Do Germans Talk About World War II? What Do They Teach About the Holocaust? | Feli from Germany

do Germans talk about the Holocaust what

do they teach about World War II in

school and is it okay to make a Hitler

joke around a German

[Applause]

hello servos and welcome back to my

YouTube channel my name is Philly I'm

originally from Munich Germany but I've

been living here in Cincinnati Ohio on

and off since 2016.

if you think of Germany especially in a

historical context what comes to your

mind I bet at least 99 of you are

thinking of Nazis World War II the Third

Reich Hitler and the Holocaust and

rightly so it's one of the darkest

chapters in history I know that you know

that yet a lot of people are unsure if

this is something they can bring up

around me and other Germans some people

assume that it's a total taboo Topic in

Germany something that isn't really

discussed in society but how much of

that is actually true how does Germany

deal with its dark past what is taught

about it in school and is it okay to

bring the topic up around Germans now I

have answered this question in different

contexts before like in this q a video

for example where I gave a quick

two-minute summary but today I would

like to dive a little deeper I'd like to

talk about how this topic has been dealt

with publicly in Germany over the last

78 years since the end of World War II

I'd like to share my personal experience

of how it was approached in my school

and my personal environment and I'd also

like to share how other Germans from

different regions and of different

Generations have experienced this to do

so I asked my German viewers to fill out

a survey about the topic and I received

over 230 responses that will give you

guys and myself a pretty good idea of

how Germans in general think about the

curriculums and the overall approach of

how we deal with our country's dark past

after the end of the war in Germany in

May of 1945 the Allied Powers France UK

USA and the Soviet Union divided Germany

into four occupation zones and started

the process of denodification

demilitarization

decentralization and democratization

also referred to as the 4ds to denastify

the country the nsdap so the Nazi party

and all sub-organizations were banned

and its laws were abolished and all

signs of the third eye were erased from

everyday life including books uniforms

medals and street names Germany also had

to make reparation payments to the

Victorious powers and other affected

countries that were mainly paid in

Machinery manufacturing plants and

forced labor most Germans were also

subject to investigations by the

international Military Tribunal that was

looking to identify the different roles

people played in the Holocaust and in

committing war crimes Germans were

divided into five categories from major

offender to exonerated individuals major

offenders were tried in the first

Nuremberg Trial from November 1945 to

October 1946 and in 12 subsequent

nurburg trials that were solely held by

the U.S all in all 36 defendants were

sentenced to death 125 received prison

sentences 23 of them for life not all of

these verdicts were actually executed

though a lot of the convicts ended up

being released after just a few years

and pardoned from the death penalty as

the denotification process became more

and more lenient in the western zones

due to the extremely high number of

cases less severe offenders were soon

handed over to civilian tribunals under

German Administration and it became

increasingly difficult to find a balance

between punishment and rebuilding the

country for which the occupying Powers

needed to fill a lot of important

positions and having hundreds of

thousands of Germans in internment camps

didn't exactly make that easy now

together with the development of the

Cold War during which West Germany was

considered an important Ally the focus

quickly started shifting away from

strict denotification and more towards

Rehabilitation by 1948 countless trials

were seized or never started and as I

said lots of people were pardoned which

to this day is heavily criticized as it

meant that people that used to be active

members of the Nazi party ended up

keeping their high-ranking jobs and

remained in positions of power in the

newly founded West German Republic in

the Soviet occupation Zone

denotification was followed through a

lot more strictly and quickly by Spring

of 1948 they had fired and replaced over

500 000 people but how did the Germans

themselves deal with the war in the

Stark chapter moving forward well for

the first two decades after the war it

pretty much just wasn't talked about at

all the country was full of people who

were actively involved in the crimes of

the Third Reich and most common way of

dealing with it was silence most of of

them weren't willing to face their own

guilt let alone take responsibility for

their actions and their families often

preferred staying in the dark about how

badly their own spouses parents and

Grandparents were really involved in it

all same thing applied to schools many

of the teachers were formally involved

with the Nazis and the details of the

third eye were barely part of the

curriculum it wasn't really until the

1960s that young adults in Germany

started demanding from their Elders to

take responsibility for their past and

to start an open public dialogue some of

this was part of the 1968 student

movements in West Germany that arose

parallel to protests all over the world

at the time the outrage was partly

triggered by different events that had

taken place throughout the 60s including

the so-called swastika epidemic the

Eichmann trial the Frankfurt Auschwitz

trial the debate about the imminent

statute of limitations of NS crimes and

the election of a former Nazi party

member quote using up as Chancellor as a

result West Germans finally started

owning up to their country's past more

intensely in the 70s and 80s Nazi

Germany and the Holocaust became a

mandatory part of school curriculums and

TV shows like the American mini-series

Holocaust that about a third of the

population watched on German TV prompted

people to reflect on the brutality of

the genocide of 6 million European Jews

and the emotional stories of the victims

other notable Productions of the time

are the German war film dashboard as

well as the French documentary sure

among others today Germany practices a

very active culture of remembrance it's

all about taking responsibility for our

country's devastating actions of the

past and making sure that something like

that can and will never happen again

this includes that it's actually illegal

in Germany to deny or downplay the

Holocaust 17 other European countries

have similar laws by the way it's also

illegal to do the Hitler salute or use

Nazi Insignia unless it's part of art

science research or teaching and the

topic is a visible part of public life

many former concentration camps have

been turned into Memorial sites that can

be visited today to learn from the past

and understand the scale of the Nazis

crimes in addition to that street names

memorials museums and stumbling Stones

commemorate the victims of the Nazi

regime all over Germany The Stumbling

stone or stoibashtime project was

started in the 90s by German artist

Kunta demnik and entails brass plates

inscribed with the names and life dates

of victims that are set into the

pavement outside of their last known

address or workplace you'll never know

when and where you'll quite literally

stumble over one which shows that

deportation took place anywhere and

everywhere and by bending down to read

the victims names you're pretty much

bowing down to them to pay them respect

to this day over 75 000 of those

stumbling stones have been laid all over

Europe making it the world's law largest

decentralized Memorial and of course

there are countless movies documentaries

and books that critically deal with the

third eye and the post-war era and that

ensure that the victims of the NS regime

aren't forgotten to this day the

historical responsibilities that Germany

carries are deeply ingrained in German

culture and politics Germany has a very

unique relationship to Israel for

example and in the late 50s and early

60s they signed contracts with Israel

with the Jewish claims conference and 12

European countries regarding

compensation to victims of the NS regime

some of which are being paid up to today

you'll also notice that most Germans

don't really have a very pronounced

sense of patriotism with the exception

of sporting events like the soccer World

Cup you won't see a lot of German flags

for example not even in schools and

other public buildings unless they're

government institutions there's no such

thing as the American Pledge of

Allegiance and the German National

Anthem is only sung on a small number of

occasions whether that goes back to an

ongoing feeling of guilt and shame and

whether or not that's still called for

is actually a much discussed question

among Germans by the way you won't find

any Nazi statues in Germany Hitler

himself actually banned any kind of

Memorials of him from the beginning and

other statues were either taken down by

the Nazis themselves to repurpose their

medal for the war effort they were

destroyed by bombings or at the latest

taken down by the Allied Powers after

the war

now what do German students learn about

World War II and the Holocaust in school

let me start by sharing my own

experience as you guys know I'm from

Munich which is in the state of Bavaria

and I went to elementary school and then

to a gymnasium there that's important to

note because the school system and the

curriculums in Germany actually differ

from state to state now I'm 29 years old

so it's been a while and I don't

remember every single detail but I do

know that we started talking about the

topic relatively early I think in fifth

or sixth grade and then we pretty much

talked about it all the way until

graduation and it wasn't just in history

class but in a lot of different subjects

it was a very present Topic in German

class for example in sixth grade we read

a book called

which is about the friendship between a

non-jewish boy and his Jewish neighbor

throughout the Third Reich then later on

we read books like develop originally

the wave which is about school

experiment about the third eye and then

we also read the shark Novella by Stefan

Spike as well as

by the Swiss author Max Frisch we also

talked about it in religion ethics class

A lot because yes that's a mandatory

subject in Bavarian schools in arts

class we learned about what the Nazis

classified as degenerate art and arts de

kunst and the topic also came up in the

context of Arts interpretations and even

a music class we analyzed the musical

and lyrical features of Nazi propaganda

songs and from what I remember the topic

was also touched upon here and there in

classes like English sociology and

geology in History Class the main focus

on the topic was in ninth grade I think

we spent pretty much the whole year

learning about the Weimar Republic World

War II and post-war Germany and that's

also the year where we went to the

Concentration Camp Dachau which is right

outside of Munich that's something that

was mandatory at my school and I think

the same goes for most schools in the

area and then the topic was one of the

main focuses again in history class in

11th and 12th grade since I grew up in

make we also learned a lot about the

resistance group of the white rose vice

since they were located in Munich I know

that Germans in other regions don't

learn about them as much but they were

all students at the University of Munich

same University I went to and they were

arrested and killed in their early 20s

by the Nazis for Distributing leaflets

criticizing the Nazi regime and their

names are very present in Munich to the

state especially the siblings Hans and

Sophie Scholl but also

Villa and Alexander overall I feel like

there was a lot of focus on the

suffering of the Jews and how cruel and

inhumane things were we also learned a

lot about Nazi propaganda and about the

political economic and cultural factors

that made World War II and the Holocaust

even possible and that led people to

believe in such an awful ideology I

don't really remember learning a lot

about who Hitler was as a person and I

don't remember talking a lot about the

details of the war and warfare we

definitely covered the timeline of the

important events of the war but I don't

remember talking about single battles or

which weapons and strategies were used

Etc and I'm mentioning this because a

lot of Americans here actually know way

more about all of that than I do and I

think Warfare in general is just a more

popular Topic in the US now there's

probably a lot for my school days that I

forgot to mention but I do remember that

by like 8th or 9th Grade A lot of us

were honestly getting a little tired of

the topic and we were sometimes just

like Ugh not again but of course looking

back it's definitely better to talk

about it too much than not talking about

it enough and I definitely say that by

the time we graduated we walked out of

there with a strong awareness for racism

discrimination and identifying populist

and nationalistic tendencies and

propaganda now of course World War II is

something that you'll also be confronted

with in real life outside of school and

that can be a very individual experience

because depending on your family

environment your friends the field work

in you'll be exposed to it in very

different ways in my case I definitely

always felt relatively close to the

topic because unlike most other people

my age it's not my great grandparents

that lived through the war but my

grandparents everyone just had children

very late in my family so all four of my

grandparents lived through the war as

teenagers and adults and therefore were

affected or even involved in it in

different ways one side of my family is

from upper selesia for example which was

German territory at the time but now

belongs to Poland so when the Eastern

Front got there they lost their home and

became refugees they were actually part

of the winter treks of January of 1945

which was historically cold and they

fled partly by foot and then started

from zero after the war like so many

people in Germany one of my grandfathers

was also imprisoned in the gdr for a few

years now only one of my grandparents

was still alive when I was born my

grandma but I did hear a lot of

first-hand stories from her and of

course I heard a lot of stories about my

other Grand parents from relatives and I

read about it in their Memoirs so that's

my personal connection to the topic and

maybe that's also the reason why I feel

extra passionate about fighting

discrimination of minorities and why I

believe that war is the worst thing

humans have ever invented

now since I'm not the only one of 84

million people in Germany and as I said

earlier curriculums vary a lot

throughout the country I wanted to make

sure that the experiences and opinions

of other Germans are included in this

video as well I've actually received

over 230 submissions to my survey that I

sent out so thank you guys so much to

everyone who took the time to fill that

out I will say it was a lot of work to

go through at all and I won't be able to

mention every single answer here but it

was fascinating to read and I'm going to

summarize it as best as I can and I'll

also be sharing quotes from the survey

with you guys in German because I wanted

people to be able to answer this in

their native language but I'll add

English subtitles to give you guys a

general Overview at first I did get

answers from people of all ages from 13

to 65 and from all over Germany and even

a couple responses from Austria and to

my question how well would you say

School educated you about World War II

the Holocaust and the third right nobody

selected not at all about two percent

said insufficiently fourteen percent

said Basics were covered but it could

have been more 47 said very well and

about 38 even selected almost too well

the topic was hashed and rehashed over

and over again so I think that shows

that most people definitely felt like

the topic was taught about it very

intensely all other questions were

open-ended questions by the way so I

can't tell you the exact percentages but

I'd say the overall consensus was that

the topic was taught in a rather

objective but also serious and very

respectful way while being brutally

honest and most people said that it was

always age-appropriate still and was

slowly building up throughout the grades

Karina from Dortmund wrote for example

in that sentence foreign

house

[Music]

by the way most people mentioned that

they started talking about the topic

sometime between 5th and 9th grade but a

few even said it was brought up as early

as third grade and lining up with my own

experience throughout all kinds of of

subjects Ani from northern was failure

even shared her experience in a video I

think I think we talked about almost

every subject let's see history class

for sure German class where we would

read important literature like Anna

Frank religion which is also part of the

curriculum in most German schools where

we would not only learn about our

religion but also about others and then

English class because we also learned

about history French same thing French

history why we talked about the Normandy

and D-Day and you name it zilke from

Oldenburg said about this

is

one person said that they watched The

Boy in the Striped Pajamas in English

class for example and a German class

people mentioned reading the books I

mentioned earlier but also books like

like The Diary of Anne Frank let's hit

letters

and movies such as Schindler's List a

few people also mentioned analyzing

Hitler's rhetoric as well as his speech

and writing style to better understand

his propaganda techniques Hitler's own

book man Kampf however was only

mentioned by one person in the whole

survey which probably has to do with the

fact that up until 2016 it wasn't

actually allowed to be printed in

Germany due to copyright issues so if

the book was discussed in school it was

usually just in the form of extracts in

addition to learning about personal

Destinies from books and movies a lot of

people also mentioned visiting

concentration camps I was actually a

little surprised by how many people

mentioned that especially since not

every school is close to a former

concentration camp so for many this

included an overnight trip some people

even traveled to Poland to visit

Auschwitz Charlotte from nidazakhstan

said that is

in addition to that a lot of people

mentioned visiting museums memorials

synagogues Jewish cemeteries and things

like the rice padai tax collender and

Nuremberg or the home of klausenberg

even a lot of schools also organized a

trip to Berlin which is actually

something we did too in 10th Grade and

that certainly included visiting the

memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe

among other things and a lot of people

also said that they had historical

Witnesses talk at their schools like we

heard in one of the quotes earlier which

I think is one of the most valuable

experiences you could have especially

since today most of them aren't around

anymore one thing that I could

definitely tell from the survey was how

heavily people's experiences were

dependent on the teachers they had I

think that's always the case in school

of course but I think specifically with

this topic not everyone had a good

experience Sabina wrote for example

Manila

Generations foreign

[Music]

and a person from Mainz shared another

pretty negative experience responding to

the question in what Manner it was

taught they said

foreign

I do want to say that this experience

was definitely an exception but I wanted

to include it to show a few different

aspects here other people were very

lucky with their teachers though like

lava from duisburg

and there were also a few people that

still experienced the time when the

topic wasn't talked about a lot in

school like Catherine from northern was

failure

one question that I personally found

extremely interesting and that might

even be useful for any teachers out

there is which topics were covered

repeatedly and which ones people felt

like weren't covered enough the vast

majority of these over 230 people that

answered the survey agreed that the main

focus was clearly on the Holocaust so

the persecution of Jewish people while

the persecution of other minorities like

cinti and Romani homosexuals political

opponents people of color and the

euthanization of disabled people Etc

were barely covered other aspects that

people said weren't covered enough

included World War II outside of Germany

including the Pacific War but even the

actions of Germany's allies or the

German invasion in Greece or Yugoslavia

those are all things that I personally

agree with too I don't remember any of

those things being part of the

curriculum and a lot of people also said

they would have liked to learn more

about post-war Germany and the

denotification process also about the

history of anti-Semitism and that it

wasn't something that the Nazis just

came out with themselves about German

refugees and I also saw quite a lot of

people sharing my experience that they

didn't learn a lot about the details of

the war in terms of tactics different

battles Etc and about Hitler as a person

I think no one is born evil and I cannot

recall that we talked about what

had happened to him why he became that

kind of person so yeah I think this

would have been also important to

understand one thing that was very

interesting was that about half of the

people said that they really focused on

how the Nazis seized power and how the

weaknesses of the Weimar Republic led to

that which is what I mentioned too that

that was focused on a lot in my school

but then the other half listed this

under things that weren't covered enough

and many also said it should have been

talked about more how we can recognize

warning signs and parallels of similar

developments in society today and last

but not least this was a common point of

criticism as well

which I would generally agree with we

really didn't get to cover a whole lot

of other topics of recent history but at

the same time I also think that it was

important that we covered the topic so

intensely like Marcus from hildesheim

says too

this is

who became a history teacher said this a

truly habited

this is

in terms of how present the topic is

outside of school in Germany today

people shared a lot of different friends

opinions and experiences and I won't be

able to include all of them in this

video but many mentioned for example

that some German TV channels pretty much

show Nazi documentaries 24 7 which is

definitely true and I know that that can

be pretty surprising for people visiting

Germany some people said that the

current political developments all

around the world worry them and that

they feel like German politicians should

be more actively fighting that some

mentioned how this whole topic of

inherited guilt app should is still

Weighing on us as a country but most

people said that they think that Germany

is doing a rather good job dealing with

this topic even though it's not perfect

and that it's important that the German

government commemorates the victims of

the NS regime on days like the

international Holocaust Remembrance Day

or on German fox attack and other

Memorial days and some people also

shared how difficult it can still be

within their own families I'm just going

to read one quote from a young German

that represents that pretty well this is

from vv18 from Luna book

foreign

last but not least is it okay to ask a

German about World War II the Holocaust

and Nazis or is that offensive coming

from a foreigner now I didn't include

this in my survey but based on my

experience I can say yes you can

absolutely talk to us Germans about

World War II I even feel like a lot of

Germans appreciate talking about it with

Outsiders from another country

especially when they find that they're

educated on the topic however it's

definitely important to us to stay

respectful I found that Germans can be a

little more sensitive to jokes about the

whole topic for example and not every

German is going to be in the mood to

talk about it especially if people are

still in school or just graduated it

might be a little tired of the topic but

generally this is something that we're

very open about in Germany and most of

us will not feel personally offended

just because you bring up our dark past

let me know if you guys agree with me on

that or not in the comments but I

recently came across this video by

radical living hey Hans I was wondering

since you're German and all do Germans

still feel like guilty about World War

II how do you feel about it um

um are you hungry you look hungry I'm

gonna make us some sandwiches okay

foreign

[Music]

must have fought in the War right do you

ever talk to him about how it was being

on the evil side and everything oh God I

I think I forgot the sausages in the car

I'm gonna go grab them okay and then he

just ends up making up more and more

excuses and ends up driving away because

he really wants to avoid talking about

the topic and even though I know it's

satire of course and I'm not trying to

deny that that's his reality I just

wholeheartedly disagree with the message

of this that's just never been my

experience at all by the way just in

general it's a lot more common in

Germany to talk about politics and

difficult topics even with strangers and

that's also why Germans often ask

Americans very directly about

controversial topics in the US and how

they feel about them

again thank you to everyone who took the

time to fill out the survey and to Ani

for recording a whole video you can find

her entire response on her YouTube

channel by the way if you went to school

in Germany what are your experiences

with the topic which aspects would you

like to add and if you're not from

Germany how does your country teach

about World War II or their own

difficult past and was there anything

that surprised you in this video let me

know in the comments below I hope you

found this interesting thank you guys so

much for watching if you enjoy my

content it would be great if you hit

that subscribe button you can also send

me your super things underneath or

support my channel via patreon or by

buying me a coffee this is where you can

find me outside of YouTube and with that

I hope I'll see you next time cheers

[Music]

foreign