Saturday, March 6, 2010

HW8

“Non-violent resistance to injustice was a good strategy for southern civil rights leaders.”

Non-violent resistance was a good strategy, evidenced by sit-ins in Nashville, Tennessee in 1960. Businesses lost money, and they eventually gave in to integration. Nashville eventually became the first major southern city to integrate its public systems on May 10, 1960. This shows that non-violent resistance was effective.

Non-violent resistance was an ineffective strategy, as demonstrated during Freedom Summer in 1964. It was an attempt to help black voters in Mississippi, but instead there were widespread beatings, shootings, and bombings, most of which went largely unpunished. Therefore, non-violent resistance was not a good strategy.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

HW7

To what extent can the members of the Hitler Youth be blamed for their actions during WWII?

The amount of blame and responsibility that HJ members have should be determined on an individual basis: it largely depends on their age, their hierarchal position in the organization, and also the total amount of criminal activity they engaged in and the extent of these activities.

Kater, Michael. Hitler Youth. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.

The members of the Hitler Youth should not be blamed for their actions. The guilt lies with the higher commands, specifically the SS, who exploited their enthusiasm and indoctrinated them with Nazi ideals. Remper calls them "a generation of misguided idealists."

Gerhard Rempel, Hitler's Children The Hitler Youth and the SS (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1989) 262, Questia, Web, 2 Mar. 2010.