General Discussion

about Germans and Germany during that period are rhetorical for many and they really don't want answers as much as they want to use the phrase "how could they" as an eternal condemnation, label of responsibility and use this as an eternal condemnation of German people of that time.

I know that your questions and curiosity are well founded etc. and so please understand that my statements are not directed at you but are just made to add to the discussion. The answers to these questions about Germans and Germany during the period are sometimes complex and sometimes simple. But many who seek them fail to see that a mirror mocks their "wondering" and their questions are posed to others as well. For just one example "How could the American people allow and take part in the slaughter of the indigenous people here in the US?" How could we allow and take part in the slaughter to the point of near extinction of one of the most prolific species in America? Truly how could people have done not just these examples but many more and the US is certainly not alone in the world as we look at the conduct of the European Colonial Powers.

I do not believe that there is something unique to Germans that somehow made them "allow" Hitler. I think Shirer displays an ignorant bigotry by claiming such a thing. There were plenty of ethnic Germans who resisted in the very beginning and many more who fled rather than be trapped and made prisoner to what they feared was happening. Shirer has no room in his ideas of what is "inherent" in Germans to explain the ones who fought against it and who fled and helped others flee. He gives proof to the saying "Some of the most ignorant people are also some of the most educated people".

How could the German people "allow" this or that is to lump them all together and that is about as fair as asking "How could the Texans allow the horrendous treatment of immigrants at the border that took place?" It was not Texans writ large but rather some people from other areas along with "some" Texans who perpetrated and "allowed" children to be ripped away from parents and kept in cages some to never yet be found.

I have come to believe that the world has it's accepted "story-line" of how it wants to look at the period and to a large extent the starvation and rape of people, not just of Germans, following the fall of Berlin is not something we will get much honest discussion of or portrayal in Western media. Some people around the world ignorantly lash out when these questions are asked and claim things like "you're just trying to make excuses for what they did" etc. Sometimes I understand that people have a need or cling to a narrative for various reasons and at other times I try to prompt some examination of "accepted" beliefs. I did so a few weeks back when I put up a video of the "Upstairs, Downstairs" episode titled "The Beastly Hun" in which Mr. Hudson is swayed by what's around him and takes a bigoted turn. The episode was well written and performed and squarely comes to the matter that often when people say "How could they?" they hold their own answer and the mirror so desperately avoided asks "How could you?"

So here is the episode again.