Originally Posted by kendo65 (Post 389118)

While agreeing that there is some truth in the 'history is written by the winners' idea, I wonder if it is perhaps a little too simple and dismissive of other factors. To accept it you need to believe that there is no real moral sense in the world - that all morality is relative and a construction of particular cultures. You rightly say above that from our modern perspective Nazi Germany is viewed as beyond the pale morally, but it's the conclusion that if they had won we would now all view their actions as heroic and right that I want to question.

My own position (maybe unfashionable these days) is that there is a natural and deep moral sense in people that finds certain actions repugnant and indefensible. There is evidence for this in Nazi Germany - how many amongst the general German populace knew what was being done in Belsen or Auschwitz? When a regime chooses certain extreme actions it can typically only carry them through by either concealing them from the bulk of their own people, by using lies and disinformation, or by terrorising large segments of the population into complicity.

In my understanding one of the reasons for the construction of the 'industrial scale' extermination camps was the unforeseen psychological toll on the members of the SS death squads in Soviet Russia. Even amongst the most polically-committed members of the regime close-up exposure to slaughter on that scale had psychological consequences that proved difficult to sustain.

Many ordinary German citizens felt moral repugnance towards the Nazis at the time. Many chose active resistance and paid for it with their lives.

Surely the main idea in 'Fatherland' is exactly about this natural, moral 'reality' breaking through the massive repression that would be needed by the victorious regime to sustain their image as heroic, just, winners.

Given the above I would suggest that if the Nazis had won they would not have been able to sustain the 'fiction' of their justness or rightness because inevitably truth would prevail. Tyrannies ultimately colapse because in time their actions prove to be out of alignment with the deep needs of their own people.

Originally Posted by kendo65 (Post 389123)

A reply to (and maybe criticism of !) my own post.

I may have a naive impression of the German populace in WW2 as being unaware of the scale of the slaughter being perpetrated on the Jews? (I realise that there was obvious awareness of the discrimination and removal of Jews from daily life (ghettoisation, etc). I think there may be differing opinions amongst historians on how actively involved the general populace was. Indifference, ignorance or fear-driven inaction versus general complicity?

Question to those in the know - which of the above is closer to the truth?

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II (Post 389124)

CsThor, I'm sure you heard the name Alan Turing, one of the key men for the victory in WW2 and condemned in 1952 for homosexuality (because it was considered a crime) and accepting the chemical castration by the very same country that fought against the horrors of Nazism..

As you said, unfortunately it's all relative :?

Originally Posted by kendo65 (Post 389123)

A reply to (and maybe criticism of !) my own post.

I may have a naive impression of the German populace in WW2 as being unaware of the scale of the slaughter being perpetrated on the Jews? (I realise that there was obvious awareness of the discrimination and removal of Jews from daily life (ghettoisation, etc). I think there may be differing opinions amongst historians on how actively involved the general populace was. Indifference, ignorance or fear-driven inaction versus general complicity?

Question to those in the know - which of the above is closer to the truth?

(the above was written before, but posted after CSThor's response )
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Regarding Heydrich and specific individuals - there will always be particular people with combinations of sociopathic or psychopathic personality traits, and extreme political views that will allow them to balance and reconcile brutality towards chosen targets with civic duty and normal family activities. My argument above largely stands or falls on the reasons why the Nazis were able to get away with it. Ie how many people like Heydrich, Hitler does it take to pull a whole society along behind them? Obviously not everyone is complicit. How many then need to keep quiet and just follow orders? What happens to those who oppose but feel powerless to intervene?

I suspect some of the above questions could be applied to some Allied airmen who may have had deep misgivings about what they were doing to German cities. I was struck in the Bomber TV programme by the crewman who cracked up during a mission. 'Lack of moral fibre'. One expressed reservations but justified his participation with 'They started it'. That's not meant as a criticism of the individuals, more a comment on the near-impossibilty of maintaining any kind of normal judgement of behaviour in such an extreme situation as a war.

How much personal responsibilty do ordinary individuals carry when they are basically 'caught' in situations of deep powerlessness with few or no ways out?

Originally Posted by RCAF_FB_Orville (Post 389141)

Whilst I'd wholeheartedly agree that the treatment of Turing was abhorrent, it was also actually the absolute norm in the majority of countries worldwide for Homosexuality to be a criminal offence, based upon 'Christian Morality' in the West of course. A few exceptions like Iceland, Poland, and Italy (who have always to their credit been amenable to and non judgmental on the issue of 'Man-Love' lol, dating back to Antiquity.)

Originally Posted by Sternjaeger II (Post 389172)

yeah, my point is that countries that judged other as criminal for their persecutions didn't consider themselves as such for their own persecutions.

As per Italy, although there was no law as such, people had to face mockery and social discrimination anyway, and it's still quite strong in Italy and Spain today, again mainly because of the darn catholic church..


..it's still abhorrent, and a form of persecution.


Yeah, I like Graham Norton too, not as good as Jonathan Ross though ;)

Originally Posted by RCAF_FB_Orville (Post 389155)

...
What it did unfortunately illustrate is what Humanity is capable of, and particularly the insidious and all pervasive effect of a Fascist states propaganda machine upon a populace.

The psychological phenomena of 'herding' has been posited as a possible explanation, and experiments like the 'Stanford prison experiment' *and the 'Milgram experiment' clearly illustrate how otherwise 'normal' people can behave when told to do unspeakable things by what they perceive to be an 'authority' figure.
...

Originally Posted by kendo65 (Post 389208)

'how many people like Heydrich, Hitler does it take to pull a whole society along behind them? Obviously not everyone is complicit. How many then need to keep quiet and just follow orders? What happens to those who oppose but feel powerless to intervene?'



I had thought of those experiments and what they say about the pliability of the 'ordinary' person when I was writing the above. Establishing the 'right' conditions of deference to authority and unquestioning obedience was obviously a key facet of the Nazi regime.

Nonetheless there were those in the Milgram / Stanford experiments who refused to comply, just as there were those in Germany. For those individuals is it a deeper commitment to an inner moral sense that leads them to refuse to comply even in the face of threats and possible danger? And at any time in any country are the greater mass of the population always just 'following orders' from their perceived superiors? Just that in most cases the orders are comparatively mundane and benign.

(Personally I don't like Graham Norton. I used to like him for his role in Father Ted. I changed my mind when I realised that it wasn't great acting, but that he actually was as annoying as that in real life too!)