How Do German Schools Teach About WWII? REACTION!! | OFFICE BLOKES REACT!!

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[MichaEl-rhkv]

It is not about guilt, but about consciousness. We are all responsible for what is happen in the world now, we are all responsible for the future which is shaped by our actions now. That is the core of what (most) German schools try to teach: You are not responsible for what your grandparents or grandgrandparents did, but you should try to make better decisions, and as the memory of the atrocities is part of our heritage, so is the obligation to fight for human rights for all of humankind and to form a future we want to live in. If you observe injustice, you can't look simply the other way, or the injustice will hit you in the end. Superior orders can't excuse your own deeds - that's why German soldiers learn first of all NOT to follow orders which violate the law: If your officer orders you not to stop your tank at a red traffic light you are not allowed to obey - much less if he orders you to shoot a prisoner.

[trki]

German person here. I can confirm, for the northern part of Germany (because I live there) teaches and shows so much over such a long period of time. I know many classmates that used to say that they would also like to learn about the napoleonic wars or about Slavic country's or more about the english monarchy but most time went to ww2. Allies and enemies. The battles, the politics, making tours to the concentration camps to see for ourselves. Like we were 16 and some were crying there eyes out. We are certainly the villains in our own history books.

I wanted to add because one of you guys said 'how can you not know?'. And there were definitely people that knew but also people that got blinded by the euphoria of Germany getting stronger and stronger. However I remember a letter that was printed in our history book. From a woman who described sending her handicaped sister to a home so she could finally get good care and get better support. Well, the home killed those inmates in various ways and wrote those family's letters about their relatives health getting worse. So they wouldn't suspect anything when the phone would rang to inform them that there family member just died. Nazis also tried to maintain a status quo of 'strong' german men and women. For them it also didn't include handicaped people so they found ways to get rid of them. There are all kinds of storys

[DaGoonR]

I saw Mike in Amsterdam last night. He was in the red light district walking up to the windows mumbling 1 pound 50.

[MarcMagma]

"Germany is the only country who is the bad guy in its own history books, too." - a german I know (dunno whether it's really the only country where that is the case but I wouldn't be suprised).

[zhadoomzx]

I am a foreigner living in Germany since birth. I went to school here... what they teach in school can make you feel sick. Literally. Pretty accurate video, and great reaction.

[BunniMonster]

My grandfather was front-line in Burma too but he refused to ever talk about it other than to say "It was horrible" and completely zone out.
The kind of thing that could still cause that kind of reaction in the 1990s when he finally died, is a level of horror we can't allow to keep happening.

[hanksilman]

As an american I can confidentally say that the states regulating their own school systems can backfire tremendously. Some states are great, some aren't good at all, and others (like mine, Georgia) take on new perspectives outright with revisionism to topics like slavery/Civil War.

[MyvIsLove]

i remember we watched a movie called 'the bridge' in school here in germany. i dont wanna see this ever again. learning our history can be harsh for the stomach

[donnagonatas]

My Dad was there. He was 82nd airborne. He was captured in Germany and was a pow for 18 months until he escaped. He never talked about it.

[p.f.]

A had an aunt, who lived next to Mauthausen Concentrate Camp. Prisoners every went by her garden to break Stones in the near — she thought „They are People who did bad things and they prisoners, but why have they be so thin — don’t they get enough food?“
So she put same apples an the fence of her garden. Next day, her friend (he worked in the prison) told her never do this again, otherwise she would be also get to prison. The reason she wasn’t taken immediately was because he was her friend.
So she imagined what’s going on — it was not very clever for the people to ask in that totalitarian regime.

There was a lot of rumors, but the regime never spoke about this and I think nobody could imagine the horror what’s going on in the camps and the wagons were never opened until the arrive.

My grandfather was forced to catch russian prisoners who left the camp — we don’t know what he really saw and experienced, but he came home after a short time and said to my grandmother „you cannot imagine what I have seen — I don’t want help to catch them so I have to hide myself — you have never saw me come back you don’t know anything“

My Mother said, he was never the same man again.

[shadowscarnage]

I've seen one of this guys videos on the role of the jester. He does a really good job at explaining what ever topic he chooses to cover.

[jeremyjdl]

I’m part Native American and growing up in Texas going to Texas public schools I never knew how native Americans were treated by the US. I grew up learning that the US had one original sin, enslaving ppl from Africa and bringing them on boats to the Americas. Horrific obviously, but I was never taught the true first original sin of this country which was the attempted genocide of my ppl. 90% of all native Americans of the time were killed.

[bryanobrien]

My grandfather was stationed at the Panama Canal in WWII . He was a motorcycle currier . He had a bad crash and ended up with a metal plate in his head and he married a Panamanian woman that he met during the war .

[aamnahere]

I wish Britain did the same because millions of our ancestors were annihilated, our resources stolen and placed in the London museum and British people continue to either sanitize the crimes as 'oh everyone was doing it' or gaslight us with 'it wasn't that bad.' In my opinion, German crimes inspire such universal horror and outrage because the victims were finally seen as worth protecting. Non white populations of the subcontinent (as well as Africa) are still seen as cannon fodder so despite the high numbers of fatalities and extreme oppression of the British empire, it's still deemed not so bad. If Britain was occupying white European colonies and annihilating people en masse, they too would have been forced to teach an accurate history of their crimes.

[christinaify]

Both my grandfathers served in WWII. My dad's side was Greek American, mom's side was German American. I wonder if it was a complicated thing for my German granddad to think on it all. His parents were immigrants so he was one generation away from fighting for the other side.

Greek granddad: the only request he had when he signed up for service was that he be stationed some place warm. They put him in the Aleutian Islands lol

[BlackKakashi]

Hello, I'm German and I find it very interesting that you watched this video. I would like to say something briefly about our responsibility. I myself was born in 1987 and of course I see no guilt because of WW II. However, I think it is important that today's and future generations should know about this cruel time in our country so that they don't make the same mistake again.
While we are no longer to blame for the past, we do have a responsibility to show future generations what happened and how to make the future better.

[SilvanaDil]

Mike isn't allowed back into Germany because of some ... niche ... films he made some years ago.

[boelwerkr]

I'm as German was quite surprised how little is taught about the atrocities GB committed, when i is talked about it's rationalized and downplayed. I was shocked that only a few knew that GB wiped several ethnic groups of the wold map, and when they talked about it was like "yea but everyone was doing it at the time.", "Why talking about it, it's to late anyway."

[BTinSF]

Some comments from an older American (born in 1945):

- First let me say I'm a huge fan of German culture. Like Hitler, I love Wagner. I also love the nightlife scene of the Weimar era and have many recordings of such as the Comedian Harmonists (there's a movie about them called just "The Harmonists"). I also have a modest collection of live recordings of classical performances made during the war and in some you can actually hear bombs going off in the distance.

- During my years in a graduate program at university I had several Jewish roommates. One, whose grandmother had died in a camp, was traumatized enough that he could not watch old WW II movies on TV with the other roommates.

- My first visit to Germany (landed in Luxemburg, crossed into Germany and up the Rhine ultimately to Munich where I spent some time before moving on town Salzburg in Austria) was in 1972. This was still close enough to wartime that several striking things happened. First, I was walking in Munich one day when I past a vacant lot with a plaque which said it was the site of the main synagogue of Munich which was destroyed by the Nazis. I took a photo of the sign and as I did so I noticed a few hostile looks from passing Germans. During my time there, I went to see the camp at Dachau. I took a train to the town of Dachau and then a cab. The cab driver seemed very friendly and chatty until he asked where I wanted to go and I told him the camp. He shut up and didn't say much more until we got there. Then, when I was in Salzburg, I took a tour of Hohensalzburg castle (fortress) that dominates the town. The tour guide told us with what seemed a good deal of pride about how it had been an SS prison during the war. It seemed inappropriate.

- Aside from the movie "The Bridge" mentioned in a previous post, I recommend a made for German TV 3-part war drama called Generation War (German with English subtitles). It's about several young Germans who get conscripted and go off to the Eastern Front. They don't all survive. It's got high production values equal to the best US-made TV.

[..A.]

How they teach kids about Hitler and WW2 is probably a lot better than how we teach kids about Winston Churchill in the UK. His crimes against humanity was on a Hitler scale.