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(the easiest way to allow history to repeat itself is to forget your mistakes, imo)
lol, i love it when people think history is for learning from your mistakes. while its an understandable error, its simply not true. take a spin through any history textbook and youl see the same mistakes committed over and over and over. WE DONT LEARN FROM OUR MISTAKES!!! history does not, and will never serve that purpose..
as for what it does do is another question which im not motivated to answer.. but i thought this was itneresting enuf to post something up...

Anyone know what website Todd is referring to?

And I'm certain that gamers in Germany understand the local distribution issues better than at least one website ;-)

Did the Shack ever critizise id for this or something?

After watching Band of Brothers, I decided not to play this game full stop.

Just imagine the international outcry if Germany would lift the ban of Nazi iconography. Todd H. does not have a valid point - he's a busniess guy working for a company famous for creating violent games and not exactely known for marketing flower grow simulators.

What if id software would make a game where you can play an heroic Afghan soldier fighting the evil forces of Christian fundamentalists? Well, the market would be pretty limited, but I'm sure that the American government would not allow to the game to be published in the USA. What if you could play a game as a settler killing native Americans? What if...

This game is not censored - censorship is different from acting versus existing laws. If Nazi iconography would be allowed in Germany, the whole world would be overflooded with TV documentations of these infamous political parties consisting of a few hunderd people, but marching down the streets with brown uniforms and Swastikas all over. Soon the world, thanks to CNN, would be indeed convinced, that Germany has turned into the third Reich agian. Sonn after the international pressure on Germany would increase by a heavy amount, German businessmen wouldn't be able to do business, Employees would loose their jobs, German individuals would be looked at with hate all over the world and voila - you have created a situation where a country could only survive by developing an enclosed society not unlike the Nazi regime. You could substitute the above written with any Nation of choice - that's how history repeats itself, not by bitching about additional efforts and costs of software or movie localization.

Amercian movies might have cut out 5 minutes of violence in the German version, but we get 5 additional minutes of sex. The American versions are localized as well in the other direction. If I should make a decision, I'd like to say that I really preferr the absence of violence versus an burning discussion about whether the Batsuit is allowed to have nipples applied to it or not.

I'm German and I really don't miss Nazi iconography in my daily life. This might be different in the USA. I'll never forget the day I've found that whole site ad in major newspapers sponsored by Hollywood mighties where they accused Germany to act completely like Nazis by not accepting Scientology as a religion but as a profit organization instead. These are the moments where you can clearly see, that the whole Nazi thing gets resurrected whenever somebody needs it. In this context it might be a little bit more clear, that Germany has to walk on a very thin line when it comes to Nazi iconography and such alike.

The KKK and other, let's say "white", organizations might have fun using Nazi symbols to make their outfits more appealing in a sick way of fashion, but that's different from running around smiling like horse because of your shiny new Nazi T-shirt in Germany. You wont see many "proud to be a taleban" shirts in the USA as well - is anyone here ready to call that censorship?

Well, enough typing in weak English. This message will get trolled for making comperations of the holy cow USA with some other part in the world anyway.

Have fun - I will...

Some clarifications:
It is not illegal in Germany to import and to posses RtCW for using it privately. Activision isn't allowed to publish it and dealers aren't allowed to sell it though.

Of course swasticas and stuff are in our history books (and certainly German students learn more about the Third Reich than students in most other countries) they are also allowed in art: I have seen them on German TV not only in proper WW2 movies but also in Indiana Jones, Hogan's Heros and Southpark.
Unfortunately computer games aren't considerd as art. I don't like it either but it isn't that bad: I posses the US version of RtCW here in Germany and I do so legally.

Now to those high and mighty patriotic US-Americans. A few small questions, with easy to find answers:
Guess who won WW2? Guess who lost WW2? Guess which of both parties occupied the country of the other one for more than 40 years? Guess who constructed the constitution and first basic laws of the occupied country?

(the easiest way to allow history to repeat itself is to forget your mistakes, imo)

So that explains Q3! ;)

Interesting that Germany is that upfront about Nazi related items and the US still permits Slavery memorabelia.

Fortunately, the German government cannot ban the human imagination.

just finished the game man the ending sucks

"While I may disagree with the German ban on Nazi iconography (the easiest way to allow history to repeat itself is to forget your mistakes, imo)

That's a pretty idiotic statement, imo. I have several german friends and Nazi germany is the number one thing taught in german schools. It's pounded into students minds as a mistake in history.

I also think it's pretty idiotic to assume that RTCW is a history lesson in Anti-semitism. While it may be anti-postmortem or some other neo-mythical nazi crap I have yet to hear of anything in the game that involves the plight of judea. I understand that Mr. Hollenstead may think that killing Nazi soldiers may be some sort of symbolism for struggle and removing the swasticas to appeal to a larger crowd may be hipocritical in the eyes of Mr. Hollenstead, but German students consider it quite the opposite.

RTCW doesn't deal with the issue in the proper respect. Shooting nazis in a positive light of freedom and glory is not the issue. What we see as "just a game with some symbols" these people have been living for the last 50 years. Imagine being in east germany 12 years ago, suffering the oppression of past crimes. It's just a serious subject, that's all.

I was able to import RTCW into Germany, it was even checked by customs.

Ha!

Rant:

BTW, RTCW is just one example of the suckage caused by localization and censorship. Most Germans apparently love or at least don't mind censorship for the sake of political correctness (movies on TV and in the cinemas are censored on a regular basis WITHOUT TELLING YOU SO, for example Robocop has just 78 minutes on TV). Most international companies try to force you to use localized and censored versions of their stuff which always loses some or most of the fun if you know the original language.

Thanks to the German government for trying to protect people from RTCW because seeing Nazi symbols while killing them certainly makes people Nazis. By that way of "intelligent" thinking, I guess all the allied forces must have become Nazis.

Can I please swap citizenships with that John Walker dude or Warren Beatty or some other disgruntled American?

hitler's bullshit he pulled continues to haunt the germans still to this day!

what a dickhead

Poor guy... in one country on the earth they can't use the Nazi symbols of hate to sell their goods so they can buy more cars. Oh, the pain.

Hey look, USA > Germany just like USA > Australia.

USA sure 'si teh win' today. :)

i know i can probably find it on image.google, but what's a deathshead?

Any votes on which is worse, this, or the Australian Thought Police reported on earlier?

omfirst. yay.

Will the germans be able to Play Online on Pure servers?

HOORJ!