Sensitive topics - reality and fantasy too close together?

[nsur1]

This reminds me of Aleksandr Solzenicyn's GULAG Archipelago, in particular the chapters devoted to the interrogation techniques practised at Lubianka prison. There is also a chapter specifically devoted to the women detained in the lagers, but these illustrations are much worse.

Yes, indeed. There is a quote from that very Solzhenitsyn source in the English text printed on image #7.

 

[Jackie1111]

Interesting thread. A while back I posted something in a thread about the brutal treatment of women in France who had affairs with Nazi officers during the occupation. It was truly a horrible thing, yet some of the details I had read about sparked a fantasy that I very much enjoyed. After I posted it I wondered to myself whether there was anyone on the forum who may have been bothered by that, due to having a family member who had actually suffered the experience. I held my breath waiting to see, but apparently not.

In any case, no German really understands why Kamala Harris is regarded as "black" in the USA, because in our German terminology of "non-whites", she would be regarded as an "almost-white" with origins from different continents but no one in Germany would call her "black".
Why is this still so different in the USA?

Maybe because we used to have the "One Drop Rule" here in the U.S. Supposedly if you had "one drop" of African blood, you were considered to be black. Though very few people (except for white supremacists) still believe this literally, the idea still permeates our culture to a degree.

Incidentally, our official (that is, government) classification system for race was overhauled about 20 years ago. So when filling out the census (or any government form) and it asks for your race, you can provide more than one answer. Before that, if you tried to say that you were both "black and "white" (for example), the government would automatically classify you as black. I had a role in some research that contributed to the changes, and it was some of the most interesting work I ever did.

Also incidentally, to some extent the differentiation between color shades you mention exists within America's black community. I don't know common this is, but some darker-skinned blacks complain they are discriminated against, not just by whites, but by lighter-skinned blacks.

 

[windar]

Interesting thread. A while back I posted something in a thread about the brutal treatment of women in France who had affairs with Nazi officers during the occupation. It was truly a horrible thing, yet some of the details I had read about sparked a fantasy that I very much enjoyed. After I posted it I wondered to myself whether there was anyone on the forum who may have been bothered by that, due to having a family member who had actually suffered the experience. I held my breath waiting to see, but apparently not.



Maybe because we used to have the "One Drop Rule" here in the U.S. Supposedly if you had "one drop" of African blood, you were considered to be black. Though very few people (except for white supremacists) still believe this literally, the idea still permeates our culture to a degree.

Incidentally, our official (that is, government) classification system for race was overhauled about 20 years ago. So when filling out the census (or any government form) and it asks for your race, you can provide more than one answer. Before that, if you tried to say that you were both "black and "white" (for example), the government would automatically classify you as black. I had a role in some research that contributed to the changes, and it was some of the most interesting work I ever did.

Also incidentally, to some extent the differentiation between color shades you mention exists within America's black community. I don't know common this is, but some darker-skinned blacks complain they are discriminated against, not just by whites, but by lighter-skinned blacks.

Kamala Harris chose to identify as black, because she lived in a black neighborhood in Oakland. Her father was black from Jamaica (with possibly some British heritage) and her mother was Indian (from India, not Native American). There weren't that many Indians in the US at that time, though there are many more now, and she might have chosen that identity if she had been born later.

Incidentally, she spent her high school years in my home town, Montreal, as her mother, a cancer researcher, took a job there. So maybe she is a hockey fan and knows a good bagel when she finds one...

 

[cynthia the inocent]

pardon me for finding this to be silly. I believe most of the world population is mixed race. I did my geneology and it would take a whole page to list all the countries my ancestors came from. Or maby it is just that America is truly a "melting pot ".

 

[Jackie1111]

pardon me for finding this to be silly. I believe most of the world population is mixed race. I did my geneology and it would take a whole page to list all the countries my ancestors came from. Or maby it is just that America is truly a "melting pot ".

Well, it all comes down to how one defines that term "race." It varies by country and cultures, as well as over time.

I happen to be learning a lot these days about the Nazi regime and their propaganda. Apparently they believed the Russians to be a different race, a sub-human one. When Germany invaded Russia in WW2, soldiers felt perfectly justified in raping and murdering Russian civilians, because they had been taught Russians were of an inferior race.

In the U.S., we often distinguish "race" from "ethnicity," the later term being tied to nationality of one's ancestors. So Germans and Russians are both considered to be "white," but of different ethnicities.

 

[Jones_Tims]

Well, it all comes down to how one defines that term "race." It varies by country and cultures, as well as over time.

I happen to be learning a lot these days about the Nazi regime and their propaganda. Apparently they believed the Russians to be a different race, a sub-human one. When Germany invaded Russia in WW2, soldiers felt perfectly justified in raping and murdering Russian civilians, because they had been taught Russians were of an inferior race.

In the U.S., we often distinguish "race" from "ethnicity," the later term being tied to nationality of one's ancestors. So Germans and Russians are both considered to be "white," but of different ethnicities.

Interestingly, the Nazis' attitude toward the Slavs changed in time. While Adolf Hitler had a hostile attitude towards Jews and Gypsies from the get go, his attitude towards the Slavs changed in time. In certain moments in history, they were pretty "meh" about them. In others, they actually considered them to be roughly on the same level as the French. White, but still inferior to the Aryans and the British... yes, they considered the French to have simmilar racial features to the British, but they were historical enemies of Germany, so they were knocked down a level. Also, the Nazis considered that the British still have some Nordic features, bringing them closer to the Germans. Eventually, their attitude towards the Slavs turned hostile, especially during WW2, as they were preparing for Operation Barbarossa, knocking them down to the lowest level in their race hierarchy, next to the Jews and the Gypsies.

 

[fallenmystic]

pardon me for finding this to be silly. I believe most of the world population is mixed race. I did my geneology and it would take a whole page to list all the countries my ancestors came from. Or maby it is just that America is truly a "melting pot ".

I guess it's because what matters in this case is the "perceived race" of a person rather than any scientific criteria for tracing the bloodline. In this context, one's race is used as a pretext to condemn the person in question as being 'inferior' to others, which is itself lacking in any scientific ground.

As the condemnation is more of a social prejudice or political propaganda than any scientific study, more readily apparent signs that may tell one's race would be more useful than things like geneaology test to justify the discrimination, like the skin pigmentation, for example.

 

[cynthia the inocent]

Well, it all comes down to how one defines that term "race." It varies by country and cultures, as well as over time.

I happen to be learning a lot these days about the Nazi regime and their propaganda. Apparently they believed the Russians to be a different race, a sub-human one. When Germany invaded Russia in WW2, soldiers felt perfectly justified in raping and murdering Russian civilians, because they had been taught Russians were of an inferior race.

In the U.S., we often distinguish "race" from "ethnicity," the later term being tied to nationality of one's ancestors. So Germans and Russians are both considered to be "white," but of different ethnicities.

NAZI'S thought everyone was sub human. they were the master race. they were delusional and insane and destroyed their own country, sort of like the democrats are trying to America now

 

[fallenmystic]

NAZI'S thought everyone was sub human. they were the master race. they were delusional and insane and destroyed their own country, sort of like the democrats are trying to America now

You mean, by urging their fellow gangs to wear a sign of the exclusive master race, like a facial mask?

 

[Silent_Water]

Between 1965 and 2000, there was a satirist and literary man often on reading events in Germany I admired the most of all satirists I knew:

Ephraim Kishon - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

He said he had and he survived so many incredible "adventures" during his life that he only had two possibilities to stay alive: becoming absolutely crazy or becoming a satirist with such absurd stories as his life during WW II and shortly after was.
As far as I know, his stories in the German versions of his books made him the best-selling not-German author in Germany and he still and always had to fight against envious and jealous persons in Germany and Israel. The first were claiming his stories could not all be true, the others said he would be degrading Israel by becoming "the post-war clown of Germans".
In fact, I - being a German and knowing much of the war stories from Eastern Europe - believe all his stories about his life during the world war are true and I regard him as one of the most human, most intelligent and most sympathetic person you could ever have met in a human lifetime.

First of all, he always said, that he would never make any nation as a whole responsible for the mistakes or crimes of their governments or parts of their society, so he said, he has no aggressive feelings against Germans, Hungarians or Russians although others might have such and he could understand them because it is "natural" that you want to take revenge against someone or even something that made you suffer. Children want to punish the chair or table when they went against it which caused a bruise on their skin but adults should not do something like that.

It was always funny for Germans to hear him speak in German with his Hungarian accent but he sometimes closed his reading events with remarks which shocked you at the first moment and made you stop laughing but he explained it every time and you could only admire him for telling such stories:

1. Once he said in an TV interview with a German audience: "I think, it is very funny for me looking at my past but not for the audience, when I tell you that I once tried to get OUT of a Hungarian concentration camp in Hungary INTO a German concentration camp - also in Hungary - in order to survive!"

Everyone in the audience was shocked when he said this, because only one minute ago, everyone was still laughing.

Kishon continued:
"You must understand that the most Hungarian concentration camps for Jews were run by fanatic anti-semites who made the Jews responsible for the Hungarian losses of territory after WW I, so they really tortured us and let us suffer and starve as much as they could. These Hungarian fanatics were the best allies of the German Nazis you could imagine. On the other hand and nearby "my" Hungarian camp, the German "Wehrmacht" had set up a concentration camp for Communists, Jews and others who tried to escape from their "empire" but they did not succeed. This German camp near Budapest was run by German soldiers, not by Nazi fanatics, so these soldiers regarded their prisoners as "prisoners of war" and these Germans were completely indifferent to us Hungarian Jews or Communists on the run. They did regard us as "enemies of war", not as subhumans and they really tried to keep us alive until they were ordered to put us in trains and I really believe, these normal soldiers of the German "Wehrmacht" did not know where these trains were heading to like the German SS did certainly know. Otherwise, these German soldiers would have treated us in a different and worse way, I think. So, I really believe, I saved my life by first trying successfully to get into this German concentration camp and when I saw the opportunity, I fled from this camp which was also not so well guarded as other camps.
2. The other crazy story of my life is the conquering of the city of Budapest by the Soviet army because three days after they were the "victorious liberators" of Budapest, they got the order from Moscow to make "prisoners of war" which could be shown as trophies during the victory parade. Unfortunately, the Soviet troops had already killed all the Germans and Hungarian Nazis, they could find, so they arrested indiscriminatly every person who was on the streets of Budapest this morning.
OK, and now think it over: Three days after you "liberate" an Eastern European capital city from the Nazis, who will be on the streets? Certainly Communists, Socialists and Jews!
So, being a Jew, I found myself in a prisoners-of-war-treck, arrested by Soviet troops on a march to the next train station in order to be shown as a war trophy in some Soviet cities because I was arrested as a Nazi!
This was too much madness for me and when we made a rest in a ruine of a Hungarian farmer's house, I went into a dark corner of a room and wanted to be shot because I never liked to stand up again to be used as a trophy for anyone. When the Soviet troops ordered us to stand up, I kept lying in the dark corner. Everyone else went away and I stayed there because they did not count us and they did not remark me in the dark corner. This was the moment, when I thought, this all is too crazy to survive. So, I had to become a satirist in order to survive!"


Finally, another story from me. I once talked with a Polish student of history about war crimes of German and Russian troops in Poland and he said, there was really a difference because the German troops usually were convinced to be superior to all other nations in this region, but there were differences. The Germans regarded the Hungarians as "historical warrior nomads" and in fact, their language is historical closer to Finnish than to any other European language, so the Hungarians were for them something like an additional allied army. The Romanians were for the Germans a mixed nation which originated from the Roman empire, so they also were not regarded as natural enemies like the Slavic nations. And derived from this, the crimes of the German Nazis in Eastern Europe and especially in Poland were different than the Russian crimes. The German Nazis killed as many "subhuman" people as possible but their behaviour towards Eastern Europeans was indeed similar to that of the Saxon lord in this movie in a special scene:

King Arthur (2004 film) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

In this scene, I think, a Pictean woman asks the Saxon lord to be saved from rape by his soldiers and in the German version of this movie, he answers something like "Eagles do not mix with sparrows!", killing her and possibly the Saxon soldier who tried to rape her.

The Polish student told me, as far as he knew history, the Germans were really similar in those times and there were really relatively few known cases of rape by German soldiers because they regarded themselves as so extremely superior towards Slavic nations. Some German soldiers even were executed by their commanders after rapes of "inferior" women in Eastern Europe.
The Polish student also told me that the behaviour of many uneducated Soviet soldiers was completely different because by trying to show that they are more than "equal" to the "master race", they used rape as a medium to humiliate and intimidate all possible enemies. He even knew stories of Polish women who were killed or raped by usually drunk Soviet soldiers because of their blonde hair or blue eyes which was a "sign of German origin" for their Soviet rapists.
And most of the Polish people knew already towards the end of WW II that the massacre of Katyn could not really have been committed by the German SS as the Soviet Union claimed until 1987.

Katyn massacre - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

I think, this massacre and the constant Soviet-Russian lying for more than 40 years about that is the main reason why Poland will be the best NATO partner for all coming Western nations and governments in the future. At least, the Polish student told me, although the Polish government is now extremely conservative and Catholic, they will rather be allies of the Germans in the future than with the Russians because for Poles like him, WW II ended only with the government of Gorbachev and his official confession that Katyn was a Stalinist crime. The Germans confessed the Nazi crimes 40 years earlier.

 

[fallenmystic]

First of all, he always said, that he would never make any nation as a whole responsible for the mistakes or crimes of their governments or parts of their society, so he said, he has no aggressive feelings against Germans, Hungarians or Russians although others might have such and he could understand them because it is "natural" that you want to take revenge against someone or even something that made you suffer... Children want to punish the chair or table when they went against it which caused a bruise on their skin but adults should not do something like that.

While I think I understand what he meant and agree with him, I'd like to make a distinction between holding each and every individual person of a country responsible for the crime their country had committed and holding them responsible as the citizens of that country in a collective sense.

I think such a distinction is an important one, because if we just say that "it's not your fault because it was not you who committed such atrocities" it will soon become nobody's fault.

Japan, for example, had committed many unimaginable atrocities during their occupation of their neighbouring countries in the past. Of course, we should not hate individual Japanese people for the crimes their ancestors had committed, and probably that was what Kishon meant.

Even before the demise of the Japanese Empire, there were quite a few pacifists, or conscientious intellectuals in the country who didn't support their government's military expansionism, although they couldn't voice their opinions freely. And had such a disaster in human right as Nanjing Massacre widely known among the populace, I have no doubt that many would have protested what their military had done and expressed sympathy for the victims.

But that doesn't mean that it can absolve Japanese people who hadn't directly participated in such atrocities themselves of the responsibility. When they still had a democratic government, they should have guarded it against those military leaders who would take away their rights and bring calamities on neighbouring countries with their bloodthirsty ambitions.

Having failed in that task, it remains as their responsibility to teach the younger generations what really happened and why they had failed to perceive or prevent the danger. And it's also their responsibility to check any attempts to rewrite the history from the revisionists and be on alert that their politicians could never sway the citizens with similarly dangerous opinions.

And as far as Korea and Japan are concerned in this matter, by the way, it looks to me like the Koreans want to take a revenge on the chair, like Kishon said, while the Japanese try to forget that they had ever put that chair in a dangerous place without taking it to somewhere safe.

I suppose that's what happens when we take the problem of taking responsibility in such a matter in a wrong way.

The Polish student told me, as far as he knew history, the Germans were really similar in those times and there were really relatively few known cases of rape by German soldiers because they regarded themselves as so extremely superior towards Slavic nations. Some German soldiers even were executed by their commanders after rapes of "inferior" women in Eastern Europe.

Ah, it's one of my favourite elements in a D/s fantasy. I only wish it didn't happen in real life, but in my fantasy world, I love it when there's such an extreme racial element so that those 'inferior' girls are not even considered worthy of getting raped.

 

[Silent_Water]

Concerning the responsabilities of nations to the crimes of their national predecessors, I think, you are absolutely right, "fallenmystic".
Germany and Western Germany before regarded itself as the "Rechtsnachfolger" (= legal successor) of the German states before and so, it paid money as damage compensation for forced labour workers from Eastern Europe, but in first place for the surviving Jewish victims of the concentration camps and so on.
The Communist part of Eastern Germany never did so, because they claimed to have founded a completely new society which has nothing to do with the past. Funny that they called their national train society "Deutsche Reichsbahn" till the end of the GDR, because they had never enough money to change the color of their trains.
The other part of the story is that other nations want a part of such German compensations up to now or seem to invent new claims for political reasons.
The latest extremely conservative-nationalist Polish govenrment wants now some thousand billions for structural damages in Poland during WW II, although all other Polish governments before said that they were confident with the payments of Germany before.
Certainly, this raises again the nationalists in Germany who say: "OK, let us look on a map of Europe before and after WW II. Many of these claimed structural damages happened in regions which belonged to Germany before the war and only after the war, they belonged to Poland. We can talk about much more compensations for Poland, when we can buy back Silesia, Pommerania and Eastern Prussia, too."
You possibly can imagine how this influences the discussion in Poland. The rather intellectual and left-orientated Poles say: "Let's better not talk again about compensation payments and we have enough other problems." But parts of the nationalist Polish government say, this is a typical nationalist German revanchist claim in order to make their own sufferings bigger than they were in comparison to the Polish sufferings.
And so on and so on.
Then, there are always some claims for German compensation payments, most of the Germans of today already had forgotten or never heard of before until a nationalist government somewhere in the world remembers that the rich Germany could really pay some compensation payments for other crimes, for example:
Namibia wants some billions from Germany for the German crimes against the Hereros during the colonization of this country in 1904.
Tansania wants some billions from Germany for some German crimes I have never heard of before etc.

OK, from my point of view, we can talk about everything in history, but when more than 100 years have passed without so many serious claims before, why do they remember German crimes especially after Germany has become rich again?

Did Belgium already pay billions of Euros for crimes in Congo? Did Great Britain pay billions for possible crimes in Sudan during the uprising of the Mahdi islamists in 1889 or so?
Did Russia ever pay compensations to other nations for the millions of foreign human beings who were deported from Eastern Europe to Siberia and finally disappeared in the Soviet GULAGs?
Did China ever pay money for the Tibetans who suffered under the Communist regime of China?

I think "no", but when I am wrong, please tell me ...

 

[Jones_Tims]

Concerning the responsabilities of nations to the crimes of their national predecessors, I think, you are absolutely right, "fallenmystic".
Germany and Western Germany before regarded itself as the "Rechtsnachfolger" (= legal successor) of the German states before and so, it paid money as damage compensation for forced labour workers from Eastern Europe, but in first place for the surviving Jewish victims of the concentration camps and so on.
The Communist part of Eastern Germany never did so, because they claimed to have founded a completely new society which has nothing to do with the past. Funny that they called their national train society "Deutsche Reichsbahn" till the end of the GDR, because they had never enough money to change the color of their trains.
The other part of the story is that other nations want a part of such German compensations up to now or seem to invent new claims for political reasons.
The latest extremely conservative-nationalist Polish govenrment wants now some thousand billions for structural damages in Poland during WW II, although all other Polish governments before said that they were confident with the payments of Germany before.
Certainly, this raises again the nationalists in Germany who say: "OK, let us look on a map of Europe before and after WW II. Many of these claimed structural damages happened in regions which belonged to Germany before the war and only after the war, they belonged to Poland. We can talk about much more compensations for Poland, when we can buy back Silesia, Pommerania and Eastern Prussia, too."
You possibly can imagine how this influences the discussion in Poland. The rather intellectual and left-orientated Poles say: "Let's better not talk again about compensation payments and we have enough other problems." But parts of the nationalist Polish government say, this is a typical nationalist German revanchist claim in order to make their own sufferings bigger than they were in comparison to the Polish sufferings.
And so on and so on.
Then, there are always some claims for German compensation payments, most of the Germans of today already had forgotten or never heard of before until a nationalist government somewhere in the world remembers that the rich Germany could really pay some compensation payments for other crimes, for example:
Namibia wants some billions from Germany for the German crimes against the Hereros during the colonization of this country in 1904.
Tansania wants some billions from Germany for some German crimes I have never heard of before etc.

OK, from my point of view, we can talk about everything in history, but when more than 100 years have passed without so many serious claims before, why do they remember German crimes especially after Germany has become rich again?

Did Belgium already pay billions of Euros for crimes in Congo? Did Great Britain pay billions for possible crimes in Sudan during the uprising of the Mahdi islamists in 1889 or so?
Did Russia ever pay compensations to other nations for the millions of foreign human beings who were deported from Eastern Europe to Siberia and finally disappeared in the Soviet GULAGs?
Did China ever pay money for the Tibetans who suffered under the Communist regime of China?

I think "no", but when I am wrong, please tell me ...

To complete your list, the Ottomans massacred 1.5 million Armenians during WW1. The French commited severe atrocities and even built prison camps in Algeria, during the early days of the Cold War. Some American soldiers commited rapes during the occupation of Japan... not to mention that the US allowed Hirohito... what would be considered a Class A war criminal (same level as Hitler) to continue his rule after the war. Then of course, there's the Soviets, who raped two million women in the occupied Germany.

I think each country has that specific chapter in it's history that they are ashamed of. War crimes, dictators, executions, etc. But then again, each country has it's contributions to our progress as a species. Of course, remembering the Germans as mere war criminals and evil invaders is unfair. We shouldn't judge an entire nation, based on the hate crimes commited by one political party.

Now, there's this question... whether it's right to support your country or not, during an armed conflict. I think, Oppenheimer's quote from Bhagavad-Gita said it best. The poem tells the story of an Indian prince who wasn't sure whether fighting for his nation was right or not... To convince him, Shiva took his multi-arm form and told him "Now I am become death... the destroyer of the worlds." If you don't fight in the war, they'll just get rid of you and recruit another soldier. Of course, I'm not implying that... "just following orders" is a good excuse. Whenever possible, we should all avoid to commit unnecessary war crimes. Schindler followed some orders... and he still managed to save thousands of Jews from execution. Erwin Rommel was following orders... but he still joined the conspirators during the July Plot to assassinate Hitler. But, even though they defied their leader and they attempted to stop a pointless atrocity... these men still loved their country... and were eager to serve and protect the citizens.

 

[fallenmystic]

@Silent_Water // I think it's more important to take appropriate measures to properly educate the younger generations and prevent those extremely nationalistic politicians or revisionistic historians from rewriting history than compensating in monetary terms, when it comes to taking responsibility for the crimes committed by the government long time ago.

As the atrocities and war crimes in question happened almost 100 years ago, we have only a few direct victims left who should be compensated with money. But it also means that the momories of the past wrongdoings might have been blurred or even lost in the newer generations, especially when the government has been reluctant in admitting their responsibilities.

That was that kind of responsibilities I mainly had in mind when I said it's not enough to just say "it was not your fault".

I don't know much of the contemporary German politics, but it's my understanding that most people in your country probably know what their country did in WW2 and won't try to justify the disaster it had brought upon the world.

Unfortunately, it's not the case with Japan, for example, and in turn, many people in my country (S. Korea) are still trying to "avenge the chair", as Kishon said and harbour wanton hatred against the current generation Japanese people. That's why I wanted to say that it's better to put the reponsibilities where they are due, because without taking proper responsibilities for the past wrongdoings a country had committed against another, things like that are bound to happen which is both unfortunate and quite dangerous as well.

 

[Silent_Water]

Dear "Jones_Tims" & Dear "fallenmystic",

I absolutely agree with every word you both wrote in the last two postings. Thank you!

 

[specimeat]

After a lot of time feeling guilty about this (too), i came to terms with myself by concluding that:

• i didn't do that, helped to do that or voted for the people who do or did that. In most cases, i oppose or would have opposed that to the extent of my limited ability and even more limited courage. If i could help the people who suffered that, i would do it. i kind of help through a couple NGO's. A lot of that happened way before i was born.
• shit happened and happens no matter what.
• some of that shit spins my wheels at light speed.
• i don't hurt anyone with that. Whoever is or was hurt, s/he is/was hurt out of my reach and often my knowledge too, and i only learnt about it in the news or reading history.

Just my 2 cents, in case it helps.

 

[Silent_Water]

Dear "fallenmystic",

sorry for my universal political curiosity but I would really like to ask you a short question which is probably followed by a long answer. You mentioned several times that you are living in South Korea and I am interested in the Korean history because of its temporarily similarity to the German history in the 20th century.
Both our countries were separated and divided because of the antagonisms between communism and capitalism but Germany was luckier, maybe because it is not a peninsula like Korea and it was never possible for the communists in Eastern Germany to absolutely separate their relatively "soft dictatorship" from other neighbouring countries. West German TV stations could be seen in about 75 % of Eastern Germany since 1960 and the Germans in the Eastern GDR always had some contacts via letters or telephones to the Germans in the Western FRG. After the Soviet Union ceased to exist and other governments in Eastern Europe were overthrown followed by a system transition, there was no reason any more why Germany should have two different systems and not be reunited.
So, my relatively short question is:

Why does the dictatorship in North Korea still exist in this anachronistic stone-age like style?

Even the Chinese government members are sometimes saying that this cannot be any more called "communism", when there is a hereditary rule of the same family over three-four generations and the form of rule is obviously a "God-Kingship".
I know that North Korea is sealed off from all other surrounding countries like probably no other country in the world but it is almost incredible for Europeans that there is almost no remarkable development in any direction - except the government's celebration of new atomar weapons and nuclear missiles in almost every year.
At the same time, North Korea is obviously too poor to constantly nourish its citizens and when we look at satellite pictures taken at night in this region, North Korea seems to be "The Black Hole" (= "Das Schwarze Loch" like it is called) in this picture from the German version of "National Geographic - Deutschland":

The lights of the cities and lights from big fishing fleets show where there are the richest and most densely populated countries and it seems to be incredible that such a poor and suffering nation like North Korea has not enough electricity for its citizens but the government spends enough resources for nuclear weapons.
This looks like a country of the Middle-Ages, but with the weapons of mass destruction of the 20th century and this is hard to believe or understand for most of the Europeans.
What would you say, what are the reasons for such an anachronism?
Thank you very much in advance!

 

[fallenmystic]

Why does the dictatorship in North Korea still exist in this anachronistic stone-age like style?

What an exciting topic to discuss you suggested! You are correct in assuming that this will be a long post But before I start, please keep in mind that I'm not an expert on this subject. So what I'm going to write is but my personal opinion and conjectures which may or may not accurate.

The first thing that occurred in my mind when I read your question is the difference between the social and political development between the two countries - namely, former Eastern Germany and North Korea leading up to the time of their division.

As you must know better than what little I know of Germany, the country had been the epicentre of diverse philosophical and political ideas until the beginning of the Second World War, notably socialism. As such, a relatively large number of the population were more or less aware of such abstract ideas like civil liberties or natural rights.

Also, European society, in general, has a long tradition of struggles between various social classes in which we witnessed the constant weakening of the power and authority of hereditary rulers and the emergence of the citizenry who would eventually form the backbone of modern democratic countries.

The situation had been quite different from that of Korea, however, which had enjoyed half a millennium years of relative stability (at least in terms of socio-political ideas) until everything turned upside down when Japan took over the country.

I think the medieval Korean kingdom, which was called "Josun", had very peculiar and interesting characteristics which may call for an explanation if they are to be understood by those who are unfamiliar with the subject.

Even the term 'medieval' itself may be inappropriate here since feudalism never took place in Josun. Instead, every aspect of society in Josun ran according to a set of Confucian principles or ideals.

While yielding such absolute authority which most of the medieval European monarchs would have only dreamed of, the Kings of Josun dynastic were not above the order that such principles had created.

It was a rule that a King must participate in a study at least three times a day, starting from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Also, he could not freely give a position in his court to powerful nobilities or local warlords (which didn't even exist) because one must pass five consecutive nationwide exams to become a government official.

A King could not even freely have sex with his concubines because he must follow strict protocols even in this act, which involve having a proper candidate and the date chosen for him and being attended by nine people surrounding his bed.

Every action and every word he does or says was also painstakingly recorded by a dedicated scribe. The records only dealing the latter half of the dynasty contain 242 million characters which are still in the process of translation.

In a word, it was a country of scholars ruled by rigid principles and protocols, which was supported by the toils of uneducated serfs and a small number of merchants and engineers whom they regarded as inferior to the gentry class whose sole job was to study.

What was unfortunate was that the study in question was mostly philosophical and had little relevance to improving the quality of life for the people or advancing science or industry. (They even tried to suppress the enocomy and trade to a marginal level in a fear that luxury may make people less inclined to study and live according to the Confucian ideals.)

But what it had left when the whole system crumbled down almost overnight when the country fell prey to imperial powers, was a general notion that there is an unchanging world order to which everyone must conform.

The traditional orders and principles got progressively challenged and overthrown as the country, now occupied by Japan, was forcibly brought to the modern era. However, there was not sufficient time nor a proper environment for new political ideas to develop so that they can nourish the ground for a citizen body suitable for a democratic government to emerge.

As such, only a handful of fortunate intellectuals could have a chance to access the liberal ideas which were prevalent in contemporary Europe. On the other hand, the vast majority of the population were kept servile under a colonial and militaristic education system which imperial Japan enforced for its recent requisition.

About half of those intellectuals became communists and returned to the Soviet-occupied part of Korea when the Allies liberated the country from Japan. They formed the elite group and became a part of the system which emerged as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea or 'North Korea' as we are more familiar with today.

But the new country was neither democratic nor a republic as the Soviet-backed leader Kim Il Sung could successfully establish a dictatorship despite his failure in the Korean War.

It was not much unlike how Stalin came to power after the death of Lenin. However, we should remember that Korea had only a tiny number of educated intellectuals at that time while the vast majority of the ordinary people still retained remnants of their beliefs in the old system; a system which had ruled the country over half a millennium.

In the old system, for example, they taught that one should respect the King, one's teacher, and one's father with the same respect and must submit to their authority no matter what.

The principle held such importance in Josun dynasty, that when one's parent passes away, it was expected for the child to abandon every social activity and live a life of a hermit for three years.

During that period, one was supposed to live in a hut wearing the most humble garment (because he was supposed to have committed a crime of neglecting one's parent) and offer the meals at the dead parent's grave twice a day, while shunning any alcohol or meat.

As you can imagine, it can be quite a convenient ideology for a dictator who wants to establish himself as a fatherly figure with absolute authority over the whole nation.

Just like how they taught one should treat the trinity - that of the King, one's teacher, and one's parent - with the same absolute respect, the North Korean regime started teaching its population how Kim Il Sung fits such a figure.

After purging what small number of dissenters in the government who were the only people educated enough to put any serious resistance, he could successfully build an absolute monarchy which is now known ironically as the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.

It doesn't explain why the regime also failed in the economy so that it became the "black hole" as you said in your post, however. In fact, North Korea did pretty well in that regard, even better than their Southern brethren until the 1970s. But it went downhill from that point to become one of the poorest countries in the world.

I have even less knowledge of the economic matters than I have of those regarding history or politics. And it has become such a wall of texts already. So, I'll just say that I believe it could be the inherent inefficiencies in a closed, planned economy that eventually proved to be the demise of that regime, combined with a few significant strategical failures like the commitment to the Vinylon technology.

I hope this could be a sufficient answer to your question.

 

[Silent_Water]

Yes, thank you very, very much. I did not know so much about the historical background of the Korean society and I am very impressed by your detailed description.

In comparison, Germany was very, very lucky because the news could no more be controlled by the dictatorship and possibly "our" East Germans in cities like Leipzig or Dresden were true intelligent heros in their demonstrations against their government.

From Western Germany, we watched on TV in a stunned mood afraid of witnessing similar events like in China in the same year, how the demonstrations in Eastern Germany grew bigger and bigger and in the end, there were more than 100.000 Germans marching in every city like Leipzig, East Berlin and Dresden hand in hand through the police lines, shouting: "We are the people!"

I think, this could have been the most devastating psychological effect on the police and soldiers in East Germany, because they were by definition the "People's Police" ("Volkspolizei") and the "National People's Army" ("Nationale Volksarmee") and now, 100.000 of your own people are peacefully demonstrating against you hand in hand, and additionally shouting at you, that they are the people:
"Wir sind das Volk!" -> So, when you are policeman or soldier in such a time, what are you?

How could a German policeman or soldier shoot at such a German demonstration? So, they did never get a command to do so and they probably would have refused to do so.

These were possibly the greatest times ever of and in German history and I really hope that such a peaceful success would also be possible one near day in North Korea, Belarus, Russia, Iran, Hongkong or even China!

 

[fallenmystic]

From Western Germany, we watched on TV in a stunned mood afraid of witnessing similar events like in China in the same year... this could have been the most devastating psychological effect on the police and soldiers in East Germany, because they were by definition the "People's Police" ("Volkspolizei") and the "National People's Army"... How could a German policeman or soldier shoot at such a German demonstration?

Yes, and I'm very glad that the Eastern German soldiers and policemen who were deployed didn't forget the significance of the name their organizations were given, unlike those served under "People's Liberation Army" or "People's Armed Police" who were responsible for the massacre in China that you mentioned.

These were possibly the greatest times ever of and in German history and I really hope that such a success would also be possible one near day in North Korea, Belarus, Russia, Iran, Hongkong or even China!

That's my hope too I believe that things like liberty or human rights shouldn't be confined within political borders or change their meaning according to the difference in culture, religion, or ethnicity. (ok, maybe except in my fantasies where Asian girls belong to a subhuman slave race who should always be kept collared and naked )