I didn't use quotation marks as a sign that you said it but in order to highlight a very common oppinion. I appologize if that was misleading.

I also never denied support for Hitler, I said that not everybody was a supporter. And war in itself changes the attitude and oppinion of people, don't forget that. Hitler faked an attack on Poland and made it look like Germany was defending itself. How would a simple worker know that was a lie? If he supported Germany's war effort, he deserved to die because he supported an evil regime - did I understand your logic? He would be one of the guilty ones that could have known better but did nothing.

I know of the quiet support - I find it unconcerting. But I think the reason for that was shared guilt. The Nazi Regime made sure that virtually nobody could say they had nothing to do with it by weaving a tight net of government and social webs. It was very effective - and admitting that you were so easily convinced to take part in an evil regime (and maybe even enjoyed your power) is very difficult if I were to guess. it is much more simpler to pretend that you were never ever a nazi and get your buddies who pretend the same to vouch for you and to clamor for leaving the past in the past anyway. That doesn't justify it in anyway, but it an attempt at explaining what happened.

I don't want to appear like I want to protect or defend nazis, because I am not. But every societal process is complex and I refuse to accept categories like evil and not evil because things are never that clearcut when making a verdict on a whole people.

Also, Mein Kampf wasn't mandatory reading. I think every household was supposed to have one, but virtually nobody read it. I once listened to a guy who recorded audiotapes of "Mein Kampf". It was very difficult not to laugh while listening because it was so ridiculous.

But a you said regarding support for Stauffenberg even after the war, it did apparently not change the general attitude.

Poland was overrun within days. Do simply workers generally attack bigger people or do they have a way of figuring that perhaps someone who gets beaten up a lot wasn't the attacker?

Generally excuses for German support for Hitler come in two forms: people didn't know and people were afraid.

But if Germans were afraid of speaking up, how come they didn't know that the Nazis were evil?

No. You keep repeating this weird thesis that I said that anybody "deserves" to die. If you want to understand my logic, try repeating, rather than rephrasing, what I said. I use specific words for a reason.

I said that people died because of what they did, not that they _deserved_ to die for it.

The people of Dresden didn't deserve to die. But that they died was their own fault (and the other Germans').

If you jump of a cliff tomorrow and die, I wouldn't say that you "deserved" to die. But I would say that it was a risk you yourself took and were responsible for.

And if I win the lottery tomorrow I wouldn't "deserve" the money, but it would be legitimately mine anyway.

There was loud support and there was quiet support but what there wasn't was loud opposition.

I accept that loud opposition is dangerous.

However, in the last year of the war, Germans were free not to hunt down Jews and go unpunished. But they didn't.

And after the war Germans were free to denounce Hitler and celebrate Stauffenberg, but they didn't.

And there are no excuses for that.

Well, then we have agree to disagree, because I accept categories like evil and not evil. And genocide is evil.

Ignorance is no excuse.

If the state gives you something to read, you read it. If you don't and support the regime anyway, it's your fault.

I think you should read David Goldhagen's Hitler's Willing Excecutioners and this argument is fleshed out in that book.

Yeah, I heard about the book and the furore it caused.

But as I said, I don't like reading interpretations. I don't want to know the views of historians, I'd rather just read facts and what they meant at the time and then make up my own mind about them.

Looking at the facts and drawing a conclusion - sounds easy enough. That is exactly what a good historian does, interpreting facts and leaving personal oppinion out of it, which leaves the reader free to make up their own oppinion of everything with the bonus of having someone qualified go to the archives and find all the evidence.

What I read about Goldhagen's book was that he worked rather sloppy with the sources/documents - that is like a death sentence for a historian. Historical science is a science, and if historians are careless with the sources and not thorough and well informed it tends to question their qualifications. Anybody can publish anything after all - just because it is written down in a book somewhere doesn't mean its true, very good or revealing.

But a good historian does extenstive research. looks at documents and pours over archives, forms a thesis based on these documents and then evaluates what he found in a transparent way. He also reads what other historians researched and published and puts everything in a sort of perspective. While I can understand why you'd rather make up your own mind, it doesn't hurt to read what other's wrote.

Again, I do read facts. I just don't care about other people's interpretations.

That's why it didn't surprise me that there are several theories about how everything was the big evil industrialists' fault.

What I read didn't pin the sole blame on the big industrials. One of the mainproblems regards the question wether the reach for power of the Nazis could be deduced from the character of german capitalism and the schemes and political goals of the industrial german elite. It isn't as simple as viewing it as the primitive instrumentalisation of the nazis from the start by a power- and moneyhungry group, nor can structural connections between capitalism and the rise of power of the Nazis be denied.

Marxist and nonmarxist historians make out more or less two structural connections: 1) It is evident that influental portions of the industrial elite favoured a more authoritative solution instead of the Weimar Republic, even before the rise to power of the Nazis. This solution would for one repress the workers and thus reestablish profitability. The recession in the early 30ies caused the german economy to be split and unoriented, and in light of a worsening recession portions of the economy showed a willingness to at least accept nationasocialist involvement in the government in order to create a political frame in which the capitalistic system had a chance to recover. But in their search for a solution of the economic crisis, the Nazis were sort of last resort/hope for many and not the first choice for a solution. Due to this quarrel about  which strategies and solutions for the recovery of the capitalistic economy would be best, obvious solutions and alternatives were excluded. The german industrial elite commited itself to the new nazi regime, which in return recieved a certain leeway for political initiatves that way.
2) To what extent was nazi policy 1933-45  influenced and shaped by economic reasoning, especially by interests of german industrialists. One could also rephrase that and question to what extent the nazis were able to obtain a political autonomy which allowed for a primacy of ideology over economic goals.

Personally, I don't think the question by themselves nor the answer to those questions are simple. The literature available on this topic alone is immense. And good historians always use facts - or rather documents as their sources.

The startingpoint of any analysis on this issue is the question whether the polarization in "primacy of politics" and "primacy of economy" doesn't equal a crude simplification of the complex structural interrelation between NS politics and the interests of the german industry in itself. Reducing the issue to the alternatives of politics and economy narrows the meaning "politics" down and suggests a crude dychotomy between state and society.  Historical research done on Nazi economy suggests a close correlation of goals and interests between the naziregime and the industrial elite which mutually influenced each other. It is virtually impossible to make out a specific political and specific economical domain.

I could write alot more but I don't want to bore you too much. Suffice to say - it is complex. And I don't know how you would look at the evidence and facts just like that because they're not widely available unless you go to archives by yourself or get specific books which compile them for your convenience. The problem with the nazipast as it were is a virtual ocean of historic sources in the form of documents. There is alot that hasn't even been evaluated in archives in Russia. It is almost impossible to go through all of that.

You are making this too complicated again. You can always argue that more research is needed.

Nevertheless, SOMEONE created the athmosphere of violence that swept over Europe in the 1940s. And while more research cannot hurt, it seems obvious that violence coming from Germany can hit Germany too.

If you don't want your city destroyed by the British, make sure nobody attacks them in your name.

That's the lesson of Dresden. Worked for me.

I won't argue it much further, everyone has their opinion on the subject and that is fine. I do believe my analogy with the Kurds was an accurate one. You said that the Kurd's didn't vote or put Saddam into power (I agree), so were not 'responsible" for Saddam's actions (I also agree). Using the logic you seem to apply (as it appears to me anyway) you say while the people of Dresden didn't deserve to die, it was their fault. One would have to assume by using this line of thinking Hitler won the election by 100% of the vote in 1933, including people that were too young to vote or didn't vote at all. That would mean that German Jews are also at fault, they didn't stop Hitler either, so must have supported him. That's like saying, "so while they didn't deserve it, the German Jew portion of the Holocaust it was their own fault". Of course I disagree with this, but IMO the similarities are close enough to make a comparison.  I believe is was unnecessary to bomb Dresden. I'm sure some combatants died and evil Nazis died in the raid, but that was not the plan to fire bomb a city to kill a few people. It was wasteful and had almost no operational value, except to take a bite out of the population. If the people of Dresden had "X's" painted on their roofs, perhaps then I would agree with you.

As for recent events in Pakistan, it was a terrible shame. It was an accident, but I'm sure that is little comfort for the families of the dead. For the survivors it will probably mean taking hatred of the US to their graves. There will be no GI's handing out candy bars to the kids or US sponsored civil engineering projects to better the community (like there was in Germany after WWII), so no good will erase the bad memories. But hey, maybe it's their own fault. Shouldn't they be able to see the extremists are using their religion to wage war, can't they see how evil Al Quaida and the Taliban are, living among them? That would be some folks perspective. It's interesting how they have a mirror opposite opinion about us.

There is a difference.

The Kurds did try to stop Saddam. They fought him. They died. They ultimately won when they helped invading allied troops.

I think of the Kurds more like the Jews who fought against the Nazis in the ghetto than the quiet German supporters of the regime.

And as far as I can tell Saddam was never as universally popular in Iraq as Hitler was in Germany. But I do blame Saddam's supporters for what he did to the Kurds.

The law that made Hitler "fuhrer" was supported by 83% of the German parliament:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ermaechtigungsgesetz

Only the Social Democrats voted against it.

I agree that 83% is not 100% but it's as close as you can get without making up the numbers yourself.

Hardly. German Jews did not do anything to help Hitler. Again, I don't believe there is a first-class responsibility for the victims or others to act. The responsibility lies with those who are not targeted and who help the bad guy.

The Jews did nothing to Germany that made the Holocaust necessary to fight the supposed danger. The same cannot be said about what Germany did to Britain to make the bombing of Dresden necessary.

I think you misunderstand the point.

I am saying that violence started can return to those that started it. And while even they might not deserve being victims of violence (perhaps nobody is), I don't see how their plight is anybody's fault but their own. Britain did not want to bomb Dresden, Britain did it solely because Germany bombed Britain. Otherwise it would not have happened.

On the other hand, the Nazis wanted to kill the Jews, Hitler made that perfectly clear, and the Holocaust did not happen as an extension of what the Jews did to Germany.

83% of the Reichstag does not mean 83% of the people. NSDAP got 43.9% of the vote in 1933, not even half, but the percentage of the then governing body, as you provide, does make your argument sound better.  We have the same problem here in the US, Congress thinks they ARE the voice of the people.

So would you like to change your argument to reflect only 83% of the people of Dresden were at fault for the Allies bombing them?

Ok, fair enough, you can clear it up for me easily...why was it necessary to bomb Dresden, what did it accomplish? Did it shorten the war? Note: I never said it was right or even useful for the Germans to bomb London.

Legally it does.

I never said that every single one of them was to blame. When I say that I am thankful to the American people for liberating Germany I am also not saying that I believe that every single American, regardless of his personal beliefs on the matter, is an anti-fascist hero.

Why it was necessary you would have to ask Allied Command, not me. I trust their decisions.

And I think it did shorten the war because Germany suddenly learned the reality of the war and what it was they had done to all those other countries.

Historical reconstruction is a complex process and all the "facts" of the past have not survived in the cntext in which the events unfolded therefore the historian persey has to rely on interpretation and structural depth in order to make the past yeild its meaning and only then does the present become understrandable. So you really cannot divide the the facts from the interpretational gloss which surround them.

That might well be true for some of the more complicated issue. But not for this one.