“Germany should completely lose all the baggage of Nazism and replace it with a completely democratic society that has no causal linkage whatsoever to its bloody past.”
General Y is advocating for an absolute bastardization of history as much as General F. You cannot deny the past, because the past shaped your country and what your country did. There is a difference between interpreting the “real” meaning of Nazism, and actually erasing Nazism from history, as General Y wants.
General Y also want to place all blame on the the Nazi regime, thereby excusing the rest of the German population for actually supporting the National Socialists to begin with! You aren’t dealing with “militant nationalism” here at all. You’re dealing with HUMAN BEINGS.
Finally, General F could argue that de-Nazification could get out of control, leading to the rise of left wing terrorist groups who argued you haven’t done enough de-Nazification and the only way to remove the “Nazi taint” is to destroy capitalism entirely and surrender to the Soviet Union.
I do understand how extreme it must sound to the average LW reader, but I do support some of the Red Army Faction’s rhetoric and actions, particularly the Schleyer assassination. The post-war West German society’s acquiescence and its desire to forget the past while abandoning all sense of historical responsibility needed a good shock.
It’s unfortunate that innocents were hurt, but I feel that the moral cleansing that the RAF declared as its goal was a just and necessary cause. The manipulative and sociopathic side of Baader and his group’s backing by the East German regime are a somewhat different story.
“Germany should completely lose all the baggage of Nazism and replace it with a completely democratic society that has no causal linkage whatsoever to its bloody past.”
General Y is advocating for an absolute bastardization of history as much as General F. You cannot deny the past, because the past shaped your country and what your country did. There is a difference between interpreting the “real” meaning of Nazism, and actually erasing Nazism from history, as General Y wants.
General Y also want to place all blame on the the Nazi regime, thereby excusing the rest of the German population for actually supporting the National Socialists to begin with! You aren’t dealing with “militant nationalism” here at all. You’re dealing with HUMAN BEINGS.
Finally, General F could argue that de-Nazification could get out of control, leading to the rise of left wing terrorist groups who argued you haven’t done enough de-Nazification and the only way to remove the “Nazi taint” is to destroy capitalism entirely and surrender to the Soviet Union.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denazification#The_radical_left_in_Germany_during_the_1960s.E2.80.9370s_and_Nazi_allegations
I do understand how extreme it must sound to the average LW reader, but I do support some of the Red Army Faction’s rhetoric and actions, particularly the Schleyer assassination. The post-war West German society’s acquiescence and its desire to forget the past while abandoning all sense of historical responsibility needed a good shock.
It’s unfortunate that innocents were hurt, but I feel that the moral cleansing that the RAF declared as its goal was a just and necessary cause. The manipulative and sociopathic side of Baader and his group’s backing by the East German regime are a somewhat different story.