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Originally Posted by 41Sqn_Stormcrow
Very sensitive post and I agree to most of it.
On one thing I would like to comment though. You rightly say that by pointing out British atrocities with the purpose to relativise German atrocities is wrong. I strongly support this.
But just a few lines later you start to compare British atrocities to German ones suggesting that whatever the Brits came up with is on a lower scale than what the Germans did. I do not make a statement about the content itself but you do exactly the same that you blame others to do: relativise by comparison. Relativism goes both ways and should be refuted both ways.
An injustice remains an injustice and hence uncomparable. They stand there and should be all regarded and considered independently without going into: country X or country y has done worse. Because this is what relativism is about. The same holds for instance for all the comparison between Nazi Germany's crimes and Soviet crimes. Both are there. Both are outrageously horrible. The existance of one does not make the other one smaller.
Just because Jack the Ripper killed five people does not make killing one man "only" a lesser crime.
So even if country x had no extermination scheme or killed only 10% of those killed by country y does not make it having less darker spots in history.
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That is basically the gist of it. I am not trying to justify german crimes in any way and take them at face value. The problem really is that whenever british misdeeds come up, it's attempted to justify them (we also brought a lot of good to the world, others were worse then us, we were forced to take drastic measures to bring victory, etc). You won't find this kind of relativism in Germany, at least not in a way to justify the actions of the people back then and make them "right". Just irritation that others still try to justify their own actions in such a way. Crimes are crimes. Maybe a major problem is that a lot of the british perspective comes from a mindset that for many people in Europe already is considered a bit of an anachromism, that nationality defines who you are and what you are accountable for. That is purely speculative, however.