Wars and atrocities against others are always an indicator of a culture's socio-ethical character. Often selflessness and moral responsibility are giving way to national or/and individual interests generally sold as justified reason in the name of a higher requirement.
Thinking back of Germany's role during the Third Reich apparent stereotypes can be easily eliminated. The most important is that undescribable cruelties aren't an attitude of so-called underdeveloped cultures. The nation which generated some great poets, philosophers and inventors had fallen in only a few years back beyond imagination - literally, because it took its neighbors and the world powers a long time to realize the strategic genocide policy. Three years after Hitlers takeover the sports world had met to the Olympic games in Berlin while Jews, dissidents and other minorities were systematically persecuted facing in the best case exile and in the worst case death. Another three years later the political world had reacted on the Nazis' increasing mass murdering. The war itself had taken the same time as the NS tyranny's rulership had been more or less tolerated.
After the fall of Berlin the age of remorse and reconstruction had begun. The Holocaust horror was deeply implemented in the collective consciousness of the defeated. The generation of our grandparents was stuck up with guilt teaching the generation of our parents that this ashaming experience may never recur. Only a small minority wasn't convicted of Germany's delinquency slipping through the loops of the denazification programs; after years they'd became very infamous as agitating revisionists. The major part of the German post-war society was indeed busy with the regaining of constructive virtues which led after a decade to the famous economic miracle.
The status of a cultural nation seemed to be restored. The former concentration camps where Hegel's sublimeness was burned became places of remembrance. The reconcilation with the European neighbor countries was the cornerstone of today's Union. More than 56 years our small continent hasn't faced a war among the nations.
A good reason to be a little bit proud of. But these gains aren't all but a matter of course. Several risks are endangering the achieved harmony. A main threat may be for sure a recessive economy and therefore a growing frustration among the population. Another danger is that the horrible crimes of the Nazi regime will fall into oblivion and a new breed of misanthropes and supremacists may enter the political stage. But one aspect is still underestimated: the absence of self-criticism. Consequences of this lack are fatal. Committed faults will be no longer corrected, the significance of the decision maker stands upon the significance of the decision itself and transparency is making room for corruption. The whole credibility of a well-balanced system will get lost with the time and the ordinary citizen is losing more and more the confidence.
Really problematic it becomes if the system of fairness and transparency is regarded as an export seller. Other world regions in which the people stand up against monocratic rulership and oppression see in the contemporary Western democracies leading examples for their own common political systems. But the democratic societies have to be far from imposing their own model. Suggestions can become very soon paternalisms without noticing it feeding those who stand with mistrust and concerns against equivalence. Cultural enhancements cannot be exported like trade goods. Every culture is obliged to go its' own way being maximum a role model for orientation. Impacts differ and problems vary.
To say our culture we've created and developed is the best is not only a sign of ignorance and presumption, it's simply wrong indicating a downgrade of all other cultures around us. It misses two eminent adjuncts to make it understandable for us and for those we're explaining it:
Our culture we've created and developed may be probably not the nonplusultra but it is the best for us. Which means we haven't got the ultimate solution. But we have at least an idea of it.
In that case all patrimonial and imperialistic subtones might be abolished. Relativizing our standards is not a sign of weakness. It shows that our cultural condition is still at an adaptive stage able to admit (self-)criticism and further advancement.
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