Poll of the Day > Angela Merkel's father fought for Nazi Germany in his high school years.

(+) Yeah! (+)

And not much is known about his wartime service.

Shouldn't we find this chilling?
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Not really, there were millions of Germans serving in the military during WW2. You'd probably have a harder time finding Germans that didn't have some family that fought for the Nazis. Considering his age, and the fact that he was a prisoner of war by the time he was 19, he would only have had a very short period of service.

Considering towards the end of the war they were drafting 12 year old kids and 60+ year old men, and they'd shoot you on the spot if you didn't fight, that doesn't really mean much.
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Wasn't one of the popes in Hitler youth?

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afrodude77 posted...

Wasn't one of the popes in Hitler youth?

maybe but again
it'd be counter culture in that time period to NOT be in anything nazi related, tho if you were a woman it did have it's benefiets you'd get free school basically lol
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Ferarri619 posted...

Shouldn't we find this chilling?

Yes. Just like how you should find anyone who buys a Mercedes Benz or Volkswagen, or buys anything from Hugo Boss chilling.
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Ferarri619 posted...

And not much is known about his wartime service.

Shouldn't we find this chilling?

Probably - what office does he hold in her government again?
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RoboXgp89 posted...

maybe but again
it'd be counter culture in that time period to NOT be in anything nazi related, tho if you were a woman it did have it's benefiets you'd get free school basically lol

I'm aware was just saying that's how inclusive it was back then that even the pope was technically be in Nazi related stuff.

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> Angela Merkel's father fought for Nazi Germany in his high school years.

So did literally every man in Germany at the time... probably
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darkknight109 posted...

Ferarri619 posted...

And not much is known about his wartime service.

Shouldn't we find this chilling?

Probably - what office does he hold in her government again?

None, seeing as he is dead.

Lokarin posted...

> Angela Merkel's father fought for Nazi Germany in his high school years.

So did literally every man in Germany at the time... probably

They didn't, but ok.

RoboXgp89 posted...

afrodude77 posted...

Wasn't one of the popes in Hitler youth?

maybe but again
it'd be counter culture in that time period to NOT be in anything nazi related, tho if you were a woman it did have it's benefiets you'd get free school basically lol

The nazis weren't overwhelmingly popular, plenty of Germans didn't like or support them at the time.

In any case, it's her dad, not her. So it doesn't really matter in the first place.

Zangulus posted...

No? What are you suggesting we find chilling about someone who isnt in office having done in the past?

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rjsilverthorn posted...

darkknight109 posted...

Ferarri619 posted...

And not much is known about his wartime service.

Shouldn't we find this chilling?

Probably - what office does he hold in her government again?

None, seeing as he is dead.

Sounds like a good reason not to find it chilling, then.
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streamofthesky posted...

The nazis weren't overwhelmingly popular, plenty of Germans didn't like or support them at the time.

That explains how they were voted in.
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Kyuubi4269 posted...

That explains how they were voted in.

Sure. Except they never received a majority of the vote, even after doing their best to kill, beat up, and/or arrest as many of their opponents and opposition voters as they could. The last truly free election in pre-WW2 Germany was in 1932 where the Nazis won 33% of the vote and actually lost seats compared to the previous election.

The Nazis engineered another election a year later and this time did their best to stack the vote. They beat up, arrested, or straight-up killed opposition politicians, attacked leftist meetings, organizations, and homes, and banned newspapers and newsletters from those political groups. Thousands of communist party members were jailed, government officials known to belong to centrist or leftist parties were fired, and the brownshirts basically wreaked terror and violence on anyone who wasn't a right winger.

And with this incredible campaign of aggression and vote suppression, the Nazi's share of the popular vote surged all the way up to... 44%. Meaning a majority of the country still didn't vote for them.

The idea that the Nazis were super-popular and had the entire population under their thrall is a post-war myth designed to make Germany a more impressive villain, the better to lionize the Allied victory and fit the narrative of WW2 being "the good war". File it in with the "Hitler was a brilliant strategist and tactical genius" and "The Western Front was the only one that mattered" untruths as an annoying falsehood that won't die.
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darkknight109 posted...

And with this incredible campaign of aggression and vote suppression, the Nazi's share of the popular vote surged all the way up to... 44%. Meaning a majority of the country still didn't vote for them.

How a cautious German public felt about a Nazi government in 1933, and how a euphoric German people felt about Hitler's leadership in 1942 after three years of seemingly unstoppable victories, may well be two very different things. And how much support swung behind Hitler during the war's later years out of a sense of patriotic duty, of national solidarity against Germany's enemies who were bombing her cities?

Moods change and opinions change with events. Voting patterns in 1933 aren't a reliable barometer of popular sentiment at the war's height ten years later.

As to the OP... No, don't be daft.
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Nice historical revisionism. Germans didn't commit war crimes and genocide, but some mystical nazis from outer space, right?
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Yamaneko22 posted...

Nice historical revisionism. Germans didn't commit war crimes and genocide, but some mystical nazis from outer space, right?

the militias in their own countries usually
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Ferarri619 posted...

And not much is known about his wartime service.

Shouldn't we find this chilling?

Most germans would have family who fought in WW2 I'd imagine.

Damn, TCs getting spanked in this topic.
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Sarcasthma posted...

Damn, TCs getting spanked in this topic.

No, the conversation has been respectful.
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Ferarri619 posted...

Sarcasthma posted...

Damn, TCs getting spanked in this topic.

No, the conversation has been respectful.

Which is frankly kind of amazing since it is a topic on the internet about Nazis....by all logic this really should have gone to shit by the second or third post.

Ferarri619 posted...

Sarcasthma posted...

Damn, TCs getting spanked in this topic.

No, the conversation has been respectful.

This is your first response in this topic.
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I wish I could get my hands on a 75th anniversary German Fanta drink. Apparently it has the same recipe as it did during the wartime era.
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Good thing military service to Nazi Germany isn't hereditary
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JOExHIGASHI posted...

Good thing military service to Nazi Germany isn't hereditary

Because genes are apparently the only thing you have to worry about a parent passing on to their child. Upbringing totally isn't a thing >_>
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Ferarri619 posted...

I wish I could get my hands on a 75th anniversary German Fanta drink. Apparently it has the same recipe as it did during the wartime era.

What sawdust infused water with beet sugar?
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Merkel was in the communist youth, makes you think...

Firewerx posted...

How a cautious German public felt about a Nazi government in 1933, and how a euphoric German people felt about Hitler's leadership in 1942 after three years of seemingly unstoppable victories, may well be two very different things. And how much support swung behind Hitler during the war's later years out of a sense of patriotic duty, of national solidarity against Germany's enemies who were bombing her cities?

I don't know. Do you have a source for these assertions or are you just throwing them out there and hoping they'll stick?

Firewerx posted...

But you have to consider the possibility that many skeptics gradually warmed to Hitler's style of government once the German economy began picking up again and he began scoring points with stunts like the remilitarization of the Rhineland.

Ah, WW2 myth #756: "The Nazis were good administrators"

The Nazis were shit administrators (being a government full of extremists lead by a lunatic tends to have that effect; firing all the career bureaucrats who supported your political opponents and gutting your own administration doesn't help either) and they wound up racking up huge deficits and making their citizens work ~60 hours a week in order to pay for their military projects.

Living under Nazi rule was brutal and there's no evidence I'm aware of that Hitler ever enjoyed the sort of widespread popularity that gets ascribed to him. Hell, he never even got full control of his own armed forces (the Kriegsmarine had a standing order that anyone joining their ranks had to leave the Nazi party and their grand admiral, Erich Raeder, used to get into hours-long shouting matches with Hitler). He got into office mostly due to violence and skulduggery and stayed there by outlawing opposition parties and killing anyone who disagreed with him. Those are generally not things popular leaders have to do to stay in power.

Aaantlion posted...

Because genes are apparently the only thing you have to worry about a parent passing on to their child. Upbringing totally isn't a thing >_>

I'm at least 75% sure that if Merkel was a secret Nazi sympathizer, she'd have played her hand by now. Also, she probably wouldn't have been so accommodating to refugees fleeing violence and terror in the Middle East.
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darkknight109 posted...

the Kriegsmarine had a standing order that anyone joining their ranks had to leave the Nazi party and their grand admiral, Erich Raeder, used to get into hours-long shouting matches with Hitler

I was inspired to look this up. Via Wikipedia:

"the Kriegsmarine had in fact been defeated in the Barents Sea, which put Hitler into a huge rage against the navy in general and Raeder in particular.[4] As a result, Raeder was ordered to leave Berlin for the Wolf's Lair to explain to Hitler personally just why he reported the defeat in the Barents Sea as a victory a trip that Raeder was not keen to make as he waited until 6 January 1943 before reporting at the Wolf's Lair."

Lmao imagine you're in trouble at your job, boss asks to speak with you and your boss is literally Hitler.
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Who did Hitler kill that disagreed with him?

When they did execute people it was after years of street shootings.
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RoboXgp89 posted...

Who did Hitler kill that disagreed with him?

When they did execute people it was after years of street shootings.

What the actual fuck?

RoboXgp89 posted...

Who did Hitler kill that disagreed with him?

When they did execute people it was after years of street shootings.

Is this guy trying to justify the holocaust?

Im sure there are probably plenty of reasons to be upset with Angela Merkel but sins of thy father is not one of them.
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Aaantlion posted...

JOExHIGASHI posted...

Good thing military service to Nazi Germany isn't hereditary

Because genes are apparently the only thing you have to worry about a parent passing on to their child. Upbringing totally isn't a thing >_>

When has she supported Nazi?
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BlackScythe0 posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Who did Hitler kill that disagreed with him?

When they did execute people it was after years of street shootings.

Is this guy trying to justify the holocaust?

I didn't say Stalin, I said hitler

I know stalin killed his political enemies because they'd show up to his embassys and get shot through slits in the wall.

When it came to communist in the gov't they retired them with pensions.
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RoboXgp89 posted...

BlackScythe0 posted...

RoboXgp89 posted...

Who did Hitler kill that disagreed with him?

When they did execute people it was after years of street shootings.

Is this guy trying to justify the holocaust?

I didn't say Stalin, I said hitler

I know stalin killed his political enemies because they'd show up to his embassys and get shot through slits in the wall.

When it came to communist in the gov't they retired them with pensions.

Hitler killed a LOT of people in addition to Jews. Communists and socialists were sent to camps.

captpackrat posted...

Considering towards the end of the war they were drafting 12 year old kids and 60+ year old men, and they'd shoot you on the spot if you didn't fight, that doesn't really mean much.

Most didn't need to be forced after witnessing the invading communists atrocities across the country.

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afrodude77 posted...

Wasn't one of the popes in Hitler youth?

Supposedly, the future Benedict XVI (the one before Francis), but reportedly he was conscripted into it (at one point it was mandatory), and not a very active or willing member.
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darkknight109 posted...

Ah, WW2 myth #756: "The Nazis were good administrators"

The Nazis were shit administrators (being a government full of extremists lead by a lunatic tends to have that effect; firing all the career bureaucrats who supported your political opponents and gutting your own administration doesn't help either) and they wound up racking up huge deficits and making their citizens work ~60 hours a week in order to pay for their military projects.

I'm well aware that Hitler was no miracle worker. Most working-class German families under Hitler in the 1930s still existed on a very modest standard of living. In 1938, German families actually ate less wheat bread, meat and meat products, bacon, milk, eggs, fish, vegetables, sugar, and beer than they had in 1927.

Some historians have argued that the Weimar economy was already showing green shoots of recovery even before Hitler was appointed Chancellor. The Nazis predictably seized upon the short-term upturn after they took power as proof of a Nazi economic "miracle formula", and the German public was hardly in a position to know or debate the real causes.

(Sources: The Nazi Economic Recovery, 193238 by Richard J. Overy, 2nd ed., Cambridge University Press, 1996; The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy by Adam Tooze, Penguin, 2006.)

For ordinary Germans who had nightmare memories of the Depression -- memories that overshadowed those of the Weimar economy's "gold-plated years" of 1925-28 -- working 60 hours a week would have at least meant they were working. Unless you're going to deny that the economy improved at all under the Nazis between 1933-35, you have to consider that many Germans would have been relieved and grateful. Misplaced gratitude it may have been, but that doesn't matter; subjective perceptions can be more important than objective facts. People who've known extreme hardship are sometimes willing to trade parliamentary democracy and civil liberties for long hours of hard work that put at least food on the table.

Nor is it unreasonable to assume that many patriotic Germans would have felt pride when they witnessed a resurgent Germany's apparent transformation into a superpower -- from the ashes of defeat, Versailles, disarmament, occupation, hyperinflation and depression, to mastery of most of Europe after just three short years of lightning-swift victories (so they were told). Popular sentiment is seduced by demonstrations of power. People are suckered by bread and circuses. It may be impossible to quantify genuine popular support for Hitler's leadership, but it spits in the face of common sense to insist that unlike in every other country in the world, public mood and opinion in Germany must have remained stubbornly unaffected by big events.

Also by 1943, the educational system under the Nazi totalitarian state had spent seven years doing its best to indoctrinate a generation of German youth. (We know parents were scared of being denounced to the authorities by their own children.) For teenagers who had only early childhood memories of life before Hitler, the Nazi state was normality, almost a surrogate parent.

Real Nazi terror post-Enabling Act only began to infect Germany on a massive scale after July 20, 1944 with the wave of paranoid denunciations, purges, roundups, show trials, and summary executions in the wake of the failed coup against Hitler. This was the period when your next door neighbour who wasn't Jewish would have stood a good chance of being unexpectedly arrested or disappearing for no apparent reason; when the regime bared its bloodied fangs to many ordinary Germans.
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In short, I'm saying that public support for Hitler must have surged and ebbed with the tide of events. It's as unrealistic to imagine that everyone in Germany was secretly opposed to the regime as it is to insist that everyone was a fanatical Party disciple. People are just people, and they can be gullible, nave, weak, cynical, corrupt, calculating, principled, courageous, or indifferent -- and they can change their minds. You don't have to look as far afield as Nazi Germany to see that.
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dude this is gamefaqs, most people here get their history from spielburg or call of duty
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