Yesterday I went to see an exhibit in Hamburg called Verbrechen der Wehrmacht. This controversial exhibit deals with the crimes committed by the German army during WWII. When one thinks about all the nasty stuff that went down back then, they usually think that the SS was behind it. This exhibit shows that the regular enlisted army was also involved in some of the atrocities especially on the eastern front against the Soviet Union.
The exhibit is pretty text intensive with photos and actual correspondence from back then, along with short video clips and interviews. Unfortunately, they don’t have anything in English so if you don’t speak German it will be hard to understand what it is about. It took a real long time for me to read everything because of the different military style language used in some of the displays but I go through.
It was pretty tough. A lot of scary horrible stuff went down back then. When you read about it you get a sick feeling in your stomach and you wonder how in the world could that have happened. Sometimes I find it really strange that this happened in the same country I live in and yet I don’t see how it could happen here today.
I think that because of Germany’s history Germans have their government on a much shorter leash than other countries. It seems that if people here are displeased with some sort of government policy they will voice their dissatisfaction en masse. And that’s good. Some lessons have to be learned the real hard way. Anyway that is just the way I perceive it. Some Germans might disagree. But you don’t have to ask a German what he or she thinks because he or she will tell you. Kinda of like how you don’t have ask a rapper what his name is either. He’ll let you know in the first 10 seconds.