Relativism

Eric Muller notices what might be a new low for the post-modernist right wing:

I'm all for a moment to reflect on the memory of the men who died in the cause of spreading National Socialism around the globe. Only some of these POWs were supporters of the Nazis; many were young conscripts who undoubtedly cared little for Hitler's plans for world domination and racial purification. Even those among the dead who were Nazis led full human lives that included more than just their support for the Reich. It is fitting to remember these human lives.

What is not fitting, however, are the quoted comments of Lt. Col. Herbert Sladek, of Fort Benning's German Army liaison team, on the fallen Germans buried in the United States:

"They were educated in another time period, with another political guideline. In their opinion, they also fought for freedom, liberty and for their fatherland. That's why these people gave all they had -- their own lives."

You will not find a German publication or official who speaks of Vertrauerstag in this way, and with good reason. This day does not commemorate the cause for which these soldiers served, or the nobility of their efforts in support of a cause that in "their opinion" was just. They did not "also" fight for "freedom" and "liberty."

Indeed. "Say what will about the tenets of national socialism dude, at least at was an ethos...but fucking nihilists, man?" as the great Walter Sobchak once said.