Nazis

[Desert Fox]

A article I have read, inspired me for this topic. All nazi soldiers were/are often described as sadists, perverts demons that enjoy the suffering of all jews. But in fact only the regime (and some nazi soldiers too, I am not saying they were all Saints <_< ) enjoyed to suffer their foes. The soldiers were just following blindly orders. And if you look at the way how they were raised, it is hard to see why they took it for granted. A former SS soldier talked about his childhood and told how the jews were shown as evil people, with hawk noses and had limetless cash in their pockets. In the years before WWII, German children were prepared to fight the jews. Every where they went, Jews were shown as evil and they had to rephrase everyday that jews were not even human. So if they were as child raised they were evil, it is only normal (how sad this is) they killed jews (not with clear consience since they knew deep inside it was wrong, but they were told it was for the greater good) and they had to obey their orders. You can&#39;t say nothing that will state how they acted was good but they were not demons like most people say. And what frustrates the most that Israel today abuses the fact that their forefathers were slaughterd and exterminated in WWII to make them look like the victim even today and justify all their actions. But back on topic, I do hope you people see that those same butchers at the "work camps " were family men with a loving wife and children and due a incorrect political ideology they transformed into "devils"

[El Commandante]

There is a difference between a soldier and a member of the Waffen SS. Not all German soldiers were Nazis but the excuse of &#39;following orders&#39; is a fairly shallow one if they were being ordered to carry out genocide. Also it depends on the theatre of operations that the soldier was fighting in, for example in campaigns against the British in Western Europe they treated prisoners and the local population well by all accounts. But in Russia after the Commissar Decree which stated that because Russian had not signed up the various War Rights treaties they had no right to claim the option of surrender so could be killed on the spot. This also carried to all members of political organisations in Russian and these orders were carried out by &#39;ordinary&#39; soldiers.

But towards the end of the war the army was being replaced with Hitler&#39;s personal army of the SS and every member of this was not only a soldier but also a fanatical nazi. Therefore every member of the SS was a demon and they committed disgusting massacres and mutilations against the people which they have no been punished enough severly for. Every member of the SS at the end of WWII should have been shot for war crimes which they committed against soldiers and civilians alike.

[Bodyguard]

Originally posted by El [email protected] 23 2003, 04:08 PM
There is a difference between a soldier and a member of the Waffen SS. Not all German soldiers were Nazis but the excuse of &#39;following orders&#39; is a fairly shallow one if they were being ordered to carry out genocide. Also it depends on the theatre of operations that the soldier was fighting in, for example in campaigns against the British in Western Europe they treated prisoners and the local population well by all accounts. But in Russia after the Commissar Decree which stated that because Russian had not signed up the various War Rights treaties they had no right to claim the option of surrender so could be killed on the spot. This also carried to all members of political organisations in Russian and these orders were carried out by &#39;ordinary&#39; soldiers.

But towards the end of the war the army was being replaced with Hitler&#39;s personal army of the SS and every member of this was not only a soldier but also a fanatical nazi. Therefore every member of the SS was a demon and they committed disgusting massacres and mutilations against the people which they have no been punished enough severly for. Every member of the SS at the end of WWII should have been shot for war crimes which they committed against soldiers and civilians alike.
Very insightfull post El. Just a couple of points.......The behavior of the German army was generally better on the western front in WW2 than in WW1. There were a few instances of shooting of prisoners and looting during the Low Countrys campain, but not many. Late in the war with the manpower shortage, many units were formed with Hitler Youth. Both the Waffen and Totenkopf SS were filled with only the most fanatical Nazis (some from other countrys) and were extremely dangerous. The Russian front was indeed hell on Earth for both sides.......the Nazi felt the Slavs we not really human and treated them as such........it was all so disgusting.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by El [email protected] 23 2003, 04:08 PM
But towards the end of the war the army was being replaced with Hitler&#39;s personal army of the SS and every member of this was not only a soldier but also a fanatical nazi. Therefore every member of the SS was a demon and they committed disgusting massacres and mutilations against the people which they have no been punished enough severly for. Every member of the SS at the end of WWII should have been shot for war crimes which they committed against soldiers and civilians alike.
Well even they acted like demons they were humans. And they were not exceptions, they were fanatics supporting the nazi ideology. But even now we have still fanatics supporthing differt ideologies. Do you call a person who blows himself up together with 20 victims (guilty or innocent) sane ? That can be viewed as demon acts as well. But you have a point, hitler&#39;s asseblemd a army of diehard nazis. And they were cruel and diabolicel. But like I said before they were human and were misguided by a wrong ideology and leader. So they aren&#39;t 100 % guilty for their actions.

[Bodyguard]

Every man is responsible to himself and his moral code. No exceptions.

[Danton]

the Nazi felt the Slavs we not really human and treated them as such........it was all so disgusting.

http://www.xs4all.nl/~lpbrull/digipage/dig...ll_overview.htm (http://www.xs4all.nl/~lpbrull/digipage/digipage/HELL/hell_overview.htm)

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2003, 06:41 PM
Every man is responsible to himself and his moral code. No exceptions.
That is sadly not true. They had the false illusion they were doing the right thing and they had to obey their superiors. If they didn&#39;t go with the flow they risked being killed themself and lose their loved ones. So they really did not have an option. They could have been less cruel yes, but they worked by the rules of a wrong ideology they considerd as right or they had to follow since they didn&#39;t want to lose their loved ones. So you can&#39;t blaim them completly, how would you act if you had the choice of sparing your loved ones and slay a stranger that was considerd by the people of your society as inhuman or losing your loved ones. I am going to give you a more concrete example " Would you kill a neo-nazi that you barely know or would decide not to kill him with the risk of losing your loved ones "

[redstar2000]

I think what you&#39;re suggesting here is something along the lines of "we are all products of our social orders, conditioned from birth to think of certain things or people as good and other things or people as evil".

That&#39;s a reasonable observation.

On the other hand, does that "excuse" anything?

Let&#39;s make a little comparison. How many Germans actively participated--with or without "enthusiasm"--in the Nazi atrocities and how many did not?

We don&#39;t know the numbers, of course, but we can make reasonable guesses. Without going into the details, I doubt that as many as 20% of adult and teen-age Germans were actually involved in what happened there.

So then you have to ask yourself, what about all the rest? What was the difference? Was it just a matter of luck? Herr X didn&#39;t kill any Jews because the government never asked him to or ordered him to. Herr Y didn&#39;t kill any Jews because, as it happened, there were none that lived in his part of Germany. Herr Z managed to wrangle a job that didn&#39;t have anything to do with the holocaust at all. And so on.

There are a handful of records extant where Germans specifically refused to carry out mass executions or other atrocities. The records suggest that such people were quietly transferred to "other duties" and no more was said about it.

Even a few SS personnel volunteered for combat to escape "death camp duty"...or so it is said.

I agree with you that to think of the Germans or any peoples as some kind of "demons" is useless in understanding what really happened and why it happened.

But we know who wanted those terrible things to happen and who wants them to happen again.

They must be smashed not for what they "are" but for what they plan to do.

http://anarchist-action.org/forums/images/smiles/redstar.gif

The RedStar2000 Papers (http://www.anarchist-action.org/marxists/redstar2000/)
A site about communist ideas

[commieboy]

i&#39;ve got to give hitler a pat on the back for one thing.....He had boy&#39;s acadamys to train SS soldiers from boyhood and he gave them very good educations, and oppertunities they&#39;d never have...like swimming in the ocean, sking in the alps, riding in countryside....and each day a new cadet would be incharge of a sqaud....but when they weren&#39;t having the best of Germany, they were being brainwashed into hating Jews and killing anything non aryan..

[Pro-MyIdeals]

you guys should take a look at the milgramm shock experiments...i&#39;ve seen the videotapes of them...it is a little creepy how people follow the worst orders with just a little prodding

[Rastafari]

or the whole Zimbardo prison thing?

anyway, war is hell, and once that is conditioned into soldier&#39;s minds, they feel that any thing they do is justified. Hell, if your allowed to kill another human being (Even though we&#39;re only families apart...), how much worse can you do?

[Mr Mojo Risin]

you guys should take a look at the milgramm shock experiments...i&#39;ve seen the videotapes of them...it is a little creepy how people follow the worst orders with just a little prodding

very good point, i was about to use it, but let me elaborate. Fix the flag, by the way.

Hannah Arendt, a German Jew, wrote "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A report on the banality (ordinary-ness) of evil" about the trial of Adolf Eichmann, a german officer who organized train schedules for the death camps. He was a pathetic individual who failed at everything in his life until he finally found success and a niche for himself in his job with the 3rd Reich. The holocaust was allowed because of people just like him--Automatons concerned only with forwarding their own careers, who do so without conscious thought about their actions. i.e. THE RAT RACE.

The milgramm shock experiences were held in boston, where ordinary americans would give electrick shocks to other people when told by a man in a lab coat that it was okay. Even when they were told that the shocks were deadly, nearly all people proceeded when told by an AUTHORITY that it was OKAY.

[Mr Mojo Risin]

by the way, the worst part of the milgramm experiments is that nearly all of the people who gave shocks to the other people would give a nervous laugh when they heard the other people screaming. What do this, plus Hannah Arendt&#39;s observations, tell you about why the holocaust happened? Well, those nazis weren&#39;t necessarily evil, just normal people caught up in the rat race.

[Desert Fox]

Originally posted by Mr Mojo Risin&#39;@Oct 26 2003, 07:00 AM
The milgramm shock experiences were held in boston, where ordinary americans would give electrick shocks to other people when told by a man in a lab coat that it was okay. Even when they were told that the shocks were deadly, nearly all people proceeded when told by an AUTHORITY that it was OKAY.
Now you start about this topic, I heard and read about the experiment too. And read a few interviews with people who did that expirement. What wonders me more is what I gatherd from the information of the interviews with test subjects that people with a high proffesion (professor, doctor, etc ...) refused at a certain point to proceed but people with a less high proffesion (nurse, worker, etc ...) followed orders. This is no way in looking down to any of these people but I found that remarkable when reading those interviews. But at the end we must see that people always will have to and will follow orders even when they are unethical. That is a sad thing but some do enjoy doing such orders. And that is more frightning than the orders themselves. But the nazis are only a example but the most clear example of the banality. In every regime there have been such events but the evens of the nazi regime are probally the best known. However you shouldn&#39;t think that nazis were the only ones just following orders, every where in the world there are people following blindy orders, in some way or a other ...