this post was submitted on 27 May 2025
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I think non-Germans can't understand the deep social guilt that's been drilled into them since WWII. Since childhood they're told how horrible they were to the Jews, what atrocities they committed; they're taken on field trips to concentration camps where it's explained in graphic detail what their grandparents did to the Jews; there is a deep cultural guilt around the Holocaust, and although many different people suffered, it's specifically focused on Jews. Even I don't understand it; when I was living there I asked some question I don't even remember about the Holocaust of one of my German friends, and he quite politely told me "we don't talk about that." It's a subject of guilt and embarrassment.
It's easy to criticize the West for not taking a stand against the genocide in Palestine that Israel is perpetrating; we do not, and can not, understand what Germans (in general, there always exists some racist fascists in every country) have to overcome to take such a stand. You might think they'd be champions against genocide, but what it ended up being was cultural guilt about murdering Jews.
All those Germans in power now were the children of a generation who survived the war as children, and who all had it beaten into them how horrible a people they were and how terrible the atrocity against the Jews they executed. If any country is going to struggle with condemning Israel, it's going to be Germany, and the people who the rest of the world has been using as the villain in TV and movies for 80 years; who've been beaten on the head about the Holocaust since childhood.
Except they only defend Israel...
LGBT was a target too, is Germany standing up for LGBT?
What about the Romani?
What about communists?
What about people who spoke out against genocide?
The Jewish victims of the Holocaust made up about 50% of it's victims. Why unquestionable support for them, but not for other groups?
It's great Germany's seeing the light now, but don't act like they had a rational excuse for blindly supporting a genocide of a different group.
That's exactly the point op is making.
They're ignoring 50% of the people their parent's generation killed, and excusing the other 50%'s children committing their own genocide against a different group...
They're explicitly not making the same point as me...
OP isn't ignoring it, the culture is.
Is it an excuse, or an explanation?
You didn't read what I wrote; I'll assume because it was too verbose for you.
I said
and
In the West we ignore the communist victims because we were in a cold war with the Communists. We ignore the LGBTQ because we also oppressed the LBGTQ communities. We didn't carve a new country out of other country's land for anyone except Jews. And the West was a, if not the, major force directing the reeducation of the German populous after WWII.
I find this "You can't blame Germany for supporting genocide, because they're guilty about the Holocaust!" defense kind of hard to believe. After all, Germany also committed genocide against the USSR, and yet "Russia delenda est" seems to be an extremely mainstream position among Germans currently.
Actually we're criticizing them for actively supporting the genocide.
This is incredibly tone-deaf, given what people in Gaza are actually having to overcome.
Thank you.
Then why are you speculating about it.
Yeah that's surely the only possible interpretation.
Truth be told: Just by using the term "guilt" you're parroting Nazi talking points. It's the precise type of rhetoric they're driving, and you're a dogwhistle's understanding away from "The Jews invented the Holocaust to shame Germany to keep it from being strong".
Maybe that's why people didn't want to talk to you about it.
For people actually interested in understanding it, instead of merely having an opinion: Start by distinguishing between "guilt" and "responsibility", the latter not in the sense of culpability, but... OSHA.
The whole Israel thing is actually distinct from that. If, tomorrow, Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir etc were to keel over and we'd have the second coming of Rabin, the collective sigh of relief in Germany would knock the earth off axis. The trouble is supporting, at the same time a) Israel to exist within its internationally recognised borders and b) supporting the same thing for Palestine allthewhile c) fascists on both sides making shit impossible.
There's been plenty of criticism within Germany towards the hesitant stance of the government. On the flipside, what you also don't see is German media -- also public, also state media (DW) sugar-coating what's happening in Gaza.
For the longest time the government kept to its age-old approach of working the Israelis quietly, in the background. Stuff that, on occasion, led them to relent on settlement projects etc. Germany did it that way because it was a way to influence things while keeping an in. That seems to be over because there's no "in" with Israel any more, they're simply not listening to things they don't want to hear.