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 oldravenman3025 wrote:

As somebody from a nation that enshrines free speech and free expression, I find this one of the troubling aspects of modern Germany. Sure, it's in poor taste. And might get somebody an ass whipping from one or more onlookers. But I have never agreed with jailing somebody for saying something I don't like or agree with. But their county, their rules in their country.

Freedom and democracy don't mean that you can say and do whatever you want, free speech and free expressions are always restricted with some limits. In the USA it's the same story.

If you advocate a system that allows mass muder and is race based you can't manifest in public those political opinions. Nazi and fascism propaganda are (or should be) strictly forbidden in any democracy, as well as islamist hate speechs.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:

Just to add, the occupation was relatively harsh, but by no means excessive in the denazification. The mistake they made was the assumption denazification was even possible as most important or vital positions were almost always fulfilled by former Nazi's who had the knowhow. There was still quite some Nazi support for a good while after the war with Hitler fans being able to discuss how great it was using the acronym USA (roughly translated it stands for "our sweet Adolf"). But this never took on a great role in post war Germany.

The period of violent backlash is quite contested. Dr. Biddiscombe is very much an outlier in the debate about organizations such as Werwolf and the common consensus by historians such as Antoney Beevor and Ian Kershaw is that these organizations were very limited in scope and action besides a few assassinations during or directly after the war. The RAND Corporation even did research into possible U.S. casualties after the war to German resistance and came to the conclusion no Americans died as a consequence of hostile action.

The actual SS Werewolf units that were founded at the end of the war by the Third Reich were indeed of limited effectiveness. And while there weren't many Allied personnel killed by insurgent activity (at least, in the West), and material damage was more of an annoyance than anything, they still had an impact on the nature and attitudes of post-war Germany. As Dr. Biddiscombe pointed out, despite the founding constitutions of both West and East Germany, on the surface, being "shining examples of statecraft", the reality wasn't as shiny. West Germany ended up with a so-called "chancellor's democracy" (at least until the end of the Adenauer era). And we know the dark history of East Germany and the infamous Stasi (It should be noted that the Soviets remained on their guard for Werewolf activity well into the early 1950s, so something was up). Most of the hardline attitudes, and methods of dealing with opposition by the powers that be at any given time, in the divided Germany can be attributed (at least in part) to the legacy of the Werewolves, and their spin-off groups, during the immediate post war era. An influence that went beyond the minimum loss in manpower and material as a result of their activities.

While the level of violence and casualties can most definitely be debated, since there is no clear consensus across the board, there was documented subversion, killings, and sabotage attempts in the western sectors well into 1947-1948. The heavy-handed actions in response only made things worse, breeding more problems until new policies were implemented (especially by American military authorities; the British didn't have as many problems, and the French were only interested in stripping what they could and shipping it back to France as "war reparations"). The Soviets handled subversion in their usual ruthless manner, with the help of East German communists, until they were confident that things had leveled out in the early 50's (coincidentally with the end of Stalinism in the U.S.S.R, when the level of paranoia dipped slightly).

You make some good points regarding de-nazification. Despite the decimation and loss of life in Germany being a result of the territorial ambitions of Hitler and the NSDAP, there were enough people still alive who fondly remembered the German resurgence in the 1920's and 1930's under Hitler (even if it was for Nazi self-interests and goals). If one looks at the history with a critical eye, and for a moment put aside the atrocities committed by the Third Reich, Hitler's rise had it's roots in a treaty that unfairly put the brunt on Germany after the First World War. Wilson's "Fourteen Points" proposals were ignored by the other allied powers, and the Treaty of Versailles Article 231 was nothing more than a dick move by the other colonial powers to remove a hated rival from the playing field. The victorious allies had lit the slow burning fuse that would set off the next war. Somebody charismatic was set to come along among the resentful Germans, and turn the tables in retribution. And that somebody wasn't likely to be a nice guy. In steps one Adolph Hitler, and the rest is history. It might be disagreeable and disgusting, but it is obvious why some in Germany continued to admire Hitler despite losing the war and the atrocities that came to light afterward.

It is also important to note the distinction between approaches of Allied Soviet and Allied Western approaches. The Soviets had to deal with a lot of low scale guerrilla warfare for years in Eastern Europe and faced organized resistance groups and dealing with the subsequent ethnic cleansing that wet on after the borders were shifted. East-Germany was more brutal because it was just the nature of the regime taking charge. Organizations such as Werwolf were more of a psychological issue to the Allies who tended to be more afraid of the possible consequences than reality. The Soviets just kept an 'eye' out because it was mighty helpful for them politically speaking to keep the idea of such a hostile organization live for prosecuting people.
This is were most of the historical debates are placed, was it mostly just a psychological effect or did they actually have any significant impact? Most historians argue that they didn't. I'm not trying to put down Biddiscombe, just pointing out that he is an outlier.

This is were the dark history comes in. The heavy handed approach and denazification went hand in hand and this is why things went badly. Everybody who had the slightest incling of how to run government had been involved in the Nazi party to a certain extent. There was no possible way to accept that fact and keep going with the heavy handed approach. The Allies just needed these people and some of the most horrible war criminals only got a few years or nothing because they were deemed to valuable in the end, Werner von Braun going to the USA might be the most famous example. For a lot of people the Nazi regime represented the good old days were they could work in peace on horrific experiments, profit from the extermination of their neighbours (taking over houses or business from Jews for example) and restore Germany as a great power. Most Germans were still against going to war however, if you read about the period its completely detaching fro reality to seem them regret the war but not the vast amount of murders. The amount of denial that still occurred in Germany is also greatly underestimated. We all like to think that the Germans dealt with their history very well and in part they did, but the 1990's were a very difficult period in which they had to come to terms with the vast scope of what they did. Before they always claimed more that it was the Nazi's and the SS but it became painfully clear the vast amount of soldiers on the Eastern Front had either witnessed or participated in atrocities. The myth of the clean 'Wehrmacht' that those that served had tried to promote became undone and many Germans had to confront the idea that their fathers, uncles or grandfathers knew or did a lot more than they let on. Although the idea that all Germans knew and willingly went along like Daniel Goldhagen claimed in the 1990's is equally ridiculous. But the cult of personality Hitler fostered and the air of denial around what had happened certainly did live on in a good number of Germans after the war and even now there are a handful actively longing for those 'good old days'.

Hitler's rise is a combination of luck and factors of the previous war. I think the Treaty of Versailles has been covered plenty of times and was a decent factor in explaining his 'succes' in elections. He never really did gain a significant amount of votes, the most he was able to get was close to a third with all the rigging he could manage, then going close to full dictator to wipe out political parties to give himself a majority but then just going to the president role to rule by decree. Cancelling Versailles was a good part of his program to get elected, but he never mentioned getting revenge and the anti antisemitism was significantly downplayed. The idea of going to war to cancel Versailles was hated almost universally and only gained some traction after the fall of Poland but people only really got into the revenge and war idea once France had mostly fallen. The military still planned on killing Hitler if it seemed he would push Germany to war in the 38-39 period, but they completely chickened out (the failure of appeasement in not checking Germany in 38 when it was relatively weak) and then became totally dependent on him.
Wilson was a dreamer and his fourteen points would have been ignored even domestically. There just wasn't any international or domestic support for his semi revolutionary ideas at the time and even he himself didn't really push them that hard, you can read Ho Chi Minh's recollections of the Versailles negotiations and Wilson's self determination, they are quite interesting with him becoming major figure in both French and US history later on.

 oldravenman3025 wrote:

 Disciple of Fate wrote:
The nice side effect is that it allows them to arrest those idiotic people who give the Hitler salute.

As somebody from a nation that enshrines free speech and free expression, I find this one of the troubling aspects of modern Germany. Sure, it's in poor taste. And might get somebody an ass whipping from one or more onlookers. But I have never agreed with jailing somebody for saying something I don't like or agree with. But their county, their rules in their country.

I think it just has to do with US cultural perception. While the US has had some very dark pages in its history few countries can claim to have had worse histories than Nazi Germany (although some regimes certainly come/came close). The culmination of Nazi ideology was basically murdering people and using Nazi imagery or gestures ultimately leads to the conclusion of wanting to go back to those similar good old days. Its racism and hatred pure and simple when you see people giving the Hitler salute next to a refugee center burning down or someone that looks 'foreign' being arrested (or even to a police officer over a disagreement accusing them of being a Nazi). Sure the US might not have the strictest laws against Nazi imagery or statements (you didn't go full Nazi America either) but running around in a KKK outfit will certainly cause you a whole lot of trouble both socially and professionally, even if the state doesn't always intervene. The same goes for Eastern European countries prohibiting displays of the Soviet Red Star, it might seem strange to some of us, but then we haven't been living under some of the most oppresive and brutal regimes in history.

Furthermore a lot of censoring is also just about displaying violence in European media, where the U.S. has this more towards displays of sexuality (going outside just the Nazi debate of course).