Either or.Do you mean people who actually know what is happening in the East, from firsthand experience, or those who only know what the state media tells them about it, apart from scattered rumours?
What is your definition of support then?Yes. Not because of direct support mind, but because they wouldn't be able/willing to do anything to stop it.
Go along with it. Willfully ignore the signs of what was happening around them, and indirectly aid the effort. Much like the average response to the Holocaust when it was ongoing.What is your definition of support then?
Then America has a LOT to answer for.Go along with it. Willfully ignore the signs of what was happening around them, and indirectly aid the effort. Much like the average response to the Holocaust when it was ongoing.
Yes, yes it does. Lots of people could have taken action earlier but didn't. And they all share some of the blame.Then America has a LOT to answer for.
Just making sure there is consistency of definitions.Yes, yes it does. Lots of people could have taken action earlier but didn't. And they all share some of the blame.
And in case you are wondering, no I don't think anyone ELSE would have stepped in to stop the Germans in the East.
That wasn't the question though.
Do you really have to compare something like leaving the EU for political reasons to something like a genocide of one half of pre-1991 Russia? I'm honestly baffled at this unless you're referring to unreasonable people who were for Brexit (not all Brexiters I guess).By and large, yes they did. Because it all seemed so theoretical or, like Brexit fanatics, they can quote analogies to Romanian super-families on benefits, which sing to their prejudice
I agree with most of your post but would prefer to say "The German people believe they had been wronged at Versailles". While Versailles was a harsh settlement, it was nowhere near as harsh as Brest-Litovsk or the break up of the Austro-Hungarian state or the Ottoman Empire. The belief stems I think from three main drivers.The German people had been wronged by Versailles. After years of abuse, Hitler restored their pride, their power, and their prestige. The German people proved they were willing to ignore the causes of their success for the rewards that followed. Many of them would never see the horrors of the East and those willing to go would be fanatics who agreed with the regime. The next generation, raised in National Socialism, would have embraced what Hitler advocated. It doesn't matter what the passive present thinks but how the next acts. Germany is an incredibly socially connected nation that cares more for the whole than the individual. The pressure to conform with the regime, especially as it succeeded more and more would be impossible to resist, especially as the Nazis went in desensitizing steps. With every new victory, Hitler became more powerful. If the Soviets fall, no one is questioning what follows. They'll merely sit in the dark, relishing Germany's prominence and what that brings, accepting whatever comforting lies Goebbels offers. People enjoy beef as long as they don't know where it comes from.
It was always a war damage clause. The section is the legal justification for why reperations were levied.3) the ''War Guilt' clause, which in historical hindsight was wrong in laying the moral responsibility for the War solely on Germany. I've read it was initially a 'War Damage' clause which would have been more acceptable since the Western Front was fought alamost entirely on French and Belgian territory.
So, troops with Eastern Front experience would probably have agreed with Generalplan Ost as presented to them (with less brutality and glossing over the murders), and they would have been first in line to be farmer-soldiers in the annexed East.
It was always a war damage clause. The section is the legal justification for why reperations were levied.
All the treaties had that clause, modified based on what country was signing.
It was lesser the part about the responsibility for losses and damages, that caused the german embarresment but more the last, highlightened part, which was a "new" element of such treaties in declaring one nation to be the sole responsible and "guilty" for the outbreak of a multinational war at all.Article 231
The Allied and Associated Governments affirm and Germany accepts the responsibility of Germany and her allies for causing all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of the war imposed upon them by the aggression of Germany and her allies.