I met a Nazi yesterday.

[dZjupp]

Vietnam no. I'd have refused to go and accepted prison. Iran? I don't know, depends on why we're at war with them. If I were drafted, and I thought it was another Iraq, I'd refuse to go and accept prison. North Korea? Yeah, I'd go. Syria? Yeah, I'd go. Sudan? Yeah, I'd go. Nazis pt. 2? You know it. Alien invaders? {censored} just got real. I'm not excited by the prospect of being drafted, but I signed up with selective serivce when I was 18 and I take that seriously...but not as seriously as I take being a moral person. I'd still respect the oath by accepting punishment for breaking it (rather than running to Canada or being shot), but I'm not willing to fight in an unjust war. I hope I never have to make that choice, but I know how I'd make it. 100%.

 

 

 

Thailand - Yes

Mongolia - No

Russie - Yes

Cuba - Yes

Argentina - Yes

India - No

Japan - Yes

Sweden Yes

Peru - No

[9520575]

when I play risk I always go for africa first. start in the south, then south america. build up troops then take out europe. asia and north america fall easily under that kind of pressure. everybody else its wasting their time in oceania.

[BAXANDALL]

I would not go to war in Belgium or Latvia.

also, pedal.

[ambient]

Thailand - Yes Mongolia - No Russie - Yes Cuba - Yes Argentina - Yes India - No Japan - Yes Sweden Yes Peru - No

 

 

Japan? Are you talking about now or before/during WWII?

[El Glom-o]

Hitler - Has only got one ball,
Goering - Has two, but very small,
Himmler - Is very sim'lar,
And you know Goebbals, has no balls, at all,

[The Lou-Dog]

 

Yeah, naturally. That doesn't excuse them of their moral responsibility. You make choices in life and you deal with the consequences of those choices. Doing the right thing isn't always easy. I'd rather have been shot than to join the SS.

 

 

I would question whether the soldiers being drafted would have any idea of what was going on, and if they refused I'm sure they would have been up for some pretty serious punishment, not to mention repercussions for their family etc.

 

It would take an awful lot for me to get me into war. WW1? No {censored}ing way. Vietnam? I'd have rather fought for the Japanese.

[Cyprusg]

Do you know there's difference between a nazi and a German who served for his country in WWII? Yes the nazi party had its own troops (SS, etc.) but the wehrmacht, the regular army, was not a political organisation. The upper echelons may have been filled with party members, but the regular troops and even some high ranking officers, Rommel for one, were military men or ordinary guys conscripted into the army. You might as well say that someone is a Republican if they were in the army during Bush's invasion of Iraq.

 

 

Technically they may not have been Nazis but we should definitely affiliate them with the horrible atrocities led by the Nazi party. If you were German in WW2 and you were old enough to fight and you did not fight against the Nazis or participated in the war, you're scum in my opinion and should never be forgiven.

[english_bob]

Lots of people talking a good fight here.

Easy to judge others for their actions with hindsight and full knowledge of events that were taking place at the time, many of which the german public *didn't* know about. Easy to sound off about how you'd die for your principles when there's no way in hell you'd ever have to put your money where your mouth is. Easy to condemn people for the actions they took under circumstances we'll never experience and could never really understand. Still, if it makes all y'all feel like you're better than somebody...

[RadioSilence]

 

Lots of people talking a good fight here. Easy to judge others for their actions with hindsight and full knowledge of events that were taking place at the time, many of which the german public *didn't* know about. Easy to sound off about how you'd die for your principles when there's no way in hell you'd ever have to put your money where your mouth is. Easy to condemn people for the actions they took under circumstances we'll never experience and could never really understand. Still, if it makes all y'all feel like you're better than somebody...

 

 

Totally, hindsight is always 20/20. Basicaly the Germans who were of fighting age in 1939-45 had spent their whole lives being told that their country had been humiliated by the terms placed upon them to end WWI. They had lived through the crippling recession caused by those terms (you think this is a recession? compared to inter-war Germany this is nothing. The hyper-inflation meant that if your good wage last week now won't even buy a loaf of bread) - so when some new, highly persuasive politician comes along spouting rhetoric that you must take revenge for the humiliation heaped upon your fathers you're going to beleive him. You're a patriotic young man and you want to protect your homeland - the ordinary man in the street didn't know about what the nazis planned to do about the Jews, it was as horrific to them then as it is to us now, and when it emerged at the end of the war about the death camps many didn't believe it, until photos and news footage started to come out.

[Cyprusg]

 

Lots of people talking a good fight here. Easy to judge others for their actions with hindsight and full knowledge of events that were taking place at the time, many of which the german public *didn't* know about. Easy to sound off about how you'd die for your principles when there's no way in hell you'd ever have to put your money where your mouth is. Easy to condemn people for the actions they took under circumstances we'll never experience and could never really understand. Still, if it makes all y'all feel like you're better than somebody...

 

 

BULL{censored}. Mein Kampf came out like 20 years before Hitler received over 30% of the German vote. It is honestly attitudes like that that allow a genocide to start. All it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.

[Cyprusg]

 

Totally, hindsight is always 20/20. Basicaly the Germans who were of fighting age in 1939-45 had spent their whole lives being told that their country had been humiliated by the terms placed upon them to end WWI. They had lived through the crippling recession caused by those terms (you think this is a recession? compared to inter-war Germany this is nothing. The hyper-inflation meant that if your good wage last week now won't even buy a loaf of bread) - so when some new, highly persuasive politician comes along spouting rhetoric that you must take revenge for the humiliation heaped upon your fathers you're going to beleive him. You're a patriotic young man and you want to protect your homeland - the ordinary man in the street didn't know about what the nazis planned to do about the Jews, it was as horrific to them then as it is to us now, and when it emerged at the end of the war about the death camps many didn't believe it, until photos and news footage started to come out.

 

 

What are you talking about??? Where are people getting this revisionist apologetic history from?? The German people knew exactly what was happening to the Jews. The Nazis made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to exterminate the Jews. Did the smells from the concentration camps not tip off the German people? The big yellow stars on their jackets? At the very least they had to have known that the Jews were being taken to camps and worked to death if they didn't know that they were being exterminated. It's a shameful period in not just German history but of human history, we shouldn't try and excuse their inaction.

[soapbladder]

 

What are you talking about??? Where are people getting this revisionist apologetic history from?? The German people knew exactly what was happening to the Jews. The Nazis made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to exterminate the Jews. Did the smells from the concentration camps not tip off the German people? The big yellow stars on their jackets? At the very least they had to have known that the Jews were being taken to camps and worked to death if they didn't know that they were being exterminated. It's a shameful period in not just German history but of human history, we shouldn't try and excuse their inaction.

 

 

We'll see what you do when faced with a similar situation. I suppose it's safe to believe that you've lived a comfortable existence, largely free from life or death worries. Easy to play the armchair hero role when you're well fed and comfortable.

 

On the other hand--the holocaust jokes aren't funny at all; sometimes bad taste is just bad taste. (says the guy with the M.Gaddaffi avatar... Upon reflection I will be removing that).

 

sB

[LSDis4me]

thing is, similar to what Milgram found: everyone says this, few people follow through

 

 

This is the correct answer.

[Ryan.]

He was a very nice man. If that helps.

[dZjupp]

we should have killed all nazis. if there are any left, we should kill them all too. maybe torture them first. put them in a dark room showing a live dvd of matisyahu on repeat 24/7 until they die.

[erased_over_out]

 

we should have killed all nazis. if there are any left, we should kill them all too. maybe torture them first. put them in a dark room showing a live dvd of matisyahu on repeat 24/7 until they die.

 

 

Maybe put them in camps, feed them nothing and force them to work until they die... Or gas them?

[erased_over_out]

 

What are you talking about??? Where are people getting this revisionist apologetic history from?? The German people knew exactly what was happening to the Jews. The Nazis made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to exterminate the Jews. Did the smells from the concentration camps not tip off the German people? The big yellow stars on their jackets? At the very least they had to have known that the Jews were being taken to camps and worked to death if they didn't know that they were being exterminated. It's a shameful period in not just German history but of human history, we shouldn't try and excuse their inaction.

 

 

Maybe living in the situation of seeing anybody who objected to the ruling regime disappear (like the Nazis disappeared trade unionists, activists, leftists, academics as well as gypsies, the disabled, the homeless, the "anti-social", homosexuals, etc etc) tended to make people a little cautious about speaking out?

 

Not every German was a Nazi, not every German lived next door to a concentration camp... The Nazis located a lot of the camps in occupied territories - does that mean we should blame the Poles (for example) for allowing Nazi genocide on their soil?

[Jisatsu]

[english_bob]

The German people knew exactly what was happening to the Jews. The Nazis made no attempt to hide the fact that they wanted to exterminate the Jews. Did the smells from the concentration camps not tip off the German people?

 

 

Seriously? If I take a dump in my bathroom I can't smell it in my lounge, but you have the whole of Germany smelling concentration camps all the way from Poland and knowing that it's jews being massacred by their own government and not another incendiary bombing of a german city by the RAF? Please.

 

I'm not saying that the german people were completely blameless, but even in a 21st century liberal democracy with press freedom and the internet we don't know everything our governments are doing, never mind a mid-20th century dictatorship with only state-controlled mass media managed by some of history's best propagandists. We haven't lived through 20 years of crippling nationwide poverty and then been thrown a rope by a politician with a real economic plan that might save our country, but some very questionable views on certain other issues either. I can't argue that what the Nazis did was horrible, and that they couldn't have done it without the inaction of a majority, but I'd be considerably less inclined to get up on that high horse of yours until I had the least {censored}ing clue about the lives of the people I was condemning.

[thom]

 

Technically they may not have been Nazis but we should definitely affiliate them with the horrible atrocities led by the Nazi party. If you were German in WW2 and you were old enough to fight and you did not fight against the Nazis or participated in the war, you're scum in my opinion and should never be forgiven.

 

 

I personally wouldn't put it that harsh, but for the most part I agree. Even 18 old year old guys who weren't too weak or scared to fight might have thought they were doing the right thing by NOT fighting against their own governement's army. To me that's one of the weirdest and most scary things to learn from nazi germany: Given the right circumstances, propaganda, etc..A charismatic leader can brainwash an intire nation and make em believe pretty much anything.

 

But that's as far as I'll go, as far as I'm concerned. Anyone who helped the german governement/military in any way what so ever during WW2 is NOT always automaticly of the hook because of the extenuating circumstances.

 

Impo the same could be said about many other wars and military operations though. I understand the sad necessity of an army that blindly obbeys laws, but in the end every single person should still be held responsible for his own actions unless he was literally forced into doing something that's morally wrong.

[thom]

 

Maybe put them in camps, feed them nothing and force them to work until they die... Or gas them?

 

 

I'd have to agree the whole eye for an eye thing is an endless downward spiral. But there's nothing wrong with a fair trial for anyone who kills/tortures/etc, right? Many ex-nazi's never payed for their actions and just lived to comfortably and worryless become old and grey. Not cool in my book, not towards the ww2 victims and their families and friends...

[melx]

What's the main reasons that young men join the US army?

 

I'd imagine 1: it's their best opportunity to earn a decent wage .. and 2: they are patriotic and are happy to serve their country.

 

... and how hard was it to get them to fight an illegal war and invade a country on a false premise.. and drag the UK along too for the ride? ... and we are in a situation nothing like Germany was.

 

Not forgetting these people we are talking about are the Fathers and Grandfathers of our German friends today, so show some respect for them in the way you make your points if nothing else.

[erased_over_out]

 

I'd have to agree the whole eye for an eye thing is an endless downward spiral. But there's nothing wrong with a fair trial for anyone who kills/tortures/etc, right? Many ex-nazi's never payed for their actions and just lived to comfortably and worryless become old and grey. Not cool in my book, not towards the ww2 victims and their families and friends...

 

 

Definitely put them on trial - too many escaped justice/exposure... And too many escaped justice because they were of use to the victors (Wernher von Braun as the obvious reference)

[Pedaltones]

Technically they may not have been Nazis but we should definitely affiliate them with the horrible atrocities led by the Nazi party. If you were German in WW2 and you were old enough to fight and you did not fight against the Nazis or participated in the war, you're scum in my opinion and should never be forgiven.

lol at this 'insight'

[Player99]

 

What's the main reasons that young men join the US army? I'd imagine 1: it's their best opportunity to earn a decent wage .. and 2: they are patriotic and are happy to serve their country. ... and how hard was it to get them to fight an illegal war and invade a country on a false premise.. and drag the UK along too for the ride? ... and we are in a situation nothing like Germany was. Not forgetting these people we are talking about are the Fathers and Grandfathers of our German friends today, so show some respect for them in the way you make your points if nothing else.

 

 

Some think George Bush should be punished as a war criminal. In 50 years will the 100,000 plus victims of his action be vindicated? Will the soldiers who went to Iraq be tried and punished?