Why Does German=Nazi???

[SansReality]

I realize now after hearing Die Ier von Satan, the majority of the UsA and I have been brainwashed into thinking everything German is also Nazi, just like every other stereotype. Being part German I was pissed when I realized this but we all seem to think this because of lack of knowledge. Shows how pathetic my education has been.

We all need to watch how closely we listen to the Media they like to take things out of context and manipulate our opinions for drama, seperating political parties and then inferring blame. This Songs a wake up call we re all need to consider other sides of stuff.

[UndKeineEier]

German does not equal nazi. It is a true brainwashing that has undergone in our society. Being German, I loved the song. But also being in America, I at first thought it may very well be a rally of some sort. And its sad, this song really is a wakeup call for society. SansReality really made a good point. So wake up america!

[FlamingEye]

When i first herd this song, i was like what the fuck, is this some kind of Nazi thing?. then i read the lyrics and i couldnt help but laugh when i read the lyrics, i still laugh whenever i hear the song. yah i think americans are brainwashed into thinking german= nazi

[bringerofbasses]

Yeah, well ...when you're brought up and taught in a school about all the bad things that happened in World War II, and how it was "all because" of Germany/Nazis... you'll start to think that, lol.

Unfortunately, that IS true, though ...since I know what the song is about, I like making people that don't know Tool, listen to the song. They'll start listening to it, and once the speaking starts and then the crowd cheering, they'll look at me and be like "What the hell are you doing listening to this Nazi shit?!" Then, after I laugh at them, I calmly say "Germany does not equal Nazi. It's a recipe, anyway." Then, I show them the lyrics. They often will still look at me weird.

[SansReality]

Too bad TooL s one of the few that can make such great ideas and thinking with their music. Hopefull TooL fans will run the world, Otherwise I m lookin forward to a career as an assassin until they do.

[Big_D]

Well, that's what I liked about this track. It was made to shatter the preconceptions of the curious. Another thing that our society is brainwashed into believing is that the Swastika was merely a hate symbol created by the nazis. Also not true. I also think it's about time the swastika is no longer a hate symbol used by skinheads, but actually a positive symbol.

http://www.manwoman.net/swastika

[Nirvana]

Interesting page
Nice Avatar!

[4th Eye]

German is not nazi. Simple as that.

[bringerofbasses]

Yes, yes... we all know that 4th Eye, lol.

I still have to look at that webpage for a while to be like "Why are there swastika...oh right, ok, nevermind" then I'll look a little further and be like "This is a weird web address" ...I think, then, I start thinking it was made by homosexuals, because it's called "manwoman". Hm. Hate it when I think like that, sometimes.

[SansReality]

Yea for all you geniuses who didnt get that I didnt really mean that german=nazi that I really was using contrast to say that german does not equal nazi. Read the message above submit reply before you send shit.

[sircorn]

Originally posted by SansReality
I realize now after hearing Die Ier von Satan, the majority of the UsA and I have been brainwashed into thinking everything German is also Nazi, just like every other stereotype. Being part German I was pissed when I realized this but we all seem to think this because of lack of knowledge. Shows how pathetic my education has been.

We all need to watch how closely we listen to the Media they like to take things out of context and manipulate our opinions for drama, seperating political parties and then inferring blame. This Songs a wake up call we re all need to consider other sides of stuff.

Thats exactly how i feel, but was never able to put it to words. I think Tool needs to write an updated song, in Arabic to fuck with everyone now.

[sircorn]

Originally posted by bringerofbasses
Yeah, well ...when you're brought up and taught in a school about all the bad things that happened in World War II, and how it was "all because" of Germany/Nazis... you'll start to think that, lol.

The Germans under Hitler commited the Holocost.
The Germans killed millions of innocent civilians.

Please what BS. People need to realize that The Nazi's did these things. Not Germans. Nazis. Nazis are for the most part wiped out.

Plus look at some of the of the crap we pulled:

The allied resorted to nucular warfare.
The allied firebombed tokyo,berlin, and completely OBLITERATED Dresden Germany.

Many horrible thing have been commited in this world by everyone. We have to stop thinking of politcal eventd as good and evil but as which is worse. Being American myself, I also realize that America needs to understand that they are just as bad as any terrorist country/group/cell looking for its own selfintrests. It come down to a battle of the fittest, not whos right and whos wrong. Right and wrong are just justifications for doing horrible things.

[tomcat]

Originally posted by sircorn
America needs to understand that they are just as bad as any terrorist country/group/cell looking for its own selfintrests. It come down to a battle of the fittest, not whos right and whos wrong. Right and wrong are just justifications for doing horrible things.

You're completely missing, or are purposely ignoring the serious difference in the intent between what we did and what the Japanese and Germans did. The Germans tortured and killed 12 million people just because they didn’t like them. I mean , they had nice neat categories for why they didn’t like them, but basically it was simple racism. The things we did were acts of war. They were designed to end the war. When your elected government decides to take over the world and massacre people by the millions, your going to get a few of your cities blown up. Tough shit.
It’s become popular to take America down a notch lately, and I’m getting sick of it. How could you say that we’re no better than terrorist or Nazis? We are not an imperialist nation or a dictatorship. They exist for their own perpetuation and the deitifying of their leaders. We are for the people. We relieve people’s suffering, not inflict it. We have never attacked a peaceful and non aggressive nation. And there are no innocent civilians in these kinds nations. Complacency and ignorance is not an excuse. If in the process, people on the aggressor’s side get killed, well then that’s too bad.
If your only intent is to bring the US down a notch, then I say you are ignorant, sir. Do a real comparison of the US versus Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Afghanistan or even Iraq and tell me who is the least morally bankrupt. Who did the things they did for just and humane reasons. Hitting my friend in the back of the head with a jumbo jet while he was sitting at his desk was about as morally bankrupt as you get. Please tell me about something we did that even comes close to that.
Tell me where you would rather live.

Of course, you could always move to France.

[sircorn]

Tomcat,
good point, but I talking about people not nations. Of course the Nazi's did horrible things, and to say we are just as bad may not be right. When things come down to it though, we are just manipulators of our environment doing the best that we can to survive. Now the Nazi's and holocost have nothing to do with what i was saying about The terrorists today. Im just saying that no one is right or wrong in our view points as far as i see. How can you tell a brainwashed person he wrong? You can't. In his mind he is right, and thats all that matters. That works both ways. For the Arabic Terrorist or the cockey Westeners. Both are brainwashed in the "correct" political view. My point as stated above is that we are not any better or worse than anyone else in this shit word. We are all equals and people need to recognize that. All religions and belifs say one thing at least, that all people are from one seed, race, or whatever you want to call it.

To the nazi thing. I really don't want to argue witht hat about it. Do I think the holocost was a horrible? Of course. But do I think all nazi's were bad people? No, many, I'd say 90%, were sucked into the promise of power and hapiness from Hitler because of the versallies treaty. It all boils down to that crap, unfair, unrightous treaty that totally fuck the Germans over. If you don't know much abnout it, It basically said that the Germans were responsible for WWI, and fucked them many ways. Had to give up Some originally German provences, had to pay the bill for most of the allied nations(I think 80 Billion even thought the german nation was messed up and poor as result of the war) and military restrictions, all because the British and French wanted to see a nation squerm in pain and depression. Hitler promised hope which the people living under this restricted hell neeeded. Now tell me whos right or wrong.

The holocost was a horrible thing compared to the versailles treaty, but if you havent noticed, people tend to get even and more then just plain even. (this doesn't justify the killing of millions of people but, is just an observation.)\

BTW the thing i said about The Germans killing innocent people was about how they bombed London.

[tomcat]

[Originally posted by sircorn
My point as stated above is that we are not any better or worse than anyone else in this shit word. We are all equals and people need to recognize that.
The holocost was a horrible thing compared to the versailles treaty, but if you havent noticed, people tend to get even and more then just plain even.
.

I’ll admit that I mostly thought you were saying that we were no better in the way we conducted ourselves that the Nazis or terrorists did, but now I see I may have misinterpreted you. Although, you make good points. Yes, I do agree with you. We are all equals, and we do not have a monopoly on moral superiority. Nor should it be our position to morally judge people. Not everything is right or wrong, and there is no absolute right or wrong. I’m sure the guy who flew the plane into the world trade center thought he was right, and I’ll freely admit that I think he was wrong. That’s because is I think there’s a few things that are intrinsically right and wrong. Saving thousands or even millions of people from being slaughtered is right. Slaughtering thousands or millions of innocent people is wrong. I think that’s basic to the human soul. I don’t think the Nazis or the terrorist were wrong for what they believed in. If I thought that, I’d be no better then they are. I think they’re wrong for what they did.
And, as for the Germans and the Versailles Treaty, I do believe the treaty was, in effect, a punishment for the German people, and it was this that led to the Nazis and WWII. You, or I couldn’t pretend to know what it was like to live in Germany after WWI. I’m sure it was ghastly. Hitler suckered the entire country into thinking that he was their savior. But, at some point, the German people found out what Hitler’s real plan was, and they went along with it. They followed the crowd, even thought the crowd consisted of homicidal maniacs. They turned deaf, blind and dumb to what they knew was happening, and they followed. It’s for this reason that I have a hard time sympathizing with the Germans of that time, Nazis or otherwise. The people of a nation are the nation. Without them, it’s just a plot of land.
Don’t get me wrong, when I think of modern Germans, I don’t think of Nazis. I like Germans. I like German beer (ziggi de, ziggi de, ha ha ha!), German food (Weiner Schnitzel!), German cars (mmm, Beamers). I would like to go to Germany someday. But I don’t like Nazis or the people that helped them. The Versilles treaty was wrong. We should have helped them after WWI, like we did both countries after WWII. But, as you said, people have a tendancy to want more than just equity when it comes to revenge.
For example, I was sitting in my tub today contemplating how many dead Muslim extremist it would take to fill up the hole they left in downtown new york. I figured that would be about right. Well, it was 8 million. You could fit 8 million bodies in the hole where the WTC was. The way I figure it, we should hunt these motherfuckers down, kill them and ship their bodies to NY and throw them in the pit. Once it gets full, we should pave over the corpses and make it into an amusement park and party center. We should throw huge parties there and broadcast the images around the world. That would take care of that. And, that would make me happy. It’s not morally correct, but I’d do it anyway. There’s a kind of anger that, unless you live somewhere that’s been attacked like that (like France and Brittan, too) you wouldn’t understand. It makes it very difficult for me to be objective on this subject. I just disagree with what seems like your sentiments of sympathy with terrorist and Germans. Perhaps, in another time, I would have agreed more with you.

Holy Shit that’s a long post

[Aberfoyle]

Originally posted by SansReality
I realize now after hearing Die Ier von Satan, the majority of the UsA and I have been brainwashed into thinking everything German is also Nazi, just like every other stereotype. Being part German I was pissed when I realized this but we all seem to think this because of lack of knowledge. Shows how pathetic my education has been.

We all need to watch how closely we listen to the Media they like to take things out of context and manipulate our opinions for drama, seperating political parties and then inferring blame. This Songs a wake up call we re all need to consider other sides of stuff.

I think you might be taking the song the wrong way. I look at Die Eier Von Satan as an attempt at showing the irony in the kind of stereotypes that you speak of. It sounds all evil and stuff, but the lyrics are a recepie. Doesn't get much more ironic than that.

[sircorn]

thank you tomcat,
I don't agree that the Nazi's were right, I don't agree they were wrong. Just the leaders were "wrong" they knew full well what they were doing and preceded with it anyway. The people, the ignorant masses, just sorta saw this as a good thing tha promised them what everyone wants when they are depressed and in bad spirits. Hope.

The Terrorist flying the plane into a building, IMHO, was neither wrong or right. He truely beleived in what he was doing and did it as galliently as he could. You can't really judge him if he right or wrong because we have been manipulated towards the Western Viewpoint and have a completely different understanding of the world than they do. I completely agree with you that its very hard to remain objective when looking at a people who did what they did, but you can't allow revenge to cloud your thoughts. If it happened directly to me, well i would do what im saying not to. I would let revenge blind me because im just not that strong.

[SansReality]

Yea I get the irony an i think its funny as hell, but its also a good basis to bring up a good topic, people are really badly into stereotypes where I am. And I like to try and challenge that.

[Animus]

I think the song has a double purpose, its place in the album and its meaning by itself. I believe all the songs in AEnima are connected in a sequence, and this one coming before Pushit means something.

While i'm not going to interpret pushit here since this isn't even the pushit section, there are definite references in pushit to being controlled by someone/something more powerful. The commanding voice of Die Eier seems to suggest just that, being controlled, being brainwashed. It does play off the nazis i think because it's an easy way for tool to get this idea into people's heads: the idea of struggling against a powerful controlling force. I think they meant this to deliberately anger some people so they are in the right frame of mind for Pushit, so they feel the oppression themselves, and the anger involved with it, which is what a lot of pushit is about. (i'm not saying pushit is about struggling against a totalitarian regime, it's probably much more personal than that. But Die Eier really wakes a person up to the oppression theme, and then pushit makes it personal)
That may be a stretch but i think it fits.

On its own, Die Eier is classic Tool humor. Just like Disgustipated ridiculed fanatics, i think Die Eier ridicules a different kind of fanatic: the skinhead, the neo-nazi. Maybe one of them listens to this track and thinks "whoa cool man", and then reads the translation and feels pretty damn silly. I think it makes fun of such people for "blind following".

Die Eier most definitely is making references to nazis. But what is it SAYING about the nazis? It's certainly not promoting nazism. The german language was used here simply because the nazis are the most universally recognized system of oppression. Though Stalin killed millions more than Hitler, the general public doesn't know that for some reason. When people think of an oppressive dictator, Hitler comes to mind first. That's simply the way it is. Tool uses the nazi image to conjure up images of oppression and fear, and then struggles against them in Pushit. It doesn't advocate them in any way.

The translation? Well, maybe tool is saying "propaganda may sound really cool when people are cheering and someone's shouting it in a loud voice, but there's really nothing behind it." In other words, don't follow the guy with the loud voice ('someone above the crowd, someone prepared to lead the way...') just because he sounds cool. He probably has nothing behind all his shouting.

Maybe tool is applying this directly to nazism, as a direct attack on nazi ideology, showing that they could have said any damn thing and got people to cheer for them.
I doubt they consciously set out to directly attack nazis though. I think the attack is meant for all propaganda: hitler's, stalin's, mao's, bush's, bin laden's... all of it.

The message seems to be: find out what it's really about before following it. Now that is something tool has always said from the beginning.

I really don't think tool is insulting germans or stereotyping them with nazism in this song. They're using the german totalitarian experience simply because it's the most recognizable, and they are undermining/making fun of/discrediting totalitarianism, propaganda, and oppression.

This has gotten long... i apologize.

[Animus]

I'm rather ashamed of myself that The Wall didn't come to mind while i wrote all that, since i own it and watch it all the time. You're right, i remember someone from floyd commenting that pink's dictator role at the end was a warning of what could happen with rock bands, or anyone for that matter. Pink Floyd wasn't glorifying fascism anymore than tool is, i think both were warning against it.

Perhaps tool was feeling the temptations of such power around the time they made this track, already having a somewhat underground fanatic fanbase. Perhaps it was a response to the way crowds were acting at their shows. Good point.

[SaberRider]

If you think German = Nazi then you also think America = Cowboys.