If you have German ancestors, how could or should they feel about it?

[peaceful-forest]

Here's how I see it: we all are responsible for our own actions. We can't control what others do, whether it's now, in the past, or in the future. Since I am of German descent, I'm sure that I have distant cousins that did bad stuff. I am not responsible for any wrong they did.

 

[godisagardener]

It all depends.
It is a wide topic.

Not really. You've posted in a Politics sub-forum.

 

[Benjamin Müller]

For what it's worth, Hitler was Austrian, not German, so it would actually be faulty to think this thread is about Hitler. As far as the Holocaust goes, there were German Jews living there and to be fair--not all of them were exactly righteous: think Jeffery Epstein. Now, please note: I'm not denying the holocaust, nor am I blaming Jews, but you do get bad people on both sides of the playing field. And unfortunately, all you need is one or a half a dozen bad Jews and it can sour the name for the rest of the decent, law-abiding Jews. And it goes for the Nazis as well. Get a couple bad Nazis and it ruins it for the rest of the men in the Nazi party.

During WW2, Hitler called Germans back to fight. And there was man living in my area, who was German, and he got called back and since he spoke perfect English (being raised American) he was put in interrogating soldiers. Well, one day, an American soldier who was fighting against the Third Reich, got captured; and the German man recognized him, and the American recognized the German. They shared the same hometown in America, and it was all, "HEY BUDDY! How's it going? So what are you doing in the war? How'd you get here?"

The Germans actually treated American POWs very well.

Here in America at Fort Niagara, we held German POWs. And we sent them off to farms to work. I mean. . .where are they going to run to? They gonna swim back to Germany? And some of the Germans who were being housed at Fort Niagara actually came back to WNY to live here because they liked it so much.

You can't say all Nazis are horrible, horrible people just because they had a political label anymore than you can say all Jews are bad and we need a final solution. I don't do double-standards.

So this actually can be a broad and wide ranging subject that doesn't have to focus in only on the world wars. Bismarck was quite the politician, and Martin Luther rocked the boat with the Catholic Church. There's more to German history than just the last 120 years. We could discuss the 40 some German Holy Roman Emperors from Charlemagne to Napoleon.

Even if genetically I am more Israelite than Germanic, I am glad that my ancestors grew up in Germany because the Germans have a fabulous work ethic; they are calm and level-headed, and well-organized. I'm really glad to have some of those traits in my personality. Western New York has a lot of German heritage, so much so, that Beef on Weck is a local specialty, most probably created by a German baker, who came to Buffalo, NY.

Other Beef on Weck's that restaurants try to pass off around the country are pathetic and disappointing.

Germans have good food; and I like food. If I was a beer drinker, I'd only drink German beer because they know how to do it right.

 

[Red Gold]

Germans have good food; and I like food. If I was a beer drinker, I'd only drink German beer because they know how to do it right.

I agree

 

[Red Gold]

And there was man living in my area, who was German, and he got called back and since he spoke perfect English (being raised American) he was put in interrogating soldiers. Well, one day, an American soldier who was fighting against the Third Reich, got captured; and the German man recognized him, and the American recognized the German. They shared the same hometown in America, and it was all, "HEY BUDDY! How's it going? So what are you doing in the war? How'd you get here?"

The unique method of Nazi Germany's top interrogator​

 

[variant]

My family fled Germany before WW2, possibly because we have some Jewish relatives.

Further, not all Germans were NATZI's, who came to power based upon a minority government that came to power during a period of extreme social strife and ended democracy in Germany, making a great many of it's citizens, the first victims of the NATZI's.

 

[Benjamin Müller]

@Red Gold - The website wouldn't load the video but I searched it on Youtube. I think I watched the same one you posted, and I lol'd that he made Cinderella mosaics. Best interrogator in the Nazi Party and he goes on to make Cinderella mosaics.

That was an interesting video. I think my Dad had referred to this guy once before in the past, but I don't think he had all the facts, just lost details of hearsay.

 

[Red Gold]

Further, not all Germans were NATZI's, who came to power based upon a minority government that came to power during a period of extreme social strife and ended democracy in Germany, making a great many of it's citizens, the first victims of the NATZI's.

So it is.

 

[Red Gold]

@Red Gold - The website wouldn't load the video but I searched it on Youtube. I think I watched the same one you posted, and I lol'd that he made Cinderella mosaics. Best interrogator in the Nazi Party and he goes on to make Cinderella mosaics.

That was an interesting video. I think my Dad had referred to this guy once before in the past, but I don't think he had all the facts, just lost details of hearsay.

Hanns Scharff was a really pleasant personality!

 

[Red Gold]

Talking of Germany in general:

There is a trend, also within Germany, to reduce all of Germany and the Germans to the years 1933 to 1945.
Just as if there never ever was anything before or after.

No Luther, no Gutenberg, no Goethe, no Benz or Daimler, no Hertz, no Röntgen, no Eichendorff, no Mozart, no Bach or Beethoven etc etc
Only Hitler and Göring and Göbbels etc etc .....

 

[Red Gold]

J.S. Bach: Brandenburgische Konzerte №1-6​

This is also Germany

 

[Red Gold]

This brings me to the age-old question:

Was Mozart a German or an Austrian - or neither - or both?
What would you say?
It is really a tricky question!

 

[Red Gold]

Austrians like to say: "Hitler was German and Mozart was Austrian!"
But it is not as easy as all that ......

 

[Red Gold]

Here is a good answer in the case of Mozart:

If we could ask Mozart himself if he was German, he would definitely answer “YES”. If we could ask him if he was born in Austria, he would definitely answer “NO”. So, for his time, Mozart was most certainly German, and not Austrian.

Things get messier later on, because history changes territories, definitions, and perceptions, and things get difficult if you try to adapt historical facts to modern concepts.

The very nature of your question is quite modern. Up to the late 19th Century, the idea of “Austrian” and “German” being mutually exclusive terms would be perceived as the most preposterous absurd. Saying Austrians were not Germans would be exactly the same as saying Bavarian people were not German. This is because, before 1871, there was no unified Germany and, thus, “German” was not a word to refer to a specific country, but to a broad ethno-linguistic group, of which Mozart (as well as the Austrians) was part of.

This explains why Mozart was no doubt considered a German. But this would not exclude him from being Austrian, as long as he had been born in Austria. Now we get to another complexity.

Mozart was born in Salzburg, which, at the time, was a German Archbishopric State, not a part of Austria. Nowadays, Salzburg is indeed in Austria, and this fact is one of the only two arguments that exist for considering Mozart an Austrian. It is anachronistic, though. Historically, Salzburg was Bavarian, and than independent. It was conquered by Austria some years after Mozart’s death, and had some convoluted changes of property some times, eventually ending with Austria again. Note that this was all after he died. If history had played differently, and Salzburg ended with Bavaria again, there would be not a single person today making the argument that Mozart was Austrian.

More:

Was Mozart German or Austrian?

Answer (1 of 10): If we could ask Mozart himself if he was German, he would definitely answer “YES”. If we could ask him if he was born in Austria, he would definitely answer “NO”. So, for his time, Mozart was most certainly German, and not Austrian. Things get messier later on, because history ...

www.quora.com

 

[Red Gold]

I think I will make a poll about Mozart now.

 

[Red Gold]

Now: 14 voters

• 6 x neither good nor bad​

• 5 x quite normal​

 

[Pioneer3mm]

Beethoven

One of my favorite classical music composers.

 

[Benjamin Müller]

Talking of Germany in general:

There is a trend, also within Germany, to reduce all of Germany and the Germans to the years 1933 to 1945.
Just as if there never ever was anything before or after.

No Luther, no Gutenberg, no Goethe, no Benz or Daimler, no Hertz, no Röntgen, no Eichendorff, no Mozart, no Bach or Beethoven etc etc
Only Hitler and Göring and Göbbels etc etc .....

Is this where the eugenics ideas came in?

This brings me to the age-old question:

Was Mozart a German or an Austrian - or neither - or both?
What would you say?
It is really a tricky question!

Ethnically, I would say he was Austrian. I think there is something that drives people to their native homelands, and he spent most of his later life in Vienna (if I know my history)


It's like an American forsaking America and living in London; genetically, they may have far more English genetics, that lends them to be an anglophile. Such genetics can determine their personality, and so they live where they feel the most comfortable socially--not just where they are the most successful business-wise.

 

[Hans Blaster]

My German ancestors are dead. So like most dead people, I presume they feel nothing being no longer alive and such.

 

[Red Gold]

This question is supposed to be a very general question.
Not especially directed to any Nazi past or similar things.