Teach Holocaust from the prospective of a German soldier?

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10 Jul 2022, 11:49 am

Education wasn't so vibrant when I went to school but I can see how these things can be taught in a way as to make students think critically and also in a way that engages as well.

I was thinking more along the lines of taking a historical figure and creating a mock trial. So you have judge, jury, prosecution and defence. Both sides gather evidence and present it to a jury. I mean it's not a perfect idea but it is a way to learn about people and history.

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Aspiegaming
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10 Jul 2022, 11:51 am

ASPartOfMe wrote:

Aspiegaming wrote:

Stepping into the minds of madmen just to see the world from their perspective, it's kinda frightening.

It is frightening, that is the point.

It would be interesting if they had any remorse.

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kitesandtrainsandcats
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10 Jul 2022, 1:27 pm

babybird wrote:

I was thinking more along the lines of taking a historical figure and creating a mock trial. So you have judge, jury, prosecution and defence. Both sides gather evidence and present it to a jury. I mean it's not a perfect idea but it is a way to learn about people and history.

Learning by doing and experiencing would have appealed to me.

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10 Jul 2022, 2:04 pm

babybird wrote:

I can actually see that wokeness could be detrimental in certain areas. I mean you cannot and should not rewrite history by leaving certain important information out of people's education.

I'm thinking that in 10,20, or 50 years time there will be things that just won't ever be written about or talked of ever again.

I've thought this for a while.

I mean we're in 1984 territory here. Just deleting things out.

I can honestly see that this is the way we are going.

Not sure if any of this is relevant to your thread ASpartOfMe. Apologies if it is not.

1984 territory. Very relevent.

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10 Jul 2022, 4:37 pm

babybird wrote:

There are some fantastic soldiers stories from ww2 but I've never heard one from the perspective of a nazi soldier.

Given the scale of atrocities committed by the Nazis, getting an honest testimony would be really tough. The average German soldier following surrender would simply have though only of self-preservation and lied if asked. One only has to look at the testimony of concentration camp guards (male and female) who were witnessed by prisoners assaulting and murdering people almost every few minutes in a day (the scale is difficult to imagine) yet pretended they saw nothing and were only doing their duty. I think everyone captured and processed by the victorious allied armies stuck to the same story.

In contrast one goes to South America in the late 1940s and early 1950s and there was evidence that escaped Germans (including both thousands of soldiers and civilians) were flying nazi flags and celebrated the third reich. I think there is still a German community in Brazil who still celebrate with nazi memorabilia where the Brazilian born grandchildren claim to have no memory of what the symbolism mean. I suspect they do.

Also a lot of ex-nazis continued working on their beliefs which is a little scary
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldn ... razil.html

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10 Jul 2022, 9:10 pm

MaxE wrote:

. ...Das Boot was a film about German sailors during WWII and nobody had any problem with that.
...

Not quite right, though.
There was quite a bit of upheaval in the UK for example when it was released, and rightly so: it shows the submarine crew as honest soldiers loyal to their country, only following orders under immense psychological pressure.
All the "real" Nazis in the film are generals, having a party. (In that brief scene in which they're not in the submarine).

The film somewhat redeems itself by killing everyone off at the end, but imagine the same film, only the submarine crew would be making the odd anti-semitic joke. Just, say, two or three, throughout the movie. It would have left audiences with a very different opinion of "the average German".

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10 Jul 2022, 11:17 pm

Hans, former Nazi wrote:

The Holocaust? It was a lot of work, and oh how the screaming made my ears rage.

I'm not sure those sorta of perspectives are very useful.

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11 Jul 2022, 1:50 pm

cyberdad wrote:

babybird wrote:

There are some fantastic soldiers stories from ww2 but I've never heard one from the perspective of a nazi soldier.

He was actually given awards for sending people to the gas chamber and then promoted and then went on to use people for experimental purposes.

Thank you for the link cyberdad but I couldn't get into your article cyberdad but I did a little Wikipedia search.

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12 Jul 2022, 12:44 am

I'd like to see the Holocaust taught from the perspective of a disabled person who was alive at the time, instead. That, I can really sink my teeth into being handicapped myself.

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12 Jul 2022, 1:08 am

CockneyRebel wrote:

I'd like to see the Holocaust taught from the perspective of a disabled person who was alive at the time, instead. That, I can really sink my teeth into being handicapped myself.

That would actually be interesting and tends to be overlooked. We should examine perspectives like this disabled, the Roma, Jehovah's Witnesses, leftists, queer people, dissidents, etc.

It would help remind us why a regime like that can never be allowed to exist again.

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12 Jul 2022, 1:56 am

CockneyRebel wrote:

I'd like to see the Holocaust taught from the perspective of a disabled person who was alive at the time, instead. That, I can really sink my teeth into being handicapped myself.

Unfortunately very very few disabled survived the ruthless Nazi eugenics program
https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781566635653/F ... sabilities

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12 Jul 2022, 4:33 am

Not to get off track, but it wasn't everyday German soldiers who carried out the Holocaust, but the SS. There's a clear difference between regular German men fighting for their country - as misled as their country was - and the SS who were genuinely fanatical monsters.

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12 Jul 2022, 4:40 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

The average person in Germany has ancestors who served in the military during WWII. You can't tell all of them to be ashamed of their ancestry.

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12 Jul 2022, 4:47 am

Kraichgauer wrote:

Actually Hitler ordered German soldiers to engage in a war of annihilation in the eastern front which mean't all German soldiers in the east were ordered to kill civilians including murdering women and children when they came upon them.

I don't honestly know what percentage engaged in atrocities but it would have been impossible to disobey the Fuhrer's orders in not shooting civilians on the eastern front. Even soldiers who managed to avoid killing women and children would have witnessed their fellow soldiers killing and raping civilians.

This is what I was saying after the war the surrendering german forces would have claimed no knowledge of war crimes which in retrospect is probably a lie.

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12 Jul 2022, 4:50 am

babybird wrote:

Looks like Mengele was given carte blanche to continue his work in south america as well.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/ ... ele-theory

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12 Jul 2022, 5:01 am

MaxE wrote:

Kraichgauer wrote:

The average person in Germany has ancestors who served in the military during WWII. You can't tell all of them to be ashamed of their ancestry.

Dude. Are you aware of when WWII happened? Only about three generations ago. Living Germans have great grandparents, grandparents, or parents, or were themselves, veterans of WWII. Were not talking about the Thirty Years War of the Seventeenth Century. So its not far enough back in history to speak of "ancestors". :lol:

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