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Posted 07/14/2014 9:45 pm
It is important to have the debate, if only in your own mind - and it is a debate held many times on the forum before. Here's a really old thread. And another, newer thread.
The general consensus is that as long as neither you nor the people you are buying the coins from are intending to glorify or look back at the "good old days when these guys were still around", then collecting them is fine. We certainly don't want to delete or obliterate the memory of their regime completely, as doing so simply allows later generations to wonder whether the Nazis might not have been so bad after all.
Keeping Nazi coins as part of a broader collection of German or world coins also offers the opportunity to glimpse what life was like for people living under the regime. As I said in one of those old threads:
If this is the kind of attitude that collecting Nazi coins engenders within you, then by all means it should be encouraged rather than discouraged.
But on the other hand, coin collecting should be enjoyable as well as educational. If all you can feel when you hold a Nazi coin is the suffering dealt to the "inferior peoples" by this regime, perhaps including members of your own family, then perhaps owning some Nazi coins is not for you personally.
For those that own Nazi coins and are reluctant to feel as though you are profiting by them if/when you sell them, this also is an important question you must answer for yourself. There are always museums and charitable organizations who can accept donated Nazi items and either display them or sell them appropriately and respectfully, if you feel you cannot do so yourself in good conscience.
The general consensus is that as long as neither you nor the people you are buying the coins from are intending to glorify or look back at the "good old days when these guys were still around", then collecting them is fine. We certainly don't want to delete or obliterate the memory of their regime completely, as doing so simply allows later generations to wonder whether the Nazis might not have been so bad after all.
Keeping Nazi coins as part of a broader collection of German or world coins also offers the opportunity to glimpse what life was like for people living under the regime. As I said in one of those old threads:
Quote:
One can gain some appreciation of what life under Nazi rule was like, simply by comparing Nazi-era coins to both pre-and post-Nazi German coins. Weimar Republic silver coins have this inscription on their edge: "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", translated "Unity and Justice and Freedom". The Nazis replaced this with a new inscription: "Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz", or "Public-Interest comes before Self-Interest". When Nazi Germany fell and the Federal Republic was established, the "Einigkeit" legend was restored to the coinage. The message couldn't be clearer: under the Nazis, such "selfish" things as justice and freedom were dispensed with, in the name of "public interest".
One can gain some appreciation of what life under Nazi rule was like, simply by comparing Nazi-era coins to both pre-and post-Nazi German coins. Weimar Republic silver coins have this inscription on their edge: "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit", translated "Unity and Justice and Freedom". The Nazis replaced this with a new inscription: "Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz", or "Public-Interest comes before Self-Interest". When Nazi Germany fell and the Federal Republic was established, the "Einigkeit" legend was restored to the coinage. The message couldn't be clearer: under the Nazis, such "selfish" things as justice and freedom were dispensed with, in the name of "public interest".
If this is the kind of attitude that collecting Nazi coins engenders within you, then by all means it should be encouraged rather than discouraged.
But on the other hand, coin collecting should be enjoyable as well as educational. If all you can feel when you hold a Nazi coin is the suffering dealt to the "inferior peoples" by this regime, perhaps including members of your own family, then perhaps owning some Nazi coins is not for you personally.
For those that own Nazi coins and are reluctant to feel as though you are profiting by them if/when you sell them, this also is an important question you must answer for yourself. There are always museums and charitable organizations who can accept donated Nazi items and either display them or sell them appropriately and respectfully, if you feel you cannot do so yourself in good conscience.
Don't say "infinitely" when you mean "very"; otherwise, you'll have no word left when you want to talk about something really infinite. - C. S. Lewis
