What do you Germans think of this - One in four Germans think Nazi rule was not all bad, poll reveals?

Question

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/worldnews.html?in_article_id=488155&in_page_id=1811

"Eva Herman, 48, said at a book launch that while there was 'much that was very bad, for example Adolf Hitler,' there were good things, 'for example the high regard for the mother' under the Nazis.

She later explained: "What I wanted to express was that values which also existed before the Third Reich, such as family, children and motherhood, which were supported in the Third Reich, were subsequently done away with."

its all in the link I didn't have enough space to post it all at once

Answer 1

Unfortunately most people answering this will only look at what most people know the Nazi for. To accurately answer this everything they did has to be looked at. I already looked at some articles.

Construction of the Autobahn, low unemployment, low crime rate, strong sense of family values were examples of what people thought was good about the Nazi era.

Construction of the Autobahn. This is Germany's network of highways. This goes to having good infrastructure.

Low unemployment. A lot of people having jobs and very few people not having jobs. This means the economy is strong.

low crime rate. This is something that is a lot of trouble for many countries including America and a lot of cities like Toronto.

strong sense of family values. What's wrong with this? I don't think anything is wrong with this.

I've just listed 5 examples of what 1 in 4 Germans thought was good about the Nazis. If Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper or American President George Bush did all of this, then they would made out to be good.

Essentially, what it comes down to is 1 in 4 Germans looked at the Nazis for what they really for and not just an anti-semitic party that everyone knows them for.

Does this justify for what they did to the jews, political enemies, homosexuals and countless other groups? No

Answer 2

Look at the issue carefully. "Nazi rule was not all bad" can mean two things:

1) Nazi rule was good

2)Nazi rule was bad, but some (!) things the Nazi's did were not bad.

The 25% percent agreed to 2), not to 1)!

While Eva Herman is nothing but a dumb blonde actress with no political clout whatsoever she really put her foot in mouth saying this simple truth.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool socialist/green party voter and I have absolutely no illusions about Nazi rule. But I agree that there were a few things done in this period that were progressive and beneficial to people. Yes, I'm not afraid to say so. These things might have been done just the same without Hitler, but we can never know.

The one thing that was thought of during the Third Reich that I still adore today is the bicycle lane. If you go to Munich you'll find it a very bicycle-friendly place. Almost every big street has a bicycle lane. While the network now is the work of the Munich city council, the basis for this was laid during Nazi rule. And nobody who has ever used these lanes will say that they are a bad thing, Nazi-invention or not. (There is a reason the Germans and Dutch kept the bicycle lane.)

There is actually a similar discussion going on in Germany about the communist GDR-regime. For example the child care system of the GDR for kids under 6 was very progressive. It was similar to the French system. Every mother in the GDR could give her child into professional care at the age of six months (first nursery care and then kindergarden) and go back to work. Mothers in Western Germany had no such options. Often they had to stay home until the child or all her children were of school age because they could not find a place at a kindergarden. After 6 years or longer of being unemployed it was and is often very hard for them to find a job again. Having a child as a single mother in Western Germany was (and is) thus a ticket into the social welfare mill. East Germans have spoken out against this, openly saying "Communist rule was not all bad", which caused quite a stink. Seventeen years after reunification the West now finally admits that the child care system in the GDR was essentially a good idea. A law has been passed that grants every child the right to a place at a kindergarden from the age of 2 years on. Kindergardens are being built in the West and Honecker is having a last laugh!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honecker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_state

Answer 3

Well I belong to the 70 %.... and I think it's sad that there are relatively many people who think that Nazi rule had good sides too. However keep in mind that when people say it had good sides, it still doesn't mean they think that all was good. I mean these 25 % also know that the war and the Holocaust were horrible. So you can't call these 25 % Nazis, but I still think they are wrong and if such people were the majority, I'd really start to worry for this country. They ignore how everything in Nazism was somehow connected with the crimes. For example, when they say it was good that unemployment was "eliminated" (they should better say "reduced"), they ignore that one main thing that created all these jobs was the drastic rearmament of Germany, thus the preparation for this deadly war. They also ignore that many Jews lost their jobs and income due to legislation that banned them from certain positions right in 1933. When they say there was a "low criminality rate", I must say this sounds like a bad joke although these people don't realize that. I mean the government became criminal and then they say there was little criminality? But the people who say so are those who were not themselves affected by the criminality of the regime because they weren't Jewish, homosexual, Gypsy, handicapped or simply opposed to the Nazis. So they felt safer when there was less "private" criminality, while lots of people had to be scared of the police instead of being protected by them. And "encouragement of the family" is a euphemism for a misogynist worldview and was also connected to criminal policies... they expected women to stay at home and to get as many children as possible so that these children could populate "Lebensraum" (living space) in the East after a large part of the native population there should be killed and the rest subjugated.... but unfortunately there are many people who don't think about these things, they think they could seperate these things from the crimes because they don't think enough. I don't mistrust the poll and it doesn't surprise me. So many people think only about themselves. The Nazi rule was popular among many Germans back then, because as long as they weren't themselves persecuted and as long as they didn't wish to speak out against the regime, people could have a nice life in Germany in the 1930s, and I've heard of many Germans who said so even after the war. The condition for this was of course that they ignored what was done to others. They didn't even need to be convinced Nazis for that, all it took was indifference.

And as was mentioned before, Eva Herman was fired by her TV station for her remarks.

Answer 4

We had this discussion when Eva Herman's utterance in a talk show was really "hot topic", and the poll was made "on the spot", while the topic was still "cooking", and the question was biased, as it read "Do you think that Eva Herman was right in saying that during 1933 to 1945 there was higher regard for the mother?"

I have studied a bit of social sciences, and I goddarn know how to manipulate polls. Most people polled wouldn't ever have heard of Eva Herman before, most people don't calculate what "1933 to 1945" is ("Nazi" or "Hitler" wasn't metioned in the question) when surprised by an opinion poller on the phone; they only hear "regard for the mother" and say "yes".

Gimme 48 hours, 10 million dollars, and the right customer database, and I'll find out, by an opinion poll, why it is wrong that Captain Picard invaded Utopia Planitia on Mars, and why we should start a Mars attack, and I will prove that this is scientific, and there is intelligent life on Mars.

Answer 5

A Nazi became a Member of the nationwide Socialists in Germany from 1933 to 1945. no longer all germans have been nazis. contributors of the Nazi social gathering consistently wore the Swaztika. Hitlers generals weren't Nazis' and neither became the German squaddies, whether they swore allegience to hitler, they nevertheless weren't Nazis. So while you're German it does no longer mean you're a Nazi.

Answer 6

The German buildup before WWII ended the Great Depression there, and people were suddenly not starving to death anymore (plus Hitler ended war reparations to the French which helped a great deal). Older Germans are sometimes sentimental about that, but they have no illusions about Hitler, the Third Reich or the War. They know it left their country in ruins and that they were lied to.
Only young, drunken, unemployed idiots in that country may think otherwise.

Answer 7

About the poll: first of all more details. Like when, where, how many people were asked. What was asked. Only this sentence? That´s ridicully. That is not a way to make a proper and representative survey.

About Eva Herman: that woman is simply dull.

Answer 8

As more and more white people experience increasing amounts of:
1. Growing minority crime
2. Affirmative Action
3. Diversity only happens in their countries, not in nonwhites
4. Nonwhites and nonasian s' inability to carry their own weight without a boost,

there will be more and more whites will will start wondering if Nazism would've been better than the EQUALLY restrictive dogma that is Multiculturalism.
We certainly don't want white people to start referring to Nazi Germany as "the Good Old Days," do we?
It can happen.

Answer 9

Sorry in Germany there is no KKK - no Nazi party in the Bundestag parliament - unlike many other countries.

Ms Herman lost her job - a famous prince in the UK wore a Swastika. He is still a prince.

Answer 10

This woman is NOT seen as an authority.
Most dont agree with her and we dont think she is important.

And no only very little agree with nazi methods any kind.