I’m conflicted about this response because my understanding is that in Germany anything to do with Nazis is highly taboo (understandably), but I wonder if that results in an immediate bias. Not complaining, Nazism is evil, but in your shoes I think I’d be inclined to weight nazis inherently worse as well.
being a neo-nazi? generally heavily frowned upon. use certain nazi imagery and/or deny that the holocaust happened? both actually punishable by law.
taboo as in we don’t talk about it? hell no! we get taught about the cruelties that happened here at length in school above a certain age. let me tell you, history class in germany is not fun. in certain german states there’s also one mandatory(?) school trip to the remains of one of the nearest concentration camps. trust me, we know about the absolutely inhumane cruelty these monsters were capable of.
content warning for the rest of the post:
one of the images that stuck most with me was of a documentary shown in school. pictures of one of the gas chambers, where they shoved in by the hundreds. the concrete ceiling had fingernail imprints. the implications of that alone are haunting. they must have had absolutely agonizing last minutes in there.
…or some punishment cells in concentration camps. just tight gaps, enough to shove someone in sideways. and not tall enough to be able to stand upright in. the person inside could not get relief from standing up, they could not sit down. all they could do was exist in a painful position with the knees against one wall, the butt against the other wall, and gravity doing the rest to cause relentless pressure on the knees. as far as I know they got put in there for days, with eye witnesses describing constant screams of agony from inside.
…or the one time hitler decided to hang some people. but not with a regular rope, but rather on piano strings, with the victims being lowered very slowly into their final position. once hanging, there was no way for the victim to grab the string anymore. all they could do was flail around and slowly suffocate. it was just another sadistic way of maximizing pain, agony and despair in the people they hated and hunted.
and these are just a tiny fraction of the documented things. i don’t even want to imagine what atrocities without witnesses happened.
I’m conflicted about this response because my understanding is that in Germany anything to do with Nazis is highly taboo (understandably), but I wonder if that results in an immediate bias. Not complaining, Nazism is evil, but in your shoes I think I’d be inclined to weight nazis inherently worse as well.
depends what you mean with “taboo”.
being a neo-nazi? generally heavily frowned upon. use certain nazi imagery and/or deny that the holocaust happened? both actually punishable by law.
taboo as in we don’t talk about it? hell no! we get taught about the cruelties that happened here at length in school above a certain age. let me tell you, history class in germany is not fun. in certain german states there’s also one mandatory(?) school trip to the remains of one of the nearest concentration camps. trust me, we know about the absolutely inhumane cruelty these monsters were capable of.
content warning for the rest of the post:
one of the images that stuck most with me was of a documentary shown in school. pictures of one of the gas chambers, where they shoved in by the hundreds. the concrete ceiling had fingernail imprints. the implications of that alone are haunting. they must have had absolutely agonizing last minutes in there.
…or some punishment cells in concentration camps. just tight gaps, enough to shove someone in sideways. and not tall enough to be able to stand upright in. the person inside could not get relief from standing up, they could not sit down. all they could do was exist in a painful position with the knees against one wall, the butt against the other wall, and gravity doing the rest to cause relentless pressure on the knees. as far as I know they got put in there for days, with eye witnesses describing constant screams of agony from inside.
…or the one time hitler decided to hang some people. but not with a regular rope, but rather on piano strings, with the victims being lowered very slowly into their final position. once hanging, there was no way for the victim to grab the string anymore. all they could do was flail around and slowly suffocate. it was just another sadistic way of maximizing pain, agony and despair in the people they hated and hunted.
and these are just a tiny fraction of the documented things. i don’t even want to imagine what atrocities without witnesses happened.
(edits for grammar)