OberFuhrer, the Hobourg Special Hero!!!

[Chazar]

Originally posted by reverend:

PS: Erstaunlich wieviele Deutsche bei so einem Thema aus der Versenkung gekrochen kommen.

(translates to: surprising how many germans reply to this topic.)

Sure! I myself just clicked the topic because I was irritated about the "Fuhrer"-title of the thread within the Dom2 context...

But I guess that the non-gemans have a point here: I cant help but feel ashamed when I read "Führer" somehow, although I'm much to young to be connected with that time! Hence it is sort of wrong to feel ashamed...

I mean its quite the same with a lot of military stuff as well: I was quite surprised when I learnt of british student Groups exercising on warships over the weekends. Its a concept that would be unimaginable in germany today...

[Karacan]

Originally posted by Norfleet:
I can't imagine why...given that the objective of all the Wolfensteins has never been to glorify Nazis, but instead to caricature and parody them while blowing them away in ever-increasing numbers. There's a singular elegance to choosing Nazis to be your villains, since you won't get anyone complaining about your treatment of them in the game.

The game Bloodrayne is completely Banned in Germany, since it's all about blood and Nazis - you're playing a half-vampire bringing down several Nazi-installations. It's a very satisfying game, and I for one find it rather sad that german "violent" videogame players are deprived of humanoid victims I for one have a hard time feeling some kind of remorse for. Good thing I have english native friends.

However, I have to say that Oberführer in no way feels offensive to me, as I didn't associate it with anything Nazi-german at all - but perhaps that's because I grew up with Star Wars and Warhammer 40K...

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Karacan:
The game Bloodrayne is completely Banned in Germany, since it's all about blood and Nazis - you're playing a half-vampire bringing down several Nazi-installations. It's a very satisfying game, and I for one find it rather sad that german "violent" videogame players are deprived of humanoid victims I for one have a hard time feeling some kind of remorse for. Good thing I have english native friends.

I entirely blame this on the Allies. After the war, it seems a campaign of systematic spinectomy was performed upon the German people. This is truly sad and deplorable, and I personally find it to be reprehensible. I feel for you. I really do. How awful it must be, to be filled with this distaste for Nazism, yet be unable to blow them away in video games.

[PrinzMegaherz]

I entirely blame this on the Allies. After the war, it seems a campaign of systematic spinectomy was performed upon the German people. This is truly sad and deplorable, and I personally find it to be reprehensible. I feel for you. I really do. How awful it must be, to be filled with this distaste for Nazism, yet be unable to blow them away in video games.

Finally someone who understands my feelings . Seriously, you would not believe what strange ideas game developers have to make their games match german laws. In the old C&C games all human soldiers were exchanged with androids and red blood became black oil. In case of RTCW you actually fight the order of the wulf or something like that.

Ah, by the way, did I mention that killed enemies/hostages in CS dont die, they just sit down and stay there for the rest of the round? Jesus!

[Cainehill]

Originally posted by Norfleet:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karacan:
The game Bloodrayne is completely Banned in Germany, since it's all about blood and Nazis - you're playing a half-vampire bringing down several Nazi-installations. It's a very satisfying game, and I for one find it rather sad that german "violent" videogame players are deprived of humanoid victims I for one have a hard time feeling some kind of remorse for. Good thing I have english native friends.

I entirely blame this on the Allies. After the war, it seems a campaign of systematic spinectomy was performed upon the German people. This is truly sad and deplorable, and I personally find it to be reprehensible. I feel for you. I really do. How awful it must be, to be filled with this distaste for Nazism, yet be unable to blow them away in video games.

---

Not sure you can blame it on the Allies, given that Japan didn't wind up the same way.

[Norfleet]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Not sure you can blame it on the Allies, given that Japan didn't wind up the same way.

Yes, but the Japanese were pretty crazy to begin with, and acquired their own share of neuroses from this, like that entire annihilation fetish they have going, undoubtedly a psychological scar from being nuked.

[Boron]

Originally posted by Cainehill:
Not sure you can blame it on the Allies, given that Japan didn't wind up the same way.

not to forget italy , finland , bulgaria ... .
but the most important point is that 1. none of these did as evil war crimes as germany and
2. none of these nations had decent enough techs to be a real threat .

they were all unimportant secondary war theatres , even japan . if the usa hadn't had to defeat germany first because there was the threat they get an atom bomb too the pacific war would have been over most likely 1943 or so already .

[HotNifeThruButr]

I guess if I were the German government, I'd want to send a clear, strong message to the world saying "WE ARE NOT NAZIS, NOR DO WE WANT TO BECOME THEM OR LIKE THEM IN ANY WAY."

So they ban such Nazi related things to make a statement to the world. This just happens to damage the video game community, but the chances of someone in the German government being involved with video games is pretty slim. For the blood thing, well, it was also a stereotype (which I've heard somewhere, not as big as the racist stereotype, but it's also there) that all Germans were crazy warmongers, especially because *some* people think their language is scary sounding.

Note that the above aren't my opinions, I'm only the messenger.

[Cohen]

Personally I've even nothing against a FeldMarshall or such other terms.

They were military rank ... even if related to a movement and ideology that is seen in negative way, but they're words ... a simple work to recognize something.

[tinkthank]

Hee hee yes.

While it was silly of whomever it was to believe that because Illwinter may have installed a commander named "Oberführer" that they shared sympathy with national socialism of the pre-war German bent, it is not incorrect to mention that certain words (including singular termini) have become bound up, in certain contexts, with other meaning.

(I happen to be an analytic philosopher (philosophy of language), and recently wrote a book on singular terms and their meanings: the shameless plug to the amazon link
-- it is written in German however.)

(Edit: removed a ridiculous half-phrase typo here)

Thus many people may (rightly) be worried by the (otherwise unqualified) placement of a character named "Oberführer" in a game. Not that the placement here indicates anything of the sort -- far from it. But it is equally silly to maintain that any "usage" of any word should be Banned: I know I shouldnt be saying this, but "words" don't have "meanings", *utterances of signs* can have "meanings" (the word meaning itself is very complicated, as you can imagine; there was a pretty crappy book called "The Meaning of Meaning" written by Osgood and Richards, which has since been commented on muchly, most famously by Hilary Putnam in his article "The Meaning of the Meaning of Meaning" (this is not a joke)) *when used as speech acts*. (I can hear Norfleet yelling "guns don't kill people, people kill people!" at me in the background.)

But don't we all secretly wear little black trenchcoats and black boots and those tiny moustaches and hide in the ... oh wait, sorry, forget that.

[ July 14, 2004, 12:30: Message edited by: tinkthank ]