Wojtek:
> before 1939 few believed that the nation of Bach and Goethe will be
> overrun by barbaric mass murderers.
There was never a "nation of Bach and Goethe."
Bach was born in the Duchy of Sachsen-Eisenach in the Holy Roman Empire, Goethe was from Frankfurt am Main, in modern day Hessen.
Projecting backwards in time some common German national identity is as stupid as when the present day EU lays claim to the ancient Athenian polis as a cradle of "European culture".
It's irritating whenever purported "leftists" regard the nation as some sort of eternal form of human social life.
It's funny how people are only critical about stuff like this when it comes to deconstructing Israeli national mythology à la Schlomo Sand, but every other nation on earth gets a pass.
In fact, 1871 is only 77 years before 1948 in historical time, a mere blip, but somehow some nations are more "natural" than others.