Re: We all shouted, 'Heil Hitler'

The article interesting, for two reasons: it shows some historic background,
and it shows the deplorable state of North American journalism.

I do not mean the facts, they are probably right, i mean the tone:
>The path to peace;
hm?
>German force savors 'moral' postwar debut;
hm?
>Balkans: many older ethnic Albanians recall Nazi troops in WWII as
>liberators from Serbs. Today's soldiers are happy to hold their heads high.
hold their heads high? who doesn't? didn't the nazi's hold their heads high?
Might it be that the nazi soldiers where all actively ashamed of themselves
(for being nazi's) and that todays 'moral force' appreciates it's high moral
quality?

>MARJORIE MILLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER
>
>PRIZREN, Yugoslavia
>
>For the German army, returning to Yugoslavia for the first time since World
>War II as part of a NATO peacekeeping force marks a final break with a
>terrible past.

Breaks with the past do not exist. What is more: this occupation is very
much a coherent consequence of the past.
 (....)

>Naim Poloshka, 72, remembers how one of the Wehrmacht soldiers gave him
achocolate and a ride on his motorcycle. They drove him around town so he
>could point out houses where partisans lived.
>
>Like much of Prizren, Poloshka was stunned when he woke one morning to find
>that the Germans had hanged nine suspected partisans--five Serbs and four
>ethnic Albanians--in the center of town overnight.


Who was stunned? I'm not stunned. I don't believe the partizans where
stunned, they where in active combat against the nazi's, and for very urgent
reasons. This realy sounds like a way to protect the hero of the article,
'Poloshka'. The journalist did'nt want to say: "I interviewed one of the
people who betrayed the partizans to the germans." So she states: I
interviewed a guy who showed the partizan houses and then was stunned (like
the rest of the entire village where he lived) to see them hanged. Who
believes this?

>But it did not dampen his enthusiasm for the Nazis.
>
>"The enemy of your enemy is your friend," Poloshka said. "We were occupied,
>and they liberated us."
>
>This historical baggage is lost on most of the Kosovars who welcomed the
>German NATO troops with flowers, kisses and tears of relief this week, as
>it may have been on the young German soldiers tossed into the air by those
>celebrating their arrival.


Here, finally comes American arrogance into play. "These illiterate people
do not realy know what happenned to their country", it says. "the
grandfathers never told their stories, they are probably to stupid for that.
That is why they are poor and backward. Believe me, if there is a region in
the world where history is alive, where 1400 is yesterday, and where
'historical baggage' is not lost at all, it is the Balkans!


>The first German contingent arrived in Prizren just after midnight Sunday
>morning, when the city was still under Serbian control and the situation
>unstable.
>
>At the Morine border crossing with Albania that day, Gen. Helmut Harff
>negotiated the withdrawal of about 60 Serbian soldiers in front of a crowd
>of jeering refugees.
>
>When the Serbian commander said he needed six hours to withdraw, the
>general replied: "You have 30 minutes. In fact, now you've got 29 minutes."
>
>The Serbs pulled back.


And finally, the rambo-syndrome. Nobody is a hero untill proven the ability
to bully and treat badly. After all, that is the way to treat non-moral
people, right?

c.