Why did Nazi Germany honour the Generva Convention?

[Tingkai]

Originally posted by Ned
This could help explain why the Serbs went on an ethnic cleansing campaign in the '90s. They had never been told that such actions were uncivilized because they were Communists and that is what Communists routinely did to peoples who were in the way.

Ned, Yugoslavia was a peaceful country during its communist period. There was no "ethnic cleansing" until after the communist government fell.

[Ned]

Originally posted by Tingkai


Ned, Yugoslavia was a peaceful country during its communist period. There was no "ethnic cleansing" until after the communist government fell.

Tingkai, nice way of missing the point.

[Whaleboy]

Ummm communists are inherently genocidal... wtf?

[Ned]

Whaleboy, no. It is just that Stalin and his merry crew were just as guilty of "cleansing" as Hitler, and did not educate people behind the Iron Curtian about the evils of ethnic cleansing as much if at all as did the Western Allies did after WWII.

[Tingkai]

Come off it Ned. Stalin was a murderous bastard but he never engage in genocide like Hitler.

[Heresson]

He did not intend to kill entire race, but to get rid of entire nations from specific regions, to get rid of entire social classes, He did attempt to do that - successfully.

[vodkakov]

Originally posted by Ned
When the Iron Curtain descended across Europe, apparently only the Western, non Communist, part got its nose rubbed into what the Nazi's did. This could help explain why the Serbs went on an ethnic cleansing campaign in the '90s. They had never been told that such actions were uncivilized because they were Communists and that is what Communists routinely did to peoples who were in the way.

Apparently, I seem to remember reading as part of my history A Level that one of the major reasons that East Germans were not so well informed was the Soviet desire to utilise the Germans as allies in the Warsaw Pact (although they did force the DDR to pay reparations). The West did a similar thing, which has since led to the rise of the idea that Hitler and just a select few were responsible and that the majority of Germans hated the Nazis. Recent historical analysis shows that large numbers of Germans supported Nazi policy (mostly with regard to economics and anti-communist policy). Being realistic this makes sense given that 6,000,000 Germans were unemployed in 1933 and the Nazis provided work, improved conditions etc. Basically, unless you were classed as a enemy of the regime, life was an improvement on the period 1929-1933. The idea that Hitler and the Nazis were responsible for everything, it could be argued, has been brought about by the need to re-integrate the vast majority of Germans into their respective capitalist or communist societies and basically to use them as allies in the Cold War.

The Balkan situation has always been very volatile, just look at the pre-WW1 era. The modern conflict was a mixture of emerging (Serb) nationalism and the fear of Milosovic's that he would lose control of vast areas with the break-up of Yugoslavia, in my opinion. Also I think it is unfair to say that just communists commit crimes, such as ethnic cleansing, as Rwanda was not communist. Differences between people result in ethnic conflict, especially when people require a scapegoat for their troubles (just look at the traditional ethos of anti-semites - that Jews are somehow controlling the world and therefore the problems of the world are the fault of the Jews - which I'm sure most people would accept is total ****). Communists did kill people, so have most types of government at one time or another, including the USA (Native Americans). I agree though that the years of authoritarian rule in Yugoslavia was probably a large contributor towards the eventual genocide(s) that occurred there.

[Tingkai]

From what I've read, the East Germans were taught about the atrocities committed by the Nazis, but the Nazis were protrayed as capitlists.

Immediately after the war, a myth developed in East and West Germany that the Allies had liberated them from the Nazis. That changed in West Germany during the 1960s when the twenty-somethings began questioning what their parents had done during the war.

As for Yugoslavia, the communists tried to put the past behind the, eg the crimes committed by the pro-German Croats and the anti-German Serbs during the war and earlier battles between Christian and Muslims.

[vodkakov]

I can see the sense in the Soviet teachings in East Germany regarding Nazism. A lot of left-leaning historians thought that Nazism came about as a result of capitalist businessmen. However, recently, it has become apparent that large numbers of the working class also voted NSDAP (logic being that they were promised work and improved conditions). Big business only started to fund the NSDAP after it became apparent that they might form a government (logic being that by 'funding' the party, contracts might emerge later, and with the government being the biggest contractor, the logic speaks for itself).

The myth that the Germans were liberated is key to the development of the belief that the Germans in the majority did not support Hitler et al, largely, I believe to make it more acceptable to re-arm Germany and integrate them into the Warsaw Pact/NATO. If the Germans were not liberated, then they supported Hitler and the Nazis, if this were the case then integration would have been unpopular... therefore it was necessary to perpetuate the belief.

My point about the communists in Yugoslavia is that the authoritarian nature of Tito's regime produced the sort of mentality, which is common in many such states, whereby human rights and "Western" (for want of a better term) values are new concepts. This made it, in my opinion, possible that the atrocities occurred,fired by nationalists. I could not agree more that Tito managed to produce the only time in Yugoslavia's history, whereby the area was relatively stable and the people were not massacring one another for the longest period of time.