Nazis and Boy Scouts

[Otto Sell]

s~Z wrote:
"strange watching two men I have grown to like a lot seeing so much evil in
each other."

Having avoided up to now taking part in this discussion because I´m a German
("as the saying goes - an old woman is always uneasy when dry bones are
mentioned in a proverb" - Chinua Achebe), but now coming home after a twelve
hour taxi night  (31 rides) I get 38 mails including your answer to the hj
vs boyscout thing of Kai and Doug - RIGHT YOU ARE.

First of all I don´t agree with Doug on the question of a moderated list -
but would stay if this open list would become one like he stays although he
has another opinion on the status quo. I think Kai´s comment was
inappropriate in language, ´cause Doug certainly has no censorship in mind
when he thinks of a slightly edited list. But the ones who stay outside stay
outside for whatever reasons they may have. Everybody is free to open his
own list. So quality isn´t the thing but I guess time is a big reason for
many people for not getting into every thread.

Kai - watch your words, please (but only a little)
Getting personal is no solution (bad word in this context, I know, better
say ´way`) and as a German I would never apply "nazi" to someone from
another nation.
Not all Germans were nazis but certainly all nazis were Germans, even the
Dutch, Austrian, Hungarian or whatever ones because these countries didn´t
exist anymore as sovereign states, were part of the nazi imperium. The
Spanish and Italian fascists were fascists but no German nazis, not those
ones who are responsible for the biggest crime in human
history, the Holocaust.
Goldhagen may be right or wrong but when they talked about the number of
Germans more or less involved in the extermination they were shocked about
the one million, claiming it must have been less, I always thought: No, it
must be more, much more. The knowledge what was going on in those camps
outside the original "Reichsgebiet" was widespread.
It was common German language (still in the sixties) to say "Ich habe beim
Doktor mal wieder bis zur Vergasung gewartet" if you´ve waited for hours.
You know what German Bundeswehr soldiers called their gas masks? "Adolf
Eichmann Hobbyshop."
If Pynchon leaves the Holocaust out of GR it´s because it was not
appropriate for him to write about that topic in the seventies and I fully
agree with Domine Vobiscuit´s today´s post on that:
"I think Pynchon is forcing his readers to call upon historical knowledge to
to fill in those gaps that he leaves textually marginalized."

So really let´s get back to the books.

Otto

"I am an animal, you see that. I don't have the words, they didn't teach me
the words. I don't know how to think,
the bastards didn't let me learn how to think. But if you really are ...
all-powerful ... all-knowing ... then you figure it out! Look into my heart.
I know that everything you need is in there. It has to be. I never sold my
soul to anyone! It's mine, it's human! You take from me what it is I want
... it just can't be that I would  want something bad! Damn it all, I can't
think of anything, except those words of his ...'HAPPINESS  FOR EVERYBODY,
FREE, AND NO ONE WILL GO AWAY UNSATISFIED!' "
(Strugatzki: Roadside Picknick, very pynchonesque)