I wrote this blog on the counterproductive nature of drone attacks, but it has drifted too far afield. I do hope that the Western initiative in Afghanistan will be successful, but with the kind of strategy that is being deployed, I am not all sure.

Didn't you realise that I was making the point that those "period Germans" who quietly supported Hitler were to blame for the war?

But keep adding insults, if that's what you feel is necessary.

That's the point exactly.

By refusing to make a choice, by blaming those who are making a choice, one is already making a choice.

And I guess this is the crux of the confusion.

Party A are not realising that they are condeming X to death and are angry at party B for condemning Y to death.

And Party B see that party A are condemning X to death and are angry that party A are so arrogant as to fault party B for condeming Y to death while apparently taking X's death for granted.

I have seen it often. The party B types acknowledge victims on both sides and explain why they think that (fewer) victims on the attacking side are better than (more) victims on the defending side. At the same type the party A types, starting their thoughts a bit later, argue only about the victims on the aggressor's side and never ever even mention the victims (and would-be victims) on the other side.

During the last Lebanon war, protesters in Israel focussed on both Israeli and Lebanese victims and tried to stop the war (but couldn't, since it wasn't in Israel's power to stop the war). But I don't remember a single Lebanese protester (let alone the international "peace" crowd) even MENTIONING the fact that, gee, perhaps they shouldn't have bombed Israel for five years, testing Israel's bunkers and evacuation plans.

A BBC reporter at the time, neutral as ever, reported from Lebanon that people were wondering if "they" (the Israelis) will bomb Beirut again. It didn't come up that the single simplest defence against Israel bombing Beirut is simply refraining from bombing Haifa. (A more complicated defence would be to throw Hizbullah fighters out of the city.)

If the bombing of Dresden saved a single British life, it was already worth it for the British. Because that's what the British responsibility was: saving British lives. Saving German lives was German's responsibility . And Germany totally failed.

One might say that it is everybody's responsibility to save everybody's lives. And I would agree.

But when that thesis is used as an excuse for evil dictators and their wars, it becomes contraproductive.

We can see the same in Afghanistan now.

People are worried about civilian victims of allied attacks. Sympathy for innocent victims is good, but those who worry about innocent victims now have, often without noticing, made the decision that victims of the Taliban before 2001 don't matter and neither do victims of the Taliban now or the victims of much bloodier conflicts in other regions.

But every time the coalition have to change their plans because of innocent victims, the Taliban gain strength (in fact they even gain strength when victims of allied strikes are heavily publicised) and more people will die.  Of course those victims will be of the uninteresting type and nobody will care about them. And isn't this what we want? No bad news from anywhere? Isn't that enough to keep the mindless protesters happy?

Oh, and Taltamir... Utemia is not a Nazi or even a Nazi sympathiser. She is a lot more open-minded than most Germans (myself included) but relies a bit too heavily on opinions she had read. That's why I brought up the "simple fact vs lots of research" problem.

"Big industry" driving Hitler to war is one of the more typical German progressive explanations for World War II, one that is happily accepted by both sides of the political spectrum and moderates. The left accept it because it blames capitalists, the right accept it because it can be used ultimately to blame the Jews, and moderates accept it because it keeps left and right from fighting and because it doesn't directly blame the Jews.

Taltamir, I suggest you pick up a history book before calling me an evil person for citing the weak dictator theory. Had you read and thus known what this theory is all about (a functionalist analysis of how the 3rd Reich administration and bureaucracy worked) you would know that it does not make excuses for what happened and is not revisionist. If anything it blamed more people for what happened and not just Hitler as the dictator who pulled all the strings. Instead, you latched on the word weak and automatically assumed that it was revisionist or excused what had happened as not Hitler's fault. All you manage to accomplish is to show your lack of  knowledge on this part of history.

That fact that your family suffered, for which I am very sorry, does not mean that you  have the right to call me gullible and evil of all things because I said something that you misunderstood or misinterpreted really and that hurt your personal feelings.

This is historical science, and it has not to do at all with personal feelings. As with any science, data (documents and other sources of information) is analyzed and then an reasoned argument is made based on the data. Just because you don't like a certain theory doesn't mean you have the right to attack the person who said it. Contradiction is of course welcomed, but I expect the same courtesy I do you and others by remaining polite and not polemic and accusing.

The big industry thesis is not primarily a german one - many anglohistorians (both from the US and UK) do and did extensive research on this topic.

If you have to find and use the data to support your analysis to have a valid theory it means in reverse that you would have to find other data to discount it as a valid theory. Which is being done all the time - historians disagree with each other and fight like cats and dogs via essays and monographies. One famous example is the Historikerstreit. It was an intellectual and political controversy in West Germany about the way the Holocaust should be interpreted in history. Several prominent historians argued via open letters and editorials, and in a very agressive tone. Very interesting phenomenon in itself, and not the only controversy that happened either. It serves to show that history of the 3rd Reich and the way it is interpreted is a very sensitive issue in german society and politics and will probably remain so for the next time being. There is no sign of any revisionism or historization of that era, not as far as I can tell anyway.

I do rely on books - noone can keep up otherwise and the facts are not as tangible as they were for you in Lebanon. You were there and you know people who were there, you saw it with your own eyes. WW2 ended 1945, 65 years ago. It is a lot more difficult to rely on personal interpretation of facts when they're all long gone or in archives and even memory is 65+ years old. Not to say that personal experience makes you an expert..

PS I actually think you might like this book "Das Kulturelle Gedächtnis. Schrift, Erinnerung und politische Identität in frühen Hochkulturen" - Welche Rolle spielt die Erinnerung bei der Herausbildung kultureller Identitäten? Welche Formen kultureller Erinnerung gibt es, wie werden sie organisiert, welchen Wandlungen sind sie unterworften? Diesen Fragen geht der Autor Jan Assmann in einem Vergleich von drei Mittelmeerkulturen des Altertums - Ägypten, Israel und Griechenland - nach, und er zeigt dabei, welche Bedeutung gerade die Erinnerung und der Gebrauch der Schrift für die Entstehung früher Staaten haben.

The author is a professor for egyptology in Germany.
PPS His theory about the cultural (collective) memory is quite interesting and I think it's also relevant to explain recent european history in the sense that the collective "A Holocaust is never to be allowed to happen again" shaped european identity after WW2. The mutual reiteration of that is the fundament on which the european union / european identity  (if there is such a thing) is built upon. Every new prospect had to have stated that as a collective goal of mankind in order to be acceptable. The question wether that noble goal is achievable or just an empty phrase is irrelevant in that instance. Incorporating it and celebrating it in ceremonies and rituals is the key element - it became a part of cultural memory so to speak.

A historic theory is based on "facts" or documents and not solely on the oppinion of the author. And if I remember correctly I was just referring to what is out there theorywise because there are many different interpretations from historians all over the world of how the 3rd Reich worked, what german society was like etc. - a very crude attempt at an overview if you will.

I never said that it was my oppinion, though. All I said is that nazi germany's history (and all history) isn't simple and straightforward and I tried to use the different theories by very different historians from different countries to illustrate that.

I thought you would very much enjoy Jan Assmann - very clever guy. He also published books on the origin of monotheism and polytheism and its importance for egyptian and israeli/jewish history. Right up your alley in that regard. His most recent publication is called "Of God and Gods: Egypt, Isreal and the rise of Monotheism"

What an unfortunate name...

Sounds like it.

Bahu, sorry for Hijacking your thread.. it wasn't planned or anything.

I think the new strategy in Afghanistan is pretty solid because it aims not only to root out the taleban but also to stay afterwards to make sure the transition into a talebanfree time remains permanent. Also, according to what I have read and saw in the news, everything is done to avoid civilian casualties. But of course time will tell and it is way too early to make predictions on the outcome. A new phenomenon of the multimedia internet age is that events are titled "history or historic" while they are happening or only minutes after they occurred. It is pretty difficult if neigh impossible  to really know the context in realtime though, which (for me) is a basic necessitty to be able to come to a reasoned evaluation of events. Don't trust the journalists to tell the "truth" but don't trust yourself to know the whole truth either based on information you recieved from journalists. Did that make sense?

Utemia,

You have probably heard of her:

http://www.squidoo.com/Nobel2007scam

Irena Sendler from Warsaw, Poland. She was a social care nurse who delivered emergency supplies to the Warsaw ghetto during the German invasion.

...

During her time working in the Warsaw Ghetto she became aware of the Nazi plan for these poor families - they were to be extinguished. She was quoted as saying "I saw the Polish nation drowning. And those in most difficult position were the Jews. And among them those most vulnerable were the children. So I had to help."

There was no way Germans were not aware of what was going on, just like this Polish woman was. And there was no reason for why Germans could not have done at least what she did or even a lot more, risking less.

The fact that that didn't happen in Germany (or not enough) is the reason why Dresden was bombed.

Yeah. I don't have a good answer to that and I do argue that point with many that claim "they didn't know". How could they claim to have no knowledge when there was so overwhelming proof of what went on? It sounds unbelievable at best. Buchenwald wasn't a secluded highsecurity compound after all. I wish I could have a good explanation, it would be better than the knowledge that many of my ancestors were heartless, careless racist murderes through the bench because inaction equaled to complicity in that case.

On a sidenote, the generation "war" that was in their teens when the war ended pretty much accused their parents and grandparents of that and were very critical of their own past. It is possible to tell exactly when those youngsters had grown up and started to be politically active or publish books as historians etc in the 60ies because Germany changed as a result. It only truly became a democracy in the sense that people inherently believed in democratic values after that time. I daresay that the process was successful, but it hadn't been until the 70ies and 80ies that it became a truth.

But - and this isn't meant to relativize german atrocities - there weren't that many polish, italian or ukranian or french or rumanian people that did the same thing either. What shocks me time and again is the huge collaboration the germans recieved to go through with all they did. Had everybody protested history could have been alot different.
(I am sure that a lot of information is available on the net, but that is very much unedited and it is impossible to follow up on the documents that are cited. That is another positive characteristic about respectable historians - you can always look at the sources they cite yourself because they quote exactly where the material is at.)
You can research the history of the progrom of Jedwabne to learn more. I recommend the following:

Aleksiun, Natalia: Polish Historiography of the Holocaust-Between Silence and Public Debate, in: German History 22 (2004), P. 406-432.

Gross, Jan T.: Neighbours. The destruction of the Jewish community in Jedwabne, Poland, Pinceton UP 2001. (His book kicked off a whole controversy and public debate in Poland)

Henning, Ruth (Hrgb.) Die Jedwabne Debatte in polnischen Zeitungen und Zeitschriften, Dokumentation (Transodora 23), Potsdam 2002.

Polonsky, Antiony and Michlic, Johanna B. (Hrgb.): The Neighbours Respond: The controversy over the Jedwabne massacre in Poland, Princeton UP 2004.

This is just a small section of literature on Poland specifically. If you're interested I can cite you more. Many works are in english too and by nongerman historians, so this isn't an attempt to relativize or negate german crimes.

Polish historians have only recently (the last 15 years maybe)  begun to ask critical questions. Alot of that has to do with the fact that the polish people sufferend immensly under the russians and sowjet rule, and the more recent trauma superimposed itself over the history before 1945. People were even quite annoyed that anybody would be interested in that and not in how much they had suffered under the sowjets. (at least that is one theory out there)

And "every frenchmen was in the resistance" (a favoured french belief) is just a baldfaced lie. The vichy regime did more than it had to and out of its own accord to collaborate with the nazis. French (police - don't know for sure how that was organized) rounded up the jews and then handed them over to the nazis. The only country that actively did something to protect its jewish citizens was Denmark. They helped all of them (or almost all) to escape.

Interesting in regards to the overall topic is also Milgrams experiment about obedience to authority figures. It is not directly related nor meant as an excuse, but it is sort of enlightening in a horrible way.

You "cite" the "weak dictator theory". KKK members "cite" the "n-word people are missing a gene theory". And nazi's cite the "jews are rats and evil" theory.

And to call those theory is an insult to actual theories, it is nothing but propaganda.

And all of those people are doing an evil act. It is no different then holocaust denial. And those people CHOSE to value the obvious and insidious lies instead of the obvious and reasonable truth.

You didn't hurt my feeling, you offended my sensibilities. My grandparents suffered greatly, my parents had to see it first hand. Me? I heard about it, but I was NEVER an actual victim, not even second hand. Had my grandpa raised me that might have been different, but my parents did, and I did not get to see this growing up. To me this is purely academic.

I typically say that if I met a hypothetical son of hitler and find that he is NOT a nazi, I will shake his hand and tell him I am sorry for all flak he must have received for something he has never done.

And btw, the so called "innocent germans":

1. Voted hitler into power

2. Gave up their guns.

3. Did nothing as he gained power

4. Did nothing as the situation worsened.

5. "obeyed" when the orders came to turn people in

etc.

There were a few good people who did what is right (aka, hid innocents from the government). Most were just accomplices.

What I cited does not renege any responsibility or relativize the crimes and brutality that were committed. It is but one of many different theories out there.

Yeah - Guns and Germany. I said it before and I'll say it again: The German populace was never armed in the first place. After the first world war there was an abundance of leftover weaponry and armed veterans, but the general Joe didn't own a firearm. They could not give up what they didn't possess. It is a popular urban myth that Hitler dearmed germany, nothing more.

Let me use your logic, "period Jews" sealed the fate of Christ, I guess while they don't deserve their fate, it is their fault for whatever happens to them as a result.

My argument: The actions against Dresden had no value in ending the war, and probably cost the US (and others) a ton of money to rebuild, three months later, so was a waste of resources. Frankly I'm not fond of beating someone up they paying for their hospital bills. Whether the people there were loved or despised it changed nothing. I definitely understand why you feel the way you do. 90% of your articles are about jewish victimization or similar, only a blind person couldn't tell that. If you want to wrap up your perception of what I'm writing in your ideology fine. To me everything is not that black and white. 

BTW no insults, just calling it the way I see it. I have no nor want control over your sensibilities.

1. It was the romans who killed him, not jews. They crucified thousands of religious leaders. It was revisionist history (and a blood liabel) that later attributed it to "the jews".

2. If jews "wanted him dead", then christians "betrayed" him (judas was a baptized christian, converted by jesus himself).

3. The "period jews" fought the romans, and lost. The romans were foreign invaders who conquered the jewish nation and then proceeded to expel the jews from within its borders. This is very VERY different then voting in a bad leader and then silently supporting his atrocities. The way you use it, the fault of the holocaust lies with the poles, the french, and all other nationals whom hitler conquered.

4. You have any proof that bombing dresden had no value? are you a master strategist now?