Is making "German = Nazi" themed jokes excessively rude to modern Germans?

[Lamia]

@blowero

References to any other countries are rare on Star Trek. That’s because (A) it’s an American show, and (B) it takes place in SPACE, not on Earth. Just off the top of my head, a prominent positive reference was made to Johannes Brahms, the famous German composer, on Star Trek TOS. The music of Mozart has been featured on TNG in a positive way. On TNG, Lt. Barkley discusses physics with the famous German physicist Albert Einstein, who is portrayed in a very flattering light.

Just for the record, Mozart was Austrian. Einstein was German by birth but renounced his citizenship, so I don’t think flattering him is by extension flattering Germany.

[kellner]

@Evil Captor

However, I refuse to go to the other extreme as some would have us do, and claim that what happened in Germany in World War II and prior to it can only be blamed on Hitler and couple dozen of his top aides.

I agree, but is a very right-winged revisionist claim. After the war people tried to push the responsibility towards higher levels in the chain of command, but it is certainly not an accepted view of the issue.

Fact of the matter is, even prior to World War II, Germany was openly planning, or may even have already started, killing off mentally and physically handicapped people on the grounds that they were “unfit.”

To what are you referring? It is true that Gemany had a strong eugenics lobby before the third reich, but this was unfortunately hardly unique at the time. I don’t know of any actual measures implemented before 1933 and interestingly the killing of handicapped people was one of the very few things with which not even the Nazis got away. The program was stopped after protests in the population.

[blowero]

@Lamia

Just for the record, Mozart was Austrian.

Oh yeah, sorry. I believe Beethoven was featured on another episode, though.

Einstein was German by birth but renounced his citizenship, so I don’t think flattering him is by extension flattering Germany.

He left Germany because of what was going on politically, but he still grew up in that culture. I’m pretty sure they weren’t trying to slam Germany on that episode.

[dorfl]

I think there is a difference between (1)jokes in a late night show,(2) implying that any individual is a Nazi, and (3) stereotyping.

Modern Germans I know (and I know a few of them them very well) do not mind jokes that are clearly jokes. Along the lines of “The Nazis have finally succeeded in breeding their superior race — unfortunately, they relied the Reich being around for 1,000 years when they started their program”. Somebody in a late night/snl/Chapelle/etcetcetc show says that, no problem. Not funny, most of the time, but that’s a different issue.

This is, however, different from what happens about 50% of the time when I enter a cab with one of my German friends. It is even money the driver, noticing we speak German, makes some dumb joke along the lines “are you sure you want to drive to Wall Street? Many Jews there”, or a similar tasteless remark. That even I find offensive, and not much can offend me. Not funny.

Lastly, there is the stereotyping kind of joke along the lines of “all German are happy because now the Nazis will take over the world since they have a superbaby”. That is just plain and simply dumb, uncalled for, and offensive to a modern generation that, as far as I know, has pacifism build into their genes. Far more at least than the modern U.S. generation I have met.

Dorfl