Was East Germany worse than Nazi Germany?

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Of all the Warsaw Pact nations, East Germany was certainly the best-off on economic terms. You could buy all sorts of quality goods there that were unheard of in the Soviet Union.

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better - in keeping with their ethnic elitist ideology, Nazis generally made life miserable only to people of the wrong nationality and political dissidents, as opposed to the internationalist Communists that made life equally miserable to pretty much everyone outside the higher tiers of the Party.

Nazis also had some sound ideas about running a nation-state in general.

[Allet Klar Chefs]

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better.

Apart from women, the disabled, political opponents, obviously all the people that were killed or maimed physically and mentally in the Second World War that Nazi Germany started, and as a result of the ethnic cleansing the rest of the world turned something of a blind eye to in its aftermath, etc. etc.

Other than that, though, great. Trains ran on time (sometimes). Jobs for everyone (except not really).

[Jetan]

Well, both of them were dictatorial, oppressive shitstates, but only one of them was a genocidal, dictatorial, oppressive shitstate.

[The Scientific States]

No. East Germany was awful, but Nazi Germany was 10x worse.

[Alyakia]

Of all the Warsaw Pact nations, East Germany was certainly the best-off on economic terms. You could buy all sorts of quality goods there that were unheard of in the Soviet Union.

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better - in keeping with their ethnic elitist ideology, Nazis generally made life miserable only to people of the wrong nationality and political dissidents, as opposed to the internationalist Communists that made life equally miserable to pretty much everyone outside the higher tiers of the Party.

Nazis also had some sound ideas about running a nation-state in general.

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

[The Rhomaion]

Of all the Warsaw Pact nations, East Germany was certainly the best-off on economic terms. You could buy all sorts of quality goods there that were unheard of in the Soviet Union.

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better - in keeping with their ethnic elitist ideology, Nazis generally made life miserable only to people of the wrong nationality and political dissidents, as opposed to the internationalist Communists that made life equally miserable to pretty much everyone outside the higher tiers of the Party.

Nazis also had some sound ideas about running a nation-state in general.

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

*Jews, homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, the mentally and/or physically handicapped, Soviet prisoners of war, women, Sinti and Roma, left-wingers, non-"Aryans" in general and pacifists.

It's really a very very long list.

Basically you were better off if you owned a massive corporation like IG Farben, were a woman who was really really keen on having children and not living an independent existence, or were a well-off pro-Nazi German/Scandinavian non-criminal Christian-or-atheist physically and mentally capable non-pacifist straight man.

Not many people met all (or even many) of those criteria, really.

[Herrebrugh]

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better.

Apart from women, the disabled, political opponents, obviously all the people that were killed or maimed physically and mentally in the Second World War that Nazi Germany started, and as a result of the ethnic cleansing the rest of the world turned something of a blind eye to in its aftermath, etc. etc.

Other than that, though, great. Trains ran on time (sometimes). Jobs for everyone (except not really).

To add to that: trains probably ran on time in the start. It becomes tougher the less rail you have left after bombings.

There were quite some jobs, though. It's just that a lot of those involved dying sooner or later. Oh, well.

[Imperium Sidhicum]

Of all the Warsaw Pact nations, East Germany was certainly the best-off on economic terms. You could buy all sorts of quality goods there that were unheard of in the Soviet Union.

Still, for the German people Nazi Germany was certainly much better - in keeping with their ethnic elitist ideology, Nazis generally made life miserable only to people of the wrong nationality and political dissidents, as opposed to the internationalist Communists that made life equally miserable to pretty much everyone outside the higher tiers of the Party.

Nazis also had some sound ideas about running a nation-state in general.

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

Correct.

Which is, in my eyes, preferable to the Communist practice of persecuting people of every nationality and persuasion for the simple fault of being born in a family that happened to own a farm or a business, or to be well-educated.

Social class isn't limited by ethnicity, creed, health status or lifestyle choices, hence giving Communism a lot broader opportunities to make someone's life miserable than ethnic ultranationalism did to Nazism.

So my answer still stands - for ethnic Germans, Nazi Germany was a better place to live than GDR, at least until 1943.

[The Rhomaion]

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

Correct.

Which is, in my eyes, preferable to the Communist practice of persecuting people of every nationality and persuasion for the simple fault of being born in a family that happened to own a farm or a business, or to be well-educated.

Social class isn't limited by ethnicity, creed, health status or lifestyle choices, hence giving Communism a lot broader opportunities to make someone's life miserable than ethnic ultranationalism did to Nazism.

So my answer still stands - for ethnic Germans, Nazi Germany was a better place to live than GDR, at least until 1943.

Unless those ethnic Germans were (most) women, Jehovah's Witnesses, left-wingers, pacifists, trade unionists or mentally or physically handicapped to any significant extent.

[Herrebrugh]

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

Correct.

Which is, in my eyes, preferable to the Communist practice of persecuting people of every nationality and persuasion for the simple fault of being born in a family that happened to own a farm or a business, or to be well-educated.

Social class isn't limited by ethnicity, creed, health status or lifestyle choices, hence giving Communism a lot broader opportunities to make someone's life miserable than ethnic ultranationalism did to Nazism.

So my answer still stands - for ethnic Germans, Nazi Germany was a better place to live than GDR, at least until 1943.

That's not what happened in the former GDR... The only thing you could be persecuted for was having the "wrong" opinion, and everything resulting from that (ergo Republikflucht).

Besides, being gay, disabled or jewish doesn't preclude you from being an ethnic German.

[Shilya]

Which is, in my eyes, preferable to the Communist practice of persecuting people of every nationality and persuasion for the simple fault of being born in a family that happened to own a farm or a business, or to be well-educated.

Well, that wasn't exactly the case in in the GDR. There's a reason they put a compass in the emblem there.

Political opinion was a no-go, but being educated wasn't a problem, the churches were generally left alone so long as they didn't meddle and while you'd lose the farm as property, you weren't persecuted for it.

[Alyakia]

Still, for the German* people Nazi Germany was certainly much better

*jews, homosexuals and disabled need not apply

Correct.

Which is, in my eyes, preferable to the Communist practice of persecuting people of every nationality and persuasion for the simple fault of being born in a family that happened to own a farm or a business, or to be well-educated.

Social class isn't limited by ethnicity, creed, health status or lifestyle choices, hence giving Communism a lot broader opportunities to make someone's life miserable than ethnic ultranationalism did to Nazism.

So my answer still stands - for ethnic Germans, Nazi Germany was a better place to live than GDR, at least until 1943.

so you'd rather families get persecuted because some methhead thinks they own/run the country instead of families getting "persecuted" because they actually do own/run the country?

that's pretty funny honestly.

[Jinwoy]

In short, no.
In long, noooooooooo...

[Confederate Nordenkaltian Nations]

They were both just as bad.

[Southern Hampshire]

For healthy and conservative ethnic Germans, Nazi Germany was far better than East Germany*. For everyone else, DDR was better.

*Until 1943

I do not see how you can compare the treatment of women in Nazi Germany to the treatment of PWD / Jews / non-heterosexuals. They were praised for being women, given medals and recognition for being housewives, being given loans and grants for having children and free unlimited education. They had almost the same rights as males, none of them were oppressive. I do not see how a state encouraging women to be housewives, but not forcing them to, can be considered sexist.

[The Rhomaion]

They were both just as bad.

No they weren't. One committed genocide and systematically brutally discriminated against anyone who wasn't "Aryan". The other was a totalitarian police-state which, although it had its many many downsides, wasn't completely evil.

[The Rhomaion]

I do not see how you can compare the treatment of women in Nazi Germany to the treatment of PWD / Jews / non-heterosexuals. They were praised for being women, given medals and recognition for being housewives, being given loans and grants for having children and free unlimited education. They had almost the same rights as males, none of them were oppressive. I do not see how a state encouraging women to be housewives, but not forcing them to, can be considered sexist.

As someone who studied Hitler's Germany last year (only for GCSE, admittedly, but the point still stands), allow me to point out that there were virtually no women in any positions of power whatsoever in Nazi Germany (bar the head of the Nazi Women's League, Gertrude Scholtz-Klink, who had no power anyway).

Furthermore, when the Nazis consolidated, the vast majority of female teachers were sacked (I believe that the same happened to women in medical professions), and from 1936 onwards women couldn't go into law. They weren't allowed any level of inclusion into the political life of the Nazi state. Despite a degree of reversal in the "Women are totally inferior" policy in 1937, they only really started getting jobs in 1943 when the Nazi government decided "Shit, maybe we actually need to harness all the resources at our disposal to try and prevent defeat in this murderous war we started".

So basically, you're talking total crap and women were systematically discriminated against in Nazi Germany; the only women better off were those who wanted to have children as their primary goal in life (of which there were some) and had no desire for a career. All other women were royally shat upon by life in Nazi Germany, just not to the same extent as the various minorities, the disabled, the Soviet prisoners and the leftists.

You might find this useful.

[Risottia]

Do you think East Germany was worse than Nazi Germany? I think East Germany was worse for Aryans,

Yeah totally, East German "Aryans" were totally chucked into gas chambers and bombed to death by the millions.

Then again, what do you expect from someone who uses "Aryan" as a race descriptor for contemporary Europeans as opposed to "Jews"?

[The United Colonies of Earth]

Are you a capitalist or a gay Jew?
Are you a kid trying to flee over the Berlin Wall to the Western part of the city or someone stuck in a Nazi concentration camp on the suburbs of some European city?
The Nazis had a far more lasting impression on our imagination. Beyond that, I have no opinion.

[Dracoria]

I think I'd rather the livable paper cut of the Federal Republic.

I dunno what the ghost of Hannah Arendt would say about that.

My guess is 'oooOOOoooooOOOOooo'.

[The Isles of New Babylon]

One was genocidal but had a rather incompetent secret police the other treated everyone more equally by spying on everyone.

So just as bad but in different ways, although morally the Nazis were worse, at least the DDR was supposed to be helping the workers.

[The Rhomaion]

One was genocidal but had a rather incompetent secret police the other treated everyone more equally by spying on everyone.

So just as bad but in different ways, although morally the Nazis were worse, at least the DDR was supposed to be helping the workers.

I genuinely don't understand, even as someone who dislikes East Germany, how it's "just as bad" as the totalitarian racist militarist sexist state that made war on most of Europe and committed genocide.

[The Isles of New Babylon]

One was genocidal but had a rather incompetent secret police the other treated everyone more equally by spying on everyone.

So just as bad but in different ways, although morally the Nazis were worse, at least the DDR was supposed to be helping the workers.

I genuinely don't understand, even as someone who dislikes East Germany, how it's "just as bad" as the totalitarian racist militarist sexist state that made war on most of Europe and committed genocide.

I was talking about for those in Germany, for the world at large Nazi Germany was far worse than East Germany. Having heard how the Stasi operated they sound far scarier than the Gestapo.

[The Rhomaion]

I genuinely don't understand, even as someone who dislikes East Germany, how it's "just as bad" as the totalitarian racist militarist sexist state that made war on most of Europe and committed genocide.

I was talking about for those in Germany, for the world at large Nazi Germany was far worse than East Germany. Having heard how the Stasi operated they sound far scarier than the Gestapo.

For apolitical people, East Germany was (largely) less awful, due to the far more sensible policies towards women's rights, the lack of persecution of the disabled, Jews (not that there were an enormous amount of Jewish people left in Germany by 1949, I wouldn't imagine), ethnic minorities and so on, as well as the (AFAIK) lack of camps where you were worked to death.

To use that 9-square D&D grid that crops up from time to time, East Germany was Lawful Evil, while Nazi Germany was Chaotic Evil.

I'm sure that East Germany had its share of pretty grim things, including the obvious examples of the Stasi and the "Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart", but for the majority of its population it was not as bad as Nazi Germany.

[Bojikami]

No, nothing was as bad as that genocidal turd.