Digging for freedom
Berlin: Joachim Neumann was part of a team that built the famous tunnel 57. As a student, he and three friends built a 150m-long tunnel from west to east, which took them nearly a year.
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The tough Berlin clay meant they averaged a metre a day, digging with small shovels and moving the earth out by hand. As well as the danger of collapse, they knew that if they were spotted by East German border guards they would certainly be shot.
After two nights of successfully guiding people through from east to west, the tunnel was discovered by the Stasi - the feared East German secret police - who raided the safe house which led to the entrance of the tunnel.
Armed with Kalashnikovs, guards chased the tunnellers back down into the hole, where they fled to the safety of West Germany.
One of Joachim Neumann's friends shot back at the guards, and for years believed the official GDR (East German) statement that his actions had killed a border guard. This led to them writing a letter of apology to the mother of the guard, who was made into a propaganda symbol by the GDR.
However in the 1990s, a journalist went through the declassified Stasi files and discovered that the guard had in fact been killed accidentally by a colleague. The tunnellers had never been guilty after all.
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Gavin.
On one level, this story is little more than a piece of interesting historical trivia but it does raise an interesting question. To what extent should ordinary people doing what they thought was their job be held accountable in a post upheaval environment. Of course people who were involved in extermination camps and genocide are one thing - but this is different. Most of the central European countries took the view that bygones should be bygones. Not unlike the 'truth and reconciliation' process in South Africa, it was enough to put you hands up, make a clean breast of it and move on.
The Germans, however, have shown a certain fondness of calling to account East Germans who were basically only doing their job. I am not talking about Stasi officers with their crude interrogation methods but ordinary conscripts in uniform who had a nasty job to do but would become targets themselves if they refused to do it.
Even politicians who played a key role in the fall of the wall have not been immune. Egon Krenz served 4 years of a 6.5 year sentence for crimes which we in the west may find offensive but were not illegal in the DDR.
Granted Krenz has never been reconciled to reunification and is something of a dinosaur but does that make him a criminal?
I wonder what other contributors think .
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A fascinating account of armed struggle against an oppressive regime that professed to offer democracy to its people, but instead offered dictate from a party based system of representatives who offered little real choice to the public when they were called to elections.
I wonder, is Gavin Hewitt advocating that the people of the EU rise up and take arms against the new incarnation of such a system?
For myself, I cannot condone this celebration of armed resistance to false democracy.
We must debate our way out of dogma, not shoot or dig our way out.
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#1 and Threnodio:
There are short sentences and long. The short sentences are those you serve in jail. The long are the political sentences. We have just seen the building of a couple of new governments in federal states (in Germany) that led to the exclusion of a party or its people because of the past. It is impossible to reach any common understanding of the sentences – in both categories - as just or not just.
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threnodio, the other side of that coin is do you promise an amnesty to those complicit in a repressive regime in order to incentivise that regime to change?
i guess the best solution is a kind of social triage: those most culpable (those at the very top, and those who committed crimes against humanity), need to face some kind of justice irrespective of what the law of the land said at the time.
like you said though, the tricky one is that large middle tier of people who were complicit because they figured there was little other choice. are they condemned for selfishness? what of those who joined the communist regime in their youth hoping to change it from within, as many modern east european socialist politicians claim they did? this is still a highly charged issue, not least in your adopted home of hungary.
personally i opt for the truth and reconciliation approach. everything must be put in the public domain (incl e.g. whether your prime minister used to be a communist informant). beyond that, i think it needs to be for the public to decide whether they can forgive those that betrayed them.
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#4 - benagyerek
Yes I agree with that.
I only have one small reservation and that is the phrase 'communist informant'. The communist states were one party states and the concept of the communist informant and the citizen doing his/her patriotic duty was one and the same. If you take that argument to it's logical conclusion, only dissidents and the completely apolitical are innocent.
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threnodio, what you asked is an unresolved issue here, and a more resolved issue in Europe. I mean, in Europe elsewhere there is a pronounced opinion how to deal with the past, or, say, a better formulated opinion.
In Germany, for example, those assisting the communist regime - were simultaneously assisting the outsiders (USSR). This helps one to become convinced "what was wrong and what was right" (in case of doubts :o))))
In USSR, for the most part, those assisting the communist regime were not helping any "outsiders". Therefore much more allowing attitude to them.
We are now in the stage of admiring the French attitude to their revolution. The French simply mark it and don't point out to sides or pin-point fingers - you were this side and your great grandma was that side. While in Russia there is still a division between the "whites" in the society and "the reds". And come any revolution anniversary - you see opposite crowds in the streets blaming each other! The society is still divided.
On the surface look - which "reds"? They are out of fashion and an oxymoron. But - the majority of the people in Russia are "reds"! One way or another - product and issue of the "red" period. Simply because the "whites" are a small percentage survived in different corners and undercover :o)))) - in three immigration waves the Russian "whites" are long in the West. You wouldn't survive very much as a "white" sympathiser in Russia in the 20th century. So, of one's 4 grandparents - 3 would be "red" sympathisers, by definition. And it is morally hard to blame one's dear own grandparents :o) - that's why.
So, by the surface glance - all are politically correct "white", while in reality - most are "red" sympathisers, even if they don't always recognise it themselves.
Anyway.
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the confusion is reflected in the perestroyka rhyme
Oh how quickly oh how quickly ripens up my vinograd /wine grapes
I used to love a communist - and he is now - a democrat!
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when you think that all all changes pass within one family span (children, parents, grandchildren) - you head turns around
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you get one monarchist, one communist and one "democrat" in the same apartment in 2 rooms and a kitchen.
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Alice, it is no so simple that the germans saw the USSR as the outsiders. In west germany, the USA had a lot of troops, and "red" germans were rounded up and shot. The british even had concentration camps after the war for red german prisoners. We don't talk about it, but some people still know where the bones are buried.
And after the war, a lot of germans blamed hitler for the total destruction of the german people. He was the reason poland was allowed to drive millions of german women and children out of their homes, and many of them starved and froze as a result. And why did hitler do something crazy like attack Russia? Because America wanted war with communism, and like always they wanted someone else to do it (Japan in China, for example).
Anyway, I do not say this, because of course this world view is crazy as a hat full of snakes. Anyone who thinks things like this doesn't understand that freedom is the gift of the american people to the whole world, and so and so forth. But I just note that some people think this way in Germany.
We still have the evil of red germans under the bed. ;-)
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"i guess the best solution is a kind of social triage: those most culpable (those at the very top, and those who committed crimes against humanity), need to face some kind of justice irrespective of what the law of the land said at the time. "
So what about the people who ordered the murder of the Badder Meinhof gang in prison?
Or do we still pretend the state's absurd claim that they were not murdered, because we cannot face the obvious truth of fault on one side?
And who will put on trial all the west germans who betrayed fellow germans to the CIA during this period?
Treason against a fellow german in the service of a foreign power is still plain treason, unless you believe that the CIA was really in Germany only for the sake of German people.
If you think this is strange, wait and see what happens in Germany in the next ten years. People still hold power because the US appointed them, but times change and the sentiment I witness is not tolerant of any form of treason.
When the US leaves Germany, it will need to take quite a few of its pets with it, I suspect.
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democracythreat, Mavrelius will soon tell you! will show you, how to say, "where cray-fish spend winter!" :o)))
Overall I'm inclined to shut up on this thread, because a divided Germany is Russian fault. I honestly think it's likewise a German "fault", and - to about 20% - an American fault. And a British fault. But here all are to worry about own conciousness, and the Russian in-put concerns me.
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Germany runs out of coal in 20 years, Alice. Anyway, after a tough match everyone is friends and swaps shirts. I think beer, sausages, borscht and vodka can all be served at the same table. And after seeing Rammstein in moscow, i think german music and russian girls go together perfectly.
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Reunifiction of Germany was the worst tragedy that could happen to the West Germans. The wall not only served to keep the East Germans who remaind the social neanderthals they'd been at the end of the war in, from West Germany's point of view although the didn't know it and wouldn't believe it, it kept their barbarian cousins for the most part out. The economic impact reunification had on West Germany was nothing compared to its social impact. It has set Germany back decades, probably to the 1950s or 1960s.
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threnodio_II
Re "1
The longer you live within the confines of the European Union the more you will come to appreciate the motives of those who dug for 'freedom'.
Naturally, the sophisticated EU will not require you to use a bucket and shovel - - each new attempted European tyranny has always shown a propensity to learn from the one before - - and when you are a number in an EU Passport you will be able to leave but just like the DDR's unfortunates you will find in time you must leave with nothing you can call your own, especially not the right to determine by the ballot box those who would aspire to rule over you.
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Marcus is doing his very best to show everyone exactly why huge numbers of west germans will not feel liberated by the American cultural and military presence they were forced to endure, and of which they are still not yet free.
He is so arrogant and so determined to establish the superiority of his own narrow cultural views that he is not even able to understand the desire for a united german people.
Right now millions of Germans are asking why their soldier are in Afghanistan and why the german economy is utterly dependent on the health of the US dollar, and US markets.
Those germans with a sophisticated understanding of the corporate ownership within germany will be wondering what is so great about having the vast majority of their industry and land owned by "multinational" corporations, whilst the majority of the german people pay 50% tax on their wages to prop up a government whose form and legal structure was imposed upon them by an occupying power.
Now, I fully concede that there are not a few germans who will see no problem with the form and legal structure of their government. Sure, a lot of germans will be grateful for the US cultural influence.
But if folks on this blog think these pro US germans are in the majority, all i can say is that my german is not very good, and that I do not understand everything I hear in conversation.
So i leave it to them to comment on the benefits of US cultural influence.
It is their country, and their culture. I prefer to listen than to project my own views upon a proud and powerful people, with a long and complex history.
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dt @ 11
can you give some evidence (weblinks) for your conspiracy theories?
"People still hold power because the US appointed them"
which people?
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The judiciary, for starters.
The high command positions of the military, for seconds.
Then move on to the majority shareholders of what lenin called the commanding heights of the economy.
The USA and the UK did not replace facist germany with a equitable distribution of wealth among the german people. Select individuals and their families were made to own vast percentages of the economy, and these appointments we know as "majority shareholdings" in private corporations.
It is not a conspiracy theory, but rather an institutional analyses of the political and material economy.
I don't know how you think capitalism works, but if you imagine that the USA invades states to "share the wealth around", I would submit that it is you who believe in conspiracy theories, not me.
In the anglo system, judges and generals are appointed, not elected. that is hardly a conspiracy theory.
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dt, still not sure i follow you.
are you saying that the german government is not in a position to decide who is in charge of the german military?
what specific members of the judiciary owe their current position to american patronage?
as far as german capitalism goes, i know very little. but it would not surprise me if a lot of families that already closely held large german industrial companies in 1945 owe a debt of gratitude to the allies for not having stripped them of their ownership given their previous close collaboration with the nazis. however, i am not aware that the usa actually transferred ownership of german industry to to any particular family. can you give some examples?
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#18 - democracythreat
"The judiciary, for starters".
The Americans appoint the German judiciary?
Marcus, I apologise. In comparative terms, you are sane.
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#16. and democracythreat
As you write German history is very complex, and the 9th of November is no exception. It was the date when the Nazi regime organized the so-called Crystal Night (the attack on Jews), and the date when the Berlin wall came down. Today most Germans consider the days of May 1945 as a liberation, and the lengthy change in their understanding started with the airlift in 1948, when (West-)Berlin had been blocked up. I shall not go into many details, I think, most people know them. The result was that the Federal Republic in the decades after WW2 looked to the west.
I have no idea why our man from USA calls himself Marcus Aurelius. As is well-known quite a few US citizens have forefathers in Europe, but at the same time many of them seem to have forgotten that European music, literature, religion, philosophy and science go more than 2500 years back. It gives everything a perspective that is often absent in the thinking of an American. In modern times, that is after 1450, market economy was developed here, but so was the criticism of it, and when the demonstrations against president Obama’s health care bill today used the catchword “socialism”, most Europeans observe this with disbelief.
The ambivalence I suggest here is European and not German, but it was only in 2006 Germans had the courage to support the national football team with flag-waving, and we of course had to discuss whether this was a sign of unacceptable nationalism or just a way to support the football team. Fortunately we agreed on the latter, and so everybody could enjoy the championship.
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I'll help democracythreat with one answer.
When the Berlin Wall fell - where were the occupational Russian troops? The rockets, pointed at West Germany? The garrisons?
Same place. (BTW they didn't fell collectively into a sudden general amnesia. and didn't "wonder" what to do, like the Stasi guards)
Next thing - and after a long while - not at Gorbachyov - at Yeltsin (in case you forgot LOL how he muzed and hummered and sang songs, parading the orchestra and the troops out) - we were taking Red Army back home. After a long negotiation and discussion process. Germany was already "united". There were negotiations when the rockets go, when the garrisons, property, people, trains, things.
Who did we talk with, about the arrangements, do you think?
NATO HQ in the ex-Western Germany.
Who there?
Americans.
We finally agreed we take middle-range rockets out and destroy them, and the USA takes their mid-range out and destroys them. They were American rockets, in the West Germany.
(in fact, at that point we agreed we both destroy ALL of our mid-range rockets, not the ones in Germany only. We destroyed. And the USA turned the war-heads of theirs, and piled the war heads, just in case, in their Appalachi mountains. Still there.)
Why didn't we talk with either side Germans, now united, about the timing and things - and money by the way. Somehow they didn't have a say.
Why do I know it were Americans? Well, for obvious reasons - we only negotiated with the Americans, about taking troops out of the whole Eastern Europe - but also because the Russian delegation was amazed in this particular German case. The thing is they settled in the ex -nazi military HQ, some big heavy serious building. Apparently because it survived, nevermind. And all these years didn't bother about the basreliefs in the building, while we were struck by this American carelessness. White on white, in fact an eye can easily glide along, if not the familiar how to say, unfortunately way too familiar. Plafoons, basreliefs on the walls. They got used to them, didn't notice, didn't change a thing since 1945.
While Russian military delegation thought it's deja vu. Hilarious.
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To spend 40 years sitting under marble swastika (as I understand prohibited in the outside the building world) - and not to kick it off - it takes one.
And it was the hey-hop time, when things got warm and various dreams were cherished, and we, even, thought we might join NATO.
Apart from humiliation for the drunken clown, the visit to the NATO HQ, LOL, left an unforgettable impression on the Russian generals.
Like, "I'd be damned!"
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Mathiasen, you are a master diplomat. that was wonderfully careful, as always.
Threnodio, if you are going to try your hand clever, do try to be consistent with the tense used in the discussion. I did not say that the US appoints the German judiciary. I said it DID. Past tense.
Just as the US hand picked the leadership of the economy, and therefore the sponsors of the dominant political parties.
And guess who appoints the judiciary subsequent to the initial appointments?
Bingo! The judiciary first selected, and the sponsors of the dominant political parties.
Likewise, the military is not some kind of pre school democracy, where folks get ahead by winning golden stars for good behaviour. It may be portrayed that way in the movies, but the reality of the methods of appointment are rather more private and boring.
Judges and generals are appointed under the westminster system, Threnodio. Note the present tense.
Given your half smart response earlier, i hope you will make a sincere effort to say something erudite in your next post. Do not imagine that you are perceived as clever because you have a british accent. That is the chief failing of an increasingly decadent culture.
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"however, i am not aware that the usa actually transferred ownership of german industry to to any particular family. can you give some examples?"
yes, i can. but rather than be indiscreet, let me set out the process by which the trick is done.
When an occupying power take control of new territory, the first thing it does is take control of the means of political power. This means the energy systems, the media systems and the transport systems. So in other words, when your infantry unit takes over a village or a town, you secure the ground and then you post guards at the power station, the radio station and the roads leading in and out of the town. If there is a train station or a port, you station guard there, too.
Now once you have secured these aspects of the local political and economic scenery, you begin the process of appointing people to manage them. Depending on who you appoint, fortunes are made and lost from that point onwards.
So for example (this is a factual example), you might have two competing nurseries which grow plants for gardens in northern Germany, near Bremen. After occupying the area, the person appointed to manage the railways in and out of the Bremen region may be a family member of one of the nurseries. So that person can use their influence and raw military power (remember that we do not have the glorious democracy just yet: we are still an occupied state for the first few years after "liberation") to make life very difficult for the competitor, the other plant nursery.
Now the owner of the nursery who is suffering (because their products are not being loaded onto the trains properly, or at all) goes to the military commander and says "This is not fair. I am being driven out of business."
So the commander goes to see the guy he appointed to run the railways and roads, and says "What is going on here?"
Now at this point, everything gets a bit hazy and "imperial". This is precisely what you were asking about, though, when you want to know who lost what and who gained what from occupation.
Curiously, this process is going on right now, in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
Anyway, what happens is that the military commander gets told a story about the very bad man who runs the second nursery, and then he gets offered a "deal". If he is a very honest commander, he does not take the deal, and perhaps he does not believe the story about the very bad man. If so, he has a problem. Now the very honest commander needs to find a new guy to run the trains, and when he sacks the old guy he now has a real enemy who hates him. Sure, he has a friend in the guy who owns the second nursery, but not much of a friend. After all, all the good and honest commander did was apply the law. He is still an occupying foreign soldier. There are limits to how much his new "friend" will do to support him.
So you may be able to see that when a military power goes into a new region, it very much recreates all the economic and political structures that were previously present. That is, it either make new players powerful and rich, or it makes the old players powerful and rich.
A military occupation CANNOT remain neutral towards the local economy and political landscape. By definition, the act of invading and occupying is political and therefore economic takeover.
Long ago this process was called conquest and plunder. Now we call it "reconstruction".
And, sure, of course America did not do this in Germany and of course America is not doing this in Iraq and Afghanistan. Because the USA does not do empire. They only spread freedom and democracy, like the british in India and so on and so forth.
And, of course, like the soviets did in eastern Europe.
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dt @ 25
yes, but you are talking about events of 60 years ago.
for two generations, (west) germany has elected its own government, and for almost as long, that government has been responsible, directly or indirectly, for military and judicial appointments, hasn't it? likewise, for two generations i assume that the success and failure of businesses in germany has been largely dictated by competition in a free market economy, and in the case of the "commanding heights of the economy", management and in many cases even ownership of those companies has changed hands multiple times. is this not true?
i refer you back to your post at 11:
"If you think this is strange, wait and see what happens in Germany in the next ten years. People still hold power because the US appointed them, but times change and the sentiment I witness is not tolerant of any form of treason."
the comments you made might have had some relevance in the 1960s. but now? who still holds power? who could be accused of treason? please give an example. and why would sentiment change in the next 10 years? why would this not have been dealt with a long time ago? if german people felt outraged, why didn't they express that at the ballot box in the last 60 years?
to be clear, i do not deny that there are industrialist families in germany that may have done very nicely out of allied occupation (and nazism before that), and whose children or grandchildren still own their substantial business empires even to this day. are these the people you are talking about? is that what you are saying?
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democracy@10 "And why did hitler do something crazy like attack Russia? Because America wanted war with communism, and like always they wanted someone else to do it"
Huh? You're asserting the US induced the Germans to attack the Russians? You're nuts. Considering your usual wacky postings I guess i shouldn't be surprised. Where I come from - planet earth - WWII history is remembered a litle differently.
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Democracythreat
Re #10
".. British had 'red' POW camps.." "..we don't talk about it.."
No, we don't because it is patent nonsense!
The Allied Forces occupying 'west' Germany in the 4 Zones after WW2 all had POW camps through which they tried to sift the huge numbers of regular Wehrmacht, Kriegsmarine and Luftwaffe, the SturmAbteilung, GehaimeStatsPolizei plus (usually forgotten) many hundreds of Nazi civilian bureaucrats.
This was an inordinately difficult task given the conflicting claims on available resources, requirements etc. amid the general chaos of a war-ravaged Europe; whilst all the time the war in the Far East was gearing up for a direct Armed Forces onslaught on the main Japanese islands (no 'atom' bomb).
Depending on the 'political' will of respective Allied Occupation leaders and the 'human' frailty/interest of local Allied Commanders in all Zones the sifting for the criminal elements amongst the German-Austrian and collaborating 'national' military and civilian populations was done very thoroughly in some places and much less so in others. Loosely describing them all as German, there was extreme hardship in some POW camps and to alleviate the distress the ones in the 3 'west' zones (US-GB-France) were closed within 3 years for all 'normal' POWs, whereas some of the Soviet ones remained open into the mid-1950s (some might argue the Gulags meant they were open before WW2 and never properly closed until 1989). The actual deaths amongst German POWs was recorded in hundreds at the time but most Historians now agree it was a tragically far higher number - - apart from which the sifting was generally pointless as most serious Nazi felons had long since planned and carried out their escape routes - - however, there is a distinct lack of any evidence of an intentional butchering of the ordinary German service personnel of whatever 'political' persuasion. Of course in the hunt, prosecution and sentencing of fanatical Nazis blood was spilt.
Certainly, in the 'west' what deaths there were amongst the incarcerated came from all walks of life and it was insufficient-inefficient food and medical supplies that did for almost all of them and not wholesale secret executions of supposed 'reds/commies'.
By the time of the 10 month Allied Berlin Airlift the fractures in the political-military understandings between 'west' and 'east' were becoming set: That Stalin's Soviet Union had very good reason to mistrust 'democracy' which had elected Hitler and the Nazis, and, in turn the failure of the USSR to keep to agreements of 'democratic' elections for Poland, Czechoslovakia etc. gave the 'west' cause for equal mistrust is all well-documented. Also in the public domain is the setting up of a Federal German Republic with its own money and what is known but less publicised is the setting up of prison facilities for accused German-communist 'fellow travellers/sympathisers' - - they faced trial and imprisonment but capital punishment had been banned by the new constitution and was respected by all 3 'west' Occupying forces and governments.
Sorry, but as happens not infrequently with your comments/allegations on the 'english' speaking peoples there is a clear lack of reason and fact and a good deal of unadulterated prejudice.
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#27 - DiscoStu_d
Oh no - that's right enough. The Brits got their own back by getting Japan to bomb Pearl Harbor and drag the Americans into the war.
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DiscoStu_d, wars are expensive, they are financed. If you don't believe me - mentally review assets in your bank account if they allow you to undertake an expedition after a country or two.
Wars require fat bank accounts of those interested to pull resources and cast their weight in country's decision-making re whether to undertake a war or not.
Throughout a decade pre-war American banks financed German military-industrial complex. I do not say - "in order to create a monster on own head". Apparently, it happens with the USA - to create future monsters. An excess of money :o)))), and energy, - careless.
But the ties grew very strong.
The option to turn Germany onto the USSR - why do you cut it away as incredible? USSR was a competitor even that Mavrelius says it was no competitor simply the United States found communism disgusting and wished better for the poor Russian people.
There are still wonders why Germany set on us, "lebensraum" yeah, "slavs defective by definition" - etc. - but modern German historians - of the new independent Germany - as we seem to have agreed - repeatedly repeat that Germany was not ready to attack USSR.
Not that we noticed! :o)))) But there were some, seemingly ungrounded - "turns".
You do business. And switch off a new worrying force. Two shots at once -what's so un-believable, from the strategic planning point of view.
As minimum - what's wrong about it, all have to have own heads on the shoulders, and worry about oneselves. "Excuses" a plenty.
Stiff view of the 2ndWW remind me of the explanation we got in our time about Marx. Posters - "The teaching of Marx is omnipotent - because it is correct." :o)))
That's about all explantions we've got :o))
Also remember that many a German general and commander had the tops of their dreams to surrender to the Amwericans. There was a sudden turn, of Americans from enemies to the friends and salvation status. This took place in the last stages of the war when Red Army crossed the Europe's treshold.
From that point on the goals of the war for many a German commander undertook serious "correction".
It was clear that the option to chop off the head to the USSR is an old agenda to be forgotten forever. And the new goal is to try not to have an own head chopped off. In no way the Germany army would have made it back to the Moscow Sheremetevo airport - where it stood 4 years previously.
Once Russia spilled out of her banks - that was it.
How do you imagine it, otherwise? "Sorry, wrong door", at the point when we crossed the Dnieper. "No need to be so agitated, easy, easy. Shoo! Get back! I said it was a mistake, I apologise, alright?"
There were numerous "secret" talks, emissars to try the ground, a lot of preparation work, predating done to each other - among the German generals - lots of thinking done how to surrender, how to swirl out of the trap somehow, to save own skin. The USA had a lot of pressure, and were appealed to their best principles and intentions "OK, we lost, but save us from communists - they'll pack us into Gulags, have a mercy, save us."
For crying out loud, one of the main "businesses" of the Red Army in Europe was to circle and catch and cut the ways of various separate German armies trying to break to Americans to surrender! We chased them, collected intelligence, cut the ways, intercepted, it was like mice running away under your feet in all directions!
Well. Unfortunately, the majority wasn't so easy. But many were!
And many eventually fell into the American embrace and salvation. Many old friends" included.
Americans, in the West Germany, had perfect understanding with many new-old figures they installed. They'd have even more, if didn't give way to Britain - ally with own interests, to be respected. And after the 46 - jointly combined scared of the USSR - really the USA found itself same very side as West Germany, with "enemies of 2 months before now friends".
Who is friends who is enemies perception turned around once again.
You somehow think at every change of the lay-out in that epoch there was a new generation especially born in either side, no, largely, the same people, with the same old connections - only life turned around so much that at different times they did different things. Very opposing things, often.
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benagyerek wrote:
" the comments you made might have had some relevance in the 1960s. but now? who still holds power? who could be accused of treason? please give an example. and why would sentiment change in the next 10 years? why would this not have been dealt with a long time ago? if german people felt outraged, why didn't they express that at the ballot box in the last 60 years?"
Who were they going to vote for? The communist party? The direct democracy party?
I think we differ on how the political economy of the western model operates. You seem to think people can go vote for whomsoever they want, and for whatever policies they want. I tend to think that the western model is a choice between two major parties, both offering a more or less identical model of how the political and social economy will operate.
Or in other words, I don;t think it matters much who you vote for, you will still be working for the bankers after elections. Just like in the soviet union, it didn't matter who you voted for. In the end, you were voting for the party.
But anyways, if you believe that the western model offers choice, I am not going to argue. I know plenty of folks who believe the soviet model offered choice. Not so many, sure, but for the same reasons. If you belive that a system offers choice.... who is to argue with you? You make your choices, you're happy. Bingo! You had choice. I concede that argument.
As an example of who could be put on trial for treason, take your pick!
Anyone who made money from the American occupation could be put on trial for treason. Treason is an ugly, ugly concept. You are basically on trial for not meeting the standard of patriotism set by the government of the day.
To be clear, I am not advocating that people SHOULD be put on trial for treason. I am just saying that they could be. If German nationalism took off with gusto, and wanted to go on a witch hunt, they could easily find targets based on a willingness to promote "American values".
Sure, that would be crazy. I agree. But I think it is shortsighted to call nationalism 'over there' crazy.
I mean, NATO uses drones to bomb women and children if they happen to be standing in the wrong place when a "legitimate target" is acquired. How crazy is that?
"to be clear, i do not deny that there are industrialist families in germany that may have done very nicely out of allied occupation (and nazism before that), and whose children or grandchildren still own their substantial business empires even to this day. are these the people you are talking about? is that what you are saying?"
Not really. I mean, yes, in a way. As you say, a lot of money has changed hands since then, and the global economy is just that: global. A lot of money has gone out of Germany, a lot of new money has come in.
But there are still those areas which Lenin would call the commanding heights of the economy. So here we are talking about the families who own the property that contains coal reserves, which own vast swathes of real estate and who lease it out. Or they own huge percentages of ports and heavy industries, or have long term leases on communications licenses. There are indeed families who were aristocrats before the great patriotic war, and who remained aristocrats afterwards. And there are families who were made new aristocrats after the war, and who remain so.
I am sort of surprised by the reaction on this thread. I did not realize it was a contentious issue that people got hugely wealthy by being on the right side of a victorious army. I kind of thought that was a no brainer.
Oh well, I have a lot to learn. I guess I need to go away and read my history again, remembering to chant "freedom and hamburgers for all!" as I do it.
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DiscoStu_d wrote:
democracy@10 "And why did hitler do something crazy like attack Russia? Because America wanted war with communism, and like always they wanted someone else to do it"
Huh? You're asserting the US induced the Germans to attack the Russians? You're nuts. Considering your usual wacky postings I guess i shouldn't be surprised. Where I come from - planet earth - WWII history is remembered a litle differently."
In fact I was suggesting a line of reasoning that I had heard from Germans, I was not projecting what I actually believe.
However, now that you mention it, I think you could do some reading here which would interest you.
For example, take a look at the foreign capital investment into Germany between the wars, and have a look at something called the "money circle". The money circle was the process whereby war reparation payments from germany to the UK and France were taken from germany and then paid to the USA, in order to pay off the war debt to the USA from the UK and france. And then that money was reinvested into Germany by US firms, because Germany had a bunch of cheap (starving) and very highly skilled workers who were open to foreign investment. And then those investments created economic activity which created taxes which were then used for reparation payments to the UK and France which then.... so you can see why it is called the money circle.
So what happened after a while was that Germany ended up being rebuilt with US money and US technology. For the military technology enthusiast, this may explain why the US and Germany in World war two had such startling similar equipment, and why so many US corporations had supply contracts the the German military.
Now in the early 30's, there was a great deal of public dislike in the USA for the way German civilians were being treated by the French and UK occupying army. The german people were effectively being used as slaves, and conditions were in fact intolerable and cruel.
So this combined with a virulent anti-communist movement in the USA (which you may have heard about) and what resulted was a scheme to rebuild Germany as both a military power and also as a foil to the growing might of the soviet Union.
A curious example of the active policy was the "free corps". These were the hundreds of thousands of german soldiers who had been disbanded after the end of the first world war. Now the USA and the free west were busy fighting a war against soviet russia during the 20's, and in order to fight this war (in the territories conquered by the germans from the Russian tsar in the first world war such as the baltic states) they needed manpower. So what the allies did was to use the mass of unemployed german soldiers who were technically not allowed to be soldiers. these free corp soldiers were sent to russia (or the baltic states if you prefer) and they were armed and supplied by the USA (for the most part).
Now after it became clear that soviet russia was able to defend itself and would not be overthrown by western powers in the proxy war (after the polish forces lost Lithuania, or poland as it was called by the allies before the red army made it lithuania), the USA and the other allies revised their strategy against communism.
This led the west to back any party which was against communism.
Now if you want a really murky bit of historical research, go try and find who gave how much money to what political parties in germany in the 30's. But keep in mind that notable and vastly wealthy american industrialists such as henry ford and Howard Hughes were open facists and ardent supporters of hitler. Oh, and they were large shareholders of German industry, which received large contracts from Hitler's government.
Now it is a matter of speculation as to why the USA did not come into the war until very late. Some say it as because it was not until it became clear that Hitler would lose. Others say it was not until the political will existed within america to get involved.
But what cannot be disputed is that the USA had vast commercial interests in inter war germany, and that German soldiers and german industry were not only used to fight soviet russia, but that a prolonged and consistent policy of doing so existed.
My own view is that Hitler lost crucial support in the USA when he disagreed with the way eastern Europe had been set up by the western powers, and made his deal with Stalin is take the borders back to their pre first world war lines.
I think that lost him too may friends in the USA. Too many people had sunk too much money into the Polish regime, and they simply did not want to set a precedent whereby a German leader could dictate or changes the terms of a contract.
But if you think it is a crazy idea that Hitler's armies were set up to attack the soviet union, then you simply don't know who paid for them, and you don't know anything about european history between the wars.
You probably think the UK and the USA won the second world war, and that the french resistance was a significant reality.
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cool_brush_work, @28
As a note - USSR didn't put Germans post war into Gulags.
Gulags were for "own family" - in the Russian understaning of what "the family" is :o) (included Afghani) - and Germans were foreigners.
POWs worked in Russia true, building, what is still called here - "German houses" (good quality). 99% got home after 3-5 years, occasional ones stuck for up to 10.
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"German houses" was complete-cycle all-German builders, lay-out of the blocks in Moscow and Leningrad, architects, design, from the boss to the last man pulling a trolly or laying bricks. You can still see, these blocks stand out, as clearly un-Russian idea.
Mostly, in Leningrad. In Moscow they were scared of such large German presence in the capital, in small towns - Kremlin found it too risky to supervise at a distance, if any one is to be "blamed" in Russia for using POWs labour it's St.Petersburg.
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We've even have words from them, picked up, from comms with POWs in Leningrad. As we find it out, with dismay, from time to time, when you look into "Russian" words. Russsian "erunda!" /"crap", "un-important trifle" appears to be a product of construction, when you have pebbles left over that you can apply in the construction site here and there, "hier and da" :o))))
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As to the witch-hunting, USSR cut the crap ("erunda!" :o) quite shortly, in the case of Germany, because you absolutely can not build a common communistic or whatever marvellous future with the people who you chase and trace and filter and suspect.
I do think that in terrorising Poland there was more of the "traditional love" btw Russia and Poland - and USSR and Poland (given our war of 1921 which Poland won) than in being interested "who is not a good communist there."
Heard an intervew with the German ambassador to Moscow yesterday, invited by "Ech" station, on the "wall day occasion". They asked him what's his estimation of the number of Stasi-employed or made to "give information", anyway Stasi-dark-business-related people. He said 10 phrases until a number was gotten finally out of him (:o)))), to which the Echo girl said. "Well. If I'm not wrong - it appears it's exactly 25% of the DDR population." (The poor German ambassador said 10 other phrases :o)
Then Echo wondered - what kind of "Stasi" it actualy was, because, like, we are sorry, but the very idea of KGB is that it is something lethal mysterious and un-seen that all are scared about and nobody knows :o))) - a selected world for a few - and when you get a quarter of your population in it - that's not KGB but hell knows what. An open access house - come anyone who wishes.
(I think that Germans simply over-did it, kind "if to do things - to do them well!" hard-working national approach. :o) Regarding modern witch-hunting.
And would be good if they won't "over-do it" again either!
Though the Ambassodor assured Echo that Germany is not interested in all, no witch-hunting, only selected ones who have their hand in killing people.
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Still, 20 yrs later, in terms of building the trust inside the population... As if people won't find what to quarrel about between each other without state assistance!
("Echo" wouldn't be "Echo" if they didn't finish the interview with the words: "We full-heartely wish the best to the German people, and hope that you will be able to ? direct? mamage? Use the fruits of the freedom much better than we did - as, likewise you, Russians also got free in 1989 - temporarily. As, unlike you, we were not able to keep that precious freedom. :o)))) Thank you for attention, everyone, it was Echo of Moscow bla bla bla... :o))))))
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