Comment by actionfromafar

4 days ago

It's not that simple. Culturally, East Germany never looked back and confronted what had been done. It more like, "moved on under new direction".

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actionfromafar

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orwin  4 days ago

Yeah, i think the memory work West Germany did is more long-lasting and better than what East germany did.

But i was responding to someone implying that East germany inherited the Stasi from the nazi power structure and personnel, which is categorically false. The US wanted to keep the power/legal structure, hence the sham Nuremberg trials, the myth about how the Wehrmacht and the German police didn't participate in the genocide or in slavery (the STO in france was just that), it was all SS and a lot of other myth deployed at this time period. The soviet on the other hand purged most of the rot, and replaced it with their own.

That's also a proof that rehabilitation is better than punishment overall for a society, even if you base it on small lies.