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Obama will be returning to Europe this summer, and along the way, he’ll be making a pit stop in Germany. He wants to visit Buchenwald, the one of the horrific concentration camps operated by the Nazis where over 50,000 people were murdered. It was finally liberated in 1945 by American forces, including… OBAMA’S UNCLE!!!!!!! And this will, of course, be another addition to the American Apology Tour. What would any trip overseas with the President of the United States be without the president talking about how much we suck?
President Obama is preparing to follow in the footsteps of his great-uncle, Charlie, with a visit to the Buchenwald concentration camp in Germany when he returns to Europe this summer.
The site is laden with historic and personal significance for the President. More than 50,000 people died at the camp before its liberation in April, 1945 by American soldiers, including Charlie Payne, the uncle of Mr Obama’s mother.
For the soldiers that stumbled over the corpses it was their first encounter with the Holocaust, and the horrors, relayed back home, helped to raise American consciousness of Nazi atrocities.
… Thomas Steg, spokesman for the German Government, said that Mr Obama might visit “historical places that in the widest sense are related to the different aspects of World War Two — destruction and rebuilding, extermination and the breakdown of civilisation”, as well as places which have “biographical references” for his family.
During the election campaign Mr Obama sought regularly to deflect any suggestion that his exotic multinational background meant that he lacked patriotism by pointing out how his maternal grandfather, Stanley Dunham, had “marched with Patton’s army” after the Normandy landings.
… Visiting a concentration camp will send an important message to Israel and Jewish voters back home — who have sometimes been suspicious towards him — that he fully recognises the horrors of the Holocaust.
But he will be aware of the sensibilities of his German hosts before the D-Day commemoration and by travelling to Dresden — a city destroyed by ferocious Allied bombing in February 1945 — Mr Obama will also acknowledge how Germany suffered during the Second World War.
Yes, Germany suffered so in WWII. It must have been so tough, all that murdering and fighting to achieve total world domination and advancing an evil, fascist regime. If only those evil, evil Americans hadn’t gone and bombed your country so horribly to stop the advancement of such evil you wouldn’t have suffered so.
And hey, don’t forget, Buchenwald is suddenly a much more sacred place because it has ties to the Obamamessiah. We cannot stress that enough, can we? There were all these other nameless, less important soldiers there that liberated Buchenwald, but the one we really need to focus on is the one guy who was related to Obama. He’s the special one.
Aren’t we just so lucky to have such a patriotic, humble president?
Hat Tip: Ace of Spades
ArsPoetica says: I really think this is an example of looking for reasons to be pissed off. I really doubt the US is trying to diminish the atrocities of the Nazi regime, but I do think it’s appropriate to understand that WWII was over 60 years ago and most Germans today weren’t alive at that time and many (having spoken to many myself) are deeply shamed by that period of their history (there’s a reason it’s illegal to deny the Holocaust there). I don’t think it would serve the US any by going to a concentration camp and throwing shit in the eye of a European ally while paying respects to victims of the Holocaust. Say what you like about the evils of Nazi tyranny, but it is wholly inappropriate to go to another country and point out the sins of another generation for no reason. I don’t think Angela Merkel would visit Gettysburg or Fort Sumter and say, “It’s a shame so many thousands had to die so Confederates could keep owning slaves! You know the rest of Europe had outlawed that practice quite awhile before… oops!” Maybe we ought to keep the pseudo-indignant tone to a minimum and allow a man (our President) to to visit the site hallowed by the blood of so many innocents and pay his respects with a modicum of decorum, decency, and maybe a touch of humility and reverence.
That’s my two cents…
ArsPoetica
Justin says: Germany did suffer badly during WWII. At the hands of its own socialistic government.
The allies saved the German people by overthrowing the socialists. Obama feeling the need to apologize for our conduct is sickening.
mj says: This means so much to the President that he once claimed, wrongly, that his uncle had helped to liberate Auschwitz.
His April 5th speech in Prague seemed to imply regrets for winning the war. Perhaps we’ll see a formal apology now.
I predicted that Obama’s mama would be elevated to sainthood after he was elected. I guess that any and all of is relatives will also receive sainthood. Would someone please educate me on HOW his uncle helped to liberate Auschwitz?
Obama going around and apologizing all over the place for what America has done in the past reminds me of some of the girls in school who thought that if you slept with a guy he would like you.
Glenn Cassel AMH1(AW) USN RET says: And now he apologizes for the Royal Air Force? Holy smokes!
History lesson, obambozo, the Royal Air Force did most of the damage at Dreseden during the night. They used incindiaries as a part of their normal operations. We bombed during the day, using precision technics. Well as precision as a Norden Bomb Sight would allow. The US Army Air Force showed up the next day and finished off what was left.
The CinC’s inability to do any historic research is getting out of hand. But then again, he does consider us to be the bad guys.
Scumbag.
Well Ars,
You certainly proved that you are an “arse” with that comment. Let’s break it down, shall we?
“I really think this is an example of looking for reasons to be pissed off. I really doubt the US is trying to diminish the atrocities of the Nazi regime, but I do think it’s appropriate to understand that WWII was over 60 years ago and most Germans today weren’t alive at that time and many (having spoken to many myself) are deeply shamed by that period of their history (there’s a reason it’s illegal to deny the Holocaust there).”
I would say that Obama’s future visit is pretty much par for the course so far as far as overseas visits are concerned. Every time he goes overseas, he has to apologize for some apparent American transgression. I can’t wait to see what he does when he visits Japan. As far as the Germans being ashamed of their past, one could have fooled me. Anti-semitism is on the rise (again) all throughout Europe and Germany is no exception.
“I don’t think it would serve the US any by going to a concentration camp and throwing shit in the eye of a European ally while paying respects to victims of the Holocaust.”
Yeah, some ally. They won’t even support us in the War on Terror (or whatever retarded name the Obama Administration cooked up for this war). They try to block us at every turn (kinda like the French). With “allies” like that, who needs enemies? As for the second half of your sentence, either we’re throwing shit in our ally’s eye or we’re paying respects. Take your pick. All of this horror happened in Germany, so you can’t have it both ways.
“I don’t think Angela Merkel would visit Gettysburg or Fort Sumter and say, ‘It’s a shame so many thousands had to die so Confederates could keep owning slaves! You know the rest of Europe had outlawed that practice quite awhile before… oops!’ ”
Your level of historical perspective astounds me (well, no, not really). Gettysburg and Fort Sumter were battles. Last time I checked, even the South didn’t try to coldly exterminate millions of blacks. And the last time I checked, thousands died not so that the South could own slaves (after all they lost the war), they died so that they could be free. As for Europeans and slavery, you might want to look up some facts about how your vaunted Europeans treated their natives in all of their colonies. I think you would be aghast (you might want to try reading Robert Conrad and his stories in the Belgian Congo).
“Maybe we ought to keep the pseudo-indignant tone to a minimum and allow a man (our President) to to visit the site hallowed by the blood of so many innocents and pay his respects with a modicum of decorum, decency, and maybe a touch of humility and reverence.”
I truly doubt that there’s anything “pseudo” about it. Of course in your previous statement, you said that visiting these sites were throwing shit in an ally’s eye. So here we are again: is it reverence or is it crapslinging? Quite frankly, you sound like you’re trying to deify this jackass no matter what he does. I call it horseshit.
“That’s my two cents…”
Trust me, it wasn’t even worth a penny…
Bobv says: I wonder, is he ok with anything the US did prior to his term? Seems like he feels the need to apologize for all that unfortunate, pre-obama stuff. But now that he’s in charge we can move forward.
I really hope in 2012 we get a republican who promptly takes a world tour to take back all the previous 4 years of apologizing. Something along the lines of “yes, we have made mistakes in the past, but we’ve been overall a great force for good in the world, many of you owe your freedoms and lives to our actions, and any apologies owed by the US president are to the American people, not any foreign power. Thank you and next time you need help, ask China, we’re done with you.”
Cylar says: Something along the lines of “yes, we have made mistakes in the past, but we’ve been overall a great force for good in the world, many of you owe your freedoms and lives to our actions, and any apologies owed by the US president are to the American people, not any foreign power.
I’m with you. The good the USA has done in this world far outweighs the bad. As with the Soviet Union, the bulk of the apologizing ought to be directed at our own citizens for all the ways this government has screwed them in general over the past couple of centuries, and in the last fifty years in particular.
Since Obama enjoys making apologies for the mistakes of history so much, maybe he can start by apologizing to Vietnam-Era veterans for A) not letting them win the war, B) making little if any provision for their reintegration into civilian society and C) generally screwing them over. Oh yeah, and not giving them blanket immunity to beat the crap out of the hippies and flower children trying to spit on them.
A couple of metal and stone memorials in D.C. are great and all, but something like 58,000 of them turned suicidal after returning home and took their own lives. It’s as many as were lost in the war itself. Tens of thousands more either went batshit and wound up in jail, or at the least suffer from severe psychological problems to this day, some 40 years later.
It’s high time this nation fully appreciated what those men went through, that very little (if any) of it was their fault, and that the entire country owes them a debt of gratitude the same it does any other generation of veterans. Sure, a few Viet Vets will spit at the government no matter what it says, but that’s OK. I suspect many of them will find it refreshing.
And I say this as someone who was only just being born about the time the last of them were coming home.
Steffen says: ArsPoetica I have to ask. When was the last time you were in Germany? I have been living here for the last 16 years. hmmmmmm I guess that makes me and expert.
Here is where many germans stand on this. They understand and know what happened. They are not ashamed only saying htat it was the mistakes of a different generation. B U T it should never be forgotten. It should never be ignored. Should that happen it will happen again.
Now how can you draw a line from the American Civil war to the slaughter of over 6 million people? Please informe me of your logic becasue I fail to see any.
Oh and Frau Merkel did visit the Alamo on her visit to Texas a few years back. She didn’t make a speach but she was there.
My wife’s grandfather was a WWII veteran. I am an Operation Desert Shield veteran. He was a grunt and so was I. Grunts talk to each other. He told me that on the front (In France and Italy where he was captured) there were roumers mut no hard facts of Der Endlösung. He was sad that he didn’t know. He would have liked to have tried to do something to stop it.
When I was working a project in Berlin I got there right after the Holekost Gedenkmauer was finished. I was at Postdamerplatz doing some shopping and I decided to walk around the corner and visit it. There was this little old lady there putting flowers on all the stones. She had a pile of flowers in a corner and she was walking back and forth picking up flowers and putting them on the stones. I was walking around and had a feeling of sadness. I left. I went to a cafe for a cup of coffee. Just as I was done in walked the little lady. I walked over to her and asked her if she is Jewish and she said no. She only wanted to do something nice for the people. I offered to pay for her coffee but she politly refused.
I have been to Dachau and Buchenwald. Have you? Very wierd feeling as you walk in. You can still see the shadows of bodies inside the ovens. Birds doen’t even fly directly over the places.
OH and yer the first person I have come in contact with that calls Urkel a “man” I refuse to.
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