You are so right Henri de By, I think these 25% of Germans forgot what the price for their, high Family values and more Employment were. I was born and raised in Germany but have African blood. I was reminded EVERYDAY that I am not German and of my skin color with nasty comments, mean looks, especially when that person was intoxicated! I believe the Nazi spirit still lives in Germany not in all but it still exist. Hearing these Statistics and Comments, I am even more sure. You want to just down play what happened and look at the bright side? That is not possible, people were tortured in Concentration Camps right around the corner from German kindergartens and everybody just pretended they did not know what was going on in that big building that they could see from their perfect little backyard!! And you telling me that it was not all bad? Yeah right

Lala, Stuttgart,

I'm from Germany, I have followed this Eva Herman discussion with great interest and I'd like to correct some things. This recent survey is a little overhyped due to the Eva Herman 'scandal' that is heavily discussed. There have already been surveys initiated by Bertelsmann Foundation since the 90s or earlier regarding this topic: constantly 40% of the German believe that the 3rd Reich also had good aspects. Of course you cannot call them Nazis or right-wing per se. Eva Herman did not praise autobahns to be a good example. In fact she angrily said that in a zynical way like 'we all use autobahns, but does this make us a Nazi?' to defend herself after being attacked for having used a problematic term. Herman did not support family policy of Hitler and she is not right-wing. One of her statements was taken out of context by one newspaper and then others jumped on the bandwagon. This whole discussion basically now turned into the question if we are over-sensitised with our past.

Tobias, Karlsruhe,

This is ridiculous. If we are forced to pretend that they were all bad in everything and there was nothing at all positive, that prevents us from examining closely the dark side of our current governments. Nothing is all black or all white; those who claim something is all black are guilty of promoting a renewal of evil.

Tommy James, Cambridge,

Interesting the things the Fosa-survey itself dares to quote as "good things" about Nazi-Germany. Let's have a look:
1) Lower crime rates. Yes, if one does not count the six milion murdered Jews and milions of others who disapeared into the camps and torture chambers. They also conveniently forgot the 20 milion plus casualties of war. As a crime rate that would seem to me a world-record high.
2) Respect for family values. Oh, sure, like lynching parents by piano-wire in front of their children in the mud of a concentration camp or throwing babies after their parents into a gas chamber.
3) Full employment. Of course, the war industry was cranking out the machinery that would create hell on earth. And Kristallnacht and the Holocaust, must have left plenty of job-openings.
4) They just forgot to mention how wonderful it was that in those days the trains were always running on time, too. To Auschwitz, Dachau, Buchenwald, Revensbrueck, Treblinka, Sobibor, Mauthausen, Bergen-Belsen....

Henri de By, New York,

I see it as abused woman syndrome. Germany was like a woman who was willing to get beat up, shamed, and humiliated by an abusive boyfriend. Not only that but was also willing to sacrifice her children and her values. It became obvious that she was simply incapable of any rational thought in regards to this man and so a restraining order was needed. Now I'm hearing cries of he wasn't that bad and I wonder why Germany keeps doing that to herself.

Peggy, WI, USA

I am 60 and have no direct contact with pre war Germany but an uncle of mine was seconded in 1935 by his firm to work in Germany (I G Farben in Frankfurt ) From the 1950s till he died 5 years ago he never stopped remarking that his time there was best years of his life, the picture of Germany in post war TV and films was lies lies and lies and more lies. It was Great Britain and France that declared war on Germany not the another way round. He spent the war working at Plessey were he developed radar for use by Bomber Command. He said the war was Britains greatest mistake and the defeat of Britain and Germany was a huge diaster for Europe. The USA was the only real winner. The USA stole 2 million german patents at wars end among the very many war crimes The death of at least a milllion German prisoners of war was another.The collapse of the European birthrate is our real death wish Germany in 1933 had a postive family policy today 300,000 more Germans die each year than are born.

john smith, chichester, england

The Nazis had achievements especially economic. They pursued what today would be call keynesian policies of public works (autobauns) and government spending (rearmament) in ECONOMIC terms these were successful. They were popular for a reason.

To recognise that fact is not to mitigate or excuse the crimes of the nazis is just reporting what happened.

The ECONOMIC success of the Nazis should not and does not deflect from their horrific social and political policies.

Rob Champion, Lima, Peru

This is only a result of PC madness, and also the Hollywood-style view of history, whereby the good are 100% good and the bad 100% bad too.

Repressing honest and open debate is dangerous because it paves the way to extremism again, by unduly gloryfying the ''repressed'' points of view. The sooner Germany et al scrap de-nazification law the better, the best way to avoid extremism is vigorous intellectual debate.

No need to worry much anyway; I know many germans and they are much less likely about getting all misty-eyed about WW2 than the british. And they are much more realistic about their country's role in it than the brits, too.

manu, teruel, spain

It is not just the Germans who need to start researching their history but everybody else involved in WWII as well, especially the British.

All will find, if they do their due dilligence, that the official story is full of massive holes, as it always is.

Alan heaton, Frankdurt, Germany

Raj, the good historian knows that you cannot simply dismiss an era as being completely awful. The facts are that the Autobahns built by Hitler are being used today and that unemployment and crime rates fell during the thirties in Germany. They got Germany out of the economic crisis of the thirties.

This was an extraordinary period of history. And the more known about it the better.

Chris, Epsom,

Didn't Milgram once try to test the 'Germans are Different' theory? It concluded that they weren't. If this survey was repeated in other countries - both war allies and non-allies, what would the results be then?

Matthew Jones, Newcastle-under-Lyme, United Kingdom

The idea that National Socialism kept Communism at bay has no foundation, face facts, after the defeat of Germany, the Soviets were in the heart of Europe. As well as destroying Germany, the leaders of National Socialism ensured generations of Europeans were to suffer for decades. The Soviet Union did not make "rapacious progress" - the "comrades" got to Berlin in vehicles made from North American raw materials and cannon fodder from Asia Minor.

Brien Forbes, Baghdad, Iraq

Piggy and D.L. Stephens, your comments reflect woeful ingnorance of history!! Piggy how did the Nazi's do us a favour by taking on the Stalinist Empire????Try telling that to the brave vetrans of Britain, the Commonwealth, USA and other European Pilots who flew in the Battle and Britain!!! As for D.L. Stephens you honestly think setting up Ghettos and then embarking on a policy of the Final Solution is a way of dealing with the current challenges of intergration!!!

How can any one with a sense of history honestly say the Nazi's did anything good. When not only did they embark on genocide on an industrial scale and did henious crimes against humanity in the name of science. They also lead their fellow country men, women and children to their deaths in the millions, along with their country being divided into two for almost 50 years. Please people stop this revsionist nonsense and take a good look at history!

Raj Singh, London, UK

Full employment was coupled with slave labour; reduced crime rates from an unashamedly brutal penal regime; respect for family values with the total repression of female emancipation; the sense of German identity with teutonism and racial paranoia, and we all know what that led to.
By all means debate - banning a topic often makes it more attractive, and prevents the informed from correcting the interpretation of those with an adjenda - but these things must remain in context. The "positives" of Nazism enjoyed in ignorance by everyday Germans derived from the suffering and repression of others.

Philippa, London,

I do not agree that it is nostalgia. There are now younger generations of Germans who quite rightly want to discuss the history of their country openly and form their own opinions.
For far too long it has been taboo to mention these things in private let alone on TV. I lived in Germany for more than 30 years and have never been comfortable with this 'closing down' of any discussion. I have always thought that banning Hitler's book Mein Kampf was a huge mistake. I have three sons who were educated in German schools and they were taught nothing about that part of German history.
A democracy must strive to put as much information as possible into the public domain, encourage debate, tolerate contrary opinions and trust the people to think for themselves. In this respect Germany still has a long way to go, but it is encouraging to see that the process has started.

Dave, York, England

Perhaps the Nazi regime had its good side after all, insofar as it gave Europe and the British Empire a rude awakening and paved the way for us to resist the mighty slow-awakening Soviet monster, which, like it or not, the Nazis hindered in its rapacious progress.

Piggy Kruger, Bridgwater, U.K

Of course there would have been good things in 1930s Germany. It is this sort of habitual knee jerk denial that prevents mature discussion both in Germany and also here. It is well past the time to grow up then we may be able to make progress with many issues, not the least being immigration, multi-culturalism and other pc nonsense.

D.L Stephens, York, England