i think at this point- most of the german i meet, when the topic turns to war and such things, are actually more opposed to it than most, having seen the horror of it first hand (the fact that they always lose probably doesn't help much either). There are still buildings in East Berlin where you can see the bullet holes. Tha tmakes a pretty good argument against war I should think.
However- its also true that Germna children (at least people my age were taught as children) that because of WWII, that the German people are bad. This is unfortunate as it became rather uncomfortable when some of them found out I was jewish. They were convinced I must hate them because of something that their grandparents did, although nothing could be farther from the truth. Its also scary because its usually in places where the population doesn't have a lot of respect where facists are able to rally the depressed nation into a frenzy of nationalism. Remember- Germans were downtrodden after loosing WWI, which is why the Nazis were able to take power under the allusion of German superiority. Kinda an overcompensation if you wanna get Freudian about it. Not that this has anything to do with Kraftwerk mind you. But having just spent a weekend in Berlin- a place where people are impossibly kind and trusting (hell- we paid at a resturant with a hand written IOU), I think anyone who holds the past against these people is really missing out. And in fact is probably a cause of the problem more than a solution. America is certainly the closest thing to facist we have in the Westernized world. Left unchecked, might the powers start executing Arabs enmass? I suspect that some people in power wouldn't blink twice at 'cleansing' the evil Muslims who wish to destroy our way of life. Scary and sad. On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, Kent williams wrote: > On Sun, 21 Mar 2004, Martin wrote: > > > > > > > > > Simon Price and Kitty Empire) repeating the > > > > tired old cliche that - to quote Empire by way of example - 'Kraftwerk's > > > > austere music has brought them misguided accusations of being fascists'. > > > > > > And neither am I, nor are you ... but Stockhausen has said that he > > > dislikes all music with a steady beat because it reminds him of the > > > martial drumbeats of fascism. > > > > Then he must hate most music, as there's nearly alway's "something" holding > > time and the beat. > > Arguably, Stockhausen's music often sounds like music composed by someone > who hates music. > > > The problem is people seem to tar everyone German with > > the same brush. > > Now here's a off-topic tangent, but here goes: Much has been made of the > collective guilt of Germans for the Nazi period, but in my opinion Hitler > only exploited and amplified the worst tendencies of the people under his > rule. Hitler's rhetoric -- and the rhetoric of the fascists everywhere, sound > disturbingly similar to the rhetoric of the United State's conservatives. > I've always wondered how big a shove it would take to push America's right > wingers (or for that matter, left wingers) into forming El Salvador-style > death squads. I suspect not very big. > > Germans are just people; to the extent that they're different from any other > homogenous population, it's the little things that make them different, like > toilets with a little shelf in the bowl for your poop to sit on. People are > just fooling themselves if they think there's anything peculiarly German about > what happened between 1933 and 1945. > > And since I immediately brought up Nazis, this thread should be over ;-) > >
