Dreadnought
Deity
Why single out Germany for its holocaust? I am writing an essay about this right now
Why single out Germany and its Holocaust?
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Adso de Fimnu
Prince
I think Americans, at least, focus on the German Holocaust because of our involvement in World War II. There had to be an enemy evil enough to justify our involvement, and Hitler, with his Holocaust, provided that. Thus, we like to congratulate ourselves for having defeated that particular evil.
The German Holocaust wasn't well known until after WW2. While it was recognized that Germany had legalized anti-semitism, and had established labor camps for Jews, socialists, gypsies, and other undesirables, the institutionalized slaughter of untermenschen didn't become general knowledge until some of the camps were captured by the Western Allies.
The U.S. went to war with Germany because, on December 11, 1941, Hitler (and Mussolini) declared war on the United States. BTW, this was the only time that Hitler bothered to actually declare war, probably because he couldn't invade the U.S. first.
The U.S. went to war with Germany because, on December 11, 1941, Hitler (and Mussolini) declared war on the United States. BTW, this was the only time that Hitler bothered to actually declare war, probably because he couldn't invade the U.S. first.
becauiise, callign what the US did tonative americans a "holocost" is merelyl modern day political correctness to try to "balence out" evil to all the worlds powers, and make every history seem equal to all others
however, never it the US wildest dreams did we ever enivison killing off every single Native American; sure, what was doen to them was atrocious- but it was hardley the saystematic genocide that the Nazi government undertook durign the holocost; and thats the main reason tensions run so high over it; all of the other examples are people, and nations being bloody and careless- but it was only out of that bunch that Germany under went the systematic, and deliberate execution, and attempted genocide of all member of a particuler religious group; by contrast, the other examples have deaths as a result of the goals of what those nations were trying to do; unliek Germany the goal was not to kill as many people as possible
however, never it the US wildest dreams did we ever enivison killing off every single Native American; sure, what was doen to them was atrocious- but it was hardley the saystematic genocide that the Nazi government undertook durign the holocost; and thats the main reason tensions run so high over it; all of the other examples are people, and nations being bloody and careless- but it was only out of that bunch that Germany under went the systematic, and deliberate execution, and attempted genocide of all member of a particuler religious group; by contrast, the other examples have deaths as a result of the goals of what those nations were trying to do; unliek Germany the goal was not to kill as many people as possible
here's something posted by two people on another message board about the holocaust that I like to use. Please note the original topic of the thread was "Why isn't aborition worse than the Holocaust?"
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Dreadnought
Deity
You apparetly never found out what happened to people in Russia who were targeted by communists. My friend had a grandpa who was there. Just as bad.
Let me rephrase this for you. The Shoah was the systematic mass murder of an entire people based on nothing more than religious beliefs, sexual preference or hereditary background.
The 'holocausts" that you mentioned are nothing even close to the Shoah. Native Americans were mostly killed off by disease, not because of European warfare or an attempt to kill them off. Sure some Europeans targeted Native Americans because they thought they were "inferior" but they never herded them like cattle to then starve and murder them. Spend a month in an Indian Reservation then spend a month in lets say Dachau and tell me which is worse.
The mass murders of Stalin was mostly the starvation of Ukrainians brought on by Stalin when he felt that they were against his agricultural plans. Millions of other Russians were also sent to Gulags. They may be just as bad as concentration Camps, but they are not meant for the systematic execution of a "race' but more for the destruction of anyone who goes against the communist state.
Mao's reforms were a complete blunder that caused massive starvation and led to the death of millions of Chinese. I do not think that was ever his intention. Therefore it is no where close to being considered a holocaust.
The 'holocausts" that you mentioned are nothing even close to the Shoah. Native Americans were mostly killed off by disease, not because of European warfare or an attempt to kill them off. Sure some Europeans targeted Native Americans because they thought they were "inferior" but they never herded them like cattle to then starve and murder them. Spend a month in an Indian Reservation then spend a month in lets say Dachau and tell me which is worse.
The mass murders of Stalin was mostly the starvation of Ukrainians brought on by Stalin when he felt that they were against his agricultural plans. Millions of other Russians were also sent to Gulags. They may be just as bad as concentration Camps, but they are not meant for the systematic execution of a "race' but more for the destruction of anyone who goes against the communist state.
Mao's reforms were a complete blunder that caused massive starvation and led to the death of millions of Chinese. I do not think that was ever his intention. Therefore it is no where close to being considered a holocaust.
Verbose
Deity
Horrible as the details of the Shoah/Holocaust is, example for example they can well be matched by the conquest of the New World, 19th c. colonialism etc.
What makes the Jewish holocaust special are the principles behind it and the way it was implemented.
1.) Jewishness was the sole and sufficient reason for extermination. There was no way to avert it. No 'good Jews' to the Nazi mind. Jews couldn't escape by 'making themselves useful'. That was new.
2.) The holocaust sits right smack in the middle of the this story of modernity and progress the West has been telling itself for the last 200 years or so. It has to be understood as an integrated feature of it. It wasn't and aberration (while not a necessary outcome of modernity either; Read Zygmunt Bauman, 'Modernity and the Holocaust').
Viewed like that, it becomes much more than a 'German problem', which I think it is considering the importance it has, especially in Europe. (The US I'll leave alone here.)
There has been plenty of genocides (and cultural 'democides' etc.), but they have normally allowed individuals in the singled out group some ways of escape. (Crappy ones: religious conversion, settled life, slavery, giving up land, whatever, and mostly applicable on an individual level alone, usually not for a whole group.)
They have also usually occured in situations of political or societal breakdown (or nonexistence), often in conjunction with warfare. The Jewish holocaust was facilitated by the fact that a war was going on, but there were no breakdowns of anything (except possibly humanity). Quite the opposite; a huge industrial and administrative structure was erected solely for the purpose of killing Jews. It didn't make economic sense either. There was no conflict of resources, land etc., just the Nazi conviction that all Jews must die.
If there is one thing about the way in which the Nazi holocaust is sometimes talked about that I find grating, it' is the occasional blurring of 'Nazi' and 'German'.
The Nazis were Germans, but all Germans weren't Nazis. Germany will have to live with the fact (and the Germans have really taken up the challenge of dealing with this), but there wasn't anything inherent in 'Germanness' that caused the Holocaust.
What makes the Jewish holocaust special are the principles behind it and the way it was implemented.
1.) Jewishness was the sole and sufficient reason for extermination. There was no way to avert it. No 'good Jews' to the Nazi mind. Jews couldn't escape by 'making themselves useful'. That was new.
2.) The holocaust sits right smack in the middle of the this story of modernity and progress the West has been telling itself for the last 200 years or so. It has to be understood as an integrated feature of it. It wasn't and aberration (while not a necessary outcome of modernity either; Read Zygmunt Bauman, 'Modernity and the Holocaust').
Viewed like that, it becomes much more than a 'German problem', which I think it is considering the importance it has, especially in Europe. (The US I'll leave alone here.)
There has been plenty of genocides (and cultural 'democides' etc.), but they have normally allowed individuals in the singled out group some ways of escape. (Crappy ones: religious conversion, settled life, slavery, giving up land, whatever, and mostly applicable on an individual level alone, usually not for a whole group.)
They have also usually occured in situations of political or societal breakdown (or nonexistence), often in conjunction with warfare. The Jewish holocaust was facilitated by the fact that a war was going on, but there were no breakdowns of anything (except possibly humanity). Quite the opposite; a huge industrial and administrative structure was erected solely for the purpose of killing Jews. It didn't make economic sense either. There was no conflict of resources, land etc., just the Nazi conviction that all Jews must die.
If there is one thing about the way in which the Nazi holocaust is sometimes talked about that I find grating, it' is the occasional blurring of 'Nazi' and 'German'.
The Nazis were Germans, but all Germans weren't Nazis. Germany will have to live with the fact (and the Germans have really taken up the challenge of dealing with this), but there wasn't anything inherent in 'Germanness' that caused the Holocaust.
CruddyLeper
Unworshipped Deity
One point I'd make - I wouldn't call it a German holocaust. A Nazi holocaust.
Because some (very few) Germans did stand up to it. And it certainly wasn't confined to Germany.
Hitler's last orders to Doenitz were to "impose the racial laws with the strictest severity". You might want to look that up, at the very least.
Because some (very few) Germans did stand up to it. And it certainly wasn't confined to Germany.
Hitler's last orders to Doenitz were to "impose the racial laws with the strictest severity". You might want to look that up, at the very least.
rilnator
Emperor
To me the main thing when comparing the Holocaust to others you've mentioned is the deliberate way in which it was done.
Though my knowledge on all the situations you've mentioned isn't that good, it seems Stalin and Mao let people starve or die of disease. Whereas the Germans had a progrom in which the Jews were actually rounded up and sent somewhere to get murdered. The Nazis had several of their biggest companies helping them with their 'Jewish problem' and had government run departments that rounded up and transported jews.
Another reason is the fact that Jews are a bit more prominent in the world than your average Russian or Chinese peasant. All over the world there are Jewish people in high positions in publishing, entertainment, banks etc etc etc. That gives them the means and money to bring the wrongs done to them to everone's attention.
Though my knowledge on all the situations you've mentioned isn't that good, it seems Stalin and Mao let people starve or die of disease. Whereas the Germans had a progrom in which the Jews were actually rounded up and sent somewhere to get murdered. The Nazis had several of their biggest companies helping them with their 'Jewish problem' and had government run departments that rounded up and transported jews.
Another reason is the fact that Jews are a bit more prominent in the world than your average Russian or Chinese peasant. All over the world there are Jewish people in high positions in publishing, entertainment, banks etc etc etc. That gives them the means and money to bring the wrongs done to them to everone's attention.
rilnator
Emperor
CruddyLeper said:
What a joke! Its like telling your wife 'Yeah I did sleep with another woman but I was drunk at the time. Oh, and I felt a bit guilty in the morning. So that makes it all right doesn't it honey?'
You're right though, it wasn't confined to Germany. The Germans also set up death camps in Poland.
rilnator
Emperor
Verbose said:
Except it was the German people who happily carried it out.
Dreadnought
Deity
I also have another topic I could add as a horrible atrocity -- the Rape of Nanking. They Japanese killed a quarter of a million Chinese and raped 80,000 women in a week so, doing the math, saying hitler killed 6,000,000 jews, gypsies, etc. over a period of six years ( I know more, but more brutal in final six years ) so...
6,000,000/6 years = 6,000,000/2190 days = about 2739 people a day (wow in a bad way)
But 225,000/7 days = about 32124 people a day. Not counting the other villages/Shanghai in Japan's way.
But...
My friend's grandfather wrote down all he saw escaping from communism in Russia. He would see whole villages destroyed, muntilated body parts, tortured people...another village saw the men pulled off and tortured some more. Hey, gasing is a relativly quick death, but the Russians would torture, as in not quick death, throw the people out, come back tomarrow and torture them again.
They weren't against his plans, they were 'with the white army'. Although some were, others were just killed for no good reason, blamed for something they didn't do.
Others were sent to Siberia and killed there, freezing to death, working with almost no food.
6,000,000/6 years = 6,000,000/2190 days = about 2739 people a day (wow in a bad way)
But 225,000/7 days = about 32124 people a day. Not counting the other villages/Shanghai in Japan's way.
But...
My friend's grandfather wrote down all he saw escaping from communism in Russia. He would see whole villages destroyed, muntilated body parts, tortured people...another village saw the men pulled off and tortured some more. Hey, gasing is a relativly quick death, but the Russians would torture, as in not quick death, throw the people out, come back tomarrow and torture them again.
They weren't against his plans, they were 'with the white army'. Although some were, others were just killed for no good reason, blamed for something they didn't do.
Others were sent to Siberia and killed there, freezing to death, working with almost no food.
Dreadnought
Deity
rilnator said:
Exactly!
Verbose
Deity
Well duh.rilnator said:
Everybody knows that. Pointing it out is usually considered quite disingenious.
The one people are grappling with is "Why Germany?"
You get two schools:
1.) "They did it because they are German", which hinges on a cicular argument. (Goldhagen et al. "The Germans did it, because Germans are special somehow, which is proved by the fact that Germans did it.")
The cause of the Holocaust is essentialised into 'something German'.
2.) Nazi ideology put into practice some really nasty bits to be found everywhere in modern society. Bad luck for the Germans it happened in their country. (Why not France? Just as much traditoonal antisemitisme on their side of the Rhine.)
Problem with this one is that there is nothing that looks like a sufficient reason to explain why this had to happen at all.
The 2nd alternative is actually tacitly recognised by the fact that almost all Western nation make such a big deal out of the Holocaust. Had it just been a German show, then we could all have pointed finger, exterminated all Germans etc. But we don't.
Doc Tsiolkovski
Deity
Face it, the reason why especially the average American first thinks of Germany when 'Holocaust' is mentioned is this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077025/
Before that TV series, the term was rarely used at all.
Then, the holocaust was a European project. The Nazis had no problem to find willing helpers in almost any country they occupied (with the honorable exception of Denmark), even in Poland (Jedwabne. The reasons for this were not only age-old, ubiquitious anti-semitism, but often enough nothing but greed. Often enough the fact the Nazi occupators stripped the Jewish citizens off any rights meant their neighbors acted in a way the Nazis wanted...
This is not meant to take away anything of the German responisbility, just to show that they weren't alone at that time.
I do agree the extremely well-organized, efficient determination of an entire race is something unprecendented. This one time, it wasn't the brutal, brainless scum or the fanatical nationalists involved, it was run by administration experts, RR experts, mid-level medics etc. It was conducted in a way best discribed as 'curing a disease' (the pollution of Europe by the Jews) - without any mercy, with all technical expertise needed, as cost-efficient as possible. A 'crusade' or 'pogrom' like Nanjing, Ruanda works completely different. And the mass starvations in the USSR/PR China are something different again. Even the gulags, which indeed mostly were labor camps - getting rid of unwanted subjects was a (not unwanted...) side effect.
Still, while the Nazi Holocaust was unprecedented, it does have one successor of equal bestiality in my eyes:
Pol Phot's elimination of all city dwellers, intellectuals, people who happened to wear glasses etc.
But of course, the fact that Commie Vietnam of all nations finally decided to invade the former US ally Cambodjia and stop the horror doesn't make the topic eligable for a Hollywood opus.
Yes, I know 'Killing Fields', but that wasn't exactly a blockbuster...
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0077025/
Before that TV series, the term was rarely used at all.
Then, the holocaust was a European project. The Nazis had no problem to find willing helpers in almost any country they occupied (with the honorable exception of Denmark), even in Poland (Jedwabne. The reasons for this were not only age-old, ubiquitious anti-semitism, but often enough nothing but greed. Often enough the fact the Nazi occupators stripped the Jewish citizens off any rights meant their neighbors acted in a way the Nazis wanted...
This is not meant to take away anything of the German responisbility, just to show that they weren't alone at that time.
I do agree the extremely well-organized, efficient determination of an entire race is something unprecendented. This one time, it wasn't the brutal, brainless scum or the fanatical nationalists involved, it was run by administration experts, RR experts, mid-level medics etc. It was conducted in a way best discribed as 'curing a disease' (the pollution of Europe by the Jews) - without any mercy, with all technical expertise needed, as cost-efficient as possible. A 'crusade' or 'pogrom' like Nanjing, Ruanda works completely different. And the mass starvations in the USSR/PR China are something different again. Even the gulags, which indeed mostly were labor camps - getting rid of unwanted subjects was a (not unwanted...) side effect.
Still, while the Nazi Holocaust was unprecedented, it does have one successor of equal bestiality in my eyes:
Pol Phot's elimination of all city dwellers, intellectuals, people who happened to wear glasses etc.
But of course, the fact that Commie Vietnam of all nations finally decided to invade the former US ally Cambodjia and stop the horror doesn't make the topic eligable for a Hollywood opus
.Yes, I know 'Killing Fields', but that wasn't exactly a blockbuster...
Dreadnought said:
It was actually 11 million people over the course of 3 years(1942-1945 the final solution). It was 6 million Jews along with 5 million Gentiles including homosexuals, gypsies, Jehova Witnesses, political opponents and Russian POWs.
This would make it 10,045 people per day. Gasing is not a relativly quick death, in fact most people were killed by starvation and disease, not gasings or being burned alive or being shot. You think the Nazi's wouldn't tourtre people. They would cut limbs off just to see the physical reactions to such an act. They would blast people with ice cold air to see how long it would take them to freeze. All in the name of science and to help German soldiers. (Medical care for soldiers who just lost limbs and poilots who had to bail in the north sea for my two examples)
Anyone who esacped from the Nazi warmachine would have seen the eact same images that your grandfather saw from the communist army during the Russain Civil War.
The try to kill a whole race and the perfection and industrialized way it was carried out is a shocking thing indeed.
But not sheer numbers or the malicious intent are something inherently new to history. Not even the planned genocide.
But why is it still remembered? Because jewish people of course remember this event, as it is the most vile thing ever done to them, and they suffered quite a lot of prosecution starting even before the middle ages.
WW2 is also a quite "new" historical event, it is closer and more horrible to us than former wars that were for sure very cruel, too.
It is also remembered because it serves well to give the Nazis the extra-vile touch some people seem to like. We have a lot of non-germans that seem to be madly fond of the Nazi era and often I see them quite defending Nazi ideology here, be it some strange sort of humor or whatever.
But not sheer numbers or the malicious intent are something inherently new to history. Not even the planned genocide.
But why is it still remembered? Because jewish people of course remember this event, as it is the most vile thing ever done to them, and they suffered quite a lot of prosecution starting even before the middle ages.
WW2 is also a quite "new" historical event, it is closer and more horrible to us than former wars that were for sure very cruel, too.
It is also remembered because it serves well to give the Nazis the extra-vile touch some people seem to like. We have a lot of non-germans that seem to be madly fond of the Nazi era and often I see them quite defending Nazi ideology here, be it some strange sort of humor or whatever.
privatehudson
The Ultimate Badass
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A lot of the same kind of Rhetoric, the dehumanising of your enemy had been used before, so had there been great amounts of Anti-Semetism. Combine that with industrialised methods of murder, the sheer illogic of the crime (not that I'm saying genocide is ever justified, but some did at least have other motivations than wiping out an entire people) and so on and you have a recipe for something not seen before on earth. With luck it will never be seen in it's entirety again.
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