Gringo buried a fascinating link in the comments over at Maggie's, about the antisemitism of Germans, and the possibility that much of the refugee immigration was tolerated in order to get rid of Jews. It seems a stretch to think of this as a plot, but as a convenient development it is plausible.
The author is ex-leftist journalist Melanie Phillips. English, Oxford, my age, now more right-wing identified (though not on all issues). Worth a look, I think.
Consider that few German adults under 30 have had a personal relationship with anyone who was older than a child in 1945. My 30 year old son did know my WWII vet father but I was born when he was 40, and he was 65 when my son was born. The 'heroic little Israel' storyline played out in the mid-70s. I also suspect that the history was presented differently in East German than in the West, and may play a role in some of these changes.
ReplyDeleteI also suspect that the history was presented differently in East German than in the West, and may play a role in some of these changes.
ReplyDeleteEast German teaching of the Nazi era differed in at least two ways from the way it was taught in West Germany. First, Germans were portrayed as victims of the Nazis, not as collaborators or supporters of the Nazis. So, it wasn't the German people participating in the Holocaust, but the Nazis. Second, instead of portraying Jews as the primary targets of the Nazis, they were portrayed as one of many targets, such as Communists,gypsies, homosexuals or Social Democrats.
As a result, most East Germans grew up without a sense of guilt about Nazi treatment of the Jews. Merkel is from East Germany.
Oh, please be mere sensationalism, PLEASE be mere sensationalism...
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