> Paramount chief Vekuii Rukoro, leader of the Ovaherero Traditional Authority, has criticised his government for not insisting on financial reparations: “When German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier comes to Namibia to render the apology we will embarrass him,” he told local media.
Imbeciles! Germany could have lived happily ever after ignoring this genocide like lots of western countries ignore theirs. Waste of taxpayers money if you ask me, no one killed back then is still alive, might aswell call it what it is: Development Aid.
The only "embarrassing" thing here is that I, as a German, did not know about this genocide my ancestors did and now i'm left wondering how many other genocides of my country i don't know about.
And how far back is a government responsible for it's predecessors actions? There certainly is a point in time where it stops, no one in their right mind would ask for reparations for things that happened in medieval times. But where is that point? I can't say.
As for the English debt, start by acknowledging and teaching the horrors your empire has caused and go from there. The English pride in "Queen and Country" is incomprehensible to me.
British Empire committed countless genocidal acts, but it's often waved away as if it was for the greater good. History is written by rulers, winners and colonizers, nothing new here.
you can always count on the bigotry of low expectations. If a white majority western country does it, it's bad and they should have known better, if a non-western non-white majority country did it, they didn't know any better and won't be held accountable.
> The many camps were used during the process of the expulsions for the sake of "rehabilitating" Reichs- or Volksdeutsche, to decide if they could stay or go, but in reality this was a program of slave labor.[12] Roughly 200,000 ethnic Germans died in the Soviet run concentration camps in Poland.[12]
It seems people are starting to forget just how evil and horrible the soviet union was. Somehow the political left is even starting to think that communism wasn't such a bad idea after all it was just "never implemented correctly". Doesn't matter how many millions were killed or put into slave labor camps, next time it's gonna work out just fine.
edit: oh dear, the down votes are coming in, some people are really easy to trigger when confronted with historical facts
> According to Simon MacKenzie, "callous self-interest and a desire for retribution played a role in the fate" of German prisoners, and he exemplifies by pointing out that sick or otherwise unfit prisoners were forcibly used for labor, and in France and the [Netherlands] this also included work such as highly dangerous mine-clearing; "by September 1945 it was estimated by the French authorities that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in accidents." [...] In retaliation for acts of resistance, French occupation forces expelled more than 25,000 civilians from their homes. Some of these civilians were subsequently forced to clear minefields in Alsace.
Yes, the Soviet Union was extremely brutal on a scale and with an intensity higher than most other contemporary countries.
But if that's your only takeaway from the linked article, you're not trying to learn, you're trying to reinforce your pre-existing beliefs.
I literally grew up with stories from my grandparents of being displaced after WW2 from what is now poland. I am well aware of just how but just about everyone was during and after the war. You are aware that i was the one that linked the article? Besides, the crimes against the german population after WW2 were retaliatory in nature in the non-soviet countries while quite obviously just another crime against humanity by the soviet system that was just as brutal to "their own" as to the german population.
My initial post was a remark on the brutality of the US Allies in the immediate post-war period. It seems like bad faith to single out the USSR as if they were an exception.
Which is... pretty odd, as one of the three dominant styles of universal health care today was originated by and is named after _Otto van Bismarck_, who you'd struggle to consider a leftist.
It was implemented by Bismarck but it was an explicit plan to outmaneuver the left wing by taking a popular part of their platform, which I've seen translated as "stealing socialism's thunder". Good details from a US-left perspective here
People get upset over others having more them they have, but rather than overtly stating they hate those who have more, it sounds far more appealing to say the attack on those who have is really a nice thing they're doing for the poor. But if you look at the actual actions and rhetoric, it's more about hating the rich than concern for the poor.
> Somehow the political left is even starting to think that communism wasn't such a bad idea after all it was just "never implemented correctly". Doesn't matter how many millions were killed or put into slave labor camps, next time it's gonna work out just fine
Germans are active in Africa, and this is a smart way to make an investment in Namibia, tie up hard feelings and compete with China in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Not to mention - no one can beat the Germans in Genocide PR. Germany wrote the manual on Global genocide PR white washing Genocide.
Look at the job they dis after WW2. Hat-off standing ovation!
Others can learn from the German playbook: “Oh, so one thing led to another and your country did Genocide? The 5 step German method to turning red into crispy clean white”.
Oh look it's the most retarded comment ever posted here!
Germans whitewashing genocide is a truly remarkable achievement, i mean who still talks about the holocaust or the nazi party and germanys crimes during WW2. Certainly not the Germans, they whitewashed it after all!
Edit: your account has unfortunately been posting a lot of flamewar comments and also unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban that sort of account, and in fact I teetered about whether to just ban you now. However, it looks like we've not given you a warning before, and it seems best to do that first.
Would you please review the site rules and use HN as intended from now on? That means thoughtful, respectful, substantive comments in a spirit of curiosity—not ideological or nationalistic battle, not fulminating, and not trying to smite enemies.
This doesn't depend at all on how badly others behave or how wrong or provocative their posts are, or you feel they are. Each user needs to carry their own weight with this.
As a German I am very happy that we "own up" to our mistakes, especially when I compare to turkey, japan, russia etc. etc. I think this rather honest review of our history is reflected in our culture as a whole and means that we as a German people are relatively trustworthy (and humble). Doesn't mean we are anywhere near perfect but still, feels good to be on the right side of history at least since after WW2. But yeah, we better be, have a lot of catchin' up to do.
34 comments
[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 76.7 ms ] threadImbeciles! Germany could have lived happily ever after ignoring this genocide like lots of western countries ignore theirs. Waste of taxpayers money if you ask me, no one killed back then is still alive, might aswell call it what it is: Development Aid.
The only "embarrassing" thing here is that I, as a German, did not know about this genocide my ancestors did and now i'm left wondering how many other genocides of my country i don't know about.
As for the English debt, start by acknowledging and teaching the horrors your empire has caused and go from there. The English pride in "Queen and Country" is incomprehensible to me.
..yes that's what kills means.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_reparations
> The many camps were used during the process of the expulsions for the sake of "rehabilitating" Reichs- or Volksdeutsche, to decide if they could stay or go, but in reality this was a program of slave labor.[12] Roughly 200,000 ethnic Germans died in the Soviet run concentration camps in Poland.[12]
Holy shit.
edit: oh dear, the down votes are coming in, some people are really easy to trigger when confronted with historical facts
From the exact same article:
> According to Simon MacKenzie, "callous self-interest and a desire for retribution played a role in the fate" of German prisoners, and he exemplifies by pointing out that sick or otherwise unfit prisoners were forcibly used for labor, and in France and the [Netherlands] this also included work such as highly dangerous mine-clearing; "by September 1945 it was estimated by the French authorities that two thousand prisoners were being maimed and killed each month in accidents." [...] In retaliation for acts of resistance, French occupation forces expelled more than 25,000 civilians from their homes. Some of these civilians were subsequently forced to clear minefields in Alsace.
Yes, the Soviet Union was extremely brutal on a scale and with an intensity higher than most other contemporary countries.
But if that's your only takeaway from the linked article, you're not trying to learn, you're trying to reinforce your pre-existing beliefs.
I literally grew up with stories from my grandparents of being displaced after WW2 from what is now poland. I am well aware of just how but just about everyone was during and after the war. You are aware that i was the one that linked the article? Besides, the crimes against the german population after WW2 were retaliatory in nature in the non-soviet countries while quite obviously just another crime against humanity by the soviet system that was just as brutal to "their own" as to the german population.
I stand by my point.
My initial post was a remark on the brutality of the US Allies in the immediate post-war period. It seems like bad faith to single out the USSR as if they were an exception.
I don't get why climate change is a "leftist" issue for those people, and yet..
And to be fully fair, von Bismarck only did it to preempt social democrats' talking points and popularity.
https://jacobinmag.com/2019/12/otto-von-bismarck-germany-soc...
and from a US-centerish perspective here
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/bismarck-tried-end-so...
The problem is authoritarianism, not communism.
Germans are active in Africa, and this is a smart way to make an investment in Namibia, tie up hard feelings and compete with China in Sub-Sahara Africa.
Not to mention - no one can beat the Germans in Genocide PR. Germany wrote the manual on Global genocide PR white washing Genocide.
Look at the job they dis after WW2. Hat-off standing ovation!
Others can learn from the German playbook: “Oh, so one thing led to another and your country did Genocide? The 5 step German method to turning red into crispy clean white”.
Germans whitewashing genocide is a truly remarkable achievement, i mean who still talks about the holocaust or the nazi party and germanys crimes during WW2. Certainly not the Germans, they whitewashed it after all!
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Edit: your account has unfortunately been posting a lot of flamewar comments and also unsubstantive comments to HN. We ban that sort of account, and in fact I teetered about whether to just ban you now. However, it looks like we've not given you a warning before, and it seems best to do that first.
Would you please review the site rules and use HN as intended from now on? That means thoughtful, respectful, substantive comments in a spirit of curiosity—not ideological or nationalistic battle, not fulminating, and not trying to smite enemies.
This doesn't depend at all on how badly others behave or how wrong or provocative their posts are, or you feel they are. Each user needs to carry their own weight with this.
https://en.geneastar.org/genealogy/goringh/hermann-goering