AHC: shock at Holocaust leads to redefining of courage?

This is a hard one, for beliefs about courage and not be cowardly are deeply ingrained.

For example, there’s the childhood taunt: “That’s not the real reason. You’re just scared!” And we could easily come up with a hundred other examples.
 
European countries have gone through something like this to an extent (at least if I understand your prompt enough). Before 1914 masculinity and warfare were deeply intertwined, going to war was a great adventure for a young boy to prove himself. After 1945, the dominant attitude of war has been that it's something evil by principle, or at the very most is something only to be engaged in when all other options have been exhausted (fighting the Nazis was still a necessary use of violence, as it limited the violence the Nazis wished to inflict on tens or hundreds of millions of innocents). Maybe you could spread this into American culture a bit more by having the violence of the 30s and 40s hit North America as well as Europe, somehow.
 
European countries have gone through something like this to an extent (at least if I understand your prompt enough). Before 1914 masculinity and warfare were deeply intertwined, going to war was a great adventure for a young boy to prove himself. After 1945, the dominant attitude of war has been that it's something evil by principle, or at the very most is something only to be engaged in when all other options have been exhausted . . .
But we in America got our dose of this in the Civil War. Not so glorious and noble, even if it ultimately was for good cause.

The Spanish American War of 1898 was short enough to again be glorious. (and the second chapter of subjugation in the Philippines largely unknown)

And then, the trench warfare of WWI anything but.
 

Thomas1195

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But we in America got our dose of this in the Civil War. Not so glorious and noble, even if it ultimately was for good cause.

The Spanish American War of 1898 was short enough to again be glorious. (and the second chapter of subjugation in the Philippines largely unknown)

And then, the trench warfare of WWI anything but.
The last time America got their lands devastated was 1861-1865.
 
The last time America got their lands devastated was 1861-1865.

A bit tangental, but I had been thinking about this lately, I wonder how southern cities would've handled the problem of supplying bomb shelters to whites and blacks in the era of Jim Crow, if America was forced to go through an experience like the Blitz? Either they integrate shelters, which might lead to a lot of whites realizing under an intimate and dangerous situation that blacks are no worse than them, or they segregate, creating a potent symbol of the evils of Jim Crow after the war is over - moderate whites at least had a kind of logic they could follow so they could ignore the issue of lynching, "it's only blacks that don't know their place that get lynched", they can say, denying black civilians safety during an air raid is not very good optics for the South.
 
A bit tangental, but I had been thinking about this lately, I wonder how southern cities would've handled the problem of supplying bomb shelters to whites and blacks in the era of Jim Crow, if America was forced to go through an experience like the Blitz? Either they integrate shelters, which might lead to a lot of whites realizing under an intimate and dangerous situation that blacks are no worse than them, or they segregate, creating a potent symbol of the evils of Jim Crow after the war is over - moderate whites at least had a kind of logic they could follow so they could ignore the issue of lynching, "it's only blacks that don't know their place that get lynched", they can say, denying black civilians safety during an air raid is not very good optics for the South.

If there are any Apartheid Era Civil Defense plans that might shed some light on how they'd approach the issue.
 
The last time America got their lands devastated was 1861-1865.
Billy Graham once said as people get older and face health issues and the loss of family members, they either get better or get bitter.

But even that may be too optimistic.

Sometimes we humans handle adversity well, and sometimes we don’t.

And when people face injustice, the most common thing they decide seems to be — I implicitly believe in the hierarchy just as the way the world is. I simply don’t want to be at the bottom.
 
This is definitely the deepest thread I've read here. To be honest its not something I can understand fully. I believe that the response of the allies to the reports of the holocaust were shameful and a black mark on humanity.
 
This is definitely the deepest thread I've read here. . . .
Thank you. :) And please understand, I make lots of mistakes, too, and can definitely use all the help along the way I can find.

I'm probably going to explore other ideas within this same overall topic, and I welcome and invite other people to do the same and explore the ideas which they feel have promise.
 
If a soldier -- such an SS officer -- is ordered to commit an act of violence, if he doesn't go along, he is at risk of being labeled "cowardly."

Maybe in a better world, the default would be, when in doubt, don't do the violence. But in our actual world because of the very negative labels, the default is, when in doubt, go ahead and do it.
 
other factors which can contribute to war crimes:

moral distance — either actual as in dropping bombs, or in which we label a person as an "other," and this of course happened big time in Nazi Germany, and/or

a combination of boredom and irritation — this can be involved in soldiers massacring a village. It can also be involved in central command being frustrated at slow progress, and ordering abrupt, clumsy actions. For example, this might have played a role when Pres. Nixon ordered bombing of north Vietnam on Christmas '72.
 
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Jewish Community Center of San Francisco

Russian Émigré Bulletin
https://tickets.jccsf.org/assets/1658/original/NLJanuary13_web.pdf

Jan. 2013 (page 20)

" . . . Herman Grabbe was a German who worked as an engineer in a company in the Western Ukraine. During the war he saved the lives of thousands of Jews in the area of Rovno and Dubno. He was the only German who was a witness for the prosecution at the Nuremberg Trials. His native city in German[y] did not welcome him home and he immigrated to the United Sates. He settled in San Francisco. He passed away in 1986."
Of course, his city did not welcome him. He was a big shot and he brought discredit to the city, regardless of what the facts were or how important it was to get it right. It's kind of a twisted and complicated part of human psychology, but that's that.

It does sound like Herman would make for a good topic for a movie!
 
Don't courage and cowardice get redefinded every 2.74 miliseconds?
Yes, very fluid.

Just last night on I-45 a little south of Houston, a car flew by going about a 100 MPH, and then a second car, and then a third car. All of them were fancy, expensive cars. It was about 11:30 pm and there were still plenty of cars on the road. I'm guessing young men, egging each other on, misplaced machoism.

Maybe one of them could later say to the others, yeah, we need to stop doing that before something happens.

Maybe an older person who already has a relationship with them could say, What if you hit a pregnant woman, you don't have an answer for that, and if your reflexes are that good, take it to the track.

Most likely, these three individuals will get more mature from other unrelated life areas and just plain old time, and then this will transfer back to driving.

* this kind of racing on Houston freeways is rare, maybe only every couple of years do I see it
 
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