What are German attitudes to their veterans?

Here at this site, we have many posters lining up to say 'thankyou' to veterans. The sentiments are their own, I'm sure, but are we simply saying thankyou for the fact of their service, rather than the results achieved.

It got me thinking. On German websites, does this happen as well? Do posters line up there to thank WW2 German soldiers for their service? And if so, does this include the members of the more sordid organisations of the 3rd Reich?

Have we, in the west, become as militarized in our attitudes? German veterans also fought for their country. They also gave a lot so that their way of life could be preserved. The fact that they were serving a monstrous regime should not interfear with this, for conscription in Germany guaranteed service to the state no matter what the private thoughts of the conscriptee. And what of SS veterans? Are they 'thanked' by ordinary German posters as well? The German state, I'm told, has pulled away the veterans benefits and pensions from ex-SS members, so when a new poster comes in to a site similar to this one in Germany, do the members there discriminate SS from Whermacht? What about if members of the Field Police or SD or Gestapo should pop up....are they given short shrift and sent from the site with tails between legs, as we do to certain people?

I've been curious about this for a long time. Somebody put me in the picture. We have enough German posters on this site for them to be able to give a good idea of the attitude of the average German man or woman in cyberspace.

Without the unprecedented ability of the internet to bring people of all walks of life and locations to the same site, and retain their anonymity, we would not have to face this at all.

Any comments from the German posters on this site? Are you PROUD of your WW2 veterans as English and American people here are? Or is this phenomenon unique to the winners of the contest?

 

Nice question but how about extending it to all Axis forces, especially Italian.

 

No problem...

Mussolini and others like Falke Eins and other Germans, I invite all of you to post a reply.


Are Axis countries ashamed of their vets? Do we as Westerners, afford the same courtesy to Axis vets as we do to Allied?

Your thoughts on this matter will, no doubt, be closely followed by all on this site. I have no problem with Axis vets, in fact, I would like to thank any in advance for taking the time to come here and post. German, Italian, makes no difference to me where you served or what you did. Come in and tell us your story.

 

To be fair to my friend FalkeEins, he's always struck me as a jolly fine English chap......

( Or is he a closet Firfth-Columnist......? )

 

Sometimes in war we emerge with a victor and a loser......less often perhaps there is also a triumph of good over evil....those who performed evil acts to win may not have as much to celebrate in their victory, as that has dishonor. That is not to say those who lost cannot celebrate their good acts either. I would think that any participant of the service to the axis powers will have to come to grip with where they fit on this continuum. If they served for the right reasons, that is a thing that can be celebrated. However I do not see how they can see themselves with total impunity for the atrocities that were committed on their behalf, but before I cast a stone I cannot say the least performing members on our side might have an equal burden to carry even if they were on the winning side. If you did evil who amongst us is above all evil? We always focus on the hollocaust but I see those evils as also including those who ignored what should have been readily apparent amongst all of us. We on the winning side must carry a guilt for having ignored this circumstance until it was much too late to intervene. All of mankind should have intervened before thoughts so evil could come to such horrible results. I always emphasize war is a symptom of something greater that is wrong with one side or both perhaps. War is not the solution, but is often the last resort turned to when all hope is gone for one side or the other. I think the forum should be a welcome place for all participants as I for one do not view the Axis Powers today in the same way as we both existed at the time of war. We can learn from them and they can learn from us and that is a good thing. Just my two cents thrown in to consider.

 

Let me answer this by an example. On one occasion a guy came with a post claiming that his grandpa was a member LSAH and received 10 "slutes" from mods an trustees. In my view, members of this forum show more than just necessary courtesy for "achievements" of the Axis forces.

 

You might want to say some members rather than just members, as many of use will give the same courtesy to Veterans and their relatives regardless nationality. It is my case and I know I'm not the only one to be impartial and open minded. In fact there are very few Axis relatives here, so yes we welcome them because otherwise we'd have none at all . When they appear to be hoaxes and/or Nazis worshippers, then it's another matter and they are banned.

 

He is not the only one Martin

 

I'm very reluctant indeed to contribute to this thread. Sadly, we've lost a few German contributors over the years ( eg Friedrich, AndyW etc ) so it may not be easy to get a response to the original question.

However, I do know that the subject continues to cause great concern in Germany. I've conversed with a distinguished veteran of the Luftwaffe who has been deeply upset by his own Grandchildren considering him an outright 'Nazi supporter'. In the last twenty years there has been an upheaval in the way WWII is considered in Germany, much of which is due to the 'Battle of the Historians' and the overturning of the Wehrmacht's 'clean hands' legend on the Eastern Front.

I'll quote directly from a German historian, Ralf-Georg Reuth, in his book 'Rommel - The End Of A Legend' (2004) which I think is interesting ; -

'If the image of Rommel eventually changed during the last two decades of the 20th Century it can be attributed to, among other things, the fact that the manner in which the Germans dealt with their history had evolved even further. At the beginning of the 1980s historians argued whether the Nazi crimes were unique. In the 1990s, Germans again discussed the question of the collective guilt of the postwar period. Increasingly politics and self-flagellation, not thinking of the Third Reich in historical terms, determined the discourse from then on in a society with with an ever-increasing lack of historical awareness, which seems to measure the past exclusively with the values and moral standards of the present.

Rommel was now quickly converted into a 'war criminal'....' ( p.221 ).

Although he's writing about Rommel, I think the extract shows that WWII remains a highly contentious subject.

 

The "Thank you for your service" phenomenon doesn't exist in Germany especially not for military achievements. I think this has various cultural and sociohistorical reasons.

-Generally many Germans feel uncomfortable in giving or taking such personal appreciations. I think we Germans more have a kind of "You have to do your duty without complaining" attitude (not only in the field of the military).
-Also many Germans are (even today) ashamed of the crimes which were committed in their name. My grandfather for example probably would have slapped me if I told him that I was proud of his military service.
-Additionally many people have suffered. Why do the soldiers need special attention? Germans usually feel more pity for the civilians.
-The post war generations were very antimilitaristic. This was also backed up politically in both Germanys and by our allies.

I personally also don't take pride in other peoples achievements. (Interestingly this doesn't apply for sport for some reason)

Of course I am no professional historian or social scientist but this is my impression as a historically and politically interested person.

Grüße Philipp

 

I think the winner and loser...the aggressor and defender (as depicted by the media) are an important factor to this question. The War destroyed Germany and it was they who instigated said war...so it would be fair from where i sit to have some animosity to my fore-fathers for what they and their actions had done to my country...The same would apply to Japanese...What did my fore-fathers do? what have they done to my country and culture? Would certainly be questions in my mind...Their ways of life were NOT preserved, glory was not gained...Its too simple to say they were all just soldiers...

 

As long as the veteran performed his or her duties with honour then then deserve to be treated with honour.

It doesn't matter what nation's flag they fought under, if they served with honour then they deserve our respect and those who didn't (and all nations had those) deserve to be pariahs.

KTK

 

I would suggest that the terms of Treaty of Versaille could be argued to of allowed the Nazis to come to power.

KTK

 

Then that rules out most of the Jap(anese) who conveniently "forget" how they served the emperor during the war. Sorry if this post offends some people here, but there ain't nothing PC about how those Jap(anese) b@$tards behaved.

The bolded portion of Ken The Kanuck's passage above was mine, so if any wrath is incurred for this post please do not blame him for any of it.

 

There has been very little written on the subject by academics, but this book is on my wanted list-
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Homecomings...r_1_47?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1340553954&sr=1-47
Also if you go to JSTOR and do a search (can't remember if you need to register; rules are different for US subscribers) there are a couple of essays on the subject-
http://www.jstor.org/

 

Finland was not an Axis country but nevertheless fougth the USSR together with Germany for some time.

The war veterans in Finland are very highly revered nowadays and have been from the eighties on - since the USSR started to weaken and open up.
Before that - especially in the 60's and 70's - when the communism was fashionable(!) among the hipsters of the day (the children of the veterans) the
veterans were even replied, when asking for support and recognition, "why did you go, you should have refused" - as if that could have been an option!

Straight after the war everybody of course knew, how extremely valuable the effort of the soldiers as well as of everybody else in the society had been.
Then there however was no time, will or possibility to celebrate their achievements under the constant pressure of the soviet dictatorship and in everyday
hardships of rebuilding the country. The threat of occupation was hanging over the country and politicians were repeating the mantra of "mutual, peaceful
co-operation and understanding" (= not saying a word of soviet crimes or aggressive imperialism, not doing or saying anything which could annoy the soviets).
Thanking the veterans for not letting the country to be sovietized was not considered to be appropriate.

Now the veterans are honorary citizens with several benefits - and rightly so. Nowadays it would be a political suicide to publicly degrade them.

 

I remember reading of a Luftwaffe pilot, who had been a member of the "Flight Detachment Kuhlmey" (see link below).
He burst to tears after receiving a standing ovation when entering a seminar in Finland about the detachment
mentioned. He told that he had never experienced anything like that in Germany.

In Finland he was/is considered one of the heroes, whose output in summer 1944 was crucial in the survival of
the country. This despite of the fact, that later on that year Finland and Germany were forced (by the USSR)to
a mutual war, in which the Germans destroyed the hole Finnish Lapland to ground. The Flight Detachment however
had nothing to do with it.

Kurt Kuhlmey - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I am close friends with a girl from Koln, and we had an interesting discussion. When my layman friends would discuss matters relating to the war and use phrases like "the Nazis" or "Nazi army" I would inform them that such terminology is naive and uneducated in nature, how it is wrong to presume we are allowed to judge over ten million people as if we are morale arbiters. When she brought this up with me, she told me in Germany, "Nazi army" and such terms are what people prefer to use to describe the Wehrmacht of old.

I don't think (if this is true for significant amounts of Germans) I would be wrong to presume the mentality that follows. Wouldn't it be that while descendants of the western allies would revere their veterans, that the Germans seek to distance themselves from theirs as much as possible? When she said that to me I was secretly appalled that the mentality existed in Germany like that, while it would make sense for her family for reasons I likely don't need to elaborate on, I think it is a grand shame that German vets are regarded like that, when vets in general are dwindling around the globe.

 

The PC mentality must be very strong in Germany.