Anyone collect german ww2 stuff?

[Nosferatu]

Yeah let's burn it all

Yep.

and forget it never happend right?

Nope.

 

[Andy54Hawken]

Please note that the following is not a I am right and anyone who disagrees is wrong kinda thing.
Just tossing this out as something to consider.

Symbols can have power , they can produce an affect ....
Which is why certain colors , shapes , designs , lettering , etc...are used.

Often however...that same power or affect comes from those who view it.
In a sense the viewer gives that symbol power or an affect.
.
To destroy / hide away / ban / etc....some item from The Third Reich , to stay on topic...
Does not make what happened , not to have happened...or "correct" a wrong.....or bring anything back ...etc...
It simply destroys / bans / hides away / etc....a item.
I am not a fan of censorship...and I see the above as a form of censorship.

Again...
Just tossing the above out as something to consider...and not meant as a right or wrong thing...
Or an argument / change someone's mind , etc....

Andy

 

[roseburger]

Wait a second.....your into muzzle loaders??

He stuffs things into his front hole.

 

[roseburger]

You should see the size of his ball bag!

 

[Tlock]

He stuffs things into his front hole.

And uses ripple wrenches......ouch!

 

[roseburger]

He likes a flash in his pan.

 

[Cotton69]

My uncle was shot down in Germany and was captured.He was a pilot of a B17 bombing the hell out of Germany.He ate rats or whatever they could find in the camp.Actually the officers were treated much better than most.He was lucky to survive and when camp was liberated he found his files.

 

[Cotton69]

He kept a diary hidden in his shoe and wrote a book about it.Last meal of brown sour bread and a knife he made from down aircraft over camp.He brought back some german stuff.
.

 

[TTSX]

Collecting genuine tokens of atrocity as "investments" as if they were baseball cards is certainly a choice

 

[Cotton69]

Baseball cards have taken a dump,my neighbor collected them for years and cant give em away,go figure.

 

[nehalemguy]

I collect things the people who killed Germans used. The Nazis may be an important part of history, however the people who removed the true believers from this Earth are the ones to remember. Every artifact like that is tainted.

Well, that didn't seem to influence the tens of thousands of GI's who brought home Nazi souvenirs. How do you think all this stuff made it to the U.S.?

Bring back 1944 Walther PP.

 

[orygun]

Uncle Ed, Dad's brother served in Europe. He was a observer and line man during the Battle of the Bulge.
He brought back a Naval Officers dagger.
My sisters are highly distressed by it's presence, and one of them thinks the stain on the blade is blood, which it is not. It used to be pristine, but it sat in Dad's desk drawer forever.
Now I have it stashed somewhere...

 

[monkeybutler]

I collect things the people who killed Germans used. The Nazis may be an important part of history, however the people who removed the true believers from this Earth are the ones to remember. Every artifact like that is tainted.

I grew up within walking distance of a Holocaust memorial center. I met survivors who lived in my hometown. I worked for a Rabbi for a few years.

"Tainted" doesn't even begin to describe it.

 

[nehalemguy]

I grew up within walking distance of a Holocaust memorial center. I met survivors who lived in my hometown. I worked for a Rabbi for a few years.

"Tainted" doesn't even begin to describe it.

Evil does not reside in inanimate objects.

Edit.....

I do get your point. It has a certain "ick" factor. I have no criticism of the people who just don't want to have this stuff in their house, but I also do not think that owning or collecting such items extends to promoting the ideology.

The Walther PP that I own is more than just a Nazi gun or symbol of Nazism. Walther used forced labor in their factory. That pistol was likely, at least in part, made by the victims of the Nazi regime. They are as much a part of its history as was the German officer who stamped his acceptance mark on it. The fact that it was later captured/taken by a GI and brought home to the U.S. was the ultimate way to show domination over the ideology......conquer them and take their stuff.

-E-

 

[monkeybutler]

Evil does not reside in inanimate objects.

Edit.....

I do get your point. It has a certain "ick" factor. I have no criticism of the people who just don't want to have this stuff in their house, but I do not think that owning or collecting such items extends to promoting the ideology.

Thanks for your input.

I did not remotely suggest collecting that garbage made one a Nazi. It is an indication, to me, of someone who does not understand the full gravity of their own "hobby" and how disturbing those things are to people who had their families systematically slaughtered.

But don't take my word for it. Ask a Rabbi.

 

[Vernonia MW]

Half of my family is german. The other half, Austrian, with most of them being Jewish.

The German side fought during the war. I have a few stories from them, and at this point I think some of them have been embellished. My mom is convinced that one of her grandfathers (who she didn't like) was SS. Supposedly someone at some time stole an airplane in Africa and tried to fly it back home to Germany, but landed in and was captured in France. One of my great-grandparents was missing an arm. As a kid, I found two medals in my opa's machine shop (one awarded for fighting on the eastern front, the other has slipped my mind).

As for my Dad's side of the family... most of them did not survive the holocaust. I do not have any stories from them, as I was much closer to my mom's side of the family. I wish I knew more. Grandma was old enough to remember some of it. She didn't talk about it much, and she passed some years ago. That history is mostly lost.

I collect all sorts of war memorabilia. This does include WW2 German items. I find all of it, from any time or country, interesting. I'm not going to collect stuff that just the good guys use.

 

[nehalemguy]

I see @monkeybutler quoted my post in the alerts but I can no longer see any of his posts. Did I finally land on his ban list? Lame.

-E-

 

[Camelfilter]

Destruction of artifacts, either those from good or from bad, can lead to revisionist history.

Revisionist history MAY then lead to repeating horrific atrocities...

 

[Mikej]

Didnt mean to offend anyone with this stuff,was interested in ww2 history and also bought for an investment.I had a Jewish concentration camp star bought from a collector years ago.Wife didnt want it in the house so consigned it in my antique shop booth.A women came in and bought it for 200.00,said she was Jewish and that it should not be displayed there.Owner said it was just history.She said she was going to burn it,wonder if she ever did.Holocaust items are offensive to most and I understand but still history.I think now I should have kept it.Yeah let's burn it all and forget it ever happend right?

You didn't offend me. And I would say anyone that would be truly offended by seeing these items may want to not think about the atrocity's committed by the Nazi's. And would like to forget just how f'ing horrible and dark those times on this earth were. When I look at these items at some gun shows I get a thick, uncomfortable feeling in my throat. These items SHOULD cause a bad feeling. A bubblegum load of the people that are wrecking some of our large city in The U.S. currently are behaving in a not completely DISimilar ways to the Nazi's. All the while calling others "Nazi". Speech is being called hate and people are being jailed and persecuted in places for speaking truth.
Personally I don't care to have any of the Nazi items, but I am glad for people that do collect those items. Lest we forget that part of world history that should never be forgotten.

 

[Aero Denezol]

I sold my German pistols because they were awful shooters. I still have a few K98s that are deadly accurate with Yugo sniper ammo and I will never sell those. The bolt-action on the K98 is like butter. Truly remarkable craftsmanship because there were no CNC machines back then.

When we were kids we built models of stukas and all sorts of tiger tanks and ships w/ Nazi decals. The Nazis were the bad guys, that's all it was. It's natural for kids to be curious about the bad guys. Hollywood exploits this fascination every year and people lap it up.

Occassionally I still see kids in Portland wearing or displaying hammer & sickle paraphenlia. I know people from Eastern Europe for whom the hammer & sickle represents untold human suffering. Fortunately people from Eastern Europe are hardy and not easily "triggered".

As an American I abhor National Socialism and Communism both. But as a student of WWII history I am opposed to the destruction of relics.