Oh yeah, mostly online. Though, having lived in a conservative area for much of my younger life, I can assure you that a very nonzero amount of otherwise nice folk in America hold some really bizarre views on… various historical events, WW2 included.
In America, this mindset saying that “what the government tells us is wrong” by default seems to be way more prevalent than in other countries. Combine that with subpar education and you got some really dumb fucking morons who believe crazy shit, even about WW2.
As a German native speaker I can read all the historical sources down to the smallest Gestapo police report, or the death sentences handed out to regular citizens who only made the mistake of publicly stating that they thought “the war could not be won”. I’ve listened to all the speeches, read so many documents.
I also wanted to find out what my family did during the Nazi regime, enquired at the Bundesarchiv about NSDAP membership of my grandfathers and -mothers. I’m 49 yrs old so I knew them, and when I was a kid one of my grandmothers once shouted at me for saying Hitler was a criminal - she said I knew nothing about the times and how dare I have an opinion about that and I should shut up. What I found out about my family in my quest for documents wasn’t nice.
What I’m trying to say is this in a nutshell: I think I have a level of knowledge about the Nazi regime almost on par with that of a historian.
And let me assure you, they were even worse - WAY worse - than the contemporary American History Channel audience believes.
As much as it pains me to say this as a German - the Nazis needed to be stopped by all means. If that took killing civilians, even doing things that could be considered war crimes - very regrettable, but no German could or should blame anyone else than the Nazis for everything that happened.
Oh yeah, mostly online. Though, having lived in a conservative area for much of my younger life, I can assure you that a very nonzero amount of otherwise nice folk in America hold some really bizarre views on… various historical events, WW2 included.
In America, this mindset saying that “what the government tells us is wrong” by default seems to be way more prevalent than in other countries. Combine that with subpar education and you got some really dumb fucking morons who believe crazy shit, even about WW2.
As a German native speaker I can read all the historical sources down to the smallest Gestapo police report, or the death sentences handed out to regular citizens who only made the mistake of publicly stating that they thought “the war could not be won”. I’ve listened to all the speeches, read so many documents.
I also wanted to find out what my family did during the Nazi regime, enquired at the Bundesarchiv about NSDAP membership of my grandfathers and -mothers. I’m 49 yrs old so I knew them, and when I was a kid one of my grandmothers once shouted at me for saying Hitler was a criminal - she said I knew nothing about the times and how dare I have an opinion about that and I should shut up. What I found out about my family in my quest for documents wasn’t nice.
What I’m trying to say is this in a nutshell: I think I have a level of knowledge about the Nazi regime almost on par with that of a historian.
And let me assure you, they were even worse - WAY worse - than the contemporary American History Channel audience believes.
As much as it pains me to say this as a German - the Nazis needed to be stopped by all means. If that took killing civilians, even doing things that could be considered war crimes - very regrettable, but no German could or should blame anyone else than the Nazis for everything that happened.