Back in Sept 1999, two federal courts in New Jersey ruled in favor of a German company barring claims of a Slave laborer. Nonetheless, Germany and its industry recognized their responsibility and continued to negotiate.
Though the Nazi regime lost the war, German companies profited from Slave labor. German industrial wealth was 17 times larger After the war than in 1939 by using Slave laborers according to economic historian Dietrich Eichholz.
"We were treated worse than Slaves, you try to keep Saves alive. We were like sandpaper: used, thrown away and burnt with the garbage."
In August 2000, the Foundation "Remembrance, Responsibility and the Future" was created by the German Government and German companies in recognition of Germany's moral responsibility towards those subjected to Slave labour during the WWII. The Foundation was endowed with Slave Funds of $5.11 Billion Euros, provided in equal parts by the German government and about 6,000 companies of German Industry.
In late 2000, an ambitious Japanese Diet proposed a similar fund to compensate Slaves, closely patterned on the German example. Unfortunately, it went nowhere.
There is also a Polish-German Reconciliation Fund for Poles who were used as guinea pigs in pseudomedical experiments by the Nazis.
"I pay tribute to all those who were subjected to slave and forced labor under German rule, and in the name of the German people beg forgiveness," said Johannes Rau, German president in 2000, "We will not forget their suffering."
To date, Over 1.63 Million Slave victims have received compensation from Germany.
Even professed Neutral Nations like Sweden and Switzerland have had the courage to take a painful look back at their WWII record; 1.25 Billion Swiss Banks Settlement signed in 1999 by the Swiss banks.
In Germany, it is a crime to utter what is called "the Auschwitz lie" - denial of the death camps.
In schools, Germany has hammered students with anti-Nazi education and the concept of Zivilcourage.
German leaders consistently apologize for their past aggression in the clearest possible terms. Former Chancellor Willy Brandt once even fell to his knees at the site of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising on Dec 7, 1970 in Poland in tribute with the utmost sincerity to those who had died there at the Nazi hands.
Germany has also made generous acts of atonement and has paid 88 Billions Mark in compensation and reparations to Jewish Holocaust victims and will spend another 20 Billions Mark by 2005.
In 1963, president Charles de Gaulle of France and chancellor Konrad Adenauer of West Germany signed a historic treaty which reconciled these historic enemies. Without this, it is doubtful whether the European Union (EU) could have been achieved.
On Jan. 21, 1997, a joint reconciliation treaty was signed that Germany apologized for Hitler's invasion of the former Czechoslovakia, and Czech expressed regrets for the postwar expulsion of 2.5 millions of Sudeten Germans.
Germany has also paid pensions to the Jews in Israel and U.S. who were living in Eastern Europe during WWII since 1995, and German-speaking Canadian Jews since 2003.
German has made January 27th a national Holocaust Remembrance Day for the victims of the Holocaust since 1996. The date was chosen to mark Jan. 27th, 1945, the day Soviet soldiers liberated the Auschwitz concentration camp.
On May 10, 2005 Germany opens a new Holocaust memorial south of the landmark Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, marking the 60th anniversary of the end of war. “Today we open a memorial that recalls Nazi Germany's worst, most terrible crime ..." said parliamentary president Wolfgang Thierse. He added Germany now "faces up to its history".
German students are also required to visit former concentration camps as part of their Holocaust studies.
German Government has bought a former labor camp near Berlin to open a memorial to commemorate Slave laborers in 2006.
German government has made displaying the Swastika and other Nazi symbols illegal in Germany. Now German politicians have called for Nazi symbols to be banned throughout Europe.
German government passed a bill to restrict rallies by neo-Nazis and allow courts to impose sentences of as much as 3 years in prison or a fine on anyone found guilty of approving, glorifying or justifying the Nazi regime in public.
German government has even offered its formal apology for the colonial-era massacre of Herero tribe in Namibia happened 100 years ago.
Oliver Raag is one of many Germans doing volunteer work in Israel to atone for the deeds of their parents and grandparents. She is a German geriatric nurse whose grandfather transported disabled Jews and other Germans to a gas chamber. "The more I learned about that period in German history, the more I wanted to come here to show that there are other Germans who are not like the Nazis,"
UN General Assembly held a special session marking 60th anniversary of liberation of Holocaust Nazi death camps for First Time. Kofi Annan said, "It is essential for all of us to remember, reflect on, and learn from what happened 60 years ago...".
"I express my shame over those who were murdered, and before those of you who have survived the hell of the concentration camps," said German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, "The vast majority of Germans alive today are NOT to blame for the Holocaust, but they DO bear a "Special Responsibility".
German Chancellor paid tribute at the entrance to Auschwitzand and promised that Germany will fulfill its "Moral Obligation" to keep alive the memory of Nazi's crimes.
Germany led a commemoration of 60th anniversary of the liberation of Nazis' Buchenwald Death Camp. "We cannot change History, but this country can learn a lot from the deepest shame of our History," German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder urged the world never to forget the horrors perpetrated by the Nazis, "I bow before you, the victims and their families."
On Mar 16, 2005 German Foreign Minister gave a speech for the "Remembering the Past, Shaping the Future" session and calls the Jerusalem's new Holocaust memorial "A place of 'Deep Shame' for every German, because the name of my country, Germany, is and will forever be inseparably linked to the Shoah, the ultimate crime against Humanity."
Speaking to a special joint sitting of parliament marking the 60 anniversary of the end of the war, Mr Köhler said: "We have the Responsibility to keep alive the memories of all the suffering ... We Germans look back with horror and shame ... "
German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder implied: Japan Can Learn From Germany saying postwar Berlin had won the respect of its neighbors in how it contended with its Nazi past.
However, attending the 60th anniversary of End of War in stark contrast to an earnest apology by German leader Gerhard Schroeder, at a press conference in Moscow, Koizumi said : Japan has done enough "Self-Examination".
Why Japanese wartime Apologies Fail - A German Perspective.
German expert: Japan needs to launch self-critical debate on History said Eberhard Sandschneider, Director of the Research Institute of the German Council on Foreign Relations.
While Japanese Yushukan Museum celebrates the Japanese suicidal fighting spirit, the Potsdam exhibit blames the Wehrmacht, Germany's army for bringing shame to the country.
Germany has chosen to examine their history in microscopic details and admit German culpability for the war. By contrast, Japan has long censored textbooks to conceal Japanese atrocities in China and Korea.
Germany has now earned back high respect of the world.
Japan must have the courage to do the same and earn back the respect of the world.
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You do not understand the political landscape of the United States all do you?
got it.
