Prohibition of Nazi German items on Internet Auctions.

I can understand why most Internet auction houses are banning the listing of Nazi German items.I wonder if the prohibition has been extended to coins,banknotes,stamps,& other philatelic items such as first day covers & postal history.If it has been extended to these,it will make it very difficult for coin & stamp dealers to trade on the Internet.
The Internet auction house www.trademe.co.nz is the latest to impose a
ban on the listing of Nazi German items such as medals & uniforms in response to some pressure coming from Jewish groups in both France & Germany.

 

50 million dead in WWII, 20 million Russians killed and people wonder why they built the wall in Berlin? Could it be that revenge was sweet? Remember, Nazi's didn't take Russian prisoners (except for slave labor...and they were worked to death) where most were shot.

It would be like selling Bin Laden coins and stuff...classless and poor taste.

Evil wins when good does nothing.

 

Both of my grandfarthers took part in WW2 and both were war prisoners.
One of them returned safely after 3 or 4 years in Germany. Never said a bad word about Germany or Germans. By a miracle he wasnt prosecuted and jailed as "betrayer" ( by Stalin's laws you were supposed to kill yourself once imprisoned). Millions of people got 10-15 years jail sentences for being a war prisoner.

Another grandpa was in german concentration camp at Harkov. A woman from his village said to Germans that he was her husband, and he was free to go. He lived one more year with his family. Until soviets came back. He was sent to storm Dniepers bank. Soviets sent 10 armies to storm it, and only 1 of them was fully equipped. 9 were supposed to grab German's attention, to die, briefly saying.
In his regiment, every first soldier was getting a 1891 carabin with 5 catridges, every second- a spade with 2 grenades. No artillery support, planes, tanks whatsoever. Their officers were shooting every fallen soldier, to make sure they are not finging.

Afterall, there are will be no coin-collecting at all, if you will precise which country did what. Not even a Vatican series to collect.

PS Berlin Wall was build to hold Eastern Germans from running into Western Berlin. It has nothing to see with number of Russians killed in ww2.

 

Seems people (the sites) are overreacting.

 

Anything with Bin Laden on it would most likely be modern. Actual old (collectable) stuff as versus modern stuff is different.

 

I think a very important distiction can be drawn between different reasons for collecting Nazi memorabilia. I have no interest in Nazi memoribilia as a category, but I do have several Nazi coins in my world coin collection. I also have some worthless Japanese occupation scrip. It's possible to look at such items for their relationship to modern history (or all history, really, not just modern), the good and the bad. I have no desire to seek out more coins of that category, but I'd gladly add more to my collection if the opportunity presented itself. When I look at those coins, I don't think, "Oh, how cool! It's Nazi!" Instead, I think of what a horrifying episode it was in 20th Century history. I think of its relationship to my grandfather, who served in the Army during WWII, although he was not stationed overseas. When I hold such a coin, it's a very tactile connection to the past; not to some perceived "glamour" of the Third Reich or some idiotic notion of the correctness of Nazi ideals, but to the tremendous folly that's innate in human nature, the awful sacrifices that were made by the Allies, the suffering of millions upon millions of people, the profound sadness of humanity's losses, and the hope that survived somehow throughout. That coin was probably used by Nazis, and probably came to my country in the pocket of an American soldier.

Now, all that being said, it seems self-evident to me that one of the greatest markets for this stuff is people who somehow identify with the Nazis. In most forms of sale, there is no way to really understand or control a buyer's motivation for collecting certain items. I think auctioneers or Web sites should feel free to ban the sale of such items, and I also believe that the marketplace should encourage them to do so.

But I hope that people who push for bans on these items make allowance for those collectors who have a thoughtful, perhaps even moral, interest in them.

 

Country Military Civilian Total Deaths
Soviet Union* 8,668,000 16,900,000 25,568,000
Poland 850,000 6,000,000 6,850,000
Yugoslavia 300,000 1,400,000 1,700,000
Great Britain 326,000 62,000 388,000

Here is just some stats for a few nations. Never mind the millions of Germans that the nazis killed themselves. I had family who fought the nazi's in the US army and my wife had family who fought the nazi's in the Red Army. The Nazi's were people who killed any one who disagreed with them in their own country. The nazi's are people who went out to extinct a race/religion, the nazis are people who burned churches down that were filled with slavic villagers, The nazis are people who did medical experments that caused the painful deaths of children, etc...... Anyone who knows me, knows my physical views on the subject. I don't see anything worth collecting from baby killers, etc..

Let us also not forget the 295,000 Americans who died fighting this evil and it was evil.

 

Oh, and I thought for a minute this was a coins forum :-(

Christian

 

Don't forget the other side of the war in the Pacific. For the most part, it was brutal in ways not exactly comparable to Europe. Much bloodier, and just the same medical experiments.

 

At the end of the war the United States Army forced Cossacks at gunpoint to return to the Soviet Union. This was done not by accident or misunderstanding, but intentionally. The United States also interned Americans of Japanese descent solely because of the accident of their birth. The United States also denied Americans of African descent the right to fight (but they certainly could do manual labor) simply because they were born black. These acts are ones that the United States is justifiably ashamed of today. Does this mean we shouldn't collect US coins of the era because of the unjustness at best of those acts? Of course not. For all its faults, the United States was on the good side in WWII.

My point is this. To remember the evil, we have to hold on to the artifacts. And not just the photos in museums. We have to be able to show our children and children's children that Nazis were real. That means they hold a coin with a swastika on it. The Devil, as they say, is in the details. We have to be able to see and hold the details to know that the Devil is there. As the Quebcois say (my translation into English), "We remember."

 

Let me suggest, thats the winner who defines "good" and "bad" sides.
Soviets were burning trains with own political and criminal prisoners, poisoning own wounded due to lack of mobility far before Nazi burnt their first Bielorussian village.
Britain and US bombed Drezden in May 1945, which didnt hold any military regiments but lots of civil refugees. 250 000 civilians died there for their fun? And this is just May, and just Dresden.
So remember those people when you will look at british shilling or American war nickel.
Should we stop collecting British and American coinage?
By the way, it was Britain who spelt first civil blood in WW2, by bombing German civil districts.

 

Next to collecting coins, military artifacts are my next passion. When I acquired several Nazi Gemany medals and coins for my collection I never looked at it as supporting the Nazi ideal. I was just adding some more military artifacts to my collection. I have American, English, Russian, Japanese, etc. for that same reason. When I visit fellow collectors and admire their collections, I don't think bad of them if they have a few Nazi pieces in their collection for the same reason, history is history, like it or not.

Now if they shave their head, put on the pieces and march through town, then that's a whole new story!

 

Anyone who has ever taken a military course knows that more people died in the firebombing of Dresden then in either of the atomic blasts. The reasoning of the firebombing of Dresden was that even if the allies controlled the skys with air power, They could not stop the Nazi V-2 rockets. Great Britian was scared out of their pants that the Nazis were going to try to win a losing war by sending over germ warfare in those rockets into the British cities. Dresden was a warning. A horrible warning stating that if the V-2 rockets land to poison the cities then all of Germany will burn.

Truman intergrated the army as was shown in the Korean Conflict. If Roosevelt passed on sooner, the army would have been intergrated during WWII. The General Staff already had plans to enforce it then.

At the beginning of World War II. Japan and Germany were allied and Germany and the Soviet Union were allied as well. So I am not surprised about all the horrible things that took place by the leaders of those nations. Actually if the Nazi's had never started to kill entire Slavic villages, Stalin would have never had the support of the Russian people. Speaking with military officers from that period gave me a clear impression of the hatred/fear that most of the people had for the so called communism and Stalin leadership.

I would never spend a penny on a nazi coin, and would have no problem with the whole lot being smelted. As for history, there is a fine line between artifacts and symbols.

For every nazi flag in a museum there is another one being saluted.

 

ummm....I don't know about that. And even if there is another one being saluted it's probably by 4 skins in alabama in one of their parent's basements. I think hate doesn't need e-bay sales of nazi memorabilia to keep it going. people do just fine making their own stuff.

I honestly think that memorabilia from the nazi regime and other harsh totalitarian regimes should be available to purchase to remind people about history and not to repeat it.

 

I did bid on some Polish Ghetto money, with the intention of donating it to the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles, or the Holocaust Museum in Washington, but I didn't even come close. I certainly hope the winning bidder had a similar goal, but - who knows?

 

Cambodia with Pol Pot, I believe his name was.
Sudan-Yesterday, today, and tommorow- the wholesale enslavement and killing of Christians.

History is always repeating itself, only the victims names change.

I understand the more noble viewpoints about this issue. However, I would not have a coin idolizing the devil nor would I have a nazi coin in my house.

 

To Vlad.
My first post on your forum, and I came here for different reasons altogether, but do want to share information that I have and my opinion.

I am looking at an NKVD document dated October 1, 1944 document we find that of 354,592 ex-soviet POWs taken back by USSR, after filtration Smersh arrested 11,556. I saw documents reflecting the situation by 1945 and 1946 when the last Cossacks were handed back to USSR and they clearly show that persecution of Soviet POW was by Soviet authorities was a myth. About the same percentage were arrested as in the 1944 report. I feel I should also mention the amnesty document, whereby Soviet soldiers who fought against USSR were amnestied and got 6 years in resettlement instead of a death sentence they would get in any country for attacking their government and soldiers. I researched this topic, including work in ex-Special Archive in Moscow (now part of RGVA) and found a document that has Soviet NKVD release Baltic ex-military personnel for lack of proof of participation in atrocities during ww2. Interesting point was the one of the last lines in the document where an NKVD officer stated he has no doubt some of the soldiers are guilty, but rules are rules.

On your officers shooting prisoners - it is almost impossible to prove it wrong as it's not a fact that can be traced but what I call a rumor. Low supplies and assumed poor training that go with it are also vague judgments like your POW one. Follow some conscripts up, as I have through their letters and perhaps you'll be less fanatical in your beliefs. I have documents, again, from ex-TsGASA archive, now also part of RGVA that give description of a skirmish, where the only KIA was the officer of that unit. Another example my acquaintance, another researcher, provided me with letters/documents relating to his granddad, died in 1941 as a company commander. In a letter to his widow a soldier describes how many elements of his squad came together to try and save their commander. The letter is a good example of a primary source catalyst. I found it very powerful through its non-sensationalism and non-blatancy.

Do some research - it sounds like you may know Russian, which is a must to study primary source Russian history, and stop spreading hate, which is never born of knowledge.

-David Goldovt-Ryzhenkov

 

Evil wins when good does nothing.

Evil also wins when good tries to hide away what happened and pretend it never occured.

For every nazi flag in a museum there is another one being saluted.

So you would suggest we get rid of the ones in the museums? Every collection is a museum and the owner a curater who keeps the story of the history of the items alive so the truth can be told.

 

To Peter:

Its not an official NKVD story, its an internal report. You obviously have not worked with primary sources if you make confusions like that. These reports are done for many different reasons - PR was certainly not one of them. A good example is the story with Polish Officers in 1940. When the order went out to hand them over to the UNKVD, that's what the reports of department on prisoner of war (within NKVD) indicated. Later when Soviet diplomats talked with Polish representatives during the war they were told that all Polish citizens were released, including all the officers. Meanwhile, internal documentation throughout the war listed the 15000 officers as handed to local NKVD, dispite a diplomatic danger of this story. All materials I mentioned here are openly available in published collections of documents, so no intrigues.