Stupid question: are the Germans allowed to commemorate their dead as well? or did we take both victory and moral upper-hand in this, giving the pesky deutsche-dudes full freedom to improve their lives and work for a better future, instead of living a life of militaristic nostalgia.
My girlfriend is German-Canadian (her grandfather immigrated to Canada after the war), and this topic always comes up around this time of year. Basically we think this:
Remembrance day is about honouring the terrible sacrifice of soldiers, and reminding ourselves of the horror of wide-spread warfare. All soldiers, regardless of their allegiance, were compelled to fight by forces out of their control, and driven by political motivations they had no hand in. Therefore I honour the Germans as easily as I honour and remember my own grandfather who fought in Italy.
I think your comment was more directed at Germany as a country, but I thought I'd throw in my two cents.
> Stupid question: are the Germans allowed to commemorate their dead as well?
Who would have the authority to forbid it? Naturally, they don't do it on the 11th of November, they have [Volkstrauertag](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkstrauertag) (the "national day of mourning") which takes place "two sundays before the first of Advent", which yields the Sunday nearest to the 16th of November (can be any time from the 13th to the 19th, this year it'll be on the 15th).
The 11th is actually the starting date of the German Carnival.
I don't think there is much carnival activity yet, the 11th is just chosen out of silliness (11/11 at at 11:11 am). I don't even think it is an official thing. Most carnival action is in february afaik.
That is indeed a stupid question. If you're just asking it anyhow for info, ok. If you're trying to imply something nasty, you've picked a horrible example. The Germans, without our prompting at all, have very... mixed feeling about their involvement in WWII, and in particular the atrocities so many of them were complicit in committing. There are very few groups of people who A: lost a major war but lived to tell the tale as a group B: in which they committed one of the most notorious ethnic cleansings in human history (note I said "notorious", not "largest", though it was up there in size) and C: which the populace has enough conscience to regret the results. I think they are far more ambivalent about the whole thing as a result of those factors than they might otherwise be, and that has little or nothing to do with the attitudes or compulsions of the victors; it comes from within.
(Further edit: It is, in some sense, a credit to them. I had to include C because there are many examples in history of ethnic cleansings conducted with no evident regret, before, during, or after. The Germans may be disturbed by their history, but anyone who has taken the time to learn how it happened must also come away disturbed, as it is so easy to see it happening in other places as well, even right where you live, and stopping it is easier said than done.)
Dont forget the war ended for them that day too: whether a winner or loser in the war we are all winners in the long term (i.e. our ancestors survived!) - that is worth celebrating and remembering those less lucky. :)
So, yeh, they do commemorate but not today.
(although it must be said that whilst sombre remembrance is an excellent thing a carnival is, in my eyes, no less of a celebration; being of the belief that the best way to honor the dead is celebrate/appreciate life :))
Of course they are, this day is not a celebration of victory, it's a sombre reflection on the costs of war and an opportunity to honour and thank veterans of past wars for their service on behalf of our respective countries. It is for example not uncommon for Allied and German veterans of WWII, once enemies, to unite for Remembrance Day services throughout the British Commonwealth.
Whether there are public tributes to soldiers in modern Germany is obviously a different issue, given that country's understandable ambivalence to its soldiers who fought in WWII, but that does not take away from the fact that, in the West, the events marking today are neither triumphant nor overly militaristic. In fact, today's events were started as a commemoration of the end of WWI, a war which had shaken the world to its core with its till-then unprecedented horror, brutality and human toll.
