Heated Debate

From the Stars and Stripes:

"How Germany dealt with its symbols of hate"

 

The flags were torn down while defeated cities still burned, even as citizens crawling from the rubble were just realizing that the governments they represented had ended. But if essentially the same narrative of defeat played out in Nazi Germany in 1945 and the Confederate States of America in 1865, what happened to the symbols differed greatly. In Germany, where the swastika elicits Adolf Hitler's final solution and the systematic murder of 6 million Jews and 5 million others and helped incite a world war that killed 60 million to 70 million, such symbols are rarely seen — and if they are, only if portrayed against Nazism. The conquering Allies banned their display in October 1945; the new Federal Republic of Germany enshrined that ban in German law in 1949. After 1945, almost anything that said Nazi-era was destroyed. Unmarked graves became the norm for Nazi officials. Chiseled swastikas were ground off buildings. Monuments and statues were torn down. The Soviets ripped Hitler's chancellery to pieces. Until recently, the ground where Hitler's body was found, above the bunker in which he killed himself, was left as an unmarked parking lot. A military jail in Spandau (a district of Berlin) that was used to house high-ranking Nazis such as Albert Speer and Rudolf Hess was torn down to prevent it from becoming a site of pilgrimage to neo-Nazis. Officials went so far as to pulverize the bricks and throw the remains into the North Sea. Not so the Confederate battle flag, which was rehabilitated by the Ku Klux Klan in the early 20th century. It found its way into cemeteries, flag stands and even as part of some official state flags. The flag itself would fly over statehouses in several former Confederate states. Deidre Berger, director of the American Jewish Committee office in Berlin, notes that it's difficult to compare anything to the mass genocide of the Holocaust. But, she said, the symbols of the Holocaust and of slavery both represent intense hatred. "They're symbols of a way of life that is completely unacceptable," she said. "I think with the fall of the Nazi regime, Germans realized the only way to again become a valid nation was to eliminate the symbols. Banning them was appropriate. Americans made a different choice with the symbols of the Confederacy." She said the ban in Germany has been important. It protects the victims and children of victims from a constant reminder. Beyond that, she noted, "the symbols serve as a rallying point for all hate groups." Outside of Germany, Nazi symbols today are used by everyone from white supremacists in the United States to Islamic extremists in the Middle East. Still, she believes making it more difficult for hate groups to use the symbols in Germany mattered, at least in that country. "It's important not to underestimate the power of symbols," she said. "Symbols are important, they're a shorthand groups use in a single image to convey a world of information," said Mark Potok, an expert on extremism for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., who notes that some Southern states took to flying the battle flag in the 1960s as a protest against the integration of schools. "The official reaction in recent weeks against the Confederate battle flag has been impressive, though you could argue it was 150 years late." It's notable that when Ku Klux Klan members recently rallied in South Carolina, they carried both the battle flag and the Nazi swastika. The two flags in recent years have been commonly seen together at white supremacist groups and gatherings. "Those who fly both flags rely on horribly distorted versions of history," said Potok. "They both say that the Civil War wasn't about slavery, and that the Holocaust was exaggerated, or didn't happen." Just how many human beings were enslaved in the United States is a much debated topic. Records show that an estimated 450,000 Africans were kidnapped in Africa and brought to what became the United States. But generations of children born to those captives were slaves, too, and they numbered in the millions. By the time the Confederacy fell in 1865, the number of people who'd been held as slaves over the decades would be similar to the 11 million murdered by Nazi Germany, demographers say. While Confederate flag advocates discuss the positives of the antebellum years, German students spend a part of each year studying the horrors of Nazi Germany. All students must visit at least one former concentration camp to be reminded that the stories of the Holocaust were not only real but happened nearby. In Germany, wearing or publicly displaying Nazi symbols can result in up to three years in prison, and the law allows judges to go so far as stripping abusers of their right to vote.

 

 

^ This article reinforces my belief that the Confederate flag and all other Confederate symbols should be banned. I have stated that for many years - even before it became "trendy." After the Civil War the Northern States should have enforced a complete and total ban on anything Confederate the same way the Allies did in Germany after World War 2. If they had the Confederate flag and other symbols wouldn't have been used to unite racists around the South in opposing desegregation and civil rights. People say that these are just symbols and symbols can't do any harm. Throughout human history symbols of all kinds have led people to fight and die for what they believe in (whether right or wrong.) Anyone who believes symbols don't hold sway haven't been part of the human experience. ^

http://www.stripes.com/news/europe/how-germany-dealt-with-its-symbols-of-hate-1.361075