Hitler's Generals & Admirals......

[Theng]

ORIGINAL: Horst Wessell

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris [&o].

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.

Think I'm gonna be sick...........

Think I'm gonna be sick...........

< Message edited by Horst Wessell -- 9/13/2011 2:58:28 PM >

I know. The small number of true German patriots that fought Hitler makes me sick too. There should have been more.

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: Horst Wessell

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk

ORIGINAL: warspite1
As for those with impeccable credentials at being anti-Nazi? Well Beck was one, and so, most certainly, was Admiral Canaris [&o].

Canaris was a true hero -- one of the few higher ups who put his life on the line from the start.

Think I'm gonna be sick...........

Don't you have a head to shave?

[warspite1]

ORIGINAL: Captain

It has always been an open question the extent to which ordinary Germans participated in the Nazi crimes and whether it was a one-off thing.

Certainly the evidence shows that many more people were aware of the Holocaust than admitted after the war. You needed a huge organisation to manage/operate multiple extermination/slave labour camps, collect and round up all these people and ship them across europe.

Studies have also shown that Hitler was a hands-off, big-picture kind of manager who gave his subordinates wide latitude in implementing his policies. Cetainly he knew about and approved of the "Final solution", but he left the details to others. Yet there was no lack of zealous volunteers to carry out the Fuhrer's wishes. Their standard defence that they were "merely following orders" is very weak.

Contrast the German efficiency with what happened in Italy. Italy was Germany's main partner in WW2 and Mussolini tried to implement anti-jewish laws in Italy under pressure from Berlin, but they proved deeply unpopular. 80 % of Italy's jews survived the war (32,000 out of 40,000) and the 8,000 that were murdered were rounded up by the Germans after they invaded in 43.

Warspite1

Doesn't this say more about the German character vs the Italian character generally, rather than the implication that the Germans are necessarily more evil?

Look at the Vichy French regime and the way they co-operated wholeheartedly with the deportation of the Jews.

I may be wrong, but I just can't believe that one nation of human beings is necessarily more violent/sadistic etc than another. It depends on a whole load of factors at the time surely?

[Captain]

I would'nt say evil, people are motivated by personal interest. Germany was one of the most educated, cultured nation in 1932. Certainly anti-semitism was rampant in Europe and North-America in the 30s. But going from resentment towards Jews to thinking it's fine to gas millions of men, women and children is another thing altogether.

You would think that someone along the way would have said: "I think you are off your rocker Mein Fuhrer!" [;)]

The question has always been: Is this something that could happen anywhere, in any country, or was there something peculiar to German society at that time that allowed this to happen.

[cherryfunk]

ORIGINAL: pwieland

I find it rather odd that people focus on the millions killed by Hitler but don't mention the tens of millions killed by Stalin. History, it seems, loves the winner.

History doesn't love Stalin by any means. But which system represented a darker future for humanity? As bad as the Soviets were, we can all thank the stars that they won. The alternative would have been far worse.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go capture Leningrad.

[Cavalry Corp]

Yes thanks to the Soviets lucky star winning we could have had a nuke war ...

Part of the dropping of the bombs on Japan were to show the Soviets we had the bomb. Sorry but in my opinion the Soviets were the real enemy in Europe they were blunted by a very strong Germany that was the real luck ( and I am no fan of the Nazi system) for the western democracies. Stalin was disuaded from any immediate ambitions on the rest of Europe with the collapse of Germany by the bombs. I do not think Stalin was content with what he got and he would have taken it all if he could.

If in say by 42 there had not been a war in Eurpoe and Russia had attacked maybe we would have found all the Western countries of Europe in an alliance of convinience with Hitler however we felt about it - its just as bad as siding with Stalin if you look into the facts and figures. I think that we westerners find it an abomination which it was that a country like Germany could have carried out the crimes it did. But we could expect it of the Russians without issue and keep it under the carpet of forgotten history.

Sorry my opinions do not come out of text books written by victors.

Cav

[cherryfunk]

Stalin was disuaded from any immediate ambitions on the rest of Europe with the collapse of Germany by the bombs. I do not think Stalin was content with what he got and he would have taken it all if he could.

If you're really suggesting that only the atom bombs prevented Stalin from declaring war on the United States, British Empire, and their many allies, I think you need to go back to the history books. Stalin took all he could get, no doubt, but he was not about to, and was in no position to, wage a war of that scale.

I think that we westerners find it an abomination which it was that a country like Germany could have carried out the crimes it did. But we could expect it of the Russians without issue and keep it under the carpet of forgotten history.

This equivalence is easy to disprove. Look at Poland under Nazi occupation in 1939-1944 and under Russian occupation in 1944-1989. As heavy as the Soviet boot was, in no way did it approach the pathological and uniquely murderous brutality of the Nazi occupation. The Nazis sought to reshape Europe by eliminating entire nations and races, the Soviets sought to reshape Europe by eliminating political parties and free markets. Not even close to the same thing.

[janh]

I am not so sure whether Stalin and the Soviets were any better than Hilter and the Nazis. I don't want to image if anyone of both had prevailed in Europe, and could have exerted his will. It is just fortunate that things ended they way they did, and the Western Allies preserved freedom and many human lives afterwards.
Looking at raw number of murders and crimes committed, independent of whom either of both targeted, or planned to target beyond that, both have "achieved" unbelievable numbers of murders.  Davies, R. W., Mark Harrison, and Stephen Wheatcroft, (The Economic Transformation of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.) estimated a lower boundary of people murdered by Stalin and his regime at 10 Mio.  Not to mention any crimes aside from murder, i.e. deportation, gulags and work prisons, etc etc.  The only real difference between both I see is that Stalin was amongst the winners, and safely in power in Russia -- so no one could dare accusing him of his crimes, or even hold him responsible.  But history has caught up with him since his death, and at least his image isn't as shiny anymore.

[lastdingo]

The Nazis did not want to eliminate nations, unless you call "Jewish" a nationality.The Western and Southern European nations were meant to become small powers (= no threat to Germany, too weak) and much of Eastern Europe was meant for a kind of Sparta society; Germans colonising it in fortress-like cities, indigenous people doing agriculture, forestry, mining and railroad operation. The other continents were largely uninteresting (aside from one decisive and kinda defensive war with America to settle whether America can turn things in Europe or not), although some bored Nazis thought about a possible colonial empire in sub-saharan Africa.

That's totally ugly, but not the same.


Funny thing: Few people think of Spartans/Lacedaimonians as despicable nazis...

[cherryfunk]

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

The Nazis did not want to eliminate nations, unless you call "Jewish" a nationality.

What was their plan for Poland? Were they going to bring it back at some point? How about Russia? Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Belorussia? Ukraine? The Czech nation? Serbia? Were any of these going to exist as political or national entities under Nazi rule?

[KenchiSulla]

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

The Nazis did not want to eliminate nations, unless you call "Jewish" a nationality.

What was their plan for Poland? Were they going to bring it back at some point? How about Russia? Estonia? Latvia? Lithuania? Belorussia? Ukraine? The Czech nation? Serbia? Were any of these going to exist as political or national entities under Nazi rule?

Somehow I think Nazi reign was to chaotic to be able to answer that question...

[lastdingo]

Cherryfunk; "nation" and "nation-state" ain't the same.

[Theng]

The plan was to start German large scale farms there with the suitable locals as slave labor. The unworthy locals were to be exterminated. Germany would rule all the way to the Urals where they would build a fence and launch punitive raids to destroy all industry to keep the Slavs under control. The South Tyrolians would be resettled on the Crimea, etc. Unlike what a previous poster wrote, the plan (Generalplan Ost) was quite elaborate. Fortunately, the rest of the world kind of ruined the elaborate plans.

The sources for all of this are a a lot better in German than in English.

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalso ... pl%C3%A4ne

http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

[cherryfunk]

ORIGINAL: lastdingo

Cherryfunk; "nation" and "nation-state" ain't the same.

You said the Nazis did not want to eliminate nations. Are you really disputing that they intended to eliminate Poland? Hitler was very clear on this point.

I think some reading up on Generalplan Ost is in order.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generalplan_Ost

Edit: Xian beat me to it.

[Theng]

by the way, what not too many know is that as part of being awarded the Ritterkreuz, the awardee also received a "Rittergut" or Knight's Manor/Land which was the promise of a huge agricultural farm in the Eastern Territories after the Endsieg.

[janh]

I think the two of you mean different things when speaking about "nations" -- people and states?  The Nazi plan was to turn some regions that sometime in history belonged to German, Prussian, or related territory, "back" into German provinces.  Such for parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.  With that, they planned to exterminate "tier 1" people, i.e. the leading elite, and the well-educated or otherwise influential ones -- besides the Jews, Roma and Sinti etc.   In some regions, they planned to move large parts of the population eastward, especially in southern Poland, or any of the conquered Russian provinces, whereas in others a good fraction of people still had some link to German heritage. It is not that difficult to estimate that it was by no means possible to fill and run all these provinces just by "Germans", though Hitler might have dreamed that in his twisted mind.
In that sense, they didn't really plan to eliminate nations, but rather to re-incorporate these "provinces" into the German Reich, thus forming again a Greater German Reich ("Großdeutsches Reich")  -- quite similar to the Russians later incorporating Latvia etc. into theirs.

[cherryfunk]

ORIGINAL: janh

I think the two of you mean different things when speaking about "nations" -- people and states?  The Nazi plan was to turn some regions that sometime in history belonged to German, Prussian, or related territory, "back" into German provinces. 

....

In that sense, they didn't really plan to eliminate nations, but rather to re-incorporate these "provinces" into the German Reich, thus forming again a Greater German Reich ("Großdeutsches Reich")  -- quite similar to the Russians later incorporating Latvia etc. into theirs.

This is simply incorrect, unless you can tell us when Germany ruled all of Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Belorussia and European Russia itself. When was that exactly?

And the comparison to the Russia incorporation of the Baltic states is again entirely false. Russia turned the Baltics into 'Soviet Socialist Republics' within the Soviet Union -- they had puppet governments and were under military occupation, but their national identities were not liquidated. They still had their borders, spoke their own language, and had some sense of national identity within the Soviet system, including limited local rule by their own governments.

Now compare to Poland under Nazi rule -- a third of the Polish state was absorbed outright into Germany, the rest was put under a murderous occupation based on the precept that Poles were subhuman ('undermensch') and Polish culture was to be eliminated and its people turned into slave labor for a German ruling class. There was no Polish puppet government -- capable local leaders were murdered, and the administration was taken over entirely by Germans and predicated on what could be taken from Poland to help Germany.

Deathcamps were created in which one-quarter of Poland's population was liquidated, with ominous hints that the killing wasn't going to stop with the Jews and intelligentsia. And the very notion of a Polish state was eliminated -- Hitler forbade anyone referring to the area as 'Poland', and made it very clear that nothing resembling a Polish state would ever reappear under German hegemony.

No way in hell are those two policies equivalent.

[janh]

ORIGINAL: cherryfunk
This is simply incorrect, unless you can tell us when Germany ruled all of Poland, the Baltic states, the Ukraine, Belorussia and European Russia itself. When was that exactly?

And the comparison to the Russia incorporation of the Baltic states is again entirely false. Russia turned the Baltics into 'Soviet Socialist Republics' within the Soviet Union -- they had puppet governments and were under military occupation, but their national identities were not liquidated. They still had their borders, spoke their own language, and had some sense of national identity within the Soviet system, including limited local rule by their own governments.

Now compare to Poland under Nazi rule -- a third of the Polish state was absorbed outright into Germany, the rest was put under a murderous occupation based on the precept that Poles were subhuman ('undermensch') and Polish culture was to be eliminated and its people turned into slave labor for a German ruling class. There was no Polish puppet government -- capable local leaders were murdered, and the administration was taken over entirely by Germans and predicated on what could be taken from Poland to help Germany.

Deathcamps were created in which one-quarter of Poland's population was liquidated, with ominous hints that the killing wasn't going to stop with the Jews and intelligentsia. And the very notion of a Polish state was eliminated -- Hitler forbade anyone referring to the area as 'Poland', and made it very clear that nothing resembling a Polish state would ever reappear under German hegemony.

No way in hell are those two policies equivalent.

Therefore the narrowing statement: "Such for parts of Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc." Of course I did not mean the Ukraine, Baltic states etc. Let me see what I recall from my history classes: Böhmen, Mähren, Pommern, Schlesien, Ostpreussen etc. Actually the Wiki article gives a nice overview over the Kaiserreich around the turn of the century:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_Empire
But even before the situation in central Europe was quite fluid, and ownership changed quite frequently.

Otherwise, the point is yours -- the comparison to the 'Soviet Socialist Republics' was a bad one. In that sense the Soviets behaved a lot more civilized than the Nazis, though also there Stalin did do local cleansing, as he did in Eastern Poland before. Definitely Poland should not have reappeared as a nation of own identity during Nazi rule; the country largely could be divided into former Prussian provinces, so there would have been nothing left to call Poland. But that doesn't make Stalin's rule any better than Hitler.

[Theng]

I am sorry, Ingermannland and Gotenland were never part of the German area of settlements or even for a day under some kind of "German" control in any which way you look at it. Not even the Teutonic Order got that far east.

[cherryfunk]

ORIGINAL: janh
But that doesn't make Stalin's rule any better than Hitler.

Yes, actually, it does. Stalin allowed nations and cultures to continue to exist under his hegemony that Hitler sought to permanently eradicate from the face of the earth. Stalin sent hundreds of thousands of suspected political enemies into the work camps, Hitler sent millions of the 'racially inferior' into the gas chambers. The Soviet system sought to reshape human politics via indoctrination, the Nazi system to reshape humanity itself via genocide. Both were horrific systems, but one far more so than the other.