251
Germany approves nearly $1bn in arms exports to Israel (thecradle.co)
submitted 1 day ago by supersquirrel@lemmy.ca to c/europe@feddit.org
118 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Shameful

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] blackshirt@lemmy.world 35 points 1 day ago

Germany always manages to be on the wrong side of history

[-] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I think Germany has a special relationship with "whiteness" that makes it especially vulnerable to fascism, especially in how Germany is perceived and treated by other groups of white people.

Also though, Germany is a culture bursting with contradictions, within a year of Mein Kempf being published another novel was published The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann by an originally German author who moved to the US.

The Magic Mountain is firmly cemented in German culture... and is indisputably one of the best novels ever written in German or English and is certainly one of the most humanist and openly accepting of humanity in all its "failures" of any great novel of the 20th century. The Magic Mountain is the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable and it is equally allergic to racism and discrimination.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Mann

With the start of the Cold War, he was increasingly frustrated by rising McCarthyism. As a "suspected communist", he was required to testify to the House Un-American Activities Committee, where he was termed "one of the world's foremost apologists for Stalin and company".[19] He was listed by HUAC as being "affiliated with various peace organizations or Communist fronts".

Being in his own words a non-communist, rather than an anti-communist, Mann openly opposed the allegations: "As an American citizen of German birth, I finally testify that I am painfully familiar with certain political trends. Spiritual intolerance, political inquisitions, and declining legal security, and all this in the name of an alleged 'state of emergency'. ... That is how it started in Germany."

As Mann joined protests against the jailing of the Hollywood Ten and the firing of schoolteachers suspected of being Communists, he found "the media had been closed to him".[20] Finally, he was forced to quit his position as Consultant in Germanic Literature at the Library of Congress,[21] and in 1952, he returned to Europe, to live in Kilchberg, near Zürich, Switzerland. Here he initially lived in a rented house and bought his last house there in 1954 (which later his widow and then their son Golo lived in until their deaths).

He never again lived in Germany, though he regularly traveled there. His most important German visit was in 1949, at the 200th birthday of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, attending celebrations in Frankfurt am Main (then West Germany) and Weimar (then East Germany), as a statement that German culture extended beyond the new political borders.[22] He also visited Lübeck, where he saw his parents' house, which was partially destroyed by the bombing of Lübeck in World War II (and only later rebuilt).

History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.

[-] geissi@feddit.org 7 points 19 hours ago

I think Germany has a special relationship with “whiteness”

No that's the US. Racism in Germany and Europe as a whole, has always been about cultural and ethnic differences more than skin color. The persecuted slavs or jews were just as pasty as any German, unlike the "honorary Aryans" in Japan.

Germany is a culture bursting with contradictions, within a year of Mein Kempf being published another novel was published The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

Two different authors with different backgrounds writing different books? What a uniquely contradictory culture Germany is.
Disregard that one of them is lauded for its literary and cultural significance while the other is basically as important as the art of the deal.

And of course the explanation for contemporary German culture and its problematic relation to Israel can be found in the literature of 1924.
Nothing significant happened since then, right? Everyone was on vacation in the 30s and 40s. Occupation, the Cold War, the literal formation of the country of Israel? Surely none of the could have any relevance.

I do agree that the Magic Mountain is a great book.
But although some of its themes do go against aspects of fascism, calling it "the most supremely antifascist novel imaginable " seems a bit of a stretch.

[-] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 0 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

No that’s the US. Racism in Germany and Europe as a whole, has always been about cultural and ethnic differences more than skin color. The persecuted slavs or jews were just as pasty as any German, unlike the “honorary Aryans” in Japan.

ahahahaha

Read The Color Purple or Their Eyes Were Watching God, the idea that racism actually cares about skin tone in any consistent way anywhere is impossible, contradictory and absurd, it is always mixed up with ethnicity, context and imposed categories. Germany is just the same as any other racist society in that respect. Check your ignorance.

You added nothing to this conversation other than a sense of condescencion.

The Magic Mountain is one of the most supremely antifascist novels ever written and its perspective from the eve of WW1 mirrors our current position with eerie and foreboding syncronicity. The Magic Mountain is easily one of the most important novels of the 20th century, if not all time.

In 1933, when Hitler came to power, Mann moved his own family to Switzerland, and then, after his German citizenship was revoked, to the USA, where he recorded monthly anti-fascist dispatches which were broadcast to Germany by the BBC.

He is ‘one of the great German writers’, wrote Malcolm Bradbury, ‘the spokesman for a modern humanism’.

https://henryeliot.substack.com/p/the-magic-mountain

Come up with a better argument if you want to cut me down.

[-] HaraldvonBlauzahn@feddit.org 4 points 20 hours ago

History is a nightmare from which we are trying to awake.

This comment is so true.

[-] supersquirrel@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 hours ago

I stole it from Stephen Dedalus :P

[-] HieroProtagonist@feddit.org -2 points 23 hours ago

It's only the wrong side if you lose.

[-] Quantillion@mstdn.io 3 points 22 hours ago

@HieroProtagonist @blackshirt
That has traditionally been the case because the historical account was the exclusive copyright of the "winner".
Now, however (as we can see e.g. with Israel's century of terrorism and crimes against humanity), the truth is harder to hide.
#Germany is on the wrong side of history, and that won't change, whoever "wins".

[-] HieroProtagonist@feddit.org -2 points 21 hours ago

And do you see any sign of a downfall of those who are on the - in your opinion - "wrong side"?

this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2026
251 points (97.7% liked)

Europe

11933 readers
553 users here now

News and information from Europe 🇪🇺

(Current banner: La Mancha, Spain. Feel free to post submissions for banner images.)

Rules

  1. This is an English-language community. Comments should be in English. Posts can link to non-English news sources when providing a full-text translation in the post description. Automated translations are fine, as long as they don't overly distort the content.
  2. No links to misinformation or commercial advertising. When you post outdated/historic articles, add the year of publication to the post title. Infographics must include a source and a year of creation; if possible, also provide a link to the source.
  3. Be kind to each other, and argue in good faith. Don't post direct insults nor disrespectful and condescending comments. Don't troll nor incite hatred. Don't look for novel argumentation strategies at Wikipedia's List of fallacies.
  4. No bigotry, sexism, racism, antisemitism, islamophobia, dehumanization of minorities, or glorification of National Socialism. We follow German law; don't question the statehood of Israel.
  5. Be the signal, not the noise: Strive to post insightful comments. Add "/s" when you're being sarcastic (and don't use it to break rule no. 3).
  6. If you link to paywalled information, please provide also a link to a freely available archived version. Alternatively, try to find a different source.
  7. Light-hearted content, memes, and posts about your European everyday belong in other communities.
  8. Don't evade bans. If we notice ban evasion, that will result in a permanent ban for all the accounts we can associate with you.
  9. No posts linking to speculative reporting about ongoing events with unclear backgrounds. Please wait at least 12 hours. (E.g., do not post breathless reporting on an ongoing terror attack.)
  10. Always provide context with posts: Don't post uncontextualized images or videos, and don't start discussions without giving some context first.

(This list may get expanded as necessary.)

Posts that link to the following sources will be removed

Unless they're the only sources, please also avoid The Sun, Daily Mail, any "thinktank" type organization, and non-Lemmy social media (incl. Substack). Don't link to Twitter directly, instead use xcancel.com. For Reddit, use old:reddit:com

(Lists may get expanded as necessary.)

Ban lengths, etc.

We will use some leeway to decide whether to remove a comment.

If need be, there are also bans: 3 days for lighter offenses, 7 or 14 days for bigger offenses, and permanent bans for people who don't show any willingness to participate productively. If we think the ban reason is obvious, we may not specifically write to you.

If you want to protest a removal or ban, feel free to write privately to the admin that applied the rule (check modlog first to find who was it.)

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
federalreverse@feddit.org
poVoq@slrpnk.net
anzo@programming.dev
EuroMod@feddit.org