[extropy-chat] 'History' and the fulcrum of 1945

[Hubert Mania]

I said:

> >Interestingly enough, it is a discourse about the sorrows of the
> >perpetrators. Most prominently: sexual violence against german
> >women by soldiers of the red army

Amara said:

> This.
>
> Are the German women speaking now, or are others speaking for
> them?

They are speaking now for themselves, Amara. At least a handful of those who
survived. In books and tv-magazines. But it took them 5 or 6 decades to get
rid of their shame and talk about it. While Germany was separated, it was
un-pc to critizise the Red Army, especially in East Germany where the motto
was: "Learning from the Soviet Union means learning how to win". While we,
in the West, were told the same about the USA.

In times of Cold War there was this silent agreement among Germans, that
Russian atrocities against German women or British and US air raids against
German cities should not be discussed in public. German soldiers had
committed awful crimes, so wasn't it more than jusitified to endure the
"punishments" of the victorious powers? And didn't they free uns from the
Nazi terror, by the way?

There has been total war on both sides and it might have been justified for
allied bomber pilots in February to erase the city of Dresden. If any author
in the 1970s would have used the used the word "cremate" to describe the
death of Dresden population he would have been called "revisionist" or even
worse names. It had been the *Jews* who were cremated in Treblinka and
Auschwitz. The half a million burnt German victims of allied bombings were
accepted as war casualties, and discussing the shadow sides of the good
guys, with allied plans to kill at least 3 million civilians with the
intention to provoke a riot against Hitler, was un-pc in times of Cold War,
when West Germany was the most important ally of the USA against communism.

As I said before, it took more than half a century for the German nation to
be able to hesitantly talk about the shadow sides of the victors who, in the
name of freedom and democracy, erased 162 cities. Another delicate and
awkward factor in this discussion is the fact that this topic had always
been enunciated by extreme right wing parties to qualify (relativize) the
Nazi crimes. So, today if you want to have an open discussion about this
topic you first have to make disclaimer statements, not to be a neo nazi.

> This, and these kinds of stories are precious, I hope you know.
> Thank you, again.
>
> Amara

Thank you, too, Amara, for your listening and understanding

Herzlichst

Hubert