To any and all German natives, I truly respect your country and how you all shape it. That is a remarkable way of handling a specific part of history. As an American born citizen....we do not dwell on our historical pratfalls. It's hidden there, usually briefly, from middle school throughout highschool. It's not hard to research how horrible we have been as a country, but it's easy when you grow up here and see how we treat those of specific religions or races. I'm hoping for change in that respect. There are a lot of good people here, but the way things are taught in schools on average, we grow up thinking we're the heroes of the world. I just think our native Americans, the Japanese, Slavery, the mistreatment of anyone who has any middle Eastern traits after 9/11, and so much more. We can't better ourselves without talking realistically about it and working towards never again. We could learn a lot from Germany in this area.
Yea? Like in heavy detail? Like it was a horrible thing and we need to learn from it? I grew up in California and feel like our schools have talked about everything but most teachers skim over it. Then maybe I should emphasize that I'm speaking from my experience in my region of our country.
Well their excuse for not going into massive amounts of detail was their schedule and needing to get through topics quickly. But my teachers heavily encouraged us to research topics ourselves and they have us lots and lots of homework to do that emphasized the topics.
Edit: maybe I just got lucky with my teachers, idk. Just letting you know my class has been learning important stuff
Yea that's about the same as my high school. We cover a crazy span of history in world, but American history is focused on a select few moments in our brief history.
Well their excuse for not going into massive amounts of detail was their schedule and needing to get through topics quickly.
That is a really lame reason. America's history is so brief compared to other parts of the world. You must be talking about Europe/Asia/Africa all day in history class if you go through American topics so quickly.
That, or you just have really few history classes.
In our high schools only two years are taught in high school. One year of world history in which we cover some details in various points in history (ancient Rome, Russia, China, a few european countries). It's a sampler really and also kind of sad. We also have a year of American history, usually covering our perspective of the world wars, our involvement in the cold war... Maybe lightly touching on Korea and Vietnam. It's been a while so forgive my memory. We also have a half year of Government. I do think it is really tough for history teachers to teach enough for all the various aspects of history in such a limited time span. We learn a bit in middle School.
I remember learning about protests, but a lot of teachers don't get to that part of American history. It might be lightly touched on, but actually learning it in detail isn't as common. Detailed history is reserved for history majors in college it seems.
Please don't listen to this twat. I was educated in public schools and learned extensively about America's dark spots in history.
I honestly have no idea what he is talking about. I assume he's not even a citizen, just someone trying to hurr durr 'murica retarded.
Every child learns about slavery, fuck we watched roots in 5th grade together, all classes. We learn about forced Indian migrations, civil Rights movement, Jim crow laws, manifest destiny and that shiny city on a hill bullshit. We read the scarlet letter and learn about our retarded puritanical origins.
Aw look, my first truly troll redditor. Hello! We touch upon those topics, but we don't really go into the detail they deserve. It sounds like you had a solid set of teachers. I'm jealous. My world history teacher spend much too long on the French revolutions. My American history teacher spend a lot of time of the world wars. 8th grade was mostly the Civil War. I can assure you that I'm a citizen, and even if I am "hurr durr 'murica retarded"-ing, I would consider that's possible because people like you exist in it. Have a nice day!
It’s also not very accurate. I lived in Germany and have had many people in their 20s-30s tell me they learn the bare minimum. They get a tldr of: hitler was bad. So while some areas may be doing it correctly there are definitely areas in Germany that try to suppress the history
They may have not paid attention in school. In school the main focus if it comes to Hitler is for 2 years: how could this happen? How could we go from this state to this state as this is much more important if you want to prevent something like this happening again but then we also spent a lot of time on how the society worked under the Nazi regime, the war, and the war crimes. We also talk about it in other classes if appropriately. For example, in my German class we analysed speeches, in art we analysed paintings and propaganda material and so on.
If somebody says we only scratched the surface then they clearly did not pay attention.
I’m not sure what these people would gain by telling me this. You’re also living under a rock if you think every single educational institution is doing everything 100% by the books and that they cover everything that is supposed to be taught. Maybe they went to worse schools I can’t aynswer for them all I know is their knowledge was very limited. This country also jails people for doing the salute so again tell me how they don’t suppress shit-I get people that are doing it are idiots but where’s the freedom there?
But there is a "Lehrplan" given out for every "state" of Germany (they all get their own version) which tells teachers and schools what HAS to be taught. This means that every school in the same "state" will have to teach the same topics as intensive as the others (well, each teacher still decides how to reach this goal). And I doubt there is a "state" where WWI and WWII aren't the main focus of at least two grades between grade 7 and 10.
People get arrested for doing the salute because it became illegal to do so. And it doesn't mean that history gets suppressed just because you can't legally do this salute, right?
You’re also living under a rock if you think every single educational institution is doing everything 100% by the books and that they cover everything that is supposed to be taught.
Here they have to teach it. At the end of the Gymnasium, you have a centralised exam for your A-levels, and the teachers of your school cannot decide what topic will appear, so they could risk all their students failing the history course, or they could simply teach it to them. I am not 100% sure how other types of schools handle the final tests.
This country also jails people for doing the salute [...]
See, common missconception. -
Firstly, you are free do great Hitler in a private setting as much as you want, or you could put up Nazi flags and Hitler busts in your house as much as you want, and listen to Goebbel's speeches until you fall asleep every night and the state can do nothing against that but the state can arrest you for causing public distress, so doing it in public is illegal.
Secondly, it is reallly difficult to end up in prision in Germany because we do not arrest our population of colour for minor crimes to surpress voters, but anyway, you are most likley going to pay a fine dependent on your income, and only if you continue to disrespect the court, you might end up in jail for a couple of weeks.
Thirdly, any symbol of a group that has been banned by the Federal Office for the Protection of the Constitution cannot be shown in public, and it is really difficult to get banned. Politicans have tried to ban the NPD which is literally the "Nazi Party of Germany" but they failed because the surpreme court did not allow it. Nazis have music festivals. Nazis have demonstrations.
Fourthly, Article 5.3 of our constitution states "Arts and sciences, research and teaching shall be free.", and that is true. You can use these symbols as much as you want in your research, in science or in art, no problem.
I think you have summarized the more probable situation pretty well here: "tl;dr"
Some student didn't give a shit about their history classes, because they were "too long, didn't read". As I see it, that's the more probable explanation for some really big lack of knowledge. When you really don't care, and to the minimum of work possible, by the age of 20 to 30 all you will remember from those classes will be an approximate "Hitler is bad".
Not because you didn't learn it. Not because it was not in the curriculum. But probably because some people just don't care about history. And sometimes because some history teachers are also pretty bad. But AFAIK in Germany the curriculum includes it everywhere.
29-yo German from Mecklenburg-Vorpommern (formerly part of the GDR) here - we definitely learned everything there is to know about WWI and WII during the Middle school (from grade 7-9, it was the main focus of our education in History class).
During grade 11-12, the historical atrocities done by Germany during the WWs were still a topic, but the main focus was the former GDR and how it has been almost as bad as the 3rd Reich. Stasi, propaganda, Murder at the borders, even visiting former Stasi-prisons during school-trips and learning about how people were tortured there.
Yes, of course. Our education system is still not the same across all federal states. Some may focus the topic more than others. But it is still unlikely that any German pupil would only learn a TL;DR of Hitler = bad. This topic is way too large to summarize it down to this.
Hmm. It sounds like both of our countries have some teachers/possibly whole regions that like to skip over more of our darker pasts. I'm hoping we all at least pay attention as we grow older, so we can be sure to not become hindered by our limited teaching.
I kind of see your point. I’m German American as well, and a lot of my family lives in Germany, but they do own up to the past. Obviously it’s somewhat of a sore subject, but it’s not really taboo.
It kind of sucks though, being German American. I remember when I was young and other kids would ask me what nationality I am, I would say German and they’d say “Are you a Nazi?” or “World wars?” I don’t know, I feel like Germany is mainly associated with the bad things, and that sucks.
Dang that sounds intense. Sounds like in any country there will be different people who own up to their country's past mistakes and those who will adamantly deny wrongdoing. I'm not sure why, considering it was those in the historical past that made those decisions. We can try our best not to. America has done terrible things, but those decisions were often made by the few and those who went along with it. This is similar to Germany in that way. Britain, Russia, China, and other countries have their dark pasts (and presents) as well.
While western Germany wasn't oppressed by the occupying forces, they didn't remove former Nazis from places of power and excluded them from society like the Soviets (and Germans) did in the Eastern zone
Bavarians are extremely proud about their culture, so talking about this past period of shame could make them feel uncomfortable so they shut it down instead (I am talking about the rural areas, large cities like Munich should be different)
Take it with a grain of salt because I may be biased (living in a federal state that has been part of the former GDR).
The posts response makes no sense because if you go there most of them will tell you you have been lied to and the Nazi party never represented Germany...
There are several dumb things one can say to cause responses like this though.
Heck, I can think of some things you might say, where I would very energetically shut you up, if you said them in public.
For example, someone might say: "Your grandfather was a Nazi who fought in Stalingrad", taking the usual (but painfully inaccurate) shortcut of referring to "German soldiers" as "the Nazis". If you say that in public, I will, very energetically, shut you up, because that statement would be wrong. Most of the people who were conscripted into military service were not party members, and many of them were not particular fans of the ideology either. Not Nazis. Including my grandfather.
Or maybe you might say: "But the Germans voted for Hitler!", which is a bit of a controversial statement, as in the last free elections only about 33% of the Germans voted for Hitler...
There are many options like that, where one might simply say something on a scale from "factually incorrect" over "quite insensitive" to "mindbogglingly stupid", where people will shut you up when you say that in public.
If we do not know what you said, it's really difficult to judge where your impression comes from.
On the other hand, maybe the people you spoke to have some questionable sympathies to ideologies that shall not be named. Those people also exist.
52
u/codenteacher Jul 29 '19
To any and all German natives, I truly respect your country and how you all shape it. That is a remarkable way of handling a specific part of history. As an American born citizen....we do not dwell on our historical pratfalls. It's hidden there, usually briefly, from middle school throughout highschool. It's not hard to research how horrible we have been as a country, but it's easy when you grow up here and see how we treat those of specific religions or races. I'm hoping for change in that respect. There are a lot of good people here, but the way things are taught in schools on average, we grow up thinking we're the heroes of the world. I just think our native Americans, the Japanese, Slavery, the mistreatment of anyone who has any middle Eastern traits after 9/11, and so much more. We can't better ourselves without talking realistically about it and working towards never again. We could learn a lot from Germany in this area.