Re: [OT] aargh.. the big swirl of offtopicness sucks me in, too. help!
Am Mittwoch, den 07.03.2007, 13:44 +0000 schrieb Liam O'Toole:
> The Nazis had no long-term interest in Amsterdam, Paris, etc.
Huh? Interesting. What makes you think that?
Of course were they interested in (exploiting) these countries. Not as
farmland, as in the east. Do you really think that the Nazis would have
"released" those countries somewhen "after the war"? Why should they let
go of some of the richest economies/countries which they succesfully
exploited with the help of well established administrations of
collaborators? The "best" western, northern and southern Europe + parts
of Africa could expect was some kind of vichyazation.
> My point
> about the regions they intended to control permanently (well, for a
> thousand years, anyway) still stands.
Maybe you're speculation about the Nazis intentions is better guessed
than mine but fact is that they (with mentioned exceptions to the east)
_did_ not do what you claimed, when they had the opportunity to do so.
> > My knowledge of soviet-history isn't that good but IMHO there was
> > "only" a small period of time, during Stalins earlier years, when the
> > relocations of many ethnic groups (That's what i think you're probably
> > refering too) took place.
> > And looking at how easily the remnants of the USSR regained their
> > national identities i doubt that it was official soviet policy to
> > suppress their languages and cultures - simply because they would
> > probably have succeeded. If you take into account the amount of time
> > (about 3 generations) and the means they had it seems a rather easy
> > job. Especially if you look at what the Nazis did to Germany in such
> > a few years.
>
> The effort was more determined than you think. The fact that national
> identities survived shouldn't surprise you --- they do so all over the
> world, and in the most difficult of circumstances. Look at the
> re-emergence of the Catalan, Basque and Galician identities after the
> long Franco dictatorship, for example.
If you have to rank the "mad assholes" of human history i doubt that
Franko would make it anywhere near Hitler and Stalin. Not that this
makes him any less disgusting but looking a the means the Nazis and
Soviets used to achieve their goals Franko just didn't "play in the same
league".
> > > Why do you think the world remembers the horrors of Auschwitz,
> > > rather than Oswiecim?
> >
> > Because they remember the horrors of a german concentration-camp named
> > Auschwitz-Birkenau and not the small polish village Oswiecim nearby
> > (Named Auschwitz during Nazi occupation) where (i guess) no horrors
> > took place?
>
> Now that's just hair-splitting. They didn't call the camp
> Oswiecim-Brzezinka either, now did they?
That's not my point. I mentioned Auschwitz-Birkenau because it's the
"official" name of the camp. If the Nazis had decided to use an other
naming scheme the camp would maybe be known as KZ-IG-Farben or KZAmF.
The camp itself was certainly aimed at exterminating some languages and
cultures - its name not.
Cheers
Michael
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