[HN Gopher] German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tool...
___________________________________________________________________
German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tools, Roman and
Byzantine Coins
Author : petethomas
Score : 108 points
Date : 2024-11-20 05:07 UTC (10 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.labrujulaverde.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.labrujulaverde.com)
| hulitu wrote:
| > German WWII Soldier Grave Found with Mesolithic Tools, Roman
| and Byzantine Coins
|
| It is amazing what a bomb does to the surounding landscape. /s
| dvh wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Out-of-place_artifact
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Unfortunately, not a time traveler. That would be something else,
| finding a 4000 year old grave with someone with composite
| fillings, titanium bone implants, wearing the remains of a
| smartphone in various jewelry / clothing and, knowing how these
| things go, having a deeply engraved granite slab with a message
| to the future, something like "don't invent time travel!" or "do
| not Awaken the Dreamer!"
| arethuza wrote:
| Or as the Eschaton puts it "Thou shalt not violate causality
| within my historic light cone. Or else."
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Raining Telephones and Curators!
| Andrex wrote:
| After Googling this quote I have a new book to read, thank
| you
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| Singularity Sky for anyone curious (like me who googled it
| as well)
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singularity_Sky
| libertine wrote:
| > Unfortunately, not a time traveler.
|
| _That 's what They want you to believe!_, for sure some
| conspiracy theorists will run with this, and probably be guests
| on Joe Rogan Podcast.
| vasco wrote:
| A time traveler would've likely had his stuff stolen, or the
| grave pillaged. Probably easier to check what kind of dental
| work they had.
| comrh wrote:
| Archimedes with a wrist watch.
| aquova wrote:
| Very interesting find. I think it's not uncommon to find many
| eras of artifacts in the same site, simply because sites ranging
| back even to the neolithic continue to be used as time goes on.
| My layman assumption is that this was a decent sized community
| for a number of centuries that eventually died out, which this
| German solider happened to die on top of during the war.
| postepowanieadm wrote:
| It's more prosaic: he was carrying precious artifacts with him.
| cbogie wrote:
| spoils of war, spoiled
| MrMcCall wrote:
| spoiler, spoiled
| mossTechnician wrote:
| I thought there was a more concise way to write "German WWII
| soldier".
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Is woke-washing the Nazis a thing now?
|
| "soldier collected ancient coins as a hobby or perhaps
| exchanged or acquired them during his military movements" is an
| interesting way to describe stolen war goods.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| If social reality is a fabric not giving in, and instead your
| story starts collapsing in on itself, you can always try to
| edit reality out of history.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| I have no idea what this means and I'm not sure you do
| either.
| mossTechnician wrote:
| I don't know if it's applicable here, but the title reminded
| me of how TikTok and YouTube encourage users to use innuendos
| for things - another well-known one is "unalive" in place of
| "murder" or "kill." And it's actually entering our lexicon.
|
| This isn't intended to be a dig at the archaeology blog (pun
| intended) but it's just something that reminded me of this
| shift.
| HPsquared wrote:
| I suppose archaeologists strive to stick to the evidence and
| avoid presumptions.
| heysammy wrote:
| It is for people who see themselves in others and get
| offended, apparently.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Saying all German WWII soldiers were Nazis would be like
| saying all current US soldiers are Democrats.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| https://www.army.mil/values/oath.html
|
| Yes but it would be accruate to describe all US soldiers as
| defenders of republican democracy, specifically that
| outlined in the US constitution. Defending the constitution
| is the heart of the oath. If that constitution was altered,
| as is can legally be, then all active US soldiers would
| become supporters of whatever form of government is
| described therein. Not being a member of a paticular party
| does not free a soldier from being described as a supporter
| of the government they serve.
|
| This is not just theoretical. Many US soldiers refused to
| recognize Obama as legitimate. Those soldiers were shown
| the door. A similar transition will occur in a few weeks.
| bossyTeacher wrote:
| No, it isn't. In the context it is normally used, Nazi
| soldier means a soldier that was part of the Nazi Germany
| army.
|
| It's like saying that CCP soldiers can't be called CCP
| because they might not necessarily hold communist
| ideologies themselves.
| mewse-hn wrote:
| Soldiers fighting for Nazi Germany were Nazis
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_clean_Wehrmacht
| aguaviva wrote:
| That's not what the _Mythos_ was about.
|
| The whole big point of the Holocaust that everyone was
| supposed to have learned is that not only did one not
| have to be a "Nazi" (or even particularly sympathize with
| the regime or its ideology) in order to be an active or
| passive collaborator.
|
| All you had to do was keep your head down, and do what
| you were told.
|
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276731
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Yes. We're in the new era of the big lie.
|
| All of the witnesses to the war are dead, so we're now doing
| the equivalent of "Dur dur, my great grand cousin from
| Mississippi was standing up for their heritage" (as opposed
| to having been drafted to defend an aristocrat's ability to
| own humans) treatment.
|
| Now we'll start hearing about central and Northern Europeans
| who were defending themselves from godless communists and
| woke French aggressors. The "just following orders" excuse is
| not necessary, as those folks are questioning whether
| anything happened that required that defense.
| skinkestek wrote:
| What?
| dh2022 wrote:
| My home country of Romania was basically under German
| occupation through most of WWII. My grand mother lived in a
| village before,during, and a little bit after WWII. German
| soldiers did not loot - they paid for whatever food stuffs
| they got from the village. At a different scale: the German
| government paid the Romanian Corporations for all the oil and
| grains they bought to supply their war effort. Germans were
| remembered fondly by Romanians.
|
| The subsequent occupation by the Russian Red Army music less
| so...
| inglor_cz wrote:
| True, but this guy fell in Poland, which was treated
| harshly by the Nazis, and probably fought in the USSR,
| where the behavior of the Nazis was absolutely unhinged. I
| would consider looting much more probable in that region.
|
| Romania was, at least theoretically, an ally of Germany, so
| (non-Jewish) Romanians got treated better than conquered
| nations like Poles, who were Slavic and thus lower on the
| racial totem pole.
| farialima wrote:
| > Romania was basically under German occupation through
| most of WWII.
|
| that's not correct. Romania was an independent country,
| with a king, government, etc. Romania was allied to
| Germany, and there was a German presence, but the Germans
| did not exercise any power. In fact, there was a "palace
| coup" that switch alliances in 1944.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Germans did not exercise any power... other than telling
| Romanians to send their troops to Don's bend, and to
| Sevastopol. Or not selling any of their oil to anybody
| else. Or basically telling the Romanian Prime Minister
| Antonescu to suck it up while Hungary took a big chunk of
| Transylvania.
|
| About the coup: it took place on Aug 23, 1944. The Red
| Army already took all of Moldovan and was gunning for the
| Carpathian Mountains. The German front broke yet again.
| That was the end of German influence in Romania: at the
| end of September 1944 Arab was 'eliberated' by the Red
| Army.
| the_af wrote:
| > _My home country of Romania was basically under German
| occupation through most of WWII [...] Germans were
| remembered fondly by Romanians_
|
| Romania was an Axis ally under a fascist dictator,
| Antonescu, and was not under German occupation. Why would
| Germans steal or loot from a willing ally? Romanian troops
| participated with around 280,000 to 380,000 Jewish deaths
| to the Holocaust. I suppose Jews in Romania don't remember
| their German "allies" too fondly.
|
| > _The subsequent occupation by the Russian Red Army music
| less so..._
|
| The _Soviet_ (not Russian) Red Army was indeed brutal with
| former Axis allies. It shouldn 't come as a surprise that
| siding with Nazi Germany was retroactively a terrible
| choice.
| dh2022 wrote:
| Germany had complete control of the country. When Hitler
| decided to give Hungary a big chunk of Transylvania
| Romania army could not what they really wanted: ie fight
| the Hungarians. [0]
|
| Instead they had to suck it up and march East into Russia
| proper.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Vienna_Award
| the_af wrote:
| Germany did not have "complete control" of Romania. It
| was not a country under occupation. It was a willing
| ally, with a fascist dictator in charge: Antonescu. I
| think what you're describing is that Romania was not a
| peer on equal standing with Nazi Germany.
|
| Romanian troops took part, willingly, of Nazi death squad
| actions.
|
| Furthermore, Jews in Romania didn't remember the Germans
| "fondly".
| dh2022 wrote:
| You are saying that giving up a chunk of their territory
| because Germany told them so does not mean Romania was
| under Germany's control. That is the quality of your
| post. Pretty much the same quality in everything else you
| wrote (like for example what you wrote about the
| Einsatzngruppen troops)
| aguaviva wrote:
| Alas, you are mistaken.
|
| Simply put: there's a huge difference between being
| outright conquered, occupied, and subject to the control
| of a puppet regime (like Poland, Ukraine, Greece), and
| the local regime proactively deciding to form an alliance
| (as did the governments of Hungary, Finland, and
| Romania). Even if that decision was made under a
| considerable degree of duress.
|
| That's just the basic storyline of the war. And it's all
| I have time for. But trust me, just take another look at
| the basic event chronology and you'll easily see why.
| the_af wrote:
| Yes, I'm saying that being forced to make concessions to
| a more powerful ally doesn't make them "entirely under
| the control of Germany". Furthermore, the loss of
| territory you mentioned was _before_ the coup that put
| Antonescu in power and had Romania join the Axis.
|
| You wrote your initial comment stating a patent
| falsehood: that Romania was "basically under German
| occupation". It was under nothing of the sort. Their
| fascist dictatorship eagerly helped the Germans and it's
| officially considered part of the Axis (just not one of
| the major three powers).
|
| > _(like for example what you wrote about the
| Einsatzngruppen troops)_
|
| Romanian troops participated in the Odessa massacre and,
| as one of the Axis nations other than Germany most
| involved on the Eastern Front, participated in
| Einsatzkommando actions.
|
| And the point still stands: Romanian Jews certainly don't
| remember the Germans "fondly".
| lostlogin wrote:
| > Germans were remembered fondly by Romanians.
|
| Presumably not true for Jews. However pogroms were
| occurring pre-occupation, so maybe it's much of a muchness
| once you're being eradicated.
|
| https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/romania
| the_af wrote:
| > _At a different scale: the German government paid the
| Romanian Corporations for all the oil and grains they
| bought to supply their war effort._
|
| I already mentioned in another comment that Romania wasn't
| "under German occupation", but this bit I'm quoting here is
| also false.
|
| Germany _theoretically_ paid Romania but in practice it
| defaulted in most /all payments, so that Romanians got
| nothing for their oil. It was a major problem that eroded
| public support for the Axis and made poverty worse in
| Romania. Again, not something that helped Romanians regard
| the Germans "fondly".
| otwall wrote:
| "Stolen war goods" is an interesting way describe a handful
| of antique coins.
| heraldgeezer wrote:
| No, lefties LOVE calling everything "Nazis" that they don't
| like. *not american
| astrange wrote:
| You can't be complaining like this about a /WW2 German
| soldier/.
| aleksiy123 wrote:
| I was kinda curious if Nazi and German WWII soldier is
| equivalent.
|
| From an academic point of view it seems not. But from a popular
| point of view it probably is.
|
| Some threads I found on the topic.
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/history/comments/40gq95/is_it_fair_...
|
| https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3hw2fv/comme...
| lolinder wrote:
| > From an academic point of view it seems not.
|
| More than a purely academic point of view, the distinction
| actually does matter. It's the difference between someone who
| affirmatively made a choice to join the Nazi organization and
| someone who simply didn't actively decide to dodge the draft
| or desert. The level of agency invested into the Nazi cause
| varies dramatically, and it's useful to have language that
| can distinguish between those shades.
|
| We can get into philosophical discussions about whether it's
| worse to affirmatively support evil than to just go with the
| flow and not make waves either way, but that's more than an
| academic discussion--it has real relevance for today.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| Every soldier in the German military at that time was a
| nazi soldier. They reported to hitler, who was the person
| who brought the nazi party into power, the party who
| controlled the government and military. They took orders
| from nazis. They were nazis.
|
| Their officers had skulls on their uniforms. They were
| rounding up and slaughtering people they viewed as less
| than them, they had posters in the streets painting them as
| rodents and infections.
|
| Nobody saw all of that and said "well, I don't want to
| dodge a draft, I better just sign up and do this evil shit,
| it's my moral duty to serve". Nobody was blind to what was
| happening and nobody accidentally went and did those things
| without believing they were somehow right. They were doing
| those things because they wanted to, the same way
| everything any person does when they have something that
| they have the power over to choose between.
|
| Edit: not sure why I'm getting downvoted. Downvote the
| people trying to claim German soldiers in wwII were not
| nazis.
| aguaviva wrote:
| You're getting downvoted because what you're saying is
| just historically wrong.
|
| You can call them all "bad" if you want. But (regardless
| of whether they committed war crimes) the Nazis and the
| armed forces were different (though obviously
| overlapping) subsets. This is not an academic distinction
| at all, and is extremely important if one is to
| understand how the dictatorship and the Final Solution
| actually worked.
|
| See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42276731
| wutwutwat wrote:
| > The German Army (German: Heer, German: [he:a] i; lit.
| 'army') was the land forces component of the
| Wehrmacht,[b] the regular armed forces of Nazi Germany,
| from 1935 until it effectively ceased to exist in 1945
| and then was formally dissolved in August 1946.[4] During
| World War II, a total of about 13.6 million volunteers
| and conscripts served in the German Army.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Army_(1935%E2%80%9
| 319...
|
| So far, seems one army existed. The German army. That
| army was the army of Nazi Germany. that army was Nazi
| Germany's army.
|
| > The Wehrmacht (German pronunciation: ['ve:amaxt] i,
| lit. 'defence force') were the unified armed forces of
| Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the Heer
| (army), the Kriegsmarine (navy) and the Luftwaffe (air
| force). The designation "Wehrmacht" replaced the
| previously used term Reichswehr (Reich Defence) and was
| the manifestation of the Nazi regime's efforts to rearm
| Germany to a greater extent than the Treaty of Versailles
| permitted.[11]
|
| Here's probably the most important thing to read, because
| it directly disproves you
|
| > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
| August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
| of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
| February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
| acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
| in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
| dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
| Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
| their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
| year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
| Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
| entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
| loyalty to Hitler.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
|
| The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
| hitler.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Here's probably the most important thing to read,
| because it directly disproves you_
|
| It's not the snippets you're quoting that are wrong.
| You're just reading them wrong, and drawing plainly
| broken inferences from them.
|
| For example, the statement "Army X was a manifestation of
| the Y regime's Z" does not imply the statement "Army X is
| simply a subset of Y" or even "Everyone in Army X
| basically agreed with Y". Of course it doesn't. Any more
| than being a member of the Red Army meant that one was
| communist, simply because it happens to be true that "The
| Red Army was the army of Soviet Russia".
|
| Similarly, this idea that people taking an oath to anyone
| or their platitudes means, in all cases, they actually
| _believe_ that oath, and that what the oath says
| describes what they believe. In the context of the huge
| fact that not everyone who joined the various fighting
| units did so voluntarily -- in fact a large majority were
| outright drafted (or shoehorned from civilian law
| enforcement roles, including many regular policemen).
|
| Does that excuse them of culpability in what they may
| have done -- obviously not. But to think they simply
| believed everything they were asked to believe at face
| value goes against everything we know about human nature,
| and the basic social reality of was going on in Germany
| and Europe at the time. And about the fundamental
| psychological and operational mechanics by which the
| Final Solution worked.
|
| And then there's this: That army was the
| army of Nazi Germany. That army was Nazi Germany's army.
|
| As if simply calling Germany "Nazi Germany" adds some
| weight to the point you're trying to make. Of course it
| doesn't. As a simple, direct proof of this -- let's just
| drop the unnecessary instances of your favorite word in
| that sentence: That army was the army of
| Germany. That army was Germany's army.
|
| And ask ourselves how much sense it makes.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
| August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
| of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
| February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
| acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
| in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
| dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
| Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
| their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
| year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
| Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
| entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
| loyalty to Hitler.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
|
| The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
| hitler.
|
| Only one way to read it. The German army adopted Nazi
| symbols and swore an oath to hitler.
| aguaviva wrote:
| _Only one way to read it._
|
| Which means we're definitely talking past each other.
| lolinder wrote:
| > This is not an academic distinction at all, and is
| extremely important if one is to understand how the
| dictatorship and the Final Solution actually worked.
|
| Exactly. And understanding this is vitally important--
| labeling every member of the German military a "Nazi" can
| create the dangerous illusion that the ratio of nut jobs
| to normal people in 1930s Germany was dramatically
| different than it is in 2020s USA/UK/EU/wherever, but
| it's not. The ratios were about the same, and most people
| who were complicit in the Nazi atrocities were complicit
| in a very passive, "don't stand out" kind of way.
|
| Exaggerating the number of true Nazis ironically makes it
| more likely that something similar will happen again
| because it creates the false impression that you need
| some sort of overwhelming consensus in favor of pure evil
| to end up with a Hitler in charge. It allows us to let
| our guard down because we know that _we_ aren 't
| surrounded by Nazis, so such a thing must be very far
| away indeed, right?
| ajuc wrote:
| I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that time
| escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through voting
| for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or simply
| ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting against
| Hitler before it was too late.
|
| But you wrote "every soldier in German military" which is
| just wrong. German military had many soldiers forcibly
| drafted from occupied countries. One famous example is
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J%C3%B3zef_Tusk
|
| People downvote you because you were confidently wrong.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| > I agree we shouldn't let "regular Germans" from that
| time escape the responsibility for WW2. Be it through
| voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in other ways, or
| simply ignoring the threat and not uniting and voting
| against Hitler before it was too late.
|
| I did not say any of this, ever. Read my comment. Don't
| put words in my mouth.
|
| > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
| August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
| of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
| February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
| acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
| in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
| dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
| Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
| their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
| year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
| Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
| entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
| loyalty to Hitler.
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
|
| The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
| hitler.
| Teever wrote:
| Have you taken any history courses on this subject, or
| have any sort of academic experience that would make you
| qualified to take the position that you're taking here
| with such confidence?
| ajuc wrote:
| > I did not say any of this, ever. Read my comment. Don't
| put words in my mouth.
|
| Sorry, my bad. I assumed if you blame innocent people
| you'd also blame people who were actually responsible.
|
| > The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath
| to hitler.
|
| And forced hundreds of thousands of innocent people from
| occupied countries to join it. Many of which escaped as
| soon as it was possible and fought against them when they
| could.
| josefx wrote:
| > Be it through voting for Hitler, supporting nazis in
| other ways, or simply ignoring the threat and not uniting
| and voting against Hitler before it was too late.
|
| You seem to be ignorant of how badly democracy worked in
| the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic never had an
| elected government, every attempt to form one failed.
| While the elections had an effect on the composition of
| the Reichstag all positions of power ended up getting
| assigned round robin style. The Nazis established their
| control of the country through emergency legislation
| passed to deal with terrorism, which let them bypass the
| Reichstag almost entirely. When the Nazis called for a
| vote in the Reichstag at gunpoint to establish Hitler as
| the Fuhrer they had to fudge attendance records because
| most elected members of parliament where either dead or
| in prison.
| ajuc wrote:
| > You seem to be ignorant of how badly democracy worked
| in the Weimar Republic
|
| And whose fault is that? If you fail to fix your country
| political system for long enough - you get dictatorship
| and eventually war. There's nobody responsible for it
| other than citizens of that country.
|
| Whose fault is it that USA democracy is turning into
| oligarchy? Politicians - sure, but these politicians keep
| getting elected despite gerrymandering, taking billions
| in "lobbying" for tax cuts, openly lying, ignoring
| obvious systemic problems, etc.
|
| Whose fault is it, that Putin could invade Ukraine and
| kill hundreds of thousands of people? Regular Russians
| had a faulty democracy and decided to do nothing as it
| was dismantled step by step. Now they are sent to die
| murdering innocent people.
|
| Ultimately you can't escape the responsibility for your
| country. If you did nothing - you're an accomplice.
| josefx wrote:
| > for long enough
|
| The German empire underwent revolts during the end of
| WWI. They just missed the mark a bit. Instead of Willhelm
| II they should have gotten rid of Hindenburg, who
| starting 1916 was singlehandedly in charge of the German
| military and refused every peace offer until the empire
| was left without allies and struggled with countless
| internal revolts. Instead of taking the blame for
| prolonging the war he walked away smelling like roses,
| helped establish the Weimar Republic and played a key
| role in it to its end where he got cosy with the Nazis,
| directly aiding their rise to power.
|
| In short, people tried to fix things, they got rid of
| Willhelm II and got Hitlers best buddy instead.
| ajuc wrote:
| > The German empire underwent revolts during the end of
| WWI
|
| By communists and far-right :) Where were the pro-
| democratic mainstream protests? It was the communists
| (USSR) and nazis (3rd Reich) who started WW2 after being
| unchecked for 2 decades.
|
| > Instead of Willhelm II they should have gotten rid of
| Hindenburg, who starting 1916 was singlehandedly in
| charge of the German military and refused every peace
| offer until the empire was left without allies and
| struggled with countless internal revolts. Instead of
| taking the blame for prolonging the war he walked away
| smelling like roses, helped establish the Weimar Republic
|
| Is this view mainsteam in modern Germany? Considering how
| popular the Stab-in-the-Back theory was in interwar
| period I would think prolonging the war more, letting
| german cities be occupied etc. - would have resulted in
| nazis losing popularity not gaining it. So if anything -
| Hindenburg mistake was the opposite - saving German
| infrastructure and lives at the cost of making Germans
| conspiracy theorists and nazis.
|
| But nevermind the WW1 peace treaty. Nazis could have been
| stopped at many points. If socialists managed to work
| with communists for one thing (but then again - Germany
| was already training their army in secret in USSR at that
| point after Rapallo, so it's probably not realistic).
|
| The problem is that Germans seemed to protest in favour
| of extremes more often and more violently than against
| them. So extremes won.
|
| BTW it might seem like I single out Germans. But in my
| country - Poland - democracy failed in a very similar way
| in 1926. And people were at fault too. Keeping the
| country democratic is the responsibility of citizens.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| As much as I dislike Nazis I'm going to have to disagree,
| there were Germans who were not Nazis in all walks of
| life including the military, and even every member of the
| Nazi party was not necessarily bad - Oskar Schindler was,
| after all, a member of the Nazi party.
|
| >Nobody saw all of that and said "well, I don't want to
| dodge a draft...
|
| Nobody saw all of that and said, shit if I dodge the
| draft they may give me the death penalty, no wait I'm
| wrong - that's exactly what they said.
|
| You also do not seem to have any particular dividing line
| between say, soldiers who were underage (later years of
| war) or actual adults?
|
| This article on American slavery seems to pertain here
| too https://medium.com/luminasticity/what-makes-you-
| think-you-wo... - what makes you think you would have
| been better - not you now, but a you born in Germany
| during the great Depression, came of age as World War II
| started, drafted into the Army but because of your
| character you would be able to stand against your
| society, your friends, the law and say no, I won't go.
| I'm not saying that's impossible, but it is rare.
|
| On what grounds of your character do you think you would
| be better than most of the population at that time? What
| great wrong have you opposed to your detriment and
| personal danger?
|
| Again - it may be that you would be better than almost
| everybody else at the time. But it seems more people
| think they would be than seems statistically possible,
| based on nothing other than being born "now" and knowing
| it is wrong "now", I would like some sterner examples of
| character to back up the moral self-regard.
| wutwutwat wrote:
| Disagree with facts all you want. I don't care. Neither
| do the facts.
|
| > After the death of President Paul von Hindenburg on 2
| August 1934, Adolf Hitler assumed the office of President
| of Germany, and thus became commander in chief. In
| February 1934, the Defence Minister Werner von Blomberg,
| acting on his own initiative, had all of the Jews serving
| in the Reichswehr given an automatic and immediate
| dishonorable discharge.[33] Again, on his own initiative
| Blomberg had the armed forces adopt Nazi symbols into
| their uniforms in May 1934.[34] In August of the same
| year, on Blomberg's initiative and that of the
| Ministeramt chief General Walther von Reichenau, the
| entire military took the Hitler oath, an oath of personal
| loyalty to Hitler.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wehrmacht
|
| The German army adopted Nazi symbols and swore an oath to
| hitler.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| gee, I didn't disagree with any of that - I said that if
| people did not accept the draft they would be prosecuted
| and often received the death penalty, although also they
| could just be sent to a camp and worked to death.
|
| I also said that towards the end of the war Germany used
| underage soldiers - meaning as young as 16, I did not
| directly ask but implied that perhaps you did not think
| that underage soldiers were as culpable of being Nazis as
| the adults, but I see now by your strong commitment to
| your moral stature that I was wrong.
|
| I finally asked just what makes you think you would have
| been good and able to resist the pressure to go in the
| army, which you didn't answer. You have done an admirable
| job in opposing every response to you with copy pasted
| Wikipedia content it's true, but I'm afraid I wanted some
| more hard-nosed and non-online behaviors to confirm the
| ability to stand against evil.
| spectralglitch wrote:
| Alternatively, I think there is value in modern culture
| setting a high bar on this, if we could manage it.
| Perhaps it's better not to preemptively excuse the easier
| path of aligning w/ fascist causes, even to avoid one's
| own persecution. Better to reinforce that such alignment
| is reducing yourself, for future observers at least, to a
| similar distinction (despite of course the overwhelming
| cruelty of such a fate). I fear this ship is sailing
| however.
| lolinder wrote:
| > Perhaps it's better not to preemptively excuse the
| easier path of aligning w/ fascist causes, even to avoid
| one's own persecution. Better to reinforce that such
| alignment is reducing yourself, for future observers at
| least, to a similar distinction
|
| I don't think that's what this everyone-was-a-Nazi
| language is accomplishing, though. When someone uses the
| word "Nazi" they mean someone who is _entirely unlike_
| themselves or most people they know.
|
| If we lean into this language, we risk forgetting that
| the vast majority of Germans in the 1930s were no
| different than the vast majority of us today--they had
| lives, jobs, families, and they looked the other way or
| even participated because they didn't want to rock the
| boat and risk those things. They were not Nazis, they
| were just citizens, but they enabled genocide.
|
| I don't think that embracing the label "Nazi" for
| everyday Germans who never joined the party (and maybe
| even voted against Hitler when there was still a vote!)
| will scare people into standing up if they end up in a
| similar situation, it will just serve to create the sense
| that "1930s Germany was a really awful place with a lot
| of awful people and aren't I glad that I don't live
| there?"
|
| If we take the approach instead of talking about how many
| ordinary people aided and abetted the Nazi cause _by
| being silent_ --how they committed war crimes without
| ever being a Nazi--I think that will actually be more
| effective at teaching people how to avoid recreating the
| Third Reich.
| spectralglitch wrote:
| Yes, I could indeed see that being the more effective
| approach to stir reflection in those who would
| reflexively & categorically reject any such association
| with the label. Cheers.
| chgs wrote:
| On the other hand people look at themselves and their
| neighbours and think "can't happen here because we aren't
| nazis"
|
| Doesn't take many people to actually hold a nazi ideology
| to make it come to pass.
|
| After all, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of
| evil is that good men do nothing"
|
| Simplifying into "nazi" and "not nazi" is not helpful
| lolinder wrote:
| I feel like you just restated what I said.
| mlyle wrote:
| That's a valid point.
|
| Also:
|
| Nazi imagery now symbolizes ultimate evil, but that's the
| effect of history and reflection and cultural symbols
| changing. Fascism, including in 1930s Germany, is always
| packaged up in appealing packaging. It seems appealing,
| promising national revival and cherished values.
|
| People didn't sign up for overt evil; they got swept up
| in something that appeared reasonable and popular, or
| just said nothing about the same.
|
| This is the real lesson that I think we're losing; that
| it's possible to be an ordinary person of ordinary good
| morals, and to support terrible crimes happening if one
| isn't careful.
| mlyle wrote:
| Are conscripts in conquered lands that were forced to
| serve also "Nazi soldiers"?
| 1659447091 wrote:
| not the op here.
|
| I don't, generally, disagree with you--there is no way
| every single one of them deeply identified as a Nazi--
| especially when coercion is involved.
|
| However, as for the comparison with American
| slavery...many people stood up, said no to slavery, and
| lost lives because of it--they didn't just stick their
| head in the sand nor did they continue those ways since
| "everyone" else did, otherwise we would still have
| slavery. Maybe because this did not seem to happen in
| WWII Germany, or at least on a large enough scale of
| division within German loyalties, (as happened with
| American slavery), it bolsters the view of/comes across
| as WWII Germans full buy-in
| lolinder wrote:
| > they didn't just stick their head in the sand nor did
| they continue those ways since "everyone" else did,
| otherwise we would still have slavery.
|
| Slavery didn't end in the US until the end of the Civil
| War in 1865--246 years after the first enslaved people
| arrived in Jamestown. It's grossly unfair to take the
| eventual success of abolitionism to try to argue that
| there must have been less German opposition to Nazism
| than American opposition to slavery.
|
| For the vast majority of American history, _nearly
| everyone_ did "just stick their head in the sand" and
| "continue those ways". At best they fought to avoid
| expanding slavery, trying to keep it contained to the
| South.
|
| For people who "stood up, said no to slavery, and lost
| lives because of it" you might be thinking about the
| likes of John Brown, but he died _in 1859_. If Nazism
| took as long to abolish as American slavery we 'd have
| expected a John Brown to come along around the year 2173.
| Instead, we have dozens of well-known stories of
| opposition starting from before Hitler even took power.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| Actually in the article it was noted a bit, but not
| focused on overmuch, but most white resistance to slavery
| - in supporting the underground railroad was through
| groups like the Quakers - that is to say specific sub
| societies, and black people, which given that if you were
| black and living in a non-slave owning territory you
| could still be kidnapped and brought into slaver - as in
| 12 years a slave - may have had some self-interest as
| well as empathy for their less fortunate brothers and
| sisters involved in it.
|
| Aside from that the German situation was very short time
| frame - it may have some effect on resistance.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| You are getting downvoted because we are witnessing the
| beginning of the rehabilitation of WWII Germany.
| Contemporary leftists view politics through an oppressor-
| oppressed framework and Jews belong to the oppressor
| class. Acknowledging the widespread, virulent
| antisemitism in 1930s Germany lends sympathy to Jews. In
| turn, this sympathy lends legitimacy to the establishment
| of the state of Israel. As such, Leftists are attempting
| to characterize Nazis and antisemitism as a minority
| movement in 1920-30s Germany. The end goal is to paint
| the Holocaust as simply one of many historical genocides,
| and one which is equivalent to what has happened in
| Palestine over the last 20 years.
| qwer1234321 wrote:
| I'm inhabitant of a country Germans tried to anihilate in
| 1939. Germany of 1939 is usually called Nazi Germany here,
| still- it's Germany. Same as Soviet Russia who attacked 17
| days later- it was Russia, not some misterious nation
| called Soviets. These are language cover-ups. I do
| acknowledge there had been many Germans who chose death
| rather than to join their countrymen in horrible crimes,
| and I admire those who did not join. Unfortunately orders
| of magnitude more volunteered and were actively taking part
| in German death machinery.
| Archelaos wrote:
| > I was kinda curious if Nazi and German WWII soldier is
| equivalent.
|
| Try this excersise: Define "Nazi" and then see whether every
| German WWII soldier fits the definition.
|
| Additional excersise: Define it that way that no Allied
| soldier fits the definition.
|
| Then check whether the definition makes any sense as a
| political distinction.
|
| I never came across one.
| GloomyBoots wrote:
| This is very nitpicky, but "Nazi" always seems out of place
| to me in historical discussions. It's a derisive nickname
| mainly used by their opponents. It's convenient, sure, and
| more recognizable than "national socialist" in popular
| culture. I use it as well, but it always feels a little
| goofy, like talking about "commies" in an otherwise serious
| discussion.
| aguaviva wrote:
| Because they weren't all in the category you're referring to,
| of course.
|
| To misunderstand this (and apply the N-word to all of the
| regime's footsoldiers and helpers) is to fundamentally
| midunderstand how the dictatorship worked, and got so many
| millions of ordinary people to trudge along and do its dirty
| work. Or to at least shut up and try not to think too much
| about whatever they saw and heard.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| The N-word? Jesus Christ.
| kQq9oHeAz6wLLS wrote:
| You can say Nazi, it's okay. Better to remember history than
| to bury it in obscurities.
| fhars wrote:
| Would you count these members of the German WWII army as nazis,
| too: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malgr%C3%A9-nous
|
| Totalitarianism uses many mechanism to fabricate cooperation.
| mrln wrote:
| The link does not work.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Is this comment a new subtype of nerdsniping?
| ggm wrote:
| Yes. Pedantry is the new normal. I did nazi that coming.
| veltas wrote:
| I think it is respectful and appropriate, this is someone who
| died fighting in war who we don't really know anything about.
| Could even be closely related to people today. We don't know if
| they were a member of the 'party', or how they felt about it,
| or anything. This is a fallen individual.
| Snoozus wrote:
| Even if all soldiers had been nazis, not all nazis were
| soldiers. So definetly not equivalent.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| >> The first surprise was the discovery of a pit containing the
| remains of a German soldier, likely fallen in battle in February
| 1945 during the fights over the Grzybek bridge in the final days
| of World War II. However, what seemed to be a significant find
| soon revealed additional secrets, leading the team to an even
| older and extraordinary discovery.
|
| Contrary to almost all comments so far, the dead soldier and the
| artifacts are not related. And this is not a grave. This is where
| a soldier fell. A grave is where someone is buried, not the place
| where they were killed and lost to history. The soldier may have
| been wounded and hiding in the pit, or literally fell atop, but
| would not have been burried there by anyone. The older artifacts
| were there long before ww2.
| Arainach wrote:
| In practice, the term grave is often used for any final resting
| place whether intentionally buried or not e.g. "watery grave".
| tokai wrote:
| He could very well have been buried. Getting rid of the corpses
| after a battle is important.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| A modern battlefield grave is identifiable. Any trained
| archaeologist would spot such a grave, describe and most
| likely report it to authorities. There are recognizable
| signs. We dont dispose of dead soldiers in unmarked pits, not
| individuals.
| Arainach wrote:
| By February 1945 the war was going poor enough for Germany
| that it's unlikely all such graves had full procedures
| followed.
| Teever wrote:
| All modern battlefield graves are identifiable as such?
|
| That seems like the kind of bold and all encompassing
| statement that would be trivial to prove incorrect.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| There are teams of people who go out to dig up
| battlefield graves. Soldiers know this. So, if they have
| to bury someone, they generally mark the site. Bodies are
| also laid out with a degree of dignity, not tossed. In
| very simple terms, soldiers in modern conflict tend to
| die face-down. A battlefield grave will have the body
| face-up, covered in loose earth, and positioned like they
| were lying in a flat bed. A body crumpled up in a pit is
| almost certainly not a battlefield grave.
|
| (Soldiers dont bury bodies while under fire. The burials
| happen after the battle is over by whatever side now
| holds the ground.)
| lukan wrote:
| "We dont dispose of dead soldiers in unmarked pits, not
| individuals."
|
| Not sure if I understand you right, but unmarked pits were
| very much a common thing in the last days of WW2 in europe.
| Plenty of dead individuals, no one knew where they belonged
| and not much interest to find out.
| sandworm101 wrote:
| Where there were lots of bodies, pits were used. But a
| lone body would have been burried differently. Even in
| the wars today, pits are only used when necessary to
| dispose of large numbers. Single dead soldiers can be put
| in proper graves as time/manpower is not an issue with a
| single body.
| lukan wrote:
| Have you ever dug out a grave for a human?
|
| I didn't, only for a dog and this was already tough work
| in stony ground. Add frozen ground and the need to care
| to other things(and maybe no shovel), like surviving the
| last days of war and I can imagine many dead bodies not
| getting proper graves.
| chgs wrote:
| I think that's the point. That work isn't going to be
| done for a single unidentified corpse on a battlefield.
| lukan wrote:
| "Single dead soldiers can be put in proper graves as
| time/manpower is not an issue with a single body"
|
| Just desputing the non issue claim here.
| romanhn wrote:
| Literally from the article:
|
| "Popkiewicz believes these coins may have belonged to the
| German soldier, possibly a numismatics enthusiast, as they hail
| from several countries the German 73rd Infantry Division likely
| traversed, to which the soldier may have belonged. The
| hypothesis suggests that the soldier collected ancient coins as
| a hobby or perhaps exchanged or acquired them during his
| military movements."
| MrMcCall wrote:
| They're calling looting a hobby?
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| Careful now. My comment was flagged and removed for
| suggesting the soldier was a Nazi who was looting.
| codr7 wrote:
| Given the Nazi interest in ancient cultures I find the hobby-
| theory to be the least likely explanation.
| thaumasiotes wrote:
| The Nazis were intensely interested in ancient cultures; why do
| you think they called themselves "Aryans" and represented
| themselves with a swastika?
| wongarsu wrote:
| There is also a popular series of Hollywood movies about an
| American professor of archeology who tries to prevent the
| Nazis from finding priceless historic artifacts. And while
| the American involvement is an invention of George Lucas,
| high-ranking Nazis searching for the Holy Grail and Thor's
| Hammer very much did happen.
| readyplayernull wrote:
| We never left mysticism.
| carschno wrote:
| "We" may be a bit over-generalized, but mysticism and
| superstition are certainly essential for totalitarian
| ideologies.
|
| > people even of supposedly "normal" mind are prepared to
| accept systems of delusions for the simple reason that it
| is too difficult to distinguish such systems from the
| equally inexorable and equally opaque one under which
| they actually have to live out their lives. This is
| pretty well reflected by astrology as well by the two
| brands of totalitarian states which also claim to have a
| key for everything, know all the answers, reduce the
| complex to simple and mechanical inferences, doing away
| with anything that is strange and unknown and at the same
| time fail to explain anything.
|
| https://www.telospress.com/adorno-on-astrology/
|
| I suppose it is easy to find evidence in today's society
| as well.
| chgs wrote:
| Quite suitable that the American protagonist did nothing to
| affect the plot or outcome, was just along for the ride.
| codr7 wrote:
| I know, which is why I said the coins and other stuff found
| is likely not the hobby of a single soldier.
| mkl wrote:
| Tangentially, this site, https://www.labrujulaverde.com/en/, is
| fascinating! I spent a couple of hours this morning reading other
| articles.
| gigatexal wrote:
| Time traveling Nazis! ;-)
| MrMcCall wrote:
| "Working their way from the ground on down." --Ben Harper
|
| Even in death, we're _all_ time travelling ;-)
| sgt wrote:
| Those coins seem so round and perfectly created to be ancient
| ones. Are we sure the photo matches the actual find?
| trhway wrote:
| Back in the USSR the German graves weren't respected to say the
| least. The gravesites were usually unmarked. There was a segment
| of people whose "hobby" was to raid those graves for the various
| artifacts - daggers, golden teeth, watches and whatever else
| given buried German soldier had on him, whether of his own or
| that he may have collected as his "hobby" during the invasion.
|
| A soldier had to carry everything with him, and as we know from
| the documents of the time the gold and watches were naturally
| among the most frequent loot items carried by them (sidenote:
| widespread motorized infantry armor has changed the game since
| then - the Russian BTRs and BMPs in the Chechen war for example
| were full of rags and electronics that the Russian soldiers
| looted from the Chechen homes, and in the Ukrainian war it has
| been computers/laptops/TVs, auto parts, etc.). The soldier in the
| article seems to have correctly decided that the ancient coins 1.
| may be more valuable than gold, 2. there is less competition
| looting local historic museum, and 3. if you're taken prisoner
| carrying those ancient artifacts you're less likely to be shot as
| a marauder than with say a pocket full of golden teeth - even
| today in this article they call him a "numismatics enthusiast".
| sedan_baklazhan wrote:
| Was there any good reason to respect German soldier graves?
| self_awareness wrote:
| This German soldier probably has stolen it from somewhere or
| someone, like soldiers attacking other countries do.
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