What is a Nazi?

[Angst]

Absolutely correct, because society had been totally brainwashed by propaganda.

Germany's level of education wasn't behind eg France, and France didn't go out to conquer Europe and Western Russia. At least not then.

Like, I get it. But it's like, "oh no, I died in a war I supported and started", and even then, probably the most gruesome war ever happening to the West.

 

[raystuttgart]

I don't care about the reasons you're supporting blood laws and genocide, you're not the victim there.

So basically you are saying that everybody commiting a crime himself can not also be considered a victim as well?
So if somebody in the US is put into prison because he commited a crime he lost all right to be considered a victim himself?

So being brainwashed suddenly becomes your own fault only because you were stupid enough to fall for it?
Becoming brainwashed can not be considered as becoming a victim? Again, it is not trying to defend, but maybe making people think how such things happen.

Being a victim does not make your deeds right or morally better.
It is not an excuse for anything. It explains however how it happend.

It is just acknowledging the fact that we are very easily manipulated.
It is just acknowledging the fact that we are shaped by our society.

We an easily be both victims and criminals.

----

Oh boy, it is so easy to judge others if you have never been in their situation.
Throw the first stone and hope it will never hit yourself ...

Bad people have always been evil in their heart.
The possibility they became bad because they were victims as well does simply not exist.

 

[Angst]

So basically you are saying that everybody commiting a crime himself can not also be considered a victim?
So if somebody in the US is put into prison because he commited a crime he lost all right to be considered a victim himself?

Being a victim does not make your deeds right or morally better.
It is not an excuse for anything. It explains however how it happend.

It is just acknowledging the fact that we are very easily manipulated.
It is just acknowledging the fact that we humans are shaped by our society.

We an easily be both victims and criminals.

----

Oh boy, it is so easy to judge others if you have never been in their situation.
Throw the first stone and hope it will never hit yourself ...

The difference from criminals, western islamists and such is that these are not in power or intended to benefit from the power structure in question. A more reasonable comparison is the one in the OP, where a police officer with the backing of a state causes inexplicable harm to someone; there's a lot of reasons to try and work to redraw the lines that had a person end up like that, but he's the guy in a uniform with a gun commiting cruelty with a state's guarantee of little repercussion.

 

[AmazonQueen]

German complicity is complicated.
Hitler did enjoy a considerable amount of support especially before the War started to go badly, but that does not mean there was popular support for all Nazi policies, some of which like the eugenics program with the disabled and mentally ill and the death camps were concealed from the general public as much as possible. There was also a large block of the German population that just withdrew from politics, kept their heads down. Not courageous but its easy to say that if you are living in a democracy.
It wasn't a total police state either. The Gestapo employed far less people per capita than the Stasi did and relied heavily on informants.

 

[Lexicus]

So you are saying that there were no Germans put into the Gas Chamber as well?
Then you have no idea how many socialist, gay, oppositionists, ... have been gased to death as well.

Or are you are saying that all Germans have been part of the SS operating the gas chambers?
In fact statistically less than 1% of the German had ever seen a death camp before end of the war.

Or are you saying that none of the Germans had to endure death of their children, parents, ... by the war?
Or is something like that not worth being considere as a victim?

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It is kind of a strange argumentation to say "Only the people that suffered most." are allowed to be considered victims actually.
So I guess there are no victims of injustice then in the USA because nobody is been put into a gas chamber?

----

Seriously, you have a strange definition of victim ...

And to make it clear:
I am completely aware of the holocaust and do not want to defend it.
All I am saying is that there were more victims than those who died in gas chambers.
And saying "Germans themselves were no vicitms of their own regime" is a pretty non-sense argumentation.

Again, I can only surmise that your defensive reaction to what I'm saying is leading you to put words in my mouth.

For example:

It is kind of a strange argumentation to say "Only the people that suffered most." are allowed to be considered victims actually.

I never said this, not even anything remotely like it. What I specifically object to is referring to people who participated in the Holocaust as "victims" in the same sense as actual victims of the Holocaust.

Absolutely correct, because society had been totally brainwashed by propaganda.

To borrow your method of argumentation: you are suggesting that no one in Germany except possibly Hitler had any moral agency during this period? We have Hitler and perhaps a small circle of cronies, and everyone else in Germany from 1933-1945 was a well-intentioned innocent who merely was "brainwashed" into committing crimes?

 

[Kyriakos]

I also don't like/buy the argument that everyone will agree to commit horrible crimes, as long as they (vaguely or not) fear for their own life. It would take an awful lot of persuasion and objectively real and pending extreme threat for myself to agree to be complicit in the serious harm/death of another person. I doubt this was the case for most of the people in nazi Germany.

The campaign to sterilize parts of the population (mentally ill, deformities etc) was also afaik very public, so it's no use arguing that such were hidden from the public. "This is your money too, fellow german" (not sure where I heard that before)

 

[raystuttgart]

... you are suggesting that no one in Germany except possibly Hitler had any moral agency during this period?

No I am not, most of them had a moral agency after they had been brainwashed.
Only few of them did not have to be brainwased and wanted all this from the start.

Yes, in the end most Germans believed in Hitler and the war and somehow supported the regime.
But I acknowledge the fact that

• Many of these Germans ended there by being brainwashed through propaganda.
• Many of these Germans suffered heavily or even died during the war and after the war.

Those 2 facts are for me enough to say "They were victims as well of their own regime as well."
I consider everybody who suffered or died by this war a victim, which does not imply they were innocent.

You guys confuse "victim" with "innocent" which I do not.
There is a difference between these.

---

Also at least 60% of Germans had never fought in the war and never killed anybody.
They were either old or children or women or simply too important as workers ...

You say they were no victims because they supported the regime?
Their suffering or dying during the war and especially after it does not matter?

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There were also victims that had loaded a lot of guilt on them.
But what is so hard about accepting that a victim is not always innocent?

---

Because if "victim" = "innocent", the please directly say "innocent that died in a gas chamber" or something like that.
Then there is no need about discussions about "vicitms". Maybe we can then acknowledge that the German nation suffered itself as well ...

 

[El_Machinae]

Excepting that they lost, we can also ask if they 'benefited' during the Nazi regime. So, victims of propaganda, sure. But you're also a victim of a regime if it actually ground down your quality of life (especially compared to the counterfactual). On the other hand, if you QoL rose (or had a reasonable chance of rising after the 'necessary changes' were enacted), then it's harder to say you're a victim. At that point we can quibble about what counts as 'most Germans'.

This is part of why I was asking if 'conquest' was an essential part of being a Nazi. If we count "true Nazi" as everything that occurred after the sacrifice of the socialists in the party, then we can ask if Germans saw an increase in the quality of life (and their prospects) up until the war forced an ever-tightening of the belt. If never-ending conquest is required, then the belt-tightening never stops and you just accumulate more and more paper assets while working for the State.

 

[Angst]

Conflict is an essential part of being a Nazi. Conquest is not. (Although it used to be.)

You need an enemy and something to beat the person with. Conquest is external to a state is what I mean, there are a few Nazi organizations around today that preach international pacifism, but not nationally internal live-and-let-live, where they see enforcement, oftenmost violent, as a necessity to root out undesirables. So there is will to attack, but some movements at this point only to attack the state's own people, if that makes sense (as they think these people aren't their "own")

 

[red_elk]

They may as well be Nazi for the way they treated a human being and his animal companion... and how they laughed about it. That stuffs not cool at all and there's no excuse where you are right for that. I don't care if you were just following orders cause that was also the Nazi's excuse as they were only following orders.

The question is should we call Nazi anyone who does "not cool" stuff? That's IMO too broad definition.
If we accept that definition, human history will be full of Nazis all the way from ancient Egypt and Babylon to these days.
Words have their meaning and should be used properly. Nazis are supporters of a particular ideology, not just random bad guys.

 

[amadeus]

So, similar to how the Pope can expand what it means to be 'Christian', we allow later (self-identifying) Nazis to define what being a Nazi is? His interpretation becomes the new standard?

I don’t think a new interpretation would be in this case needed if “lebensraum” means the filling of supposed material needs.

Suppose Germany had won: Germans who grew up postwar and idolized Hitler because he led them to a reich that stretched from the Atlantic to the Urals, they’d be Nazis but their goal of lebensraum would have already been met.

 

[Fippy]

Being excited & voting for all the promises Hitler made, or him creating workspace - and supporting what the Nazis did during war, holocaust etc are 2 totally different things.
Think switching into police state in Civ.

Even most of his own generals and military thought he makes dangerous moves, i have a friend who's uncle spent ~7 years in russian prison. She told me that he always said "i hated the Nazis, but had no choice".

Maybe i should take back "most of germany", Lexicus. Let's say a good portion.

 

[Joij21]

It's just that the great Other is so substantiative to fascist thought, society has to be completely redone without this element. Maybe celebrating an ancient victory could work, idk. Thing is it's just easier to pick another enemy at that point, with the status quo being as it is. I imagine if the Nazis were succesful, allowance of Jewish blood quantum would become increasingly strict until it enters the absurd, and before the point of absurdity - not that it's already absurd to begin with, mind you - they'd probably direct their ire towards another enemy. Concentration camps were industrially organized, they would probably remain for a very long time. I would guess Slavs were immediately intended to be next (they were planned to be intentionally starved after all), and after the realpolitik of the Axis collapsed, I could actually see them going into Japanese Asia. The nonsense total-danger-and-immense-weakness of the enemy is so integral to fascist thought I haven't found a single branch of it that doesn't fully embrace it.

I mean it's possible, but they could also go the route of deifying what they consider to be their most important "prophets". So after achieving total victory their ideology could evolve into something more theistic that resembles more of a religion, and maybe even becomes an actual religion after they corrupt history so much and hundreds of years have past.

In this way you could end up having a literal Hitler religion that's extremely racist, has a completely false as well as warped sense of what historically happened, and deifies him to the point where he is literally some Jesus figure or believed to have been an actual god man who reigned many centuries ago

 

[amadeus]

I think with how we record history, the distant future won’t be as kind to Hitler as Genghis Khan.

 

[Lexicus]

Being excited & voting for all the promises Hitler made, or him creating workspace - and supporting what the Nazis did during war, holocaust etc are 2 totally different things.

Yes and no. A lot of what happened in the war was promised by Hitler.

She told me that he always said "i hated the Nazis, but had no choice".

We know that some Germans did make a different choice, so I cannot take this seriously. This is not the harsh passing of judgment it may sound like, because I have no idea what I'd do in such a situation, but "I didn't have a choice" is nonsense.

Maybe we can then acknowledge that the German nation suffered itself as well ...

I really think you need to pump the breaks and think hard about how people might interpret some of the things you're saying.

 

[Fippy]

We know that some Germans did make a different choice, so I cannot take this seriously. This is not the harsh passing of judgment it may sound like, because I have no idea what I'd do in such a situation, but "I didn't have a choice" is nonsense.

Why? Deserting in the army = being executed. So his other choice was being shot..i'm sure my friend and her family were glad he didn't pick that, cos he returned home and things went well there from what i know.

 

[Naskra]

I think with how we record history, the distant future won’t be as kind to Hitler as Genghis Khan.

There is only one possible direction for Hitler's reputation to move in. The revisionists will revise accordingly. Napoleon was once Anti-christ, he's doing much better now.

 

[Lexicus]

Why? Deserting in the army = being executed. So his other choice was being shot..i'm sure my friend and her family were glad he didn't pick that, cos he returned home and things went well there from what i know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Germans_who_resisted_Nazism

Plenty of people on this list were shot or died in other more gruesome ways.

 

[Fippy]

Still, stop calling "nonsense" if somebody had family and didn't want to die. Those are not real choices.

 

[stinkubus]

This is part of why I was asking if 'conquest' was an essential part of being a Nazi. If we count "true Nazi" as everything that occurred after the sacrifice of the socialists in the party, then we can ask if Germans saw an increase in the quality of life (and their prospects) up until the war forced an ever-tightening of the belt. If never-ending conquest is required, then the belt-tightening never stops and you just accumulate more and more paper assets while working for the State.

Since Nazis are a subset of fascists it really ought to be obvious that conquest is 100% necessary for them to maintain political legitimacy. Fascist politics live and die based on whether or not the party pushing them can convince the public that internal and external enemies are an imminent threat.