What are your Views ??

[Dave C]

I have just read about this. In my view if treated correctly it will educate, if not then who knows.

 

http://blogs.orange.co.uk/travel/2010/04/nazi-museum-serves-as-a-warning-from-history.html

[Tony B]

Lest we forget. Easy to decry , but depends on how the exhibits are presented.

[rog8811]

The world cannot pretend the Nazis/SS never existed and hide everything from public view.

Expressing an interest in the history is not like signing up to the ideology, I see no problem with a well run museum on the subject.

 

Regards rog8811

[ferrettkitt]

Plenty of people in this world would like to change history but its up to museums, books and good old fashioned education to stop that happening. It doesn't follow that an interest in the Nazis will also mean that a person will want to become a Nazi.

 

Some people will always naturally fall towards the extreme side of life when times are hard and they feel as if know one is listening to them. That will never change

[Markheliops]

I have commented on a similar thread before about the SS.

 

First thing, I agree with the other posts in that the SS and Nazis are a part of history and people should be educated about their rise and fall.

 

The thing that concerns me a little is not ALL soldiers and units of the SS were responsible for the war crimes committed during the war.

 

Yes, some units or rather personnel were responsible for some hideous acts as documented. They were also some of the best trained and dedicated troops of the German Army, showing bravery and determination in some of the fiercest battles of World War 2.

 

Everyone associates the SS and The Nazis as one of the same - I'm afraid a study of German history proves this to be incorrect. Unfortunately, the phrase "tarred with the same brush" springs to mind.

 

I am not defending any atrocities committed by the SS during the war but I am sensible enough and educated enough to see both sides of the SS.

 

In a previous thread about the SS my views were thought some what provoking but I felt it right to refresh some peoples minds that not all crimes committed during the war were committed by troops belonging to the SS. We are well aware about crimes committed by the troops of Japan and the Red Army were not known for there dedication to the rules of the Geneva Convention.

 

Allied soldiers committed their fair share of war crimes as well but it would appear these are not so well documented for obvious reasons.

 

War crimes are horrendous and of course any one responsible should be brought to justice but I feel it unfair to tarnish all SS troops with the same stigma.

 

One last thing - none of us were ever in the position of having to do as ordered or be shot by our own officers -

 

As I have never been in such a position, I do not feel qualified to condemn any one - Allied or Axis troops.

 

Markheliops

[berna2vm]

I am in complete agreement with Mark on this topic. The SS did not commit all the atrocities during the second world war. In all honesty, bad deeds were committed on all sides, even the British army were not without blame to a small degree. The Waffen SS were fanatical soldiers, respected by all opponents and not to be confused with the scum on the cushy number of murdering innocent civilians. Upon capture by the ,in Italy my great uncle was offered a cigarette by them !

It happened and you cannot ignore history.

I would certainly visit this museum, I find anything from this period in history fascinating.

[fesm_ndt]

It is all just history, especially now for us i.e. go back 2 decades and we knew people who would not buy anything made in Japan.

 

The SS were held up as the poster boys of evil, yet most the actual war criminals were spirited away and set up in new jobs, because they knew something about the soviets, or rockets or biological weapons. So depends on who's interested if you are a war criminal. There is a good documentry on the US using ex Nazis to set up intelligence gathering in Germany the head of this was an alledged war criminal who then recruited heaps of others into this.

 

Bomber Harris was often accused of being a war criminal due to the systematic fire bombing with the intent of killing as many civilians as possible.

 

So you need museums so people who are interested can look at either side, compare. I do think it is a bit provocative though being set up in Himmlers ex residence as I am guessing this will definately attract the wrong sort of twits

[Tony B]

The problem is England Scotland and Wales and America, were the only 'Allied' home countrys not occupied.

For the rest the occupation and the the fear happned within living memory. My generation was taught, and had as hero's those who were directly involved. The Third Reich had a policy of what would be described now as 'State Sponsored Terrorism'. Though social attitudes Genrally were diffrent then, The young people then were influenced and taught by the generation that had sufferd and fought in the Great War. Germany was not exactaly liked, but if Hitler had stopped in 1938 it is intresting to specualte what history may have thought of him. The SS doctrine was that Ayryan's are superior the rest of the 'lesser races' are there to be either treated as a commidity to do with as we wish, or exterminated as vermin. Anything that appears to'glorify' the showpiece force of the Third Reich is bound to be contreversial. Proves one thing, fanatics are dangerous, no matter who's side they are on.

I have to say I was rather disquieted about Tom Hank's making Von Staffenberg out to be a 'hero'. He only turned antiHitler after a major head injury, and the Russian's were threatening his property. It seems the film conviently 'forgot' the plotters intention was not to end the war, but to persude the Allie's to join what was left of the german forces to defeat Russia. So as you see preuidice is still about.

[berna2vm]

In fairness Tony ,Von Stauffenburg and his chums would have had to sue for peace because the Americans and us would have never agreed to this collaboration against the Soviets. In honesty though it may have been for the better if something like this happened with a de-nazified German army.

You do have to be very brave(or very very stupid!) to undertake a task such as he against the Nazi regime because it did'nt take Albert Einstein to figure out what the consequences of failure were...

[Tony B]

Sorry, but the prevous years activties by Von Staffenberg, I have no sympathy with any of them. That the Third Reich was a result of many factors, and an abberation, I'll accept, and the 'working class' went along as it put food on their tables and gave back pride after Versille. But the German 'noble' class were promenet in the governing of occupied terrritories. They didn't turn against Hitler till it was obvious they were lossing.

this is getting very close to the P word. I was brought up in a place that was Occupied.

[AlienFTM]

Do you know, memory suggests that Command Troop 15/19H (stationed in Paderborn) spent an exercise weekend (no track movements at weekends, so exercises stopped Friday night and resumed very early Monday morning) in our command Saracens parked up at Wewelsburg in 1978. ISTR it was either the weekend Pope John Paul died or Pope John Paul II was invested. The investiture on 16 October 1978 sounds like it was smack in the middle of FTX season

 

It was a beautiful place. We didn't get to see inside though. There must have been bars in the village.