From: Eberhard Weber (glosys@PSNW.COM)
Date: Wed Apr 10 2002 - 02:47:54 PDT
Responding to Danielle - In the archives you will find me as the "Berlin Schoolboy". I was too young to become a Hitleryouth member, and instead of having to "settle" for being a member of the "Jungvolk", the precursor to the Hitleryouth, I would have given anything back then to be a member of the Hitleryouth. As a child one sees the world as it is presented. One lacks the context, perspective and meaning that comes lateron when we look back in order to balance what we know now with what we knew "before". And it is the priviledge of ignorance to pontificate on things we know nothing about. So be patient with those who retrospectively read into the Hitleryouth or even into our own history of the United States things we have no experiental basis for nor understanding of context. I suspect we all are guilty of the same thing in other areas of concern to us today. And this is what Tom is trying to rectify - to balance the loading we all do against experiences had by a few who lived through these times, on whatever side fortune placed us at that time. On the subject and concerns you expressed, let me suggest that the word "Hitleryouth" does not describe everything that went on everywhere in Germany within the age group affected. In most instances, I believe (I did not make a study of it, though) the Hitleryouth was just a bunch of kids wanting to be part of "the action". And the "action" was rather benign. Drums, fanfares, uniforms, songs, discipline, hierarchy - all that is what kids anywhere and everywhere seek, and in the Hitleryouth they found it in camping, marching, in the imposed order and discipline. We "belonged". That's about all there was to it. All? No. Not all. There were leaders with agenda, from finding fertile grounds for political convictions parroted with not an ounce of understanding, idealising without examination, justifying actions on grounds no more complex than just doing was was "the thing" to do. To smash the windows of jewish establishments, to burn books. That was "the right thing" to do. Which 14-18 year old youngster has any geopolitical understanding? Fortunately I do not have to deal with the guilt of having participated in the events so glaringly amplified through the actions of a few which slants the entire perspective on the Hitleryouth movement in hindsight, over a period of decades and over a culture and values gap wider than the Grand Canyon. Was what happened in the "Kristall Nacht" all that the Hitleryouth stood for?" It was NOT!!. Were there excesses? YES!! But labels are labels, and today we all do very much the same thing. Different labels, different cultures, different technologies, different values, different beliefs, different training, different ages to discuss it all. In the end we are all the same as we were in the Jungvolk, the Hitleryouth, or even worse. Admittedly I am tired now, I have seen too many things, tried hard to reconciliate the years of my youth with the hindsight of all of our well meaning pontificators. It would make me feel a great deal better if I saw any evidence of learning from the past. But that is not the way it works. Can you cite ONE example where we learned from the past?? If you do, PLEASE!!! advise me. I long for some vidence of that sort. I am not sure, Danielle, whether I answered, or was responsive to your concerns. But here it is, for whatever it may be worth. Eberhard Weber The Berlin Schoolboy ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Buy Stock for $4 and no minimums. FREE Money 2002. http://us.click.yahoo.com/k6cvND/n97DAA/ySSFAA/r1FolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: timewitnesses-unsubscribe@egroups.com Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/