US Tea Party Should Keep Its Hands Off Hitler

[ensho]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,724418,00.html


Not-So-Steeped in History



Many on the American right have developed a taste for including a bit of German history in their stump speeches. Hitler comparisons abound and the Berlin Wall even made a cameo recently. But the flippant references to the Holocaust are ignorant and offensive. And they should stop.

German politicians are well aware of the dangers of making ill-thought-out references to their country's history. In 2002, then-German Justice Minister Herta Däubler-Gmelin, speaking to the southern German daily Schwäbisches Tagblatt, said in reference to US President George W. Bush's increasingly bellicose rhetoric against Iraq: "Bush wants to distract people from his domestic difficulties. It is a popular method. Hitler did the same thing."


It was the hint of a parallel more than a direct comparison. But Germans, the majority of whom hated Bush even then, were outraged -- and Däubler-Gmelin paid a high price for it. She was forced to resign.

The lesson doesn't seem to have made it across the Atlantic.

-long snip of baggers speak and the REAL TRUTH-
-----------------------

baggers are beyond stupid

and are mean and cruel

[HopeHoops]

1. I believe that if Hitler were alive, he would agree - "ewww!"

[howard112211]

2. Oh well. Obama used a nazi comparison during his Nobel prize speech.

They aren't as off-limits in the US as in Germany. Even when they are bullshit.

[Initech]

3. Ad Hitlerum:

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductio_ad_Hitlerum?wasRedirected=true

[GSLevel9]

4. Germans are too touchy about their NAZI past.

It's the PAST.

Do Russians run around and whitewash the hammer and sickle from every building or painting?

Get over it Germany. Your military behaved valiantly, your citizens were brave and true. Your government was fucked up... end of story.

[emilyg]

5. I lived through it

all and think your post is silly at best.

[GSLevel9]

6. now I'm curious...

what exactly did you live through?

Were you a young person in Germany from 1933-1945?

[emilyg]

7. I was a young person in

Poland - 1938-1945.

[GSLevel9]

8. What a terrible experience.

It must have been horrible to be caught up in the middle of a war, invaded by a foreign army.

But please explain why the German people should feel shame for what their fathers, grandfathers and nieces and aunts did?

The German armies were commanded and directed by an evil, tyrannical regime with a monster at the head and a crew of monsters around him. But for the average 19 year old boy from Berlin who joined the Wehrmacht from national pride, what did he do wrong? He didn't preach hate for anyone, he was caught up in a national fervor and thought he was doing the right thing for his nation.

History is written by the victors, and by the victims... not by the vanquished.

Every army in the field for many millennia has included evil men. Evil men who kill for fun, who have sadistic hearts.

Greek soldiers committed atrocities, Persian armies committed atrocities, Roman centurions committed atrocities, atrocities have been committed by EVERY standing army in history. The US armies has committed atrocities... more than a few in fact.

I don't apologize for the animals who invaded your town and were cruel or barbaric. But it's safe to say that MANY MORE German soldiers were motivated by nationalism and pride and not evil.

It's time for the German people to recognize that they allowed a murderous, evil and sick regime to take control of their nation and never allow it to happen again. But it's also time for the German people to feel pride for the individual sacrifices, achievements and successes they enjoyed.

Erich Hartmann was a pilot in the Luftwaffe in WW2. In fact he's the most successful ACE in the history of air warfare. He personally shot down 352 airplanes from 1942-1945, mostly Soviet fighters. There should be an Erich Hartmann Museum in Germany.

German engineers and inventors produced the highest quality weapons of war and the most modern weapons research including the V2 rocket which lead to the US space program.

It's possible to be proud of a history but ashamed of men.