He was specific about colonialism. The Axis powers have faced up to the actions of a particular regime - defeat forced that upon them - wider colonialism not so much.
Indeed. Those posters may be surprised about how little is known in Germany still about the genocide of the Herero and Namaqua peoples in German South-West Africa - this was the deliberate murder of hundreds of thousands in the space of a few months. German colonialism in Africa under the Kaiser was of a different order of brutality to any other nation’s, Belgium apart. But the story is apparently not widely known in Germany.
I defer to no one in my admiration for how modern-day Germany has dealt with the historical legacy of Nazism. But it’s also obvious to me that this was a lesson that badly needed learning after millions were dead and Europe lay in ruins in 1945. There is simply nothing comparable to the Nazis in the admittedly deplorable annals of British colonialism.
As for the poster who claimed Japan as an example of how to deal with its imperialist past and its record in World War Two, all I can ask is ‘are you sure?’ The best that can said about it is that they have simply forgotten it and moved on. That’s no mean achievement. But the idea that generations of Japanese schoolchildren have been reared on stories about the Rape of Nankin, the slavery of Korean women, the aggression at Pearl Harbor and wartime atrocities against Allied soldiers is a joke.
As for Britain, there is a generalised ignorance about the British empire - which is not confined to the atrocities (which, actually, through blockbuster films like Gandhi) are probably better known than its achievements. But there always was ignorance, even at its apex. Most Brits thought of the Empire as something in town where you went to see the flicks.
When colonised nations began to assert their freedom and independence in the late 1950s and 1960s no one in Britain itself tried to stop them. There was no Algeria and no Vietnam. And from the 1960s onwards generations of British youth learnt about the horrors and injustices of Apartheid in South Africa (not British any more of course) through demonstrations, the boycott movement, concerts at Wembley etc. ANC exiles rocked up in London for several reasons, but the level of political consciousness among the home population about racism and injustice in South Africa was one of them.