If the German government chooses to acknowledge some responsibility, there is a reason. The reason is that the nation mobilized around Hitler, regardless of prior party allegiance, en masse, and with few reservations. While it is true that the German people did not specifically approve the Holocaust, there were no large scale protests of the Nuremburg Laws of 1935, designed to purge German society of Jews, and, incidentally, force the sale of property at firesale prices. There was no widespread revulsion at Kristallnacht, in 1938, when mobs broke into Jewish businesses and homes, looting them, and dragged Jews into the streets to be beaten. The paying of reparations allowed Germany to reclaim the continuity of its past, while specifically disavowing the Nazi period. It was a way to heal German society, primarily.
Actually, the Japanese should have paid reparations, too. They have been very bad about admitting war guilt, and it has effected relations with their neighbors and tainted their politics.
I think that there has been substantial forgiveness of the Axis. There was nothing like the punitive reparations exacted in the aftermath of WWI, and there were efforts at reconstruction by the victors. However, atrocities that were not incidental, but matters of policy at the highest level, cannot be so easily passed over. Forgiveness is often contingent upon remorse, and those with remorse make an attempt at restitution, if they can. |
