Musings of a Dumb Ass

Musings of a Dumb Ass.......I had a German visitor in my home last night who has been in America for many years and still has a very thick German accent. I had a couple of trips to Germany that added up to about three months total some years ago. My occasion called for me to travel extensively in the country and I saw about everything to be seen, so we had quite a bit to talk about. My visitor was a child in post-war Germany and soon our conversation turned to WW2 and what did I think about Hitler. This person was taken by my curiosity about Hitler and amazed when I produced his book 'Mein Kampf' which I've had many years and have read more than once. As we talked it was my turn to be amazed at how little the German in my living room knew about the man who intended to conquer the world, and failing that, still changed the face of our world forever. There's a guilt carried by Germans in the company of Americans about the things that happened in Germany and of the behaviour of the Germans with the concentration camps that doesn't hold true with all Germans in Germany. When I was there I ventured far away from the American military bases, and in the German hinterland I didn't get the same hint of guilt from the old men in the gasthouses that the more urban might display. In fact, I felt a definite feeling of resentment in some of the places I wandered through. There's a thing about war and winners and losers that often time and events gloss over making winners the good guys and losers the bad, earned or not. I seen WW2 as a particularly brutal and destructive action but I've never lost sight of the players in it and find the leaders of all sides fascinating, especially Hitler. In our crazy world we're not supposed to think bad thoughts and by all means support our leaders no matter what, and only see the other side as evil. While I don't think I would have enjoyed a Hitler dominated world, I certainly see no reason to not try to understand how he got to his place in history. Although my German visitor still had lot's of guilt over Germany in WW2, there was an eagerness to borrow my copy of Mein Kampf, which I obliged. Later on I was thinking about guilt and brutality and how both get treated depending on time and how things wash out. In the early 1800's there were 10 million indians in the U.S. . By 1900 there were only a hundred thousand left nationwide and we caucasions were responsible for the decimation of these people. We have no guilt of this atrocity. Yet just over 30 years later Hitler started his rampage for which many Germans still carry guilt over. 45 years past the turn of the century we dropped the bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki unquestionably saving the lives of millions by ending the war with Japan, and for this we feel guilty. What confusing creatures we humans are............