American sector

[Erwin]

For what it's worth finalcut, my father was Polish, lost his entire family, and he hated Germans for as long as I knew him.

Oddly, my mother is Estonian and considered the Germans as liberators from the Soviets. When they came back she was in the last boat to Germany and was in Berlin when it fell.

An odd couple for sure. Sounds like a great story/book. But, after decades of asking I could never get more than some superficial details from either of them regarding their experiences. Maybe that speaks for itself re the horrors they endured.

[AslakH]

Politics and semantics.

In Norway we are taught that "we" won.

Norway wasn't even part of the war after 1940, and not actually allied to the US or the UK.

The "exile" government was merely a guest in the UK.

We are not taught about what out government did to so called "Tyskertøser" (those who married and/or had children with german soldiers). A large percentage of those children were sent to Germany with the story that their parents died in the holocaust, or lived lives as orphans in Norway.

Collaborators in Norway did not have any rights until the mid fifties. By law.

And a fair share was beaten to death.

We are not to learn these things as children. Which is OK. Let's not ruin the age of innocense. Let's get back on topic!

[Praetori]

In Sweden back in the 80's when I went to school the WW2 was covered more extensively than WW1.

Most major engagements and theaters were included and also a lot of the events that led up to the war.

The holocaust was an integral part of that education but very little was mentioned about the rest of the atrocities (the Soviets in Poland or the Gulag camps wasn't even mentioned, the information was available just not taught in the books we read).

Pictures of the wastelands of Dresden, Berlin and so forth were shown but little explanation was given to the causes.

The Pacific theater was not prioritized but overall I think it was quite thorough.

A lot of emphasis revolved around the fact that Sweden was supposedly "neutral" in the conflict. Though many students seemed to feel that Sweden at the time betrayed their Northern brethren in Norway, Denmark and Finland by not intervening.

Some people say that since both Norway and Finland gained their freedom from Sweden just a couple of generations before the war (Norway less than 35 years before) they were on their own.

I have no idea how the education regarding WW2 looks today though.

[Petrus58]

I believe Elmar´s desciption of the german view on their nazi past is correct. The germans seem to me to be very well educated on the nazi atrocities and very focused on not letting history repeat itself. But to me is seems like this is slightly less the case in some of the parts of the country that used to be East Germany. It seems to me that this is the place where most of the neo nazis occur in Germany. My impression is that are several different reasons that the nazis have more following in the east than in the west:

1. The East German regime didn´t spend quite as much time and energy on "purging" the nazi ideology as was the case in the west.

2. Eastern Germany is still haven´t caught up with the west economically. Thus, there are large areas with mass unemployment and poverty, ideal conditions for nazi recruiters.

I agree on the first part, but am not sure about your reference to neo-nazis and the former East Germany (DDR). You can find neo nazis is many parts of Europe today and beyond which were not invaded by Germany. My understanding is that in the immediate post-war years it was in the Soviet controlled East Germany where local nazis were purged, but in the West the (Western) Allies largely limited their actions to dealing with high-ranking nazis, and left most minor (ex-nazi) officials in situ. However, it is a long time since I studied this, and could be wrong.

[Splinty]

When I was stationed in Germany in the 90s a German friend told me that WWII was taught in schools as "Germany's greatest shame". She also said that many Germans felt they were still being occupied by the NATO Allies as punishment for WWII.