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Comment by lolinder | Hacker News Reader

> From an academic point of view it seems not.

More than a purely academic point of view, the distinction actually does matter. It's the difference between someone who affirmatively made a choice to join the Nazi organization and someone who simply didn't actively decide to dodge the draft or desert. The level of agency invested into the Nazi cause varies dramatically, and it's useful to have language that can distinguish between those shades.

We can get into philosophical discussions about whether it's worse to affirmatively support evil than to just go with the flow and not make waves either way, but that's more than an academic discussion—it has real relevance for today.

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I'm inhabitant of a country Germans tried to anihilate in 1939. Germany of 1939 is usually called Nazi Germany here, still- it's Germany. Same as Soviet Russia who attacked 17 days later- it was Russia, not some misterious nation called Soviets. These are language cover-ups. I do acknowledge there had been many Germans who chose death rather than to join their countrymen in horrible crimes, and I admire those who did not join. Unfortunately orders of magnitude more volunteered and were actively taking part in German death machinery.

Every soldier in the German military at that time was a nazi soldier. They reported to hitler, who was the person who brought the nazi party into power, the party who controlled the government and military. They took orders from nazis. They were nazis.

Their officers had skulls on their uniforms. They were rounding up and slaughtering people they viewed as less than them, they had posters in the streets painting them as rodents and infections.

Nobody saw all of that and said “well, I don’t want to dodge a draft, I better just sign up and do this evil shit, it’s my moral duty to serve”. Nobody was blind to what was happening and nobody accidentally went and did those things without believing they were somehow right. They were doing those things because they wanted to, the same way everything any person does when they have something that they have the power over to choose between.

Edit: not sure why I’m getting downvoted. Downvote the people trying to claim German soldiers in wwII were not nazis.

You're getting downvoted because what you're saying is just historically wrong.

You can call them all "bad" if you want. But (regardless of whether they committed war crimes) the Nazis and the armed forces were different (though obviously overlapping) subsets. This is not an academic distinction at all, and is extremely important if one is to understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.

> The German Army (German: Heer, German: [heːɐ̯] ⓘ; lit. 'army') was the land forces component of the Wehrmacht,[b] the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany, from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945 and then was formally dissolved in August 1946.[4] During World War II, a total of about 13.6 million volunteers and conscripts served in the German Army.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army_(1935%E2%80%9319...

So far, seems one army existed. The German army. That army was the army of Nazi Germany. that army was Nazi Germany‘s army.

> The Wehrmacht (German pronunciation: [ˈveːɐ̯maxt] ⓘ, lit. 'defence force') were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air force). The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the previously used term Reichswehr (Reich Defence) and was the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles permitted.[11]

Here’s probably the most important thing to read, because it directly disproves you

> After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2 August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg, acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal loyalty to Hitler.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht

The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

Here’s probably the most important thing to read, because it directly disproves you

It's not the snippets you're quoting that are wrong. You're just reading them wrong, and drawing plainly broken inferences from them.

For example, the statement "Army X was a manifestation of the Y regime's Z" does not imply the statement "Army X is simply a subset of Y" or even "Everyone in Army X basically agreed with Y". Of course it doesn't. Any more than being a member of the Red Army meant that one was communist, simply because it happens to be true that "The Red Army was the army of Soviet Russia".

Similarly, this idea that people taking an oath to anyone or their platitudes means, in all cases, they actually believe that oath, and that what the oath says describes what they believe. In the context of the huge fact that not everyone who joined the various fighting units did so voluntarily -- in fact a large majority were outright drafted (or shoehorned from civilian law enforcement roles, including many regular policemen).

Does that excuse them of culpability in what they may have done -- obviously not. But to think they simply believed everything they were asked to believe at face value goes against everything we know about human nature, and the basic social reality of was going on in Germany and Europe at the time. And about the fundamental psychological and operational mechanics by which the Final Solution worked.

And then there's this:

   That army was the army of Nazi Germany. That army was Nazi Germany‘s army.

As if simply calling Germany "Nazi Germany" adds some weight to the point you're trying to make. Of course it doesn't. As a simple, direct proof of this -- let's just drop the unnecessary instances of your favorite word in that sentence:

   That army was the army of Germany. That army was Germany‘s army.

And ask ourselves how much sense it makes.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht

The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

Only one way to read it. The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

Only one way to read it.

Which means we're definitely talking past each other.

> This is not an academic distinction at all, and is extremely important if one is to understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.

Exactly. And understanding this is vitally important—labeling every member of the German military a "Nazi" can create the dangerous illusion that the ratio of nut jobs to normal people in 1930s Germany was dramatically different than it is in 2020s USA/UK/EU/wherever, but it's not. The ratios were about the same, and most people who were complicit in the Nazi atrocities were complicit in a very passive, "don't stand out" kind of way.

Exaggerating the number of true Nazis ironically makes it more likely that something similar will happen again because it creates the false impression that you need some sort of overwhelming consensus in favor of pure evil to end up with a Hitler in charge. It allows us to let our guard down because we know that we aren't surrounded by Nazis, so such a thing must be very far away indeed, right?

I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that time escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or simply ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting against Hitler before it was too late.

But you wrote "every soldier in German military" which is just wrong. German military had many soldiers forcibly drafted from occupied countries. One famous example is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Tusk

People downvote you because you were confidently wrong.

> I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that time escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or simply ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting against Hitler before it was too late.

I did not say any of this, ever. Read my comment. Don’t put words in my mouth.

The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

Have you taken any history courses on this subject, or have any sort of academic experience that would make you qualified to take the position that you're taking here with such confidence?

> I did not say any of this, ever. Read my comment. Don’t put words in my mouth.

Sorry, my bad. I assumed if you blame innocent people you'd also blame people who were actually responsible.

> The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

And forced hundreds of thousands of innocent people from occupied countries to join it. Many of which escaped as soon as it was possible and fought against them when they could.

> Be it through voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or simply ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting against Hitler before it was too late.

You seem to be ignorant of how badly democracy worked in the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic never had an elected government, every attempt to form one failed. While the elections had an effect on the composition of the Reichstag all positions of power ended up getting assigned round robin style. The Nazis established their control of the country through emergency legislation passed to deal with terrorism, which let them bypass the Reichstag almost entirely. When the Nazis called for a vote in the Reichstag at gunpoint to establish Hitler as the Fuhrer they had to fudge attendance records because most elected members of parliament where either dead or in prison.

> You seem to be ignorant of how badly democracy worked in the Weimar Republic

And whose fault is that? If you fail to fix your country political system for long enough - you get dictatorship and eventually war. There's nobody responsible for it other than citizens of that country.

Whose fault is it that USA democracy is turning into oligarchy? Politicians - sure, but these politicians keep getting elected despite gerrymandering, taking billions in "lobbying" for tax cuts, openly lying, ignoring obvious systemic problems, etc.

Whose fault is it, that Putin could invade Ukraine and kill hundreds of thousands of people? Regular Russians had a faulty democracy and decided to do nothing as it was dismantled step by step. Now they are sent to die murdering innocent people.

Ultimately you can't escape the responsibility for your country. If you did nothing - you're an accomplice.

> for long enough

The German empire underwent revolts during the end of WWI. They just missed the mark a bit. Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German military and refused every peace offer until the empire was left without allies and struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic and played a key role in it to its end where he got cosy with the Nazis, directly aiding their rise to power.

In short, people tried to fix things, they got rid of Willhelm II and got Hitlers best buddy instead.

> The German empire underwent revolts during the end of WWI

By communists and far-right :) Where were the pro-democratic mainstream protests? It was the communists (USSR) and nazis (3rd Reich) who started WW2 after being unchecked for 2 decades.

> Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German military and refused every peace offer until the empire was left without allies and struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic

Is this view mainsteam in modern Germany? Considering how popular the Stab-in-the-Back theory was in interwar period I would think prolonging the war more, letting german cities be occupied etc. - would have resulted in nazis losing popularity not gaining it. So if anything - Hindenburg mistake was the opposite - saving German infrastructure and lives at the cost of making Germans conspiracy theorists and nazis.

But nevermind the WW1 peace treaty. Nazis could have been stopped at many points. If socialists managed to work with communists for one thing (but then again - Germany was already training their army in secret in USSR at that point after Rapallo, so it's probably not realistic).

The problem is that Germans seemed to protest in favour of extremes more often and more violently than against them. So extremes won.

BTW it might seem like I single out Germans. But in my country - Poland - democracy failed in a very similar way in 1926. And people were at fault too. Keeping the country democratic is the responsibility of citizens.

As much as I dislike Nazis I'm going to have to disagree, there were Germans who were not Nazis in all walks of life including the military, and even every member of the Nazi party was not necessarily bad - Oskar Schindler was, after all, a member of the Nazi party.

>Nobody saw all of that and said “well, I don’t want to dodge a draft...

Nobody saw all of that and said, shit if I dodge the draft they may give me the death penalty, no wait I'm wrong - that's exactly what they said.

You also do not seem to have any particular dividing line between say, soldiers who were underage (later years of war) or actual adults?

This article on American slavery seems to pertain here too https://medium.com/luminasticity/what-makes-you-think-you-wo... - what makes you think you would have been better - not you now, but a you born in Germany during the great Depression, came of age as World War II started, drafted into the Army but because of your character you would be able to stand against your society, your friends, the law and say no, I won't go. I'm not saying that's impossible, but it is rare.

On what grounds of your character do you think you would be better than most of the population at that time? What great wrong have you opposed to your detriment and personal danger?

Again - it may be that you would be better than almost everybody else at the time. But it seems more people think they would be than seems statistically possible, based on nothing other than being born "now" and knowing it is wrong "now", I would like some sterner examples of character to back up the moral self-regard.

Disagree with facts all you want. I don’t care. Neither do the facts.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht

The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to hitler.

gee, I didn't disagree with any of that - I said that if people did not accept the draft they would be prosecuted and often received the death penalty, although also they could just be sent to a camp and worked to death.

I also said that towards the end of the war Germany used underage soldiers - meaning as young as 16, I did not directly ask but implied that perhaps you did not think that underage soldiers were as culpable of being Nazis as the adults, but I see now by your strong commitment to your moral stature that I was wrong.

I finally asked just what makes you think you would have been good and able to resist the pressure to go in the army, which you didn't answer. You have done an admirable job in opposing every response to you with copy pasted Wikipedia content it's true, but I'm afraid I wanted some more hard-nosed and non-online behaviors to confirm the ability to stand against evil.

Alternatively, I think there is value in modern culture setting a high bar on this, if we could manage it. Perhaps it's better not to preemptively excuse the easier path of aligning w/ fascist causes, even to avoid one's own persecution. Better to reinforce that such alignment is reducing yourself, for future observers at least, to a similar distinction (despite of course the overwhelming cruelty of such a fate). I fear this ship is sailing however.

> Perhaps it's better not to preemptively excuse the easier path of aligning w/ fascist causes, even to avoid one's own persecution. Better to reinforce that such alignment is reducing yourself, for future observers at least, to a similar distinction

I don't think that's what this everyone-was-a-Nazi language is accomplishing, though. When someone uses the word "Nazi" they mean someone who is entirely unlike themselves or most people they know.

If we lean into this language, we risk forgetting that the vast majority of Germans in the 1930s were no different than the vast majority of us today—they had lives, jobs, families, and they looked the other way or even participated because they didn't want to rock the boat and risk those things. They were not Nazis, they were just citizens, but they enabled genocide.

I don't think that embracing the label "Nazi" for everyday Germans who never joined the party (and maybe even voted against Hitler when there was still a vote!) will scare people into standing up if they end up in a similar situation, it will just serve to create the sense that "1930s Germany was a really awful place with a lot of awful people and aren't I glad that I don't live there?"

If we take the approach instead of talking about how many ordinary people aided and abetted the Nazi cause by being silent—how they committed war crimes without ever being a Nazi—I think that will actually be more effective at teaching people how to avoid recreating the Third Reich.

Yes, I could indeed see that being the more effective approach to stir reflection in those who would reflexively & categorically reject any such association with the label. Cheers.

On the other hand people look at themselves and their neighbours and think “can’t happen here because we aren’t nazis”

Doesn’t take many people to actually hold a nazi ideology to make it come to pass.

After all, “ The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing”

Simplifying into “nazi” and “not nazi” is not helpful

I feel like you just restated what I said.

That's a valid point.

Also:

Nazi imagery now symbolizes ultimate evil, but that's the effect of history and reflection and cultural symbols changing. Fascism, including in 1930s Germany, is always packaged up in appealing packaging. It seems appealing, promising national revival and cherished values.

People didn't sign up for overt evil; they got swept up in something that appeared reasonable and popular, or just said nothing about the same.

This is the real lesson that I think we're losing; that it's possible to be an ordinary person of ordinary good morals, and to support terrible crimes happening if one isn't careful.

Are conscripts in conquered lands that were forced to serve also "Nazi soldiers"?

not the op here.

I don't, generally, disagree with you--there is no way every single one of them deeply identified as a Nazi--especially when coercion is involved.

However, as for the comparison with American slavery...many people stood up, said no to slavery, and lost lives because of it--they didn't just stick their head in the sand nor did they continue those ways since "everyone" else did, otherwise we would still have slavery. Maybe because this did not seem to happen in WWII Germany, or at least on a large enough scale of division within German loyalties, (as happened with American slavery), it bolsters the view of/comes across as WWII Germans full buy-in

> they didn't just stick their head in the sand nor did they continue those ways since "everyone" else did, otherwise we would still have slavery.

Slavery didn't end in the US until the end of the Civil War in 1865—246 years after the first enslaved people arrived in Jamestown. It's grossly unfair to take the eventual success of abolitionism to try to argue that there must have been less German opposition to Nazism than American opposition to slavery.

For the vast majority of American history, nearly everyone did "just stick their head in the sand" and "continue those ways". At best they fought to avoid expanding slavery, trying to keep it contained to the South.

For people who "stood up, said no to slavery, and lost lives because of it" you might be thinking about the likes of John Brown, but he died in 1859. If Nazism took as long to abolish as American slavery we'd have expected a John Brown to come along around the year 2173. Instead, we have dozens of well-known stories of opposition starting from before Hitler even took power.

> It's grossly unfair to take the eventual success of abolitionism to try to argue that there must have been less German opposition to Nazism than American opposition to slavery.

I was not taking that view, nor do I believe there was little opposition to Nazism in Germany. I simply do not believe such a large population can fully agree on one direction--in such unison, for any "cause" in such short time, whatever that may be. I was pointing out that the lack of visual division (as taught in modern times) could give it the appearance that it was unified. As the other poster pointed out, the differing time frames (length of time) is likely the cause of the visual discrepancies. I agree. I was in no way saying that there was no division, only that the appearance between the two, as taught now, could lead the OP to have the view that they were unified; unlike the general view of American slavery and the overt division that eventually appeared.

As for people that stood up to slavery, I was actually thinking of my ancestors I have been researching. One were first settlers and granted land in and around Jamestown, then the Carolinas. As the other poster mentions "most white resistance to slavery - in supporting the underground railroad was through groups like the Quakers", turns out the first American born generation (of my direct line) broke away from their slave holding prominent British family, were hard-core Quakers (involved in and charged in Cary's Rebellion) moved to the free states and became known in their area for fighting for abolition; including an incident/scuffle with pro-slavers looking for runaways in which he and companion were robbed, beaten and held/kidnapped for a time before being released.

So while it's a single example, the fact that there are only a few "known" examples with more well known people doesn't mean that it was limited--only that stories are hidden, unlike well-known stories of opposition to Nazi's (which I fully believe) and I am sure there are many more that never have surfaced, or only to a limited degree.

I'm not saying that opposition to slavery was instantly wide spread either, I get that. For one more obscure story, another line that married into a wealthy British colonial family of merchants, also had the second American generation forgo slaves and stayed in Va.--(I get that is shitty still, and after all the research, I understand better than before slavery and how it was simply the way of things at the time, but hindsight can be ugly)--they lived out their lives, working their own land until the Civil War where those generations (of age) fought for the Union.

TL;DR: The main issue I believe is the visual appearance in both early education and popular media, which would cause some to believe they were full in Nazis.

Actually in the article it was noted a bit, but not focused on overmuch, but most white resistance to slavery - in supporting the underground railroad was through groups like the Quakers - that is to say specific sub societies, and black people, which given that if you were black and living in a non-slave owning territory you could still be kidnapped and brought into slaver - as in 12 years a slave - may have had some self-interest as well as empathy for their less fortunate brothers and sisters involved in it.

Aside from that the German situation was very short time frame - it may have some effect on resistance.

> Aside from that the German situation was very short time frame - it may have some effect on resistance.

I completely agree. I posted a lengthly reply to a sibling poster on this and provided context into my view on it and relates your statement "most white resistance to slavery - in supporting the underground railroad was through groups like the Quakers", if interested and includes a story relating to my ancestors and an incident I found involving them and pro-slavers looking for runaways.

Basically, that's exactly why my lens of it is coloured the way it is. A line of ancestors were dedicated Quakers and fought not only against the Crown (interference in their beliefs and Queen Anns demanding they take a renewed oath of loyalty), but also abolition. Another one fought for the Union, and the second generation would also forgo slaves--the original British merchant family of this line had kept them;(second gen of my/this line did not, the first gen might have not as well, the slaves were inherited but not sure what happened to them at that point---which is simply awful to type, but I get the reality of it/the time)

You are getting downvoted because we are witnessing the beginning of the rehabilitation of WWII Germany. Contemporary leftists view politics through an oppressor-oppressed framework and Jews belong to the oppressor class. Acknowledging the widespread, virulent antisemitism in 1930s Germany lends sympathy to Jews. In turn, this sympathy lends legitimacy to the establishment of the state of Israel. As such, Leftists are attempting to characterize Nazis and antisemitism as a minority movement in 1920-30s Germany. The end goal is to paint the Holocaust as simply one of many historical genocides, and one which is equivalent to what has happened in Palestine over the last 20 years.

You are getting downvoted because we are witnessing the beginning of the rehabilitation of WWII Germany.

That's just divisive rhetoric. Nothing of the sort is happening.

The end goal is to paint the Holocaust as simply one of many historical genocides,

Except it isn't. You may think it's the goal that some people have. But that doesn't mean it is their goal.

And anyway there's no need to "paint" the situation that way because it has been a known and obvious historical point all along.

The simple fact is that there have been countless genocides throughout history. The genocide of European Jewry was definitely among the largest, and was quite distinctive in certain ways.

But unfortunately it was by no means unique, or even a true outlier.

This is just basic history.

You prove my point.

Not even.

But if you think I do, well, that can't be helped I guess.

I see you are operating a couple of accounts.

You leftists never learn.

We see you are hallucinating.

In any case you are in explicit violation of site guidelines. Recommend you stop.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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