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Editors' note: The editors are happy to post this response to previous
postings. Without reference to the message below or to others already
published on H-German, we would like to remind our audience that the
editors and the editorial board are in agreement that all comments on
current controversies should have as their main concern the profession of
German history, thus moving beyond purely personal views about emotional
events. Thanks, dr/ng
Submitted by: Gerald D. Feldman
gfeld@uclink.berkeley.edu
As I read Hans Kolbe's latest contribution to another H-NET discussion
moving rapidly into outer space, I almost find myself sharing Woody
Allen's views of California even though I have lived here since 1963.
In any case, I would suggest that Kolbe's perspective is his perspective,
not "the California Perspective." I have no spiritual acceptance of the
crimes of the Wehrmacht, and I don't see why anyone should, and
Jewish-German dialogue on this issue will not help much because the
Wehrmacht's crimes were anything but limited to Jews. A few of my best
friends are former members of the Wehrmacht, and we understand one another
perfectly. Obviously, our views of the Wehrmacht and the role of ordinary
Germans in the Second World War are being revised by evidence that is
incontrovertible but that needs to be studied, contextualized, and
understood with the methods of the historian and the social scientist. We
might then be able to take a more informed moral posture instead of
indulging our Betroffenheit. Gerald D. Feldman, University of California
at Berkeley
 Humanities & Social Sciences Online 
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