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About this quote

What does it mean?
Funk compares Russian actions in Pomerania to German actions in Russia to minimize German responsibility.
In plain terms
He claims Russians did worse things to downplay German crimes.
What can you take from it?
Comparing crimes can be used to deflect blame.

Where it applies

  • political debate
  • war crimes
  • historical disputes

Putting it to work

  • analyzing rhetoric
  • debating history
  • identifying deflection

Questions to consider

  • Does context change moral judgment?
  • How do nations compare wartime acts?

Another view

One crime does not justify or erase another.

More from Walther Funk

  1. I am guilty of one thing - that I should have cleared out and not had anything to do with these criminals in the first place. Later it was too late. I was in u…

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  2. If you follow a certain road for some time, it takes an enormous willpower to leave, although you might recognize that the road was not good. But in my case I …

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  3. I do feel ashamed of having participated to the slightest even as a tool in those dark days. But I was obliged to serve the state to which I had taken an oath.…

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