On November 23 2012 07:53 sephiria wrote:Show nested quote +On November 23 2012 06:22 Tula wrote:On November 15 2012 17:51 zatic wrote:On November 15 2012 06:59 sephiria wrote:
Today, research about the second world war is heavily restricted in Germany. The outcome is clear beforehand, getting exact numbers is close to impossible (and if you ask professors where they even got their numbers in the first place, you just made a new enemy, because they don't have a source, just an ideology and estimates from the 40's or 50's).
This is unworthy of a liberal and democratic country.
I am sorry can you explain that? I have worked in research on the Third Reich in Germany and it was nothing like that. I also don't know what you mean by "getting exact number is close to impossible". I experienced the exact opposite.
agreed with zatic, obviously from my location I live in Austria, but it is easily possible to get numbers (as a researcher) here,
and I know for a fact that you can order the same books through almost any german university.Yes some aspects are restricted (if you want to cast doubts on the holocaust you better have some very impressive research to back that up), but we've had that discussion about the verbotsgesetzte before, no real reason to go over it again.
Summa summarum, if you want to write a research paper on WW 2 or any aspect of Nazi Germany, feel free. Of course it might be slightly difficult finding a topic which hasn't been done 200 times before, but that is another matter.
I deliberately try to avoid everything about WW2 in a professional environment, because I don't want to base my work on stuff I don't experience as waterproof. Problems I generally encountered are closely related to victim numbers on both sides.
Namely the Rheinwiesenmassaker, the victim numbers of the Holocaust (these have always been a joke because they have been corrected like every few years between 1945 and 1990, also there were instances of pictures of Dresden's citizens sold as Holocaust victims, the last one probably qualifies as fraud but the main point still stands).
And there is still the rumor of a neonazi testing the walls of auschwitz for gas residua. He couldn't find any but was arrested for illegal testing or sth. like that, the polish government repeated the tests but couldn't find anything, too. After that the issue just vanished.
One of my university teachers, a respected historian who got his PHD about WW2 and was offered a proffessorship in his late 20's (which he declined) responded to me when confronted with my questions that there just exist proof for 1/20 of victims in the matter. The rest is pulled out of thin air. And he advised me not to contest the official numbers (even if I had proof) for obvious reasons.
I don't say that everything is made up, I think it is way more likely that most things are true, what bothers me is that nobody seems to be allowed to contest that problem, thus, I will never take anyone seriously who got his degree by writing about these aspects of WW2 without presenting actual sources. (Concering that topic: books written by a historian are NOT facts, I am looking for sources not for a paper written by a green-party voter)
There are even professors running around stating that they can proof that there was a 'Führerbefehl' concerning the Holocaust. As far as I know the Nazis were intelligent enough not to write anything down regarding that. So that statement immediately transforms the scientist into a party-goon.
I am not interested in playing down the aspects of war or the atrocities comitted by organisations, people or nations (above I stated that I would have ended up in a gas chamber as well if I had lived in the 30s/40s). I am just a critical mind who does not want to accept unreasonable taboos.
On the matter of diversity of opinions in german universities I would like to point to the case of Martin van Creveld (regarded by the international community as a military genius) and his short appereance in Trier. He (as a professor) apparently was kicked out of the university because he presented a thesis which did not fit into feminist ideology.
http://www.welt.de/kultur/history/article13693394/Wenn-Maenner-sich-schlagen-erregt-das-die-Frauen.html He basically says that men enjoy war and conflict and that women are attracted specifically to men successful in these conflicts.
I have to add that I personally have never had a problem with political correctness, though there was an arguement that occured because someone else in his first term said Reichskristallnacht and immediately someone was screaming nazi (though that was a student and not a professor)
Maybe I do perceive the general situation differently but I cant really test it because if I am right I'm playing with my future if I do.
To the bold part: You either did not understand what I meant (well, I did not really explain that in my last post, so my fault) or you are not a historian.
EPT
