The So called "Controversies " in video games .

[Mayer]

Just let it go already, stop beating the dead nazi horse.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

It's not "a bad side of history." It's a fairly recent event

I wouldn't call it fairly recent when the generation who experienced it is dying out and the necessary premises for a revival of economic or racial anti-semitism in german society today are non-existent

historically, that had two generations' upbringing of militarism, imperialism and finally state-institutionalised propaganda promoting their ideals of hatred & supremacy

This may sound shocking to you but militarism and chauvinist propaganda was normal during the first half of the 20th century and before, the Sonderweg theory has been debunked since Germany did not differ from most european nations to such an extent to conclude that it would have followed a unique path.

Before that they were all just having a april's fool in Germany when he saw the pig-transporter full of deceasing human corpses.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

There weren't any transporters with jews to look at in Germany... transit camps were in foreign countries and extermination camps in the east
That's why most germans didn't knew about what was happening, it was sealed from the public.

Applying your logic, that it's the fault of the subordinates and not the authority, to other cases, it means:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

in Soviet Russia 1932-33

Not Stalin's fault

or China, greatest famine in human history 1959-1961

Not Mao's fault

Great famine in India (British Raj) 1876–78

Not the fault of the british government

Bengal famine 1943

Not the fault of the british government either, especially not of Churchill

Armenia 1915

Not the Ottoman's fault

Khmer Rouge killing fields 1975-79

Ha! Pol Pot was just a comedian

I just can't take it that people actually feel compulsed to argue that §86a should be abolished for the sake of a friggin pixel graphic.

Noone wants to abolish §86a unless we are talking about Neonazis or general enemies of law
I just belong to the crowd who want that videogames are reassessed as art and therefore get the same exception from the rule as films under §86a Abs.3
It depends on the game how disruptive the censorship is, sure if it's just a removal of a few swastikas it isn't painful and can be changed with a simple uncut patch/graphic mod but when the whole lore is completely changed to get rid of any hint to Nazism or when in a strategy game like Hearts of Iron all Nazi ministers are replaced with 'black shadow' it changes the game beyond recognition in an awful way. Now i have said that this isn't my primary objection with USK, i personally find censoring violence in adult-rated games much more severe and grotesque.
But the point is that allowing Nazism in videogames isn't the same as allowing it to be glorified, and there is hardly any game which does such a thing and they can still be outlawed.

[Cold_Mac]

This may sound shocking to you but militarism and chauvinist propaganda was normal during the first half of the 20th century and before, the Sonderweg theory has been debunked since Germany did not differ from most european nations to such an extent to conclude that it would have followed a unique path.

So while fascism spread from Portugal under Salazar to Hungary - how many nations did have a head of the state that called its democracy "a farce" and that "a return to stronger ways" had to come, 5 years after its foundation? Who invented the Dolchstoß-Legende, despite admitting a total loss in letters & skirted the responsibility as he refused to take part in the capitulation of 1918? Same dude.

Never heard about Franco's Spain introducing Nürnberger Gesetze either.

I get your point about fasicm throughout europe but genocide was one of the states' primary targets. Very distinguishable and an idiosyncrasy that can only be attributed to one regime.

There weren't any transporters with jews to look at in Germany... transit camps were in foreign countries and extermination camps in the east
That's why most germans didn't knew about what was happening, it was sealed from the public.

Yeah, because Dachau, Sachsenhausen & Bergen-Belsen are in foreign territory.

Sealed from the public? Even Auschwitz was only 4km from the german border. Just during one month, december 1944, there were over 100 deathmarches involving more than 85.000 KZ-captives, towards the middle Germany camps, across the Autobahn. All on vacation, eh?

Even my grandmother, who lived in Kiel, was taunted on the school yard that disobedient children get a free holiday in Bergen-Belsen. Thousands of soldiers were inevitably witnesses. But not everyone, of course.

Applying your logic, that it's the fault of the subordinates and not the authority, to other cases, it means:

Please don't tell me you believe the lie that the subordinates carrying out the orders aren't as much to blame as the authorities....?

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

in Soviet Russia 1932-33/or China, greatest famine in human history 1959-1961
Not Mao's fault/Great famine in India (British Raj) 1876–78/Not the fault of the british government/Bengal famine 1943/Not the fault of the british government either, especially not of Churchill/Armenia 1915/Not the Ottoman's fault/Khmer Rouge killing fields 1975-79/Ha! Pol Pot was just a comedian

Sorry, but what has anything there to do with the german context? They're immaterial whataboutery.

Noone wants to abolish §86a unless we are talking about Neonazis or general enemies of law
I just belong to the crowd who want that videogames are reassessed as art and therefore get the same exception from the rule as films under §86a Abs.3

Agreed, a more preferable outcome.

It depends on the game how disruptive the censorship is, sure if it's just a removal of a few swastikas it isn't painful and can be changed with a simple uncut patch/graphic mod but when the whole lore is completely changed to get rid of any hint to Nazism or when in a strategy game like Hearts of Iron all Nazi ministers are replaced with 'black shadow' it changes the game beyond recognition in an awful way. Now i have said that this isn't my primary objection with USK, i personally find censoring violence in adult-rated games much more severe and grotesque.

Understandable, the USK tend to be very ruthless about the matter.

But the point is that allowing Nazism in videogames isn't the same as allowing it to be glorified, and there is hardly any game which does such a thing and they can still be outlawed.

Yet it creates the opportunity. The Verfassungsschutz is already under heavy-fire, how do you expect any movement here with the recent NSU-murders?

[saxdude]

I wouldn't have a problem in theory, but it seems that most of the people that want a playable german campaign in WW2, want it to somehow prove the Nazi's weren't so bad. Not the SS mind you, it's always the Wermacht, and some absurd illusion that they did no wrong, and that they only fought for their country or what have you, which is absurd. It seems as though the solution to this "dilema" is always to remove the ugly parts, and it annoys me, because it's the same people that complain that the soviets aren't shown in a bad light, when it's almost literally the same thing.

If they ever do a Wermacht campaign, then I would only ever accept it if they show the atrocities they committed, especially, but not exclusively to, the eastern front. Maybe not the protagonist, but I do want them to suffer the consequences of their crimes, storywise.
It has to be a tragic tale, but in no way of an underdog, but as a reverse Walter White where he still *Breaking Bad Spoiler*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

dies at the end

.

[Cold_Mac]

I wouldn't have a problem in theory, but it seems that most of the people that want a playable german campaign in WW2, want it to somehow prove the Nazi's weren't so bad. Not the SS mind you, it's always the Wermacht, and some absurd illusion that they did no wrong, and that they only fought for their country or what have you, which is absurd. It seems as though the solution to this "dilema" is always to remove the ugly parts, and it annoys me, because it's the same people that complain that the soviets aren't shown in a bad light, when it's almost literally the same thing.

An RTS-title, Rush for the Bomb, did this.

You could basically play the Wehrmacht vs SS and vindicate the "german prestige of Moltke, Blücher & Bismarck." Felt...odd.

Thankfully the Wehrmacht-was-clean myth has exceptional counter-evidence as the tiral of Nürnberg showed that Keitel's signature was so omnipresent on major documents that the Wehrmacht was close to being judged as a criminal institution like the SS.

If they ever do a Wermacht campaign, then I would only ever accept it if they show the atrocities they committed, especially, but not exclusively to, the eastern front. Maybe not the protagonist, but I do want them to suffer the consequences of their crimes, storywise.
It has to be a tragic tale, but in no way of an underdog, but as a reverse Walter White where he still *Breaking Bad Spoiler*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

dies at the end

.

A desert-fox general that gets re-positioned on the eastern front and learns about what happens behind the frontlines? Would be a refreshing perspective for military games.

[Mayer]

So while fascism spread from Portugal under Salazar to Hungary - how many nations did have a head of the state that called its democracy "a farce" and that "a return to stronger ways" had to come, 5 years after its foundation?

with half-yearly government change, already dictatorial emergency powers since 1930 for Brüning, Papen, Schleicher and a catastrophic economic situation and social hardship, Weimar wasn't much of a success. Besides communists wanted to get rid of the pluctocracy too

Who invented the Dolchstoß-Legende, despite admitting a total loss in letters & skirted the responsibility as he refused to take part in the capitulation of 1918? Same dude.

actually it was the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL) to conceal their military failure and involvement in armistice talks while blaming the socialdemocrats

Never heard about Franco's Spain introducing Nürnberger Gesetze either.

Because Franco cared only about one thing, Franco
He could share the power with the catholic church and force a traditional ideology on the falange (merger with the carlists) since the falangists had the highest death toll of all factions in the civil war. But that doesn't mean that francoist spain wasn't antisemitic, it was just not race based but religious (it took until 1978, 3 years after Franco's death that jews got citizenship). And if we look at spain's history we will see that their anti-jewish practices of forced conversion, persecution, torture and expulsion are 500 years older than the Nuremburg laws.

Maybe the spaniards should reconsider their views (of a jewish complot that threatens their catholic faith and national unity) in light of their past
'According to a September 2008 study published by the Pew Research Center of Washington DC..46% of Spaniards held negative opinions of Jews..Spain was also the only country in Europe where negative views of Jews outweighed positive views; only 37% of Spaniards thought favorably about Jews'

Yeah, because Dachau, Sachsenhausen & Bergen-Belsen are in foreign territory..
Even my grandmother, who lived in Kiel, was taunted on the school yard that disobedient children get a free holiday in Bergen-Belsen.

Those aren't even extermination camps and while concentration camps were known to everyone, the bad living conditions inside were not.
Many germans believed the propaganda that jews were merely moved to places where they would have a pleasant life with their kindred,
also concentration camps for political opponents and criminals were generally seen as reeducation camps where people would learn productive labor before release

Just during one month, december 1944, there were over 100 deathmarches involving more than 85.000 KZ-captives, towards the middle Germany camps, across the Autobahn. All on vacation, eh?

which was a uncoordinated evacuation and failed cover-up (attempt to eradicate all traces of the camps) during the final phase of the war.

Please don't tell me you believe the lie that the subordinates carrying out the orders aren't as much to blame as the authorities....?

So everyone who follows orders is a main culprit? What would you do if you are ordered to do unpleasent things as soldier? Would you refuse to obey and face the consequences?
Sorry to disillusion you but most people are first and foremost interested in their own well-being and not that of others.

genocide was one of the states' primary targets. Very distinguishable and an idiosyncrasy that can only be attributed to one regime..
Sorry, but what has anything there to do with the german context? They're immaterial whataboutery.

About everything.
It's a blatant lie that germans were the only ones who made genocide, in fact their only crime was to copy other imperialist countries.
Noone talks about the millions perished under british rule because they happend a century before but Germany provided the perfect scapegoat.

I wouldn't have a problem in theory, but it seems that most of the people that want a playable german campaign in WW2, want it to somehow prove the Nazi's weren't so bad. Not the SS mind you, it's always the Wermacht, and some absurd illusion that they did no wrong, and that they only fought for their country or what have you, which is absurd. It seems as though the solution to this "dilema" is always to remove the ugly parts, and it annoys me, because it's the same people that complain that the soviets aren't shown in a bad light, when it's almost literally the same thing.

It kinda is the same, yes. That's why i don't get the unequal treatment, soldiers on both sides gave their lifes for their country and showed heroic deeds and comradeship on the field. People don't want to see the ugly parts because they want to play a war game about the actions on the front and not the dirty stuff happening in the back.

Thankfully the Wehrmacht-was-clean myth has exceptional counter-evidence as the tiral of Nürnberg showed that Keitel's signature was so omnipresent on major documents that the Wehrmacht was close to being judged as a criminal institution like the SS.

Strictly speaking, any army which was involved in a war isn't clean

A desert-fox general that gets re-positioned on the eastern front and learns about what happens behind the frontlines? Would be a refreshing perspective for military games.

Meanwhile Russia does not permit denigration of the Soviet Army to such an extent, as seen in the removal of Company of Heroes 2 from the stores


And could you imagine the caused by someone who tries to sell a game in the USA which depicts allied terror bombing or GI Joe doing in Vietnam?

[Cold_Mac]

with half-yearly government change, already dictatorial emergency powers since 1930 for Brüning, Papen, Schleicher and a catastrophic economic situation and social hardship, Weimar wasn't much of a success. Besides communists wanted to get rid of the pluctocracy too

How could it ever be anything but a failure if the head of state wanted to abolish it and was, de facto, an "enemy of the state"?

actually it was the Oberste Heeresleitung (OHL) to conceal their military failure and involvement in armistice talks while blaming the socialdemocrats

And who led the OHL? Hindenburg. Ludendorff was all for the ragnarök that Hitler tried to ensure happening.

Because Franco cared only about one thing, Franco

You are missing the point - facism was in-power throughout europe. Yet the Vernichtungskrieg, Holocaust & others were distinguishably german. Even the older & established austro-fascism or the italian march on rome never led to anything close, despite glaring opportunities.

Do you really think the anti-jewish tendencies since Isabella are comparable to the Nürnberger Gesetze...?

Those aren't even extermination camps and while concentration camps were known to everyone, the bad living conditions inside were not.

The hundreds of thousands people going in with none leaving ought to leave only one solution to even the most naive observer. As I said, my grandfather was 14 and saw pig-trucks of corpses. Delusion & ignorance offer no redemption in the face of millions of innocent dead.

Many germans believed the propaganda that jews were merely moved to places where they would have a pleasant life with their kindred,
also concentration camps for political opponents and criminals were generally seen as reeducation camps where people would learn productive labor before release

So what? Many believed in Wunderwaffen. People saw the dead. People saw the transportations. People saw the SS escorting jews to the train station. People saw the Reichskristallnacht. People saw the Warschauer Ghetto. Soldiers witnessed the unspeakable horrors inflicted on the civil population in the east.

Being in apparent sight of the worst crimes of humanity does not absolve the guilt by delusion.

which was a uncoordinated evacuation and failed cover-up (attempt to eradicate all traces of the camps) during the final phase of the war.

How ignorant can you be? 85000 people marching to middle Germany and no witnesses? They did never try to eradicate the camps. They had their duty to fullfill until the last day.

When the troops reached Auschwitz, the crematoria were hot with rests of recently roasted humans inside.

So everyone who follows orders is a main culprit? What would you do if you are ordered to do unpleasent things as soldier? Would you refuse to obey and face the consequences?
Sorry to disillusion you but most people are first and foremost interested in their own well-being and not that of others.

The Wehrmacht soldiers were very much in the clear about the SS operations.

If you put bullets through innocent civilians - you are a major culprit. The circumstances don't matter. You have responsibility for your own actions. Fullfilling the orders doesn't change that.

It's a blatant lie that germans were the only ones who made genocide, in fact their only crime was to copy other imperialist countries.
Noone talks about the millions perished under british rule because they happend a century before but Germany provided the perfect scapegoat.

Are you spouting ing right-wing propaganda here? Are you so deluded to think that the british neglect & imperialism is equal to the Nazi's hunt for human life? Of course others did genocidal act. But none are relative to the Nazi's. And again, it wasn't a copy. It was a thoroughly independent german act.

Germany a scapegoat for British crimes...shut yer trap, you are talking out of yer arse. I'm the first to blame the British Empire due to my allegiances but that is copy/past NPD-input.

And could you imagine the caused by someone who tries to sell a game in the USA which depicts allied terror bombing or GI Joe doing in Vietnam?

There are quadrillions of movies about that topic & games, too. Bad try of whataboutery.

[Inhuman One]

[Mayer]

You are missing the point - facism was in-power throughout europe. Yet the Vernichtungskrieg, Holocaust & others were distinguishably german. Even the older & established austro-fascism or the italian march on rome never led to anything close, despite glaring opportunities.

war of extermination a solely german concept and german act? C'mon that's ridiculous.
Here some excerpts from the violent past of humanity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

Do you really think the anti-jewish tendencies since Isabella are comparable to the Nürnberger Gesetze...?

Absolutely, the Nuremburg Laws merely deprived jews of german citizenship. Isabella outright expelled all jews from Castille and Aragon

The hundreds of thousands people going in with none leaving ought to leave only one solution to even the most naive observer. As I said, my grandfather was 14 and saw pig-trucks of corpses. Delusion & ignorance offer no redemption in the face of millions of innocent dead.

So what? Many believed in Wunderwaffen. People saw the dead. People saw the transportations. People saw the SS escorting jews to the train station. People saw the Reichskristallnacht. People saw the Warschauer Ghetto. Soldiers witnessed the unspeakable horrors inflicted on the civil population in the east.

Yes but it wasn't the majority of germans who eyewitnessed the concentration camps, jew transports, the ghetto or the executions in the east, that was my point. There is no way 70 million people were able to see that. I have to admit that the word got around (through field post etc.) but the reaction was split between denial and shame about the wrongdoings. Extermination camps with their systemic operation were unknown, for those who heard about it from enemy broadcast it was unthinkable. No historian claims that the population knew about them.

How ignorant can you be? 85000 people marching to middle Germany and no witnesses?

I didn't say that there wasn't any witness but the streets weren't full of observers either

They did never try to eradicate the camps. They had their duty to fullfill until the last day.

Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderaktion_1005

If you put bullets through innocent civilians - you are a major culprit. The circumstances don't matter. You have responsibility for your own actions. Fullfilling the orders doesn't change that.

Fine, you dismiss the legitimacy for plea of superior orders. But then the common pilot who dropped bombs on civilians on orders of Sir Harris and the NKVD man who was ordered to torture prisoners to death must be war criminals too
I'm very uneasy with the concept of giving the blame for atrocities to subordinates who have to carry them out, not only are they in a dilemma situation where disobedience could result in their own demise but it's also exploitable. e.g. Stalin used Yezhov as tool in the Great Terror only to give him the blame for the excesses (which were done by orders of Stalin) and purge him in the end (because he knew to much, victims and executors had to disappear alike)

Are you spouting ing right-wing propaganda here? Are you so deluded to think that the british neglect & imperialism is equal to the Nazi's hunt for human life? Of course others did genocidal act. But none are relative to the Nazi's. And again, it wasn't a copy. It was a thoroughly independent german act.

None of the crimes of others are proportionate to those of the Nazis? The highest estimate for the number of victims of the Holocaust is 6.3 million, the highest estimate for the death toll in the Soviet Gulag system (where people were brutalized by labor with starvation rations under catastrophic sanitary and climatic conditions) is 30 million.
You are quite naive when you think it was all self-devised by Nazism. Hitler and Stalin copied each other constantly. The very foundation of fascism was a copy of bolshevik practices

Germany a scapegoat for British crimes...shut yer trap, you are talking out of yer arse. I'm the first to blame the British Empire due to my allegiances but that is copy/past NPD-input.

Germany is a scapegoat for all crimes commited by imperialism, war and totalitarianism. Stalin even tried to blame us for Katyn

There are quadrillions of movies about that topic & games, too. Bad try of whataboutery.

Name one videogame which addresses the issue. I'm all ears.

[Cold_Mac]

war of extermination a solely german concept and german act? C'mon that's ridiculous.
Here some excerpts from the violent past of humanity: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history

Ah, a Wikilectual. Guess the massacre in asia minor by Mithridates makes the Nazi crimes pale. Super relevant.

Absolutely, the Nuremburg Laws merely deprived jews of german citizenship. Isabella outright expelled all jews from Castille and Aragon

Extermination or exile? I know what I'd choose.

No historian claims that the population knew about them.

Plenty do. I've talked to them.

I didn't say that there wasn't any witness but the streets weren't full of observers either

You merely said there was a giant cover-up of any extermination process with a minimal amount of witnesses and/or confidante - which is factually wrong. At least 100.000 people were directly involvement with non-military slaughter.*

Really?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonderaktion_1005

Sigh....the Enterdungsaktion was aimed to destroy the evidence of mass-murder, not to intercept it's process as the camps continued to work until they were freed and, evidently, not for internal cover-ups. As if they cared about that with the German society drowning in propaganda.

That Wikipedia knowledge carries you far, although invalid if someone reads the actual protocols of the Nürnberg processes. You barely have to skip to the interrogation of Sauckel to hear about his 5.000.000 "forced workers" or the down-break of deaths-per-minute by Rudolf Höß. Funny guy, said that obedience was the greatest virtue of mankind.

He even admits that the continuation of the concentration camps was of higher importance to Nazi Germany's government than the military aspect to it.

Fine, you dismiss the legitimacy for plea of superior orders. But then the common pilot who dropped bombs on civilians on orders of Sir Harris and the NKVD man who was ordered to torture prisoners to death must be war criminals too

The SS actions had no purpose other than annihilation of civilian human lifes.

Butcher Harris did commit war atrocities against civilian life that in isolation are war crimes, yes, but with a utilitaristic purpose to counter the war of extermination led by Nazi Germany. If confronted with an enemy, on the brink of victory & ready to go to the lowest depth of human actions, a military commander might has to consider previously unfathomable options. It's down to consequentialism. His worst actions came within the last months of the war, when the German resistance was anything but throwing young life away. Was expecting actions from 6th & 9th august '45 here, to be honest.

Tenthousand dead bodies doesn't make twenty thousand dead bodies anything but unjustifiable.

None of the crimes of others are proportionate to those of the Nazis? The highest estimate for the number of victims of the Holocaust is 6.3 million, the highest estimate for the death toll in the Soviet Gulag system (where people were brutalized by labor with starvation rations under catastrophic sanitary and climatic conditions) is 30 million.

Thanks for explaining the Gulag.

The Gulag went through multiple processes that took, depending on what historian you believe, 20 to 30 years.

Your numbers are wrong. The Holocaust highest estimated number of killed people is 11-13.000.000*. Aside from the Holocaust, what about the 7.500.000 dead russian, 360.000 french & 81.000 british civilians, the euthanasized disabled, the Sinti & Roma, the political enemies...? During 6 years, not 20.

*[Zweiter Weltkrieg, Band 3: von El-Alamein bis Hiroshima, p. 360ff. Reader's Digest, 1989)

You are quite naive when you think it was all self-devised by Nazism. Hitler and Stalin copied each other constantly. The very foundation of fascism was a copy of bolshevik practices

Bolshevism wasn't a political power until the middle/late 30's. Marxism-Leninism prior to that. In the respective countries, Fascism was the ruling ideology since the early 20's.

Totalitary ideologies have a lot in common but describing them as copying the same or as constructed-upon-another is taking it very far.

You still haven't found a way round the fact that all the established fascist dictators in europe had so little interest in doing genocidal-esque things when there were so many opportunities. You just point to Stalin.

Germany is a scapegoat for all crimes commited by imperialism, war and totalitarianism. Stalin even tried to blame us for Katyn

Us?

And no. Thats apologetic, revisionistic nonsense. No factual proof bar Wikipedia. No acknowledgment for the scale & uncomparable volumes of Nazi crimes, yet relativizations with Coca Cola and medival dogma.

As I said, right-wing propaganda. Treat war crimes on their own and don't try to upscale/downscale them in relation to what-about-that.

Name one videogame which addresses the issue. I'm all ears.

Tunnel Rats. Featured an (american) protagonist who was killed by Napalm bombs. Don't play it though, it's terrible.

[Inhuman One]

[Cold_Mac]

[Turkeys!]

So did somebody ask for a WW2 German SP campaign or something? This always happens when somebody asks for a German campaign

In terms of controversial video games! (I hope nobody brought it up already)

Custer's Revenge

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qY2AqKCpGkk&feature=kp (Explicit 2D 80's Graphics Content)

If this doesn't display cultural insensitivity, I don't know what does, though I think there was a video game based on managing a concentration camp made at some point too.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KZ_manager

[Karnil Vark Khaitan]

with a logo of "white pride world wide" Goshh I sure think they try to pay respect to this issue....

[The Despondent Mind]

If there was a Nazi SP Campaign shooter, I would definitely listen to this thorough out the play through.


WARNING EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

[Mayer]

Ah, a Wikilectual. Guess the massacre in asia minor by Mithridates makes the Nazi crimes pale. Super relevant.

genocide is always the same and such cases show that they aren't an invention of the 20th century or the Nazis unlike most pupils learn today

Plenty do. I've talked to them.

David Irving is also a historian and he claims Holocaust is a fake..

You merely said there was a giant cover-up of any extermination process with a minimal amount of witnesses and/or confidante - which is factually wrong.

disprove it. There was no open talk about exterminating jews in the german public (unless you count the 2-3 vague hints in Hitler's speeches)
Theodor Heuss had a publication ban and lost his teaching position by the Nazis but he nontheless said he didn't know anything, Marion Gräfin Donhoff had connections to the resistance and never heard of Auschwitz, Richard von Weizsäcker and Helmut Schmidt (who made critical remarks about the NS leaders) were officers and had no knowledge about a genocid on the jews
hardly persons who were biased towards the NS gov't in a positive way

At least 100.000 people were directly involvement with non-military slaughter.*

do the math, even if that was true it would still mean that less than 1% were involved

Sigh....the Enterdungsaktion was aimed to destroy the evidence of mass-murder

which is what i said, its aim was to destroy the corpses so future generations wouldn't discover the mass murder and to prevent contamination of ground water, the operation was started before the war situation became precarious for Germany

not to intercept it's process as the camps continued to work until they were freed

No, that were the evacuations aka 'death marches' you mentioned, camps operated until the point where they were endangered by the advancing enemy

He even admits that the continuation of the concentration camps was of higher importance to Nazi Germany's government than the military aspect to it.

They might have thought that it's connected, i.e. a jewish world conspiracy. The contradictory alliance of USA and USSR and Roosevelt giving away 11$ billion worth material to Stalin seemed to confirm the myth.
However Himmler who organized the killings didn't seem to be such a ideologist, he tried to make supplies for hostages deals and even met with Norbert Masur, representative of the World Jewish Congress to discuss the release of inmates.

The SS actions had no purpose other than annihilation of civilian human lifes.

no, the SS was founded as Hitler's personal bodyguard and expanded into a paramilitary arm which after winning the power struggle with the SA became the political police of the NS regime. Management of concentration camps was just a part of their occupation, also their military branch engaged armed combatants

Butcher Harris did commit war atrocities against civilian life that in isolation are war crimes, yes, but with a utilitaristic purpose to counter the war of extermination led by Nazi Germany. If confronted with an enemy, on the brink of victory & ready to go to the lowest depth of human actions, a military commander might has to consider previously unfathomable options. It's down to consequentialism. His worst actions came within the last months of the war, when the German resistance was anything but throwing young life away. Was expecting actions from 6th & 9th august '45 here, to be honest.

Holy you actually justify mass murder, how can you even criticize me for relativizing one?
Utilitaristic purpose of firebombing german cities? So you say there is nothing wrong with burning civilians alive when they were german which means they were evil Nazis and killing them is beneficial? With the same logic i could argue that Generalplan Ost followed a utilitaristic purpose because the slavs were unable to probably govern themselves and back a barbarian asian despoty which impoverishes the common people and relies on slave labor, terror and torture.
But i don't, in my opinion genocide can never be justified even when they are the work of the 'good' guys in our history books and such generalizations of people are stupid and racist.

Your numbers are wrong. The Holocaust highest estimated number of killed people is 11-13.000.000*.

More Inflation. But how did they manage to kill more jews than there were in entire europe prior to the war (~9.5 million)?

Aside from the Holocaust, what about the 7.500.000 dead russian, 360.000 french & 81.000 british civilians, the euthanasized disabled, the Sinti & Roma, the political enemies...? During 6 years, not 20.

Aside from the Gulag what about the Holodomor?

more than 10.000.000 deaths in less than 2 years

or the Great Purge annihilating another 7 million people or even 20 million when you believe the historians who come up with the highest numbers (which you do in case of the Holocaust)

Bolshevism wasn't a political power until the middle/late 30's. Marxism-Leninism prior to that. In the respective countries, Fascism was the ruling ideology since the early 20's.

Good that you just showed that you've no historical knowledge about the first half of the 20th century bar fringe stories about genocides by germans.
Bolsheviks were the majority faction led by Lenin which split with the mensheviks at the 2nd Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in 1903. The October Revolution (or coup d'etat) which got them into power was in 1917 not 1937, bolshevism had very early on inspired similar uprisings in other countries; the Spartacist Uprising in Germany, the Biennio Rosso in Italy, the creation of the Bavarian Soviet Republic and Hungarian Soviet Republic
And the only country with a fascist government in the 20s was Italy, in fact most fascist movements were formed in the 30s

Totalitary ideologies have a lot in common but describing them as copying the same or as constructed-upon-another is taking it very far.

Benito Mussolini was orignially a member of the Italian Socialist Party and even chief editor of its party newspaper Avanti!
He was influenced by Marx among other socialists like Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Bakunin, Blanqui and Georges Sorel
Although his Fasci denounced marxist materialism, it was also a mass movement which favored revolutionary change through violence

Stalin admired Hitler in secret, especially the Purge of 1934 "Some fellow that Hitler. Knows how to treat his political opponents." and he signed the Non-Aggression pact with Germany which divided Europe, an extensive trade agreement as well and even going so far to sent Molotov for talks about joining the Axis

You still haven't found a way round the fact that all the established fascist dictators in europe had so little interest in doing genocidal-esque things when there were so many opportunities. You just point to Stalin.

Because Stalin's crimes had the greatest magnitude, however it isn't true that other dictators weren't doing genocides. Franco was especially ruthless during the Spanish Civil War and shortly therafter, at least 200,000 men and women were executed and another 200,000 died in concentration camps, 100,000 simply disappered. "The Church, for example, was responsible for taking babies and children away from mothers (“red mothers,” as they were called by the fascist forces, including the religious orders) who were jailed, exiled, or assassinated, and giving the children (without parents’ or families’ permission) to families close to the fascist regime who wanted children or to religious institutions as recruits for their orders. All of these children were given new names and did not know their true ancestry. As Dr. Vallejo Najera, the ideologue of the Spanish Army, indicated, this state policy was “necessary to purify the Spanish race,” stopping the contamination of children with the pathological values of their red parents. Many of these parents were in the Army’s concentration camps, where prisoners were the subjects of biological and psychological experiments." - Counterpunch

Us?

Yes Us, germans are still presented as people of perpetrators and students learn a cliché history of an evil germany doing only bad things in the past without learning the historical background which led to those. I can not see how germans were evil criminals whose life was nothing worth if they supported Hitler for personal reasons like employment, welfare, end of farm foreclosure or defense of private property (as he was the only viable alternative to the communists)

And no. Thats apologetic, revisionistic nonsense. No factual proof bar Wikipedia. No acknowledgment for the scale & uncomparable volumes of Nazi crimes, yet relativizations with Coca Cola and medival dogma.

The only dogma i see is the uncomparability of crimes commited by the NS government. However when looking at the acts of other dictators of the 20th century Hitler seems to be almost innocous.

As I said, right-wing propaganda. Treat war crimes on their own and don't try to upscale/downscale them in relation to what-about-that.

Funny i'm not even right-wing by any stretch but that's the reactions of the mainstream when one opposes the demonization of germans and the cult of Holocaust.
History is written by the victors, as Radhabinod Pal found out, the international military tribunals were accusing their victims with crimes which were very similar to those commited by the allies themselves and that they weren't a tool of justice but retribution.

I find it kinda racist that the 5 million killed jews are so much more important than the 45 million other victims of this conflict
Especially since those who support the erection of more and more Holocaust memorials are the same who say that the commemoration of the thousands of german civilians slaughtered in Dresden is 'outdated'...

Why should we waste money on tombs for people who died a century ago?
Germany and Europe have serious other worries today and the living are more important than the dead.

Tunnel Rats. Featured an (american) protagonist who was killed by Napalm bombs. Don't play it though, it's terrible.

That sounds more like friendly fire. Hardly a war crime
Now if i would try to sell a Vietnam game in the USA which let's you participate in the My Lai massacre for example, the outcry in the media and the public would certainly be ernormous

Indeed, Cold Mac seems brainwashed into hating his german identity and blaming Germany for all evil in the world like the retard anti-germans. Arguments might not do anything.

[Sir Adrian]

If they ever do a Wermacht campaign, then I would only ever accept it if they show the atrocities they committed, especially, but not exclusively to, the eastern front. Maybe not the protagonist, but I do want them to suffer the consequences of their crimes, storywise.
It has to be a tragic tale, but in no way of an underdog, but as a reverse Walter White where he still *Breaking Bad Spoiler*

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

dies at the end

.

You mean like the Allied campaigns show the atrocities the allies committed? Oh wait.


Double standards and hypocrisy for the win

[Cold_Mac]

I see no point in arguing with someone that attaches his german identity to the Nazi regime and/or the opinion of others about it whilst providing no sources to his absurd claims bar Wikipedia.

Just two points as a factual clarification:

1. The numbers of Holocaust-victims are accumulating the forced labourers (~7.5m) and jews (~5m). Just as I pointed out. Hard to grasp for you, I know.
2. There'll be a time you read posts properly. I said that Butcher Harris actions had to be considered war crimes.

Go on, propagating how every regime were more viciously evil as the "innocuous" Nazi regime, avoiding others' points and pretend everyone disagreeing is a brainwashed, uneducated thug. Your kind will never die out.

[saxdude]

You mean like the Allied campaigns show the atrocities the allies committed? Oh wait.


Double standards and hypocrisy for the win

That's a really pathetic argument, a few isolated incidents that were mostly either thoroughly punished or commited against the Japanese and thoroughly punished, as opposed to the consumed ideology of a nation hellbent on war and the systematic extermination of several races. It's as if people don't ing get it, there is a difference.
There was a consistant effort from both the Wermacht and SS to commit heinous war crimes against eastern europeans, The wermacht isn't clean, not in any single damn sense of the word.
They don't deserve to be portrayed as good fellas, or even al'right fellas, if they are to be portrayed, they are to be portrayed as they were. If the Russians aren't (they are, not as much as they should be, but they are), it serves as an argument for the russians to be portrayed more faithfully, not as an argument to portray the germans less so.
Just face it, the Germans were the villians of WW2, and portraying the villian in a more comprehensible less black and white light, is still portraying the villian.
And it is completely irrelevant if Franco, Stalin and Mussolini were too, cause that's not what the argument is about.

do the math, even if that was true it would still mean that less than 1% were involved

100,000 is a lot of god damn people, people with mouths, people that spread rumors. One hundred thousand people, the populace knew, they did not know the details perhaps, but they knew it was something awful.

[Sir Adrian]

Riiight a few isolated incidents, so isolated in fact that hardline Nazis like Piper got to walk away at Nuremberg on account that the Allies in France not only did the same things he did but topped him. And let's not even begin talking about what the Russians did. The only game which shows the historical truth about them gets banned in Russia and called a nazi supporting game. Give me a break

[Inhuman One]