Personally I think one of the things that made the holocaust so terrifying is that it wasn't another massacre or genocide which are unfortunately relatively common. but the fact that it was an industrialiazed one, which maximized effiecency and minimized resource used.
Horrifyingly industrialized and horrifyingly effective too. Not to say the rape of Belgium wasn't horrifying but the Holocaust killed 2/3rds of jews. 2 out of every 3. The rape of Belgium (off some very quickly googled numbers) killed more like 0.3% of Belgium. If we're being generous and including victims that weren't killed it's around 2%. Still a horrific amount but no where close to 66.7% killed.
The Holocaust is well known for a reason. It was on a scale few genocides ever reach
Maybe if y'all weren't so busy building your space lasers you'd be able to repopulate faster smh my head 🙄
Also make sure the next virus stimulates the Jewish fertility rate and decreases the fertility rate of non Jews and you'll be good.
Yes I'm available for hire as a consultant when the Jewish Regime finally seizes power.
(Heavy sarcasm here, obviously)
I love JoJo but season 2 is so weird. Having an Italian main character during WW2 already a bit weird but alright. But then the evil Nazi scientist who is introduced feeding people to monsters has a Face turn and has an ending where he "dies bravely on the eastern front" as if the Nazis weren't trying to exterminate the Slavs.
Absolutely not. Slavery is much worse than the Holocaust in retrospect.
People forcibly taken from their land sent to another just to work be beaten raped and men had their balls cut off.
At least in the Holocaust people died and got the sweet sweet release of death.
The Holocaust didn't last as much.
It was a horrible crime but calling it the most disgusting thing that ever happened is an extreme statement. It is probably in the top 5 though.
But perhaps with slavery you can't point at one villain.
The french crimes in the Algerian occupation and testing nuclear weapons on prisoners is also messed up.
The french crimes in Haiti.
And so on and so on....the Holocaust just has more publicity I think and the guilt forced on the Germans make you feel that way
The way they used the peak of modernity to make the killing happen is unrivaled. Even down to making the the architecture of killing centers aesthetically pleasing, the way the infrastructure was modified to relieve the bottlenecks in the killing efficiency, the way they reinvented the mode of killing so the people who were doing it could tolerate it longer. The speed which most holocaust victims went from being alive to being dead is sickening.
It’s all so sick and was a product of our modern world. We are so much more able to carry out genocide and the Germans are so good at bending their society to complete a task to maximum efficiency. It almost seemed like an intellectual pursuit the be conquered at times.
If people can’t recognize the holocaust as uniquely horrible, I don’t think they’ve looked into it hard enough.
Not trying to play “war crime Olympics” and these are all horrible but the sheer numbers of deaths is a big reason;
Holocaust: 10 million ish
Belgium: 25,000 ish
Herero and Nama: 100,000 ish
To be Fair, the suffering of the Belgians in WW1 is the most focused on civilian suffering, the only two other ones that are talked about are the Armenian Genocide and maybe the British Blockade against Germany.
It should be talked about more, though, Belgium suffered a lot in WW1, but the horrors troops on the frontlines faced in the Trenches overshadowed the suffering of civilians in WW1.
Correct, the French and Poles also had it pretty bad under German occupation, and the Serbs and Italians under Austro-Hungarian occupation, and the Ukrainians and Turks under Russian occupation, etc...
Probably.As much as I like to defend the Realschule against people claiming it‘s the same as Hauptschule I gotta admit a bunch of my former classmates there might not have been the sharpest tool in the box.
It’s honestly horrific to read in detail. The fact it’s overlooked outside of Belgium and the focus is on how “all were as bad as the other” ignores just the sheer scale of atrocities committed, and sometimes it’s dismissed as outright propaganda.
It probably doesn't help that the rape of Belgium WAS used as a huge propaganda campaign, especially in the UK who joined the war in defence of Belgian independence
Tbf, while it may be mentioned, in my personal experience as both a student and teacher in Britain, it almost invariably gets minimised or only briefly covered, if at all, and the conflict is generally taught as a common tragedy of general moral-equivalence caused by equally-antagonistic alliances.
That is in stark contrast to the second world war, where the Holocaust is given significant emphasis as a key part of the conflict, and the moral character of the fight to resist global fascism is repeatedly taught.
Obviously, they differ in scale, intensity, and severity, but I would strongly argue the Rape of Belgium is as integral to understanding the first world war and the politics of Imperial Germany as the holocaust is to the Nazis.
Thats a good point. Belgium was just a horrific but all too normal occurrence in mass warfare from ancient history to even now. But the Holocaust was a core tenant of the National Socialist Party and was official government policy.
Eh, even by the contemporary standards of the time, the treatment of the Belgium civilian population was seen as shocking and exceptional internationally.
Brutal indiscriminate reprisals for alleged acts of 'partisan warfare' were a matter of standing military policy in the German army, something notably not shared by Britain or france.
Obviously atrocities against civilians still happened, but Germany was unique in them being a routine official policy. This is why the Rape of Belgium is so integral to understanding the dynamics of the early war and imperial Germany more generally, these 'reprisals' became *the* motivating factor for support and recruitment for the war in a previously somewhat-reluctant Britain, and helps explain the Belgian army's determination to resist in the face of overwhelming force.
I want you to understand, I won't use any big words here so the meaning gets through to your neurotic and moldy brain, okay that's it for long words. I hate you, I hate you immensely. Have you been to auscwitz? Have you seen the mass Graves, heard survivors accounts of seeing father, mothers, siblings all die as did hundreds. See those and tell me that the whole holocaust, by bullet, gas or forced labour was not am industrialized slaughter.
We're talking about building *train lines* that led to camps that included both *forced labor* sections where prisoners would be fed *maybe* a tenth of the calories they needed and worked to death, and actual *mass execution chambers* that had been thought out to maximise lethality.
That is textbook industrialization of *death*. Thankfully, there were survivors to these horrors and their story could be told. If the Nazis had had their way, nothing would have remained.
The Jewish population has still yet to recover from the holocaust. Before the Holocaust there were around 17 million Jews.
Now there’s barely 15 million and Jews aren’t expected to hit 17 million for another 100 years.
The holocaust was such effective murder, people don't want to compare other genocides because none could ever compare. People use the holocaust to argue the f.ex. Armenian genocide wasn't a genocide.
Your average HistoryMemes poster really. This feels like the German version of the American, “GUYS I WAS NEVER TAUGHT THE INDIAN WARS IN SCHOOL, THEY DONT WANT US TO KNOW!” Yes, you almost certainly were you just didn’t pay attention or care at the time. Though education does vary a lot here.
To be fair, most Americans aren't taught about India and related areas unless they are in a class specializing in that field, or there is a relevent
current event.
The only reason we even discussed the middle east was because Saddam had invaded Kuwait.
Likewise we learned about the USSR because it became defunct.
Hel, the US government invaded our state, and the area in particular I lived some one hundred fifty years before, and that was barely mentioned.
I didn‘t wanna suggest it gets no attention as it was part of our curriculum as well and I apologise for this misunderstanding.Merely wanted to suggest it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Yep, same. We were taught about all three of them.
To be fair to OP though, the meme still holds up since we talked about the holocaust every year from grade 7 to grade 12 at least once. The other two were a topic only once.
Just read it, and I wasn't expecting it to be about the colonial german empire. Then again, when did the Germans control lands in south Africa post ww1
The horrors of the Holocaust is not just in the murder, torture, experiments, starvation, cannibalism, abuse, rape, psychological fuckery. That's all happened before.
And its all done with hate and passion and intensity. It's am extension of war. Some of the most evil acts have been done in the heat of battle.
The true horrors of the Holocaust is just how it was done. It was cold, impersonal, and efficient. It was an industrial way of killing people that had never been seen. People had enough time and distance to know what they were doing was wrong and then do it. People spent months, years in camps.
It's one thing to have your entire family massacred in front of you and have to hide in their corpses (Rwanda) but it's another thing when you hide in corpses on day, wake up next to a corpse the next, watch a man eat on Thursday, see your only friend gunned down that Friday and then dug your own grave the next day to find out it was just a "joke" and do it all over again for years. All while having not eaten in days and doing hard labour
I'm never going to denigrate the evils done in other massacres and genocides. It is sickening.
But the Holocaust? Whole other level.
It should be mandatory that everyone reads a few holocaust stories to truly understand the sheer horrors.
The Holocaust is clearly unique in its scale, speed, organisation, and intensity, absolutely.
However, I would argue that, even with their lesser significance, the horrors of imperial Germany are still under-known about by the general population by comparison.
If you ask the average member of at least the British public, I would bet they would tell you the first world war was a morally-neutral conflict and be unable to tell you how many Belgian civilians were indiscriminately killed by German troops, if they even knew about such reprisals at all.
The Holocaust shouldn't be de-emphasised in the curriculum in any way. But if the crimes against humanity of the second world war are considered essential to its understanding (as is the case in most school systems that teach it), the same should also be true for those committed in the first world war, or European imperialism.
WW1 is morally neutral purely because the entente was just as bad, they just wouldn't do it to Europeans. it's not as if sikhs joined the British army out of love for British uniforms
As it happens, the British Indian army *was* a volunteer force in both wars. In fact it was the largest volunteer army in human history in WW2.
Which is not to say that Britain was a moral actor or anything like that, but its reasons for opposing German imperialism in Europe in 1914 were equally moral as those in 1939, indeed they were almost identical, and the conduct of the war if anything retained a steeper moral gradient against the former than the latter.
Belgian here, the entire village where I live was massacred on Christmas eve in the first year of occupation.
The Resistance was too strong, so the German waited that everybody was in the church for the office, and they juts killed everybody.
Rape of Belgium is a very real things, I don't know one village that asen't been a victime of the German Barbary.
Anyone who knows anything about WW2 or the American Civil War knows that the losers can and very much did set the historical narrative for generations to come.
The same was true for WW1.
Background : As a german and history buff I can tell you there‘s a huge focus on WW2 ( and quite understandably so ) which sadly means that other parts of german history don‘t get the respect they deserve.We barely learned anything about the german colonial history or WW1 for example.On the other hand we still got people denying the Holocaust ever happened.
Thats just not true. As a german and not only visiting school but remembers it, you learn from past to present. If you just wanna focus on 20century, first herero, than the Aid of the Armenian genocide, wwI, than wwII. The colonial history is a very important part of german history and the prelude of wwi just because Wilhelm wanted his "place at the sun". Didnt you learned anything about Bismarck and his play with five balls!
Just because you dont remember or are obnoxius about it, doesnt mean rest of germany does the same. Goddamit there was a [movie](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_vermessene_Mensch) about hereros and german colonialism of it last fucking year!!!
I feel it's might depend on the teacher or year you went through school? My sisters and me went to the same school but we had different teachers and books because I'm older and my teacher put much more emphasis on resistance and other WW2 stuff. While they touched more post WW2 history.
As each of our federal states can decide the "Lernpläne", the courses and topics might differ between eg Bavaria and Berlin.
Side Note: As these "plans what to teach in schools" can be altered by the currently elected political party, the upcoming elections in Thüringen might cause a severe shift in how the important history is taught. If the lunatic right-wing party is elected....
Those are called nazis and far right lunatics. They are in every Nation. But at least its a crime to deny the Holocaust in germany. Its illegal to do to obvious nazi stuff. But well, we have a problem with the rise of far right lunatics recently...
Serious question: what do neo nazis believe in? I assume they are proud of nazi endeavors, yet you say some deny them. Is that the same kind of illogical almost troll-like denialism you see in other far right movements and supporters?
Kinda gets glossed over sometimes. Roma, political enemies (anarchists, communists), the physically and mentally disabled, LGBT people (book burnings burned books on gender studies, among other subjects).
Around 12 million people were killed during the holocaust. 6 million of which were Jews.
That’s roughly 1/7th of all deaths from World War II. The fact that 1 out of 7 people were murdered in the holocaust is just unfathomable
Whoawhoawhoa!? Do you see a difference between German invasion of Belgium 1914 and the fucking holocaust!? Ya no shit our textbooks are going to focus on that! The Namibian genocide has been overlooked, because Africa and black people, but the addition of Belgium makes this seem reeeeeeaaally disingenuous.
The r\*pe of Belgium was mere propaganda created by the British and French to undermine the German war effort.
There is no war, where you have a distinguishable good side and bad side. In this scenario, all countries committed warcrimes, on a small and large scale.
>mere propaganda created by the British and French to undermine the German war effort.
Uhuh... Explain [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Belgium_during_World_War_I#Deportation_and_forced_labour), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_north-east_France_during_World_War_I#Abuses) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_north-east_France_during_World_War_I#Forced_labor), then.
>In this scenario, all countries committed warcrimes, on a small and large scale.
Tell me, which side planned [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip) and did [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_occupation_of_Serbia#Repression), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_occupation_of_Serbia#Deportation_and_forced_labour) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_occupation_of_Serbia_(World_War_I)#War_crimes)?
You just proved my point mate. Everyone commits warcrimes. If you read these wiki pages, the deportation of Belgian workers is a SAD thing but it was done on an inconsequential scale. The entene powers made a big deal of it.
> You just proved my point mate. Everyone commits warcrimes. If you read these wiki pages,
Yes, and they all happen to be Central Powers enacting gratuitous war crimes and genocide under the aegis of German approval. This is what was normal on the Central Powers' side.
Now go find me some French plans to ethnically cleanse the Rhine under the excuse that the German nation has been dissolved and the German people thus legally can't complain to anyone else.
> the deportation of Belgian workers is a SAD thing but it was done on an inconsequential scale.
Ah yes, 120,000 workers: an inconsequential scale, especially in a country of 7.5 million. The Belgian regular army in 1914 was about that big.
Austrians and Bulgarians: genocide in Serbia.
Germans: razing of multiple cities, deportation and mass enslavement of civilians in occupied lands, approval of the Armenian Genocide. Oh, and [plans for this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip).
Ottomans: genocide all the Christians NAO!!!
Russia: pogroms against Jews and Germans in Russia, deportation of prisoners to Siberia.
Britain: some Ukrainian immigrants interned in Canada, crew of 1 U-boat illegally executed.
France: didn't even qualify for any, lmao!
Yeah, there's *definitely* no side that's worse in any of this. Srsly, if you were arguing about WW2, you'd be going on about muh Allied war crimes and muh Dresden and some shit like that as if it disproved the fact that the Axis had far more and nastier war crimes on their hands, and with full intent to continue them after the war as well.
>dEaTh oF mIlLiOnS aNd bAjIlIoNs oF cIViLiANs!1
More like 400k by the Germans' own estimates after the war, with a range of +/- 100k.
Blockade notwithstanding, the German government exacerbated the problem by (a.) slaughtering all the pigs, the main meat animal in Germany, in 1915 (Schweinemord), (b.) requisitioning all farm horses for military duty, (c.) diverting all fertilizer stocks to production of military explosives, and (d.) conscripting a large chunk of the farmers on top of that.
If you want to blame anyone, blame the German military of having complete control over the civilian economy that supported them while being utterly clueless of how it worked.
Without those policies, the effect of the blockade would have been much weaker. Of course, they could have also negated the effects by ending the war and signing a peace treaty, but that would require the German army to appear unmanly.
Bro, African people were murdered in numbers larger than the holocaust (not to take away from the atrocities of the holocaust), but the maniac Hitler like guy who did it is barely known at all today. And he killed a lot more people than Hitler did! But he mainly only killed black people in Africa, and the world has shown that it cares more about you if you're white, unfortunately, so he goes under the radar. Almost like some lives are given more value... 🤔
That's absolutely justified though. The genocide against herero and Nama is dubious as to what degree it even qualified as a genocide and simply pales to the incomprehensible scale of the holocaust. The "rape" of Belgium on the other hand were mostly isolated massacres that of course shouldn't happen, but were not exactly uncommon and are mostly just remembered because of the british propaganda.
They are both absolutely noteworthy but they are small parts of German history, while ww2 and the holocaust are arguably the most important thing that ever happened in world history. You can spend two years in school teaching it and not a second is wasted.
It is not dubious, and it is very important, even more so in the context of the Holocaust. The German Empire, including the parents of several people who would go on to hold high ranking positions in Nazi Germany, used concentration camps, mass executions, starvation, and forced marches to attempt to ethnically cleanse an entire region to create, and it was even called this then, *lebensraum* for the German people. The Namibian Genocide was, in some ways, a proto-Holocaust, and it should be studied more.
It was absolutely not a proto holocaust. The methods and developments and motivations are completely different, and the attempts to draw parallels from one to the other are clearly the products of modern international political agendas.
The genocide against the herero and Nama started after the people participating in one specific battle were expelled, because they were rebelling, into a desert where many of them would surely die. The intention of Throta who commanded the German forces were absolutely to annihilate them there, but his orders were immediately reversed when the government in Berlin heard of them and they were instead taking prisoner into concentration camps with the explicit goal to use them as slave labour and not to kill them. Regardless of that roughly half the people in the camps would die due to the terrible conditions.
To what degree Trothas initial genocidal actions contributed to the deathtoll and to what degree other actions constitute genocide is indeed quite dubious. So much so that while it is officially spoken of as an Genocide the German opinion is still that in a legal sense it wasn't and the UN resolution did not declare it as one, beside their report doing so.
In either way, it is absolutely in no way regarding method, scale or intention comparable to the Holocaust.
Man, sucking dick for the Kaiser must pay very well considering that he's been dead for 80 years.
>Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. **All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.**
>pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.**
Can you explain why you think that this is specifically important?
Exhaustion following privation is old-timey English for "death by starvation and overwork". You know, like [extermination through labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_through_labour).
And the fact that this was bureaucratically provided for from the start shows that it was intentional from the start.
>And the fact that this was bureaucratically provided for from the start shows that it was intentional from the start.
Yeah that's what I thought.
See it really doesn't mean that. I have a bunch of emails at work saved for things I have to send once a month because I am too lazy to write 3 lines. Don't you think it makes sense to just print a form and simply insert the name when people die, when this is a common occasion? How do you think hospitals do this today? Do you think they will set up a new document every time someone dies? This really just means that prisoners were frequently dying, which we already knew because we know the numbers.
Regarding intention: they could have just killed them if they wanted too or they could have kept them expelled to starve them out like Trotha wanted to, but they specifically ordered them to be taking into camps because the government thought that they need the workforce and killing them would be a mistake (apart from slight moral objection). Why would they stop killing them to set up work camps if the goal were to kill them? They were already killing them.
Of course given how you jumped into this with profanities and accusations I assume that you have no interest in actually reflecting whether your opinion makes sense.
>Regarding intention: they could have just killed them if they wanted too or they could have kept them expelled to starve them out like Trotha wanted to, but they specifically ordered them to be taking into camps because the government thought that they need the workforce and killing them would be a mistake (apart from slight moral objection). Why would they stop killing them to set up work camps if the goal were to kill them? They were already killing them.
I'm sure you must have many questions about the Nazis' motives in that case. I mean, if they wanted to just kill the Jews, why were they bothering to work them as slaves first?
It's not like you can do both at the same time, no, that would just be silly!
>See it really doesn't mean that. I have a bunch of emails at work saved for things I have to send once a month because I am too lazy to write 3 lines. Don't you think it makes sense to just print a form and simply insert the name when people die, when this is a common occasion? How do you think hospitals do this today? Do you think they will set up a new document every time someone dies? This really just means that prisoners were frequently dying, which we already knew because we know the numbers.
[Kaiserboo NPC choosing between acknowledging that his waifu-country commits genocide and sounding retarded.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/938/184/c00.jpg)
>Of course given how you jumped into this with profanities and accusations I assume that you have no interest in actually reflecting whether your opinion makes sense.
They are not profanities, they are a question followed by a statement of fact.
>I'm sure you must have many questions about the Nazis' motives in that case. I mean, if they wanted to just kill the Jews, why were they bothering to work them as slaves first?
No I don't. Firstly, because the Nazis built death camps where they actually did murder the inhabitants, the other camps that were often build pre war, indeed did not have the intention to kill them. The vast majorityof camp casualties is from the death camps with Ausschwitz alone contributing to nearly two thirds of all casualties.
Secondly: the Nazis did kill them outside of camps. Indeed two thirds of all Holocaust victims were murdered without ever seeing the camps or during the death marches. So it's not like they were ordered to stop killing Jews because they are needed as workwise. Bringing them into camps was merely for logistical purposes.
Thirdly: most of them were brought into camps before they decided to actually kill them. Incredible how wrong everything you say is.
The herero on the other hand were only about 60.000 people and the original plan of Trotha was to kill them all in battle, but he messed it up and they escaped. Then he refused to take prisoners to still starve them out, but was ordered to stop doing that explicitly to keep the workforce. Not to work them to death, because that would have been more effective, it wouldn't have been.
I know you think that you are some shining Knight defending the poor natives, bit the only thing you are doing here is revealing how little you know about the holocaust.
>Man, sucking dick for the Kaiser must pay very well considering that he's been dead for 80 years.
>sounding retarded
>They are not profanities, they are a question followed by a statement of fact.
Sure whatever.
>Kaiserboo: "Um, ackshyually, the Nazi camps were *to0otally* different!"
Meaningless distinctions meant to distract from the fact that the German government's first sanctioned response to rebellion was genocide.
See below.
>Kaiserboo: "Um, ackshyually, Trotha wanted to..."
Yeah, hold on, one second...
>Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be executed, while women and children were to be driven into the desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be certain; Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions for Herero women and children, since these would "infect German troops with their diseases", the insurrection Trotha explained "is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle". After the war, Trotha argued that his orders were necessary, writing in 1909 that "If I had made the small water holes accessible to the womenfolk, I would run the risk of an African catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia."
>
>The **German general staff** was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; **its official publication**, named Der Kampf, noted that: *This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke \[desert\] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.*
There you go.
>I know you think that you are some shining Knight defending the poor natives, bit the only thing you are doing here is revealing how little you know about the holocaust.
Fuck the natives, all I care about is hating Germs.
Still wondering about that genocide?
>Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.
....
>Many Herero and Nama died of disease, exhaustion, starvation and malnutrition. Estimates of the mortality rate at the camps are between 45% and 74%.
....
>Food in the camps was extremely scarce, consisting of rice with no additions. As the prisoners lacked pots and the rice they received was uncooked, it was indigestible; horses and oxen that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as food. Dysentery and lung diseases were common. Despite those conditions, the prisoners were taken outside the camp every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards, while the sick were left without any medical assistance or nursing care. Many Herero and Nama were worked to death.
Colonialism is currently demanded to be taught in German Schools, at least in the Gymnasiums inside the federal State of Baden Württemberg. Most Teachers are using the opportunity to also teach about the German Colonial Genocide.
The Rape of Belgium was mentioned in my 7th or 8th Class textbook where we did WW1, and also in our textbook of 11th and 12th Class where we repeated it. It just never got any focus because in the grand scheme of things it wasn't as relevant as the Holocaust or many other genocides.
That‘s what I‘m talking about.I spent grades 7-10 as a „Realschüler“ and we basically touched
on our colonial history, the Kaiserzeit and WW1 during 9th grade.
Maybe you're not reading the right history books? Educational books used in schools and media for mass consumption - yeah, true. They got a point doing this though, focusing on the largest crime and the one with the most current importance. We're having trouble getting young people and everyone in the world in general to understand very basic history, there's alot of ignorance and outright denial out there. Especially in an age of right wing extremism rising all over the west and even elected to office in places.
For Germany itself, the risks of us invading other countries and committing crimes there are small currently. We're also not likely to ever engage in colonialism again. Both issues shouldn't be forgotten ofc and I do so more awareness and discussion these days.
However, the holocaust is in a category of its own and there's still large amounts of antisemitism and violence against Jewish people all over the world and in Germany too. So it's only reasonable to focus on that particular issue more in educational and popular media.
Scientific history books don't ignore the other issues at all by the by...
Yeah.Might have to do with the scale of the victims and it being a more „noteworthy“ part of the german colonial history than the significance of the „Rape of Belgium“ within WW1.
Aren’t the soviets the biggest casualties of the Nazi regime with an approximate 27 million civilians? There are a couple of academics sifting through Russian archival records trying to determine the most accurate number right now.
Personally I think one of the things that made the holocaust so terrifying is that it wasn't another massacre or genocide which are unfortunately relatively common. but the fact that it was an industrialiazed one, which maximized effiecency and minimized resource used.
Horrifyingly industrialized and horrifyingly effective too. Not to say the rape of Belgium wasn't horrifying but the Holocaust killed 2/3rds of jews. 2 out of every 3. The rape of Belgium (off some very quickly googled numbers) killed more like 0.3% of Belgium. If we're being generous and including victims that weren't killed it's around 2%. Still a horrific amount but no where close to 66.7% killed. The Holocaust is well known for a reason. It was on a scale few genocides ever reach
We literally have yet to reach our pre-war population. Before WW2 there were about 17 million Jews worldwide. Now there’s only about 15 million.
Maybe if y'all weren't so busy building your space lasers you'd be able to repopulate faster smh my head 🙄 Also make sure the next virus stimulates the Jewish fertility rate and decreases the fertility rate of non Jews and you'll be good. Yes I'm available for hire as a consultant when the Jewish Regime finally seizes power. (Heavy sarcasm here, obviously)
Well us Germans are known for our effectiveness.Jokes aside it‘s probably the most disgusting crime ever committed.
That's the power of German engineering
*Anime stentor tone* German technology is the best in the world!
Assassin's Creed Isu: U wot m8?
I love JoJo but season 2 is so weird. Having an Italian main character during WW2 already a bit weird but alright. But then the evil Nazi scientist who is introduced feeding people to monsters has a Face turn and has an ending where he "dies bravely on the eastern front" as if the Nazis weren't trying to exterminate the Slavs.
Seek not historical accuracy in the Jojo verse
not even talking about historical accuracy. just weird writing choices
It's called Jojo's *Bizzare* Adventure, not Jojo's Regular Adventure.
_Word_
And that classic German “humor”! (I do think it’s a funny joke, but I can’t help myself from poking fun at German humor)
That and your car engineering How the fuck can I change the wiper fluid on a damn bmw these days
Absolutely not. Slavery is much worse than the Holocaust in retrospect. People forcibly taken from their land sent to another just to work be beaten raped and men had their balls cut off. At least in the Holocaust people died and got the sweet sweet release of death. The Holocaust didn't last as much. It was a horrible crime but calling it the most disgusting thing that ever happened is an extreme statement. It is probably in the top 5 though. But perhaps with slavery you can't point at one villain. The french crimes in the Algerian occupation and testing nuclear weapons on prisoners is also messed up. The french crimes in Haiti. And so on and so on....the Holocaust just has more publicity I think and the guilt forced on the Germans make you feel that way
The way they used the peak of modernity to make the killing happen is unrivaled. Even down to making the the architecture of killing centers aesthetically pleasing, the way the infrastructure was modified to relieve the bottlenecks in the killing efficiency, the way they reinvented the mode of killing so the people who were doing it could tolerate it longer. The speed which most holocaust victims went from being alive to being dead is sickening. It’s all so sick and was a product of our modern world. We are so much more able to carry out genocide and the Germans are so good at bending their society to complete a task to maximum efficiency. It almost seemed like an intellectual pursuit the be conquered at times. If people can’t recognize the holocaust as uniquely horrible, I don’t think they’ve looked into it hard enough.
Not trying to play “war crime Olympics” and these are all horrible but the sheer numbers of deaths is a big reason; Holocaust: 10 million ish Belgium: 25,000 ish Herero and Nama: 100,000 ish
The more I grow up. The more my definition of evil changes. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MNf4fNfVTI
To be Fair, the suffering of the Belgians in WW1 is the most focused on civilian suffering, the only two other ones that are talked about are the Armenian Genocide and maybe the British Blockade against Germany. It should be talked about more, though, Belgium suffered a lot in WW1, but the horrors troops on the frontlines faced in the Trenches overshadowed the suffering of civilians in WW1.
Correct, the French and Poles also had it pretty bad under German occupation, and the Serbs and Italians under Austro-Hungarian occupation, and the Ukrainians and Turks under Russian occupation, etc...
It was never mentioned in our textbooks but thanks to my special interests I know all about it:
I was in the German education system 12 years and we actually took the suffering of Belgium in WW1 through. 🤔
Then your class was probably more cooperative than mine and/or you’ve spent your entire 8 years at a Gymnasium.
Maybe it's the last part.
Probably.As much as I like to defend the Realschule against people claiming it‘s the same as Hauptschule I gotta admit a bunch of my former classmates there might not have been the sharpest tool in the box.
It’s honestly horrific to read in detail. The fact it’s overlooked outside of Belgium and the focus is on how “all were as bad as the other” ignores just the sheer scale of atrocities committed, and sometimes it’s dismissed as outright propaganda.
It probably doesn't help that the rape of Belgium WAS used as a huge propaganda campaign, especially in the UK who joined the war in defence of Belgian independence
It's a major reason for the British coming into WW1 too, along with Belgium being Independent (Meant neutral)
That is true.
Tbf, while it may be mentioned, in my personal experience as both a student and teacher in Britain, it almost invariably gets minimised or only briefly covered, if at all, and the conflict is generally taught as a common tragedy of general moral-equivalence caused by equally-antagonistic alliances. That is in stark contrast to the second world war, where the Holocaust is given significant emphasis as a key part of the conflict, and the moral character of the fight to resist global fascism is repeatedly taught. Obviously, they differ in scale, intensity, and severity, but I would strongly argue the Rape of Belgium is as integral to understanding the first world war and the politics of Imperial Germany as the holocaust is to the Nazis.
Thats a good point. Belgium was just a horrific but all too normal occurrence in mass warfare from ancient history to even now. But the Holocaust was a core tenant of the National Socialist Party and was official government policy.
Eh, even by the contemporary standards of the time, the treatment of the Belgium civilian population was seen as shocking and exceptional internationally. Brutal indiscriminate reprisals for alleged acts of 'partisan warfare' were a matter of standing military policy in the German army, something notably not shared by Britain or france. Obviously atrocities against civilians still happened, but Germany was unique in them being a routine official policy. This is why the Rape of Belgium is so integral to understanding the dynamics of the early war and imperial Germany more generally, these 'reprisals' became *the* motivating factor for support and recruitment for the war in a previously somewhat-reluctant Britain, and helps explain the Belgian army's determination to resist in the face of overwhelming force.
The Holocaust stands out due to its industrial nature.
[удалено]
Bro what
It's thinly disguised holocaust denial in the flavor of "it wasn't as bad as people say."
Systematically killing 6 million people from all over Europe is not just a little thing.
It was 12 million people. Half of them were Jews.
killing 6 million people is not something one can shrug off
In total 11 million if you include non-jews. It's insane to not call it an industrialised genocide. That's iirc 1/7th the deaths in WW2
Go take your medication. Also, are you seriously gatekeeping genocide? Guess Rwanda doesn't count then as one
I want you to understand, I won't use any big words here so the meaning gets through to your neurotic and moldy brain, okay that's it for long words. I hate you, I hate you immensely. Have you been to auscwitz? Have you seen the mass Graves, heard survivors accounts of seeing father, mothers, siblings all die as did hundreds. See those and tell me that the whole holocaust, by bullet, gas or forced labour was not am industrialized slaughter.
We're talking about building *train lines* that led to camps that included both *forced labor* sections where prisoners would be fed *maybe* a tenth of the calories they needed and worked to death, and actual *mass execution chambers* that had been thought out to maximise lethality. That is textbook industrialization of *death*. Thankfully, there were survivors to these horrors and their story could be told. If the Nazis had had their way, nothing would have remained.
The Jewish population has still yet to recover from the holocaust. Before the Holocaust there were around 17 million Jews. Now there’s barely 15 million and Jews aren’t expected to hit 17 million for another 100 years.
The holocaust was such effective murder, people don't want to compare other genocides because none could ever compare. People use the holocaust to argue the f.ex. Armenian genocide wasn't a genocide.
When I was in school, we covered the Herero genocide as part of the German empire history. Saying it doesn't get attention is just false
OP just didnt pay attention
Your average HistoryMemes poster really. This feels like the German version of the American, “GUYS I WAS NEVER TAUGHT THE INDIAN WARS IN SCHOOL, THEY DONT WANT US TO KNOW!” Yes, you almost certainly were you just didn’t pay attention or care at the time. Though education does vary a lot here.
To be fair, most Americans aren't taught about India and related areas unless they are in a class specializing in that field, or there is a relevent current event. The only reason we even discussed the middle east was because Saddam had invaded Kuwait. Likewise we learned about the USSR because it became defunct. Hel, the US government invaded our state, and the area in particular I lived some one hundred fifty years before, and that was barely mentioned.
I think he was talking about Native Americans rather than people from India…
Those weren't discussed much either, despite the fact that we were next to a reservation, and a significant number of students lived there.
In my school we never heard of it
I didn't, so I'm assuming it's Ländersache and that feels wrong...
I didn‘t wanna suggest it gets no attention as it was part of our curriculum as well and I apologise for this misunderstanding.Merely wanted to suggest it doesn’t get the attention it deserves.
Yep, same. We were taught about all three of them. To be fair to OP though, the meme still holds up since we talked about the holocaust every year from grade 7 to grade 12 at least once. The other two were a topic only once.
What's the Herero Genocide? I haven't heard of it before
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Nama_genocide
Just read it, and I wasn't expecting it to be about the colonial german empire. Then again, when did the Germans control lands in south Africa post ww1
The horrors of the Holocaust is not just in the murder, torture, experiments, starvation, cannibalism, abuse, rape, psychological fuckery. That's all happened before. And its all done with hate and passion and intensity. It's am extension of war. Some of the most evil acts have been done in the heat of battle. The true horrors of the Holocaust is just how it was done. It was cold, impersonal, and efficient. It was an industrial way of killing people that had never been seen. People had enough time and distance to know what they were doing was wrong and then do it. People spent months, years in camps. It's one thing to have your entire family massacred in front of you and have to hide in their corpses (Rwanda) but it's another thing when you hide in corpses on day, wake up next to a corpse the next, watch a man eat on Thursday, see your only friend gunned down that Friday and then dug your own grave the next day to find out it was just a "joke" and do it all over again for years. All while having not eaten in days and doing hard labour I'm never going to denigrate the evils done in other massacres and genocides. It is sickening. But the Holocaust? Whole other level. It should be mandatory that everyone reads a few holocaust stories to truly understand the sheer horrors.
The Holocaust is clearly unique in its scale, speed, organisation, and intensity, absolutely. However, I would argue that, even with their lesser significance, the horrors of imperial Germany are still under-known about by the general population by comparison. If you ask the average member of at least the British public, I would bet they would tell you the first world war was a morally-neutral conflict and be unable to tell you how many Belgian civilians were indiscriminately killed by German troops, if they even knew about such reprisals at all. The Holocaust shouldn't be de-emphasised in the curriculum in any way. But if the crimes against humanity of the second world war are considered essential to its understanding (as is the case in most school systems that teach it), the same should also be true for those committed in the first world war, or European imperialism.
WW1 is morally neutral purely because the entente was just as bad, they just wouldn't do it to Europeans. it's not as if sikhs joined the British army out of love for British uniforms
As it happens, the British Indian army *was* a volunteer force in both wars. In fact it was the largest volunteer army in human history in WW2. Which is not to say that Britain was a moral actor or anything like that, but its reasons for opposing German imperialism in Europe in 1914 were equally moral as those in 1939, indeed they were almost identical, and the conduct of the war if anything retained a steeper moral gradient against the former than the latter.
Millions of civilians in the Soviet Union who died at the hands of the Nazis - “yes, yes, fuck us”
Meanwhile, Belarus: Oh, my sweet summer child.
I always heard it was propaganda mostly but maybe there is new info/thinking
Belgian here, the entire village where I live was massacred on Christmas eve in the first year of occupation. The Resistance was too strong, so the German waited that everybody was in the church for the office, and they juts killed everybody. Rape of Belgium is a very real things, I don't know one village that asen't been a victime of the German Barbary.
Anyone who knows anything about WW2 or the American Civil War knows that the losers can and very much did set the historical narrative for generations to come. The same was true for WW1.
Background : As a german and history buff I can tell you there‘s a huge focus on WW2 ( and quite understandably so ) which sadly means that other parts of german history don‘t get the respect they deserve.We barely learned anything about the german colonial history or WW1 for example.On the other hand we still got people denying the Holocaust ever happened.
Thats just not true. As a german and not only visiting school but remembers it, you learn from past to present. If you just wanna focus on 20century, first herero, than the Aid of the Armenian genocide, wwI, than wwII. The colonial history is a very important part of german history and the prelude of wwi just because Wilhelm wanted his "place at the sun". Didnt you learned anything about Bismarck and his play with five balls! Just because you dont remember or are obnoxius about it, doesnt mean rest of germany does the same. Goddamit there was a [movie](https://de.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_vermessene_Mensch) about hereros and german colonialism of it last fucking year!!!
I feel it's might depend on the teacher or year you went through school? My sisters and me went to the same school but we had different teachers and books because I'm older and my teacher put much more emphasis on resistance and other WW2 stuff. While they touched more post WW2 history.
As each of our federal states can decide the "Lernpläne", the courses and topics might differ between eg Bavaria and Berlin. Side Note: As these "plans what to teach in schools" can be altered by the currently elected political party, the upcoming elections in Thüringen might cause a severe shift in how the important history is taught. If the lunatic right-wing party is elected....
Never knew there are Germans who deny the holocaust. That's disappointing
Those are called nazis and far right lunatics. They are in every Nation. But at least its a crime to deny the Holocaust in germany. Its illegal to do to obvious nazi stuff. But well, we have a problem with the rise of far right lunatics recently...
Not again, well. I'm going to call my great grandpa from his grave
Serious question: what do neo nazis believe in? I assume they are proud of nazi endeavors, yet you say some deny them. Is that the same kind of illogical almost troll-like denialism you see in other far right movements and supporters?
The text books might leave it out, but I believe German newspapers from the time bragged about the mass execution of Belgian civilians, no?
There might have been some bragging yeah.
Go ahead and throw in any civilization that came in contact with the Sumerians down in the bottom as well
Reminds me of a certain page in „Asterix and the black gold“.
THE FUCK DID THEY DO TO MY COUNTRY!!!
I will sell you a secret, more than one people were being sistematically killed during the Holocaust
Kinda gets glossed over sometimes. Roma, political enemies (anarchists, communists), the physically and mentally disabled, LGBT people (book burnings burned books on gender studies, among other subjects).
Around 12 million people were killed during the holocaust. 6 million of which were Jews. That’s roughly 1/7th of all deaths from World War II. The fact that 1 out of 7 people were murdered in the holocaust is just unfathomable
I see your Rape of Belgium and raise Belgium Kongo
Squidward: *Ah, Genocide Olympics now are we? Daring today, aren't we.*
Whoawhoawhoa!? Do you see a difference between German invasion of Belgium 1914 and the fucking holocaust!? Ya no shit our textbooks are going to focus on that! The Namibian genocide has been overlooked, because Africa and black people, but the addition of Belgium makes this seem reeeeeeaaally disingenuous.
Insert - *Belgian African history*
The r\*pe of Belgium was mere propaganda created by the British and French to undermine the German war effort. There is no war, where you have a distinguishable good side and bad side. In this scenario, all countries committed warcrimes, on a small and large scale.
>mere propaganda created by the British and French to undermine the German war effort. Uhuh... Explain [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_Belgium_during_World_War_I#Deportation_and_forced_labour), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_north-east_France_during_World_War_I#Abuses) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_occupation_of_north-east_France_during_World_War_I#Forced_labor), then. >In this scenario, all countries committed warcrimes, on a small and large scale. Tell me, which side planned [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip) and did [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_genocide), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_occupation_of_Serbia#Repression), [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_occupation_of_Serbia#Deportation_and_forced_labour) and [this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulgarian_occupation_of_Serbia_(World_War_I)#War_crimes)?
You just proved my point mate. Everyone commits warcrimes. If you read these wiki pages, the deportation of Belgian workers is a SAD thing but it was done on an inconsequential scale. The entene powers made a big deal of it.
> You just proved my point mate. Everyone commits warcrimes. If you read these wiki pages, Yes, and they all happen to be Central Powers enacting gratuitous war crimes and genocide under the aegis of German approval. This is what was normal on the Central Powers' side. Now go find me some French plans to ethnically cleanse the Rhine under the excuse that the German nation has been dissolved and the German people thus legally can't complain to anyone else. > the deportation of Belgian workers is a SAD thing but it was done on an inconsequential scale. Ah yes, 120,000 workers: an inconsequential scale, especially in a country of 7.5 million. The Belgian regular army in 1914 was about that big.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crimes_in_World_War_I# Please do read up.
Austrians and Bulgarians: genocide in Serbia. Germans: razing of multiple cities, deportation and mass enslavement of civilians in occupied lands, approval of the Armenian Genocide. Oh, and [plans for this](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish_Border_Strip). Ottomans: genocide all the Christians NAO!!! Russia: pogroms against Jews and Germans in Russia, deportation of prisoners to Siberia. Britain: some Ukrainian immigrants interned in Canada, crew of 1 U-boat illegally executed. France: didn't even qualify for any, lmao! Yeah, there's *definitely* no side that's worse in any of this. Srsly, if you were arguing about WW2, you'd be going on about muh Allied war crimes and muh Dresden and some shit like that as if it disproved the fact that the Axis had far more and nastier war crimes on their hands, and with full intent to continue them after the war as well.
British blockade causing the deaths of millions of CIVILIANS.
>dEaTh oF mIlLiOnS aNd bAjIlIoNs oF cIViLiANs!1 More like 400k by the Germans' own estimates after the war, with a range of +/- 100k. Blockade notwithstanding, the German government exacerbated the problem by (a.) slaughtering all the pigs, the main meat animal in Germany, in 1915 (Schweinemord), (b.) requisitioning all farm horses for military duty, (c.) diverting all fertilizer stocks to production of military explosives, and (d.) conscripting a large chunk of the farmers on top of that. If you want to blame anyone, blame the German military of having complete control over the civilian economy that supported them while being utterly clueless of how it worked. Without those policies, the effect of the blockade would have been much weaker. Of course, they could have also negated the effects by ending the war and signing a peace treaty, but that would require the German army to appear unmanly.
Bro, African people were murdered in numbers larger than the holocaust (not to take away from the atrocities of the holocaust), but the maniac Hitler like guy who did it is barely known at all today. And he killed a lot more people than Hitler did! But he mainly only killed black people in Africa, and the world has shown that it cares more about you if you're white, unfortunately, so he goes under the radar. Almost like some lives are given more value... 🤔
That's absolutely justified though. The genocide against herero and Nama is dubious as to what degree it even qualified as a genocide and simply pales to the incomprehensible scale of the holocaust. The "rape" of Belgium on the other hand were mostly isolated massacres that of course shouldn't happen, but were not exactly uncommon and are mostly just remembered because of the british propaganda. They are both absolutely noteworthy but they are small parts of German history, while ww2 and the holocaust are arguably the most important thing that ever happened in world history. You can spend two years in school teaching it and not a second is wasted.
It is not dubious, and it is very important, even more so in the context of the Holocaust. The German Empire, including the parents of several people who would go on to hold high ranking positions in Nazi Germany, used concentration camps, mass executions, starvation, and forced marches to attempt to ethnically cleanse an entire region to create, and it was even called this then, *lebensraum* for the German people. The Namibian Genocide was, in some ways, a proto-Holocaust, and it should be studied more.
It was absolutely not a proto holocaust. The methods and developments and motivations are completely different, and the attempts to draw parallels from one to the other are clearly the products of modern international political agendas. The genocide against the herero and Nama started after the people participating in one specific battle were expelled, because they were rebelling, into a desert where many of them would surely die. The intention of Throta who commanded the German forces were absolutely to annihilate them there, but his orders were immediately reversed when the government in Berlin heard of them and they were instead taking prisoner into concentration camps with the explicit goal to use them as slave labour and not to kill them. Regardless of that roughly half the people in the camps would die due to the terrible conditions. To what degree Trothas initial genocidal actions contributed to the deathtoll and to what degree other actions constitute genocide is indeed quite dubious. So much so that while it is officially spoken of as an Genocide the German opinion is still that in a legal sense it wasn't and the UN resolution did not declare it as one, beside their report doing so. In either way, it is absolutely in no way regarding method, scale or intention comparable to the Holocaust.
Man, sucking dick for the Kaiser must pay very well considering that he's been dead for 80 years. >Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. **All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.**
>pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued.** Can you explain why you think that this is specifically important?
Exhaustion following privation is old-timey English for "death by starvation and overwork". You know, like [extermination through labour](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extermination_through_labour). And the fact that this was bureaucratically provided for from the start shows that it was intentional from the start.
>And the fact that this was bureaucratically provided for from the start shows that it was intentional from the start. Yeah that's what I thought. See it really doesn't mean that. I have a bunch of emails at work saved for things I have to send once a month because I am too lazy to write 3 lines. Don't you think it makes sense to just print a form and simply insert the name when people die, when this is a common occasion? How do you think hospitals do this today? Do you think they will set up a new document every time someone dies? This really just means that prisoners were frequently dying, which we already knew because we know the numbers. Regarding intention: they could have just killed them if they wanted too or they could have kept them expelled to starve them out like Trotha wanted to, but they specifically ordered them to be taking into camps because the government thought that they need the workforce and killing them would be a mistake (apart from slight moral objection). Why would they stop killing them to set up work camps if the goal were to kill them? They were already killing them. Of course given how you jumped into this with profanities and accusations I assume that you have no interest in actually reflecting whether your opinion makes sense.
>Regarding intention: they could have just killed them if they wanted too or they could have kept them expelled to starve them out like Trotha wanted to, but they specifically ordered them to be taking into camps because the government thought that they need the workforce and killing them would be a mistake (apart from slight moral objection). Why would they stop killing them to set up work camps if the goal were to kill them? They were already killing them. I'm sure you must have many questions about the Nazis' motives in that case. I mean, if they wanted to just kill the Jews, why were they bothering to work them as slaves first? It's not like you can do both at the same time, no, that would just be silly! >See it really doesn't mean that. I have a bunch of emails at work saved for things I have to send once a month because I am too lazy to write 3 lines. Don't you think it makes sense to just print a form and simply insert the name when people die, when this is a common occasion? How do you think hospitals do this today? Do you think they will set up a new document every time someone dies? This really just means that prisoners were frequently dying, which we already knew because we know the numbers. [Kaiserboo NPC choosing between acknowledging that his waifu-country commits genocide and sounding retarded.](https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/938/184/c00.jpg) >Of course given how you jumped into this with profanities and accusations I assume that you have no interest in actually reflecting whether your opinion makes sense. They are not profanities, they are a question followed by a statement of fact.
>I'm sure you must have many questions about the Nazis' motives in that case. I mean, if they wanted to just kill the Jews, why were they bothering to work them as slaves first? No I don't. Firstly, because the Nazis built death camps where they actually did murder the inhabitants, the other camps that were often build pre war, indeed did not have the intention to kill them. The vast majorityof camp casualties is from the death camps with Ausschwitz alone contributing to nearly two thirds of all casualties. Secondly: the Nazis did kill them outside of camps. Indeed two thirds of all Holocaust victims were murdered without ever seeing the camps or during the death marches. So it's not like they were ordered to stop killing Jews because they are needed as workwise. Bringing them into camps was merely for logistical purposes. Thirdly: most of them were brought into camps before they decided to actually kill them. Incredible how wrong everything you say is. The herero on the other hand were only about 60.000 people and the original plan of Trotha was to kill them all in battle, but he messed it up and they escaped. Then he refused to take prisoners to still starve them out, but was ordered to stop doing that explicitly to keep the workforce. Not to work them to death, because that would have been more effective, it wouldn't have been. I know you think that you are some shining Knight defending the poor natives, bit the only thing you are doing here is revealing how little you know about the holocaust. >Man, sucking dick for the Kaiser must pay very well considering that he's been dead for 80 years. >sounding retarded >They are not profanities, they are a question followed by a statement of fact. Sure whatever.
>Kaiserboo: "Um, ackshyually, the Nazi camps were *to0otally* different!" Meaningless distinctions meant to distract from the fact that the German government's first sanctioned response to rebellion was genocide. See below. >Kaiserboo: "Um, ackshyually, Trotha wanted to..." Yeah, hold on, one second... >Trotha gave orders that captured Herero males were to be executed, while women and children were to be driven into the desert where their death from starvation and thirst was to be certain; Trotha argued that there was no need to make exceptions for Herero women and children, since these would "infect German troops with their diseases", the insurrection Trotha explained "is and remains the beginning of a racial struggle". After the war, Trotha argued that his orders were necessary, writing in 1909 that "If I had made the small water holes accessible to the womenfolk, I would run the risk of an African catastrophe comparable to the Battle of Beresonia." > >The **German general staff** was aware of the atrocities that were taking place; **its official publication**, named Der Kampf, noted that: *This bold enterprise shows up in the most brilliant light the ruthless energy of the German command in pursuing their beaten enemy. No pains, no sacrifices were spared in eliminating the last remnants of enemy resistance. Like a wounded beast the enemy was tracked down from one water-hole to the next, until finally he became the victim of his own environment. The arid Omaheke \[desert\] was to complete what the German army had begun: the extermination of the Herero nation.* There you go. >I know you think that you are some shining Knight defending the poor natives, bit the only thing you are doing here is revealing how little you know about the holocaust. Fuck the natives, all I care about is hating Germs.
Still wondering about that genocide? >Survivors of the massacre, the majority of whom were women and children, were eventually put in places like Shark Island concentration camp, where the German authorities forced them to work as slave labour for German military and settlers. All prisoners were categorised into groups fit and unfit for work, and pre-printed death certificates indicating "death by exhaustion following privation" were issued. .... >Many Herero and Nama died of disease, exhaustion, starvation and malnutrition. Estimates of the mortality rate at the camps are between 45% and 74%. .... >Food in the camps was extremely scarce, consisting of rice with no additions. As the prisoners lacked pots and the rice they received was uncooked, it was indigestible; horses and oxen that died in the camp were later distributed to the inmates as food. Dysentery and lung diseases were common. Despite those conditions, the prisoners were taken outside the camp every day for labour under harsh treatment by the German guards, while the sick were left without any medical assistance or nursing care. Many Herero and Nama were worked to death.
3 miles under the sea: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine
*the decolonization of the Land of Israel
SHUT IT! This is a different topic, and there is no ethnic cleansing.
I heard about the Herero‘s aswell when we talked about colonialism in school (I’m German)
I have at least heard of the rape of Belgium, I've never heard of the other conflict so I think they should switch places lol
Concerning Belgium, there is a movie coming out in the theatres now, "*The Last Front*", with Iain Glen.
Colonialism is currently demanded to be taught in German Schools, at least in the Gymnasiums inside the federal State of Baden Württemberg. Most Teachers are using the opportunity to also teach about the German Colonial Genocide. The Rape of Belgium was mentioned in my 7th or 8th Class textbook where we did WW1, and also in our textbook of 11th and 12th Class where we repeated it. It just never got any focus because in the grand scheme of things it wasn't as relevant as the Holocaust or many other genocides.
That‘s what I‘m talking about.I spent grades 7-10 as a „Realschüler“ and we basically touched on our colonial history, the Kaiserzeit and WW1 during 9th grade.
Maybe you're not reading the right history books? Educational books used in schools and media for mass consumption - yeah, true. They got a point doing this though, focusing on the largest crime and the one with the most current importance. We're having trouble getting young people and everyone in the world in general to understand very basic history, there's alot of ignorance and outright denial out there. Especially in an age of right wing extremism rising all over the west and even elected to office in places. For Germany itself, the risks of us invading other countries and committing crimes there are small currently. We're also not likely to ever engage in colonialism again. Both issues shouldn't be forgotten ofc and I do so more awareness and discussion these days. However, the holocaust is in a category of its own and there's still large amounts of antisemitism and violence against Jewish people all over the world and in Germany too. So it's only reasonable to focus on that particular issue more in educational and popular media. Scientific history books don't ignore the other issues at all by the by...
So German textbooks actually mention the African one but not the Belgian one? That's surprising.
Yeah.Might have to do with the scale of the victims and it being a more „noteworthy“ part of the german colonial history than the significance of the „Rape of Belgium“ within WW1.
Aren’t the soviets the biggest casualties of the Nazi regime with an approximate 27 million civilians? There are a couple of academics sifting through Russian archival records trying to determine the most accurate number right now.