A matter of perspective

Germany since the 1960s has put a great deal of cultural emphasis on reflection of the crimes of the Nazis, and acceptance of the guilt inherent to such massive crimes. As such, the knowledge that one’s father (or grandfather, or great-grandfather) was a war criminal is taken seriously and somberly, generally, in German discourse.

Serbia, still smarting over their failure to genocide as many of their fellow inhabitants of the Balkans as they’d like, have a song called “My Father Is A War Criminal”, which celebrates the war crimes of their fathers in the ‘ethnic cleansings’ of the 1990s. It’s, uh, less reflective.