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After watching this it, now has me curious about how colonial countries/states taught history during colonialism and after said country/state change how they teach their country/state's history.
Very interesting I've wondered what it was like and you gave great insight to that cause well here in America I feel it's very opposite we always portray ourselves as the great victor who stops all tyranny goin on As an American though I don't agree while our involvement in many a conflict has most likely stopped many a horrible thing from continuing i think all global powers need to really get together to make the world a much better place no one is better than anyone else we all bleed red and we all need to come together to make the short time we currently have to make things great for the ones to come and tbh we've done a terrible job Bring peace to all you encounter and share in the joy that is real humanity
"Plethora" means an overabundance or "too much." You probably would be better off using the word "myriad," even though the original definition of "plethora" has been diluted over the years. You have the power to stop the dilution and maintain the different meaning of the two words!
History, no matter how bad, should never be brushed under the carpet or changed. We can not change history. How are we supposed to learn from our mistakes otherwise? I wish the left would realise this.
I went through the german school system and i can say, this is quite accurate. I do however disagree a bit on the "original sin" point. We were never told that what happened is in any way our fault or even really related to us. What was strongly implied however was that it is our "duty" to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.
True. There was no talk of sin at all, rather of resposibility. The responsibility of our teachers to inform us about what had happened and by extension not allowing for this history to be forgotten, aswell as our collective resposibility not repeat what our ancestors did.
When did you attend school? I went from 1980-93, and back then, they still made us feel a little guilty about the Nazi-regime. It was also often used in politics, by other countries trying to get Germany to make concessions by pulling the Nazi card... Attitudes changed a lot after the reunification, I think.
@@Wufgang yeah today the schools also focus a little more on what the germans went through before the nazis. it's no surprise to me, that they wanted revenge and domination.
9 - Age 14/15 is holocaust. i think the whole timeperiod including ww1 is starting 8th(maybe 7) class. but in the 9th class you mostly only have WW2 in historyclass
@@LadyNikitaShark if I remember correctly, I was 13 when the NS regime was first thought in school. Should be grade 7 or 8. Many schools will do trips to concentration camps when the students are older
@@LadyNikitaShark As this is rather recent history its taught later in school - for me (Realschule) around the age of 15. It's not just history class though we also read books in German lessons (my German teacher was also my histrory teacher so I am not sure how universal this is :_))
@@LadyNikitaShark as soon as we learned reading, we red a book about it elementary school. I think it was 2nd or 3rd grade. The book is called Damals war es Friedrich. It's a book about two boys growing up in Nazi Germany, one being a jew.
As a german who is currently in 10th grade I can say that we don’t talk about the World Wars only in History class but in several different classes on different levels
Even though the history class is probably the class which makes the damage done by the nazis extremely visible. Next on my list would be German but that probably depends on the book you read
I'm German as well and I can totally agree. Of course, it was a very important topic in history class, but we also discussed it in German, Politics, Music, Religion and French class
Same but Im in 8th Grade I can say that we had a whole hour talk about the mustached man in economics it is pretty weird but hey at least we’re discussing it and we will learn about it in 9th Grade I believe 🤷🏻♂️
Crazy to think that I hated sitting through lectures like this in school, but as an adult when I actually WANT to learn things, it's the most fascinating thing on the planet.
As a freshman nah UA-cam just makes it better becuase you are not forced to do it it’s hard to explain and I love learning about history and etc also we get to choose what to learn about not have a schedule for when and how
This could be a whole series. How Do British Schools Teach Colonialism? Or the Westward expansion or slavery in the US? Stalinism in Russia? WWII in Japan? Etc. etc.
Slavery in the US is grazed over. There is talk of abolitionists and certain figures are glorified for their acts of racial heroism: Harriet Tubman, Abe Lincoln, etc. But the overall atrocities are nowhere near as in depth as when we get to the Halocaust. Teacher showed pictures of piles of bodies at a Nazi camp. I think that it is much easier for most parties to point out other groups mistakes in a sense to lighten the burden of their own misdeeds, but idk. Another interesting thing, I'm from Los Angeles. I would love to know how things like the civil war, which tore the country and families apart, differ in teachings.
Product of a British education here. I remember being taught about the British Empire but it was part of a wider topic of European Colonialism, including Spain and Portugal etc. However this might even have been later in school after most students had given up studying history. I took history up to age 18 and we never studied US history - the American War for Independence and the American Civil War for example. I was always aware of those events but most of what I knew came from American TV (the Simpsons is a big one), films and some video games like Assassin's Creed 3. I don't think it's considered very important in forming the UK into the place that it is today.
I am a German History teacher and I focus on two things mainly: a) the events and flaws which led to Hitler's chancellorship and how he managed to turn a democracy into a dictatorship (to make them aware of the dangers democracy may face in the future) and b) the Holocaust (how ordinary people could turn into heartless killers)
Do you also teach kids about the Communist Party and who were its leaders after the WWI ? Is it allowed to talk about the German citizens from Danzig and how Polish administration threaten them with cutting all ways of traveling on Polish soil to and from Germany ? Is there any chapter dedicated to ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia , from the Sudeten Mountains , who were humiliated and beaten on the streets just because they were Germans ? I hope you do not . It is impossible to explain WW2 without explaining how in the WW1 German people had to fight and die in another war of another country who inslaved surrounding nations for hundreds of years , another German country that created its own empire and did not take responsibility for its own actions . I cannot find a purpose or a way how to tell kids that after WW1 all Europe hated ethnic Germans because of Austria . How to tell kids that Germany was punished severely after the WW1 instead of Austria and the communists took advantage of the situation creating more instability ? Kids do not care about politics . WW1 and WW2 are like a football game , you cannot talk only about the second half , better remove this chapter completely from the books than lying about it .
@@gigirigips Do you mean the communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were both killed by conservative secret service members in Germany? Tells us a lot about the democratic attitude of the Conservatives, doesn`t it? 😉🤣🤣
@@MrMielten Yep ! Apparently both possibilities were bad . The thing is all Europe had national parties at the time and the only multiethnic party was the Communist Party . What is a national party ? It is a party made entirely out of citizens that are ethnics of that country and could not accept members that do not meet this criteria . Considering the social and economical conditions in Germany after the Great War , with the national pride shaken , it was easy for any national party to rise into power . So , why the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ? Easy ! Because the other national parties did nothing for social security or to improve life in Germany a little bit at least and the only active party was the Communist Party . Well , in that time in Germany lived a lot of other non-Germans and they were part of society too , but they had no party to get in or to represent them , so the only option for them was the Communist Party . From this point it is easy to understand why most of the communist leaders were Jews and how this thing was exploited by the Nazis turning slowly the propaganda against communism into propaganda against its leaders and because most of the audience was hungry and angry and looking for someone to blame for losing the war and for all that came after , people just associated the danger of communism with the "foreigners" and put all the evil in behalf of communist leaders and later extended the hate to all Jews , communists or not . When the mind is blinded by hatred mixed with false pride and hunger and it is very likely to overreact and take the wrong decisions . All this chain of awful events that happened to Germany was triggered by Austria in 1914 when Franz Ferdinand was killed and culminated with the split of Germany during the Cold War .
I live in Lithuania, country, which was occupied in WW2 by RUSSIANS first (pact between Molotov and Ribentrop) and then Germans. I won’t go into the details of soviet education or rather indoctrination based on lies - our parents and grandparents worked hard to persuade us, kids that what we hear at schools are shameful lies. My impression of grandparents thoughts was that they thought Germans were rather saviors than true occupants. My parents didn’t think Germans were bad because of ADolf Hitler, because Stalin was ten times worse. The rest of the world still doesn’t know how many people have been killed by soviets. The soviets themselves did not bother to count. That leaves us with the present day. As Lithuanian, I always respected Germany and germans, I liked their country and culture. Unfortunately, I see the souls of german people are crippled: they are not proud of their country and history. I recognize indoctrination when I see it. Maybe german people themselves do not feel like been castrated, their national pride removed, but I know Merkel would never happen if majority of German population would not feel certain way. I saw here removing national flag, I saw her making crime if bringing millions of immigrants to Germany, I saw her lying to her people. What I fear is that Germans will have to flee their own country. We will shelter them, of course, but it makes me mad how country can be lost without a war, without much of resistance. Socialism/feminism is a cancer. I wonder whether it can be stopped before destruction of this civilization.
@@ramsa01Yt The second wave feminism was the good one. This current wave is rather messed up. It was created originally to help women gain the rights they deserve. The ones who put everyone else down are just assholes. The feminists who acknowledges the problems men face, along with LGBT+ people, etc. So the thing itself should never be stopped. It's the third toxic wave which needs to be stopped.
I'm Polish, and I visited Auschwitz a couple of times (it's located within the Polish borders). I was very happy to see many German tourists there! They were very respectful and kind.
If youre wondering who the hell Jana aus Kassel is, she is a girl/young woman who compared herself to Anne Frank because of the Corona Lockdown. All whilst participating in a completely legal demonstration and trying to hold a speech against said Lockdown. Needless to say, she is being mocked quite a bit.
@@darnoc4470 as someone from Kassel, i would be pretty happy, if i would see positive headlines some time in the future. But maybe this city is just to messed up xD
@@darnoc4470 sorry to correct you. But she said she related to Sophie Scholl, the woman mentioned in the video as well. Though an 11year old girl stated before at a similar event, that she feels like Anne Frank. The Anne Frank thing was “popular” to relate at the start of the pandemic online, not just Germany but general, I believe.
Fair enough even we in Germany basically skip over all of the 'oh and there were allies and we called ourselves axis powers' part. I only learned about that because our teacher had a Japanese wife and then when I changed the school a year later (in history class we now learn about the aftermath) my new history teacher basically fell from his seat when I asked "and what happened to Japan??" Turns out some history teachers don't even know...
We don’t just talk about WWII in history class. We talk about it in german class, in geography class, in philosophy class and others as well. And we talk about it with out grand- and great grandparents. We don’t allow us to forget because democracy is incredibly fragile.
plus countless documentaries and related movies all throughout the year on TV and memorials for the victims of the holocaust in most every town and city
I visited Dachau concentration camp once and a school party was there. The teacher was describing in detail what happened there. Some kids were visibly shocked and one was crying. The teacher didn't try to comfort than. She let the horror of the place sink in. You can guarantee that those kids will never forget what they learnt that day!
in the usa we were shown movies documentairies, about the concentration camps. i remember it , and we all learned what we will not allow to happen here either. but it is sometimes falsley described , so it must be done truthfully . we saw a lot of stacked up corpses etc and other horrible things. It was so scarey . " Night and Fog"
I'm an American who visited back in 2008 and to this day, it was one of the most humbling things in my life There is still a smell when you are there that unless you have been you can't understand.
Dachau is an disgusting propaganda invented by England and USA to guilty the German people, all victims there were dead German soldiers and people showed as Jews to brainwashing all other European people
German here: just fnished school. Quite accurate but I would say that I personally have never felt responsible for those atrocities rather it‘s a sense of responsibility to not let something like this happen again that I gained from those classes, which is way more important and more constructive imho. Also please visit a memorial concentration camp if you ever get the chance to. It‘s terrible and really gruesome but it really let‘s you see and feel the horrible things that were done and empathize with the victims. A museum about the Holocaust or WWII in General can be a similar experience if it‘s done well. (There‘s one in Berlin which really made me cry)
I'm British and I agree. I don't believe that the Germans of today should be held responsible for what happened 75 years ago. This was an interesting video. And it's interesting to read a comment from a German person on the subject 👍
it is the grim silence of walking around a holocaust memorial that makes one realise the horrors of the nazi regime. in my opinion everyone around the world should see it and realise what hate can do. And not just hate but ignorance as well. for we should never forget: its not just the nazis who practized genozid and caused horror among the people. in fact it is still happening today around the globe. and it makes me furious and desperate. totaliterian regimes are on the rise again, but what can we do to stop it? how can we prevent or at least end it? we can at least question our governments decisions and our own prejudices and fears. speak openly about racism, talk to new people, hear new opinions, engage in politics and always know: there ist no 'them and us', we are ALL part of the human race. thanks for reading through it all. greetings from germany.
As well you shouldnt that's like saying as an American I should feel responsible for slavery. You can be taught to have disdain for the actions committed by our ancestors without the guilt
True you should not feel responsible or guilty at all! Even if you had family that were Nazis. You have no control over any of that. Learn from the past and live so it never happens again.
Also the movie “Die Welle” (The Wave) is commonly shown in school. It’s a movie about a teacher who tries to show his students, that even now they might be more accepting of Nazi tactics than they like to think.
By the way: The book bases on a true story from a teacher in die US who made this experiment with his students because they thought that this couldn't happen again and he wants to proof them otherwise. When the experiment went terrible wrong he was getting arrested. In the original book there's an interview with this teacher when he was in prison.
We actually also read the book in german class and also watched the movie. It still gives me the chills how all of this could just happen all over again...
Having visited Germany in 2016, as part of a exchange programme... they wear their history on their sleeve. They are not proud of it, but they will not deny it. One of the German students I spoke to told me how they must always strive to ensure they never go back to that. They are truly committed to being fantastic people. Wish I had kept contact with my host family, I'd like to make more German friends.
Of course they won’t deny it wtf 😂 damn near everyone knows about wwII , if they were to deny it they’d look like hypocrites maybe like sympathizers any smart German would definitely not deny it
@@myron8676 as much as this angers and enrages me there are Americans who dont believe that the Holocaust happened...WW2 hurts their feelings and it scares me so much as personally i love history and my kids WILL know the real history when i feel like theyll comprehend it. I dont know if by then they will even teach it in schools here at least what really happened because this can never happen again
@@JoeMcknart69 don't understand what their problem is about accepting and moving on and trying to be better. Don't understand why they wouldn't actually deny something like that and makes no sense to me. Unless they figured denial makes the shame go away. And yet it doesn't
I am an American and lived in West Germany in the early eighties. One day myself, my German friend and his wife went to a Gasthaus (neighborhood bar) for a few beers. One old man at the bar was drunk and started talking loud. The only thing I caught was "Mein Furher". Without saying a word, the bartender came around from the bar, grabbed the man by his shirt collar and belt and literally threw him thru the front door onto the sidewalk. My friend told me that the old man was spouting off about how he had been an SS officer in WWII and that "Mein Furher" was right in trying to exterminate the Jews. Then my friend said, "That piece of shit is lucky the bartender didn't put him in the hospital"
jesus.... that is some story, to think that it was just 80 years ago when those atrocities were committed... wish the bartender beat the shit out of that scumbag
Damn how old man like that who thinks Hitler did great things was still free to walk in the 1980s? He was maybe in his 20s or 30s in WW2 and was still pissed that Germany lost WW2.
@@jeffthevomitguy1178 i don't know of atrocities we committed in world war 2, but we certaily aren't facing the unrelated atrocities we are still commiting to this day with respect to racial hate, injustice (concentration camps for immigrant children) and the genocide and desecration kf religious sites of the native people's who mostly still live in opressive poverty, on land we forced them to, and to this day are still victims of genocide in the form of cultural destruction and unknowing/uneilling sterilization.
So much respect to Germany for owning up and acknowledging their country’s dark days. Takes a lot of courage to take ownership of something like that, but the Germans do it with such grace. Hats off to you Germany!!
I agree! For me Germany and Japan are two countries I respect probably the most in the world! Don't know even why...maybe because they are very hard working people.
@@povilas007 kinda funny that you agree to his comment and say you respect japan in the sentence after that. (I mean, it's ok because they are working f*cking hard but...)
Povilas D well japan haven’t ever owned up or apologised the way the honourable krouts do. Infact a Japanese embassy once complained that a memorial to comfort women offended them. I think it was in s.korea or the phillipines or something.
@Jacob yt What? WHAT? A forgeiner telling A German what is ok and what isnt? When ? If i Remember correct Germany told Greece what to do Not the other Way around. And most of the Immigrants that live in Germany are either from EU or Turkey meaning that they came to Work for Germans Not to make Germans Work for them. And what Communist Take over? In Germany there is a saying: "If you arent a Communist or a socialist at 20 You have no heart.. If you are still a Communist at 30 You have no brain." Most Germans are old and hate Communism so who exactly wants Communism in Germany ?The young? Once they Turn 30 at the age where they are finaly a full member of the productivity of Germany they nologer want Communism. And Nobody denies in Germany what the ALLIES did. Rape, Deportation, theft ( mostly by UDSSR but a few Americans and English did it too) but they pale in comparison to Killing 6 000 000 Jews, Killing 20 000 000 Russians and Killing POW. Germans know what happend at Königsberg so what exacly are you talking about?
I really admire that they do teach history that way in Germany. It's a very valuable lesson, and it reminds me of a quote, "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them".
The teaching about Nazis and their crimes is not supposed to make you feel guilty, but to make you feel responsible to never let such things ever happen again. There are right wings in germany who call this history a "memorial of shame" and want to change the way we look at our past, but I feel proud for the way we get teached history considering how history is teached in other places.
Well it is kind of a memorial of shame. The fact that they let this happen back in the day. But it should also serve as a memory to not let this happen again and that's what the average citizen is telling people to not let this happen again that reminds them to never let that type of brutality enter their country again and I agree with that no country should be that way at all
The Germans suffered enough in the aftermath. Fascism, as with all forms of authoritarian socialism, must be guarded against, and never should it's Marxist roots be forgotten. The participation of the Soviets against the fascists, and so their position as victors, allowed them and their trash ideology to slip through the cracks and infiltrate the West with relatively little resistance, in part because of the disingenuous presentation of Marxism as somehow diametrically opposite to fascism; it is certainly not. Fascism is gone. Marxism is an ongoing and vile threat, however.
Not being mean just trying to help based on the assumption that English is a second language (it’s my first and I still make mistakes). The past tense of teach is taught.
@@doubtshadow1 fascism is very much NOT socialism💀 fascism is far right authoritarian ultranationalism. Fascism opposes marxist/socialist ideologies completely. Someone did u wrong in your edu there bud...
@@bradjohns6442 I wanted to correct OP too but I didn’t know how to correct them without unintentionally sounding rude. Glad you did it whilst sounding nice lol!
As a Dutch person, I have always wondered why our eastern neighbours are so conscious about their history. After seeing this video and reading the comments, everything makes sense now. Germans are I think one of the most polite folks of Europe nowadays. They have truely built an amazing nation which I have had the pleasure of spending a couple of holidays in. Viel Liebe einer Ihrer westlichen Nachbarn.
Hey, thats very nice to hear as a german. But believe me, Germany have a lot of political problems too. Not as much as the USA or even authoratic states, like Russia and China, but we have worrying right wing parties and stupid people, who call themselves "Querdenker" or people, who deny the climate change. This parties and people call the democracy in Question and are a very serious danger for our Country. But still I agree, we have mostly very good history lessons and this is something we can proud of.
Germans....."....polite...." ....haha....that might be you ........both mine and others has several experiences with Germans being mind blowing rude/aggressive, including being physical violent..... Personally I found it a relief to get across the border into the Netherlands. I know people who travelled to Germany to attend a science conference..... They were never able to get to that conference, but left Germany immediately.... ...a country which they will never visit again......guess why.... There are certainly good and friendly people also, but there are to many in that country with to much arrogance and aggressive genes.... I have been in a lot of other countries but never experienced something like the German style....
As a German in ninth grade i can say this is spot on. I actually visited the former Concentration Camp Memorial in Dachau just a Month ago and it was the most desolate place i have ever been to. The best word i have to describe the feeling in there is hopelessness all around you. You feel like you have no rights, no dignity whatsoever. It is something everyone should do at least once to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.
I am German and I can still remember 2 years ago, we visited the concentration camp dachau in 10th grade. You just felt so uncomfortable standing in that wide gravel field and the enormous tree lined pathways, knowing that thousands had to suffer through the worst thing imaginable day in and day out.
my class did that aswell we where 15 and honestly we could not take it serious at that age also there where like 5 germans in the class the rest where turkish and russian kids so we joked a lot about the nazi times all in all nobody cared exept for the teacher we wanted to see guns and all the cool stuff but today i can reflect back to that moments and can remember what i saw so it served its purpose even tho half of the class was drunk like on almost every school trip
@@seppshlllearningcenter419 im just not attached to it i mean yeah that people had a really bad time but that does not make me feel bad i was not there so i dont feel the pain. I also have enough things to worry about in my own life so if i would get sad by something like that i might aswell get myself into an mental asylum
@@seppshlllearningcenter419 I did feel bad when I walked through Dresden for all the people that died during bombing but it's completely different than visiting a concentration camp. Like srsly, those places were literaly factories made for killing people as efectively as possible, that's the most inhumane thing ever.
When you forgot everything you learnt in school so we have to watch this video I mostly remember that we were though about the cold war and the differences between east and west germany etc Idk what exactly we learned about the wars But I remember that almost every student teached himself something so everyone could say something
I think the reason why germans click on every video that has "germany" in its title is because we are always curious how people from other countries view Germany....
Also, could just be me but I think because people don't really talk much about us, except they talk about the world wars or something big is happening in Europe so that our government has to give out a statement. So it's a nice change of pace when people talk about us and it's something different for once.
Yeah I was asking myself the same question. I often catch myself watching vids that portray Germany in a good light for once, so maybe thats also a reason, idk...
German student here! I’m in my last year of school rn and graduate next week. When we talked about WW2 in history class this year there was one history lesson where our teacher put on a documentary about the holocaust. Of course all of us already knew of the events in detail from reading about it in class not only this year but in previous school years as well so I thought the documentary probably wouldn’t be all that shocking to me. I was wrong however. Before starting the video our teacher told us that we were allowed to leave the classroom if we needed a moment, as the documentary was quite graphic. The documentary showed the aftermath of the mass genocides in concentration camps. Mountains of dead, naked, starved bodies being thrown into huge graves like they were dolls or something. Videos of mass shootings not only of adults but children as well. Lifeless bodies laying in the streets of the Ghettos. It was beyond shocking and horrifying to see, I couldn’t help but cry. You can read about it all you want but I don’t think it fully clicked in my head before that those things actually happened, that those lifeless bodies had minds and souls once, it suddenly all became real. Yeah I think it’s safe to say that I will never forget or underestimate the gravity of the crimes against humanity committed by germans in the NS time.
@@ExtraVictory mate, Japan completely ignore their dirty hands against of East Asia. This is why there is still some Japanese student that didn't know they do a genocide to this day against ton of countries
I taught History in Hamburg, Germany from 1972 thru 1979. Believe me, those.kids got the whole story. Parents were upset and complained, but the school.backed me up and the whole story came out a number of times, school.grade by school grade.
Do you guys teach all your history? Because in Canada we teach about all the horrible things we did to native Americans but I have never heard about what we did to Asians. I only learned about the atrocities we committed against asians through my mother. It’s like focusing on the Holocaust, but only The Holocaust and nothing else.
Frankly, I thought it was to much / to often. At one point I just stopped caring about WW2 at all because every school year there were month' of history class dedicated to WW2 and I just thought "I got it, it was bad and the Nazis were bad, I get it, you don't have to repeat it for the 100th time".
As far as I can tell they think the war was a 'mistake' and otherwise avoid dealing with it. Mistake does not seem to be much of an admission that it was wrong. But I don't even live there. Its just what I have read about it, and that was not much.
I'm a German who spent a year in America, going to High School. When I found out that the pledge of allegiance was a thing it made me feel extremely uncomfortable and despite some teachers' outrage, I refused to participate. Took me a little while to understand just why I found the POA as well as the national anthem being sung at assemblies so unsettling. Many years later now, I do. And this video makes quite the point for it. I wish this existed in 2012 so I could have shown it to all my teachers who gave me dirty looks for not standing and saluting a flag.
I mean, germans are patriotic, we just arent as loud about it. Its quiet, behind closed doors and never accompanied with some song or flag, just a few sentences hushed when watching the news and some foreign country/politician/company fucks up again. Overt displays of patriotism are just viewed as childish in germany, so what you felt probably was some type of lowkey cringe when everyone stood up to hail some flag.
I'm American but as a kid I always refused I dnt remember why but I think the teachers said I just had to stand I didn't have to put hand to heart or say it. But I think another teacher mightve said I could stay seated.
We, the people of germany today, are not responsible for what has happened in the 30's and 40's of the last century. But we are very responsible that something like that must never happen again. That is our collective resposability today.
so maybe you can finally return all stolen goods - mostly art masterpieces and pay reparations for countries almost completly grounded during war? German people living in 40s and 50s somehow didn't feel like doing it...
I'm german. I spent a year abroad in 10th grade and people I met asked me if I'm a nazi. They weren't joking, they really thought that most germans are still nazis. Smh (Edit: typo)
Beyond obscure, of course most Germans are not Nazis. People need to stop with that stupid idea of thinking it is a “joke” to call someone something they aren’t based on what one was taught in school.
I had the same experience on my year abroad...i dont want to compare myself to someone who might has to deal with discrimination every day...but i might have caught a glimpse that day how it feels when people have a specific opinion on u based on where u re from. Its a weird and uncomfortable feeling...
Being German, I have to say that atleast from my experience not a feeling of 'original sin' as you say, but more a responsibility to never let such a similar thing to happen again. A task we seem to be failing at considering our non-commital stance towards China's cultural/ethnic cleansing of minorities and other cases
That sums it up pretty well. The mantra which is taught is less "you did that" and more "Never again". It is our job to learn from history and ensure that it will never happen again. And frankly, it should be the job of everyone, not just us.
@jdtrickster4 and Israel too. The amount of human right violations and illegal activity they partake in without punishment is insane. Like how the US *would* be punished for selling weapons to N.Korea but Israel *did* get away with it.
As a guy born in Poland, with Polish ancestry, I never once had ill feelings towards Germans of today. I did however always hate Nazis from a young age, not because of indoctrination by the school system or my parents(neither of which ever happened) but rather as a result of being aware of the war as I was growing up. My grandfather's life was spared by a German soldier by the way. His village was being rounded up by the army into trucks, likely to be sent to some sort of a camp. He asked a soldier if he could go to the bathroom, and the soldier answered with a yes. So my grandfather went behind a barn, and then started running for his life across a farm field. He looked back to see that the soldier saw him running but didn't raise an alarm nor try to shoot. He just let him go. Anyways, you can't blame an entire nation today for the evil deeds of their relatives from the past. That's stupid. They are not the ones who committed the crimes. Let it go and move on, sheesh. If your grandfather was a thief does that make you one too? No. The Americans could learn a thing or two from this post. .....Of course if anyone still feels bad, I'll take some German chocolates :D
You're absolutely right. No one should be blamed for something their ancestors did. I watched just this morning a documentary about a son from the main war criminal Hans Frank. And he tries to educate people who think for example that the Holocaust never happened or who want the immigrants should "go there, where they come from". I just hope it doesn't get worse with the anti-Semitism but as the last month's and years showed (e.g. the attack of Halle) many people haven't learned from that bad time age. Greetings from Germany/Halle
I agree with your thought that the U.S. could learn from this. I feel like the racism in this country has gotten so ugly and out of control. And white people today are targeted as bigots and that we owe other cultures for the slavery of generations ago-even if our families weren’t even American at that point, most not emigrated over yet. I’m white and I’m not racist. I can’t help the systematic racism that some experience, nor did my family ever have any part in owning slaves. In fact, white Irish immigrants were sometimes forced into slave labor once in America. But you don’t hear those descendants berating today’s population. I’m made to feel like I’m hateful, and prejudice, and entitled. When I don’t feel like I am any of those things. It’s so bizarre to me. Blame the actual problem. But why create so much division and hate toward a demographic of people who aren’t the problem?
I find your program extremly valuable, real food for thoughts. Only one tiny proposal: Could you speak little bit slower? It will help your listeners to reflect during you speak. Good job!
I'm not sure if it's the same at other schools, but at my school, at least, we'd also have a field trip to a prison where they held (, tortured and murdered) people who criticised the regime or didn't follow the rules captive, and a crematorium (at the one we visited, they mostly gased and cremated the disabled). Visiting both of those places was very heavy, and apparently it has broken apart a couple of families when students found relatives in the book of the murdered. We had guides talking about these places as well, and one of them had actually grown up in the village with the crematorium in post-war Germany. She told us how back then it was a no-go to ask or talk about it - the denial was big. She also said that it always - as she's been told - smelled sweet when the bodies, you know, turned to ashes. We also had the privilege of meeting a concentration camp survivor. He visited our school yearly and talked about his time there, how his wife had been lucky enough to escape this death sentence (if I remember correctly), and at the end we were allowed to ask him questions. For anyone who's interested, his wife wrote down his story and published it. It's called "Miecius später Bericht" by Felicia Langer.
I would love to read this. Unfortunately, I can’t read German. Has it been translated into English? Or perhaps French or Spanish? I could work with those languages.
I don’t know in which part of Germany you went to school but in Baden Württemberg (at least in the area of Karlsruhe) we also go to a KZ in class 9 I think.
We also had a holocaust survivor come to our school and speak to us 9th graders here in Sweden. I remember it strongly and it was impactful to say the least. And I feel fortunate to have had listened to first hand accounts as it is rare/not possible now as time moves on.
There is a quote by Juli Zeh: "If you've been raised in Germany after the 1980ies you've had the topic of the Holocaust in every school-subject exept for maybe maths at least once."
There used to be two Germanies. Two different educations. DDR changed education at school in 1990 at the earliest. Remember, there used to be a wall in Germany. The Wall came down in 9th November 1989. It is nine-eleven put down the German way of writing dates. Sachsen, Thüringen, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were GDR. They had to change school programs after reunion with BRD. They had to change from Russian as a second language to English as a second language. Geography was mainly taught Eastern Europe as they were not allowed to travel to western countries. So history was taught different in GDR, I guess. No matter on which side of the wall, education was important. It was for free for everybody. I grew up in western Germany. Remember being sick and tired of WW II and Holocaust as I had it at school minimum three times. Anne Frank's diary in German language class was OK and interesting. Kids still have Anne Frank's diary nowadays. Families in GDR with educated parents and grandparents always found a way to gather knowledge. When Western families came to visit, books, tapes and information as well as certain foods and other items wiggled through to people in GDR. Border patrol always took their share. A classmate was very proud. She smuggled a tape with Bee Gees music to her cousin in her bra. Young people cannot imagine nowadays how it was back in the 1980ies. Internet takes any music to any place on earth. My classmate took a high risk. Her parents did have no clue and the music was highly appreciated from her cousins, friends etc. Lots of movies show this time of Germany. Even comedies are being made. Watch das Leben der anderen mit Martina Gedeck about GDR Good bye Lenin mit Daniel Brühl about end of GDR, a comedy.
One of my favorite teachers I've ever had was my professor for European History and he was a German immigrant. Inevitably we reached WWII and the Holocaust, and he was very solemn and direct about it. He recalled seeing a man he knew from his childhood on the television being tried at Nuremberg. The professor took great efforts to explain that he was proud to be a German, he loved his country and his countrymen, and that that meant they could never allow themselves to forget what their forebears were guilty of, nor allow it to ever happen again. It was powerful stuff; you could tell that he saw the Nazi regime as a stain on their history that had to be studied and curated, not forgotten.
Most of this is very well researched! one thing I´d like to add as someone who experienced this school system first hand is that this way of teaching ww2 is an achievement of the past couple of decades. During the first years after the war it was barely taught and many had more hard feelings towards the allies than towards the nazis. The topic was mostly ignored and the ones that were alive at the time mostly tried to forget about the NS time and leave it behind. Only in the student movement in the 60s and 70s the younger generation started asking their parents tough questions and people like Fritz Bauer that wanted to document nazi crimes gained more influence. That ultimately led to the German way of dealing with this dark period that we have nowadays and is described very well in the video.
There is an interesting movie on the topic. It's called "The Wave" and it's from 2008. Really shows how the youth in Germany feels about the nazi guilt, as we are bombarded with it from a very young age. I absolutely recommend it :) at least watch the trailer
The Movie is based on a Book centered around a US-Highschool experiment. The teachers purpose was to show his students how easy it is to brainwash people and exclude and persecute oppositions. As far as I remember we read it in English Class to improve our English skill while simultaneously adding to our history lessons about the third Reich. Speaking of German school system btw.
I watched it and it was good but strangely not very popular. It's strange that people pay close attention to the drama and "not repeating" but don't ask why millons of people were willing to kill others... Curiously they never talk about how hitler was not as important as the identity politics that grew in that time and it is regrowing nowadays again. NO ONE talks about it. Check videos of Hitler talking (there are not well translated videos on youtube) about themselves as minorities...
@@taskmaster1234 the book plays in the US? Well I be damed, I had to read it in German but I still liked it! Some things just scared the shit out of me and I had to set it down sometimes, but it's very good.
The sentence we get to hear the most in history class in germany is "it happened so it could happen again and it is your responsibility to not let that happen"
@@philippm9927 history is a subject in school in literally all of europe. In fact, I'm pretty sure the US *is* the only country that doesn't have it as a mandatory school subject.
As the spouse of a GI, I spent 3 years in Germany in the 1960s, 20 years after the war ended. I visited Dachau. There were still some large buildings bearing pockmarks from the war. But Germany was largely rebuilt. I wondered so often how the people felt about the Nazis and the war. We had German friends. We were welcomed wherever we went. I never asked questions. One elderly couple rented us an apartment. The wife proudly told us that her husband had been a major. I had decided in my mind that he must have been in the Wehrmacht rather than the SS. I always wondered what kids were taught in school, what people were told afterwards. Your video explains all this very clearly. It’s important to know everything you brought up. Thank you!
It's quite obvious... Considering that Russia denies any occupations and war crimes done in the occupied territories (not even mentioning the large list of crimes done inside the USSR before the war) and plays the victim. It's triggering and disgusting.
When I was at school (in Germany), the focus on the *reasons* for why a war happened and the social and political structures of a nation before and after a war were not restricted to WW2 but to all of history classes from ancient Greece and Rome to the French Revolution and WW1. We hardly ever learned about specific battles and dates and outcomes thereof, and personally I think knowing about the reasons for war and/or the great changes in history are much more beneficial to know about. I think I learned more about the battles of the romans in Latin classes when we read Caesar's Gallian War than I did in history class.
True...military history isn't really a meaningful subject unless you want a miliary career. Hence the emphasis is always on the political background, no matter WHAT part of history is discussed. There are a few battles which are emphasied, like the battle in Teuteburg forrest or the Vielvölkerschlacht or Stalingrad, but that is mostly because they symbolise turning points.
@@swanpride just occurred to me... it's basically the whole "war is a continuation of politics with different means", isn't it? Why focus on the 'how two bunches of people try to kill each other' and look at the why.
I have still one year in a german school ahead of me and had similar experiences so far. We were taught how such a regime gained power in the first place and how group thinking influenced the lives of citizens. We were also taught the effectiveness of propaganda at that time and how it worked.
@@swanpride the only "issue" with not teaching about all those battles is probably that if you start to raise all children not to admire military achievements and rather become pacifsts, the german defence forces will be hurting for recruits. Not saying this is bad, since it would be wonderful if that was the case anywhere on the world, but with dictators on the rise all around the world currently... lets just say if the "new" russian tsar decides to start shit in europe, the allies better come running or germany will be quite screwed :/
I would say that this quote is missing a word: from. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it; learning history isn't always the same as learning the lessons from said history.
@Zhào Liǔ What are you talking about? I never even spoke to you. As a South African we learn about the concentration camps for the Afrikaners. I have no idea if the British learn. They should though. Same for the JP/US happenings.
@@tomjoe1599 There are for sure many families which believe every word from the government but there are also german families which questioning the TV and instead believe their own grandfathers or old people from towns and villages. But in general germans are quite dumb, naiv and easy controlled by fear.
@@iHaveACrushOnPrincessDiana well it was the exact opposite in russia cause they were the winners. my colleague (born and lived in moscow for her entire childhood) told me that when ww2 (or great patriotic war, as they call it) was taught, it was all on "heros against nazis". No mention of Finland, Poland or anything bad on the russian side. she at first didnt even believe me when i told her about Poland and Finland. she was so shocked when she read about it. makes you wonder....
That quote was by the same guy who said, “ History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people who weren't there.” He also believed history changed and should be constantly rewritten. Not that the quote is necessarily wrong, but if he believes truth isn’t even real, it makes you wonder
As a Brit that's visited Germany a number of times and explored many of its regions, I can say that I have the utmost respect for how Germans wear their history on their sleeve. Munich is particularly interesting in how it memorialises the war in that the memorials are all over the city, but are very subtle, often small plaques or painted cobblestones for example, and are designed to make you think about them and encourage you to do your own research into the stories behind them. Also I did ask about the very subject of this video to some of the German friends I made along my travels, and my understanding is that it's considered impolite to mention the war, however they feel obligated to answer any questions you have regardless, because to change the subject would be disrespectful. In any case, Germans are the friendliest and most helpful, wonderful people I've ever met and it is such a beautiful country, I can't wait until I can visit again! 😊
When you travel in France. If you ask about WW2 there is an strange reaction. People will first lost their eyes and said “ we lost the battle because of the high command” this is true and suddenly they change it to, Napeolon or Ww1
Expecting the same from Japan, the things they did is not written anywhere in the world. My great grandfather was in the army and he told so many horrific stories to my dad about the ww2. I hope history will remember wht they did to us.
@@anurag15271 There is another video on this channel about just that if you haven't seen it already :) but yeah I agree, my great uncle fought with the Commandos in Burma and my grandfather in the RN throughout the Pacific, neither were the same when they came home and both refused to ever talk about it. That's not even to mention the Sino-Japanese wars that predate our involvement. All of it should be taught in schools because it isn't about assigning blame, it's about preventing anything so awful from ever happening again.
I mean, this can be applied to many major countries like the US and the UK. From what I now, the schools don´t really emphasize the bad things from the past. If I am wrong, please correct me.
@@adrianbollmann2088 I’m English and they never taught us about most of the atrocities and racism and shit the empire did or how Irish people used to be really oppressed. To be fair we do lean about some bad stuff the country did from medieval times and Henry VIII but not really anything in the past 100 years. Edit: I feel like I should point out that I only did history in secondary school and not collage or anything like that so there’s chances that you learn about the empire more later on in education.
In Russia: We are proud of our Soviet history. Killings were necessary for the greater good. Gulags were for bad people. The collapse of the Soviet Union was set up by the west and Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were traitors for letting it happen and Stalin was a hero while Lenin revolutionized Russia. Putin is doing good for the country and the world.
I'm from Germany and I have to say your summary of the schedule German schools go through covering WWII and the atrocities committed by the Nazi Regime is very accurate. In terms of the actual battles, our schedules do cut these short. However, I've found that many of us gathered up the courage to ask about the experience of war in our own families only a few generations down because of these classes. And when I did, I learned that no soldier from my hometown who was born in 1928 and forcibly recruited to the frontline in Russia in 1943/44 made it back home. I learned that my grandpa just got there when the war was declared over and had to travel back home by foot. He met refugees from concentration camps in the woods in Czechia. They were all starving, traumatized and scared. It is so surreal what this war did to people. It's important that we know and don't forget.
I remember the horror of finding photographs of my great grandfather in front of the Auschwitz trains. I felt so ashamed and horrified. But then my Oma told me why he joined the SS. My family had been potato farmers up until the war. The Nazis came and forced my great grandad to sign up. If he didn't, they would kill the children and burn the farm down. My great grandfather never returned from the war. And our farm was burnt down anyway. My family's livelihood was gone. A lot of people don't see that some of them were forced to join. Uropa just wanted to farm.... he had 11 women employed on his farm. Then everything was gone.
I think the comment section could use another german giving his thoughts, so here I go: It is pretty accurate indeed, well done. Some things I wanna add The positive view towards the allied armies is not as strong when it comes to the soviets. We are slowly beginning to talk a bit about their atrocities too, like the expulsions of Germans from the eastern territories or their general behavior as occupiers, where they are seen as the worst of the four. I don’t think, that our schools are trying to make us feel guilty. This is a statement you hear sometimes and I even made it myself but today I don’t think it’s true. The goal is only to prevent it from happening again. When demands for reparations gained a little traction in Poland and Greece there was a public outcry based on the supposed innocence of modern day Germans. So while some people who feel guilty might exist, they are definitely the minority. However I do agree that the topic is overrepresented in schools as well as in tv programs. Thats not because I think we shouldn’t talk about it as much but because I think we should talk about everything else more, the Nazi topic leaves not enough space for the rest of history imo. History was mandatory for us from 6th to 12th grade and I am not entirely convinced that everybody from my class knows what the Holy Roman Empire is or has any clue about the most important battles of our history, like the ones in the Teuteborg forrest, near Augsburg or the battle of the nations at Leipzig. I am not saying, that these should be taught with patriotic triumph, thats not my point. But they and their long term effects are important to appear in class in a dialectic way because without them Germany would be drastically different, if it exists at all. They are as much part of our roots as the Nazi times
As an Austrian with a similar curriculum I agree in that there is not enough space for the rest of history. I got into an argument with my German and History teachers, because for two years it was either about the Nazis or Nazi-metaphor books. Like nothing had happened in between 1945 and now that might explain the world today. I would not have liked to learn about battles, because nothing can be learned from that, unless you plan to become a military strategist, but there are many a lesson to be learned from other historical events too.
I think we should look at pride and patriotism to our pre ww histoy, so many great things happened in the last 2000 years, that it would be wrong to not teach in a proud way about them. Having nacional pride is also something positive, and it doesnt make people automaticly into rasissts or nazis. While it is true that we conciously dont feel guilty for ww2, but we still see it as bad to wave a german flag, or express any kind of pride about who we are or who we have been.
@@leonl9123 Yeah I mostly agree actually. I like to consider myself a moderate patriot if that makes sense. The German flag should definitely be raised more because otherwise we are risking to loose this symbol of unity and democracy to the extreme right, which is a shame because of what the flag actually stands for, it has nothing to do with the Nazis, in fact they hated it so much, that they immediately scrapped it. I am just not sure about teaching with pride. I think the goal in class should be that you know what happened and what that means for you not how you feel about it. If you develop a certain pride because of that thats fine and if you do not, than thats fine too, imo the schools shouldn’t force either of those feelings
@@BeWe1510 I don't say that we should teach pride over the second world War, but we should not ignore everything before it. If I would say that I am proud about Germanys history a lot of people would accuse me to be a nazi, because those few years are everything that people see when they think about German history. They don't think about how Germany ruled Europe for Centuries through the Holy Roman Empire, how german tribes defeated the Roman legions in Teutenburg or about the glory of the Prussian Empire. And that comes down to school. We learn how Germanys history was so terrible because of the 2 ww, and how we have to prevent history from reoccurring. And that's fine, would it not cover 80% of the curriculum. We did the first World War in 2 hours, just to spend countless hours on German war crimes in the second world War. Ignoring most important historical events for it.
@@leonl9123 Why should any of us be proud of that? Patriotism honestly just doesn't make any sense and is useless. I don't have anything to do with the outcome of any of the wars and battles that happened before I was even born. Feeling pride over that is ridiculous. If you said we should learn about stuff pre WW1 more because it still influences our country/is part of important general knowledge I would maybe agree (even though we do learn all that extensively anyway). But patriotism just isn't a good argument for anyone who didn't grow up with it and therefore doesn't know why they should feel it (in that sense it sometimes feels like religion - you're more likely to want to defend it and feel like you belong to that group if you learnt about it at a time where you didn't have any critical thinking.) (not that religion is wrong, you do you)
Hey! Just came across this video, I would be very interested to see a similar video regarding the Cyprus problem, being a Turkish Cypriot myself I have attempted to expose myself to both sides of the story but some of the "grey areas" would be interesting to hear.
We germans love videos from not germans about Germany because we can not really say something good about us. Its quiet a nice and good feeling watching some people arround the world say nice things about germans :)
I’ve heard generally Germans have alwys been very accepting and kind people so when the whole thing with nazis happened it was a bit of a surprise to many
I can write you something else: my Polish grandmother, when asked which occupation was worse? German or Soviet? Without thinking, she stated that the Soviet one: the Germans had rules, they were people, and the Soviets were the wilderness, animals. I feel sorry for you that you cannot be proud of heroes and war history. The blood on the flag stained the bravery. Everything then came from pride, hope and poverty. Today, it is a pity that you still treat others with contempt, although, for example, your attitude towards Russians is strange and incomprehensible. A friend of mine in 1994 died in an accident caused by the Neonazists, he was a Pole and a great actor. I feel best in Bavaria, there is not so much aversion to Poles there. Unfortunately I don't have the inscription on my forehead that I have half of my family German and brother fought against brother.
@@wa_demon__9156 bruh when "the whole thing with the Nazis" happened Germany was f*cked and already startet a world war a few years before so i guess that wasn't that surprising.
I live in Australia and we had a German exchange student when I was in school. She grew to be a close member of the family and we kept in contact. Subsiquently we went to visit her in Germany when she was in University. She said she had something she wanted to tell us and hoped it wouldn't cause us to change how we felt about her. She proceeded to tell us that her Grandfather had been an SS soldier and she was not only horrified but also ashamed. It had been something that was not talked about in the family and she'd only found out when he'd died. She is the sweetest, kindest person and we assured her that everyone makes their own decisions but that it would have also been incredibly difficult for her Grandfather during that time. For me it was profound at how genuinely apologetic she was for what her Grandfather had been a part of. She knew that as Aussies, we had relatives who had fought, and some died, fighting her countrywho were, in her eyes, clearly in the wrong.
Not being a Nazi was a dangerous stance in those days. Soldiers who opposed Nazis were systematically exterminated. A lot of Germans joined for survival reasons.
@@kichigan1 true. The father of my grandfather was against the regime, however they found out and sent him and his son to fight in first row. He sadly returned without the son, as he refused to use a weapon against the enemy.
Funny story: I'm German and went to a high school in Japan for a year. My world history teacher taught about WW2 at this time (we even watched Schindler's List during class) and asked me seriously, if we Germans view Hitler as bad or good. Smh
Comes down to what she actually meant/said. Did she mean all germans or parts of the population? Because we still do have quite a lot of nazis in Germany, which often are very open about their ideology and don‘t act "undercover"
Joey Simek There are many organizations that are extremely right and beyond that there are extremists/neo-nazis that aren’t in organizations. And probably many that will be in a few years. They don’t seem to decrease, so I think it‘s a serious issue. If nazism keeps being taken so lightly, history may repeat itself.
I live in the US state of Oklahoma and when I was in Oklahoma history I brought up the Tulsa race riots because my teacher skipped it in class and he pretty much told me to shutup quietly. I believe that no matter how bad or terrible the history is the school system should still teach it.
In California history, we group the period when it was Mexican territory part of the Spanish history part so we only got to learn about it for a week since we took so long on learning about the Missions. They group the explores into a whole unit but when it was Mexican territory into a small part of the Spanish history makes no sense.
Polish here, my history teacher didn't want me to talk about why there was Ukrain in Poland and if that has something to do with the Ukrainians being our enemys durring WW2....
@@danrook5757 so there was a thing known asblack Wall Street” in Tulsa which was attacked by whites and basically it got destroyed it’s not taught in a lot of cases but has gained a lot more attention over the years
"those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it" I know it's corny, but it really is important we learn from horrible things to know just what comes of needless prejudice.
My husband told me it was quite extensive, traumatic and to the point. Not sure about current times. He takes the subject very seriously as should we all.
@@TheKing60210 for some reason when I read your comment I read it as if it was a joke. Completely not funny considering... Made me laugh afterwards though
I’m from Florida and the teachers I have had most definitely changed the way I see United States history. In the past, things I had learned were glazed over and chalked up to mistakes anyone could make. The last two teachers I have had have shown me that though these were mistakes anyone could make, many of those people CHOSE to make those mistakes, thus making them responsible and needing to be held accountable for their actions. The shortcomings the United States and associated parties felt due to these individuals or groups were sometimes simply ignored for greater agendas pushed by more powerful individuals or groups who simply pushed things they themselves enjoyed on others. There was a major lack of empathy and compassion for other humans simply because of how hatred was bred towards others simply because of inner struggles that pushed this hatred outward on everyone. Overall, the teachers I have now completely allowed me to see that what went on in my country’s history was far worse than it was made out to be.
Sad to see how Germany, England, United States and a few other countries have just handed their countries over to foreigners nowadays without a shot being fired.
@@barnabasb1128 I've rethought it and see how the world has been set up for the end of time. Satan's little pawns want the NWO so that it can prepare for Satan himself to one day rule.
@@jonburrows2684 I wish there was something I could say to open your eyes. I see comments like this and I have even argued with a few of said commenters, and it seems like you are all walking around with you're eyes and ears closed. You see only your little slice of life, your perspective, and refuse to acknowledge anything else. Anyone who disagrees with you, is not only wrong, but not even worth listening to. Can you not at least acknowledge, that this kind of thinking is not conducive to learning and growing as a person?
@@jonburrows2684 The end has been around the corner since time has been recorded. As Steve pointed out, you will not receive anything. You believe you have everything figured out.
Yes that's quite accurate comparison. As a German you know what should be in the Video and you are curious if they get it right and how much you will see which isn't correct. I think it was a really good Video that paints a good picture of how it is taught here in Germany. The only thing i was missing was a mentioning of the film "Schindlers Liste". Everything else was definately there.
Kristie C well sorry but Uber is not a word. Only the Americanised version on an actual word. The word you mean is über and even that usually doesn’t comes close to the meaning Americans attribute to it 🤣
@@greyblue7400 Schindlers Liste came out just two years before I left school so it was too recent to be used as a teaching material, but I think today it would probably be in every history curriculum.
In the United States, though this was college, our professor, a really energetic Jewish lady from New York (she’d get so excited when talking about history and bounce around the lecture hall) didn’t sugar coat the concentration camps, murders, etc. she very emphatically discussed the atrocities. However, she did spend a good bit of time explaining why and how it happened, which IMO is the most important part of history. After world war 1 Germany was punished too harshly and the sanctions & fines too great. There was suffering and desperation among the German people and it became a breeding ground for a radical that promised change and prosperity. When Hitler came to power he stopped paying the fines and abiding by the sanctions and instantly had more money but because the rest of the world really didn’t want another war and were just starting to come out of the Great Depression (which affected most countries, just not all as bad as the US) they let it go and pretended they didn’t notice. He kept pushing and pushing and pushing the more he got the more he took (if you give a mouse a cookie) until the world had to respond. She said a lot of things could have made it different. The sanctions & penalties to have been more fair. Germany was made to pay back every country that fought against them when they were trying to rebuild themselves. It wasn’t possible. Had they had help rebuilding, they would have been less susceptible to allowing a radical come to power, had other countries intervened sooner or renegotiated it likely wouldn’t have escalated, etc. its important to understand the why of the past so it can be prevented in the future.
I think the German fine was so harsh because it was a fine that should’ve been paid by multiple countries, but the other two big ones (Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire) were completely dissolved and you can’t really fine new countries, so instead of making the fine just for German damages the Allies put the fines from the other two on the Germans as well. Also late into the war Germany really became the only Central Powers country with fight left in it so it became the obvious scapegoat for the war
@@handleonafridge6828 Not really. The Versailler Treaty was mainly written by France because they wanted revenge for the war of 1871. Thats also why they meet at Versailles.(Frances surrender in 1871 was there, too and the German Kaiserreich got formed in the process) France also "bullied" the German state several times in the following years (annexation of the Rheinland), because Germany was short of their payments. US president Wilson actually tried the opposite, because it was clear, that Germany couldnt account for that, but he died, before the treaty could be ratified. Britain didnt bother that much. They mainly had an eye on the Highseas Fleet. TLDR: It was like that, because France wanted revenge for the war of 1971.
There were a lot more factors at play for example germany was the only one to be blamed for ww1 which upset germans a lot or that many of the parties partaking in a democratic system were against that very system or that the reichspräsident held too much power or the great depression which caused over 1/3 of the population to become workless
@@sebi0037 As a french, this is pretty much true. Even at the time, the treaty was obviously criticized in France, even by people like royalists. (Yeah, they still exists.) Even George Lloyd, the British Prime Minister at the time, who first thought about giving heavy punishment to Germany kinda change his opinions after to not give France too much in a way to try to keep a balance of power. Amongst the critics the treaty received from some French people at the time, there was: -A lot of things demanded from Germany with, for most of it, no guarantee to receive it. -The treaty is humiliating to them, but do not break their unity, only promising new conflicts and hostility. And Jean Longuet thought that the conditions were too heavy, the redistributing of territories not really fair for some of them, and all of that was the birth of future new conflicts. He wanted a more democratic, socialist and liberal Europe. So yeah, a lot of people predicted that was not a great treaty, be it for more self centered reasons (no guarantee to receive the payment etc) or for a more peaceful reason, because they thought about future conflicts. And, they were basically both right. So yeah, pretty bad move from France, even without insight. Even if, at the time, most people probably couldn't imagine the scale of atrocities that would happened in WWII.
Thank you for this and thank you to the kind Germans who commented 😊 I had always wondered how the school system dealt with teaching about the “unpleasant” things that occurred during WWII. Did they gloss over it? Did they sugar coat it? Did they tweak it to make it not sound as bad as it was? Now my curiosity is satisfied and I’m glad that the Germans aren’t doing what the US does with certain “unpleasant” parts of our history. We just conveniently tweak what we don’t want kids to know (or they did when I was in school a long time ago) and I was clueless about what really happened until I had kids off my own and was in the internet. It goes to show something, though I’m not quite sure what that something is… 🤔
respectfully, you had an unfortunate education/history class. in almost every school i’ve seen, they’ve dedicated entire months at times about the effects of slavery and the socio-economical ramifications of it in modern society. not to mention if you took AP classes, you went more in depth about the specifics of slavery, the civil war, civil rights, manifest destiny, etc.. if anything, the US is extremely progressive with acknowledging past issues, especially regarding racism, although that might be a more modern trend
I'm from Germany and everyone I asked was on the same page with me: We, the new generation are not at fault for the crimes our ancestors did, but we are responsible for stopping history from repeating itself.
Some things to add, that I learned during my time in school: -a bit of Hitlers life before being the person he was in the end (so basically his rise as a polititian) -a general understanding of relationships between countries during the war (germanies allies, the pact with russia we abandoned when attacking them) -the whole situation with Japan and Pearl Harbour (how america got involved in the war, which basically created a war on two fronts for germany) -there's also alot of time spent talking about the fate of the jewish (during that time, we also visited an old concentration camp and the old facility that built the ovens for said camp) That all being said, I think you get really good, wide-spread education about the war in germany, despite the school system being pretty meh otherwise, but I digress
Are you from Germany? So I have a question (only because my curiosity) What do you think about reperations for Poland (one of the most destroyed countries during II WW)?
I hope you are concious that russians planned attack on you too, you were just faster. This fail turned for russians very well, they can now play victims
I got to visit a Japanese/any Asian concentration camp here in America. They were treated the same as the Jewish except without the gas chamber. I went to a old abandoned ghost mining town and a Chinese grave from the 1800's was dug up during ww2 and a plaque was there explaining why "even a dead gook can't be trusted" That just goes to show that America can also be that way. It's human fear, not hatred. They feared the Jewish. We feared the Japanese. It's bound to happen again. It's not like history hasn't repeated itself over and over before. People will fear people forever.
@@Leboobs22 I don't think the Germans at the time necessarily fear the Jewish people as much as how the culture clashed with German culture ideals. One of Hitler's biggest criticisms were around Usery. Which is a big reason why the Jewish people were kicked out of places around Europe and the world historically. Getting into banking practices that prey on the less fortunate by charging interest that makes it hard to repay. Then seize collateral for the loan and gain wealth through shady business practices. Today, we just accept that as the norm and don't talk about how detrimental it is for the world as a whole (debt,) but back then it was looked down heavily to do against your own culture. The Talmud encourages it as an us vs them tribal mentality, which encourages lying, swindling, and usery to gentiles. And that's wrong. Yes, there is a whole lot more to unpack, but this part is never talked about in the origins. Nor do I agree with how it was handled either.
Do they teach about Hitler's program killing disabled people just prior to the Holocaust happening? How he used them as a sort of pre-holucaust killing of disabled kids and adults? I feel a lot of people forget how he also killed disabled, LGBTQ people, people of color. Everyone knows about the Jewish people's horror they endured, but do they teach about the other people killed too?
I like it. I wish I could speak so well and really purely expressive using the most accurate terms possible. It does sound long-winded, but he isn’t hemming and hawing, um-ing, or wasting breath on points that aren’t important.
Very nice Video. Im German (19yr) and just finished school this summer. And i remember exactly when we had to go to a concentration camp in 9th grade. It is mandatory and even the people who were sick that day had to do this trip with the classes of the following year. We were all about 14-16yrs old. On the way to Dachau there was a lot of laughing and joking about the the time back then and what the people had to endure. I know that was very f'ed up, but you know how teenagers are. But just after arriving and standing at this huge open field where all these poor souls arrived too back then and seeing just how big the complex was, we all went silent pretty fast. Not because we were scared or anything like that, but because you can feel that very bad and frightening thinks happend here. Its a feeling i cant really describe to be honest. The tour was fascinating and our guide could literally answer every question we could think of. But we all had this depressing and ashamed feeling the whole time. We were ashamed and also kind of surprised/shocked that the n*zis did this to others. The first shock was then seeing how the people had to "live", crowed the whole time, sleeping in beds five at a time where one person could barely fit in. And even know i can still remember the smell of that place. But the most shocking thing was not seeing the gas chamber and listening to the guide explaining what these marks on the wall are (scratching of these poor panicking souls, realizing that they wont escape) no, it was the 20 minute video we saw. The End of the tour is always the cinema. There you will see a small documentation of the camp. From the building to the arriving of the first prisoners, the day by day humilation, the killing etc. and even videos of the freeing through the russians. You see the skinny people who are almost skeletons. You see how scared they are. No hope, no happiness. Its a depressing feeling seeing the last moments of people. Even after they were dead, they were not treated with dignity of any kind. Just thrown in a pit, burned to ashes. I can't imagine how its must have felt being inside one of these camps. I know this didn't make it sound like a fun tour for the whole family, because it isn't and it shouldn't be, but i still recommend it. If you ever are in poland or gemany, go and book a tour. It is a very humbling experience and i promise it will change you. Because on the bus ride home there wasn't a single person joking anymore and we were all pretty quiet and in our thoughts.
I am German and I know how it is taught in school. But I clocked on the video anyway, to see if he got it accurate...And I'm amazed how good he got it. So, great job, Simon! Keep going. Greetings from Germany
Same here, I was curious how good the video would reflect the reality and it is so accurate that I am surprised and impressed. Including the books we read in school about the subject.
We Germans are very direct. We can be stubborn as all hell but we can also admit when we fucked up. And in this case especially, Germany fucked up really badly. And that's exactly what they tell us in school. They teach us about this mainly when we are around age 15-16 and usually finish the topic of WWII by visiting a former concentration camp. For me it was Bergen-Belsen, the place where Anne Frank was killed. A guide will walk the class around and tell the story of how life was there, what the camp was about (since there were different "kinds") and what happened when soldiers came and freed the camps. With literal video footage. The stories are already a lot to listen to but there's something about being a 16 yo with nothing to worry about in life and being confronted with real footage of so many dead people who where killed right where you stand not that long ago. It really puts a need in your head to prevent that from ever happening again, you really push for that afterwards. So no, they for real don't sugar coat anything, they are very real with so you understand what happened, what went wrong and what you have to do to help that this won't happen ever again.
Oh yeah... The pictures, the videos, the piles of bones... This room where masses of people got gased and the big ass oven where they got burnt. These field trips had a diffrent vibe than the ones before. But I'm so glad I experienced it!
same here - visitted KZ Natzweiler-Struthof as a 17 yo kid and will never forget the pictures I saw there. Of course I was aware about the crimes that were committed during WW2 before that day but the whole atmosphere of the KZ really burned into my memory
Most people wouldn't think twice when they're shown a picture of Anne Frank literally posed in writing position for visual reinforcement. Break the conditioning
25 years ago my father was hosting two German former fighter pilots who were over for a VE Day 50 years of peace commemoration. I went over to help out as he spoke no German and they needed a break from trying to understand his accent. They were a delight to talk to but one of them told me that they felt very awkward about Germany's role in WW2. I looked at their sad faces and just said gently "Well, we couldn't have done it without you....!" which is a fact but it diffused the situation nicely and they both laughed out loud. My father wondered what on earth I had said to them, lol.
Wonderful answer! I remember my father, who became a soldier in 1943 at the age of 16 and became a p.o.w. at the end of the war weeks before he even turned 18, was split between the knowledge to have fought for the wrong side and the shame to have lost the war. And he'd been aware of this split even when the war was still raging. I always said to him that he should imagine they'd have won the war - and that it had been more patriotic to lose it. His mind could follow the argument, but his heart never really could embrace it.
@@wolfgangwalk337 Thankyou for your kind comment, Wolfgang. I am sad to think that your father never quite came to terms with what happened. His generation were often victims of the past. My late husband was a military historian so we encountered many stories and sadly your father was far from alone. You counselled him well. He had not had a choice at the time, especially at such a young age. I should perhaps have said that I was speaking to the former airmen in German so they felt able to talk more freely. Nobody around us knew what they were saying. They were brave men, and I told them so.
A great uncle of mine was in Germany when his squad was ambushed. Everybody was killed but him - he played dead. Being a German-American, he understood and spoke German, and realized they were debating whether to shoot the soldiers again, to make sure they were dead. They decided it would be a waste of ammunition. He lay there, playing dead, among the corpses of his brothers, until it grew dark. When he was sure he was alone, he got up, jumped in a nearby creek, and ran 2 or 3 miles back to American lines. He was never the same after that. I wonder if they teach stuff like that in Germany?
Its not a important thing to talk about. They teach us about the date were what happened in europe and asia and we talked about the concentration camps. Also we talked a little bit about the communism
@@saladasss2092 I mean there is a lot of difference even between teachers. Its my guess but I think hes talking about the things that need to be taught from the curriculum
when I went to university in the uk, a thing that I found interesting right away was when asked by the teacher who won ww2, a student put his hand up for approval to speak and then proudly replied "England!", I looked to the teacher expecting some sort of slight correction but he just said "correct!". that was the first time it really sank in that the history I had been learning in school is subjective, if only to a certain extent. my main point here being not that england didn't win the war, but that no one would ever answer "England" to that question (except for english people of course), seeing as the uk mostly was defensive and basically resisted until America stepped in and Germany turned against Russia. it would make much more sense to answer "America" or even "Russia", though the most correct answer would definitely be "the allies". that was the first time I realized each country teaches history slightly differently to glorify themselves
The lecturer was making a joke no professional academic in England would accept such an answer it's called irony and is particularly found in English humour.
@@johnmilligan6605 I guarantee you, there was no irony in that interaction from either of them. Keep in mind this was a film course, so not exactly the most prestigious or intellectual field
@@alxonpc9388 Gotta respectfully disagree. The western front weaponry was American. D-Day, which turned the tide of the war, was by far American. The war was of course an allied effort, and in terms of manpower, the Soviet Union sent 35 million, the U.S 16 million, and the British 8.5 million. Can't forget the incredible Canadians and Australians, both of whom contributed 1 million men.
As a british woman living in Bavaria,I will never forget the day my son came home and told me their school trip was to Dachau. I have since taken German citizenship.we and the world should never forget.
As a German who's parents both witnesses WWII as toddlers and who went through German education, this is quite accurate and it left me with a big difficulty to cope with people who make jokes about that time. I've met so many people who think it's funny to greet me saying "Heil Hitler" and I really can't laugh about it. I once met a group of Israelis abroad and they were so nice and friendly until they asked me where I come from and I suddenly became a pariah. I could understand them, but it felt weird, because I was born 30 years after the war had ended and had nothing to do with it, but was seen by them as a mass murderer.
Israeli Jew here, I don't hate you or view you as anything without knowing you, this group absolutely sounds like an outlier to the current norm, but I personally do believe that it is absolutely valid for Israelis and Jews to hate all Germans, there's nothing that could ever be done to make up for the atrocious actions your ancestors have committed, we will forgive you but we will never forget how Germans crippled our people, millions of people were murdered the Holocaust, and even more families were effected by this. Again let me clarify, most of us have forgiven the Germans and have no ill will or hate towards you, but we will never forget what happened.
@@maimonguy123 we will never forget either. In fact at school I was taught so much about it and ingrained a sense of responsibility for what happened that I didn't feel offended, just very uncomfortable. I understand why Israelis and Jews generally feel like that and respect it. It's just unpleasant to be treated that way for something you haven't done. But don't worry, we're taught to accept it. Interestingly the Greeks I've met are far more able to distinguish between the Turks who enslaved and murdered their ancestors for centuries and those who live today. It seems they are somehow willing to perceive a person as a fellow human being before categorising.
@@maimonguy123this take is terrible. What about all the german jews massacred by the Nazi regime and their ancestors. You understand hating them too? Absolutely ignorant.
@@maimonguy123No, I don't think it is valid as an israelian jew to hate germans. as a holocaust survivor, maybe, but even that would be a very irrational response since many of the nazi's victims were german. there were jewish people in germany, gay people, jehovas witnesses, political opponents, mentally or physically ill...there were german citizens. in fact, the first country the nazis invaded was their own. it would simply not be accurate to hate all people from a country simply because some people in there did horrible things even to each other. it is not your place or any other of the postwar generations to have any feelings towards german people due to the war since you were not alive back then. you might be related to a holocaust survivor, but you aren't one yourself. in fact, I would argue that holocaust survivors know better than anyone what senseless hatred against a demographic of people can lead to. it is not your place to forgive. also considering the recent events, it seems as if crippling people, tearing apart families and committing ethnic cleansing is something that all countries are capable of.
Another popular novel, which many german schools read is called “die Welle” (”the wave”), written by Morton Rue and published in 1981, which is based on a real experiment in an American high school. The novel deals with a teacher who forms a group made out of students called "die Welle”. He did this because the students of his class wondered how the Nazis became so popular and powerful back in the days and said that it couldn’t happen again, so he started this project to convince them otherwise. It started with the students doing activities as a group such as marching in the classroom and then they started to create a hand motion (they did a wave with their hands) to show their participation in this group. Everyone treated the same, even the outcast of the class made friends with the other students. And as the story goes on, the group becomes stronger and they kind of segregate the people who don’t take part in their activities. And at the end of the book the teacher realised, that it has gotten out of control and told the students that it was an experiment and that it was to show them that it can indeed happen again and the former outcast of the class was so devastated because things would go back to normal again, meaning he would loose his friends, that he shot himself in the head (in the movie at least, I can’t remember if he did it in the book as well).
I am just echoing what other fellow Germans said on here: Spot on depiction. I just wanted to add: Those parts that you mentioned as not being taught in school, like the battles and other military events are covered extensively by history and documentary channels. They are basicly the tv evergreens and have been rerun for years and years. If it's late at night and you're skipping through the tv channels you're almost guaranteed to end up at a documentary aboout WW2. I used to watch those a lot as a teenager during summer holidays.
I visited Germany for the first time last summer, and when I turned on the TV at my hotel, I kid you not, the first thing I saw was Hitler! This was sometime in the evening
@@waluigi3515 It’s a German Tradition to watch every Video about German things and after that to write a comment. As a German I also noticed that this got a meme for some Germans.
I have an amazing history teacher this year. He is making sure that not only do we get to know the history through texts, films, documentaries, photos, propaganda analysis etc, but that we also get a sense for those "politicians" as people. Showing photos that weren't intended to be seen by the public eye, talking about their upbringings etc. He is teaching us that especially Hitler wasn't some kind of special person, and that his entire public persona was precisely manufactured by using said propaganda. He was just a random guy with terrible views who managed to climb the ladder of politics and caused immesuarable pain and suffering. That his intelligence made him so much more terrifying. Anyone could try to do the same, and that it is our duty to make sure that we never, ever let anything like this happen again. My teacher puts all those public figures of the past into perspective so we get a feeling of how close this history is to us still.
I did a student exchange to Germany in high school, fucking loved it, loved the country, loved the people. Great experience, Germany is the shit. That being said, when we got to WW2 in class, it was definitely a sensitive topic, probably more so because there was an American in class. I got a feeling more of sorrow than anything else. Generally, they are ashamed of that period in their history, even though they and their parents had nothing to do with it.
@@Monkofthecaribbean agreed. Tbh as much as its honourable that germans are taught of their history to never repeat it again, it also sort of sounds like constant shaming for atrocities they didn't commit. To this day Japan still hasn't apologised for their atrocities, the US hasn't apologised for the atomic bombs, Russia for Stalins atrocities or even the British for their bombing of Dresden and famine in Bengal. I think the German people should give themselves a break and realise that nearly every other major power during WW2 committed similar atrocities, maybe not on the same scale but they weren't innocent.
Yeah, you should take a look at documentary from the war. You will see nobody with his arm up to salute Hitler !! Wir habben es nicht gewust !! We didn't know !!!That is what they all say !! Ofcourse there are good people in Germany, bud don't forget, they voted for Hitler. I am a Dutchman, and mine vader was a German. Sometimes mine mother made an joke ! Give them boots and a pistol, and they wil start again !
„They“ who voted for hitler are almost all dead now. I know no german who does not hate that part of our history and who is not deeply concerned that something like that could ever happen again. You seem to have a very narrow perspective that is build on 2/3 ppl only. There will always be delusional and horrible people. In every country, religion and political movement. But they are not the majority - at least i. Germany
@@euphoriaggaminghd hi, i do understand where you are coming from, but for me personally this does not mean anything about the education in Germany should be changed, quite contraty, is shows the necessity for every country to learn and teach about their history. Most important, about what went wrong and especially why it went wrong so every citizen has the best capabilty of recognizing certain behaviour and developments right away, to prevent things like genocide, slavery or just fascism from happening again. We call it "Erinnerungskultur" (commemerative culture), the Holocaust and dictatorship of the Nazi-Regime is something that left a mark and so it is our responsibility, as individuals but also as a society or country, to not only say "never again" but to be able to mean it. Being educated so well about what hate and horrible thoughts can cause is what makes nowadays Germany a mostly politically left-oriented country. I would wish for this to be normal everywhere. History is and always will be the best way to learn for now and the future.
As a German, I can confirm that this was accurate. However, I'd like to add that at first, the denazification was not all that successful. Shortly after the war and up until the 60s, the topic was not really talked about in families and former nazis still held more or less important positions, for examples as judges, in many places. The 1968 student movement is what put an end to nazism in Germany for good.
"The 1968 student movement is what put an end to nazism in Germany for good." There is still a lot of Nazism in Germany, as is witnessed by the continuing existence of a plethora of Neo-Nazi Groups, for example. Go to your Landratsamt or Einwohnermeldeamt and ask for their list of unacceptable organisations (that's if they're willing to hand it out). The last list I saw ran to 4 pages of A4 paper.
@@peterpoop7760 what I meant by "put an end to nazism for good" is that it put an end to the societal acceptance of nazism, I should have clarified that. It is evident that there are still many nazis, but as opposed to the situation that was up until the 60s, they are not accepted now and national pride is heavily frowned upon now.
@@charlotteice5704 national pride is by no means a bad thing, and it being frowned upon is nothing short of patethic. Being patriotic and proud of your country is the hallmark of a strong nation which is in many ways a requirement for civilization itself.
Funnily enough, as a Jew from Israel (though I now study in Germany) I can tell you that there is a particular similarity in the way it was dealt with in Israel, although from the other side: at least until the '60s, the holocaust wasn't talked about much in Israel. As far as I know, there were two main reasons for that: 1. Holocaust survivors who came to Israel after the war and wanted to share the stories of the atrocities they experienced often found out that Israeli-born people did not want to listen. Many of those born in Israel and raised with the mentality of "we shall determine our own fate" (by establishing a state of our own etc.) tended to view the holocaust as an event where European Jews were led "like sheep to the slaughter", i.e. led to their known death without putting up a fight. That's of course total nonsense (because they were guaranteed to lose their lives if they tried to resist), but that was the perception and attitude. I think that has started to in 1961 during Adolf Eichmann's trial, when many Israelis were first exposed to the personal horrors told by holocaust survivors who spoke as witnesses in the trial. 2. Holocaust survivors who came to Israel usually tried to build a new life, with a new family, and did not want to dig in their painful past.
@@ZiggyMercury Nice Comment. Did u ever hear of the christian embassy in Jerusalem? Its an organisation that unites mostly christians from all over the world, big part from germany too, in support of Israel. They also run a shelter for poor old holocaust survivors in haifa, where young germans come to help and work for one year as a part of healing those wounds that their nation caused the people that live there. It isnt anything i did myself sadly, but as a german i read this with a good feeling.
As a recent “high school” graduate in Germany, I can say that this is pretty accurate! But it’s also important to note that the goal of our graduation (Abitur), is to always think critically with ALL tools available to us. Thus we learn about WW2 in most classes such as; German, history, sociology, politics, economics, art and even tech/physics. The knowledge that we gain from each class is complimentary and creates a broader understanding and evaluation of events, whether it be WW2 or others.
The goal of abitur is to complete the brainwashing. Its not critical thinking what they learn, its thinking what teachers want us to think, and calling it critical
@@Rumo_Notna no it's not lmao. Everybody can do their own research and good students do that. But if the sources aren't good and trustworthy, it's probably bullshit. School usually offers the most common/most commonly agreed on sources because well, they're the most credited they could find. Other sources are of course taken into consideration, especially in the last 2-3 years (Oberstufe). Querdenkergeschwurbel and "alternative facts" are not legit sources though, that's probably why you never see shit like that in german schools
We hosted a German student during the 99-2000 school year, and during a discussion one night I was able to play a recording of part of one of Hitler’s speeches. The young man said he had never heard his voice before ( this was before UA-cam) and found what he was saying to be fascinating.
Kyle Shiflet very poorly. They put themselves out to be victims and completely omit the Nanjing massacre, the atrocities in Singapore and the Pacific islands, Burma etc etc. it’s staggeringly one sided.
@SaphiraSeraphina Finished school 2002 in Berlin. We had never anything about WW2 in German classes. We just read poems most of time in the later classes. I just checked the framework for all classes in Berlin (for foreigners: Berlin is a citystate and education is a responsibility of the states, not the federal goverment in Germany). www.berlin.de/sen/bildung/unterricht/faecher-rahmenlehrplaene/rahmenlehrplaene/rlp-kompakt-1-10.pdf The framework dont specify what you can read in German classes, but the objective is about reading and argueing about it, not the content itself. In history classes its get really interesting imho. There are two base modules for the classes 9/10: "Democracy and Dictatorship" and "The cold war: A bipolar world and Germany since 1945". The first module includes WW1, Weimarer Republik, WW2 and NS-Ideology. Thats quite a lot for just one module compared to cold war. But thats just a framework. It depends on school and teacher how much it/he or she wants to teach of which topic. PS: I never was in Religious education. Until my 9th grade i didnt even know such classes exists ;)
@@sleepingcity85 Without trying to be rude this might be connected to the fact that you went to school in Berlin, I'm sure that you as a fellow German know that schools, or better said the Abitur is statistically easier in Brandenburg or Berlin than in other states like NRW or Bavaria. I myself live in Düsseldorf and can only agree with all other comments and am quite surprised of your experience being so different, especially when Berlin is the city which was effected the most.
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After watching this it, now has me curious about how colonial countries/states taught history during colonialism and after said country/state change how they teach their country/state's history.
Very interesting I've wondered what it was like and you gave great insight to that cause well here in America I feel it's very opposite we always portray ourselves as the great victor who stops all tyranny goin on
As an American though I don't agree while our involvement in many a conflict has most likely stopped many a horrible thing from continuing i think all global powers need to really get together to make the world a much better place no one is better than anyone else we all bleed red and we all need to come together to make the short time we currently have to make things great for the ones to come and tbh we've done a terrible job
Bring peace to all you encounter and share in the joy that is real humanity
"Plethora" means an overabundance or "too much." You probably would be better off using the word "myriad," even though the original definition of "plethora" has been diluted over the years. You have the power to stop the dilution and maintain the different meaning of the two words!
History, no matter how bad, should never be brushed under the carpet or changed. We can not change history. How are we supposed to learn from our mistakes otherwise? I wish the left would realise this.
I have a question for a video... how/why did 'The Nutcracker Suite' by Tchaikovsky come to be so closely associated with Christmas?
I went through the german school system and i can say, this is quite accurate. I do however disagree a bit on the "original sin" point. We were never told that what happened is in any way our fault or even really related to us. What was strongly implied however was that it is our "duty" to make sure nothing like that ever happens again.
True. There was no talk of sin at all, rather of resposibility. The responsibility of our teachers to inform us about what had happened and by extension not allowing for this history to be forgotten, aswell as our collective resposibility not repeat what our ancestors did.
Yeah, its not "our fault" , its always "our responsibility"
When did you attend school? I went from 1980-93, and back then, they still made us feel a little guilty about the Nazi-regime. It was also often used in politics, by other countries trying to get Germany to make concessions by pulling the Nazi card... Attitudes changed a lot after the reunification, I think.
@@lenkacfk7155 i finished in 2016 (i think lol) and i didnt really feel like they were trying to guilt trip us. Might have been different back then.
@@Wufgang yeah today the schools also focus a little more on what the germans went through before the nazis. it's no surprise to me, that they wanted revenge and domination.
As a German who went trough the German school system, I can say: The video is quite on point, well done.
At what age do you start to learn about that part of history?
9 - Age 14/15 is holocaust. i think the whole timeperiod including ww1 is starting 8th(maybe 7) class. but in the 9th class you mostly only have WW2 in historyclass
@@LadyNikitaShark if I remember correctly, I was 13 when the NS regime was first thought in school.
Should be grade 7 or 8. Many schools will do trips to concentration camps when the students are older
@@LadyNikitaShark As this is rather recent history its taught later in school - for me (Realschule) around the age of 15. It's not just history class though we also read books in German lessons (my German teacher was also my histrory teacher so I am not sure how universal this is :_))
@@LadyNikitaShark as soon as we learned reading, we red a book about it elementary school. I think it was 2nd or 3rd grade. The book is called Damals war es Friedrich. It's a book about two boys growing up in Nazi Germany, one being a jew.
As a german who is currently in 10th grade I can say that we don’t talk about the World Wars only in History class but in several different classes on different levels
Even though the history class is probably the class which makes the damage done by the nazis extremely visible. Next on my list would be German but that probably depends on the book you read
@@minerskills in our school it’s actually religious education
I'm German as well and I can totally agree. Of course, it was a very important topic in history class, but we also discussed it in German, Politics, Music, Religion and French class
You gonna learn about it more in your Abitur
Same but Im in 8th Grade
I can say that we had a whole hour talk about the mustached man in economics it is pretty weird but hey at least we’re discussing it and we will learn about it in 9th Grade I believe 🤷🏻♂️
Crazy to think that I hated sitting through lectures like this in school, but as an adult when I actually WANT to learn things, it's the most fascinating thing on the planet.
Its more like its fun to learn on our own terms and not being forced to by an education system
THATS WHAT IM SAYING
As a freshman nah UA-cam just makes it better becuase you are not forced to do it it’s hard to explain and I love learning about history and etc also we get to choose what to learn about not have a schedule for when and how
Most schools do a very poor job and making information engaging
@@fruitlandgrizzly 📠
This could be a whole series. How Do British Schools Teach Colonialism? Or the Westward expansion or slavery in the US? Stalinism in Russia? WWII in Japan? Etc. etc.
British schools barely cover colonialism
Here from the U.K. We basically just learn about it how it is. Well as far as I know
US would be hard to say, because states have varying curriculum standards
Slavery in the US is grazed over. There is talk of abolitionists and certain figures are glorified for their acts of racial heroism: Harriet Tubman, Abe Lincoln, etc. But the overall atrocities are nowhere near as in depth as when we get to the Halocaust. Teacher showed pictures of piles of bodies at a Nazi camp. I think that it is much easier for most parties to point out other groups mistakes in a sense to lighten the burden of their own misdeeds, but idk. Another interesting thing, I'm from Los Angeles. I would love to know how things like the civil war, which tore the country and families apart, differ in teachings.
Product of a British education here. I remember being taught about the British Empire but it was part of a wider topic of European Colonialism, including Spain and Portugal etc. However this might even have been later in school after most students had given up studying history. I took history up to age 18 and we never studied US history - the American War for Independence and the American Civil War for example. I was always aware of those events but most of what I knew came from American TV (the Simpsons is a big one), films and some video games like Assassin's Creed 3. I don't think it's considered very important in forming the UK into the place that it is today.
I am a German History teacher and I focus on two things mainly: a) the events and flaws which led to Hitler's chancellorship and how he managed to turn a democracy into a dictatorship (to make them aware of the dangers democracy may face in the future) and b) the Holocaust (how ordinary people could turn into heartless killers)
@MR.random57 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤪🤪🤪
Do you also teach kids about the Communist Party and who were its leaders after the WWI ? Is it allowed to talk about the German citizens from Danzig and how Polish administration threaten them with cutting all ways of traveling on Polish soil to and from Germany ? Is there any chapter dedicated to ethnic Germans from Czechoslovakia , from the Sudeten Mountains , who were humiliated and beaten on the streets just because they were Germans ? I hope you do not . It is impossible to explain WW2 without explaining how in the WW1 German people had to fight and die in another war of another country who inslaved surrounding nations for hundreds of years , another German country that created its own empire and did not take responsibility for its own actions . I cannot find a purpose or a way how to tell kids that after WW1 all Europe hated ethnic Germans because of Austria . How to tell kids that Germany was punished severely after the WW1 instead of Austria and the communists took advantage of the situation creating more instability ? Kids do not care about politics . WW1 and WW2 are like a football game , you cannot talk only about the second half , better remove this chapter completely from the books than lying about it .
@@gigirigips Do you mean the communist leaders Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht who were both killed by conservative secret service members in Germany? Tells us a lot about the democratic attitude of the Conservatives, doesn`t it? 😉🤣🤣
@@MrMielten Yep ! Apparently both possibilities were bad . The thing is all Europe had national parties at the time and the only multiethnic party was the Communist Party . What is a national party ? It is a party made entirely out of citizens that are ethnics of that country and could not accept members that do not meet this criteria . Considering the social and economical conditions in Germany after the Great War , with the national pride shaken , it was easy for any national party to rise into power . So , why the Nationalsozialistiche Deutsche Arbeiterpartei ? Easy ! Because the other national parties did nothing for social security or to improve life in Germany a little bit at least and the only active party was the Communist Party . Well , in that time in Germany lived a lot of other non-Germans and they were part of society too , but they had no party to get in or to represent them , so the only option for them was the Communist Party . From this point it is easy to understand why most of the communist leaders were Jews and how this thing was exploited by the Nazis turning slowly the propaganda against communism into propaganda against its leaders and because most of the audience was hungry and angry and looking for someone to blame for losing the war and for all that came after , people just associated the danger of communism with the "foreigners" and put all the evil in behalf of communist leaders and later extended the hate to all Jews , communists or not . When the mind is blinded by hatred mixed with false pride and hunger and it is very likely to overreact and take the wrong decisions . All this chain of awful events that happened to Germany was triggered by Austria in 1914 when Franz Ferdinand was killed and culminated with the split of Germany during the Cold War .
@@gigirigips *enslaved
Acknowledging ones mistake is infinitely more honourable and glorious, than trying to bury them or lie about them.
Wish half of America understood this
I live in Lithuania, country, which was occupied in WW2 by RUSSIANS first (pact between Molotov and Ribentrop) and then Germans. I won’t go into the details of soviet education or rather indoctrination based on lies - our parents and grandparents worked hard to persuade us, kids that what we hear at schools are shameful lies.
My impression of grandparents thoughts was that they thought Germans were rather saviors than true occupants. My parents didn’t think Germans were bad because of ADolf Hitler, because Stalin was ten times worse. The rest of the world still doesn’t know how many people have been killed by soviets. The soviets themselves did not bother to count.
That leaves us with the present day. As Lithuanian, I always respected Germany and germans, I liked their country and culture. Unfortunately, I see the souls of german people are crippled: they are not proud of their country and history. I recognize indoctrination when I see it. Maybe german people themselves do not feel like been castrated, their national pride removed, but I know Merkel would never happen if majority of German population would not feel certain way. I saw here removing national flag, I saw her making crime if bringing millions of immigrants to Germany, I saw her lying to her people. What I fear is that Germans will have to flee their own country. We will shelter them, of course, but it makes me mad how country can be lost without a war, without much of resistance. Socialism/feminism is a cancer. I wonder whether it can be stopped before destruction of this civilization.
Kyle Gibbs all of America*
@@ramsa01Yt The second wave feminism was the good one. This current wave is rather messed up. It was created originally to help women gain the rights they deserve. The ones who put everyone else down are just assholes. The feminists who acknowledges the problems men face, along with LGBT+ people, etc. So the thing itself should never be stopped. It's the third toxic wave which needs to be stopped.
*Cough cough* japan
I'm Polish, and I visited Auschwitz a couple of times (it's located within the Polish borders). I was very happy to see many German tourists there! They were very respectful and kind.
girl your eyes are beautiful ❤
Considering recent events, I feel like Jana aus Kassel wasn't taught about Sophie Scholl and WWII properly
🤣🤣🤣💀💀💀
If youre wondering who the hell Jana aus Kassel is, she is a girl/young woman who compared herself to Anne Frank because of the Corona Lockdown. All whilst participating in a completely legal demonstration and trying to hold a speech against said Lockdown.
Needless to say, she is being mocked quite a bit.
@@darnoc4470 as someone from Kassel, i would be pretty happy, if i would see positive headlines some time in the future. But maybe this city is just to messed up xD
@@darnoc4470 sorry to correct you. But she said she related to Sophie Scholl, the woman mentioned in the video as well. Though an 11year old girl stated before at a similar event, that she feels like Anne Frank. The Anne Frank thing was “popular” to relate at the start of the pandemic online, not just Germany but general, I believe.
@@duchessred5426 Damn, mixed that up, thanks for correcting!
You should do one called "How Do Japanese Schools Teach About WWII?" You'll find it's very, very different. And that's putting it gently.
I have a couple friends from Japan. They were never taught about WW2. When they moved to the US they were surprised we were once at war with them.
Unit 731
They don't
The US send big sun bomb
Fair enough even we in Germany basically skip over all of the 'oh and there were allies and we called ourselves axis powers' part. I only learned about that because our teacher had a Japanese wife and then when I changed the school a year later (in history class we now learn about the aftermath) my new history teacher basically fell from his seat when I asked "and what happened to Japan??" Turns out some history teachers don't even know...
We don’t just talk about WWII in history class. We talk about it in german class, in geography class, in philosophy class and others as well. And we talk about it with out grand- and great grandparents. We don’t allow us to forget because democracy is incredibly fragile.
plus countless documentaries and related movies all throughout the year on TV and memorials for the victims of the holocaust in most every town and city
We don't talk nearly enough about all the N@zis who were still employees of the state after the so-called de-n@zification, though.
GDR im a joke to you ?
We even talked about it in maths
Do you talk about firebombing of your cities or mass murder and rapes by Soviet soldiers
I visited Dachau concentration camp once and a school party was there. The teacher was describing in detail what happened there. Some kids were visibly shocked and one was crying. The teacher didn't try to comfort than. She let the horror of the place sink in. You can guarantee that those kids will never forget what they learnt that day!
in the usa we were shown movies documentairies, about the concentration camps. i remember it , and we all learned what we will not allow to happen here either. but it is sometimes falsley described , so it must be done truthfully . we saw a lot of stacked up corpses etc and other horrible things. It was so scarey . " Night and Fog"
@@theCosmicQueen same. American schools did a good job of drilling the horrors of nazi camps.
I'm an American who visited back in 2008 and to this day, it was one of the most humbling things in my life
There is still a smell when you are there that unless you have been you can't understand.
@theCosmicQueen it's crazy to think it can't happen here when we literally did that to the japs at the time
Dachau is an disgusting propaganda invented by England and USA to guilty the German people, all victims there were dead German soldiers and people showed as Jews to brainwashing all other European people
German here: just fnished school. Quite accurate but I would say that I personally have never felt responsible for those atrocities rather it‘s a sense of responsibility to not let something like this happen again that I gained from those classes, which is way more important and more constructive imho. Also please visit a memorial concentration camp if you ever get the chance to. It‘s terrible and really gruesome but it really let‘s you see and feel the horrible things that were done and empathize with the victims. A museum about the Holocaust or WWII in General can be a similar experience if it‘s done well. (There‘s one in Berlin which really made me cry)
I'm British and I agree. I don't believe that the Germans of today should be held responsible for what happened 75 years ago. This was an interesting video. And it's interesting to read a comment from a German person on the subject 👍
it is the grim silence of walking around a holocaust memorial that makes one realise the horrors of the nazi regime. in my opinion everyone around the world should see it and realise what hate can do. And not just hate but ignorance as well.
for we should never forget: its not just the nazis who practized genozid and caused horror among the people. in fact it is still happening today around the globe. and it makes me furious and desperate. totaliterian regimes are on the rise again, but what can we do to stop it? how can we prevent or at least end it?
we can at least question our governments decisions and our own prejudices and fears. speak openly about racism, talk to new people, hear new opinions, engage in politics and always know:
there ist no 'them and us', we are ALL part of the human race.
thanks for reading through it all. greetings from germany.
As well you shouldnt that's like saying as an American I should feel responsible for slavery. You can be taught to have disdain for the actions committed by our ancestors without the guilt
True you should not feel responsible or guilty at all! Even if you had family that were Nazis. You have no control over any of that. Learn from the past and live so it never happens again.
No German need to apologize to me. And no German should apologize for WW2, none of them needs to pay for the madman on the leadership.
Also the movie “Die Welle” (The Wave) is commonly shown in school. It’s a movie about a teacher who tries to show his students, that even now they might be more accepting of Nazi tactics than they like to think.
Oh I remember, my school actually performed a play of this book and we read it in class, for me it was even before we started talking about ww2
By the way: The book bases on a true story from a teacher in die US who made this experiment with his students because they thought that this couldn't happen again and he wants to proof them otherwise. When the experiment went terrible wrong he was getting arrested.
In the original book there's an interview with this teacher when he was in prison.
F*cking good movie.
There are more than one movie called the wave.
We actually also read the book in german class and also watched the movie. It still gives me the chills how all of this could just happen all over again...
Having visited Germany in 2016, as part of a exchange programme... they wear their history on their sleeve. They are not proud of it, but they will not deny it. One of the German students I spoke to told me how they must always strive to ensure they never go back to that. They are truly committed to being fantastic people.
Wish I had kept contact with my host family, I'd like to make more German friends.
Of course they won’t deny it wtf 😂 damn near everyone knows about wwII , if they were to deny it they’d look like hypocrites maybe like sympathizers any smart German would definitely not deny it
@@myron8676 And Japan should probably take queues from Germany on that front
@@myron8676 as much as this angers and enrages me there are Americans who dont believe that the Holocaust happened...WW2 hurts their feelings and it scares me so much as personally i love history and my kids WILL know the real history when i feel like theyll comprehend it. I dont know if by then they will even teach it in schools here at least what really happened because this can never happen again
@@myron8676 the US, particularly the south, has been denying our racist past for the last couple centuries...don't think people won't deny it.
@@JoeMcknart69 don't understand what their problem is about accepting and moving on and trying to be better. Don't understand why they wouldn't actually deny something like that and makes no sense to me. Unless they figured denial makes the shame go away. And yet it doesn't
I am an American and lived in West Germany in the early eighties. One day myself, my German friend and his wife went to a Gasthaus (neighborhood bar) for a few beers. One old man at the bar was drunk and started talking loud. The only thing I caught was "Mein Furher". Without saying a word, the bartender came around from the bar, grabbed the man by his shirt collar and belt and literally threw him thru the front door onto the sidewalk. My friend told me that the old man was spouting off about how he had been an SS officer in WWII and that "Mein Furher" was right in trying to exterminate the Jews. Then my friend said, "That piece of shit is lucky the bartender didn't put him in the hospital"
jesus.... that is some story, to think that it was just 80 years ago when those atrocities were committed... wish the bartender beat the shit out of that scumbag
Damn how old man like that who thinks Hitler did great things was still free to walk in the 1980s? He was maybe in his 20s or 30s in WW2 and was still pissed that Germany lost WW2.
Holy cow what a story!
I'd do the same and I'm not even German.
Or called the cops. Pretty sure you can go to jail for that. Not sure how much far right shit you have to do till it comes to that though
Now we just need to get japan to do something similar. They don’t even acknowledge their atrocities
Japan: What attrocities???
@Alex Reinheart Allied Forces: what attrocities?
@@jeffthevomitguy1178 i don't know of atrocities we committed in world war 2, but we certaily aren't facing the unrelated atrocities we are still commiting to this day with respect to racial hate, injustice (concentration camps for immigrant children) and the genocide and desecration kf religious sites of the native people's who mostly still live in opressive poverty, on land we forced them to, and to this day are still victims of genocide in the form of cultural destruction and unknowing/uneilling sterilization.
Fr they tortured and experimented on Chinese prisoners
I think they know about their ww2 history but the fact that Hiroshima and Nagasaki we're nuked down let them deal with it in a whataboutism way.
So much respect to Germany for owning up and acknowledging their country’s dark days. Takes a lot of courage to take ownership of something like that, but the Germans do it with such grace. Hats off to you Germany!!
I agree! For me Germany and Japan are two countries I respect probably the most in the world! Don't know even why...maybe because they are very hard working people.
@@povilas007 kinda funny that you agree to his comment and say you respect japan in the sentence after that.
(I mean, it's ok because they are working f*cking hard but...)
@@martinfranzer2254 I always pair them together ;)
Povilas D well japan haven’t ever owned up or apologised the way the honourable krouts do.
Infact a Japanese embassy once complained that a memorial to comfort women offended them. I think it was in s.korea or the phillipines or something.
@Jacob yt
What? WHAT?
A forgeiner telling A German what is ok and what isnt? When ? If i Remember correct Germany told Greece what to do Not the other Way around. And most of the Immigrants that live in Germany are either from EU or Turkey meaning that they came to Work for Germans Not to make Germans Work for them.
And what Communist Take over?
In Germany there is a saying:
"If you arent a Communist or a socialist at 20 You have no heart..
If you are still a Communist at 30 You have no brain."
Most Germans are old and hate Communism so who exactly wants Communism in Germany ?The young? Once they Turn 30 at the age where they are finaly a full member of the productivity of Germany they nologer want Communism.
And Nobody denies in Germany what the ALLIES did. Rape, Deportation, theft ( mostly by UDSSR but a few Americans and English did it too) but they pale in comparison to Killing 6 000 000 Jews, Killing 20 000 000 Russians and Killing POW.
Germans know what happend at Königsberg so what exacly are you talking about?
Simon: “Curiosity stream is available world wide.” North Korea: “bet.”
Plot twist: kim jon un actually aproves👌
Nick Moos north korea and china***
South Korea: "We had great reception here." Got your super-fast wide band internet yet? 5k yours, 50k ours. I was there just last year.
@@jesuschrist2612 Ah yes, the grumpy hippo and the yellow, honey-eating bear.
😂😂😂😂😂😂
I really admire that they do teach history that way in Germany. It's a very valuable lesson, and it reminds me of a quote, "those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them".
The teaching about Nazis and their crimes is not supposed to make you feel guilty, but to make you feel responsible to never let such things ever happen again. There are right wings in germany who call this history a "memorial of shame" and want to change the way we look at our past, but I feel proud for the way we get teached history considering how history is teached in other places.
Well it is kind of a memorial of shame. The fact that they let this happen back in the day. But it should also serve as a memory to not let this happen again and that's what the average citizen is telling people to not let this happen again that reminds them to never let that type of brutality enter their country again and I agree with that no country should be that way at all
The Germans suffered enough in the aftermath. Fascism, as with all forms of authoritarian socialism, must be guarded against, and never should it's Marxist roots be forgotten. The participation of the Soviets against the fascists, and so their position as victors, allowed them and their trash ideology to slip through the cracks and infiltrate the West with relatively little resistance, in part because of the disingenuous presentation of Marxism as somehow diametrically opposite to fascism; it is certainly not. Fascism is gone. Marxism is an ongoing and vile threat, however.
Not being mean just trying to help based on the assumption that English is a second language (it’s my first and I still make mistakes). The past tense of teach is taught.
@@doubtshadow1 fascism is very much NOT socialism💀 fascism is far right authoritarian ultranationalism.
Fascism opposes marxist/socialist ideologies completely.
Someone did u wrong in your edu there bud...
@@bradjohns6442 I wanted to correct OP too but I didn’t know how to correct them without unintentionally sounding rude. Glad you did it whilst sounding nice lol!
Me: Is going to a school in Germany.
Also me: I wOnDeR hOw WwIl iS tEaChEd In GeRmAnY
Taught*
Ah yes Teached!
Taught
Welche Klasse bist du ? Ww2 kommt ab der 9ten
Same
As a Dutch person, I have always wondered why our eastern neighbours are so conscious about their history. After seeing this video and reading the comments, everything makes sense now.
Germans are I think one of the most polite folks of Europe nowadays. They have truely built an amazing nation which I have had the pleasure of spending a couple of holidays in.
Viel Liebe einer Ihrer westlichen Nachbarn.
thank you so much! Thats soooo cute und viel liebe zurück
Hey from germany. Its nice that you find us nice. Same goes Back to you. Dutch people are so lovely
Hey, thats very nice to hear as a german. But believe me, Germany have a lot of political problems too. Not as much as the USA or even authoratic states, like Russia and China, but we have worrying right wing parties and stupid people, who call themselves "Querdenker" or people, who deny the climate change. This parties and people call the democracy in Question and are a very serious danger for our Country. But still I agree, we have mostly very good history lessons and this is something we can proud of.
Wenn sie das deutsche Volk so betrachten, waren sie sicherlich noch nicht auf Mallorca.
Germans....."....polite...." ....haha....that might be you ........both mine and others has several experiences with Germans being mind blowing rude/aggressive, including being physical violent..... Personally I found it a relief to get across the border into the Netherlands. I know people who travelled to Germany to attend a science conference..... They were never able to get to that conference, but left Germany immediately.... ...a country which they will never visit again......guess why.... There are certainly good and friendly people also, but there are to many in that country with to much arrogance and aggressive genes.... I have been in a lot of other countries but never experienced something like the German style....
As a German in ninth grade i can say this is spot on. I actually visited the former Concentration Camp Memorial in Dachau just a Month ago and it was the most desolate place i have ever been to.
The best word i have to describe the feeling in there is hopelessness all around you. You feel like you have no rights, no dignity whatsoever. It is something everyone should do at least once to prevent anything like this from ever happening again.
This feeling of hoplessnes i felt to. Like a creeping fog, judging your every move.
I am German and I can still remember 2 years ago, we visited the concentration camp dachau in 10th grade. You just felt so uncomfortable standing in that wide gravel field and the enormous tree lined pathways, knowing that thousands had to suffer through the worst thing imaginable day in and day out.
my class did that aswell we where 15 and honestly we could not take it serious at that age also there where like 5 germans in the class the rest where turkish and russian kids so we joked a lot about the nazi times all in all nobody cared exept for the teacher we wanted to see guns and all the cool stuff but today i can reflect back to that moments and can remember what i saw so it served its purpose even tho half of the class was drunk like on almost every school trip
Do you feel the same way walking in cities that were bombed into complete destruction? If not, you've been emotionally manipulated
@@seppshlllearningcenter419 im just not attached to it i mean yeah that people had a really bad time but that does not make me feel bad i was not there so i dont feel the pain. I also have enough things to worry about in my own life so if i would get sad by something like that i might aswell get myself into an mental asylum
@@seppshlllearningcenter419 I did feel bad when I walked through Dresden for all the people that died during bombing but it's completely different than visiting a concentration camp. Like srsly, those places were literaly factories made for killing people as efectively as possible, that's the most inhumane thing ever.
@@seppshlllearningcenter419 I still do when I walk through Berlin. Because of WW2 and the iprisonment and spying on of innocent people in the DDR.
"How do German schools teach about WWII?"
Me, a German: Interesting question, let's find out
When you forgot everything you learnt in school so we have to watch this video
I mostly remember that we were though about the cold war and the differences between east and west germany etc
Idk what exactly we learned about the wars
But I remember that almost every student teached himself something so everyone could say something
Same
Unser Lehrer hat jahrelang nur WW2 durchgenommen und ich konnte es irgendwann nicht mehr hören :/
Same xD
@@000CherryBlossom000 ich musste zweimal durch. Einmal in der Mittelstufe und einmal in der Oberstufe
I think the reason why germans click on every video that has "germany" in its title is because we are always curious how people from other countries view Germany....
Also, could just be me but I think because people don't really talk much about us, except they talk about the world wars or something big is happening in Europe so that our government has to give out a statement. So it's a nice change of pace when people talk about us and it's something different for once.
Don't worry, french people do the same
Same with Indians bro
Yeah I was asking myself the same question. I often catch myself watching vids that portray Germany in a good light for once, so maybe thats also a reason, idk...
In England we think Germany is a pretty great place. I love your language.
German student here! I’m in my last year of school rn and graduate next week. When we talked about WW2 in history class this year there was one history lesson where our teacher put on a documentary about the holocaust. Of course all of us already knew of the events in detail from reading about it in class not only this year but in previous school years as well so I thought the documentary probably wouldn’t be all that shocking to me. I was wrong however. Before starting the video our teacher told us that we were allowed to leave the classroom if we needed a moment, as the documentary was quite graphic. The documentary showed the aftermath of the mass genocides in concentration camps. Mountains of dead, naked, starved bodies being thrown into huge graves like they were dolls or something. Videos of mass shootings not only of adults but children as well. Lifeless bodies laying in the streets of the Ghettos.
It was beyond shocking and horrifying to see, I couldn’t help but cry. You can read about it all you want but I don’t think it fully clicked in my head before that those things actually happened, that those lifeless bodies had minds and souls once, it suddenly all became real.
Yeah I think it’s safe to say that I will never forget or underestimate the gravity of the crimes against humanity committed by germans in the NS time.
Do you happen to know the name of the documentary?
There is also a soviet movie called "come and see", highly recommended, graphic AF
Heul leise
I’d love to see a video on How do Japanese Schools teach WWII. You’ll be amazed.
There's nothing wrong with how it is done here. If you want to feel guilty fine lol
Joo dee: there was no massacre in Nanjing
@@ExtraVictory so... no problem with historical revisionism or the mistakes of the japanesse educational system when teaching WW2... right.
@@ExtraVictory mate, Japan completely ignore their dirty hands against of East Asia. This is why there is still some Japanese student that didn't know they do a genocide to this day against ton of countries
Japan approach:
-Rape Nanking way too hard
-Loose WWII even harder with 2 atomic bombs
-Play victim
I taught History in Hamburg, Germany from 1972 thru 1979. Believe me, those.kids got the whole story. Parents were upset and complained, but the school.backed me up and the whole story came out a number of times, school.grade by school grade.
I agree those kids need to know that shit happend there all of that torture those peoples were expirienceing it isnt humane
JEWISH OPINION BTW
@@LaVilder should it be something special cause its a "jewish opinion"?
Do you guys teach all your history? Because in Canada we teach about all the horrible things we did to native Americans but I have never heard about what we did to Asians. I only learned about the atrocities we committed against asians through my mother. It’s like focusing on the Holocaust, but only The Holocaust and nothing else.
Frankly, I thought it was to much / to often. At one point I just stopped caring about WW2 at all because every school year there were month' of history class dedicated to WW2 and I just thought "I got it, it was bad and the Nazis were bad, I get it, you don't have to repeat it for the 100th time".
What do you mean by “the whole story “?
Very interesting. Will you be covering post-WWII Japanese education? I would be interested to learn of it in this format.
As far as I can tell they think the war was a 'mistake' and otherwise avoid dealing with it. Mistake does not seem to be much of an admission that it was wrong. But I don't even live there. Its just what I have read about it, and that was not much.
I would be interested in this as well. Same thing for Russia/Soviet Union/former countries that were a part of the Warsaw pact.
I second that motion
That would be interesting to know.
Blow up these comments with likes. I wanna see these videos happen. Particularly the ones about Japan and the USSR.
I went through the German school system and I can’t believe how accurately you described it 🙌 Great video!
I'm a German who spent a year in America, going to High School. When I found out that the pledge of allegiance was a thing it made me feel extremely uncomfortable and despite some teachers' outrage, I refused to participate. Took me a little while to understand just why I found the POA as well as the national anthem being sung at assemblies so unsettling. Many years later now, I do. And this video makes quite the point for it. I wish this existed in 2012 so I could have shown it to all my teachers who gave me dirty looks for not standing and saluting a flag.
Huh. I wonder if they had expected an American student abroad to salute a foreign flag and pledge allegiance to that country...
@@Quallenkrauler Can't speak for other countries but in Germany that surely would not happen :'D
I mean, germans are patriotic, we just arent as loud about it. Its quiet, behind closed doors and never accompanied with some song or flag, just a few sentences hushed when watching the news and some foreign country/politician/company fucks up again. Overt displays of patriotism are just viewed as childish in germany, so what you felt probably was some type of lowkey cringe when everyone stood up to hail some flag.
for us we didn’t have to pledge if we either A didnt want to or B weren’t from the US
I'm American but as a kid I always refused I dnt remember why but I think the teachers said I just had to stand I didn't have to put hand to heart or say it. But I think another teacher mightve said I could stay seated.
“So this Austrian guy came over...”
Haha Damn Austrians...
420th like
Arthur: Herr Strauss, my favorite Austrian.
Fascism: Hold my beer
"...and overthrew our great Weimar Republic which had stood for 1,000 years."
We, the people of germany today, are not responsible for what has happened in the 30's and 40's of the last century. But we are very responsible that something like that must never happen again. That is our collective resposability today.
Well put!
@Ivy Agreed!
Well said.
Exactly
so maybe you can finally return all stolen goods - mostly art masterpieces and pay reparations for countries almost completly grounded during war? German people living in 40s and 50s somehow didn't feel like doing it...
*German Grandpa gives birthday present to grandchild.*
*Kid opens it and Father takes it away.*
Father: "He said he wanted Minecraft, not Mein Kampf."
That was a French guy
Maybe his pappy should read it.
I'm german. I spent a year abroad in 10th grade and people I met asked me if I'm a nazi. They weren't joking, they really thought that most germans are still nazis. Smh
(Edit: typo)
Beyond obscure, of course most Germans are not Nazis. People need to stop with that stupid idea of thinking it is a “joke” to call someone something they aren’t based on what one was taught in school.
@@diabetesman4030 Lmao no, stupid question of yours unintelligent one.
@@JR-hh7kv I was asking magnus bane
@@diabetesman4030 Mm, still, dumb question. I got the notification and it was under my comment. 😊
I had the same experience on my year abroad...i dont want to compare myself to someone who might has to deal with discrimination every day...but i might have caught a glimpse that day how it feels when people have a specific opinion on u based on where u re from. Its a weird and uncomfortable feeling...
Being German, I have to say that atleast from my experience not a feeling of 'original sin' as you say, but more a responsibility to never let such a similar thing to happen again. A task we seem to be failing at considering our non-commital stance towards China's cultural/ethnic cleansing of minorities and other cases
Sadly humans are destructive by nature and they need to evolce past their ego and grow eq and self awareness
That sums it up pretty well. The mantra which is taught is less "you did that" and more "Never again". It is our job to learn from history and ensure that it will never happen again. And frankly, it should be the job of everyone, not just us.
@jdtrickster4 and Israel too. The amount of human right violations and illegal activity they partake in without punishment is insane. Like how the US *would* be punished for selling weapons to N.Korea but Israel *did* get away with it.
hydro wolf Israel is the only democratic country in the Middle East, country’s have done worse than selling weapons to n nkorea
@@clxwncrxwn *cough* *cough* Palestine *cough* *cough* ...Although, what Saudi Arabia is doing to Yemen is fcked up too.
As a guy born in Poland, with Polish ancestry, I never once had ill feelings towards Germans of today. I did however always hate Nazis from a young age, not because of indoctrination by the school system or my parents(neither of which ever happened) but rather as a result of being aware of the war as I was growing up. My grandfather's life was spared by a German soldier by the way. His village was being rounded up by the army into trucks, likely to be sent to some sort of a camp. He asked a soldier if he could go to the bathroom, and the soldier answered with a yes. So my grandfather went behind a barn, and then started running for his life across a farm field. He looked back to see that the soldier saw him running but didn't raise an alarm nor try to shoot. He just let him go.
Anyways, you can't blame an entire nation today for the evil deeds of their relatives from the past. That's stupid. They are not the ones who committed the crimes. Let it go and move on, sheesh. If your grandfather was a thief does that make you one too? No.
The Americans could learn a thing or two from this post.
.....Of course if anyone still feels bad, I'll take some German chocolates :D
What a beatiful story
You're absolutely right. No one should be blamed for something their ancestors did. I watched just this morning a documentary about a son from the main war criminal Hans Frank. And he tries to educate people who think for example that the Holocaust never happened or who want the immigrants should "go there, where they come from".
I just hope it doesn't get worse with the anti-Semitism but as the last month's and years showed (e.g. the attack of Halle) many people haven't learned from that bad time age.
Greetings from Germany/Halle
I agree with your thought that the U.S. could learn from this. I feel like the racism in this country has gotten so ugly and out of control. And white people today are targeted as bigots and that we owe other cultures for the slavery of generations ago-even if our families weren’t even American at that point, most not emigrated over yet. I’m white and I’m not racist. I can’t help the systematic racism that some experience, nor did my family ever have any part in owning slaves. In fact, white Irish immigrants were sometimes forced into slave labor once in America. But you don’t hear those descendants berating today’s population. I’m made to feel like I’m hateful, and prejudice, and entitled. When I don’t feel like I am any of those things. It’s so bizarre to me. Blame the actual problem. But why create so much division and hate toward a demographic of people who aren’t the problem?
Can I have some?
“Systemic Racism” in the U.S. is a farce and a ploy used by Marxist groups like BLM.
I find your program extremly valuable, real food for thoughts. Only one tiny proposal: Could you speak little bit slower? It will help your listeners to reflect during you speak. Good job!
I'm not sure if it's the same at other schools, but at my school, at least, we'd also have a field trip to a prison where they held (, tortured and murdered) people who criticised the regime or didn't follow the rules captive, and a crematorium (at the one we visited, they mostly gased and cremated the disabled). Visiting both of those places was very heavy, and apparently it has broken apart a couple of families when students found relatives in the book of the murdered. We had guides talking about these places as well, and one of them had actually grown up in the village with the crematorium in post-war Germany. She told us how back then it was a no-go to ask or talk about it - the denial was big. She also said that it always - as she's been told - smelled sweet when the bodies, you know, turned to ashes.
We also had the privilege of meeting a concentration camp survivor. He visited our school yearly and talked about his time there, how his wife had been lucky enough to escape this death sentence (if I remember correctly), and at the end we were allowed to ask him questions. For anyone who's interested, his wife wrote down his story and published it. It's called "Miecius später Bericht" by Felicia Langer.
I would love to read this. Unfortunately, I can’t read German. Has it been translated into English? Or perhaps French or Spanish? I could work with those languages.
@@chitaperra2025 i think the english Version is named "Miecius Report. Youth between the Ghetto and Theresienstadt" or something similiar
I don’t know in which part of Germany you went to school but in Baden Württemberg (at least in the area of Karlsruhe) we also go to a KZ in class 9 I think.
We also had a holocaust survivor come to our school and speak to us 9th graders here in Sweden. I remember it strongly and it was impactful to say the least. And I feel fortunate to have had listened to first hand accounts as it is rare/not possible now as time moves on.
yeah we had that as well, was a bit shocking to see to be honest..
There is a quote by Juli Zeh: "If you've been raised in Germany after the 1980ies you've had the topic of the Holocaust in every school-subject exept for maybe maths at least once."
Just thinking about how ridiculus it Sounds, its probably true. History, German, Englisch, Music, Politics, even Biology at one point
@@eliasgerlin609 Not to forget education science about the Hitler youth!
@@eliasgerlin609 we talked about it also in geography, art, economy. We even briefed the topic in programming and Physics
Yup like we've been constantly told how awful we are in every bloody subject
There used to be two Germanies. Two different educations.
DDR changed education at school in 1990 at the earliest.
Remember, there used to be a wall in Germany.
The Wall came down in 9th November 1989.
It is nine-eleven put down the German way of writing dates.
Sachsen, Thüringen, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg-Vorpommern were GDR.
They had to change school programs after reunion with BRD.
They had to change from Russian as a second language to English as a second language.
Geography was mainly taught Eastern Europe as they were not allowed to travel to western countries.
So history was taught different in GDR, I guess.
No matter on which side of the wall, education was important. It was for free for everybody.
I grew up in western Germany. Remember being sick and tired of WW II and Holocaust as I had it at school minimum three times.
Anne Frank's diary in German language class was OK and interesting. Kids still have Anne Frank's diary nowadays.
Families in GDR with educated parents and grandparents always found a way to gather knowledge. When Western families came to visit,
books, tapes and information as well as certain foods and other items wiggled through to people in GDR.
Border patrol always took their share.
A classmate was very proud. She smuggled a tape with Bee Gees music to her cousin in her bra.
Young people cannot imagine nowadays how it was back in the 1980ies.
Internet takes any music to any place on earth.
My classmate took a high risk. Her parents did have no clue and the music was highly appreciated from her cousins, friends etc.
Lots of movies show this time of Germany. Even comedies are being made.
Watch
das Leben der anderen mit Martina Gedeck about GDR
Good bye Lenin mit Daniel Brühl about end of GDR, a comedy.
One of my favorite teachers I've ever had was my professor for European History and he was a German immigrant. Inevitably we reached WWII and the Holocaust, and he was very solemn and direct about it. He recalled seeing a man he knew from his childhood on the television being tried at Nuremberg. The professor took great efforts to explain that he was proud to be a German, he loved his country and his countrymen, and that that meant they could never allow themselves to forget what their forebears were guilty of, nor allow it to ever happen again. It was powerful stuff; you could tell that he saw the Nazi regime as a stain on their history that had to be studied and curated, not forgotten.
Most of this is very well researched! one thing I´d like to add as someone who experienced this school system first hand is that this way of teaching ww2 is an achievement of the past couple of decades. During the first years after the war it was barely taught and many had more hard feelings towards the allies than towards the nazis. The topic was mostly ignored and the ones that were alive at the time mostly tried to forget about the NS time and leave it behind. Only in the student movement in the 60s and 70s the younger generation started asking their parents tough questions and people like Fritz Bauer that wanted to document nazi crimes gained more influence. That ultimately led to the German way of dealing with this dark period that we have nowadays and is described very well in the video.
As a German Student myself this is pretty on point.
Exactly my thoughts. I'm genuinely impressed with the research he made.
It fits with my experience as well
How is ww1 taught? What about Franco Prussian war?
@@cv4809 we don't have time for that. German history lessons are basically French revolution and Nazi regime again and again.
That's the point of the video...what did you think this was a fiction channel LOFL?
There is an interesting movie on the topic. It's called "The Wave" and it's from 2008. Really shows how the youth in Germany feels about the nazi guilt, as we are bombarded with it from a very young age. I absolutely recommend it :) at least watch the trailer
The Movie is based on a Book centered around a US-Highschool experiment. The teachers purpose was to show his students how easy it is to brainwash people and exclude and persecute oppositions. As far as I remember we read it in English Class to improve our English skill while simultaneously adding to our history lessons about the third Reich. Speaking of German school system btw.
I watched it and it was good but strangely not very popular. It's strange that people pay close attention to the drama and "not repeating" but don't ask why millons of people were willing to kill others... Curiously they never talk about how hitler was not as important as the identity politics that grew in that time and it is regrowing nowadays again. NO ONE talks about it. Check videos of Hitler talking (there are not well translated videos on youtube) about themselves as minorities...
@@taskmaster1234 the book plays in the US?
Well I be damed,
I had to read it in German but I still liked it!
Some things just scared the shit out of me and I had to set it down sometimes, but it's very good.
I had to read that in german
Ihateit
@@Ben-ig3bf ooof
I'm sorry for you
The sentence we get to hear the most in history class in germany is "it happened so it could happen again and it is your responsibility to not let that happen"
Thats why history is a subject in school and not only in university
@@philippm9927 history is a subject in school in literally all of europe.
In fact, I'm pretty sure the US *is* the only country that doesn't have it as a mandatory school subject.
@@11Survivor it was for my school
As someone who grew up in the public school system in America's deep South, I think we should take note of this method.
As the spouse of a GI, I spent 3 years in Germany in the 1960s, 20 years after the war ended. I visited Dachau. There were still some large buildings bearing pockmarks from the war. But Germany was largely rebuilt. I wondered so often how the people felt about the Nazis and the war. We had German friends. We were welcomed wherever we went. I never asked questions. One elderly couple rented us an apartment. The wife proudly told us that her husband had been a major. I had decided in my mind that he must have been in the Wehrmacht rather than the SS. I always wondered what kids were taught in school, what people were told afterwards. Your video explains all this very clearly. It’s important to know everything you brought up. Thank you!
I always wondered what the Russians teach about Joseph Stalin.
It's quite obvious... Considering that Russia denies any occupations and war crimes done in the occupied territories (not even mentioning the large list of crimes done inside the USSR before the war) and plays the victim. It's triggering and disgusting.
Spaniard triggering lol
@@dacoda8220 The hypocrisy of it all triggers me.
@@armands3153 The Soviet Union was awesome and needs to come back
@@harryt.5068 ah yes, war crimes and forceful compliance a plenty.
When I was at school (in Germany), the focus on the *reasons* for why a war happened and the social and political structures of a nation before and after a war were not restricted to WW2 but to all of history classes from ancient Greece and Rome to the French Revolution and WW1.
We hardly ever learned about specific battles and dates and outcomes thereof, and personally I think knowing about the reasons for war and/or the great changes in history are much more beneficial to know about.
I think I learned more about the battles of the romans in Latin classes when we read Caesar's Gallian War than I did in history class.
True...military history isn't really a meaningful subject unless you want a miliary career. Hence the emphasis is always on the political background, no matter WHAT part of history is discussed. There are a few battles which are emphasied, like the battle in Teuteburg forrest or the Vielvölkerschlacht or Stalingrad, but that is mostly because they symbolise turning points.
@@swanpride just occurred to me... it's basically the whole "war is a continuation of politics with different means", isn't it? Why focus on the 'how two bunches of people try to kill each other' and look at the why.
I have still one year in a german school ahead of me and had similar experiences so far. We were taught how such a regime gained power in the first place and how group thinking influenced the lives of citizens. We were also taught the effectiveness of propaganda at that time and how it worked.
@@siblinganon66 Yeah, pretty much.
@@swanpride the only "issue" with not teaching about all those battles is probably that if you start to raise all children not to admire military achievements and rather become pacifsts, the german defence forces will be hurting for recruits. Not saying this is bad, since it would be wonderful if that was the case anywhere on the world, but with dictators on the rise all around the world currently... lets just say if the "new" russian tsar decides to start shit in europe, the allies better come running or germany will be quite screwed :/
"those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it."
Japan:
Good thing i love history
Know your history...
I would say that this quote is missing a word: from. Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it; learning history isn't always the same as learning the lessons from said history.
then we better stop teaching hitler
@ai jao Not what the quote means.
People who know history will start hearing alarm bells when someone in a mustache starts shouting in german.
Thank you so much for doing all this research and making this video.
I looked at the thumbnail and my mind instantly went like: *"hey vsauce, Michael here!"*
Same
Me too
I was confused when i heard his voice, I thought it was Vsauce 😅
Took the words right out of my mouth
“Hey Michael, vsauce here!”
As a German: I approve this, no errors that I could point out. Well researched!
Are you taught about the Nama and Herero genocide Germany committed in Namibia?
@@caimaccoinnich9594 As far as I know. No, not in regular history classes in my state.
Thanks for your comment! Good to hear from Germans about it.
@@thyson228 That's sad😔 Thank you for the answer!
@Zhào Liǔ What are you talking about? I never even spoke to you.
As a South African we learn about the concentration camps for the Afrikaners. I have no idea if the British learn. They should though.
Same for the JP/US happenings.
I basically clicked on the video to find out how close it is to reality.
It's really accurate to what I learned in school.
I am here for the same reason
And you think what you learned in school was true? What a sheep
Tom Joe tell me what true then, PLEASE! :P
@@tomjoe1599 There are for sure many families which believe every word from the government but there are also german families which questioning the TV and instead believe their own grandfathers or old people from towns and villages.
But in general germans are quite dumb, naiv and easy controlled by fear.
@Kurt Barryman oh boi, u picked up alot of false info
As a German teacher, I can agree with every single word in this video. You have done incredibly good research on that, guys!! Well done!
This is why I love the quote "Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it." I wish we'd get better history teaching in America :(
I guess Putin didn’t learn history
@@iHaveACrushOnPrincessDiana I dont see how?
To be honest with you I wish our entire school system was a lot better.
@@iHaveACrushOnPrincessDiana well it was the exact opposite in russia cause they were the winners. my colleague (born and lived in moscow for her entire childhood) told me that when ww2 (or great patriotic war, as they call it) was taught, it was all on "heros against nazis". No mention of Finland, Poland or anything bad on the russian side. she at first didnt even believe me when i told her about Poland and Finland. she was so shocked when she read about it. makes you wonder....
That quote was by the same guy who said, “ History is a pack of lies about events that never happened told by people
who weren't there.”
He also believed history changed and should be constantly rewritten. Not that the quote is necessarily wrong, but if he believes truth isn’t even real, it makes you wonder
German schools: ok kids something not that chill happened in the 1940s...
how does this not have 20k likes yet?
@@nanochad2979 cuz its a new comment?
Lmao
@Sometimes Blue no.
@Sometimes Blue ok, that goes a bit too far
As a Brit that's visited Germany a number of times and explored many of its regions, I can say that I have the utmost respect for how Germans wear their history on their sleeve. Munich is particularly interesting in how it memorialises the war in that the memorials are all over the city, but are very subtle, often small plaques or painted cobblestones for example, and are designed to make you think about them and encourage you to do your own research into the stories behind them.
Also I did ask about the very subject of this video to some of the German friends I made along my travels, and my understanding is that it's considered impolite to mention the war, however they feel obligated to answer any questions you have regardless, because to change the subject would be disrespectful. In any case, Germans are the friendliest and most helpful, wonderful people I've ever met and it is such a beautiful country, I can't wait until I can visit again! 😊
Thanks for the nice words from a German. :) Our english friends are always welcome!
@@stever1002 Likewise my friend :)
When you travel in France. If you ask about WW2 there is an strange reaction. People will first lost their eyes and said “ we lost the battle because of the high command” this is true and suddenly they change it to, Napeolon or Ww1
Expecting the same from Japan, the things they did is not written anywhere in the world. My great grandfather was in the army and he told so many horrific stories to my dad about the ww2. I hope history will remember wht they did to us.
@@anurag15271 There is another video on this channel about just that if you haven't seen it already :) but yeah I agree, my great uncle fought with the Commandos in Burma and my grandfather in the RN throughout the Pacific, neither were the same when they came home and both refused to ever talk about it. That's not even to mention the Sino-Japanese wars that predate our involvement. All of it should be taught in schools because it isn't about assigning blame, it's about preventing anything so awful from ever happening again.
I have liked everything Mr. Whistler has been in. I like this format very much. Thank you.
Germany: we accept our atrocities and strive to make sure they never happen again
Japan: world war what?
“Huh”
I mean, this can be applied to many major countries like the US and the UK. From what I now, the schools don´t really emphasize the bad things from the past. If I am wrong, please correct me.
@@adrianbollmann2088 I’m English and they never taught us about most of the atrocities and racism and shit the empire did or how Irish people used to be really oppressed. To be fair we do lean about some bad stuff the country did from medieval times and Henry VIII but not really anything in the past 100 years.
Edit: I feel like I should point out that I only did history in secondary school and not collage or anything like that so there’s chances that you learn about the empire more later on in education.
Lmfao
In Russia: We are proud of our Soviet history. Killings were necessary for the greater good. Gulags were for bad people. The collapse of the Soviet Union was set up by the west and Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin were traitors for letting it happen and Stalin was a hero while Lenin revolutionized Russia. Putin is doing good for the country and the world.
I'm from Germany and I have to say your summary of the schedule German schools go through covering WWII and the atrocities committed by the Nazi Regime is very accurate. In terms of the actual battles, our schedules do cut these short. However, I've found that many of us gathered up the courage to ask about the experience of war in our own families only a few generations down because of these classes. And when I did, I learned that no soldier from my hometown who was born in 1928 and forcibly recruited to the frontline in Russia in 1943/44 made it back home. I learned that my grandpa just got there when the war was declared over and had to travel back home by foot. He met refugees from concentration camps in the woods in Czechia. They were all starving, traumatized and scared. It is so surreal what this war did to people. It's important that we know and don't forget.
I remember the horror of finding photographs of my great grandfather in front of the Auschwitz trains. I felt so ashamed and horrified. But then my Oma told me why he joined the SS. My family had been potato farmers up until the war. The Nazis came and forced my great grandad to sign up. If he didn't, they would kill the children and burn the farm down. My great grandfather never returned from the war. And our farm was burnt down anyway. My family's livelihood was gone. A lot of people don't see that some of them were forced to join. Uropa just wanted to farm.... he had 11 women employed on his farm. Then everything was gone.
DEUTCHLAND forever! Germany NEVER!
THEY WERE STARVING BECAUSE THE GOOD OLD U.S.A. WAS VERY BUSY BOMBING THE FOOD SUPPLY LINES AND PRISON CAMPS.
I think the comment section could use another german giving his thoughts, so here I go:
It is pretty accurate indeed, well done. Some things I wanna add
The positive view towards the allied armies is not as strong when it comes to the soviets. We are slowly beginning to talk a bit about their atrocities too, like the expulsions of Germans from the eastern territories or their general behavior as occupiers, where they are seen as the worst of the four.
I don’t think, that our schools are trying to make us feel guilty. This is a statement you hear sometimes and I even made it myself but today I don’t think it’s true. The goal is only to prevent it from happening again. When demands for reparations gained a little traction in Poland and Greece there was a public outcry based on the supposed innocence of modern day Germans. So while some people who feel guilty might exist, they are definitely the minority.
However I do agree that the topic is overrepresented in schools as well as in tv programs. Thats not because I think we shouldn’t talk about it as much but because I think we should talk about everything else more, the Nazi topic leaves not enough space for the rest of history imo. History was mandatory for us from 6th to 12th grade and I am not entirely convinced that everybody from my class knows what the Holy Roman Empire is or has any clue about the most important battles of our history, like the ones in the Teuteborg forrest, near Augsburg or the battle of the nations at Leipzig.
I am not saying, that these should be taught with patriotic triumph, thats not my point. But they and their long term effects are important to appear in class in a dialectic way because without them Germany would be drastically different, if it exists at all. They are as much part of our roots as the Nazi times
As an Austrian with a similar curriculum I agree in that there is not enough space for the rest of history. I got into an argument with my German and History teachers, because for two years it was either about the Nazis or Nazi-metaphor books. Like nothing had happened in between 1945 and now that might explain the world today. I would not have liked to learn about battles, because nothing can be learned from that, unless you plan to become a military strategist, but there are many a lesson to be learned from other historical events too.
I think we should look at pride and patriotism to our pre ww histoy, so many great things happened in the last 2000 years, that it would be wrong to not teach in a proud way about them. Having nacional pride is also something positive, and it doesnt make people automaticly into rasissts or nazis.
While it is true that we conciously dont feel guilty for ww2, but we still see it as bad to wave a german flag, or express any kind of pride about who we are or who we have been.
@@leonl9123
Yeah I mostly agree actually. I like to consider myself a moderate patriot if that makes sense. The German flag should definitely be raised more because otherwise we are risking to loose this symbol of unity and democracy to the extreme right, which is a shame because of what the flag actually stands for, it has nothing to do with the Nazis, in fact they hated it so much, that they immediately scrapped it.
I am just not sure about teaching with pride. I think the goal in class should be that you know what happened and what that means for you not how you feel about it. If you develop a certain pride because of that thats fine and if you do not, than thats fine too, imo the schools shouldn’t force either of those feelings
@@BeWe1510 I don't say that we should teach pride over the second world War, but we should not ignore everything before it. If I would say that I am proud about Germanys history a lot of people would accuse me to be a nazi, because those few years are everything that people see when they think about German history. They don't think about how Germany ruled Europe for Centuries through the Holy Roman Empire, how german tribes defeated the Roman legions in Teutenburg or about the glory of the Prussian Empire. And that comes down to school. We learn how Germanys history was so terrible because of the 2 ww, and how we have to prevent history from reoccurring. And that's fine, would it not cover 80% of the curriculum. We did the first World War in 2 hours, just to spend countless hours on German war crimes in the second world War. Ignoring most important historical events for it.
@@leonl9123 Why should any of us be proud of that? Patriotism honestly just doesn't make any sense and is useless. I don't have anything to do with the outcome of any of the wars and battles that happened before I was even born. Feeling pride over that is ridiculous.
If you said we should learn about stuff pre WW1 more because it still influences our country/is part of important general knowledge I would maybe agree (even though we do learn all that extensively anyway). But patriotism just isn't a good argument for anyone who didn't grow up with it and therefore doesn't know why they should feel it (in that sense it sometimes feels like religion - you're more likely to want to defend it and feel like you belong to that group if you learnt about it at a time where you didn't have any critical thinking.) (not that religion is wrong, you do you)
Hey! Just came across this video, I would be very interested to see a similar video regarding the Cyprus problem, being a Turkish Cypriot myself I have attempted to expose myself to both sides of the story but some of the "grey areas" would be interesting to hear.
We germans love videos from not germans about Germany because we can not really say something good about us. Its quiet a nice and good feeling watching some people arround the world say nice things about germans :)
I’ve heard generally Germans have alwys been very accepting and kind people so when the whole thing with nazis happened it was a bit of a surprise to many
I can write you something else: my Polish grandmother, when asked which occupation was worse? German or Soviet? Without thinking, she stated that the Soviet one: the Germans had rules, they were people, and the Soviets were the wilderness, animals.
I feel sorry for you that you cannot be proud of heroes and war history. The blood on the flag stained the bravery.
Everything then came from pride, hope and poverty. Today, it is a pity that you still treat others with contempt, although, for example, your attitude towards Russians is strange and incomprehensible.
A friend of mine in 1994 died in an accident caused by the Neonazists, he was a Pole and a great actor.
I feel best in Bavaria, there is not so much aversion to Poles there. Unfortunately I don't have the inscription on my forehead that I have half of my family German and brother fought against brother.
@@wa_demon__9156 bruh when "the whole thing with the Nazis" happened Germany was f*cked and already startet a world war a few years before so i guess that wasn't that surprising.
I think Jan Böhmermann summed it up pretty well: "We are proud of not being proud"
100% richtig
I live in Australia and we had a German exchange student when I was in school. She grew to be a close member of the family and we kept in contact. Subsiquently we went to visit her in Germany when she was in University.
She said she had something she wanted to tell us and hoped it wouldn't cause us to change how we felt about her.
She proceeded to tell us that her Grandfather had been an SS soldier and she was not only horrified but also ashamed.
It had been something that was not talked about in the family and she'd only found out when he'd died.
She is the sweetest, kindest person and we assured her that everyone makes their own decisions but that it would have also been incredibly difficult for her Grandfather during that time.
For me it was profound at how genuinely apologetic she was for what her Grandfather had been a part of.
She knew that as Aussies, we had relatives who had fought, and some died, fighting her countrywho were, in her eyes, clearly in the wrong.
She sounds like a great person to condemn the horrors of the past but she owes no one an apology for what her grandfather did.
@@MarkEliasGrantI wish ppl in America looked at it the same way as far as American History.
Not being a Nazi was a dangerous stance in those days. Soldiers who opposed Nazis were systematically exterminated. A lot of Germans joined for survival reasons.
@@kichigan1 yes, it must have been so hard
@@kichigan1 true. The father of my grandfather was against the regime, however they found out and sent him and his son to fight in first row. He sadly returned without the son, as he refused to use a weapon against the enemy.
Funny story: I'm German and went to a high school in Japan for a year. My world history teacher taught about WW2 at this time (we even watched Schindler's List during class) and asked me seriously, if we Germans view Hitler as bad or good. Smh
maybe she meant like are there people that see him that way? idk you’d know how she meant it but just throwing it out there
In India, people view Hitler as a sort of an "amusing grump".
I think that in Japan many people might not know much about modern European views on history but I may be wrong
Comes down to what she actually meant/said. Did she mean all germans or parts of the population? Because we still do have quite a lot of nazis in Germany, which often are very open about their ideology and don‘t act "undercover"
Joey Simek There are many organizations that are extremely right and beyond that there are extremists/neo-nazis that aren’t in organizations. And probably many that will be in a few years. They don’t seem to decrease, so I think it‘s a serious issue. If nazism keeps being taken so lightly, history may repeat itself.
This is quite fascinating. Thank you for an interesting and informative video.
Video title: *has "german" in it*
60% of the comments: "As a rare german in the wide foreign fields of englishspeaking youtube, I can..."
We feel a strange sense of acknowledgement when America-senpai notices us.
@@Karash770 He's British not American
@@georgehh2574 Britain, America, Canada and Australia, same thing
Miqseri GX That’s funny
@@miqseri Ask a Bavarian if he's the same as a Prussian. Or a German if he's the same as a Austrian.
I live in the US state of Oklahoma and when I was in Oklahoma history I brought up the Tulsa race riots because my teacher skipped it in class and he pretty much told me to shutup quietly. I believe that no matter how bad or terrible the history is the school system should still teach it.
In California history, we group the period when it was Mexican territory part of the Spanish history part so we only got to learn about it for a week since we took so long on learning about the Missions. They group the explores into a whole unit but when it was Mexican territory into a small part of the Spanish history makes no sense.
Dr. Slap Back : what was that. A Canadian here
Polish here, my history teacher didn't want me to talk about why there was Ukrain in Poland and if that has something to do with the Ukrainians being our enemys durring WW2....
@@danrook5757 so there was a thing known asblack Wall Street” in Tulsa which was attacked by whites and basically it got destroyed it’s not taught in a lot of cases but has gained a lot more attention over the years
"those who do not learn from the past are doomed to repeat it"
I know it's corny, but it really is important we learn from horrible things to know just what comes of needless prejudice.
My husband told me it was quite extensive, traumatic and to the point. Not sure about current times. He takes the subject very seriously as should we all.
It's great that the German people learn about their history. I wish Japan would kind of do the same thing with Nanking
@@TheKing60210 for some reason when I read your comment I read it as if it was a joke. Completely not funny considering... Made me laugh afterwards though
@Kraft Thisle
As someone who recently graduated I can say that’s still quite extensive, traumatic and to the point.
@@TheKing60210 And Americans with Vietnam, and Belgians with Congo, and England with China, etc, etc.
My own country can learn something from Germany
I’m from Florida and the teachers I have had most definitely changed the way I see United States history. In the past, things I had learned were glazed over and chalked up to mistakes anyone could make. The last two teachers I have had have shown me that though these were mistakes anyone could make, many of those people CHOSE to make those mistakes, thus making them responsible and needing to be held accountable for their actions. The shortcomings the United States and associated parties felt due to these individuals or groups were sometimes simply ignored for greater agendas pushed by more powerful individuals or groups who simply pushed things they themselves enjoyed on others. There was a major lack of empathy and compassion for other humans simply because of how hatred was bred towards others simply because of inner struggles that pushed this hatred outward on everyone. Overall, the teachers I have now completely allowed me to see that what went on in my country’s history was far worse than it was made out to be.
As a German history-enthusiast and year 12 student, I can say that this video is researched EXCEPTIONALLY well. It's really accurate.
Sad to see how Germany, England, United States and a few other countries have just handed their countries over to foreigners nowadays without a shot being fired.
@@jonburrows2684 You might want to rethink about this comment again😐…
@@barnabasb1128 I've rethought it and see how the world has been set up for the end of time. Satan's little pawns want the NWO so that it can prepare for Satan himself to one day rule.
@@jonburrows2684 I wish there was something I could say to open your eyes. I see comments like this and I have even argued with a few of said commenters, and it seems like you are all walking around with you're eyes and ears closed. You see only your little slice of life, your perspective, and refuse to acknowledge anything else. Anyone who disagrees with you, is not only wrong, but not even worth listening to. Can you not at least acknowledge, that this kind of thinking is not conducive to learning and growing as a person?
@@jonburrows2684 The end has been around the corner since time has been recorded. As Steve pointed out, you will not receive anything. You believe you have everything figured out.
Watching this as a German makes me feel like Hermione taking Muggle Studies.
Did not expect a Harry Potter reference in the comments, but I love it.
Yes that's quite accurate comparison. As a German you know what should be in the Video and you are curious if they get it right and how much you will see which isn't correct. I think it was a really good Video that paints a good picture of how it is taught here in Germany. The only thing i was missing was a mentioning of the film "Schindlers Liste". Everything else was definately there.
Some of us from the States think Uber means “car for hire”. We want to know this stuff.
Kristie C well sorry but Uber is not a word. Only the Americanised version on an actual word. The word you mean is über and even that usually doesn’t comes close to the meaning Americans attribute to it 🤣
@@greyblue7400 Schindlers Liste came out just two years before I left school so it was too recent to be used as a teaching material, but I think today it would probably be in every history curriculum.
In the United States, though this was college, our professor, a really energetic Jewish lady from New York (she’d get so excited when talking about history and bounce around the lecture hall) didn’t sugar coat the concentration camps, murders, etc. she very emphatically discussed the atrocities. However, she did spend a good bit of time explaining why and how it happened, which IMO is the most important part of history. After world war 1 Germany was punished too harshly and the sanctions & fines too great. There was suffering and desperation among the German people and it became a breeding ground for a radical that promised change and prosperity. When Hitler came to power he stopped paying the fines and abiding by the sanctions and instantly had more money but because the rest of the world really didn’t want another war and were just starting to come out of the Great Depression (which affected most countries, just not all as bad as the US) they let it go and pretended they didn’t notice. He kept pushing and pushing and pushing the more he got the more he took (if you give a mouse a cookie) until the world had to respond. She said a lot of things could have made it different. The sanctions & penalties to have been more fair. Germany was made to pay back every country that fought against them when they were trying to rebuild themselves. It wasn’t possible. Had they had help rebuilding, they would have been less susceptible to allowing a radical come to power, had other countries intervened sooner or renegotiated it likely wouldn’t have escalated, etc. its important to understand the why of the past so it can be prevented in the future.
I think the German fine was so harsh because it was a fine that should’ve been paid by multiple countries, but the other two big ones (Ottoman Empire and Austro-Hungarian Empire) were completely dissolved and you can’t really fine new countries, so instead of making the fine just for German damages the Allies put the fines from the other two on the Germans as well.
Also late into the war Germany really became the only Central Powers country with fight left in it so it became the obvious scapegoat for the war
But at the same time , if it wasn't for the conciliatorism of England and USA, Hitler wouldn't have gone that far .
@@handleonafridge6828 Not really. The Versailler Treaty was mainly written by France because they wanted revenge for the war of 1871. Thats also why they meet at Versailles.(Frances surrender in 1871 was there, too and the German Kaiserreich got formed in the process) France also "bullied" the German state several times in the following years (annexation of the Rheinland), because Germany was short of their payments. US president Wilson actually tried the opposite, because it was clear, that Germany couldnt account for that, but he died, before the treaty could be ratified. Britain didnt bother that much. They mainly had an eye on the Highseas Fleet.
TLDR: It was like that, because France wanted revenge for the war of 1971.
There were a lot more factors at play for example germany was the only one to be blamed for ww1 which upset germans a lot or that many of the parties partaking in a democratic system were against that very system or that the reichspräsident held too much power or the great depression which caused over 1/3 of the population to become workless
@@sebi0037 As a french, this is pretty much true. Even at the time, the treaty was obviously criticized in France, even by people like royalists. (Yeah, they still exists.)
Even George Lloyd, the British Prime Minister at the time, who first thought about giving heavy punishment to Germany kinda change his opinions after to not give France too much in a way to try to keep a balance of power.
Amongst the critics the treaty received from some French people at the time, there was:
-A lot of things demanded from Germany with, for most of it, no guarantee to receive it.
-The treaty is humiliating to them, but do not break their unity, only promising new conflicts and hostility.
And Jean Longuet thought that the conditions were too heavy, the redistributing of territories not really fair for some of them, and all of that was the birth of future new conflicts. He wanted a more democratic, socialist and liberal Europe.
So yeah, a lot of people predicted that was not a great treaty, be it for more self centered reasons (no guarantee to receive the payment etc) or for a more peaceful reason, because they thought about future conflicts. And, they were basically both right.
So yeah, pretty bad move from France, even without insight. Even if, at the time, most people probably couldn't imagine the scale of atrocities that would happened in WWII.
Thank you for this and thank you to the kind Germans who commented 😊 I had always wondered how the school system dealt with teaching about the “unpleasant” things that occurred during WWII. Did they gloss over it? Did they sugar coat it? Did they tweak it to make it not sound as bad as it was? Now my curiosity is satisfied and I’m glad that the Germans aren’t doing what the US does with certain “unpleasant” parts of our history. We just conveniently tweak what we don’t want kids to know (or they did when I was in school a long time ago) and I was clueless about what really happened until I had kids off my own and was in the internet. It goes to show something, though I’m not quite sure what that something is… 🤔
Yeah, here in Germany the history classes are pretty accurate, the teachers want us to feel what happend. And I think it's pretty important.
respectfully, you had an unfortunate education/history class. in almost every school i’ve seen, they’ve dedicated entire months at times about the effects of slavery and the socio-economical ramifications of it in modern society. not to mention if you took AP classes, you went more in depth about the specifics of slavery, the civil war, civil rights, manifest destiny, etc.. if anything, the US is extremely progressive with acknowledging past issues, especially regarding racism, although that might be a more modern trend
I'm from Germany and everyone I asked was on the same page with me:
We, the new generation are not at fault for the crimes our ancestors did, but we are responsible for stopping history from repeating itself.
Ünd dö möchen wir doch gröde ähnün öchd güden Jöb im Ösden, gel? "Wö word ihr sölvöstah" - Göschüchde wörd sich schon nüschd wüderhölen!
@jotri
That's basically how we (mid US) view you too
@Flawed and Beautiful - I once knew an American exchange student who honestly asked me if Hitler was still King of Germany...
@@MaxMustermann-hy9in
😂😂😂 just wow. It sounds like that person Really needed that exchange
And now its repeating again ... leider
Some things to add, that I learned during my time in school:
-a bit of Hitlers life before being the person he was in the end (so basically his rise as a polititian)
-a general understanding of relationships between countries during the war (germanies allies, the pact with russia we abandoned when attacking them)
-the whole situation with Japan and Pearl Harbour (how america got involved in the war, which basically created a war on two fronts for germany)
-there's also alot of time spent talking about the fate of the jewish (during that time, we also visited an old concentration camp and the old facility that built the ovens for said camp)
That all being said, I think you get really good, wide-spread education about the war in germany, despite the school system being pretty meh otherwise, but I digress
Are you from Germany?
So I have a question (only because my curiosity)
What do you think about reperations for Poland (one of the most destroyed countries during II WW)?
I hope you are concious that russians planned attack on you too, you were just faster. This fail turned for russians very well, they can now play victims
I got to visit a Japanese/any Asian concentration camp here in America. They were treated the same as the Jewish except without the gas chamber.
I went to a old abandoned ghost mining town and a Chinese grave from the 1800's was dug up during ww2 and a plaque was there explaining why "even a dead gook can't be trusted"
That just goes to show that America can also be that way. It's human fear, not hatred. They feared the Jewish. We feared the Japanese.
It's bound to happen again. It's not like history hasn't repeated itself over and over before.
People will fear people forever.
@@Leboobs22 I don't think the Germans at the time necessarily fear the Jewish people as much as how the culture clashed with German culture ideals. One of Hitler's biggest criticisms were around Usery. Which is a big reason why the Jewish people were kicked out of places around Europe and the world historically. Getting into banking practices that prey on the less fortunate by charging interest that makes it hard to repay. Then seize collateral for the loan and gain wealth through shady business practices. Today, we just accept that as the norm and don't talk about how detrimental it is for the world as a whole (debt,) but back then it was looked down heavily to do against your own culture. The Talmud encourages it as an us vs them tribal mentality, which encourages lying, swindling, and usery to gentiles. And that's wrong.
Yes, there is a whole lot more to unpack, but this part is never talked about in the origins. Nor do I agree with how it was handled either.
Do they teach about Hitler's program killing disabled people just prior to the Holocaust happening? How he used them as a sort of pre-holucaust killing of disabled kids and adults? I feel a lot of people forget how he also killed disabled, LGBTQ people, people of color. Everyone knows about the Jewish people's horror they endured, but do they teach about the other people killed too?
This guy speaks in the longest sentences I’ve ever heard.
He’s German just look at the German language there’s ur answer
He speaks how research papers write
Your statement shocks me.
Severe wordiness
I like it. I wish I could speak so well and really purely expressive using the most accurate terms possible. It does sound long-winded, but he isn’t hemming and hawing, um-ing, or wasting breath on points that aren’t important.
Very nice Video.
Im German (19yr) and just finished school this summer. And i remember exactly when we had to go to a concentration camp in 9th grade. It is mandatory and even the people who were sick that day had to do this trip with the classes of the following year.
We were all about 14-16yrs old. On the way to Dachau there was a lot of laughing and joking about the the time back then and what the people had to endure. I know that was very f'ed up, but you know how teenagers are.
But just after arriving and standing at this huge open field where all these poor souls arrived too back then and seeing just how big the complex was, we all went silent pretty fast. Not because we were scared or anything like that, but because you can feel that very bad and frightening thinks happend here. Its a feeling i cant really describe to be honest.
The tour was fascinating and our guide could literally answer every question we could think of. But we all had this depressing and ashamed feeling the whole time. We were ashamed and also kind of surprised/shocked that the n*zis did this to others.
The first shock was then seeing how the people had to "live", crowed the whole time, sleeping in beds five at a time where one person could barely fit in. And even know i can still remember the smell of that place. But the most shocking thing was not seeing the gas chamber and listening to the guide explaining what these marks on the wall are (scratching of these poor panicking souls, realizing that they wont escape) no, it was the 20 minute video we saw.
The End of the tour is always the cinema. There you will see a small documentation of the camp. From the building to the arriving of the first prisoners, the day by day humilation, the killing etc. and even videos of the freeing through the russians.
You see the skinny people who are almost skeletons. You see how scared they are. No hope, no happiness. Its a depressing feeling seeing the last moments of people. Even after they were dead, they were not treated with dignity of any kind. Just thrown in a pit, burned to ashes. I can't imagine how its must have felt being inside one of these camps.
I know this didn't make it sound like a fun tour for the whole family, because it isn't and it shouldn't be, but i still recommend it. If you ever are in poland or gemany, go and book a tour. It is a very humbling experience and i promise it will change you. Because on the bus ride home there wasn't a single person joking anymore and we were all pretty quiet and in our thoughts.
I am German and I know how it is taught in school. But I clocked on the video anyway, to see if he got it accurate...And I'm amazed how good he got it. So, great job, Simon! Keep going. Greetings from Germany
Same here, I was curious how good the video would reflect the reality and it is so accurate that I am surprised and impressed. Including the books we read in school about the subject.
I’ve been following this channel for years and it’s quite rare that they get a dud when it comes to research.
Every german comment ever ends with "Greetings from Germany"
ihaveagiantschlongwannasee they are quite polite people, aren’t they?
We Germans are very direct. We can be stubborn as all hell but we can also admit when we fucked up. And in this case especially, Germany fucked up really badly. And that's exactly what they tell us in school. They teach us about this mainly when we are around age 15-16 and usually finish the topic of WWII by visiting a former concentration camp. For me it was Bergen-Belsen, the place where Anne Frank was killed. A guide will walk the class around and tell the story of how life was there, what the camp was about (since there were different "kinds") and what happened when soldiers came and freed the camps. With literal video footage. The stories are already a lot to listen to but there's something about being a 16 yo with nothing to worry about in life and being confronted with real footage of so many dead people who where killed right where you stand not that long ago. It really puts a need in your head to prevent that from ever happening again, you really push for that afterwards. So no, they for real don't sugar coat anything, they are very real with so you understand what happened, what went wrong and what you have to do to help that this won't happen ever again.
Oh yeah... The pictures, the videos, the piles of bones... This room where masses of people got gased and the big ass oven where they got burnt. These field trips had a diffrent vibe than the ones before. But I'm so glad I experienced it!
Not if hitler won the war. Germans would be still forced listening to hitler.
same here - visitted KZ Natzweiler-Struthof as a 17 yo kid and will never forget the pictures I saw there. Of course I was aware about the crimes that were committed during WW2 before that day but the whole atmosphere of the KZ really burned into my memory
Most people wouldn't think twice when they're shown a picture of Anne Frank literally posed in writing position for visual reinforcement.
Break the conditioning
Thank you for this
25 years ago my father was hosting two German former fighter pilots who were over for a VE Day 50 years of peace commemoration. I went over to help out as he spoke no German and they needed a break from trying to understand his accent. They were a delight to talk to but one of them told me that they felt very awkward about Germany's role in WW2. I looked at their sad faces and just said gently "Well, we couldn't have done it without you....!" which is a fact but it diffused the situation nicely and they both laughed out loud. My father wondered what on earth I had said to them, lol.
Wonderful answer! I remember my father, who became a soldier in 1943 at the age of 16 and became a p.o.w. at the end of the war weeks before he even turned 18, was split between the knowledge to have fought for the wrong side and the shame to have lost the war. And he'd been aware of this split even when the war was still raging.
I always said to him that he should imagine they'd have won the war - and that it had been more patriotic to lose it. His mind could follow the argument, but his heart never really could embrace it.
@@wolfgangwalk337 Thankyou for your kind comment, Wolfgang. I am sad to think that your father never quite came to terms with what happened. His generation were often victims of the past. My late husband was a military historian so we encountered many stories and sadly your father was far from alone. You counselled him well. He had not had a choice at the time, especially at such a young age.
I should perhaps have said that I was speaking to the former airmen in German so they felt able to talk more freely. Nobody around us knew what they were saying. They were brave men, and I told them so.
I read that in Morgan Freeman's narration voice. -My Father wondered what on Earth, I had said to them... Laugh out Loud- 😂
This is epic
@@YvonneWilson312 Your kindness is appreciated.
A great uncle of mine was in Germany when his squad was ambushed. Everybody was killed but him - he played dead. Being a German-American, he understood and spoke German, and realized they were debating whether to shoot the soldiers again, to make sure they were dead. They decided it would be a waste of ammunition. He lay there, playing dead, among the corpses of his brothers, until it grew dark. When he was sure he was alone, he got up, jumped in a nearby creek, and ran 2 or 3 miles back to American lines. He was never the same after that. I wonder if they teach stuff like that in Germany?
Its not a important thing to talk about. They teach us about the date were what happened in europe and asia and we talked about the concentration camps. Also we talked a little bit about the communism
As a former student from Germany I can tell you that you pretty much nailed it.
Same here, this was 100% accurate. Well done, ideed!
but I did learn about the march through the ukrain and other countries and he said it isn't taught in school. But otherwise it was well made.
@@saladasss2092 I mean there is a lot of difference even between teachers. Its my guess but I think hes talking about the things that need to be taught from the curriculum
when I went to university in the uk, a thing that I found interesting right away was when asked by the teacher who won ww2, a student put his hand up for approval to speak and then proudly replied "England!", I looked to the teacher expecting some sort of slight correction but he just said "correct!". that was the first time it really sank in that the history I had been learning in school is subjective, if only to a certain extent.
my main point here being not that england didn't win the war, but that no one would ever answer "England" to that question (except for english people of course), seeing as the uk mostly was defensive and basically resisted until America stepped in and Germany turned against Russia. it would make much more sense to answer "America" or even "Russia", though the most correct answer would definitely be "the allies". that was the first time I realized each country teaches history slightly differently to glorify themselves
The lecturer was making a joke no professional academic in England would accept such an answer it's called irony and is particularly found in English humour.
@@johnmilligan6605 either that or this just didn’t happen.
@@johnmilligan6605 I guarantee you, there was no irony in that interaction from either of them. Keep in mind this was a film course, so not exactly the most prestigious or intellectual field
@@knurdyob I wouldn't say America really won the war Russia and Britain won the most important battles
@@alxonpc9388 Gotta respectfully disagree. The western front weaponry was American. D-Day, which turned the tide of the war, was by far American. The war was of course an allied effort, and in terms of manpower, the Soviet Union sent 35 million, the U.S 16 million, and the British 8.5 million. Can't forget the incredible Canadians and Australians, both of whom contributed 1 million men.
As a british woman living in Bavaria,I will never forget the day my son came home and told me their school trip was to Dachau. I have since taken German citizenship.we and the world should never forget.
Unfortunately look where the world stands now. Bigotry everywhere
What's wrong with Dachau?
The best way to understand this topic is really to visit a concentration camp. Only if you feel that...
Well then.. you wouldn't be a Brittish woman... would you?
@@user-vv9wd1ez1c That feel when you do a swan dive into the auschwitz swimming pool ?
As a German who's parents both witnesses WWII as toddlers and who went through German education, this is quite accurate and it left me with a big difficulty to cope with people who make jokes about that time. I've met so many people who think it's funny to greet me saying "Heil Hitler" and I really can't laugh about it.
I once met a group of Israelis abroad and they were so nice and friendly until they asked me where I come from and I suddenly became a pariah. I could understand them, but it felt weird, because I was born 30 years after the war had ended and had nothing to do with it, but was seen by them as a mass murderer.
Israeli Jew here, I don't hate you or view you as anything without knowing you, this group absolutely sounds like an outlier to the current norm, but I personally do believe that it is absolutely valid for Israelis and Jews to hate all Germans, there's nothing that could ever be done to make up for the atrocious actions your ancestors have committed, we will forgive you but we will never forget how Germans crippled our people, millions of people were murdered the Holocaust, and even more families were effected by this. Again let me clarify, most of us have forgiven the Germans and have no ill will or hate towards you, but we will never forget what happened.
@@maimonguy123 we will never forget either. In fact at school I was taught so much about it and ingrained a sense of responsibility for what happened that I didn't feel offended, just very uncomfortable.
I understand why Israelis and Jews generally feel like that and respect it. It's just unpleasant to be treated that way for something you haven't done. But don't worry, we're taught to accept it.
Interestingly the Greeks I've met are far more able to distinguish between the Turks who enslaved and murdered their ancestors for centuries and those who live today. It seems they are somehow willing to perceive a person as a fellow human being before categorising.
@@maimonguy123this take is terrible. What about all the german jews massacred by the Nazi regime and their ancestors. You understand hating them too? Absolutely ignorant.
@@maimonguy123No, I don't think it is valid as an israelian jew to hate germans. as a holocaust survivor, maybe, but even that would be a very irrational response since many of the nazi's victims were german. there were jewish people in germany, gay people, jehovas witnesses, political opponents, mentally or physically ill...there were german citizens. in fact, the first country the nazis invaded was their own. it would simply not be accurate to hate all people from a country simply because some people in there did horrible things even to each other. it is not your place or any other of the postwar generations to have any feelings towards german people due to the war since you were not alive back then. you might be related to a holocaust survivor, but you aren't one yourself. in fact, I would argue that holocaust survivors know better than anyone what senseless hatred against a demographic of people can lead to. it is not your place to forgive. also considering the recent events, it seems as if crippling people, tearing apart families and committing ethnic cleansing is something that all countries are capable of.
Another popular novel, which many german schools read is called “die Welle” (”the wave”), written by Morton Rue and published in 1981, which is based on a real experiment in an American high school. The novel deals with a teacher who forms a group made out of students called "die Welle”. He did this because the students of his class wondered how the Nazis became so popular and powerful back in the days and said that it couldn’t happen again, so he started this project to convince them otherwise. It started with the students doing activities as a group such as marching in the classroom and then they started to create a hand motion (they did a wave with their hands) to show their participation in this group. Everyone treated the same, even the outcast of the class made friends with the other students. And as the story goes on, the group becomes stronger and they kind of segregate the people who don’t take part in their activities. And at the end of the book the teacher realised, that it has gotten out of control and told the students that it was an experiment and that it was to show them that it can indeed happen again and the former outcast of the class was so devastated because things would go back to normal again, meaning he would loose his friends, that he shot himself in the head (in the movie at least, I can’t remember if he did it in the book as well).
Omg we saw that film in hisory class.
I’m from the U.S., and we read that book in school too! It was definitely interesting.
I am just echoing what other fellow Germans said on here: Spot on depiction. I just wanted to add: Those parts that you mentioned as not being taught in school, like the battles and other military events are covered extensively by history and documentary channels. They are basicly the tv evergreens and have been rerun for years and years. If it's late at night and you're skipping through the tv channels you're almost guaranteed to end up at a documentary aboout WW2.
I used to watch those a lot as a teenager during summer holidays.
eins zwei eins zwei!
I visited Germany for the first time last summer, and when I turned on the TV at my hotel, I kid you not, the first thing I saw was Hitler! This was sometime in the evening
@@simonstadin is he...back?
bittercottoncandy yeah no thanks.
I’m good with being proud of my country for our culture and accomplishments not just the fact that we are a country
@bittercottoncandy Here's your "fascist" button
As a German I wanted to write a comment how accurate it is until I saw the 12000 comments starting with "as a German" XD
As a German, i can say:
Agreed
As an American I'm startng to wonder if all of these people are really Germans.
@@waluigi3515 It’s a German Tradition to watch every Video about German things and after that to write a comment. As a German I also noticed that this got a meme for some Germans.
@@waluigi3515 we are germans🗿
@@youju26 jep, wir übernehmen jede Kommentarsektion, die das Wort "German" im Titel hat...It is honestly really funny to me, just saying...
I have an amazing history teacher this year. He is making sure that not only do we get to know the history through texts, films, documentaries, photos, propaganda analysis etc, but that we also get a sense for those "politicians" as people. Showing photos that weren't intended to be seen by the public eye, talking about their upbringings etc. He is teaching us that especially Hitler wasn't some kind of special person, and that his entire public persona was precisely manufactured by using said propaganda. He was just a random guy with terrible views who managed to climb the ladder of politics and caused immesuarable pain and suffering. That his intelligence made him so much more terrifying. Anyone could try to do the same, and that it is our duty to make sure that we never, ever let anything like this happen again.
My teacher puts all those public figures of the past into perspective so we get a feeling of how close this history is to us still.
I did a student exchange to Germany in high school, fucking loved it, loved the country, loved the people. Great experience, Germany is the shit. That being said, when we got to WW2 in class, it was definitely a sensitive topic, probably more so because there was an American in class. I got a feeling more of sorrow than anything else. Generally, they are ashamed of that period in their history, even though they and their parents had nothing to do with it.
Every other country has done the same fucking shit. You dont see Russians crying about Stalin's atrocities.
@@Monkofthecaribbean agreed. Tbh as much as its honourable that germans are taught of their history to never repeat it again, it also sort of sounds like constant shaming for atrocities they didn't commit. To this day Japan still hasn't apologised for their atrocities, the US hasn't apologised for the atomic bombs, Russia for Stalins atrocities or even the British for their bombing of Dresden and famine in Bengal. I think the German people should give themselves a break and realise that nearly every other major power during WW2 committed similar atrocities, maybe not on the same scale but they weren't innocent.
Yeah, you should take a look at documentary from the war. You will see nobody with his arm up to salute Hitler !! Wir habben es nicht gewust !! We didn't know !!!That is what they all say !! Ofcourse there are good people in Germany, bud don't forget, they voted for Hitler. I am a Dutchman, and mine vader was a German. Sometimes mine mother made an joke ! Give them boots and a pistol, and they wil start again !
„They“ who voted for hitler are almost all dead now. I know no german who does not hate that part of our history and who is not deeply concerned that something like that could ever happen again. You seem to have a very narrow perspective that is build on 2/3 ppl only. There will always be delusional and horrible people. In every country, religion and political movement. But they are not the majority - at least i. Germany
@@euphoriaggaminghd hi, i do understand where you are coming from, but for me personally this does not mean anything about the education in Germany should be changed, quite contraty, is shows the necessity for every country to learn and teach about their history. Most important, about what went wrong and especially why it went wrong so every citizen has the best capabilty of recognizing certain behaviour and developments right away, to prevent things like genocide, slavery or just fascism from happening again. We call it "Erinnerungskultur" (commemerative culture), the Holocaust and dictatorship of the Nazi-Regime is something that left a mark and so it is our responsibility, as individuals but also as a society or country, to not only say "never again" but to be able to mean it. Being educated so well about what hate and horrible thoughts can cause is what makes nowadays Germany a mostly politically left-oriented country. I would wish for this to be normal everywhere. History is and always will be the best way to learn for now and the future.
As a German, I can confirm that this was accurate. However, I'd like to add that at first, the denazification was not all that successful. Shortly after the war and up until the 60s, the topic was not really talked about in families and former nazis still held more or less important positions, for examples as judges, in many places. The 1968 student movement is what put an end to nazism in Germany for good.
"The 1968 student movement is what put an end to nazism in Germany for good."
There is still a lot of Nazism in Germany, as is witnessed by the continuing existence of a plethora of Neo-Nazi Groups, for example. Go to your Landratsamt or Einwohnermeldeamt and ask for their list of unacceptable organisations (that's if they're willing to hand it out). The last list I saw ran to 4 pages of A4 paper.
@@peterpoop7760 what I meant by "put an end to nazism for good" is that it put an end to the societal acceptance of nazism, I should have clarified that. It is evident that there are still many nazis, but as opposed to the situation that was up until the 60s, they are not accepted now and national pride is heavily frowned upon now.
@@charlotteice5704 national pride is by no means a bad thing, and it being frowned upon is nothing short of patethic. Being patriotic and proud of your country is the hallmark of a strong nation which is in many ways a requirement for civilization itself.
Funnily enough, as a Jew from Israel (though I now study in Germany) I can tell you that there is a particular similarity in the way it was dealt with in Israel, although from the other side: at least until the '60s, the holocaust wasn't talked about much in Israel. As far as I know, there were two main reasons for that:
1. Holocaust survivors who came to Israel after the war and wanted to share the stories of the atrocities they experienced often found out that Israeli-born people did not want to listen. Many of those born in Israel and raised with the mentality of "we shall determine our own fate" (by establishing a state of our own etc.) tended to view the holocaust as an event where European Jews were led "like sheep to the slaughter", i.e. led to their known death without putting up a fight. That's of course total nonsense (because they were guaranteed to lose their lives if they tried to resist), but that was the perception and attitude. I think that has started to in 1961 during Adolf Eichmann's trial, when many Israelis were first exposed to the personal horrors told by holocaust survivors who spoke as witnesses in the trial.
2. Holocaust survivors who came to Israel usually tried to build a new life, with a new family, and did not want to dig in their painful past.
@@ZiggyMercury Nice Comment. Did u ever hear of the christian embassy in Jerusalem? Its an organisation that unites mostly christians from all over the world, big part from germany too, in support of Israel. They also run a shelter for poor old holocaust survivors in haifa, where young germans come to help and work for one year as a part of healing those wounds that their nation caused the people that live there. It isnt anything i did myself sadly, but as a german i read this with a good feeling.
As a recent “high school” graduate in Germany, I can say that this is pretty accurate! But it’s also important to note that the goal of our graduation (Abitur), is to always think critically with ALL tools available to us. Thus we learn about WW2 in most classes such as; German, history, sociology, politics, economics, art and even tech/physics. The knowledge that we gain from each class is complimentary and creates a broader understanding and evaluation of events, whether it be WW2 or others.
Well said!
It seems like such an integrated approach would bring a more complete understanding of what happened and sharpen that critical thinking.
The goal of abitur is to complete the brainwashing.
Its not critical thinking what they learn, its thinking what teachers want us to think, and calling it critical
@@Rumo_Notna no it's not lmao. Everybody can do their own research and good students do that. But if the sources aren't good and trustworthy, it's probably bullshit. School usually offers the most common/most commonly agreed on sources because well, they're the most credited they could find. Other sources are of course taken into consideration, especially in the last 2-3 years (Oberstufe). Querdenkergeschwurbel and "alternative facts" are not legit sources though, that's probably why you never see shit like that in german schools
@@Rumo_Notna Aluhut lmao
We hosted a German student during the 99-2000 school year, and during a discussion one night I was able to play a recording of part of one of Hitler’s speeches. The young man said he had never heard his voice before ( this was before UA-cam) and found what he was saying to be fascinating.
you will be so amazed at how this is handled in Japan
How do they teach WW2 in Japan
Or Russia...
Is it true that the Japanese history books don’t cover the parts in history where Japan invaded Manchuria?
Girls und panzer and high school fleet don’t count
Kyle Shiflet very poorly. They put themselves out to be victims and completely omit the Nanjing massacre, the atrocities in Singapore and the Pacific islands, Burma etc etc. it’s staggeringly one sided.
"Until the lion learn to write, every story will glorify the hunter"
great saying !
The lion is the hunter.....?
@@francescoferrigno2339 Yeah, I was confused too. But that’s how the saying is. 🤷🏽♀️
I love this
@@madmadpoopoo1228 I think it’s referring to us as the hunter
I love how people in the comments assume this is just history class lmao no. We talk about WW2 in History, Religious Ed, German class, political ed...
Local Finley this is the same in England right now, especailly in History and RE
Who is "we"? In Germany i was only told about the world wars in history class. And pretty shotcutted tbh.
@SaphiraSeraphina Finished school 2002 in Berlin. We had never anything about WW2 in German classes. We just read poems most of time in the later classes.
I just checked the framework for all classes in Berlin (for foreigners: Berlin is a citystate and education is a responsibility of the states, not the federal goverment in Germany).
www.berlin.de/sen/bildung/unterricht/faecher-rahmenlehrplaene/rahmenlehrplaene/rlp-kompakt-1-10.pdf
The framework dont specify what you can read in German classes, but the objective is about reading and argueing about it, not the content itself. In history classes its get really interesting imho. There are two base modules for the classes 9/10: "Democracy and Dictatorship" and "The cold war: A bipolar world and Germany since 1945". The first module includes WW1, Weimarer Republik, WW2 and NS-Ideology. Thats quite a lot for just one module compared to cold war.
But thats just a framework. It depends on school and teacher how much it/he or she wants to teach of which topic.
PS: I never was in Religious education. Until my 9th grade i didnt even know such classes exists ;)
@@sleepingcity85 Without trying to be rude this might be connected to the fact that you went to school in Berlin, I'm sure that you as a fellow German know that schools, or better said the Abitur is statistically easier in Brandenburg or Berlin than in other states like NRW or Bavaria. I myself live in Düsseldorf and can only agree with all other comments and am quite surprised of your experience being so different, especially when Berlin is the city which was effected the most.
@@sleepingcity85 You are the first one that i hear that german schools dont talk about it gues you are one of very very few