Good Germans
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the film, see The Good German
“Good Germans” is a phrase that originally referred to citizens of Nazi Germany who, after Germany’s defeat in World War II, claimed not to have supported the regime, yet made no claim to have opposed it in any significant way. This was widely noted by Allied occupation troops, who were amazed and appalled by the widespread disavowal of responsibility for Nazi crimes among the German populace. For example:
It is a saying among our troops that there are no real Nazis in Germany, only “good Germans.” Every crime Germany committed against humanity seems to have been done by someone else.<1>
The term has come to be used to refer more generically to people in any country who observe reprehensible things taking place — whether done by a government or by another powerful institution — but remain silent, neither raising objections nor taking steps to change the course of events.
Over the past two days, various people on this board have responded negatively to the use of the label "Good Germans" as a description of the creeping acquiesence of Americans to the police state tactics of our current regime. And, these peoples' reaction has been telling for how far they have had to reach to try to muddy the clear meaning of this term.
Yesterday, one of the techniques of undermining this term was to go on at length about how badly the FBI handled the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents, as if to imply that things were worse in America in 1992 than today. We were referred to Wikipedia for a supposedly(I have no time to check cites on everything that goes by) independent view of the Waco incident, so that we would all shake our heads in shame. In fact, yesterday, many people called those anti-FBI posts "right wing conspiracy theory" mongering and asked why they had to listen to this on DU.
Given that history, I thought it only fair to begin by giving Wikipedia's definition of "a good German". The entire entry is quoted above. You will notice that there is
no controversy over the meaning of the term, and the term is not known to offend anyone. The term was coined by American soldiers. The German people spent forty years dealing with this in their own country, and they have no objection to the term.
The Wikipedia entry refers to a recent movie, "The Good German", set in postwar Germany. Does anyone really believe that, if this label was perceived as some kind of smear, this movie would not have been met with as much protest as, say, "The Last Temptation of Christ"? Anybody remember one word of protest?
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Today, it got even worse, with someone comparing "Good German" to "Jewish Influence". I responded that this title was the purest of flamebait. Anyone following politics is aware of the huge fight over the Meersheimer(sp?) and Walt book about the so-called Israel Lobby. The term Jewish Influence sits directly at ground zero of that huge controversy.
Can this second attempt to associate the term "Good German" with some highly controversial, but completely unrelated, terminology be interpreted in any way as an attempt to enlighten DU? On the contrary, these intellectually dishonest associations are a well-known tactic in politics, called "dirtying somebody up". That is, throwing a lot of mud in the direction of a politician so his opponents will have something to attack him with, all the while pretending that they didn't invent it for exactly that purpose. One final point: usually, it is "clean" politicians that require dirtying up.
This kind of word game (you know, like Democrat Party) demonstrates how low the discussion has become at DU. This is how dirty the tactics have become at DU. And, you can be certain that people who use these tactics never apologize, they just keep attacking. I will not be suprised by how low these attacks get, but I will be saddened that they are posted on DU.
arendt
Afterword: "Righteous" outrage from those who have been "slandered" will be arriving in 10, 9, 8, 7,...seconds.
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