Re: [Rollei] Revisionism and the Drood Quotient

[Nathan Wajsman <wajsman]

Marc,

I was not specifically referring to Shirer, just generally to the increasing
tendency of *some* historians to sugarcoat the facts. The bottom line is that
(1) Hitler came to power democratically, no doubt as a result of the miserable
social conditions and the inability of the Weimar Republic to do anything about
them; (2) most Germans supported him during the 1930s and early 40s, to varying
degrees to be sure, but supported him nonetheless. It is also a fact that many
war atrocities were committed by ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers and not just SS or
other special troops.

Having said all this, I must also say that Germany has worked hard and largely
successfully during the post-war period to educate its young people and in other
ways to ensure that it does not happen again. I am no enemy of today's German
people. I speak German fairly fluently, I often travel to Germany for business
and pleasure, and I have many German friends. I only wish other countries were
equally keen to come to terms with their war past (I am thinking especially of
Japan, but also Austria, neutral countries like Sweden and Switzerland, and a
nominal ally like France).

Nathan

Marc James Small wrote:

> Do you consider William Shirer a "revisionist" historian?  Read his RISE
> AND FALL OF THE THIRD REICH and then read his BERLIN DIARIES, where these
> points are taken up in detail -- and he makes the distinction between folks
> going along with the dictatorship and people regarding it as the best of
> all possible worlds, two divergent lemmas.

- --
Nathan Wajsman
Herrliberg (ZH), Switzerland

e-mail: wajsman@webshuttle.ch

Photo-A-Week: http://www.wajsman.com/indexpaw.htm
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