German soldiers taught to "think of American blacks" when firing their weapons.

[NNadir]

BERLIN, Germany (AP) -- A video showing a German army instructor telling one of his soldiers to envision African-Americans in the Bronx while firing his machine gun was broadcast Saturday on national television.

The video, coming after scandals involving photos of German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan and the abuse of recruits by instructors, seemed likely to raise more questions about training practices in Germany's conscript army.

"We can no longer talk about an isolated case," said Lt. Juergen Rose of the Darmstaedter Signal, a group of current and former army officers and sergeants who independently review military procedures...

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/europe/04/14/germany.race.ap/index.html

So much for "never again."

Very few of the German machine gunners from the Einsatzgruppen, the German Army units that machine gunned human beings at the edges of the pits that became mass graves, are alive today, but in light on that irrevocable stain on the German army, one would think that racism would be verboten.

[Uncle Joe]

1. This is disgusting

Thanks for the thread NNadr

Kicked and recommended

[Daedelus76]

2. maybe...

... but could just be wierd European sensibilities. Felattio with skulls? Sounds like something out of a Rammstein video.

Imagining shooting blacks, though, sort of crosses over from just wierd to wrong. Get your troops pumped up in some other way.

BTW, I once had a substitute teacher in school who was indeed an Afrodeutsch living in the US on some kind of visa. He didn't say much, and spoke English with a German accent. Talk about bizarre, though- it breaks alot of preconceptions. That's sort of like being a Muslim in Japan, I guess. They have them, it's just their lives probably are one discomfort after another

[rockymountaindem]

3. Oh no, NNadir...

Please remember that the Einsatzgruppen were special detachments of men, not soldiers, wholly seperate from the Whermacht. Their horrific crimes don't besmirch the honor of the German Army, full of soldiers who were just fighting for their homeland having been duped by Hitler through his machinations. When you see pictures of German soldiers in WWII, you must think of them as victims of both Stalin and Hitler, no less abused than the victims of concentration camps. If only someone sane like Doenitz had led the Reich from the start, things would have worked out differently, and much better.

This, of course, must be taken with :sarcasm: times one million. It's a steaming pile of shit. However, it's as best I can do to paraphrase some things I've heard from *Americans* who are a little too enamored with the history of the Reich, if you know what I mean.

[Jonathan50]

27. My mother drove a double decker London bus during the Blitz

I'm not one to be defending Nazis.

However I do think that many of the ordinary soldiers of the Wehrmacht, the Luftwaffe and the Kreigsmarine were victims of the Nazis. Not to the extent of those who went to the camps perhaps, but they were victims nonetheless.

The same way that our troops in Iraq are victims of Bushie and the Republicans.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

29. My father was a guest of the 3rd Reich

He was a B-17 co-pilot, shot down over the town of Huls. Upon landing in his parachute, he was intentionally shot in the legs by the German soldiers who captured him. In the prisoner-of-war hospital he said the Catholic Nuns spit on him. On the train while being taken to the POW camp Stalag Luft III, the train conductor kept going up and down the train compartment with a stick, prodding the wounded POWs right in their wounds. The noble Luftwaffe systematically strafed the long lines of fleeing civilian refugees on the roads in the countries they attacked, as the German invasions moved forward. The order was given to kill civilians on the roads and destroy civilian cars and buses so it would make the military defense of the invaded countries more difficult and clog up the road systems. And the German fighter pilots carried it out, shooting at fleeing women and children. Everywhere the German army went, the conquered people were starved into submission, given erzatz food barely fit for a dog while all the real food was shipped back to Germany and to the German army. Just the number of people who died from starvation without even being sent to a camp by the Germans, whether it was in Poland, France, Belgium, the Ukraine, or elsewhere was staggering. As a POW, my father came in contact with civilians and soldiers alike and he described Germany in World War II as an armed camp where everyone was a faithful soldier for Hitler; men, women and children. It wasn't just the Einsatzgruppen. There may have been German soldiers who only wanted to fight other soldiers. But the barbarity that the Germans displayed everywhere they went was far more widespread than just confined to the activities of certain S.S. units. I think somehow Hitler managed to brainwash nearly an entire generation into being pure arrogant barbarians who thought they were superior to everyone else and so they could suspend common human decency toward others.

[NNadir]

28. The Einsatzgruppen were Waffen SS.

It is something of a distortion to represent that they "were not soldiers."

The Waffen SS participated in many German combat operations.

Here is some information on the Jaeger report, an official report from Einsatzgruppen A, noting that some members (141 out of 990) were drawn from the Wehrmacht:

http://www.holocaust-history.org/works/jaeger-report/htm/intro001.htm?lang_from=de

German soldiers were not "fighting for their homeland." They were brutally attacking other people's homelands. Stalingrad was not in Bavaria.

As for Doenitz, after the war he was asked what Germans should remember about Hitler. He said, "the wonderful way he solved the German unemployment problem."

Indeed.

I wouldn't characterize Doenitz as "sane." We was a war criminal, was tried, convicted, and imprisoned. While he wasn't Himmler, he hardly was Mother Theresa. The outbreak of the Second World War was characterized by deceit and distortions that make Cheney look amateurish. Participation in this war was criminal, especially at any senior level. Hitler thought so well of Doenitz that he appointed him as his successor. That says volumes.

[rockymountaindem]

30. No need to tell me

Like I said, these pro-Axis revisionists are nuts.

[TomInTib]

4. de-sensitivity training

Everybody does it, they just use different images.

My own personal image was of someone who had just killed my Mother. I could justify anything with that.

Sounds as if the Germans have Imus writing their scripts.

[tabasco]

5. I think this stuff is harder to hide/cover-up in the German army

because they do have universal male conscription. Since they have a fairly representative cross-section of the population in the military, not everybody would appreciate this disgusting conduct and it is uncovered before it rises to the level of an Abu Ghraib.

At least the Germans found out about the problem and will work to eradicate it before it does become a war crime like Abu Ghraib.

[Karenina]

10. They do NOT have universal male conscription.

Everyone must do "Zivildienst" and there are choices involved.

You are quite correct, Tabasco, that when this kind of shit comes out it is SWIFTLY dealt with. The publicizing of such incidents has another history and purpose. ;-)

[tabasco]

12. All males have to do civil or military service, correct?

That is what I call universal conscription. I don't think the term conscription necessarily implies military service, but I suppose "national service" would be a better term.

Both of my girlfiend's brothers had to do their service, and their family is fairly well-to-do. One went army, one went navy, but I am aware there are civil service options as well.

I am a supporter of a system like Germany's in the US.

[Karenina]

16. Yes, you're correct.

If you aren't into the military option, by golly-gee you'll be working with children, young people, the disabled or old folks.

[Bucky]

6. from the land of Milli Vanilli.

It's pretty appalling, but it's not uniquely German. As Europe starts to "brown" from immigration, we'll hear more and more of this sort of thing.

[RB TexLa]

7. Not much of a stretch to think what the british tell theirs to think of

[ellacott]

8. This is shameful

and proof that racism is still alive.

[AspenRose]

9. Why black americans?

Funny they didn't say "people from the Caribbean" or "blacks from Britain" or "people from Central Africa." Or just blacks in general. They said black AMERICANS.

Naturally, as a mixed race American who was BORN in Germany, this is quite disturbing to me....we lived with a German family while my dad was stationed there and our family was treated better by the Germans than by fellow Americans at the time (it was during the 60s and the Civil Rights thing was in full swing).

When my best friend and her husband (a dark skinned hispanic) were stationed there in the 90s, she feared for his safety after dark because she was afraid he'd be beaten up by German locals, being mistaken as a Middle Easterner. Wow, what a disappointing shift.

[NormanYorkstein]

14. US soldiers stationed in Germany

[AspenRose]

21. It wasn't always this way

Like I said above, a lot of Germans in the 60s saw what was going on in the US during the Civil Rights Movement and sympathized with the plight of blacks in America.

It has to be more than that....

[Karenina]

24. HOLLYWOOD!

Ami Kultur-terror!!! :evilgrin:

[Jonathan50]

26. You beat me to it.

Hollywood indeed.

[Alexander]

23. Jesse Owens maybe?

:shrug:

[riverdeep]

11. Do the Germans see a lot of American TV?

Maybe seeing it scares the crap out of them since we show blacks commiting violent crimes and such, and then transferred that fear. I know a lot of Japanese are told to stay away from blacks and black neighborhoods or they'll be killed instantly, a trumped up fear.

[coco77]

15. Thats what our mainstream media gives the world...

but when they want to fight a war they expect blacks to jump to the front of the line...

[AspenRose]

19. I agree

Exporting racism. Anyone remember the BBC radio personality who interviewed Halle Berry a while back? Basically said the same thing on the air (trying to imitate a black New Yorker with a gun)....

[Solly Mack]

13. that's fucked up

just straight up and down fucked up

[Karenina]

17. That guy has just nuked himself!

:rofl: NO EXCUSES. He's HISTORY.

[Solly Mack]

18. He really has. Showed D this article and his first words were "He's gone"

[windy252]

20. K & R n/t

The person who advised this should be fired.

[Karenina]

25. Don't worry your beautiful mind about it.

It will be dealt with post-haste.

[Forkboy]

22. I clicked on this hoping to find an obscure WW2 reference...

:wtf: