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I was in Germany in the late eighties, early nineties. For the older generation the difference between Nazi and non-Nazi was around six pints.

As my grandfather once told me: Those who were the biggest Nazis out there were the first ones that got amnesia and weren't able to remember anything.

Fast forward to 3:32 to skip the horrible in video advertisement.

Hint: it didn’t. Thousands of Nazis later worked in Governments in Ministries in intelligence Services and in the Police. And obviously everywhere else too.

"How did they denazify so quickly?" - easy, they didn't. With the few "Argentinian" exceptions, the rest of the nazis just went back to a civilian life, (many of them cops, judges, teaches, officials etc), and pretended that nothing happened here...

There's a joke here in Chile, regarding the arrival of nazi defectors to South America. It says: "don't ask a lady for her age, don't ask a man for his salary, and don't ask your southern friend what did his german grandpa do between 1938 and 1945"

This video being sponsored by Soylent is crazy 💀

The answer might surprise you: We didn't, really. That's how the student revolts of 1968 and the Red Army Fraction happened.

They took off their SS uniforms, put on their civilian suits and went to work as usual.

A friend of ours at church was in the Luftwaffe. I had no idea until I was in my teens. To me they were the kind old people from Germany. As he said, he wanted nothing to do with the Nazis. One day officers came to his small village saying all men/boys of a certain age had to join. He quietly refused but his best friend openly refused. His friends entire family were shot and then hung up in the town center as a warning. So he joined, he crashed himself into a field, waited for the Americans to find him and was sent as a pow to the Midwest. He and his wife became very wealthy and gave most of their wealth to civil rights organizations. They said it was their moral duty to do the right thing.

I watched the WW II in color series on Netflix, and it was stunning. But the last episode, end of the war, is what really twisted me in a knot. A German woman on the series was a child when the war was happening, between 9-12. They fled Germany when war came, and when they heard on the radio Germany surrendered, wanna know what her mom said? Basically “let’s just forget this happened and move on.” Said never say Hitler’s name again. Their little moment of peace was very short lived, as they got word from neighbors Russians were there to round up German citizens who fled, and had to go on the run. You don’t get the luxury of feigning amnesia when you watched your government round up your Jewish neighbors and throw them in concentration camps.

You will NEVER convince me to eat or drink anything willingly calling itself soylent.

I was stationed in West Germany in the early 1970s. A running joke was "whats the difference between a German and an Austrian?" ..."The Germans use to be Nazis, and the Austrians still are."

Nazi officers escaped to South America, nazi scientists moved to North America and the nazi foot soldiers just got amnesia.

Don't you lie to me. Soylent is people. SOYLENT IS PEOPLE!

My grandfather was a teen in Nazi Germany and he was in a military training camp when the war ended. Sometimes you recognize that he is still traumatized and brainwashed in some regards. It's really sad because he was a kid back then and it influenced his whole life.

I had a neighbour (passed away in 1998) who was a WW2 RCAF Navigator and former POW. He told us about his being shot down, his one and only parachute jump, capture and subsequent incarceration in a Luftstalag. He was caught up in a tree when a German Police Officer found him on patrol. He saw that his situation was fruitless and surrendered. He fully expected brutal treatment or summary execution, but instead received civility. The officer locked him up in their cells at the station, ensured he got a good meal and said in very broken English “for you the war is over, no worry”. He wasn’t turned over to the Gestapo, but rather the next morning a Luftwaffe guard and driver showed up to take him to a Stalag for questioning and incarceration. Life in the camps (he was moved a few times) was rough, but he survived and later liberated by the Russians. Upon return to Canada, he found civilian life rather boring and rejoined the RCAF. While stationed in Zweibrüken West Germany (not sure, but I think he said that) he started looking for the Police Officer who captured him. He found him, still a Police Officer in the same small town near Frankfurt. During the de-Nazification of the American Sector where he was, any Police Officer that had anything to do with the Nazi Party whether as a member of the Gestapo, ordinary member of the Party or even as a “willing participant” of Nazi atrocities were at least fired or had to stand trial. Complete Police Departments were rebuilt with new recruits, trained by mostly US Police Officers from scratch to become Peace Officers rather than enforcers of the political ideologies of the Führer. Being that he kept his job, that would mean that either he was one of the good ones, or he managed to squeeze through. My neighbour preferred to think it was the former because of the kindness he received. On a side note, the Police Officer told my neighbour that he still had the pistol he took from him upon capture, and if he wanted it back he could go home and get it for him. I guess he was required to turn it over to the Police Department, but I guess he slipped it into his coat as a souvenir, contrary to regulations. He probably took quite a risk keeping it after Germany’s surrender while the occupiers disarmed the local populace. Anyway, my neighbour said he could keep it. He thanked him for his kind treatment considering he was an enemy combatant. The de-Nazification of the police was definitely necessary to the reconstruction of the Federal Republic of Germany from the ashes of the Third Reich, but it must have been difficult with almost a 100% change of personnel.

Germany was not really denazified. When the first Chancellor of the Bundesrepublik Deutschland , Konrad Adenauer was asked why there are so many Nazis in his administration he answered: (quote) " No one throws away dirty water as long as he has no clean water."

Idk who decided that "Soylent" would be a good brand name, but I genuinely think they should rethink it.

They didn't de-nazify. My sister had a woman boss who immigrated here after World War 2. That woman was a mean nasty old woman. Many of the older generation that came here after world war 2 hung onto their Nazi beliefs until the day they died AS I believe this woman did too. The ones I met were cold no nonsense people. I was told that after the war Germans created coffee houses or beer houses (I don't know what they're called) all over their country expressly so they could go there to hang onto their Nazi beliefs. I can't imagine being born in 1933 and all you hear as your growing up is Nazi ideology. How could you think any other way? Your thinking would be set. To change a lifetime of thinking like that would be difficult.

My father was part of the American occupation of Germany in the postwar era, in the early 1960s (yeah, we were there a long time). He was fluent in several European languages, including German, so he could understand what Germans were saying around them when they thought he couldn't. He told me that denazification was a _failure_ , regardless of the propaganda messages back home in the states.

I recall that in my country, the Netherlands, the number of those who were accused of collaborating with the Germans ran into the hundred thousand on a populace of six million. Given that the country was devastated by the war, it was found to be next to impossible to prosecute every person, especially since some of those accused were high-ranking officials needed to run the country. A lot of people who deserved punishment likely escaped it.

I am reminded of a history professor at a Canadian university where I studied who used the terms 'de-nazification' and re-nazification'. Accordingly, once the Cold War began the western allies realized that old Nazis were also good anti-communists and hence many found their way back into positions of power. One prominent example is Hans Filbinger. He was a naval judge who in the dying days of the war signed up on the executions of so-called deserters. Filbinger later became state premier of Baden-Württemberg, a German Bundesland.

The Auschwitz trials in 1960 (the only real attampt to get justice for what happened in the camps until decades later) really only happened because of the district attorney of Frankfurt, Fritz Bauer. He was a fascinating figure, being in exile during the nazi years, and probably on of the few high ranking figures in the justice system that actually were clean. He formed a small group of young prosecutors, and they essentially worked in isolation from the rest of his office because a lot of them had vivid nazi pasts. It got to the point where he thought the Telex machines in his office were bugged, so he used the one in the vegetable wholesaler across the street. If the Auschwitz trials and Fritz Bauer don't already have Videos in the Whistler KZfaq universe, they should really have one. Some of the witness testimony from the first trial is absolutely heartbreaking, I'll never forget the one where an older survivor of the camp laments the death of a young boy, the desperation and shock in his voice is just heartbreaking.

My favorite de-Nazi effort is how they made replacement medals for veterans so they could wear the no swastika version at reunions and parades. The silliest was that the band Kiss had to change their logo because the lightning bolt S was too close to the SS symbol and was banned

WTF is this sponsor spot? It’s both hilarious and absolutely bonkers dystopian!

It’s like every single day I find one assignment’s new channels

Soylent blocked me on Twitter for tweeting "Soylent Green is people! PEOPLE!" Glad to see someone in the marketing devision finally developed a sense of humour.

Turns out that having actual consequences to their actions was a powerful motivator to at least be quiet about it and lay low.

32:49 Stalin died March 5th 1953 after having a stroke. It is rumored he had suffered several strokes and possibly a heart attack in the decade leading up to his death. Needless to say things would have been very different had he died in 1943.

Plottwist: it didn't.

I was all set to skip through the sponsor spot and then... "plant murder." Now I'm invested.

Simon, your iron grip is slipping. One of the dungeon monkeys got out of its cell and appeared in front of the camera. It told us we should really try the same prison food they get. Then mentioned something about plant murder...

"How did Germany de-nazifiy so quickly" They didn't. The trick was to act like never having been a nazi and you good to go. It went a little like this: A: "Are you a nazi?" B: "Me? No." A: "Sir, you are still wearing the uniform." B: "Oh that thing. Those are just my work-clothes." A: "What is your work?" B: "Administrative stuff." A: "What do you administer?" B: "Showers" A: "Thank you. You are clearly not a Nazi. Here is your Persilschein." ... A: " Sir. Wait! Do you want a Job? We still need administers for the newly found intelligence agency."

Are you guys able to upload to Apple podcasts or Spotify again? I miss having the audio versions for work and driving 🙂

"soylent is plants... SOYLENT IS PLANTS" 😂😂😂

This is one of the funnier ads I’ve seen here on YT. Next ad blink SOS in Morse code if you need help 😂

The advertisement in this one is hilarious, Simon getting results by any means 😂😂

I did not expect a Soylent sponsorship! Well done everyone.

We didn't, which was the reason for the rightful anger of the kids-generation of the wartime generation in the late 1960s. Without them, little would have ever even been researched/prosecuted or taught in schools.

Trouble is that after regime change you need to tolerate some people who worked for the old government to have enough competent civil servants to run the new government (blanket bans were a problem in 2003 Iraq for a counterexample)

Soylent on my youtube ads is wild. Never touched the stuff but one of my old bosses drank it for like every meal we're convinced

🤯🤯🤯🤯 as usual so much information that the brain is straining to comprehend a lot of it. amazing work as always.

During the add, Simon has way to much hair, and not nearly enough beard... Im starting to suspect it might wasnt?! Another poor soul in Simons dungeon forced to work

32:45

There is a famous story that i think highlights what I think. Patton famously had citizens from a town bear witness to a death camp. In the story an old couple after witnessing it, went home and killed themselves. The story says they killed themselves out of shame. My take is seeing it they feared the retribution they knew would come.

They didn't. Damn that was easy

The pace of German denazification was slightly faster than Germany's birth and death rates.

Simple answer: They were sent to America to work on our space program.

Something that is easily and eagerly omitted is the fact that a big chunk of Germans hated the Nazis, but kept it really quiet because of the Gestapo. Also, many Germans were absorbed into the respective bureaucracies because they had little choice (the army being one such bureaucracy).

Me: *reads the title* „Well, we didn’t“ *looks at the news* „Seems more like , we gonna try it again“

Why is the Soylent ad so long as

Lemme tell you as someone from rural Germany: A lot of places have a "late easter celebration" today (April 20th. You can guess why?) at that one bar where the cops won't show up.

The fact that they took off these nazi uniforms so fast and ran like scared rabbits , when they saw the end coming, is a testament to how guilty they were inside.

Simple, my grandfather just changed his uniform and the patches, and worked as a customs officer

Never ask a woman her age; a man his salary; or your Uncle Franz what bar he drank at in Munich.

My Opa (grandfather) was conscripted into the German army in 1943 and sent to the Russian front. Miraculously, he survived. After allied victory, he walked home. Home was a hamlet near Miltenberg Am Main. It took him 19 months to finally stumble into the arms of my Oma and their eight children. Nearly the entire population of the village had rejected the dogma of the nationalist socialist government and were so elated to see Oskar return, they threw a party! Post war was beyond belief. My mother and her sisters were put into a “fat camp” and forced to eat unfamiliar foods. Although well-meaning, some of the food was repugnant including peas that had a petroleum tinge and chicken that made the children sick. My mother wrote a memoir retelling some of the struggles but through the eyes of a child and this video aligns with her stories.

24:32 “The soviets acted relatively chill,” caught me off guard lol

the ad is too perfect lmfao

I just read the title and my answer is they moved to the United States. 😂

I appreciate that you made this knowing you’d make nothing off of it. It’s important to have accurate information out there about subjects like this.

I'm German, too, and even though many here say it didn't work, it kind of did, at least for some generations. Of course, that doesn't mean there weren't Nazis, just that there weren't too many. For some decades a big part of political partys and I think also of the people did shift views more to the middle and so for many Germans, the denazification worked. I would even still guess that most people here aren't nationalistic at all. Before you ask, why not nationalistic? Simple, because the main way to denazify the later generations was to lower nationalism and to make a feeling of some shame about the past an integral part of our school teaching. However, especially after the reunification of Germany, the extreme right wing in politics and with it the Nazis became stronger again, and the more groups of people felt betrayed by the normal parties, the stronger the right wing became. Or ok, first it was most parties expect the two biggest, which became stronger but over the years more parts shifted to the right. Nowadays, especially but not only in the eastern states, the AFD is the second most popular party. In the beginning they may have been "just" a right-wing party but over the last 13 years most of the politicians who weren't on the far right side left that party, and today large parts of it are Nazis in all but name. Long story short, history tends to repeat itself, it would have been nice if people could have learned from the terrible past just once.

Ok but where can i get the knife in the soylent ad

German here, as it turns out the last few years, this didn't work very well

You need to do a video on the Battle of Castle Itter where Wehrmacht troops fought alongside French, American and British POWs against S.S. troops to liberate the camp. Fascinating stuff.

plot twist: they didn’t

I just had some Soylent. I order it off Amazon in bulk. Definitely helps with calorie rationing.

My friend was born in Germany in 1965 and came to the US in the late 80's after marrying a US soldier stationed there. We were talking about this and she said, as kids, they hated the annual "why the Nazi's were bad" unit in school. It was essentially the same information every year. A few of her family members had been members of the party. Some believed but most (according to them) joined because it was the only way to keep their jobs. Both her parents were in secondary school during the war. Neither joined the Hitler Youth so both were ostracized in their towns. The "all Germans were culpable" narrative was wrong, just as the "nobody knew what the Nazi's were doing" was also wrong. Her generation was tired of hearing about the Nazis and just wanted to live their lives.

They didn't. They just became politicians and scientists under operation paperclip.

Some of their top dogs were given jobs running N A T O

Some how I'm not surprised Soylent is a sponsor

There were many Germans who actively supported the Nazis regime, but there were also many who didn’t dare speak up or act against them out of fear for their safety, and the safety of their family. Many tried to retreat into their family life, but Hitler made sure that they couldn’t escape even in their own houses when he instituted the Nazis youth programs. The German secret police were as ruthless in acting against any hint of dissent as they were against anyone with a drop of Jewish blood in their family tree. Because it would be extremely hard to differentiate between a passive supporter and an active supporter (and would purge their society of the skills needed to rebuild after the war), it seems that only the most visible leaders in the Nazis regime were prosecuted.

I can't help but feel like for most common people denazification only required showing them the films of what the allies discovered at the camps. The horror of knowing you helped foster something like that would live with you the rest of your days.

I remember the first tike I saw Soylent being sold, I was like "why would you name it this?"

Lmaooo K-on on your other video thumbnail

I know there are a lot of opinions and "on paper" versus "in practice" comments moving to the contrary of the title of this video, but I appreciate you guys putting this video out. It is only briefly covered in our public education in the US. WW2 is highly covered, but denazification is barely touched on. I watch a lot of documentaries about WW2 regarding survivor stories, etc. However, I'm also interested from the soldier perspective and citizen perspective. I personally find much less information and stories about this than of any other angle that is covered about the Holocaust. In fact, it wasnt until the past few years, did I even learn any reasons about what else was happening in the world and why Japan bombed the US when the US hadnt engaged directly or officially in WW2 until then and then we went to Europe. It never made sense why Japan just bombed us and then we went east instead of west - because that is what we were taught / what i remember from history in school.

"How Did Germany DeNazify So Quickly After WWII" That's the neat part. We didn't.

2:24 That green Soylent is made of people.

I am floored that someone actually made a nutrition drink called “Soylent”

But did they?... Are you sure? Here are some facts... After World War II, there were some former Nazis who became part of the post-war German government. Notable examples include: - Walter Scheel, who became President of Germany in 1974, and Kurt Georg Kiesinger, who served as Chancellor from 1966 to 1969. Both were members of the Nazi Party during the war. - Hans Globke, a high-ranking official in the post-war German government, who played a significant role in drafting antisemitic Nuremberg Race Laws in Nazi Germany. These individuals, and others like them, were part of a complex and controversial process of Denazification that aimed to rid German society of Nazi ideology. However, the presence of former Nazis in post-war German government was a source of ongoing debate and controversy.

Only read the title and was immediately entranced. This is the type of thing that’s awesome to learn about! Thanks Simon! (And the writers of course lol)

Soylent?OMG I could never. The association is to insane.

The reason is…they didn’t

Don't skip the ad. It's not typical ad copy. 😅

Lmao that Sergeant taking down the street sign is hilarious

Lemme shorten it: They lost the war and the Soviets did spring cleaning

I love that Soylent has their bottles colored so there’s a Soylent Green😅

As a 18 yo apprentice in the UK army we visited Belsen. 20 of us from the same college crying our eyes out.

I am very German. We are very pragmatic people. My grandparents generation saw the tide turning and it was beneficial in anyway not to be a Nazi anymore, so they stopped being Nazis. It is THAT simple.

Spoiler, they didn't.

Soylent green is people.

Newsflash-They did not

They definitely absorbed themselves into Austria, Sweden, Norway, Australia, England.

The commercial bothered me… not that you have sponsors, but Soylent?? Let me guess they have a Soylent Green? Anyone else see that movie??

I don't always watch the ad reads (sorry not sorry) but this one was.very entertaining! Thanks, Daven!

Basically the effort to de-Nazify Germany worked as well as the effort to de-Confederatize the American south after the Civil War. The current trends in both countries show the great success of this.

I am sure you meant "Stalin death in 1953," not 43 (32:52). Great video!

How many channels does this dude have?

They all got sanctuary in America via Operation Paperclip?