Saturday, April 7, 2018

Germans and a Lack of Hyped-Up Sense Over Hitler

The war has been over now for over seventy years now, and generally....while some movies are still made over the war period....mostly from the perspective of the 'little' guy, or the private citizen, or some Jewish perspective....the bulk of Germans really don't get hyped up over Hitler or the war. 

I think there are five things at play here.

1.  We are now onto the third generation after the war ended....approaching the 4th generation.  Maybe out of the 82-million....you might still have around a million Germans who were kids at the time and remember bits and pieces of the period.  Those born after 1945, really don't have memory of the war-period, but they might remember bits and pieces of the rebuilding era (1945-1960).

2.  Where you might get a fair amount of history or coverage of the war is public TV.....but most Germans under the age of thirty....aren't going to be viewing much of public TV.

3.  A fair number of Germans around today do remember the 1960s and 1970s....with the Red Army Faction and terrorism.  In their mind, this is more worth discussing the 1930 to 1945.

4.  For the younger generation, they still get a fair amount of history dumped on them via school classes, but their view circles back to 'why', and asking how an Austrian got into the German system, and how the Constitution failed them.

5.  Finally, you come to the sense that German culture has moved on.  Needing to dwell on this topic doesn't really achieve much of anything.

In an average year, I would take a guess that public TV (ARD and ZDF) probably make at least six prime-time movies over the war-period, and from a historical emphasis....they do a decent job. 

As for this era really being 'ended'?  Yeah...I would readily suggest that the time has come in Germany for most to close this door, and simply move on..  The youth of Germany feel that way, and I would suggest that anyone who grew up in the 1970s.....likely feels that way. 

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