberate Germany from the Versailles Treaty.
German federal election November 1932 - Wikipedia the free encyclopedia

Was it the only reason? Okay, maybe it was. But your compatriots decided to elect a man whose ideas were somewhat crazy. Didn’t they know about his ideas? I assume they did, but nevertheless they decided to support him. Should they bear responsibility for their choice? I think they should.

I don’t understand German at all, unfortunately, and therefore I read the article in English. There isn’t much information there.

If that is your stand, take the responsibility for your own governments´ deeds.

 

[ESay]

If that is your stand, take the responsibility for your own governments´ deeds.

Every member of a nation takes responsibility for a government they have chosen and therefore they have to control the government deeds. It is their duty. If they fail to perform this duty, they receive a punishment. The punishments may vary significantly, depending on various factors. Some receive bombed-out cities and ruined country; some totally corrupt bureaucratic system and widespread poverty as the case in my country. Who should they blame for it? Only themselves.

 

[Bleipriester]

If that is your stand, take the responsibility for your own governments´ deeds.

Every member of a nation takes responsibility for a government they have chosen and therefore they have to control the government deeds. It is their duty. If they fail to perform this duty, they receive a punishment. The punishments may vary significantly, depending on various factors. Some receive bombed-out cities and ruined country; some totally corrupt bureaucratic system and widespread poverty as the case in my country. Who should they blame for it? Only themselves.

Well, I did not choose a government, anyway, These parties available are nothing for me.

 

[hipeter924]

Former Chancellor seems intent to whitewash history. Sure, there was collective guilt for the Nazi regime.

After all, there was no escaping being involved directly or indirectly in the regime, as businesses, schools, and hospitals were under the control of the Nazi party. Much of the industrial production of Germany later in the war was based on forced labor and use of concentration camp prisoners.

That isn't to say the sins of the parents, apply to the children, which they don't, so obviously modern Germans do not have blood on their hands.

 

[hipeter924]

I wonder if people elect a government which declares publicly about their nation’s superiority and support the government in realisation of its policies toward other nations then it may be called collective guilt?

Well, not exactly. The German electoral was a lot different to today, the Nazis did not seize power by popular mandate but by the size of their party and manipulation of the electoral system.

 

[JakeStarkey]

Yes, those living in Germany as teens and older from 1933 to 1945 are collectively guilty.

 

[HenryBHough]

The former chancellor is full of shit.

OMG, Jammie-Jake has found a soul-mate!

 

[Bleipriester]

Former Chancellor seems intent to whitewash history. Sure, there was collective guilt for the Nazi regime.

After all, there was no escaping being involved directly or indirectly in the regime, as businesses, schools, and hospitals were under the control of the Nazi party. Much of the industrial production of Germany later in the war was based on forced labor and use of concentration camp prisoners.

That isn't to say the sins of the parents, apply to the children, which they don't, so obviously modern Germans do not have blood on their hands.

The Nuremberg Trials also denied the collective guilt.

 

[hipeter924]

Former Chancellor seems intent to whitewash history. Sure, there was collective guilt for the Nazi regime.

After all, there was no escaping being involved directly or indirectly in the regime, as businesses, schools, and hospitals were under the control of the Nazi party. Much of the industrial production of Germany later in the war was based on forced labor and use of concentration camp prisoners.

That isn't to say the sins of the parents, apply to the children, which they don't, so obviously modern Germans do not have blood on their hands.

The Nuremberg Trials also denied the collective guilt.

Nuremberg trials were flawed, and let go thousands of war criminals. Part of the post-ww2 myth that all war criminals were punished.

 

[hipeter924]

Edit: Also it was a politized trial, and war crimes on the allied side were glossed over, so from another point of view it wasn't strictly fair trial either.

 

[JakeStarkey]

The Trials were fair to the truth and to the victims.

There is no myth that all war criminals were punished.

 

[hipeter924]

The Trials were fair to the truth and to the victims.

There is no myth that all war criminals were punished.

Nope, for the first time I have to really disagree with you.

BBC - History - World Wars Making Justice at Nuremberg 1945 - 1946

The most controversial issue concerned the criminals themselves. By June 1945 it had been decided not to prosecute surviving Italian Fascist leaders, who were later tried by Italian courts.

It was very uncertain which among the large cohort of prisoners ought to be treated as a major war criminal. The Allies' poor understanding of the nature of the Third Reich meant that the preliminary lists drawn up left out key figures (Heinrich Müller, head of the Gestapo - Adolf Eichmann, head of the Gestapo Jewish Affairs office - Otto Thierack, the vengeful SS Minister of the Interior - and so on) while focusing on individuals who had played along with Hitler, but had clearly had little or no influence on foreign policy or waging war.

Justice of a kind
Once the charges and the criminals had been fixed, the trial opened on 20 November 1945. There were hopes that it would last for no more than a few weeks so that it would maintain public interest and show Allied justice to be swift and inexorable. In practice the trial lasted until October 1946, by which time popular interest had waned.

... three of the 22 defendants were acquitted ... and 12 were sentenced to death ...

The long time-span exposed many of the problems inherent in the whole process. The right to defence produced endless arguments about jurisdiction and responsibility in the governing structures of the Third Reich. The legal squabbles, while in themselves an indication that the Tribunal was no kangaroo court, tried public patience. In the end, three of the 22 defendants were acquitted, including Schacht, who had volubly protested his innocence throughout, and 12 were sentenced to death by hanging.

Germany later took over the criminal proceedings, and during the cold war both sides (east and west) were willing to acquit or ignore war criminals.

And then there were the Nazis that got away: Hundreds of Nazis Still Living in America -- NYMag

Of those Nazi collaborators who did make it into the United States, many are long dead. But a lot of them, presumably, aren't.

"You have to take into account that at least many tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of men (and some women) were participants in these crimes at a relatively young age," says Efraim Zuroff, the director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel office and "the world’s last active Nazi hunter," according to the Times of Israel. "And that thanks to the progress of modern medicine, many live today to age 90 and above."

"I often say that people without a conscience live longer," Zuroff quips. "Less stress."