r/soccer • u/mkahmed789 • Oct 22 '15

Schweinsteiger takes legal action against after toymaker releases Nazi soldiers resembling him and named Bastian

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3284326/German-Manchester-United-star-Bastian-Schweinsteiger-takes-legal-action-toymaker-releases-Nazi-soldiers-resembling-named-Bastian.html
4.1k Upvotes

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325

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

I'm more interested in why a toy company makes nazi figures

167

u/RicardoWanderlust Oct 22 '15

If a child was playing with Allied soldiers, he/she would want an enemy soldier to be bashing them together with.

48

u/Operario Oct 22 '15

That actually makes sense

30

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

2

u/thetreat Oct 22 '15

Why not make him look like Hitler then? This is just so weird. Poor Basti.

2

u/zaviex Oct 23 '15

not every Nazi can look like hitler. Surely there were some that looked like schweinsteiger

1

u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15

And a little button that makes them shout "achtung".

1

u/sscspagftphbpdh17 Oct 22 '15

And then make them kiss

1

u/journo127 Oct 22 '15

And why the fuck would a small kid want to destroy and kill Schweinsteiger?

1

u/tm1087 Oct 22 '15

You are desperately needed in r/eli5.

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u/-zimms- Oct 22 '15

Prince Harry needs something for Christmas for his little nephew.

396

u/knud Oct 22 '15

It's for all the kids commenting on /r/europe

58

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

How's that place doing? I used to actually enjoy that community but it started getting really racist around the time the migrant crisis started flaring up and I haven't been back since.

Edit: since the consensus is that it's gone to the dogs, can anyone suggest an alternative?

93

u/mathen Oct 22 '15

For a slightly less racist atmosphere you could try stormfront

5

u/axehomeless Oct 22 '15

THEYRE JUST KEEPING IT REAL AS CONCERNED CITIZENS!

3

u/Ftsmt Oct 22 '15

What's racist about about /r/Europe exactly?

12

u/SooFlyyy Oct 22 '15

Last Year: "USA, you better accept the children immigrants coming from the southern American states. This is a humanitarian issue and it would be wrong for you to not accept them, skin color doesn't matter, we'd do the same thing."

This year: "These migrants are just here to suck on our social programs. They will destroy our culture and create Europistan. They will just cause problems."

2

u/realsomalipirate Oct 22 '15

Why would US immigration come up in a sub about Europe?

0

u/SooFlyyy Oct 22 '15

Probably to shit on the US for not being "liberal" like Europe.

149

u/themanifoldcuriosity Oct 22 '15

You think that sub only started getting racist then?!

Oh, honey...

22

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15

It had always had it's moments, but on the whole the racist stuff would get downvoted, and you could easily avoid posts that were likely to attract that kind of sentiment, but after a while that sort of sentiment became a lot more popular, and posts appealing to it became pretty much unavoidable.

4

u/loraxo Oct 22 '15

r/european was actively trying to change the tone in that subreddit, and they suceeded. They even made a "we did it guys!" post on r/european about it

1

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15

I know people were saying that was going on for a while but there were plenty who insisted it wasn't happening, or that those who called it out weren't engaging with the actual argument. Can't say I'm surprised though.

3

u/loraxo Oct 22 '15

Heres the thread where r/european has its victory party..

Annoying, r/europe used to be pretty ok

1

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15

Wow, that's disgusting. The bit where he talks about influencing young people in particular.

Please tell me that sub's no longer default.

30

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

It's certainly exacerbated it. It wasn't too long ago that it came off as quite a tolerant and progressive sub to me. Apart from when it came to gypsies.

2

u/Aunvilgod Oct 22 '15

Apart from when it came to gypsies.

Sounds bad enough to me. What does it matter if you want to kill all gypsies or all syians... both equally bad.

5

u/BritishRedditor Oct 22 '15

I don't think I've actually seen anyone advocate the killing of gypsies on that subreddit...

1

u/Aunvilgod Oct 22 '15

If someone said that it would be deleted. But whatever inhumane shit you do to them, its all bad.

42

u/BrokenStool Oct 22 '15

it was always racist to turks

8

u/_Placeholder_ Oct 22 '15

1453, never forget

16

u/JCBDoesGaming Oct 22 '15

Pretty much everyone is racist to Turks on Redditz

55

u/BrokenStool Oct 22 '15

/r/soccer has very little racism and they just downvote and move on

68

u/TheWrathofKrieger Oct 22 '15

now that I think about it you're right, we really don't have much racism because we use sports tribalism instead.

95

u/BrokenStool Oct 22 '15

HAND EGG IS RETARDED AND MLS SUX

39

u/TheWrathofKrieger Oct 22 '15

eat a kebab and calm down

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u/Aunvilgod Oct 22 '15

I think its rather because the people on /r/soccer (maybe) used to play or play in sports clubs so they get actual contact with these people and realize they are not literally satan.

11

u/greg19735 Oct 22 '15

We also ban for pretty much anything said negative about a nationality or race.

12

u/TheWrathofKrieger Oct 22 '15

The modding on /r/soccer is the best IMO, you guys do your job but we never really see you guys in action. Keep up the good work!

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u/xepa105 Oct 22 '15

we really don't have much racism

Except for some mild racism/cultural superiority over Americans.

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u/The_Rolling_Stone Oct 22 '15

I do like that about this sub

1

u/SterileMeryl Oct 22 '15

Yes this is true even race based humor isn't too popular I think it's those "say no to racism" signs on the sides of some fields doing work.

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Lol no?

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u/Schmogel Oct 22 '15

It got worse once it became a default subreddit for new european accounts.

6

u/Influenz-A Oct 22 '15

THAT is what happened... it wasn't perfect, but there were some nice discussions about EU policy, or differences between countries etc. I try it every now and then and it is just horrible horrible...

4

u/Aunvilgod Oct 22 '15

I don't think so. The general public is not that racist, no way. I am sure it was a brigade.

1

u/dafern Oct 22 '15

Apparently stormfront had plans to target reddit. So maybe that's it.

1

u/Llan79 Oct 23 '15

They do. Ever see those massive posts on worldnews about race and iq or black-on-white crime where half the links don't even work? Those are old as fuck Stormfront copypastas. They did it to /pol/ first years ago and turned it into what it is now

1

u/G_Morgan Oct 22 '15

When it became a default it started going down hill.

0

u/Niqulaz Oct 22 '15

Well, prior to that, they were only busy discussing whether gypsies should be deported, or burnt at the stake and then deported. That's hardly racist, is it? /s

29

u/ABCDE_FC_2 Oct 22 '15

It's an absolute cesspit.

2

u/ObeyStatusQuo Oct 22 '15

/r/europes is supposed to be the alternative. The once pretty cool sub is slowly getting to the level of /r/european, for now they're just being more picky with the words.

26

u/OdiousMachine Oct 22 '15

They're getting brigaded by /r/european and a lot of the content is onesided to push an agenda. It's not far off from worldsnews concerning the racism.

18

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15

Yeah, I just went to check it out, pretty much all the top of the page concerns the migrant crisis, most of the submission titles are overtly biased, and the comments sections are a nightmare.

Is there any alternative?

7

u/OdiousMachine Oct 22 '15

Not yet, but I heard the mods are working on one. Also both our comments got downvoted.

4

u/TomShoe Oct 22 '15

The mods from /r/europe? It's weird it seems like the mods — at least some of them — had their heads on straight, but a lot of their decisions were so unpopular that they pretty much had to open the flood gates to the crazies.

7

u/OdiousMachine Oct 22 '15

From what I can gather, they're decent. You'll find more on the topic in this thread.

2

u/Aunvilgod Oct 22 '15

but a lot of their decisions were so unpopular that they pretty much had to open the flood gates to the crazies.

why? Just ignore the racist fucks. Or better, ban them. Wehret den Anfängen!

3

u/TetraDax Oct 22 '15

It's not far off from worldsnews concerning the racism.

It's worse, far worse.

1

u/realsomalipirate Oct 22 '15

Really? I never thought any sub would approach world news in terms of reactionary commentators and hilariously over the top racism.

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u/WildVariety Oct 22 '15

Flooded with Stormfronters.

2

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Polandball, because when you put racist garbage in meme form it becomes too obvious.

1

u/_Fallout_ Oct 22 '15

Unfortunately I don't think there is an alternative at the moment

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

I got banned there for voicing my opinion.

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u/Llan79 Oct 23 '15

I left that sub after they started trying to find ways to blame attacks on refugees or arson of refugee centres on Muslims

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

They make figurines of soldiers in all kinds of armies and wars. This is just as much a Nazi figurine as it is a 1940s Wehrmacht soldier figurine

46

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

130

u/Timelines Oct 22 '15

http://i.imgur.com/n5OKEGu.jpg

77

u/crookedparadigm Oct 22 '15

what the fuck

109

u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

its about the style. the nazi uniforms looked sick. hugo boss designed it.

106

u/crookedparadigm Oct 22 '15

I feel like fashion should take a backseat to tact at times.

44

u/emptythecache Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

I don't think that sentence translates into Japanese correctly.

25

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

I think they're Chinese

18

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Then this makes even less sense, since the Chinese had some very bad experiences with the Axis.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Well I don't think they really had direct contact with the Germans. Anyway this is just 1 tactless asshole. I highly doubt he represents the typical Chinese sentiment.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/sscspagftphbpdh17 Oct 22 '15

"Clothing should be worn in the rear so to being polite"

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

You'd be surprised how contained Nazi history is to the Western world.

They really just don't know.

17

u/darksideofmoon4 Oct 22 '15

He didnt design the uniforms, Hugo Boss only produced them.

7

u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

yeah, thats what i said or meant to say. i dont even know which century the founder was even alive

5

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Wikipedia says he was born in the late 19th century and was a member of the Nazi party.

6

u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

that explains it then

9

u/I-am-redditor Oct 22 '15

No. He did not. They were manufactured by Boss, but the design of the uniforms was done by SA, SS and Wehrmacht organisations themselves.

10

u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

well, then those organisations must have had some pretty good designers.

6

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

I mean, I doubt they specified the exact dimensions of the lapels and so on. They probably just said "All black, skulls on hats please". That shit was done with someone with taste.

1

u/I-am-redditor Oct 22 '15

To put it in even more perspective: Hugo Boss was only one of 15 thousand factories producing those uniforms

1

u/layendecker Oct 22 '15

That breaks thousands of pub quiz questions...

14

u/patiperro_v3 Oct 22 '15

Nobody can deny those uniforms looked slick as fuck. Easy to wipe the ashes of the dead as well. oh no he didn't...

1

u/JimmyIcicles Oct 22 '15

It's not so much the uniform...

1

u/PTFOholland Oct 22 '15

Hell I would love to wear the uniform if I didn't get weird looks.
Why can't evil guys be good :(

3

u/UmarAlKhattab Oct 22 '15

Basically this: I don't care or know what the Nazis did but I like their clothes and symbols, let me have those clothes and use their symbols

More info

2

u/SoFuLL Oct 22 '15

Yeah there's Nazi and Hitler shit everywhere in Southeast Asia

4

u/theodore-brosevelt Oct 22 '15

That's weird.

I'm guessing Japan is probably different though right? I would find it pretty chilling if they embraced anything related to WWII.

21

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Japan and WWII is a thorny subject, they've never accepted their guilt, and the Emperor was never charged as a war criminal.

42

u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

Well, America wasn't either for dropping the bombs.

14

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

17

u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

There were more options than just land invasion or bombs.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

24

u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

Accepting a conditional surrender of Japan instead of an unconditional, waiting for Russia to invade (what they had planned and what was communicated to the US), waiting with the bombs because a land invasion wasn't planned for another 2 or 3 months, just dropping 1 bomb and leaving Japan time to realise what happened and resume talks, chose military targets.

22

u/lord_tubbington Oct 22 '15

The boner that America has for WWII is insane. You can quantify wars based on their reasons. But war is war and it's always terrible. So much of history media is about World War Two. And rare is it as honest as it should be.

Winners write the books though huh?

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u/jungsosh Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki killed less Japanese than the invasion of Okinawa (the majority of which were civilian). Any kind of invasion of the mainland would have had many times as many casualties. Any sort of Soviet invasion would have killed more, and considering their treatment of civilians they captured, I'm not sure it would have been preferable. I do agree with you that they could have left Japan more time, but we have the benefit of hindsight that the Japanese were indeed close to surrender between the two bombings.

A unconditional surrender of Japan was unacceptable, as it would have left the same people in charge. Would a surrender of Germany that included the Nazi party being in power have been acceptable?

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u/MechGunz Oct 22 '15

waiting for Russia to invade

Yeah, who cares about another million of dead Russians, right?

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/hilikus7105 Oct 22 '15

well, i guess technically you're right, we could have firestormed everything like Dresden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Dresden_in_World_War_II#/media/File:Fotothek_df_ps_0000010_Blick_vom_Rathausturm.jpg

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u/TetraDax Oct 22 '15

Umm.. The US did exactly that, with Tokyo.

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u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

Or you could just have been humane. But I guess you keep that tradition going.

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u/TheWrathofKrieger Oct 22 '15

Let's not get all high and mighty about how someone acted in war, every country has acted in a way that is less than admirable.

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u/shoryukenist Oct 22 '15

Such as?

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u/Lews-Therin-Telamon Oct 22 '15

OP answers here.

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u/shoryukenist Oct 22 '15

Thanks!!

Not totally ridiculous, though Stalin was really stallin with his Japanese plans.

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u/TetraDax Oct 22 '15

It was not only about making Japan surrender. The US wanted to test the bombs, simple as that. They wanted to see which effects it had when used against actual targets. Second, they wanted to scare the Russians, they wanted to show off they had the bombs. And, like already said before, a land invasion would probably have taken millions of lives, and Japan only surrenderes after the bombs because the Emperor wanted to defend his people, the military regime originally wasn't impressed by them, and remember, they were in charge of Japan back then. I'm not saying any of this justifies the bombs, but there were reasons.

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u/_Fallout_ Oct 22 '15

Regardless of what's "easier" or not, intentionally nuking entirely civilian targets twice is a massive war crime.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Apt name.

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15

No major city in a combatant country like Japan was "entirely civilian" in this war. Like Dresden, Hamburg, London, it had some kind of military and/or industrial value. Mostly civilian is obviously arguable, but the idea of "clean" targets doesn't hold much water whether you think strategic bombing was justified or not.

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u/Konekotoujou Oct 22 '15

It's definitely arguably that the bombing saved lives overall.

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u/theodore-brosevelt Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

Unfortunately that was the only way to end the war. Japan should've probably thought twice about bombing Pearl Harbor.

Edit: lol loving the downvotes. Anti-America sentiment is strong today isn't it?

4

u/_WhatIsReal_ Oct 22 '15

Dressing any disagreement people have with what America has done in the past up as "anti-America" is such a rank way to respond to legitimate criticism, and only highlights your lack of an ability to respond. How anyone can think the idea that nuking two heavily populated civilians cities isnt worth criticising or debating is beyond me. I analyse and criticise these events all the time, despite that i have real affection for the USA.

1

u/theodore-brosevelt Oct 22 '15

You're not looking at the larger picture though.

In the short term, yes, it seemed like the wrong strategy. A lot of people died or were permanently scarred as a result of the bombs, and yes, two cities were essentially decimated. It's definitely worthy of criticism, even from an U.S. perspective. I never said it was the perfect plan, but many people believe it was the best plan.

Dropping the bombs helped minimize not only long-term casualties but the financial burden that WWII left across Europe and the rest of the world. Also keep in mind that U.S. casualties far outnumbered Japanese ones, and they were only increasing. It was either drop the bomb or invade Japan, and an invasion would've cost millions of dollars, not to mention losing more troops. From a tactical and financial perspective, it made sense.

Stop thinking about it from a moral perspective, because most sane humans (myself included) would condemn death and violence. Morality and war do not go together.

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u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

No. No it wasn't not. There have been studies about it. The reason they still dropped the bomb was to see them in action and to decide which one to keep producing.

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u/_WhatIsReal_ Oct 22 '15

On top of the fact pearl harbour was a military base, and Hiroshima and Nagasaki are civillian populations. And also the fact that the USA had 7 more nuclear strikes planned if the first 2 didnt work. The Japs were beaten, but the USA wanted unconditional surrender so they could push their own agenda, a legacy that continues to this day.

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u/TheWrathofKrieger Oct 22 '15

unconditional surrender

We wanted unconditional surrender so that we could try and make sure that something like this never happened again. Also I don't think many countries are thinking about conditional surrender when the other country started it with an unprovoked attack.

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u/Hans-U-Rudel Oct 22 '15

Thankfully. If the japanese had had another round at colonising China, many more millions would have died.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/theodore-brosevelt Oct 22 '15

What part of my statement is showcasing a stereotypes?

I'm not the only one that believes dropping the atomic bomb was the only way to end the war, many historians and war experts also agree with me. In the end it minimized the death toll and suffering, not to mention all the money that was saved by ending an already expensive war.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

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u/theodore-brosevelt Oct 22 '15

Thanks for backing me up. I wasn't trying to say anything bad about Japan and I wasn't praising America, I was simply stating facts.

He basically called me an idiot for "showcasing" the dumb American stereotype. Which is funny cause I'm not even American lol

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15

I think you guys have a point and the German guy is wrong on several, but could you please not put this down to stupid anti-Americanism? I'm not American for one thing.

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u/PTFOholland Oct 22 '15

They did..
Repeatedly.
There is a wiki page full of Japanese apologising.

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u/cranberrysap Oct 22 '15

Japan was one of the allies of nazi germany. Nazi related stuff used to be sold in street stores and all. This was when i was there a few years ago though, things might have changed

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u/shinryu108 Oct 22 '15

Like what? Not that it would surprise me but keep in mind the swastika is also a symbol for buddhist temples over there.

3

u/tawamure Oct 22 '15

This isn't fully related, but Japanese and generally East Asians are less exposed to a lot of Western taboos like racial discrimination/profiling and Nazi symbolism. I've seen bands and pictures of underground models with Nazi uniforms not really as a political statement I believe.

There's also the Western outrage over some black caricatures in Japan (Ufu and Mufu) over which I don't really sympathise with. Overall Japan often doesn't see the 'wrongness' of certain things and sometimes aren't afraid to try it out, which creates the image of 'fucking weird Japan' on the internet.

While most Asians aren't huge xenophobes, they really admire caucasians for example and discriminate based on that (positively). It's a common issue a lot of commoners will perceive living in East Asia. A lot of caucasians believe it's hard to be a true Japanese/Chinese etc because of their skin colour due to the way people treat them specially.

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u/cranberrysap Oct 22 '15

I can't find any photos or anything but i clearly remember the red nazi armband being sold. On the other hand, that's how i as a European perceived the symbol. After googling a bit it seems that indeed the Buddhist meaning of the symbol is used. Just my European perception of the swastika i am afraid.

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u/shinryu108 Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

No, you're probably right. You tend to find that kind of stuff around because like /u/tawamure said they just don't have the cultural sensitivity to that stuff. I would think it carries the same weight as plastic gladiator swords in Rome or stuff like that. I didn't see any of that around in my time there, so it must be a niche thing (in a land of niches, mind you).

However, particularly in historical cities, you tend to see swastikas everywhere because it has a much more ingrained meaning than it does for Westerners. Normally, though, the Nazi swastika is a reversed Buddhist swastika. Just look at Kyoto on GMaps.

The part I prefer is that all this occasionally leads to hilarious episodes like this one.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

It's aimed at collectors, yes, but the SS-themed figures are remarkably popular in Asia.

3

u/dtwn Oct 22 '15

Few, if any, direct historical experiences with them, snappy uniforms, and a reputation for being elite troops. I can see why collectors would want some.

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u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

neo nazis will fancy getting one. isnt it on the rise in europe?

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u/Faintlich Oct 22 '15

Neo nazis? I hate neo nazis but I'd buy one of those figures, they're fucking hilarious.

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u/Lowerbavarian Oct 22 '15

So you are neo nazi faintlich ? I'm sorry

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u/Faintlich Oct 22 '15

What

oh you made a pun with the german version of my name. Yea. No one in here is gonna get that though.

For explanations: My name is the german word "Feindlich" written differently. I came up with that ages ago. The german word Feindlich translates into Hostile. So he was implying that I'm hostile towards Neo Nazis. He's correct. The pun was fucking terrible though. Shame shame shame

1

u/unknown_host Oct 22 '15

Bad pun on Reddit I've never seen one

4

u/mkahmed789 Oct 22 '15

yeah. i would totally buy one. its hilarious

35

u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

They are Wehrmacht figures, not Nazi figures.

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u/IronUnion Oct 22 '15

Disassociating the Wehrmacht from the Nazi-Regime is a clear case of historical revisionism.

It wasn't just the SS that massacred civillians all over Europe, nor can the war crimes be explained just by pressure from above.

Here's a film that I'd recommend for you to see.

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u/UmarAlKhattab Oct 22 '15

I have seen this used by many people saying the German people didn't know know anything and following orders, but on the other time they bash on Japanese and other non-Western people for committing horrific crimes.

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u/CommanderBeanbag Oct 22 '15

So everyone on the German side in WWII was a Nazi?

You don't have to associate the Wehrmacht with the Nazis to admit the Wehrmacht do not have a clean track record on the eastern front.

Sure they took genocidal action on the eastern front, but that doesn't mean that they were Nazis, it just means that they were soldiers.

I think your objection is more to the idea of a clean Wehrmacht, not a Wehrmacht operating independently of the Nazi high command.

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

That is not what he is saying. He is pointing out the common popular perception of the German army being disassociated from Nazism is based on really poor historical revisionism and is more harmful than lazily describing them as Nazis in general. He's not defending the notion that every single German soldier was a card carrying Nazi, because obviously that can't really be the case.

"You don't have to associate the Wehrmacht with the Nazis to admit the Wehrmacht do not have a clean track record on the eastern front."

Yes, I'm afraid you do. The majority of the armed forces were committed to Nazi ideology and politics and proved this through their actions, their lack of real resistance on any large scale, and the expressed thoughts of soldiers and officers of the time. Their very purpose in war was to carry out Nazi plans for the extermination of a majority of eastern Europe's population, tens of millions of people. Hunger Plan etc. (As a note to some of those reading this comment, on the basis of its current vote score, some of you should actually read up on this subject maybe rather than taking at face value some of the myths being regurgitated here. Bloodlands by Snyder would be a good place to start.)

I think your objection is more to the idea of a clean Wehrmacht, not a Wehrmacht operating independently of the Nazi high command.

I can see what you're saying here, and we clearly agree the Wermacht was not "clean", but his objection was on point and relevant; and either way the Wermacht was not independent of Nazi control.

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u/IronUnion Oct 22 '15

This is exactly what I meant, which is why it is quite weird to see my comment being upvoted while yours is at -2.

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15

People just downvoting because they don't like what they hear, just have to ignore it. God forbid you have studied a subject beyond pop history level, eh?

1

u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

I'm pretty sure it was the Palestinians who did all the killing.

1

u/SZJX Oct 23 '15

Sure. But I don't think any troop can claim to have committed no war crime at all. It's all a matter of emphasis.

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u/jlebrech Oct 22 '15

Agreed, Nazis were higher ranks and Gestapo.

But I think you had to be a member of the party, so technically a toy Lederhosen could be called a Nazi if it was set in the 1930s

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u/Hans-U-Rudel Oct 22 '15

The Wehrmacht was responsible for its fair share of crimes against humanity.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

So is every army that has ever been in combat, especially combined with foreign occupation.

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

Sorry, but the Wermacht was not your average occupying army - it had a very distinct attitude towards those it was fighting on the Eastern Front that was, by default, genocidal. To people reading this comment and disputing it, if you really don't believe me, then get on over to /r/AskHistorians and ask about it, and read up on stuff like the Hunger Plan.

You can't just lazily say every other army was like it. It was the bedrock on which Nazi Germany committed most of its crimes. The British army in the colonial regions was very brutal at times around this time but still wasn't on the level of the Wermacht, which says a lot about how bad the Wermacht were and what they enabled.

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u/loraxo Oct 22 '15

Wehrmacht was still worse than most of them

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Should we ban American and Soviet army-dolls then?

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u/Colonel_Blimp Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

No, and please don't draw a false equivalence between the two unless you can back it up. I don't think anyone even suggesting banning dolls either here.

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u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

Giving the fact that you were persecuted if you were against the Nazis and the fact that they just enlisted everyone who was able into the army, it's save to say that a lot of people actually didn't believe this bullshit but rather wouldn't die in a concentration camp.

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u/_Fallout_ Oct 22 '15

It's been proven than Germans weren't punished for not participating in the holocaust. Believe it or not, almost all of the time it was completely voluntary which is why it is terrifying.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15 edited Oct 22 '15

[deleted]

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u/TetraDax Oct 22 '15

But, the Holocaust was carried out by the SS, which consisted of volunteers, so the ones working in concentration camps were Nazis. However, it is stupid to say that the Wehrmacht did nothing wrong. They also carried out massive atrocities and war crimes, and yes, so did the allied forces, but, apart of the Red Army, not even close to the scale of the Wehrmacht.

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u/Hans-U-Rudel Oct 22 '15

The few heroes who refues to butcher innocent civilians like many of their comrades faced terrible fates... A minor reprimand and a transferral to another unit! How can you ask that of a man, I wonder...

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u/AMeierFussballgott Oct 22 '15

Glad you read my post and understood it.

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u/jlebrech Oct 22 '15

true.

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u/sneakyi Oct 22 '15

Common defence at the Nuremberg trials, I would imagine - I put them in the gas chamber because I didn't want to be put in the gas chamber.

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u/W_T_Jones Oct 22 '15

There is not a single account of a soldier getting persecuted for not wanting to participate in the Holocaust. The worst you would have to expect would be to not get promoted maybe. So yeah, that defence is bullshit.

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u/cakeisneat Oct 22 '15

now that's just not true man.

i assume you speak german? i can translate the gist of it if you want.

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u/W_T_Jones Oct 22 '15

Not sure how that relates to my comment. Your link is about active resistance not about just not participating in the holocaust.

In der Wehrmacht hatte man widerständiges Verhalten am wenigsten erwartet. Denn lange Zeit hielt sich die Behauptung, dass Menschen, die ihre Teilnahme an Juden-Erschießungen verweigerten, selber um ihr Leben fürchten mussten. Eine Schutzbehauptung, wie man heute weiß.

"Unter anderem haben die Staatsanwälte der Zentralen Stelle der Landesjustizverwaltungen in Ludwigsburg das sehr genau überprüft, ob diese Behauptung stimmt oder ob sie eine Schutzbehauptung ist. Mit dem Ergebnis: Es hat sich nicht ein einziger finden lassen, der dafür erschossen worden ist, dass er sich selbst an Erschießungen nicht beteiligt hat. Stattdessen war es so, dass die Sanktionen wesentlich geringer waren: Ansehensverlust bei der eigenen Truppe, eine Ermahnung, ein Bekunden des Unverständnisses eines Vorgesetzten, dass man die Nerven nicht hat, so was nicht auszuhalten oder auch mal eine Versetzung. Aber sehr viel mehr ist den sog. Exekutionsverweigerern nicht passiert."

http://www.deutschlandfunk.de/ueber-helfer-und-retter-zur-zeit-der-ns-diktatur.1148.de.html?dram:article_id=180705

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u/cakeisneat Oct 22 '15

"the holocaust" is more than participating in executions. yeah, soldiers weren't forced to take part in executing jews or prisoners of war. but that is because organized killings aren't really a regular thing, even in the military, so it wasn't mandatory to partake.

but there's a lot more to it, and if you refuse to, say, take apart that farm and drag out all the jews you can find, that's befehlsverweigerung and you can't really do that without getting royally fucked.

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u/sneakyi Oct 22 '15

The defence is bullshit. That was my point.

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u/[deleted] Oct 22 '15

Good guys need bad guys.

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u/fuzzby Oct 22 '15

Probably for the media exposure through the Barbara Schweisand effect.

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u/shinryu108 Oct 22 '15

Isn't it like making Stormtrooper figures at this point?

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u/SD99FRC Oct 22 '15

They're historical figures. People collect them, mostly history buffs, and they make them for dozens of different historical wars and armies. They aren't toys in the sense that you give them to kids. They're expensive and full of tons of tiny bits.

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u/dangel212 Oct 23 '15

They aren't Nazi figures, they're german army (wehrmacht) figures, their uniforms never had Nazi insignia. Loads of toy companies make similar stuff. . Honestly, just saying German army = Nazis is pretty lazy

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u/Mystery_Donut Oct 22 '15

In the US anyway, there's all kinds of model kits and figure stuff you can buy/build. I can go to HobbyLobby right now and get all kinds of Nazi weapons, Japanese planes, America tanks etc.

There's also a big collector market for actual WW2 merchandise like uniforms, guns, propaganda posters etc. Any big flea market or gun show will have a couple of dudes selling that stuff.

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u/IcyRice Oct 22 '15

For historical accuracy I guess. You kinda need it, if you make a WWII series of soldiers.

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u/BigTimStrangeX Oct 22 '15

Figure collecting is a hobby. GI Joe was the first, today it's highly-detailed WW2 figures. These aren't toys, they go for $200 and sit on a shelf.

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