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| Europe |
| 31% of Austrians favorably reflect on Nazis |
| 2004-08-10 |
| By ASSOCIATED PRESS Aug. 9, 2004 21:36 VIENNA - More than a third of "Nazi era was in some ways positive," and a big "hello" from Joerg Haider. But Peter Uhlram of the Fessel-GfK Institute, which conducted the survey, cautioned against inferring from the poll results that anti-Semitism is widespread in Austria. No, never. It's the French! Most who believed life was in some ways good under Hitler likely looked back at developments other than the Holocaust as the positive sides of Nazi rule, such as construction of the first "Those slimy Jews deserved what they got. All we rightful Germans wanted were superhighways and more jobs Uhlram said 31 percent of 4,000 respondents over 15 agreed with the statement that the Nazi era had "good and bad" elements, compared to 47% in 1987. All this means is that 16% of the Austrian population has died since the last poll. |
| Posted by:Zenster |
| #10 Austrians were particularly vicious toward Jews in the days preceding krystallnacht. When Hitler marched into Austria, the Austrians had a lot catching up to do in a short amount of time to equal the Germans. Hence the particular nastiness in Austria. I lived in Austria for a year more than two decades ago. While it was not unusual to see "Polnische schweine" spray painted on walls, and separate dining halls for Austrians, the kindest people I have ever met and will meet in my life, were in fact Austrians, during my stay there. |
| Posted by: Rafael 2004-08-10 22:54 |
| #9 (#4 Nazis are rivaled only by Islamists as scum of the earth). Funny, I dont recall the Nazis killing 3000 American citizens in one day. To put the Nazis and the Islamic Terrorists on the same level just shows your ignorance. There are many degrees of evil, learn the difference. |
| Posted by: BombIranNow 2004-08-10 22:43 |
| #8 the fact that all thinking people are currently obliged to denouce such a horror as Nazism? Once you have a malignancy like the Third Reich in focus using 20/20 hindsight, there is nothing "good" or "favorable" to been seen in Nazism unless you are an anti-Semite maybe they're transplanted French? |
| Posted by: Frank G 2004-08-10 22:08 |
| #7 And how does the relatively insular comfort of some wartime Germans or Austrians alter the fact that all thinking people are currently obliged to denouce such a horror as Nazism? Once you have a malignancy like the Third Reich in focus using 20/20 hindsight, there is nothing "good" or "favorable" to been seen in Nazism unless you are an anti-Semite. Soft pedaling the Holocaust is morally bankrupt. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-10 22:05 |
| #6 Aris, stop that! I'm agreeing with you! Under the Nazis I'm sure the average Fritz led a mostly quiet, fairly prosperous life as long as he kept his nose clean and stayed out of politix, at least up until the last. The Jews/Gypsies/Slavs/other üntermenschen were their own problem, nothing to do with "us." Sure, Sönny got drafted into the Wehrmacht, but that was what happened to young Teutons. It wasn't until the war got started in earnest that things got tough, and even then most people probably blamed the allies more than the regime, up until the last. |
| Posted by: Fred 2004-08-10 19:50 |
| #5 Well, Zenster, be fair! They did give the world the Volkswagen...! |
| Posted by: GreatestJeneration 2004-08-10 17:19 |
| #4 Dcreeper, I also take issue with you that anything of good came out of the Nazi regime. There is not one single, medical procedure, technological advance or scientific discovery made by the Nazis that allied countries were not already on the road to. Keeping German rocket scientists out of Communist hands was a priority, but we still would have gotten to the moon, regardless. Your attempts to rationalize Nazism, no matter how slight, are simply revolting. Nazis are rivaled only by Islamists as |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-10 17:17 |
| #3 I beg to differ. Nazism is one ideology that should be universally condemned. Those who cannot bring themselves to do so are morally deficient. Trying to whitewash Nazism even to the least degree is reprehensible at best and usually accompanied by some form of Holocaust denial. Support for Joerg Haider's Hitler-admiring party doesn't come out of thin air and Austria needs to put their house in order. |
| Posted by: Zenster 2004-08-10 16:13 |
| #2 This poll is crap for a simple reason -- because the answer "has good and bad elements" says nothing about which elements were more important. "Has good and bad elements" is a superset of *both* "was almost exclusively bad" and "was almost exclusively good". But the article dishonestly tries to imply that such an answer means that the people thought those elements were equal, by contrasting them with answers that say "mostly good" or "mostly bad". Crappy crappy article about crappy crappy poll, it seems to me. |
| Posted by: Aris Katsaris 2004-08-10 15:43 |
| #1 'Uhlram said 31 percent of 4,000 respondents over 15 agreed with the statement that the Nazi era had "good and bad" element' eh. don't be rabid about it, good things DID result from the nazi regime, denying it is silly. easy example: nazi docs did nasty immoral experiments, they learned quite a bit about the human body, jumping modern medical knowledge forward. the bad : Nasty experiments the good: big leap in medical understanding thus we have both good and bad parts as the 31% correctly stated, everyone else is either afraid to admit the truth or under educated on the subject |
| Posted by: Dcreeper 2004-08-10 15:23 |