The "Panzerlied" was to be found in songbooks of the Bundeswehr until 2017. Only then it was decided (72 years after the end of the war), that songs of the Wehrmacht could put the wrong ideas into the heads of young German soldiers.

Omg is that a battle of the bulge reference?

sanitaeter said:

The "Panzerlied" was to be found in songbooks of the Bundeswehr until 2017. Only then it was decided (72 years after the end of the war), that songs of the Wehrmacht could put the wrong ideas into the heads of young German soldiers.

2017... that was when the "Tag X" 'scandal' hit for Kommando Spezialkräfte, right? Was that the precipitating factor? The Bundeswehr realizing they have a rig— radicalization problem?

NNescio said:

2017... that was when the "Tag X" 'scandal' hit for Kommando Spezialkräfte, right? Was that the precipitating factor? The Bundeswehr realizing they have a rig— radicalization problem?

Armies need traditions, the older the better. The Bundeswehr has the problem of a REALLY dark chapter in the history of German armies. Even the Wehrmacht committed atrocities, let alone the SS. When the need of a NATO-partner Western Germany arose for the USA some of this dark history was glossed over, because the officers from then were needed for the new Bundeswehr. The enemy was the socialist Warsaw Pact, so right-winged political orientations were of no concern. Traditions of the Wehrmacht, f.e. songs, survived. Even Norbert Schultze's "Panzer rollen in AfriKa vor" could be found in early songbooks of the Bundeswehr.

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KhorneFlaeks said:

Well shit what do they think they're gonna do about it?

If you think you can filter every instance of murder and violence out of an institution who's primary purpose is waging war (all the while saying "lest we forget, lest we forget") than i've got bad news for you. You either forget, or you don't. And forgetting means you'll need to reinvent every branch of the armed forces after every war because "that was a different army in a different time" effectively preventing or rather, prohibiting soldiers from passing on their experiences, their wisdom and their mistakes.

All that for tying to maintain the illusion that war is a civilized matter. As if they don't measure borders on the map by the amount of lives it takes to move them. As if they don't do the same with the idea of borders that exist within people's minds.

Violence is one thing, genocide etc. another. What the German army did in WWII WASN'T just waging war. It were war crimes. I think, the US Army would take a dim view on gorifying My Lai or Noguen-ri.