Fearing neo-Nazis will flock to their western German town, the protestant church in Herxheim am Berg has announced that they will no longer ring a bell inscribed with the words “Everything for the Fatherland – Adolf Hitler.”More
The town’s mayor resigned earlier this week for defending the bell and quoting a local resident who thought the Nazis weren’t all bad. More
Priorities VS virtue signalling
*rolls eyes*
MSM will tie it to President Trump, in some manner.
Apparently they made a lot of these back in 1930’s Germany. It’s time to melt this one down.
Maybe the Antifa would like to go over there and tear it down. Maybe the neo-Nazis will be waiting for them.
What’s the German word for “popcorn”? Oh yeah, “Puffmais”.
Dr. Tar, wanna burn some books while you’re at it?!
Look at the picture, even the pigeons have been crapping on this thing.
Czar of D, what’s the historical justification for keeping this thing around? Maybe, the Fuehrer heard it ring and liked the tone? If these things were common, why put it in a museum? A photo will suffice. How much Nazi propaganda needs to be retained for future generations to admire?
So Herr Ronland Becker, what you are saying is “Dresden was not enough of a lesson for the message to completely 100% sink in”. Good to know for future reference.
Dr. Tar,
Let’s burn every existing copy of Mein Kampf, too?
@Dr. Tar September 9, 2017 at 2:45 pm
“[W]hat’s the historical justification for keeping this thing around?”
Let’s see… It’s a bell. In a church bell tower. That rings.
Perhaps we Good™ people should dynamite all the bridges built, repaired, and merely passed over, while The National Socialists were the de jure German government. Should we confiscate and crush all Volkswagen vehicles. What about the diesels? I know the NAZIs did some obscene typography “reform”. Good™ people need to eat, since burning is carbon Bad™, all books not printed in a font the NAZIs outlawed. What else do you imagine might hurt some very special people’s feelings? We need a list. Lists are Good™.
All right I’ll take the other side here and argue for the community’s right to reclaim the rest of its centuries old Germany history without the stench of the 15 years or so of the Third Reich that this single bell represents.
Perhaps the congregation of this particular protestant church should be left to decide for themselves if this relic of a horrific past should be allowed to exist any longer and I’d suspect since they’ve chosen to not use the bell anymore they aren’t going to placing it in the front of the church for all passersby to admire their dedication to history, but maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ll want to throw away their Christian tradition and take up this mighty artifact of their history and wear it like a hair shirt and self flagellate themselves each morning in front of the words Adolf Hitler to atone for the awful sins of their great grand parents, uncles and aunts.
And please stop with the Reductio ad absurdum argument that I would condone or argue for the complete erasure of all history of the Nazis by first advocating for the melting of this particular bell.
To quote from Wikipedia
Reductio ad absurdum is only valid when it builds on assertions which are actually present in the argument it is deconstructing, and not when it misrepresents them as a straw man.
TarMan, your argument is EXACTLY that of AntiFa. ERASE HISTIRY! And you “call yourself” (I’m just assuming) a libertarian. Ha!
Dude, the Nazi sh!t is history.
No one sees the bell.
The bell sounds pretty.
MEANWHILE, f*cking muzzie terrorists are pillaging and raping freely throughout the country, while declaring the country theirs.
But…THE BELL…OMG!!! EVERYBODY PANIC!!! /s
“reclaim the rest of its centuries old Germany history without the stench of the 15 years or so”
The Truth™ is that we have always been at war with Oceania.
More of a Conservative I’m Afraid Czar of D.
I’m all for devolving power down to the local and let the people who have to live with the decision decide for themselves and to vote for or against their local representatives who take action that the community likes or opposes.
I was never against the right of a community removing statues, legally. I oppose vehemently a mob doing so. I also think the municipalities should think long and hard about both sides of the history they are removing when a confederate statue comes down. Taking them down takes away from the civil rights movement during the same time those monuments went up. The fierceness of a struggle is best understood when you know about the side being fought against.
The bell belongs to this particular protestant church. If the congregation wants to keep it, they should be allowed to keep it, if on the other hand the want to permanently silence their property and destroy it, that is their right as well.
I’d be really angry if a mob showed up and demanded they destroy it. I’d also be unhappy with neo-Nazis coming going there demanding they don’t destroy it.
If it were up to me though, I’d melt the thing down to make crosses or something more symbolically constructive.
The church has two other bells already and they are getting by just fine not using the Hitler bell anymore.
When tolling does it ring out “seig heil’?
A lot of churches in Germany, especially in the country side, have spaces hidden away from public view, that contain these bells and monuments to these events – after all they had relatives and fiends who died in the war that they still remember…I am never going to forget my grandfather, who left home every morning, and returned home every night, from his job at the local concentration camp (not saying which one)… do I celebrate what he did and what he was…no, but I can tell you he paid the price for his crimes. Isn’t that enough?
Or should we go to our ancestral village and tear down his gravestone, did what’s left of him up and scatter it to the winds? These folks deal with what their country did everyday and I’ve had enough conversations with them to know the issues, compensations, and (behavioral) over corrections they engage in.
I still have an uncle who was former nazi youth who served on the highest court of appeals who was so liberal I couldn’t talk to him most days but I understand who he is.
You can rink mein be-ee-el, rink mein bell! YOU VILL DO IT NOW!
Near the end of the First World War, the shortage of iron was so severe the German government requisitioned most of the church bells in the empire and melted them down to make armaments.
I suspect many were not replaced until after the Nazis were in power.
Almost every other symbol of that criminal regime has been destroyed and I don’t see a reason why this should stay.Melt it down.
Germany is going to be gone in a couple of years, who gives a rats ass?