@Gunlord500
I suppose it's possible that the Junge Freiheit is some immaculate exemplar of journalistic integrity...or it's simply that nobody finds it really worth the effort to levy a complaint against them, or that the people who might aren't aware of them.
Yeah, I guess if you're not German, or uninterested in politics, that might all seem possible. If you do look for it though, you'll find them constantly challenged by everything from center-right sources (Zeit) over center-left (FAZ) and leftwingextremists (indymedia). So far, they have always been able to prove the claims they were challenged on.
And if you ignore the commentaries, they're actually the most objective newspaper I've read so far. Where other papers push their narrative through lies, leading questions or subjective choice of words, the JF does it solely by choosing what to report on and what to ignore (which is still a bias of course, but far preferable to the constant cycle lies and corrections most other german papers publish).
I somehow doubt the Junge Freiheit has a significant number of Czechoslovakian readers.
You're probably right. I gave the JF as a source because I understand what they write, but if you want a primary source, there's several Czech initiatives trying to keep the Czech warcrimes remembered. For example, the city council of Brno (Brünn) built a memorial for the German civilians massacred there and hosts a "memorial march" following the escape route of the survivors every year. As I don't speak Czech though, you'll have to find the primary sources yourself. I could give secondary german sources, but most of those would be either the JF or some small-time regional paper.
far-right German publication calling Czechoslovakians "beasts"
The German article I linked didn't contain anything like that. The closest thing is that it called burning civilians alive a "bestiality". Probably a mistranslation on your part.
Hell, how do we know you're even actually German?
How about ÜÖÄüöäß? Guess that's the only way I can prove it unless somebody else here speaks fluent german - but then, that might just be me with another account, oder? (inb4 upload ID - I don't want to lose my job or get my car burned.)
But for fun, what nationality do you think I am? Russian, for defending the soviets a bit? Or American, for calling out an obvious Russian troll? Or Jewish, for playing both sides?
told about Americans, like machine-gunning kindergartners
It's public knowledge that the Americans executed children and teens for supposedly being with the Werwolf. Didn't think anybody would not know about that. Some cases, like Heinz Petry (16 at his execution), became well-known, others, like the ones I mentioned, are the kind of thing some grandpa will tell you after the third beer, and would never mention in public for fear of repercussions.
I can understand that you'd doubt it - but I can't understand why people would doubt this, yet believe the "mongolian soviets ate my baby" stories without question. Which was my original plan of argument, except that nobody called me out on it so far.
it's not like Astros is being at all unwise to be at least a little suspicious of your claims.
Yes, absolutely. I never claimed he was. What I did claim is that he shouldn't blindly believe history books, especially not when they're clearly biased, and worse than that, he only has access to one side's bias. If he's doubting me, that's a good start - now he only needs to start doubting everybody else too, and soon enough, he'll arrive at the same conclusions I did.
Same to you, btw - you're doubting the JF, because it's nationalist and German: But are you doubting your (probably) west-aligned school history book because it's issued by a (most likely) Nato state? If not, why?
@YaBoiAstros
Genuine question, only 200.000 died? Even the official soviet records said that 381.000 died. And western sources claimed the number as high as 1 million.
The "more than 1 million" is an old, pre'89 estimate based on how many people the Americans admitted died in their camps, and how many were missing despite not having been missing at the time of surrender. I don't think I've ever read that in any book written after the 90s.
The number I mentioned is based on the ~1,4 million that disappeared after the surrender (not reported MIA or dead before, but never came home - source: German Red Cross), divided by whether their units surrendered to the Soviets or the west (which gathered all POWs in camps controlled by the Americans). Can't recall who did the exact math rn, but I remember checking random examples against the official list.
Several Historians, for example James Baque or Willi Griesheimer, reached similiar numbers, while others claim that only 5000 died, without giving any explanation for the remainder. Tellingly though, the German government is refusing requests for archeological research in the areas where witnesses claim the mass graves were, despite these areas being worthless fields and meadows nowadays. I can only think of one reason they'd do that.
As for the official soviet records, iirc they did not make a difference between soldiers and civilians, or country of origin. That drives numbers up, but makes them harder to check, as there's no way to know just how many civilians were imprisoned, or died in bombings. For soldiers on the other hand, everything is documented up until the surrender, and if somebody was present then (and thus became POW), but never left the camps (=returned home - as the Americans did not keep books, that's the closest you can get), he must have died there. Same logic as used for calculating the deaths in the KZs.
And how did 1.2 millions disappeared in the US when they only took 425.000 POWs
That's a misunderstanding. I was speaking of American camps (as in, camps under American control) not camps located in the US. They built camps along the Rhine ("Rheinwiesenlager"), where they kept POWs at first. Officially, these had 1-2 million of inmates (at a time, with people constantly being brought in or out).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinwiesenlager
If you want some (biased, but source-quoting) info on the American prison camps, there's a German site collecting witness testimonies (including some from American veterans) and historic assessments:
http://www.rheinwiesenlager.de/index.htm
Another interesting source on this is the autobiography of v. Salomon (who was among the civilians imprisoned). The Questionaire, to be specific, as he's written two more parts on the 1920s. Though I should probably warn you that it also contains sections on Nazis being tortured and blackmailed into signing pre-written confessions regarding the holocaust, so it might get you into trouble depending on where you live.
I'm sure we can agree that most revisionist is far from reliable.
Depends. I've made the experience that (educated) revisionists will research far more in depth, as they know that they'll face opposition. You should obviously check their sources, but listening to what they have to say is usually worth it. Take the ww1 Franctireurs, for example - everybody agreed they never existed until three years ago (and most english books still do), yet the revisionists claiming different could prove they were right.
I don't speak german so to me your primary sources are nothing but a wall of text I can't even read.
Figured. That's why I gave so few German sources (and now have another guy doubting I'm German...). Makes it kinda hard to argue though, as most of the formal sources I'm basing my opinion on are older German history books (Or more precisely, how little they agree with each other, depending on when and where they were written) and reprints of primary sources. And of course the kind of tales older people tell (or used to - most of them are dead by now), though those should obviously be doubted unless they match up with other sources.
