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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   4461 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for June 16, 2024

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How that changes anything in terms of "has Germany was anti-slav during nazi times?"

  1. The Germans were so uniquely evil trope is used to justify all sorts of Soviet and Anglo-American imperialism. The Germans weren't uniquely evil or brutal.

  2. The Germans wanting to exterminate everyone who isn't German trope simply isn't true either. Germans wanted to restore Germany and have a more isolationist policy than most other countries at the time.

a more isolationist policy

Invading Poland and the ussr isn't really my idea of isolationism.

I never claimed either of those.

The Germans were pretty evil, but "uniquely" is a much stronger claim that's more difficult to justify. Making it would invite difficult to judge comparisons with everything ever done by every other country, which is why I didn't make it.

I also didn't claim they wanted to exterminate everyone who wasn't German. They treated civilians and POWs of Western allies about as well as you could ask for during a war AFAIK, including even Jews (Jewish soldiers that is, not so much civilians of other European nations they overran). And they were of course allied with Imperial Japan and Italy.

And they weren't quite as annihilationist about Slavs as they were about Jews and Gypsies, but they certainly weren't treated nicely. I think anyone attempting to make the argument that the Nazis were not anti-Slav is ignoring quite a lot of evidence and horrors.

I never claimed either of those.

well, it was reply to person who claimed this

The Germans wanting to exterminate everyone who isn't German trope simply isn't true either.

Well, they wanted to also enslave Slavs that were not planned to be exterminated. And assimilate some of them (Volksdeutsche, Goralvolk etc).

And they were not planning to expand German empire worldwide, they had no plans to invade and conquer say Japan AFAIK. They were not so delusional to plan extermination of USA population on grounds of not being German.

Not that it would make things for Poles/Ukrainians/Russians/etc better if Germans would win WW II.

The Germans weren't uniquely evil or brutal.

Large part of that is more-or-less hidden dual standards. Like with Russia right now large part of anger stems "but in Europe you are not allowed to do that".

(insert that 4chan post about toilet and kitchen here)

Also, there was vision that after WW I we learned better and we will have peace in Europe. France dropping bombs on Lisbon in September 2024 and killing 200 people would not be uniquely evil or brutal either. But I expect that outcry would be massive and far larger than what is triggered by far worse things in Africa. Mostly due to higher expectations.

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