What image or event of 2nd World War has moved you the most?

[Scott Smith]

By the way, have you ever seen "Regeneration"?

Yes, and I thought some of the psychiatrists were particularly creepy.

[Gott]

Germany has paid billions of dollars to Israel and other countries that suffered the Nazi rule. German corparations also paid another billions of dollars to slave laborers. Germany forbids its citizen to deny the Holocaust, official apologies were given to the conquered nations. German schools were taught about the true horrors of Nazism.

Japan only paid very little to the nations it conquered. They paid them through exploiting Asia into buying Japanese goods and by making Japan richer, and made it harder for the countries to persue anything. Only a very few Japanese corparations paid the slave laborers they processed. The only country from what I remembered that Japan apologized formally was Korea. But they never did to China, which suffered the most. Japanese schools rarely teach about the horrors of militarism and some schools in Japan are even glorifying its brutal conquest of Asia.

I am half-German, half-Chinese. The dark side of being German because we did horrible crimes and also we are blamed for on everything. The dark side of being Chinese because we Chinese have a 5000-year heritage, yet Japan screwed it up. I hate Japan because they screwed up China (i mean, c'mon, Japanese culture and language is just a copy of the Chinese culture and lang.). I hate the Russians, because they stole my beloved homeland East Prussia and raped German women, and spread communism into Germany and europe. I hate Americans and British because they could have done better in stopping Russia's evil claws. And they put a blind eye on Japanese atrocities.

The reason why people blame Germany and not Japan is only the matter of racism. Jews contributed a lot to the western societies and so they had a hate on the Nazis which kills them. While nobody then would give a damn about Chinese, and I think people still don't nowadays. Oh they might think 10 million Chinese died, eh that is just too bad. 6 million Jews are killed, so blast the Germans like hell. Both peoples are being killed, yet only Germany is punished. Is Chinese not human??? Germany and Japan both have the same amount of crimes done.

[Zapfenstreich]

gott

Well said!

Z

[Ovidius]

I hate the Russians, because they stole my beloved homeland East Prussia and raped German women, and spread communism into Germany and europe. I hate Americans and British because they could have done better in stopping Russia's evil claws. And they put a blind eye on Japanese atrocities.

Why do you think the Brits wand Americans wanted to "stop" the Soviets from whatever they were doing?

The reason why people blame Germany and not Japan is only the matter of racism. Jews contributed a lot to the western societies and so they had a hate on the Nazis which kills them. While nobody then would give a damn about Chinese, and I think people still don't nowadays. Oh they might think 10 million Chinese died, eh that is just too bad. 6 million Jews are killed, so blast the Germans like hell. Both peoples are being killed, yet only Germany is punished. Is Chinese not human??? Germany and Japan both have the same amount of crimes done.

Chinese are human, but they don't have a Steven Spielberg...

~Ovidius

[Caldric]

Chinese are human, but they don't have a Steven Spielberg...

So true, or the thousands of scholars that write about it constantly, only book I ever read was Rape of Nanking. Perhaps it is the Chinese faught for not doing more work to let people know.

[panzzer]

YOU HAVE ABSSOLUTLY RIGHT

[Ovidius]

Chinese are human, but they don't have a Steven Spielberg...

So true, or the thousands of scholars that write about it constantly, only book I ever read was Rape of Nanking. Perhaps it is the Chinese faught for not doing more work to let people know.

Rape of Nanking was far worse than the Holocaust, because it involved personal acts of cruelty from the perpetrators(tearing bodies apart, cutting heads & arms, even cannibalism).

But a lot of modern people seem to treat "milder" the brutal killers(Soviet secret police executioners, Japanese beheaders, or even criminals like Karl Koch - "the man with the Human Lampshades" or Oskar Dirlewanger - who had been convicted for various crimes before someone thought he would be more useful on the front than in prison), but are horrified at the idea of a man like Rudolf Hoess, Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele.

And not only modern people - despite Mengele's calm and polite appearance(or even because of it), the SS guardsmen feared and hated him. Those men, most of them sent there as a punishment for various military crimes and offenses, a lot of them with blood on their hands as well, feared and hated Dr. Mengele. Interesting.

~Ovidius

[Roland]

Gott and Ovidius

I completly agree! Great articles!

Best regards!

[Eva]

Back to the original topic... the most moving image of WWII to me isn't a picture at all, it's a mental picture. And I don't usually admit this:
It's of Adolf Hitler, the normal man. It's the thoughts of him playing with his dogs, or gobbling up cream buns. It's his vow of revenge when he saw how the bombing of Munich upset his girlfriend, or his playing of practical jokes. It's Hitler laughing, or crying, and of him dying with his wedding ring on. I am the most moved by the images of Hitler as a man- not as dictator or maniacal tyrant. Just plain Adolf in his mountain home... and quotes like, "I hope to come home soon and so be able to rest...I greatly need tranquility."
Many people, particularly Americans, want to ignore any humanity that Adolf Hitler posessed. But it is that humanity that I find most intriguing.
EB

[Caldric]

I have been reading Kershaw, he does not seem to be of the opinion that Hitler had a personality outside of politics and such. Of course I could be mis-interpreting him to.

[Caldric]

Rape of Nanking was far worse than the Holocaust, because it involved personal acts of cruelty from the perpetrators(tearing bodies apart, cutting heads & arms, even cannibalism).

But a lot of modern people seem to treat "milder" the brutal killers(Soviet secret police executioners, Japanese beheaders, or even criminals like Karl Koch - "the man with the Human Lampshades" or Oskar Dirlewanger - who had been convicted for various crimes before someone thought he would be more useful on the front than in prison), but are horrified at the idea of a man like Rudolf Hoess, Adolf Eichmann or Josef Mengele.

I would agree, the Japanese seemed to take a pleasure from the killing in China as the book Rape of Nanking places it. They did not just kill they had a sadistic torture process involved to. The Soviets had their own sadistic killers, Beria on down.

[Ant!]

One of the moving images for me is the atomic bombs detonating.
I shudder to think how many more european cities would have been obliterated been the yanks bastards been able to build an atomic bomb themselves.

[Caldric]

I shudder to think how many more european cities would have been obliterated been the yanks bastards been able to build an atomic bomb themselves.

Huh?

[Ant!]

H

uh?

[/quote]

[viriato]

Gott wrote:

c'mon, Japanese culture and language is just a copy of the Chinese culture and lang

Gott you might well say that the Chinese culture heavily influenced the Japanese culture, at least till the XV century, but to say that the later one is a copy of the former is a complete nonsense. As to the language they are completely different, the Chinese languages belonging to the Chinese-Tibetan family and the Japanese being an independent language with some authors thinking of a remote link to the uralic languages (finnish, turkic, etc.) but never to the Chinese-Tibetan.