could you explain this?

Question

how is it that hitler and nazi germany are considered the biggest butchers of the 20th century but not even 100 years before that the us goverment slaughtered native americans and sent them to death camps called reservations.

Answer 1

because for some reason if you do something bad to a Jewish person it is 1000 x worse than if you do it to someone else.

Answer 2

Well it was the will of the American people that drove the slaughter of the Natives and without that barbaric age there would be no US of A..... The NAZIs are an aberation. An all purpose villain 'everyone' can agree upon as 'evil foul menaces,' even Modern Day Germans castigate the Nazis making it clear that those bad people disapeared and that no one living in Germany has any ties to those 'bad' people. It is 'safe' to castigate Nazis, it is still not cool to stand up in an American High School and denounce the Pilgrims for lying cheating & killing to create a perfect society.
A final argument the one that sets the Spanish soul free from all atrocities in the Americas. They brought the Natives the Word of Jesus Christ and for that the natives ought to be grateful. The Nazis were irreligious, well a cult of personality but few grasp that concept, thus again an out for shouting 'Nazi' at anyone deemed bad...

Peace..................

Answer 3

Actually, Stalin was worse than Hitler if all we care about is number of deaths. If you care about the brutality of deaths, then either the Cambodian or Ugandan genocides were worse.

Hitler, however, gets a lofty title because he wasn't just "slaughtering" people. Rather, Germany was engaged in genocide. The United States killed Native Americans, true, but then Native Americans killed US citizens as well (both sides liked to ignore the "peace treaties"). The United States did not specifically try to kill off any citizen with Native blood either (as far as the Germans were concerned, a drop of Jewish blood spoiled you).

Curiously, Native Americans still live on reservations (thus, if reservations are death camps, they aren't very effective). No Jews are still living in the Nazi death camps.

It is also the manner of killing. The United States wanted "Indian land," the deaths were secondary (some died in armed conflict, but it isn't like the US was putting them into gas chambers and burning their corpses). Starvation was not intentional (people just didn't care), and disease was only occasionally used as a weapon (small pox blankets) and only after accidental exposure had decimated entire populations. Heck, most Native Americans died of European diseases before Europeans (and Americans) ever made contact with them.

In short, America seldom killed Native Americans just to be killing Native Americans. Hitler and the Nazis, however, were trying to erradicate the Jews (and gypsies, and any other "genetically inferior" people they came across).

Answer 4

well lets see:
1) there was not an "Ideology" behind US atrocities against Natives. On the contrary there were also voices calling for their protection
2) The worse massacre of native was due to involuntary causes. When Cortes arrived in Mexico he slaughtered few people, at the end (if compare to the number of inhabitants) Unfortunately he also brought Vaiolo from Europe, plus other disease. 4/5 of Mexican population were killed but European imported infections. But Cortes didn't know about it....
3) It doesn't seems US is proud of Indian massacre.
4) Also it is not secondary that Germans lost the war. Nurberg Trials would have never happen without a complete defeat of Germany. On the other side after WWI there have been nothing compared to Nurberg Trials, even if defeat of Germany had been deep, as war had been more "Fair" and had not involved in a massive way civil population.

Answer 5

History tends to be written by the victors. America has always been good at PR. The space race is a good example of this. The Russians did a hell of a lot more than the US and were more sucessful in their efforts, but everybody thinks the US won the race.

You might also look at the history of all minorities in the US. It always made me laugh when the US called South Africa racist.

However, a little digging shows that you can not trust an American politician and that the white middle classes tended to be very racist and intolerant.

P.S. You didn't have gas chambers, you had smallpox.

Luck

Answer 6

Just another example of the victor gets to write the history. But honestly, although it is shameful how the U.S. treated the Native Americans, we did not have gas chambers waiting for them on the reservations.
Interesting that you compared the two, I read about Hitler wrote a second book, but the second one was never published. The book talked about his methods of building the third Reich, and he said he got his idea of relocating the Jews from the U.S. system of relocating the Indians to reservations.

Answer 7

Because the Americans did not try and "slaughter" the Natives. Most died of disease.
On the other hand, while they were certainly mistreated, if they were not put on reservations, they would have been killed off by the civilians.

Answer 8

That's not "supposed" to count. That's why they cut it off by saying things like "in modern history", or "in the 20th century", so that they can justify, somehow, ignoring that that entire atrocity ever happened.

Answer 9

Oh my god! I am sooo pleased someone else says this! I completely agree. It makes me so anrgy when History Books say that Christopher Columbus founded the Americas when......They were already found! People had been living there for thousands of years before he got there. I think Native Americans are the most amazing race of people and the absoutlely fasinate me.

Answer 10

the world is full of double standards

it's one of the worst human vices

Answer 11

You've got something on your chin