Kudos and huzzahs to the brave souls who spirited you safely home. Do not feel pressured to divulge any details of whatever underground railway was used to reunite you with liberty.
ETA: god bless America!
No, he posted that in Morse Code from a transmitter hidden inside a coffee pot in the barracks hut.
Yes, yes, and I’m sure they’re all secretly neo-Nazis, putting up graffiti swaztikas all over the darned country. :rolleyes:
Point is, most of the supposed signs of supposed German neo-Nazism brought up have been asinine.
Conduct a similar survey in the US, and I would hazard a surprisingly high percentage would answer in a similar fashion. Would you claim that means the US harbors a significant amount of neo-Nazism? If not, why would it say that about Germans, other than as the same sort of ridiculous ethnic stereotyping they are being accused of themselves?
Wrong. You didn’t even open the article, did you? The survey was done in a lot of countries. Germany’s “score” was 27% of the population. US was 9%. UK was 8%. Greece was (brace yourself) 69%. Kinda explains the “Golden Dawn” doesn’t it?
:dubious: No, it doesn’t.
Not even considering nationalized immigrants, there are about 6 million foreign nationals living in Germany. The largest group by far was from Turkey (scored 69% on your linked questionnaire), then Poland (45%), Italy (20%), Greece (69%), Croatia (33%), Romania (35%), Serbia (42%), and Russia (30%), for a weighted average of 51.2%.
There are also about 10 million nationalized citizens. Again, the largest single group was from Turkey, as many as those from the former USSR, then former Yugoslavs, then Poles. The numbers aren’t broken down in the Wiki link, but a weighted average would still be well above the German average.
Oh - and “anti-semite” is not a synonym for “Neo-Nazi”, which was the term originally under discussion in both the OP and Great Antibob’s reply.
+1
Yes, it does. The survey was done among German citizens. I already stipulated the Turkey-origin German citizens. That leaves 15 million non-Muslim German citizen anti-semites. Maybe not all ethnic Germans (although the numbers really suggest quite a few of those). But German citizens.
It was the term in the post to which I was responding.
I saw a swastika graffitied in NYC once. Oh my God! That means that New York City is a hotbed of neo-Nazis!!1!!
Uh, OK.
Really? One swastika, and you’re ready to conclude that the place you visited is a seething hotbed of hatred? And you’re ready to condemn a whole people based on this (or ‘pity’ them), all the while complaining about the discrimination your own people has faced based on stereotypes and prejudice? One single swastika is sufficient to convince you that Germans have ‘held onto hatred of Jews’?
Tell me, was it at least a Nazi flag proudly displayed? Surely it wasn’t merely something scrawled onto a busstation by some kid trying to show their defiance of authority by doing something verboten, was it?
In any case, all this thread really shows is that you can see whatever you want in another country or another people, provided you’re willing to work hard enough to find your prejudices confirmed. That exactly this is the foundation of racial hatred and ethnic discrimination is a sad irony.
So you found a swastika in Germany near the largest U.S. military base outside of the United States?
I’ll just reiterate what PaulParkhead said … you went there to confirm that your preconceived notion was correct. You found one questionable piece of evidence backing up your idea and now you’re back here telling those of us that have lived and been involved with Germany for decades the result?
Umm well uhh good job? Clearly you’ve figured it all out.
You know, I also have a neighbour who flies the confederate flag, here in Alsace. And there’s a bar, too, that flies it, right over the border. And I wasn’t able to ask the guy who was out flying the Palestinian flag at the Tour de France his opinion (and if he, maybe, has a more identifiable Nazi flag to push people’s buttons).
I’ve encountered worse antisemitism- the casual, bourgeois sort, in Britain. Where they aren’t kind enough to label themselves as bigots for easy avoidance. It’s all polite until, suddenly, it isn’t.
I’d place a lot of weight on the fact that you were near a military base. And people like to push buttons.
(bolding mine)
Yep. Some pockets of angry protesters and a kid scrawling a forbidden symbol on the sidewalk definitely warrants this generalization of the entire German people.
I sure don’t hate US Americans and think they are stupid, but I sure do pity them.
Of cos not… but then again, you might be a more rational thinking human being then Cartooniverse
Pretty amusing. Several posters in this thread have stated that I went to Germany to prove that Anti Semitism exists there. It is to laugh. First of all, who the fuck would do that?? I went for family reasons. But it was reasonable to consider the history of the place.
Second of all, the poster I just quoted isn’t the only one who noted proximity to Ramstein. Sorry, but that does not make any difference here. The village of Hochspeyer isn’t off-base housing, it isn’t filled with American military families. That’s why my family members are living there- almost 30 minutes from base. So, it’s a heck of a stretch to say that the evidence I walked by was there because of Americans living in that village.
As for those posting in here who are German or have lived there for years- if you ignore patterns you don’t see patterns. If you are looking for patterns, you find evidence. The fact that some posters in here have lived there for several or many years and have seen no evidence of Anti-Semitism does not mean that it does not flourish in Germany. It means they haven’t seen it. Of course, living in Germany and being a defender of Germany and all things German doesn’t mean much when you look at the videos of violence and hatred being spewed in Berlin against Jews. It’s kind of irrelevant where you live.
People see what they want to see- and I admit I’m one of those people. Interesting that others refuse to recognize that fact.
Difference being that I’m not advocating the extermination of all non-Jews, now am I?
Your “irony” is lost on me.
Apparently you’re not familiar with the phrase Never Forget.
" Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. " also leaps to mind as relevant.
:dubious:
Yeah about this bit here.
Actually Carooniverse something very odd happened to me a week ago. Near my house (also half an hour from a large military base in Germany) there was some construction that caused me to have to wait under a bridge that I normally zip by on my way home.
While waiting for the light to change I was looking at the concrete poles holding up the bridge and on one of the far ones from the road someone had spray painted a swastika that was about one foot by one foot.
It’s probably the fourth or fifth one I’ve seen in 12 years here. Always gets my attention for obvious reasons but I can promise you I’d find a lot more than that in a few years back stateside in public restrooms, underpasses and anywhere else rebellious kids and/or criminal mischief take place.
What you found is an indication of nothing but some hooligan kids and petty vadalism, it’s doesn’t indicate wide spread beliefs or an undercurrent of anti-Semitism in anyway.
If I find one carved into a park bench in (name your state) what exactly does it prove? You were convinced you would find something and, shocker, you found it. Those who are here, day after day, are telling you what you found is an anomaly and that Germany really isn’t a hotbed of anti-Semitism.
Does it exist here? Sure, it exists everywhere. Is it even vaguely on par with what occurred her before and during World War 2? God no.
You know, you’re absolutely right. I for one am grateful for the reminder that WWII is a thing that happened, and that anti-Semitism is a thing that exists.
Thank you for sharing this. Context and location are quite important. Indeed, one can find swastikas spraypainted in the USA. So? Did America commit the Holocaust? ) Well. -cough- THIS Holocaust. Native Americans on the Board might have a different take on whether or not America has ever committed a Holocaust… )
The Confederate flags, on the other hand, are always chilling to me. I visited a small cemetery in Tyrone, GA about 15 years ago. It’s on a small road off of the road from the highway into Peachtree City, GA. Was driving by. Had my camera. Stopped to shoot photos. Were there many many weathered headstones there with Confederate Army Unit info either on small metal placques next to the stone, or with that data engraved into the stone? Yep. That wasn’t chilling, that was history.
What WAS chilling was the number of Confederate flags planted next to grave sites. Weirder than all ( and if I can find the photos I’ll scan this one in ) was a 55 gallon drum turned into a garbage can. Half in half out was a very large Confederate flag. I couldn’t suss that one out. Deep in rural Georgia, someone took a large flag ( maybe in the 10 foot by 6 foot range ) and threw it into the trash for all to see.
They call it “The War of Northern Aggression” down there. A swastika found sprayed somewhere in the USA may be a sign of a real Neo Nazi sympathizer or active believer, but to me the context is a part of it. On that path in a small town in Germany I found that symbol. It meant something different. Just as - and I really find this weird- the Confederate flag cited in the post above in France.
No, you’re not advocating mass genocide; but neither is anyone else, nor does ‘no issue’ and ‘kill them all’ run the gamut on ethnic discrimination.
Seriously, isn’t it just exhausting to be that hyperdramatic all the time? I mean, let’s just review the facts. Going to Germany, you were worried about ‘in your face displays of Nazi support’, of being bullied by hotel managers and car rental agents because of your name, and generally about being the victim of harassment and ethnic hatred.
None of these have occurred.
You’ve seen one single swastika (and got so excited as to note down its GPS coordinates, for Pete’s sake), and—despite this massively contradicting your expectation of Germany being a hotbed of Naziism and ethnic discrimination—now maintain this is proof of Germany having learned nothing from history, and basically implies that we’re a country of Jew-hating brownshirts.
A single swastika is enough to you to confirm all your prejudice, to lump all Germans into one big bag of stewing ethnic hatred. Despite the fact that this flatly contradicts your original worse expectations as you stated them, you now feel vindicated. Because you eventually did manage to find that single swastika.
What would have happened if you hadn’t found it? Do you honestly think you’d have come into this thread declaring that well, you’d been wrong, maybe not every single German wants to murder you, everyone you love, and all that are like you?
No, you’d have found somebody with a suspiciously short haircut eyeing you maliciously, some thugs in jackboots, some oddly square moustache, something, anything to corroborate your preconceived judgments.
And that’s a kind of attitude that I’d think should be deeply worrying to somebody so keenly aware of the dangers of prejudice and bias as you seem to think you are.
I’m not saying that there is no anti-semitism in Germany. I’m not even saying that there’s no Naziism—there’s both, and too much of both, because any of either is too much. But it takes a very strong wish to see things a certain way to therefore stylize Germany as a ‘hotbed of ethnic hatred’.
What would genuinely interest me is how your German-bound family sees this issue. I mean, have you talked to them of your fears? How do they see the current situation? If they’re jewish, do they feel threatened because of that fact on a regular basis?
Lots of things are, apparently.