Should Old Veterans Forgive Their Former Enemies?

[sapper]

stop defending the Tyrant Hitlers people. IT was not Britain that started the indiscriminate bombing of cities. It was the Germans. WE were not fighting a nice little entertaining war ..We were fighting against an utterly evil regime, a regime of death and torture,The most evil regime for centuries.

With the murder tirture and rape across the continent these people had to be beaten, and put down like the mad dogs they were.

Who called for Total war and recieved a great acclaim from the German people?
Not us.Yet when Total war visited the Germans, they squealed...Its not fair...Oh yes it is...
Sapper

[spidge]

Are you saying you are neutral?

I posted this in November last year and it was referred to you to read by Kiwiwriter.

Dresden was a Military target!!!!!!!!!!

Quote:

A new book by Frederick Taylor clears up a few myths about Dresden. It was a legitimate military target.

Taylor has benefited from the opening up of the former East German archives and, as a German speaker, he has been able to research his subject thoroughly. He has looked at the history of the city (large parts were destroyed by war several times before 1945) and its social and cultural background. The myth has it that Dresden was full of harmless, arts-loving innocents concerned only with manufacturing luxury goods such as cameras and china. In fact, Dresden was a Nazi stronghold before Hitler even took power. Martin Mutschmann became the regime's longest-serving Gauleiter (governor), and one of its most brutal. Anti-Semitism was a popular policy pursued with gusto. In 1938 the people of Dresden sacked the synagogue, one of the city's most beautiful and arresting buildings. And though the city was known around the world as "Florence on the Elbe", by 1945 it was home to no fewer than 127 factories employed in war work – work that occupied the vast majority of the population and that, in the context of the war, made it a legitimate military target.

By February 1945, Dresden had also become an important railhead, with hundreds of thousands of troops heading to the rapidly approaching Russian front - and it was for this reason, officially, that Dresden was bombed: we were helping the Russians. As Taylor proves, the Nazis were every bit as keen on wiping out cities as the Allies, but by 1945 we were better at it. Over Dresden, the conditions were perfect: the anti-aircraft defences had largely been removed, the sky was clear, and the targeting as precise as the technology of the day allowed.
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[von Poop]

Originally Posted by sapper

stop defending the Tyrant Hitlers people. IT was not Britain that started the indiscriminate bombing of cities. It was the Germans. WE were not fighting a nice little entertaining war ..We were fighting against an utterly evil regime, a regime of death and torture,The most evil regime for centuries.

With the murder tirture and rape across the continent these people had to be beaten, and put down like the mad dogs they were.

Who called for Total war and recieved a great acclaim from the German people?
Not us.Yet when Total war visited the Germans, they squealed...Its not fair...Oh yes it is...
Sapper

Go Sapper! (who i believe is one of the few people on this forum who was alive at the time?)
TOTAL WAR! Tyrulf? do you understand that these are not just 2 words but a crucial concept encompassing every event that happened in world war two, Total War on land, at sea and in the air, when so many countries had been attacked, when so many men, women and children had already been killed, when so many atrocities were likely for the future do you really expect a battered nation not to use any and every available means to strike back against the instigators of tragedy, violence and hatred, to attempt survival against seemingly insurmountable odds???To say no is to view the war with rose-tinted 21st century spectacles, not appreciating the actual situation, thoughts, emotions and fears of the people of the time, could negotiations settle such offences?? at that time?? with that regime??? I'd lay money that Sappers feelings were shared at the time by near every member of the shattered and bleeding populations that suffered unwanted agression from the axis...
oooooh, time for another lie down...

[Max (UK)]

Originally Posted by Von Poop

I'd lay money that Sappers feelings were shared at the time by near every member of the shattered and bleeding populations that suffered unwanted agression from the axis...

Not to mention the feelings raised only two decades before, the loss and suffering of the previous generation.

Originally Posted by Sapper

Yet when Total war visited the Germans, they squealed...Its not fair...Oh yes it is...

Absolutely. I'm proud of what my Ancestors did; I'm proud of Sapper and all the Veterans. They ARE heroes - Land, Air and Sea. All of the Allies are heroes.

[sapper]

Thank you for the support.
What is missing here is any understanding, or indeed, the faintest inkling of what the German nation did to the civilised world, of that, the people of today know little. The utter evil that spread across a continent, bringing with it death and destruction on a truly massive scale.

Anyone that feels hurt by our actions against the German nation should ask any of the people that lived under the iron heel of the Hun.

You, the German nation screamed YA! YA! when asked by Goebels “Do you want total war?” They got it. We never raised the question of so called “Total War” That originated in Germany. So why squeal now?

If the people of Dresden are so hurt by having to endure war. A war they all called for with the adulation of Hitler while he was winning. I do not recall any dissenting voices then, far from it. It was all “Hail Hitler” and a lot of rejoicing for the conquests of the Fatherland!

But if the people of Dresden are so upset by having to take part in a war they called for?

To mollify their feelings. Perhaps if we could find one of those lampshades made from the tattooed skin of a concentration camp victim, and present it as a good will gift to the people of Dresden. Failing that? Perhaps they would like one of the shrunken heads the concentration camps made from the inmates.

No? Then what about a couple of thousand emaciated bodies of murdered Jews? Surely that would decorate their streets.

Now I know that is over the top!
But is it really? For in truth that is exactly what happened.

Why is it that no one asks about the indiscriminate bombing of the UK?
Sapper

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Originally Posted by angie999

I don't think that the perpetrators of Oradour and many other atrocities can ever be forgiven, but I also don't think that we can expect every German of the wartime generation to share in the collective guilt either.

And above all, we must never forget.

I think that this post sums up this thread and is the most accurate assessment of it.

[Tyrulf]

hello everybody.I`m Tyrulf`s mother.I`ve read everything you wrote about THE Germans and about the Second World War.I was born in 1954 and I studied history (Twentieth Century) because I wanted to find out what had happened. I found out about the Jews in my hometown, about the communists,the social democrats,about the catholics and of course about the Nazis. I think I know which of the inhabitants were Nazis. I made friends with an old Jew in Israel.He told me quite a lot about that time. He had never hated THE Germans, although his father had been murdered in Auschwitz. It would go much too far to tell everything I would like to say. I wrote a book about the history of my hometown. Some of the old Nazis did not like it at all. But the majority of the inhabitants accept the truth about this horrible time.
Because I have spent years in finding out what had happened I feel I got a right in answering you in this way:
Sapper, when I`m reading your text it reminds me of the British war propaganda of the 1940`s and even earlier. The huns...The German Nation (?) screamed Ya, Ya = Ja, Ja, when asked by Goebbels, if they wanted to have total war? Honestly, all the 8o million Germans in one hall?
You seem to know nothing about life in a dictatorship. Why needed Hitler a Gestapo and concentration camps right from the beginning in 1933? Look, I would never defend the Nazis and the crimes they have committed. Yes, they made the European countries suffer extremely.
And I feel very sad about it.
I was in Coventry and in Birmingham, where I studied. Beforehand, I had written a project about the persecution of the Jews and felt extremely depressed. What surprised me when I studied in Great Britain was the fact that I was attacked by quite a lot of young people simply because of my nationality. They did not see any difference between me and Nazis. This never happened to me when I was in France. There the people are friendly and we can talk a lot
about the war. There they don`t forget the war either, but they would never attack me.
I don`t know whether you are aware what you are doing by claiming that every German was/still is? a Nazi. When are you going to do away with your war propaganda? It makes some of our young people only defiant and they happen to defend the Nazis or to be onesided, although they actually don`t mean it.
Anyway, I appreciate it very much that there are also old English soldiers who spent the Golden cross on the famous rebuilt church in Dresden. I also saw some of them on TV and they talked very differently from you. They do not hate. We cannot change the past but we can do our very best to get a better future. All the best to you. Bye-bye.

[Max (UK)]

If you were born in 1954, you're too young to remember it. You never went through it. Brian (Sapper) did. So if he has strong opinions of Germany in that time, so be it.

[Gotthard Heinrici]

Max,

whilst I agree with you and acknowledge Sapper's views I also acknowledge Tyrulf's Mother's view also. Germans are entitled to feel that time has moved on and that they can (and should) be able to face history without being beaten over the head all the time.

when Tyrulf first appeared on the board he posted an inflammatory remark about the English and I jumped all over him because of it. I still think he was wrong to say what he did but I acknowledge that he has a voice and is entitled to speak it, just as Sapper is.

[von Poop]

I hope Tyrulfs' mum has read all of his posts (many of which were edited after posting by him, perhaps in an attempt to tone them down), she might understand why he was attacked so vigourously to start off with, come and join us Tyrulf-mutter, bring your perspective and see that we're not so bad, we just can't tolerate 'wooliness', He could also steer a little clear of his apparent obsession with racial origins as this does get people 'twitchy'. How old are you Tyrulf?? we might be a little gentler with half-baked views if we know they come from a sprog.
As for Sapper, I still reckon he can say whatever he likes, he lived it and his views are his own.