Ghost of a flea

Missing from Spiegel: Any sense Germany brought this ruin upon itself.

There are some jarring notes in that piece*, but seriously: How much longer does the ritual self-flagellation have to continue? Is any acknowlegment of German suffering tantamount to condoning Nazi atrocities?

* eg. "But the photographic series was probably not intended to educate but rather to serve as a crude reward for the winning side's soldiers and pilots..."

If Spiegel wants me to look at the ruins with anything except a sense of satisfaction at a job well done then, yes, some self-flagellation is in order.

The Spiegel piece will have to speak for itself. My complaint is against the all-or-nothing stance you seem to require. I can't see why a perfectly respectable position isn't something like 1.) awe & admiration over the military prowess displayed combined with 2.) dismay & horror over the destruction while 3.) agreeing it was necessary and 4.) feeling sorrow over that necessity yet 5.) not regretting that it was done. Certainly that would be a better sentiment for Germans to hold than the self-loathing too often demanded of them, or the comforts of amnesia and the cult of victimhood too easily embraced.

Pictured is the Buchenwald concentration camp, near Weimar, where more than 50,000 people were murdered by the Nazis.

Not us Germans.
Those Nazis.

Bremen looks like it got a pasting, but Hamburg seems alarmingly intact.