Berlin Wall 'Death Strip' Game Sparks Outrage In Germany

gzipped_tar writes "According to Spiegel Online, 'A new computer game where players assume the roles of border guards and shoot people trying to escape from communist East Germany has unleashed a storm of controversy in Germany. The game's creator says he wanted to teach young people about history, but he has been accused of glorifying violence. ... The name of the multi-player FPS game, 1,378 (kilometers), was inspired by the length of the border between East and West Germany. ... [Players] choose between the roles of the border guards or would-be escapees: the escapee only has one goal — to get over the wall, but the border guard has more options, and can shoot or capture the escapee. He can also swap sides and try to clamber over the border defenses himself.' By choosing to play the border guard and kill the escapee, the player would win an in-game medal from the government of East Germany. But then the guard would time-travel forward to the year 2000, where he would have to stand trial. Jens Stober, 23, designed the game as a media art student at the University of Design, Media and Arts in Karlsruhe. He said that his intention was to teach young people about German history."

History

[santax]

Give this fellow a medal. I am furious when I hear USA-kids tell me (Euro-fag) that without them I would speak German. When you ask these same kids how they feel about the Jap-camps the USA had in those days they look at you as if they see water burn. They haven't been thought that part of history. Same here in the Netherlands. We are being thought about Anne Frank. The famous Jewish girl. We aren't being told about that the Dutch had one of the highest degrees of telling on people who where hiding those Anne's... And there are many, many more examples of this. So give this guy a medal for putting history as it should be... the way it was.

Re:You know what they say

[Anonymous Coward]

I really don't think Hitler or his army were ever part of running DDR.
This was done by one of the parties that defeated Hitler, after WW2 was won and Hitler was dead.

Perhaps if you play this game, maybe your knowledge of history will increase ?

Re:You know what they say

[Shadow of Eternity]

I disagree, I think that a "game" is an extremely effective way of conveying the true horror of history. You can show people movies, you can have them to read books and sit while a teacher lectures, and they can find some way of going into dummy mode for it all.

A videogame as media for this kind of message does not need to be fun to be effective. Actually if anything it would be extremely effective to have people play a game where they are basically horrified at their own actions and disgusted by continuing to "win". What better way to get the horror of this across than to make the player as uncomfortable with their actions as possible?

Re:not "innocent civilians"

[Mr. Freeman]

Yeah, and technically all the jews that Hitler murdered (yeah, different time period, I know) were all criminals.

Of course, we generally don't accept the definition of "criminal" as defined by MASS MURDERING FUCKHEADS. Therefore, those people were NOT criminals. They were innocent civilians regardless of what the oppressive, illegal, government classified them as.