Sunday, May 08, 2005

THE LINGERING EFFECTS OF WWII

Sixty years after the end of the Second World War in Europe, British people are still obsessed with Nazism, and ignorant about Germany, said the German ambassador to London, Thomas Matussek.

"The British behave as if they had conquered Hitler's hordes single-handedly. And they continue to see us as Nazis, as if they have to refight the battles every evening. They are enchanted by this Nazi dimension," he said yesterday.

A recent survey showed that when British 10- to 16-year olds were asked what they associated Germany with, 78 per cent said the Second World War, and 50 per cent mentioned Hitler.

"Like the conquering of the West is part of the American myth, so it is the same with the British and the defeat of Nazism," Mr Matussek told The Observer.

"We Germans confront the guilt and shame of our past daily, and more thoroughly and obsessively than probably any other nation on earth."


Parts of the United States were still fighting the Civil War 100 years later. The Germans would love to forget World War II just like Putin wants us to forget the cold war. The people who lived through those events will have to die before all wounds are fully healed. Lesson to the next dictator.

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