We've got Two World Wars and one World Cup! Sing along now! There were ten German bombers in the air, There were ten German bombers in the air, There were ten German bombers, Ten German bombers, There were ten German bombers in the air, And the RAF from England shot one down, And the RAF from England shot one down, And the RAF from England, The RAF from England, And the RAF from England shot one down, These verses are then repeated with one more bomber being shot down, until there are none left. (In the penultimate verses it is changed to "There was" and "shot it down") The final verses of the song are:There were no German bombers in the air, There were no German bombers in the air, There were no German bombers, No German bombers, There were no German bombers in the air, 'Cos the RAF from England shot them down, 'Cos the RAF from England shot them down, 'Cos the RAF from England, The RAF from England, 'Cos the RAF from England shot them down.
Not only wars. Many Russians have German roots. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Germans_in_Russia_and_the_Soviet_Union
Why? Both are federal, both believe in authorities, both prefer security over freedom (compared to other cultures), both believe in culture and education.
What? German Russian relationship was fine over 1000 years and it is still fine. The world wars were over politics, but from my personal view Russians and Germans get along fine. I live in a quarter which is refererred to as a Russian quarter in Germany and I lived in Russia for a while, I should know.
Not forgotten, but people now don't blame each other for what happened back then. When I was Ukraine on May 9th, some young people there I didn't know notice that I was from Germany and it was fine with them. Ok, when my unit was down in Astrakhan in East German Air Force uniforms in the eightees, they got some negative feedback. East German Air Force uniforms looked like the old ones, photos of my grandpa in uniform look like photos of me in uniform. There was not so much hostility like lets say between Germany and France or Germany and Czech Republic.
East Germany did not have a military after WWII, but some kind of military police. They were dressed blue. The first East German military uniforms were khaki, they looked like Soviet uniforms. In 1956, they decided we already have a German military look and can use it. The East German steel helmets were developed in 1943, they were only not widespread during WWII. The standard steel helmet during WWII stayed the older one. It was fine for East Germans to look German, especially since West German uniforms did not look German at all. West Germans looked American.
Yes, for sure. It was not like in Adenauer's West Germany, where the higher positions usually went to Nazis, but the sergeants and so often were from the Wehrmacht. A colleague of mine served back then, and he said, there were these guys, who still did this Wehrmacht thing in the fiftees.
My wife's grandfather was in the Wehrmacht. He came from Dresden, but moved to Munich after the war. He showed me a photo once of a group of his friends taken before they saw combat. " That one, dead" he would say every 1 or 2. Very sad, really.
I think Adenauer was trying to integrate former Nazis into the Federal Republic of Germany, and it was a necessity in 1949 and the decade that followed. Worse, were the Nazis that occupied the Justice System and the Foreign Office. They held on until they retired from public life during the 70s.
Why? Didn't you find a few West Germans, who were not Nazis? ... enough time to develop their Nazi friendly assistants into the next leadership generation.
That will not happen, because both nations were pitted against each other. The Germanophobia has deep roots in Russia, it began before WWII. http://library.ndsu.edu/grhc/articles/magazines/articles/germano.html If RF really wanted to end with Germanophobia, it would have restored the autonomous region of Volga Germans after the collapse of the SU.
About 30% of the Russian elite in the Russian Empire had German roots. Germans transformed Russia from an Asiatic country into a western Empire that stretched from Poland to Alaska. After 1917 Germans were removed from their leading positions in Russia, and their place was taken by Jews. You can read about this here: http://www.exp-kats.spb.ru/zar-15.htm Most Russians and Kasachs with German roots (and even their non-German spouses and children) went to Germany after the collapse of the SU. So in future there will be more Germans with Russian roots, than Russians with German roots, and that is bad for Russia.
