As Britons celebrated VE Day and the U.K.'s big role, along with other Allied nations, in defeating Germany in the long, bloody battles of World War II, the current German ambassador to Britain had a message for those who could not or would not shake their obsession with all things Nazi: Get over it.
Senior diplomat Thomas Matussek observed that Britain and Germany are "'drifting apart' because British children [are] growing up with 'dangerous misunderstandings' about Germany." (Independent) Too many Britons are inappropriately "obsessed with the Nazi period" and lack a well-informed understanding of postwar German history, he said. (Mirror)
Matussek was 30 years old in 1977, when he arrived in the United Kingdom on his first diplomatic assignment. Back then, he found it "odd" that he "was constantly confronted in [British] newspapers, radio and television with lots of material about the Nazi period and the Second World War," a trend he did not notice at the same time in other European countries.
yes cause you know... bombings... much of their country destroyed
they don't have any reason to be concerned about those events
Matussek noted that Germany's defeat "coincided with Britain losing her empire, which certainly rankled ... some people and led to this obsession with Germany[,] and not always in a very funny way." (With Britons' ignorance of modern Germany in mind, Matussek declined -- diplomatically -- to comment on the notorious photo of Prince Harry, wearing a Nazi uniform at a costume party, that made headlines around the world last January.)
Matthias Matussek, a London-based correspondent for the German newsweekly Der Spiegel and the ambassador's brother, was more forthright. He said, "The British love to hate us Germans. So much so that my 10-year-old son was chased by English school kids chanting, 'Nazi, Nazi.' In fact, the hunt for Nazis has become a neurotic English parlor game. The British really enjoy raking over the German past." (Telegraph
those who who forget the past are something something
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