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Comment by durnygbur | Hacker News Reader

There is something hilarious and schizoid in how Germany is perceived and the realities about this country.

They have strict privacy laws? First Nazi personel in the first half then Stasi personel in the second half of the 20th century were simply requalified and rehired, each bloody time. How do you think?

They are top environmentally-friendly country? Highest polluting coal power plants in EU are located in Germany.

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These are both known and highly controversial issues in Germany. The first one is widely accepted as without any alternative. You can't just replace a whole bureaucracy and in retrospect it worked out to only change key positions. But obviously it was a healing and cleaning process over time. The other thing is to be attributed to the fact the we were very quick to abandon atomic power even before climate change issues were that popular. Its a hilarious contradiction. We now actually also have a plan to also get rid of the coal power plants but it will be hard, maybe we need to reintroduce the candle as a source of light. There is no lack of willingness and intent but reality has us all in its tight grip.

Nazis were indeed rehired to senior positions, but sensitive parts of the civil service were purged of Stasi operatives, although this did take a long time, especially in Saxony. There has been some resentment of the fact that this often meant that the civil service in Eastern states is dominated by 'Wessies'.

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3j90ua/what_...

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Obviously, the OP was talking about the perception of Germany today and I think we can safely assume that no Ex-Nazi personnel is currently working at the German secret service. And coming to think of it, why wouldn't someone whose qualified to spy on others be rehired to do the same job in Germany after the end of GDR? What do you think secret services do?

Regarding "environmentally friendly", this point is correct but you're omitting that Germany just recently passed a law to get out of coal until 2038. The energy produced in Germany will then be pretty much exclusively renewable which is not a small feat for a country with such a large population.

> Hilarious and schizoid are adjectives that I would assign to your post.

Sorry but you are rude.

> I think we can safely assume that no Ex-Nazi personnel is currently working at the German secret service

Stasi personel though?

Are you expecting that people using such nuanced and subtle techniques like Zersetzung against domestic population [1] will suddently become ethical towards anyone they perceive as threat? or as undesirable?

On the facade Germans get some show off initiatives (no Street View!), behind the scenes is business as usual.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zersetzung

> Sorry but you are rude.

Yes, you are right. I apologize, I clearly went overboard.

> Stasi personel though? [...]

I think it's just an over-generalization. Just because you worked for the Stasi automatically makes you a bad fit for a certain job. It really depends.

>Just because you worked for the Stasi automatically makes you a bad fit for a certain job.

I am sorry, I am from Russia initially, the KGB-land. No, it's not an over-generalization.

You forgot the Nazi personal in the 2nd half. The BND is a NAZI organization. Lookup Gehlen. Didn't change much after they died, if you look at the various BND scandals since.

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